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 AOC says, everything feels increasingly like
Speaker 1: a scam. We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: MSNBC contributor to Charlie Sykes takes the temperature of Trump's
Speaker 1: unitary executive theory and his aggressions towards our constitution. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to author Michael Wolfe about his new book
Speaker 1: All or Nothing, how Trump recaptured America. But first the news.
Speaker 2: My I got real shocking news.
Speaker 3: A judge's ruled that the OPM does not have any
Speaker 3: authority whatsoever to fire people from other agencies fire everyone.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's shocking to know that Elon Munk firing
Speaker 1: everyone in the federal government is illegal.
Speaker 3: I find it even more shocking to find out that
Speaker 3: the guy who was known for the same you're fired
Speaker 3: is doing this to all these people.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, the Office of Personnel Management does not
Speaker 1: have any authority whatsoever under any statue in the history
Speaker 1: of the universe who hire and fires employees at another agency?
Speaker 1: Wrote the judge. That sounds like a judge who does
Speaker 1: not have many questions. Does not have any authority whatsoever
Speaker 1: under any statue in the history of the universe. It's
Speaker 1: pretty definitive. A federal judge in California ruled Thursday that
Speaker 1: the Office of Personnel Management and Agency, taken over by
Speaker 1: lieutenants of the billionaire Elon Musk, violated the law. If
Speaker 1: I had a dollar for every time it seems like
Speaker 1: Elon Musk had violated the law, I'd be as rich
Speaker 1: as he is. Ugh, it's funny, but it's also kind
Speaker 1: of sad. Look, you know, federal judges, Trump, this is
Speaker 1: what's true in one point zero. This is true in
Speaker 1: two point zero. My man, The courts continue to say
Speaker 1: this guy, he continues to lose a court. Now, the
Speaker 1: question is in Trump what they would do, like with
Speaker 1: the Muslim ban, is they would go back and rewrite
Speaker 1: it and then be able to You know, they did
Speaker 1: in fact pass a Muslim ban. It wasn't quite as
Speaker 1: banny as the first one was, but it still was
Speaker 1: a band. So the question now is will they go
Speaker 1: back and try to sort of round the edges so
Speaker 1: that they can get away with what they want to
Speaker 1: get away with, or will they ignore the judges and
Speaker 1: will we have a constitutional crisis? Since I don't protict
Speaker 1: the future, I don't know, but it certainly feels crisisy
Speaker 1: and constitutionally.
Speaker 3: I feel like they're looking at constitutional crisis the way
Speaker 3: Garfield looks at was on you these days.
Speaker 1: Ah Garfield reference. If only any of my kids listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast.
Speaker 3: So by there's this guy Jeffrey Epstein who is on
Speaker 3: tape saying that he was Donald Trump's best friend, not
Speaker 3: that Donald Trump was his best friend, which I think
Speaker 3: is the fun. You're part of it, right, Had Trump
Speaker 3: promise to release all the documents around the Epstein files
Speaker 3: and wanh wanh wan't not so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's the deal. There are Epstein files, most of
Speaker 1: them have been released. This is I mean, the thing
Speaker 1: that's like incredible about this story is it shows that
Speaker 1: no one ever reads so exactly true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because this is one of my favorite subjects. So
Speaker 2: I know way too much of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I was reading something yesterday the show that
Speaker 1: was like, not only have the list been released, somebody
Speaker 1: tried to sell the Black Book at auction last year.
Speaker 2: It's been auction twice.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, there's no like, this is not some
Speaker 1: secret like, you know, it's everyone from the guy who's
Speaker 1: the head of Black Rock. I mean, it's just a
Speaker 1: lot of rich guys. Well you sort of think probably
Speaker 1: did that kind of stuff. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Yeah, certain president on the flight looks yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, well there aren't two presidents.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: Bill Glinton, Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Lots of it, my tea scientists.
Speaker 1: There's literally it's like everyone who you kind of thought
Speaker 1: might be on it is on it. You know, very
Speaker 1: famous guys who have a lot of money and who
Speaker 1: were a little creepy. Here's the thing. So they got
Speaker 1: all of their people, their influencers, so their Brooklyn Dad, Defiant, a.
Speaker 2: Guy called DC Dreno.
Speaker 1: DC Dreno, everyone you have blocked on Twitter, got these
Speaker 1: big white binders. And the binders said Ebstein Files Phase one,
Speaker 1: and in the binders were everything that has already been published, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I just want to pause for a minute.
Speaker 1: As someone who deals with comms directors, they often do
Speaker 1: this like they'll be like, I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: some new information and it's like a press release filled
Speaker 1: with articles from nineteen eighty two, and you're like, but
Speaker 1: this is just stuff you can get on the internet,
Speaker 1: you know, so I do respect the hustle. You know,
Speaker 1: the White House is playing the DC Comms game the
Speaker 1: way every DC Comms person does it. Where they fled
Speaker 1: you with bullshit that's already been reported. That said, they
Speaker 1: got very excited, all of the worst people in the
Speaker 1: world holding these white binders up in front of the
Speaker 1: White House, smiling like this is their moment. And then
Speaker 1: I guess they read it.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they discovered that there was a nothing Burger
Speaker 3: for lunch, right.
Speaker 1: They discovered that it contained no new information. Again, because
Speaker 1: all the information is out there, which I think is
Speaker 1: an important point, all.
Speaker 3: The information that's not redacted, it looks like the White
Speaker 3: House was running low on black ink yesterday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't unredact anything that hadn't been redacted. So
Speaker 1: and then it was like a question of who and
Speaker 1: Maga can blame who, right, because if there's one thing
Speaker 1: that met loves to do, it's blame each other. So
Speaker 1: and I think it was you know, remember this was
Speaker 1: meant to be the culmination of QAnon. The person who
Speaker 1: got the blame. I have a theory, and again there's
Speaker 1: no scientific evidence to back this up that the least
Speaker 1: crazy person tends to get the blame in maga world.
Speaker 2: Hmmm.
Speaker 1: I like this because the least crazy person is often
Speaker 1: not as excited and so they get mad at them.
Speaker 1: So Pam Bondi got all the blame, and they were
Speaker 1: very mad at her, right, they said that they were
Speaker 1: you know, they felt she had gamed them. And remember
Speaker 1: she had hyped the files, which is a good lesson
Speaker 1: to her, saying that it would shed more light on
Speaker 1: his crimes. She teased the document drump last week, saying
Speaker 1: that on her desk Wednesday evening they were pretty sick
Speaker 1: documents which contained a lot of information. I can understand
Speaker 1: why they're a little mad at her.
Speaker 4: At A.
Speaker 1: Pauline A. Luna, chairman of the House Task Force on
Speaker 1: the stupid declassification of federal secrets, was among the first
Speaker 1: to cry foul. Good for her, I nor the Task
Speaker 1: Force were given reviewed the Epstein documents being released today.
Speaker 1: She wrote an x noting that in your post article
Speaker 1: because are there really any other papers besides in your
Speaker 1: post just revealed that the documents would simply be Epstein's
Speaker 1: phone book. This is not what the American people asked for.
Speaker 1: Did the American people ask for?
Speaker 2: This if I'm the American people, Yes.
Speaker 1: Give us the information we asked for. All caps explanation point,
Speaker 1: Lord Lumer not happy. The binders are props. All caps
Speaker 1: explanation point. You're shocked to learn that this just ended
Speaker 1: exactly how we think it will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And speaking of things that are ending exactly how
Speaker 3: we thought they would, it appears Elon Musk is the
Speaker 3: new House whip as well as the head of Doze
Speaker 3: and so many other jobs, because he's basically whipping votes
Speaker 3: by threatening people to unleashed super pac money against them,
Speaker 3: and AOC is crying a foul Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he sends out a tweet and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden everyone backs off. AOC said, here's the idea. This
Speaker 1: is farmer reforms, right the House Energy Committee and want
Speaker 1: of reforms on pharmacy benefit managers. So this would be
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that Republicans supported, Democrats support it,
Speaker 1: and the bill has almost full unanimous support. And then
Speaker 1: guess who decides he does not want to lower the
Speaker 1: prices of drugs. Guess who doesn't care how much insulin cost.
Speaker 1: You're going to be shot to hear that the richest
Speaker 1: man in the world does not give a fuck about
Speaker 1: how much insulin costs or asthma hailers. Yes, patient advocates
Speaker 1: have long called for drug pricing to be capped for
Speaker 1: there to be some humanity in the world. But you
Speaker 1: know who doesn't really give a fuck about that world's
Speaker 1: richest man boom he has shown to us and those
Speaker 1: people who die when they can't get their insulin, they'll
Speaker 1: be owned.
Speaker 3: Well, we got to own the lips because it's the
Speaker 3: day ending. And why what's great is though he is
Speaker 3: feeling some pain from this, since Tesla's stock sung twenty
Speaker 3: six percent after his quote un quote that's Nazi saluted
Speaker 3: the Trump Probably I think.
Speaker 1: It's called a straight armed hand gesture, as how I
Speaker 1: sign reported yes when Elon Musk made that straight armed
Speaker 1: hand gesture. And look, there's a reason corporations want to
Speaker 1: stay away from controversy, and it's things like this, right,
Speaker 1: I mean like there's a you know, the right tried
Speaker 1: to get woke to be as dangerous as straight armed
Speaker 1: hand salutes, but it turns out that it has not
Speaker 1: been long enough since the Holocaust for straight armed hand
Speaker 1: salutes to come back. I'm sorry to tell you twenty
Speaker 1: six percent drop since the straight armed hand salute in
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's Tesla stock That means his enormous wealth took
Speaker 1: a hit by Luckily, people will still pay full price
Speaker 1: for insulin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this equates to a four hundred billion dollar
Speaker 3: drop in the company's value, which yikes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Charlie Sykes is the author of the Newsletter to
Speaker 1: the Contrary and the book How the Right Lost Its
Speaker 1: Mind Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, my friend, and I'm
Speaker 1: always so excited to get to talk to you. Charlie Sykes.
Speaker 4: It's great to be back, Molly, considering everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, yet, we're all every day we're not in Gemo.
Speaker 1: You just check that as a win.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, every day is a bonus at this point.
Speaker 1: Really, I probably read the Times and the Washington Post
Speaker 1: cover to cover because I spent six hours in the
Speaker 1: last two days on the train going back and forth
Speaker 1: to DC and life Choices, oh man, and by the
Speaker 1: way you get there and the you know, the vibes
Speaker 1: may be bad, but the vibes in DC, wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The vibe Share and Mikwan, Wisconsin, however, are pretty good,
Speaker 4: which is why I'm going to be staying around here
Speaker 4: as long as I can. Time to avoid the acella.
Speaker 4: I just think whatever, that's just me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I did encounter, however, a person on the street
Speaker 1: who had a huge tign that said no one elected
Speaker 1: Elon Musk and was just sort of wandering around like
Speaker 1: a huge banner.
Speaker 4: Was it Chuck Schumer? That sort of seems to be
Speaker 4: the beginning and the end of his strategy. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's two public facing for elected Democrats. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about what's happening here, because we're clearly sliding into autocracy
Speaker 1: more quickly, even perhaps than any of us. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think we're about where I thought
Speaker 1: we'd be. But it does not feel good, and you know,
Speaker 1: you think it's worse.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's Look, I mean, here's here's the thing.
Speaker 4: We've spent I don't know, god knows how long with
Speaker 4: our hair on fire saying people, look what he's going
Speaker 4: to do. He's going to do this, he will do that.
Speaker 4: And of course all the smart kids at the table said,
Speaker 4: does calmed down? You suffer from Trump derangement syndrome, or
Speaker 4: the guardrails will restrain him? You know, you worry too much,
Speaker 4: or that's so over the top to use that kind
Speaker 4: of language, and I have to say. Somebody asked me
Speaker 4: the other day and I'm going to ask. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: do a podcast later today with Adam Kinsinghram and ask
Speaker 4: him this too. Now ask me about you know, well,
Speaker 4: how are you feeling about all of this? And I
Speaker 4: was running through the various emotions, and then the interviewer,
Speaker 4: you know, suggests, well, do you feel vindicated at all?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: You know, absolutely, I'm not happy about this. But those
Speaker 4: of us that warned how bad it would be can
Speaker 4: sit back and go, Okay, if only you'd been warned. People, really,
Speaker 4: I mean, look what you got.
Speaker 1: We did this whole YouTube series on Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five and just like this idea that they want to
Speaker 1: dismantle the administrative state and to use the unitary executive theory,
Speaker 1: which means that the executive is the boss and the
Speaker 1: rest and chucks and bounces are bye bye. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm reading a pop ed in the New York Times
Speaker 1: about the unitary executive. There it is a little bit
Speaker 1: like being psychic. But the thing that like keeps me
Speaker 1: up at night is how do we get out of this?
Speaker 4: Well, Okay, before we get to that, which is ask
Speaker 4: the important question, the one thing, and again we predicted
Speaker 4: the various things. They actually put it in writing. They
Speaker 4: had a blueprint, So people can be shocked, but they
Speaker 4: can't be surprised, right, And I.
Speaker 1: Have to say, like Trump's lame. He was like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about it, and everyone's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: that's total bullshit. But why would he lie?
Speaker 4: The thing that we did not expect? And I think
Speaker 4: that has been you know, frankly, the most alarming has
Speaker 4: been the complete capitulation of many of the institutions that
Speaker 4: we thought could stand up against Donald Trump. We spent
Speaker 4: you know, eight years talking about the collapse of the
Speaker 4: Republican Party, so we've seen that happen in real time.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that I ever thought that even the
Speaker 4: Senate Republicans would cave into the point that they would
Speaker 4: be confirming people like Pete Hegseith and Kel Gabbard and
Speaker 4: RFK Junior. But beyond that, I think we got an
Speaker 4: early indication how bad it was going to be when
Speaker 4: we saw all of the oligarchs in the corporate media
Speaker 4: line up to kiss Donald Trump's toes. And it's this
Speaker 4: premature capitulation which has been succeeded by the collapse of
Speaker 4: almost any organized outside of the political world resistance. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just like everyone just rolled over for him. And
Speaker 4: I think the success of his campaign of fear and intimidation,
Speaker 4: it's what's I think a little bit shocking. The fact
Speaker 4: that he tries a campaign of retribution fear is not
Speaker 4: surprising at all.
Speaker 1: Right now, he said he would do it.
Speaker 4: But the success that he's had in cowing civil society,
Speaker 4: even outside of the institutions of government, that I think
Speaker 4: makes you think, oh my god, this is how you
Speaker 4: slide into an orbon like our talkers the authoritarianism or
Speaker 4: as Peter Baker and I hesitate this. I don't think
Speaker 4: he's exactly is suggesting that it's putin esque, is that
Speaker 4: it's not just the Donald Trump and myers Ladimir Putin.
Speaker 4: He wants to be the fucking guy.
Speaker 1: Right well, I think that is for sure true. I
Speaker 1: think the good news is America's much bigger than Russia
Speaker 1: and we've been a democracy for much longer, right or
Speaker 1: at all. That's the one thing I will say that
Speaker 1: I think is good news. The other thing that I
Speaker 1: just want to pull back and again, I know my priors,
Speaker 1: like I think a lot about like when people will
Speaker 1: talk about how they'll sort of spend time thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, what went wrong or whatever, they tend to
Speaker 1: just use those things to confirm their priors. So you'll see,
Speaker 1: you right, the far left person will say it's because
Speaker 1: of the far left things they'd wanted. The far right
Speaker 1: person will say it's because of So I know my
Speaker 1: priors are that I'm often overly optimistic, So I'm going
Speaker 1: to say this, But I think it's also an important point,
Speaker 1: which is the billionaires did in fact kow Tao and
Speaker 1: go along with it. But and it wasn't all of them.
Speaker 1: It was the very It was the ones you would
Speaker 1: think would right, the Elons, and then the zux and
Speaker 1: then the Bezos. And that has been very disparting, especially
Speaker 1: because Bezos owns a Washington.
Speaker 4: Post, which she is proceeding now to in Shitiphi.
Speaker 1: Yes to and Shitiphi and the people who worked at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post and the people who and you know,
Speaker 1: everyone who was involved in all of their incredible coverage.
Speaker 1: It's terrible for them. But the one thing I would
Speaker 1: say is I do think that in these town halls,
Speaker 1: these people are not afraid of Donald Trump and Elon
Speaker 1: Musk and in the streets. I mean that woman with
Speaker 1: that big sign, she was not thinking, well, I have
Speaker 1: ten other government contracts. I mean, part of this is
Speaker 1: coward leaness, and part of it is that they are
Speaker 1: so conflicted. I mean, like, for example, McCrone goes to
Speaker 1: see Trump and pretends to love Trump because he thinks
Speaker 1: he can game Trump. Yeah, so there are a couple
Speaker 1: different things going on, right because mcron And also we
Speaker 1: saw this with kure Stormer too. Cure Stormer brought a
Speaker 1: letter to the King to suck up him because he
Speaker 1: thought we can use this. So I mean there are
Speaker 1: a couple of different things going on here. There's like bowing,
Speaker 1: but there's also this weird manipulation which may or may
Speaker 1: not work right.
Speaker 4: Well, that's right. But and again, I think these town
Speaker 4: hall meetings are significant because number one, in an indication
Speaker 4: that that people are becoming re engaged in politics. They're
Speaker 4: not going to roll over, and they do have very
Speaker 4: much of a two thousand and nine twenty ten tea
Speaker 4: party field. A lot of Republicans are going to recognize
Speaker 4: that vibe because they were on the other side of it,
Speaker 4: and they know where that led. I actually think those
Speaker 4: kinds of things may be more effective than mass demonstrations
Speaker 4: or mass rallies. And I also think that what you're
Speaker 4: seeing is and I've talked about this before, as the
Speaker 4: impact spreads, the real story is going to be in localities.
Speaker 4: It's going to be in families and communities who are
Speaker 4: going to feel the impact of this. So, for example,
Speaker 4: in the last five minutes, my phone just buzzed from
Speaker 4: local newspaper here in Wisconsin breaking news federal workers, including
Speaker 4: at least one disabled veteran, fired from the VA in Madison.
Speaker 4: So every community is going to have a story. Wait,
Speaker 4: the Veterans Administration, Okay, that veteran is being laid off.
Speaker 4: You're having the stories of people who voted for Donald
Speaker 4: Trump who are now saying, geez, I didn't think the
Speaker 4: deleverage were gonna come be my face. But I mean,
Speaker 4: and I'm also you know, and I wrote about this
Speaker 4: in my newsletter today, Molly, the cognitive dissonance here. You know,
Speaker 4: you have Trump promising that he's gonna be the voice
Speaker 4: of the little guy that forgotten American, But this budget
Speaker 4: plan they're pushing through is a huge giveaway to the
Speaker 4: rich cuts aid to the poor. He promised that he
Speaker 4: was gonna end inflation and cut taxes, and these Trump
Speaker 4: tariffs are gonna boost the price of everything, and Americans
Speaker 4: seemed to get it. I mean, the candidate of law
Speaker 4: and order is now flying in these sex traffickers from Romania. No. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: Elon Musk shows up at the cabinet and says, hey, guys,
Speaker 4: we're gonna get things wrong, Like I fucked up that
Speaker 4: whole thing about a Bola unbelievable. Then he lies about it.
Speaker 4: But you know, we turns out the week we didn't
Speaker 4: know what we were doing. We eliminated this ebola prevention effort,
Speaker 4: but I restored it, and the officials are going, no,
Speaker 4: you didn't. So all that catches up.
Speaker 1: There's so much in government is set up so that
Speaker 1: you don't have a moment where a billionaire donor comes
Speaker 1: into a cabinet meeting cos plays as secretary and then
Speaker 1: is like, whoops about that hole of bulah thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And meanwhile, I'm going to take over air traffic control. Well,
Speaker 4: planes are like almost hitting each other. Oh, and I
Speaker 4: didn't even get to the fact that there's a measles outbreak.
Speaker 4: There's Trump sitting next to RFK Junior. Measles. By the way,
Speaker 4: for people who haven't been paying attention because it's been
Speaker 4: eradicated because of vaccination, we now have a child that
Speaker 4: died of measles, an unvaccinated child. What could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 4: By the way, my quasi favorite headline of the day,
Speaker 4: and I'm not I'm not trying to pick on them,
Speaker 4: but it was. You know, his deadline is NBC measles
Speaker 4: outbreak could be politically perilous for Trump and RFK Junior.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, folks, it could also be perilous to the
Speaker 4: millions of kids who might die.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, measles, super super contagious are ready in rural
Speaker 1: parts of New Mexico. One of the things about measles,
Speaker 1: which is, by the way, easily you know this vaccine
Speaker 1: that's been around for decades and decades, super safe effective,
Speaker 1: there's not any treatment, right like, if you get it,
Speaker 1: you're fucked, okay, so like and if you're a getting
Speaker 1: and you're a little kid like likely you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: But then there's also you know, two three four percent
Speaker 1: chance you die for a disease that's been eradicated. What
Speaker 1: I was struck by was Rfka Junior in that cabinet meeting, says, yeah,
Speaker 1: well one kid died and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: other people in the hospital, but they're all being quarantined.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, okay, he seems to have a
Speaker 1: situation at hand. None of that was true, right, they
Speaker 1: are actually being treated in the hospital.
Speaker 4: See. I honestly think that in Trump's world, in Trump's mind,
Speaker 4: no problem actually has to be solved. All you have
Speaker 4: to do is say you solved it, and you know,
Speaker 4: like like the building, the wall and everything. The problem
Speaker 4: is is that there is a reality out there now.
Speaker 4: I still can't get my head past the fact that
Speaker 4: we had a million people died of COVID and you
Speaker 4: would think that be a transformative event in American history,
Speaker 4: and it's been dropped into a memory hole. I am
Speaker 4: modest in my optimism about these things.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a historical president for that, like the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen flu pandemic in fact that happened where people
Speaker 1: just were so traumatized. But I do agree whenever I've
Speaker 1: gamed out human behavior during this period, I've always been wrong.
Speaker 1: I've always been overly optimistic. But for all of Trump
Speaker 1: one we'd see like this guy and he'd be so
Speaker 1: mercurial and you wouldn't know what he was going to do.
Speaker 1: And now he is not that person. It's actually Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: So do you think he misses not having a starring
Speaker 1: role in his own presidency?
Speaker 4: This is the central drama of Trump two point zero,
Speaker 4: isn't it? The relationship with Musk. I did a podcast
Speaker 4: with Kara Swisher, who knows a lot more about Elon
Speaker 4: Musk than I do, yesterday, and she did point out
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump obviously always loves to be the center
Speaker 4: of attention, but he also loves distractions, and right now
Speaker 4: Elon Musk is a huge distraction. So he can use
Speaker 4: him to look like things are happening, but also be
Speaker 4: the flatcatcher, and if things turn to shit, he can
Speaker 4: like distance himself. Well, that wasn't me, that was Elon.
Speaker 1: Is that what she thinks will happen?
Speaker 4: Well, no one knows what's going to happen. It's unsustainable
Speaker 4: to have two gigantic narcissists in one sack, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: there's only room for one. What I can't figure out
Speaker 4: is how Trump gets rid of Musk, particularly as Musk
Speaker 4: builds up his own cult, in his own power base.
Speaker 4: It's not as easy as getting rid of somebody like
Speaker 4: a JD. Vance, who he could snuff out like an
Speaker 4: old cigarette.
Speaker 1: And JD Vance really does feel like a supporting member
Speaker 1: in this whole thing.
Speaker 4: Barely, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, nobody ever talks about Jady Vance like that cabinet meeting.
Speaker 4: You could barely, you know, Yeah, clearly has been sidelined
Speaker 4: by others, but still he is the vice president. Again,
Speaker 4: we can't predict the future. I mean, I'm one of those,
Speaker 4: I'll be honest with you, Molly, I am one of
Speaker 4: those who has paid no attention to the whole Trump
Speaker 4: and twenty twenty eight talk. And now I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe that's a bit naive, you know, when you start
Speaker 4: to see the signs the third term project with pictures
Speaker 4: of Tunnald Trump is Julius Caesar and you know, twenty
Speaker 4: twenty eight and beyond. The normal human reaction is to say,
Speaker 4: but a bunch of lunacy and bullshit, except we were
Speaker 4: governed by lunacy and bullshit, so like, hello.
Speaker 1: Right, there was this James Carvell piece in the Times
Speaker 1: where he said you shouldn't that the only way to
Speaker 1: push back against trump Ism is just to let Trump
Speaker 1: make his own mistakes. But don't you worry. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's actually wrong. I like Carvell, but I
Speaker 1: think he's wrong about this. But I'm wondering, do you
Speaker 1: think that's the right way to go. I mean, don't
Speaker 1: you think people want their electeds to try?
Speaker 4: Yeah? They do, and and I understand the point that
Speaker 4: he's trying to make. And ultimately Democrats can't stop Trump
Speaker 4: from doing a lot of this stuff. So the trajectory
Speaker 4: of American politics will be determined by whether or not
Speaker 4: trump Musk explodes on takeoff. But on the other hand,
Speaker 4: it's kind of nihilistic to say you should just sit
Speaker 4: back and do nothing because there is a country out there.
Speaker 4: I mean, everything is not about partisan politics. You can't
Speaker 4: just simply say nihilistic, you know, you just let them
Speaker 4: ruin the country. Well, excuse me, let me speak up
Speaker 4: on behalf of the country that that is not a
Speaker 4: good idea. So you have a political, constitutional, and moral
Speaker 4: obligation to do something to the extent that you can.
Speaker 4: The realist in me says, you're not going to be
Speaker 4: able to block a lot of this stuff. But that
Speaker 4: doesn't mean you don't try. And I think it's important
Speaker 4: to try.
Speaker 1: Right, And people elected you to try. I mean, they
Speaker 1: didn't elect you to solve.
Speaker 4: Yeah. If you're sitting on your ass for the next
Speaker 4: two years, I'm not going to turn out and vote
Speaker 4: for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean. It is the accelerationist case for Trump.
Speaker 1: It's the idea that Trump one point zero didn't inflict
Speaker 1: the kind of damage it wanted to, and so Democrats
Speaker 1: were warning against things voters didn't believe Trump would actually
Speaker 1: do because he wasn't able to the first time.
Speaker 4: Did you read the article about the woman who voted
Speaker 4: for Trump and just lost her job. It's a very
Speaker 4: tragic story. Seems like a very very nice person.
Speaker 1: They found the whitest, most attractive, blonde woman and they
Speaker 1: put her on the cover of the Watching Post. But yes, continue,
Speaker 1: it's very interesting.
Speaker 4: Well, it is interesting because it sort of reminds us
Speaker 4: about how voters make decisions. That she's in the voting
Speaker 4: booth and she's undecided. She doesn't like Trump, she hates Trump.
Speaker 4: She voted for Biden four years ago. But and I
Speaker 4: have to take a deep breath here, this is the
Speaker 4: world we live in. She had seen a TikTok video
Speaker 4: in which Trump had promised that IVF would be free. Yes,
Speaker 4: she believed him, and therefore, in the voting booth decided
Speaker 4: to vote for Donald J. Trump. And while my eyeballs
Speaker 4: are kind of like melting here and thinking, all right,
Speaker 4: we are dealing in a world in which we need
Speaker 4: to address the world as it is not the way
Speaker 4: we would like it to be.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, And I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things Trump did was,
Speaker 1: you know, remember in Nevada, he was like, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do no taxes on tips. There is no world in
Speaker 1: which they can do no taxes on tips. They're not
Speaker 1: even trying, right, this eight hundred and eighty billion dollar
Speaker 1: cut to medicaid, you know, in that budget, which by
Speaker 1: the way, is probably going to be mushed around a lot,
Speaker 1: but that original reconciliation, they didn't even try to address
Speaker 1: the no tax on tips because it's undoable.
Speaker 4: Well, we'll see. I mean they are out there. Actually,
Speaker 4: you have members of Congress who are tweeting out that
Speaker 4: Democrats would it against no taxes on tips, no taxes
Speaker 4: on social Security, all these things. None of that was
Speaker 4: in the bill, and none of it's in the bill.
Speaker 4: Given this sort of alternative reality world where Trump basically
Speaker 4: will say no, wait, I did build a wall and
Speaker 4: Mexico did pay for it, how do you confront that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and I think that's right. You can't. You
Speaker 1: can't let the alternative reality world win.
Speaker 4: Well, the alternative reality world is winning right now, right,
Speaker 4: but you.
Speaker 1: Have to message the truth at least to try to. Yes.
Speaker 4: The most fun I've had in the last twenty four
Speaker 4: hours is watching that video that Trump posted of himself
Speaker 4: remaking Trump Gaza with him as the Golden with the
Speaker 4: Golden statue. Have you seen this?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that.
Speaker 4: You need to go watch it. In terms of life,
Speaker 4: this is the world we live in now. The President
Speaker 4: of the United States actually retweeted that this is my
Speaker 4: gift to you. Have a wonderful weekend.
Speaker 1: Amazing, Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: Charley all right, bye bye.
Speaker 1: Michael Wolf is the author of the book All or Nothing,
Speaker 1: How Trump Recaptured America. Welcome to Fast Politics, Michael Wolf, Kate,
Speaker 1: how are you. I'm good. So this book that none
Speaker 1: of us knew was happening until about a minute ago,
Speaker 1: is called All or Nothing? How Trump Recaptured America. When
Speaker 1: did you start working on this? How did you pull
Speaker 1: it together so quickly?
Speaker 5: Tell me he wasn't quickly. I've been working on it
Speaker 5: for eighteen months, which is a long time for me,
Speaker 5: So from the beginning of the campaign, or really sort
Speaker 5: of from the spring of twenty twenty two. You know
Speaker 5: when I started this. This was I've been on the job.
Speaker 1: And Trump met with you and has talked to you,
Speaker 1: right or now.
Speaker 5: Trump has not met with me for this book. Whether
Speaker 5: he talked to me or not, we won't acknowledge that.
Speaker 1: But he has things to say about the book.
Speaker 5: He apparently does have things to say, although he has
Speaker 5: the same things to say that he says about my
Speaker 5: other books, so he doesn't read them anyway. So yes,
Speaker 5: it's suggest you get some basic boiler plate. But I
Speaker 5: did get the boilerplate.
Speaker 1: Do you think when Trump cares enough to tweet about something,
Speaker 1: he knows that it will draw attention to it, and
Speaker 1: so he does it, or do you think it's purely emotional.
Speaker 5: I think all attention is good attention in the Trump sphere,
Speaker 5: So if I get attention, he gets attention. My first
Speaker 5: book was when I he subsequently invited me to Marrow
Speaker 5: Lago and then claimed credit for the book. There was
Speaker 5: a moment when I saw Trump in Iowa during the
Speaker 5: Iowa primary. He was going by and then he pointed
Speaker 5: at me and said, I made that guy rich. So
Speaker 5: it is all about Trump. He doesn't have the capacity
Speaker 5: for seeing reality in a way that is not about
Speaker 5: him principally.
Speaker 1: So in a bunch of Trump books, you've covered him
Speaker 1: a lot. How is Trump now?
Speaker 5: The thing about Trump is that he's always the same.
Speaker 5: He is the simple machine who does the same thing
Speaker 5: over and over and over again. The difference is that,
Speaker 5: because it's all about holding the attention of his audience,
Speaker 5: he just has to ratchet up the intensity of what
Speaker 5: he's doing, hence what we've seen the last month. But
Speaker 5: the really extraordinary thing, and that's the story of this book,
Speaker 5: is how he can just go on, How nothing stops him,
Speaker 5: nothing gives him. Not when he left the White House
Speaker 5: his two impeachments January sixth, being rejected by the leaders
Speaker 5: of his own party, and not subsequently for criminal indictments,
Speaker 5: it doesn't matter all of the things that would have
Speaker 5: reduced all of us mere mortals to a fetal position.
Speaker 5: Trump shrugs off, goes on uses in fact to his advantage.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that for a minute. Because one
Speaker 1: of the big differences I think between Trump one point
Speaker 1: oh and Trump two point oh is that Trump one
Speaker 1: point oh did not have people like Elon Musk in it.
Speaker 4: I guess see, I disagree with that.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 5: You know, essentially, in Trump one point oh, the Elon
Speaker 5: Musk role was held by Steve Bannon key similarities, you know,
Speaker 5: including the cover of Time magazine implying that they are
Speaker 5: the real president. And Steve during those early months was
Speaker 5: this dominant figure and scary figure and the guy no
Speaker 5: one could quite figure out, and the guy out front
Speaker 5: of what was going on. And then Steve lasted six months.
Speaker 5: So I think that's a pretty good measure for Elon
Speaker 5: Musk's longevity.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with anything Steve Bannon says, but I
Speaker 1: think he's very smart, and I think you trivialize him
Speaker 1: at your own peril. That said, don't you think that
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is in a completely different position than Steve Bannon,
Speaker 1: Because Elon Musk is the richest man in the world.
Speaker 1: You make Steve Bannon mad, you know, he's mad at
Speaker 1: you you make Elon Musk mad all that money goes away.
Speaker 5: No, I don't think so. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 5: Trump is any you know. I mean Trump loves rich guys,
Speaker 5: but would he throw Elon Musk over Yeah, in a
Speaker 5: New York minute. Trump doesn't value anyone ultimately, and if
Speaker 5: they annoy him or irritate him, or he begins to
Speaker 5: perceive that the story is more about them than about him,
Speaker 5: he's going to react in the visceral way that he does.
Speaker 1: So so far we've seen none of that.
Speaker 5: Though, As I said, six months for Steve Mannon and
Speaker 5: I think six months for Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you found writing this book, Like, what
Speaker 1: sort of things surprised you that you or that you
Speaker 1: may have not seen in the other Trump books you've read.
Speaker 5: As I say, the indomitability of this guy, The fact
Speaker 5: that four criminal indictments, I mean a criminal indictment always
Speaker 5: brings one hundred percent of the time brings an American
Speaker 5: political figure down, You're out gone. And the fact that
Speaker 5: Trump could have four of these and none of them
Speaker 5: having had an effect, and the reason they didn't have
Speaker 5: an effect is because he didn't give in to them.
Speaker 5: He has done what nobody in politics or public life
Speaker 5: has practically speaking ever done before. Shrugged it off, say
Speaker 5: I don't need you, I don't bend to you. You know,
Speaker 5: the liberal establishment, when these indictments began, said, well, it's
Speaker 5: going to be different in a courtroom, in a courtroom
Speaker 5: that's not Trump's world. Well that turned out to be
Speaker 5: entirely wrong, and he just made his world overshadow the
Speaker 5: world of each of these courtrooms.
Speaker 1: So you cover a donorgate, really, well, this sort of
Speaker 1: donor class. Can you talk to us about the people
Speaker 1: in Trump world who keep it all, who give him
Speaker 1: the doll you know?
Speaker 5: Well, he has this group of Palm Beach billionaires that
Speaker 5: surround him, and curiously, you know a lot of them
Speaker 5: had gravitated to Ron DeSantis and then came scurrying back.
Speaker 5: He added this this new class, I mean, the Silicon
Speaker 5: Valley class. At one point in the book he kept saying, too,
Speaker 5: is why am I going to fundraisers? I don't have
Speaker 5: to go to fundraisers. The crypto guys will give me
Speaker 5: everything I need.
Speaker 1: Turned out to be true.
Speaker 5: You know, I guess, I mean the Silicon Valley money
Speaker 5: just decided that it was to their profit to gravitate
Speaker 5: toward Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Right, And they did. You talk a lot about sort
Speaker 1: of the people around him. So who are the people
Speaker 1: around him and who were the people around him during
Speaker 1: the campaign, And has there been a shift there?
Speaker 5: There's been a subtle, possibly meaningful shift. I mean, the
Speaker 5: people around him are still some of the core campaign
Speaker 5: group are there, notably this woman Susie Wiles, who ran
Speaker 5: the campaign with a discipline never seen around Trump before
Speaker 5: and who is now in the White House as the
Speaker 5: chief of staff. And I think, you know, that's an
Speaker 5: interesting thing because all of Trump's chief of staffs before
Speaker 5: he didn't really know them. They came into the job
Speaker 5: and then they lasted experiod of time because they irritated him.
Speaker 5: Susie Wilds has now has a long relationship with Trump
Speaker 5: and she knows how to function around him, which is
Speaker 5: to say, her job is to make the trains run
Speaker 5: on time. And I don't think that she has any
Speaker 5: other pretense beyond that. She doesn't feel that she's in
Speaker 5: any way part of the Trumpian impulse that makes this
Speaker 5: White House run. She's the back office person.
Speaker 1: So you don't think she's ideological.
Speaker 5: She is not ideological. She's a political operative. I think
Speaker 5: her only measure was do you win or do you lose?
Speaker 5: And she was paired with another political operative, Chris Losovita.
Speaker 5: Now Chris Losovita is not in the White House, and
Speaker 5: I would presume that means that he fell a foul
Speaker 5: and was not offered a job, a commensurate job. And curiously,
Speaker 5: there are a lot of this outside group who the
Speaker 5: campaign had kept at arm's length, the Heritage Foundation, the
Speaker 5: Project twenty twenty five people, the American First People. The
Speaker 5: campaign really had blocked them out, but they are now
Speaker 5: back in quite some force within the White House.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then talk about this woman, the printer, the
Speaker 1: human printer.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is the woman by the nam Natalie Harp,
Speaker 5: who has spent more time with him than any other
Speaker 5: person over the last several years. I mean, virtually every
Speaker 5: waking hour she has been at his side. She came
Speaker 5: into this role with zero political qualifications. She came in
Speaker 5: as the fetch it girl and rose by sheer dint
Speaker 5: of adulation, I suppose, or to be certainly among the
Speaker 5: most important, if not the most important people at his side.
Speaker 5: Almost during the campaign, almost all information flowed through her.
Speaker 5: I mean, she's called the human printer, because she would
Speaker 5: follow him around on the golf course with a portable printer,
Speaker 5: wireless printer, and then she would at each whole print
Speaker 5: out articles or emails she thought he should see. Now
Speaker 5: the emphasis should.
Speaker 2: Be on she thought.
Speaker 5: So she is shaping and editing the information that gets
Speaker 5: to Donald Trump. The campaign team said, she gave him
Speaker 5: his uppers and his downers.
Speaker 1: Content wise.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she would give him the articles that confirmed anything
Speaker 5: that he wanted to believe, and conversely the articles that
Speaker 5: would get him outraged, and then he would issue a
Speaker 5: various vective.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of power. So she's basically making the PDB.
Speaker 1: Is she doing it still?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 5: By his side, you know. And there was always a thing,
Speaker 5: you know, you know, well, what is she what's the relationship? Here?
Speaker 5: Is she the bit on the side. And then everybody
Speaker 5: kind of rejected that and said said, no, she is
Speaker 5: clearly and abjectly in love with him, but he is
Speaker 5: And they would say, probably the most devastating thing you
Speaker 5: can say about Donald Trump that the estimation was he
Speaker 5: was quote post sexual.
Speaker 1: Do you think that would make him curious if he
Speaker 1: had heard that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think anything that treads in any way on
Speaker 5: ego territory with Donald Trump would be for him a
Speaker 5: treacherous betrayal.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I think a lot
Speaker 1: about when I talk to people on the Democratic side
Speaker 1: is how much Donald Trump works the media because Democrats
Speaker 1: leadership democrats, you know, members of Congress and members of
Speaker 1: the Senate and governors. And we saw this in Biden
Speaker 1: world a lot. Biden World was very angry at the
Speaker 1: mainstream media.
Speaker 5: Let me just cut the short, because there is nothing
Speaker 5: at issue here for Donald Trump except the media. Nothing
Speaker 5: else counts. He's not interested in the legislative agenda, he's
Speaker 5: not interested in policy formulations, He's not interested in anything
Speaker 5: but the media. How he reacts to the media, how
Speaker 5: the media reacts to him. This is all a man
Speaker 5: who's spent fourteen years as the star of a top
Speaker 5: rated reality show. Fourteen years. This is in his bloodstream
Speaker 5: the attention of the audience, and that is through the media,
Speaker 5: which he is expert at using and determined to dominate.
Speaker 1: So do you feel like Donald Trump talks to the
Speaker 1: mainstream media despite being angry at them?
Speaker 5: He uses the mainstream media. I mean, talking to sort
Speaker 5: of implies some kind of discourse.
Speaker 1: Right, what does that mean.
Speaker 5: It means that he is the consummate show. He knows
Speaker 5: how to push the buttons of the media. He knows
Speaker 5: what will work in the media. Everything he does, everything
Speaker 5: he thinks about, is directed at that.
Speaker 1: You think Democrats could take a page from that.
Speaker 5: No, I think Donald Trump is entirely unique. I think
Speaker 5: you know the Democrats are no Democrat who has spent
Speaker 5: fourteen years as the star of a reality television show.
Speaker 5: I mean again, I always say I think that Donald
Speaker 5: Trump is an aberration. When he passes all of this
Speaker 5: stuff Magaworld, trump Ism, it all dies with him.
Speaker 1: Thank god, thank you, thank you, Michael Wolf.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: No, no moment.
Speaker 1: Second, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 3: My junk Fast, we have a very very shady fellow.
Speaker 3: In a podcast filled with talk of shady fellows. One
Speaker 3: Andrew and Tristan Tate have arrived in Florida, and let
Speaker 3: me tell you something.
Speaker 2: Meet Paul Ron is not happy, too so.
Speaker 1: Lazy for Rome right, too crimey for Romania, but sent
Speaker 1: to Florida. So again, it's not clear because why would
Speaker 1: it be, And the most transparent White House in America
Speaker 1: did not make it clear whether or not they imported
Speaker 1: these two alleged sex traffickers. We don't know how they
Speaker 1: got here, we don't know why they're here, but we
Speaker 1: do know that Meeta Ron is not happy.
Speaker 3: It seems like a lot of Maga world is not
Speaker 3: happy because they thought we were going to get rid
Speaker 3: of these sex traffickers. Of the alleged rapist agitate is
Speaker 3: on tape describing beating women. It is a very gruesome
Speaker 3: and ugly, ugly tape, and I could see why they
Speaker 3: would not be happy with this after mister Trump's rhetoric.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, and so again an alleged brothers who allegedly
Speaker 1: did unspeakable acts are now being imported allegedly to Florida.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Pollings. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.