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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Biden cancels nearly four point three

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Speaker 1: billion dollars in public worker student debt. We have such

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Speaker 1: a great show for you today. Talking Feds, Harry Littman

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Speaker 1: tells us about Trump's latest legal aggressions. Then we will

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Speaker 1: talk to the Washington Post Ben Harris about the dj

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Speaker 1: who is influencing Trump and if you're thinking it's Kid Rock, spoiler,

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Speaker 1: it's not.

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Speaker 2: But first the news.

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Speaker 3: Somali ho Man, We have a lot of you on

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Speaker 3: news to go through, but first tell me what you're

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Speaker 3: seeing with these judges in the Senate.

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Speaker 1: So one of the really good things that Biden is

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Speaker 1: doing is Trump confirmed a ton of judges. Biden has

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Speaker 1: confirmed he's expected to secure his two hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: fifth judicial confirmation of his presidency as soon as Friday.

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Speaker 1: This means that he will have installed one more judge

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Speaker 1: than Donald Trump. And Democrats have put an extra emphasis

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Speaker 1: on the federal courts following Trump's far reaching first term,

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Speaker 1: where he filled three Supreme Court seats. Now Biden only

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Speaker 1: got to fill one Supreme Court seat. But these federal judges,

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Speaker 1: it's a big deal. It's really good. And this is

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Speaker 1: the work of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He's tied

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Speaker 1: up the votes on two potential California district judges, likely

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Speaker 1: to be the last judicial confirmations this year before the

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Speaker 1: Senator the Congress adjourns and makes way for a new

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Speaker 1: Republican led Senate. He we're seeing Schumer trying to finish

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Speaker 1: all these votes by the end of Friday. The first

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Speaker 1: confirmation will tie Trump's number, the second will break it.

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Speaker 3: So Molly Elon Musk our new president and we didn't

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Speaker 3: elect He's really messing with this CR vote. It seems

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Speaker 3: like he has no clue what he's doing. But the

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Speaker 3: threat of primary any Republican with all his money is

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Speaker 3: scaring a lot of people.

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Speaker 2: What are you seeing here, Minni Trump? Elon Musk was

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Speaker 2: very excited.

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Speaker 1: He was online late into the night and he said

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Speaker 1: he didn't want the Democrats to pass the CR. By

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Speaker 1: the way, the CR cooked up by Mike Johnson, a.

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Speaker 2: Republican House speaker installed by one Donald J. Trump.

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Speaker 1: All reasons why President Musk's newfound government interest was a

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Speaker 1: bit strange, because he's a Republican cr put together by

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Speaker 1: a Republican house that needed Democratic votes. Anyway, he was

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Speaker 1: quite mad. He said, shut down the government. Don't open

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Speaker 1: it till January twenty first, showing again he has no idea. Right,

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Speaker 1: if you shut down the government, you have troops, you

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Speaker 1: have people who work in the Federal air.

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Speaker 3: The TSA at Christmas time when people fly.

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Speaker 1: Right, and you also have people not able to support themselves.

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Speaker 1: You have national parks closed. I mean it'll be you know, non.

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Speaker 2: As center their favorite thing, or are not a central government.

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Speaker 1: It'll be a real problem. So Musk got very excited.

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Speaker 1: He said he was going to Prime with lots of people.

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Speaker 1: He got, you know. But then it turned out that

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Speaker 1: somebody must have explained to him how the government works.

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Speaker 2: And now cooler heads are prevailing. But before that he

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Speaker 2: wrote on X won't be fine for thirty three days

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Speaker 2: without government funding.

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Speaker 1: By the way, one of the things that when he

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Speaker 1: cut this big str it's not much money for him,

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Speaker 1: but it's still real money. One hundred and thirty something

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Speaker 1: million dollars for kids with cancer.

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Speaker 2: That's right before Christmas.

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Speaker 1: It was allowing children with relapsed cancer to undergo treatments.

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Speaker 1: Write this strip of language that would have allowed children

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Speaker 1: with relapsed cancer to undergo treatments with a combination of

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Speaker 1: cancer drugs and therapies. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration

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Speaker 1: is only authorized to direct pediatric cancer trials.

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Speaker 2: Of single drugs.

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Speaker 1: The bill didn't include an extension of the program that

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Speaker 1: gave financial lifelines in the form of vouchers too small

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Speaker 1: pharmaceutical companies working on rare pediatric diseases.

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Speaker 2: It also missed.

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Speaker 1: Earlier provisions that would have allowed for kids on Medicare

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Speaker 1: or chips, that is, poor children to access medically complex

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Speaker 1: care across state lines. So right before Christmas, the richest

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Speaker 1: man in the world wants to make sure that kids,

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Speaker 1: poor children can't get cancer treatments. I am shocked, I

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Speaker 1: tell you at how much this is resembling a Christmas store.

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Speaker 3: I was literally about to say, I really hope with

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Speaker 3: the ghost of Christmas past President future visit him and

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Speaker 3: give him a really lovely holiday break.

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Speaker 2: Personally unbelievable.

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Speaker 3: So when he wasn't doing this though, what was he

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Speaker 3: doing BALI he was cheering on the neo Nazi German Party.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Elon Musk we know his political believes now and

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Speaker 1: they're quite far right. So Mosk endorsed the alternative for Germany,

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Speaker 1: the AfD, a far right, anti immigrant and anti Semitic

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Speaker 1: party that's gaining popularity among conservative Germans. Elon said only

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Speaker 1: the AfD can save Germany. The billionaire wrote on x

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Speaker 1: Mosk has also endorsed other far right figures, Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: George Maloney, who's visited many times. He loves Nigel Farage.

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Speaker 1: He said that a fd's views they didn't sound extreme

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Speaker 1: to him. He questioned if he was missing something. I

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Speaker 1: adf his vehetmently anti immigration, particularly with regards to Muslims,

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Speaker 1: calling for a net zero number of immigrants entering Germany

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Speaker 1: in the coming years. It sounds a lot like what

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Speaker 1: Elon believes. Leaders of the party have repeatedly made racist

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Speaker 1: and anti semitic statements, emphasizing a need to return to

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Speaker 1: a German ident toitay and pushing other white nationalist views.

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Speaker 2: I wonder what happened the last time Germans did that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think this is h seem.

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Speaker 1: To remember a little thing called the Holocaust.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think this is a good progression in

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Speaker 3: our world, but not great. You know, we don't have

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Speaker 3: a crystal ball, so we don't know where that will.

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Speaker 3: But you do it, Molly. You and I did not

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Speaker 3: need a crystal ball to know where this Trump administration

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Speaker 3: was going. And what we're seeing here is exactly what

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Speaker 3: we described in the documentary we made on Project twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty five.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you'll be shocked to know that Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump is doing or at least going to do a

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Speaker 1: lot of the stuff he threatened to do but then

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Speaker 1: changed his mind. So Donald Trump has moved to install

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Speaker 1: loyalists in jobs that Congress did not intend for a

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Speaker 1: new president to replace at the start of his term.

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Speaker 1: That we're thinking about, like how Donald Trump is going

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Speaker 1: to Christopher Ray is now going to resign. Christopher Ray,

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Speaker 1: you will remember, is the head of the FBI. He

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Speaker 1: will resign. Trump is hoping to get Cash Patel into

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Speaker 1: that job. You'll remember that Cash Patel is pretty much

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Speaker 1: has made his number one job will be to install

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Speaker 1: loyalists and to hunt Trump's enemies.

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Speaker 2: Allah Jay Edgar Hoover.

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Speaker 3: So Friend of the Show, Tim Miller, he talked to

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Speaker 3: Steve Bennon, not Friend of the Show, about Cash Patel

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Speaker 3: and if he's really serious, all the things he's going

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Speaker 3: to do with his enemy's list, and Mollie, what he

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Speaker 3: said does not make me feel good.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the one thing I will say is

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Speaker 1: that what Steve Bannon does is he tries to make

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Speaker 1: you scared. So just again, none of this is good.

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Speaker 1: But I'm just saying, like, these people want you to

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Speaker 1: be scared. So but he did say that said he

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Speaker 1: said Tim Miller Cash didn't even try to hide the football.

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Speaker 1: Steve Bannon didn't try. Bannon asserted, speaking in the third

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Speaker 1: person as one does after speaking to America Fest, a

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Speaker 1: yearly gathering of MAGA diehards hosted by Turning Point USA.

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Speaker 1: He made a fucking wow, that's very nice movie called

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Speaker 1: Government Gangsters, and the first guy is Mayor Garland, Okay,

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Speaker 1: and Lisa Monico's in there. Who in the nation doesn't

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Speaker 1: know we're trying to make these people famous. So no,

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Speaker 1: first of all, it has to happen, and number two,

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Speaker 1: it's going to happen.

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Speaker 4: Look good stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's bad, But I also would say, you know, these

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Speaker 1: guys really want you to be scared, So the most

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Speaker 1: important thing you can do is be brave. Harry Littman

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Speaker 1: is a former US attorney and the host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Talking Feds.

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Speaker 5: Okay, here we are with another Molly mashup where she

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Speaker 5: talked politics, I talk news and we try to figure

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Speaker 5: it out together. This is like maybe half a dozen

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Speaker 5: or something, but our first since November fifth. I think

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Speaker 5: so kind of gruesome when a lot of stuff to

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Speaker 5: talk about.

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Speaker 1: How are you, Molly, I'm good, you know, just another

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Speaker 1: in almost Trump's America. Actually would love you to talk

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Speaker 1: about this. So Trump World has a bunch of executive

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Speaker 1: orders all lined up, and we don't exactly know the

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Speaker 1: structure of them, but we know that there are going

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Speaker 1: to be a lot of them, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: them are going to focus on immigration, and probably a

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Speaker 1: lot of them are going to focus on these kind

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Speaker 1: of I want to say, federal government smashing, you know,

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Speaker 1: kinds of things like maybe he doesn't take apart the

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Speaker 1: Department of Education like he says he wants to.

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Speaker 2: So I'm wondering if you could talk to us.

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Speaker 1: About the sort of legality of executive orders and what

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Speaker 1: can happen and what can happen in them.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so, first, you're totally right. My sense is a

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Speaker 5: whole part of the workshop of Project twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 5: Maybe like third subterranean is these executive orders. The law

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Speaker 5: on it, MALLI is they really only control what the

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Speaker 5: executive branch does. But the executive branch at like the

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Speaker 5: federal government, has it hooks in everything, so you can

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Speaker 5: really influence quite a bit, even if you're just giving

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Speaker 5: commands to the executive branch. Now, the thing that's going

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Speaker 5: to be easiest, like twelve oh one on the twentieth,

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Speaker 5: there's going to be all these executive orders rescinding Biden

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Speaker 5: executive orders, and those there's really going to be very

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Speaker 5: little way to challenge that.

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Speaker 2: Would be things like stay in Mexico, right.

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Speaker 5: Well, so that those when once we get to immigration, Yeah,

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Speaker 5: I think there's there's you know, reproductive freedom, but also

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Speaker 5: you know, public lands and really all kinds of shits.

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Speaker 5: But there are going to be others that will, like

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Speaker 5: you know, just as they're gearing up on executive orders,

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Speaker 5: that people will be gearing up to sue and the

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Speaker 5: and the real question is going to be whether they're

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Speaker 5: divesting rights that third parties have. And you know, there's

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Speaker 5: a there's a whole complicated stewol of law about when

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Speaker 5: executive orders can be challenged. But Basically, the easiest time

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Speaker 5: is to just order the you know, federal employees, here's

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Speaker 5: my executive order. Everyone wears a tie, who works for

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Speaker 5: the executive brand, not much to do about that, but

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Speaker 5: the executive order. Everyone who contracts with you know, land

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Speaker 5: and are certain climate change stuff or whatever has to

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Speaker 5: have these kinds of procedures. Now, there's gonna be lawsuits

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Speaker 5: in general. There's gonna be you know, dozens and dozens

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Speaker 5: of lawsuits sort of from day one. But that's the

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Speaker 5: basic distinction. Anything big and nasty they want to do.

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Speaker 5: If you want to talk about abortion or immigration and

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Speaker 5: the like, he won't be able to do. This is

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Speaker 5: a gross generalization, but it's larsi true. Just just by

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Speaker 5: a stroke of the pen, then the litigation will come right.

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Speaker 1: For example, when it comes to executive orders that talk

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Speaker 1: about deportation, I mean from churches, from schools, from hospitals.

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Speaker 1: Is there anything that legislators can do or can the

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Speaker 1: courts that the courts can stop them?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So I'm first thing about the courts and the

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Speaker 5: answer is yes, And that's going to be the battle

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Speaker 5: is going to be really joined to two levels. Level

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Speaker 5: one is going to be the people themselves, and I

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Speaker 5: think you probably know there's a shadow army, really an army.

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Speaker 5: It's impressive of litigators, including you know, big shot pro

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Speaker 5: bona types lining up to represent people who they try

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Speaker 5: to deport. And that's a very good example of something

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Speaker 5: that an executive order can't just do away with. They

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Speaker 5: have vested rights and there's a whole system, and the

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Speaker 5: President doesn't just declare it null and voiding. That's the

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Speaker 5: authority there comes from Congress. And then the other level

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Speaker 5: is going to be state authorities. There's going to be

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Speaker 5: Blue states especially who say you can't screw with me

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Speaker 5: on that we have. These are our citizens. When you

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Speaker 5: do this, it's going to really affect our economy. We

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Speaker 5: have standing to challenge it, and there's going to be

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Speaker 5: big court battles. Now you know something like this, it

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Speaker 5: is probably going to work its way up to the

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Speaker 5: US Supreme Court, and you always hold your breath there.

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Speaker 5: But it's not going to be the you know, just

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Speaker 5: unilateral action by court. There's you know, states have a stake,

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Speaker 5: a real state and also the potential deportees themselves. And

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Speaker 5: that's leaving aside, what what can states do to gear

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Speaker 5: up actually legislation that could be a really big battle.

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Speaker 5: You've seen that the Trump guys the borders are says

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Speaker 5: that if anyone tries to harbor immigrants, we may come

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Speaker 5: after them criminally under federal law. It's going to be

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Speaker 5: ugly civil war reconstruction shit that. You know, We're gonna

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Speaker 5: kind of a shameful episode, I think in you know,

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Speaker 5: the history books. All right, my turn, So since the

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Speaker 5: fifth I and and not just me, but I mean

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Speaker 5: people I respect, everyone really out there saying it is happening.

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Speaker 5: Look at the FBI, look at the media, look at

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Speaker 5: the nominees. It's happening here and now, and it does

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Speaker 5: feel like it's hard to get the message through. You've

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Speaker 5: made some comments about the Democratic Party and its friendliness

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Speaker 5: is one way you put it, But it's certainly not

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Speaker 5: you know, not being a kind of vehement opposition party,

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Speaker 5: is it? The Democratic Party?

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Speaker 3: Is that?

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Speaker 5: The media? How do you account for the kind of

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Speaker 5: lack of panic or even focus out there in the

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Speaker 5: world you know we live in, but also you know,

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Speaker 5: America to what seems to me and a lot of

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Speaker 5: people I respect, I mean, I really think it's so

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Speaker 5: to be in real time before our eyes now real

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Speaker 5: assaults on norms and democratic rule.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think there are two problems here.

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Speaker 1: One is that Donald Trump has not taken office yet.

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Speaker 1: So I'm not defending Donald Trump by any stretch imagination.

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Speaker 1: But we're not there yet, right, He's not president yet.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he's acting like he's president and he may

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Speaker 1: shut down the government, but he's not actually president. So

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Speaker 1: I think part of my thinking, at least when I

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Speaker 1: think about how to talk about Donald Trump's assault on democracy,

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Speaker 1: which we think is coming, and he's certainly picked.

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Speaker 5: Up we think is here, but go ahead.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, but he's not in office, right.

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Speaker 1: He has cabinet picks that are ranging from unseerious, too scary,

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Speaker 1: and some are okay, like Marco Rubio, don't agree with him,

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Speaker 1: but hard to imagine a world where Marco Rubio.

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Speaker 5: Grown up isn't.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think that until he starts doing things,

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Speaker 1: the promise of doing things is not the same as

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Speaker 1: doing things, and so I do think that is reasonable.

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Speaker 2: I also think people are exhausted.

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Speaker 1: Where I would fault Democrats if you want to get

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Speaker 1: into faulting Democrats, which maybe don't.

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Speaker 2: Here's what I would say.

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Speaker 1: Democrats did much better down ballot than they probably deserve to,

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Speaker 1: considering the anti incumbent headwinds. But I would also say

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Speaker 1: they lost some races they shouldn't have lost, like that

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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Center race. And also they lost all of the

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Speaker 1: swingy states, so every single one, and they lost by

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Speaker 1: one point five points, which is in this polarized world,

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Speaker 1: quite a lot. So I would say, if you were

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Speaker 1: to pause and sort of be reflective of this, there

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Speaker 1: were there was clearly some problems with Joe Biden that

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Speaker 1: were not addressed soon enough, and that you know, it

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Speaker 1: was a maybe it was a messaging problem. Maybe it

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Speaker 1: was an inability to transmit the economy that was really

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Speaker 1: humming along under Biden. That maybe perhaps Democrats were not

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Speaker 1: good enough at addressing the problem of inflation, explaining it

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Speaker 1: in a way that was helpful for people. Whatever, there

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Speaker 1: are any number of reasons. The other thing that I

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Speaker 1: would say that I think is really important is Democrats

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Speaker 1: said when they were running, they said that Trump is

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Speaker 1: an existential threat against democracy. Now I absolutely one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent believe that, But then if Donald Trump is an

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Speaker 1: existential threat against American democracy, then every single thing you

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Speaker 1: do should be when you're a democratic legislator should be

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Speaker 1: at least well, you still have the Senate and the

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Speaker 1: Presidency and a very close margin in the House, should

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Speaker 1: be trying to safeguard those norms and institutions and not

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Speaker 1: say worrying about the country's bald eagle and making sure

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Speaker 1: that that becomes the bird.

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Speaker 2: If you think that this is D Day, I don't mean.

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Speaker 1: Real D Day, I mean philosophical D Day, then you

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Speaker 1: should be thinking about the ways in which you can

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Speaker 1: protect the norms and institutions.

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Speaker 5: So they are not the follow where you think huh.

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Speaker 1: I think you can't make that case unless you really

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Speaker 1: believe it. And if you really believe it, then you

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Speaker 1: should not be doing bald egle bills. You should be

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Speaker 1: doing protecting the sort of even just the nuts break yeah,

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Speaker 1: not even breaking glass, because remember you of one party

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Speaker 1: that believes in norms and another that doesn't. So but

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Speaker 1: at least safe, at the very minimum, safeguarding the things

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Speaker 1: we hold.

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Speaker 5: So, dear amen, okay, your turn.

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Speaker 1: My question is you have an enemy's list. You have

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Speaker 1: a very very distinct possibility that cash Fattel could end

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Speaker 1: up in charge of the FBI. How much you and

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Speaker 1: I were probably not on the first, second, or third list.

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Speaker 1: But we're probably somewhere on a list somewhere. So what

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Speaker 1: kind of protections? And I'm certainly not asking this question

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Speaker 1: for myself. Protections absolutely, guy happens to if your name

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Speaker 1: rhymes with Holly, should you what should you be doing?

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Speaker 5: Okay, very personal question, and I'll like I myself, so

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Speaker 5: I tend to agree. I've just determined to try to

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Speaker 5: live my life, and I think they'd have to be

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Speaker 5: digging really deep before my name would come up. That said,

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Speaker 5: I have now a somewhat robust defamation policy so that

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Speaker 5: if I get hit with a bogus defamation lawsuit that's

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Speaker 5: really about nuisance value and making me spend a lot

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Speaker 5: of money, that money will be spent out of insurance.

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Speaker 5: God forbid I get hit with a legitimate one. But

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Speaker 5: that's sort of on me. I'm being damned sure that

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Speaker 5: my taxes are in order and going through with accountants now,

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Speaker 5: because that's going to be I mean, if they're if

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Speaker 5: they're really If your your name Molly comes up on

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Speaker 5: the list, the question I think will be first and foremost,

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Speaker 5: how to harass you, how to make you miserable, how

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Speaker 5: to drag you through the mud rather than you know,

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Speaker 5: the threats now against Liz Cheney contemptible on louder Molk's part,

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Speaker 5: but they don't. They're not going to have anything criminal

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Speaker 5: on her, and if that happened, the courts would be

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Speaker 5: there to protect. But there's things they can do to really.

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Speaker 2: Make your life annoying and maybe.

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Speaker 5: Even a little more than annoying. So I am, in

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Speaker 5: fact assuring that up I do. I feel a little

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Speaker 5: bit like crap. I can't believe it's come to this,

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Speaker 5: but I do a final read of everything I write,

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Speaker 5: and for the lay people out there when you think

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Speaker 5: about defamation, any thing about statements of opinion versus statements

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Speaker 5: of fact, and I just have in my mind red

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Speaker 5: light green lights sort of all the way down. But

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Speaker 5: that's all I mean. I'm like, I do think we've

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Speaker 5: seen this part of what your last answer was media

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Speaker 5: really being you know, Colt and kind of tacking his

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Speaker 5: way because of fear of what they'll do. And I,

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Speaker 5: if anything, become tried to become more independent. You know,

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Speaker 5: I left the La Times so I don't have to

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Speaker 5: be subject to others kinds of coward or whatever, or flinching,

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Speaker 5: you know, on that basis, I mainly myself. The main

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Speaker 5: thing I'm doing is you know, self therapy or whatever.

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Speaker 5: They just like be sured that the north Star is

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Speaker 5: telling the truth and you know, trying not to be

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Speaker 5: too nervous as a result. But I got the defamation policy,

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Speaker 5: and then there's some things. If it really really gets ugly,

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Speaker 5: you know, and you get a subpoena for something, I've

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Speaker 5: got to suck it up. At that point. There really

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Speaker 5: is a phalanx of people out there, I think, ready

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Speaker 5: to help against people who are being here at you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but also do you know we got to be brave.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's what, George, that's it.

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Speaker 5: I mean, that's right.

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Speaker 2: I have a question for you.

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Speaker 5: No you don't because it's my turn. You post an Instagram. Well,

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Speaker 5: I'll just cut to the chase. Elon Musk, you said

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Speaker 5: he's birthed the mini Trump and his name is Elon Musk.

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Speaker 5: I wonder if you see it. But I wonder more

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Speaker 5: this is a little less politics and more psychology. But like,

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Speaker 5: what is the deal there? Is he gonna you know,

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Speaker 5: regret it down the line? Will Trump turn on him?

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Speaker 5: Is he you know a patriarch? They're making like Russia.

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Speaker 5: What's the deal?

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Speaker 1: Let's look to Trump one point oh right, So who

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Speaker 1: were the people who surrounded Trump and Trump?

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Speaker 2: One point zho? And why are none of them helping Trump?

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Speaker 2: Two point zero?

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Speaker 5: None of them are back? I guess that's right.

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Speaker 1: Huh Right, Rudy is whatever and losing his rings mind.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, but he's also.

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Speaker 1: Losing his like you know, he had World Series rings

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Speaker 1: or something, I mean his watch collection.

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Speaker 2: So you got.

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Speaker 1: Rudy, you got Mike Pence not the vice president this time,

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Speaker 1: you know. No, I mean these people are all gone.

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Speaker 1: So I think the question is and even like, yes,

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Speaker 1: certainly some people like Roger Stone and Steve Bannon, but

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Speaker 1: those guys are on the outside.

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Speaker 2: People on the inside.

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Speaker 1: Mark Meadows is gone, right, I mean, Susie Wilds is new.

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Speaker 2: All these people are new. So look for now.

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Speaker 1: Now there is this alliance between Trump and techros. But

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Speaker 1: you could see a world right where everything Trump touches

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Speaker 1: dies right where the people it tends to be, the

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Speaker 1: people in his inner circle tend to go. And even

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Speaker 1: like Mike Johnson, you could see Mike Johnson's having a

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Speaker 1: lot of trouble now passing the cr looks like they're

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Speaker 1: going to break it up. Looks like there's going to

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Speaker 1: be some government funding. It's hard to imagine. I mean,

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Speaker 1: Trump is not super loyal, so I'll be curious to

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Speaker 1: see how this plays out. I don't know when Trump

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Speaker 1: gets sick of Musk. And look, Musk has a lot

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Speaker 1: of money, right, He's the richest man in the world,

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Speaker 1: so Musk, you know, Trump is not going to be

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Speaker 1: able to just snap his fingers and get rid of Musk.

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Speaker 1: But I would not bet on that friendship in the

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Speaker 1: long term.

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Speaker 5: And there are some very rich people in Russia who lost.

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Speaker 1: R Okay, my question for you, Joel, you left the

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Speaker 1: La Times. The owner of the La Times. He's all

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Speaker 1: over the place, but it seems like he's very trump curious.

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Speaker 1: And why to I mean, talk about a billionaire who

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Speaker 1: is just all about getting his hands and everything.

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Speaker 2: Talk to me about why he left the La Times.

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Speaker 5: I didn't mean to sort of take it out on

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Speaker 5: him personally, and well, yes I did in a way

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Speaker 5: because it was his conduct. He is trying to have

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Speaker 5: his hands and everything, you know, the Lakers, et cetera.

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Speaker 5: But I think that's what has given Trump. This is

437
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 5: the bad thing. And it's also happened. I think, you know,

438
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 5: it's part of what happened with ABC and Disney, It's

439
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 5: part of what happened with the Washington Post. The legacy

440
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 5: media have these big corporate holdings, and that's I think

441
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 5: what they're scared of the boardroom at Disney or Bezos

442
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 5: thinking about Amazon. They're not caring about the paper per se.

443
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 5: So it did seem to me. I don't want to

444
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:48,359
Speaker 5: psychoanalyze them, but the action stand for themselves, and they've

445
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,399
Speaker 5: just gotten worse in the last couple of weeks. It

446
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 5: just came out, I think yesterday, that he wants to

447
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,399
Speaker 5: have a hiatus on writing about Trump. And then before that,

448
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 5: the idea was, if you write anything about Trump, you

449
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 5: need to have something on the other side. And then

450
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:09,919
Speaker 5: before there's the notion that if you're writing about Trump,

451
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:13,479
Speaker 5: he wanted to see the draft first, and he wanted

452
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 5: to know the name of the drafter. And look, if

453
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 5: this were a concerted sense that like Trump has really

454
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 5: been treated unfairly on the merits and the crazy liberal

455
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:30,120
Speaker 5: press just takes off after him, it'd be one thing,

456
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 5: but it isn't that nobody. It's just then this goes

457
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 5: back to our first question, mam. The stakes are high

458
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 5: and it's a time for choosing and the notion of balance,

459
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 5: as I put in the substack letter explaining it, there's,

460
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 5: you know, on the one hand, on the other hand, coverage,

461
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 5: which is what he's trying to you know, think like

462
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 5: a is a sort of very well packaged defense. There

463
00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 5: is no other hand. The first sort of norse star

464
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 5: responsibility of the papers have to be for just giving

465
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 5: the facts and the truth. And we have a situation

466
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,119
Speaker 5: in which, time and time again, I think maybe one

467
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 5: hundred percent of the time, when something happens, Trump is

468
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,879
Speaker 5: driven by a lie. And there's you know, you were

469
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:20,959
Speaker 5: you were beginning to analyze the election results. But at

470
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 5: least part of what happened is that a lot of

471
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 5: people got fed accounts of the news that obscured that.

472
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 5: And so if the press isn't allowed to do that

473
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 5: on some bogus idea of balance, we're in grievous shape again.

474
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 5: And it goes back to what I was saying before

475
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 5: that we are in this really difficult moment where a

476
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 5: lot of guardrails are already being mowed down, and you

477
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 5: really have to look through the press. I think, I mean,

478
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 5: what I'm trying to do myself, and I think more

479
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 5: people are doing it, including you. Is have your own

480
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 5: kind of independent voice, so at least you know, people

481
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 5: can just judge you on your own words, but no

482
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 5: one can think. You know, you're being asked to shade

483
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 5: and you're agreeing to you know, when you contrast it's

484
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 5: happening here with say Watergate or what do you expect

485
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 5: of the media, and you compare it with you know,

486
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 5: what has happened in societies that have devolved toward authoritarianism

487
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 5: like Hungary. It's it's fucking terrifying. I think, yeah, I

488
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 5: think that's right. Speaking of weird, terrifying developments in American society,

489
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 5: I wonder what you think about the kind of lionization

490
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 5: of Mangione, the guy who did the cold blooded killing

491
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 5: of the CEO of Healthcare right outside of New York

492
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 5: Hotel America has this funny kind of history of vigilantes.

493
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 5: Do you think it's the current political climate? What do

494
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 5: you make of this sympathy that he's listening and especially

495
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 5: to the extent you can break it down this way

496
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 5: among younger voters, he really is, you know, sort of

497
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 5: has found a number of champions among this generation X crowd.

498
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: So I would say, look, this guy killed someone, right,

499
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: killing someone is bad, no matter who you can kill all. Yeah, yeah,

500
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: you shouldn't kill people.

501
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 2: Now. I'm not going to say, but you're.

502
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 5: Not what's the next word? We're listening hard.

503
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:23,479
Speaker 1: You can't say killing people is bad, but but you

504
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: can say the fact that this is meant by cheering

505
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: is a sign.

506
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 2: It's two things. I think.

507
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: One is it's not a good sign for where American

508
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: society is right now, right because you have a lot

509
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 1: of people who are feeling very disenfranchised. People being delighted

510
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: that someone has been murdered is not a sign that

511
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: society in America is humming along in a good way.

512
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 2: Right.

513
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: That's you just it's like, you know, it's like having

514
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: a fever. Right, something is wrong. Yeah, I would add that.

515
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: I also think one of the things that breaks my

516
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: heart is that there's a lot of populist sentiment and

517
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: Democrats were unable to make the case that.

518
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 2: They were the populist party.

519
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: So you had Joe Biden pouring money into things that

520
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: would lessen the inequality in this country, and because they

521
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: were unable to transmit that, voters went and voted for

522
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: a billionaire oligarch, exactly the opposite of what at least

523
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: they seemed to want. So that is a failure on

524
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: the part of the Democrats. It's also a failure on

525
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: the part of the voters. It's sort of a failure everywhere.

526
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 2: So in my mind, the heartbreaking thing about it is.

527
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: You have people who are really suffering in this country,

528
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: because nobody celebrates a murder unless things are really bad.

529
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 2: So that's number one.

530
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: And then I would say the worst part is they're

531
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 1: really suffering, and so they decide to elect someone who

532
00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: will only increase their suffering. And in my mind, that

533
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: is the tragedy of where we are right now. I

534
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: wrote about this this week from Manny Fair, like, so

535
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: many of Trump's policies are you know, reenacting these zombie

536
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: laws right anti you know, Victorian laws about you know,

537
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 1: anti pornography, sort of anti you know that kind of thing,

538
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: or laws that are able to kind of put people

539
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: who are enemies in camps or to jail them because

540
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: they are representatives of the country that you're at war

541
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: with because they come from those countries. So so much

542
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: of this is sort of Victorian era or even you

543
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: know World War One or eighteen twelve, you know the

544
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: War of eighteen twelve, the Alien Enemies Act. So many

545
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: of these laws are laws from another time.

546
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 2: Right.

547
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: Trump Ism functions in an idea of bringing America back

548
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: to a time that never existed. And so I would say,

549
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: in my mind, the thing that makes me the saddest

550
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: is you have all these people who are hurting so bad,

551
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: and the thing they did is something that's going to

552
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 1: cause them more pain.

553
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 5: You know, it's a really nice point. It's the time

554
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 5: of enity toward the other, and you know the other

555
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 5: can be many incarnations all we're out of time again.

556
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 5: It's always such a so fun to do it. To

557
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 5: see you in thirty days. I just want to pick

558
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 5: up one little strand and tell everybody if you do

559
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 5: not know Howard Fast not just his story but his writing.

560
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 5: He was my dad's favorite, one of the first like

561
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 5: grown up type novels I read, still really relevant in

562
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 5: Germaine and dust them off. What's the big one?

563
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 4: Is it Freedom Road?

564
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 2: Freedom Road? Or Spartacus?

565
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 5: Spartacus? Yeah, the source of the great movie. Okay, happy

566
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 5: holidays to all and see you in January.

567
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks Harry Thank you.

568
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: Ben Terris is a reporter at the Washington Post and

569
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 1: author of The Big Break, The Gamblers Party, Animals and

570
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: True Believers trying to win in Washington while America loses

571
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: its mind Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Ben.

572
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 4: Harris, thanks for having me.

573
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 2: I was excited to.

574
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 1: Have you because you are such a good writer, and

575
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 1: also because this is like a piece that I'm sure

576
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: you sat down to write as sort of a curiosity,

577
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: but it has in my mind.

578
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 2: It captures a larger story that I want to talk about.

579
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: So this publisher slash DJ is this publisher slash DJ

580
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 1: the most powerful man in Trump's transition.

581
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 2: He's a prison I have literally never heard of discuss Well, that's.

582
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 4: Partly why I wanted to write about him.

583
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 6: You know, I love finding people that most people haven't

584
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 6: heard of that actually have kind of like a secret

585
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 6: amount of power.

586
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I'm like, not even most people. I tend

587
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 2: to know some things.

588
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I didn't really know who he was either

589
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 6: before I caught his name in an article somewhere about

590
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 6: this new job that he had in Star started looking

591
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 6: into him and was like, oh, man, Sergio Gore, I

592
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 6: should really get to know this guy. And make sure

593
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 6: that you know, the American people really know this guy too.

594
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 2: So he's a DJ. How does this happen?

595
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, well he's an amateur DJ.

596
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 6: He DJ's you know MAGA parties around mar A Lago

597
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 6: as one does. He's very popular among kind of the

598
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 6: MAGA set in general. And the way he got this job,

599
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:25,360
Speaker 6: and the job is the Director of Personnel for the

600
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 6: White House, which means he will be vetting, finding, helping nominate,

601
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 6: helping place about four thousand political appointees in the government,

602
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 6: which is incredibly powerful, right. I mean, Trump has been

603
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 6: talking about how he wants his government to be different

604
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 6: this time around than last time, and this is the

605
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 6: guy who's going to be largely responsible for that, finding

606
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 6: people who are loyal to the president, who believe in

607
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 6: the America First ideology, none of these kind of turncoat

608
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 6: types that they feel like, you know, hindered their ability

609
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:57,800
Speaker 6: to do all the things they wanted the first time around.

610
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 6: And so he has this huge job, and the way

611
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 6: he got it's basically by being super loyal to Trump,

612
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 6: lovedy loved by Trump's family. Working on this story was

613
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 6: insane for me. It's usually very hard to get certain

614
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,239
Speaker 6: folks on the phone, and they were all calling me

615
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 6: to sing praise of this guy, partially because of the

616
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 6: role he's about to have, but also partially because I

617
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 6: think they just like this guy, which you know, that's

618
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 6: a character witness of sorts.

619
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: Okay, so they like him, and now he's leading the transition.

620
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 6: Yeah, Ultimately Donald Trump gets to decide who's in his government.

621
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 6: But when there's four thousand jobs, you don't have time

622
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 6: for all that. And so this guy, along with you know,

623
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 6: Charlie Kirk and Don Junior and probably JD. Vance and others,

624
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 6: are going through applications of thousands and thousands of people

625
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 6: and placing them all around the government. And it's just yeah,

626
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,280
Speaker 6: like I said, it puts him in this very powerful

627
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 6: position where people all over town are going to feel

628
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 6: like they owe him favors. And you know, his resume

629
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 6: includes things like being Matt Gates's wedding officiant. These are

630
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 6: points you get in magaworld by being that close to

631
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 6: the stars of the Trump world.

632
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 2: How did he get himself into this though.

633
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 6: Well, his backstory is he originally worked for Rand Paul.

634
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 6: He was a communications guy.

635
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 2: So he had some political experience.

636
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, Yeah, he definitely did. He worked for

637
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 6: Rand Paul, He worked for a number of House Republicans.

638
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:25,879
Speaker 6: You know the types he might expect, Michelle Bachman, Steve King,

639
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 6: the kind of fringy people who no longer are necessarily

640
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 6: seen as as fringy. I mean, Steve King and Michelle

641
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 6: Bachman are gone, but their type of Republican politician is

642
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 6: very much, you know, in vogue right now in Trump's universe.

643
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 6: And so he has experience on the Hill. Jared Kushner

644
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 6: told me on the phone, he called me when he

645
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 6: was doing criminal justice reform. Sergio Gore was somebody who

646
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 6: really helped him navigate the Hill. So he does have

647
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 6: this understanding of Washington that not everyone in the Trump

648
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 6: world had in twenty sixteen. So he's been kind of

649
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:00,439
Speaker 6: a helpful figure for that time.

650
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 4: But then he really.

651
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 6: Got into Trump's orbit by joining his fundraising operation in

652
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 6: twenty twenty. And also, probably more importantly, he started a

653
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 6: publishing house with Dawn Junior. Okay, and the point of

654
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:18,479
Speaker 6: this publishing house was conservative authors need a place where

655
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 6: they can write their books without fear of being canceled

656
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 6: by the publisher. If you are a controversial Republican and

657
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 6: you write a book for Penguin, and then you go

658
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,319
Speaker 6: out and say something, It's possible they might say, we're

659
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 6: no longer going to publish your book. Sergio Gore was

660
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 6: not going to have that issue. People were not going

661
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 6: to have that issue with Sergio Gore's publishing house. He'd

662
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,399
Speaker 6: publish any conservative, regardless of how controversial. I mean, yes,

663
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 6: they had to pitch their books to him, and he,

664
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 6: you know, could say no, but he wasn't going to

665
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 6: say no, because you know, something they said was you know,

666
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 6: if he was more like, is this book going to

667
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 6: do well? Are you enough of a star? So he

668
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,879
Speaker 6: published books by like Charlie Kirk and the like, and

669
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 6: he also published Trump's books. So Trump's picture book, I

670
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,760
Speaker 6: don't remember what it's called, Save America, White Firm America,

671
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 6: something like that, you know, the one with him on

672
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 6: the cover, bloodied up and huping his fist. That was

673
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,959
Speaker 6: a Sergio Gore book. And these books did really well.

674
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 6: And you know, I think Trump likes to be associated

675
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 6: with people who help him make money, help him become successful.

676
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 6: He's also a Mara Lago member and would hang out

677
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 6: with Trump late at night singing Phantom of the opera

678
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 6: on the patio. He just kind of had Trump's ear.

679
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,800
Speaker 6: Trump liked being around him, and that is enough to

680
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 6: make you, you know, kind of a star in his government.

681
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus Christ.

682
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:34,439
Speaker 1: So he's going to staff up the Trump White House.

683
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 4: Correct, Yeah, that's right, White House.

684
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 6: You know, the agency is pretty much anything under Cabinet

685
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 6: secretary that's an appointee, a political appointee, falls under his purview.

686
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 6: And so he'll, you know, have people come in for interviews,

687
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 6: give them tests, loyalty tests, definitely, loyalty test for sure,

688
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 6: asking how they voted in twenty sixteen, how they voted

689
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty, how they voted in twenty twenty four,

690
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 6: what they thought about January sixth. When I talked to

691
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 6: Don Junior for the story, he told me that the

692
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 6: most important date for people going through this process is

693
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 6: where were you on January seventh? If you were with

694
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:13,760
Speaker 6: us on January seventh, great, If you weren't, you probably

695
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 6: aren't going to get a job.

696
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 1: Okay, what does that seem like it looks like to you?

697
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: I mean, does this guy have other loyalties or is

698
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: it really just Trump?

699
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 6: He is loyal to the movement for sure, I mean,

700
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 6: he's loyal to America.

701
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 4: First.

702
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 6: He's definitely definitely loyal to Trump. I don't know what

703
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 6: his like pure ideology is, right, Like, he was kind

704
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 6: of a libertarian at times. He worked for Rand Paul,

705
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 6: and you know, Paul and Donald Trump are not exactly

706
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 6: the same. They have plenty of differences. I think he's

707
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 6: loyal to the people in power and the people that

708
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 6: are loyal to him. I think he just kind of

709
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,800
Speaker 6: has a mutual love for people that can help, I

710
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 6: don't know, help them move up in the world. He's

711
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 6: got a real ambitious streak. And so there are people

712
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 6: I talked to for the story who worked a lot

713
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 6: alongside him and under him, who definitely did not feel

714
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 6: as positively about him as all the kind of powerful

715
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 6: people I talked to for the story.

716
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:14,399
Speaker 1: That's interesting, and that does sort of make sense, right,

717
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: that he would have two different kinds of personalities. Perhaps,

718
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,359
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if you can talk to us, like

719
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:24,919
Speaker 1: sort of pull this out a little bit and talk

720
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: to us about other people in Trump's universe who we

721
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: may not be totally focused on, but who may have

722
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: an outsized role.

723
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 4: It's a good question.

724
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:35,839
Speaker 6: I mean, this is one of the things I'm trying

725
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,040
Speaker 6: to figure out as I report. Right, we have this

726
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 6: new government coming in with all these new figures, and

727
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 6: it's going to be really hard to know where the

728
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 6: actual power is. There's a lot of talk about, you know,

729
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 6: Elon Musk and the veik Ramaswami and their so called department,

730
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 6: and is this going to be what changes the government?

731
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:55,439
Speaker 4: It might be, right, that might end.

732
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 6: Up being one of the most powerful government adjacent organizations,

733
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 6: if you can call it. That really might change the

734
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 6: shape of, you know, of the United States government. But

735
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 6: also it might be that somebody in some of these

736
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 6: agencies ends up with all the power, and we just

737
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 6: don't know that yet. And I think it's going to

738
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 6: be really hard to know who actually has power until

739
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 6: these people take over, right, We're not going to actually

740
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:20,280
Speaker 6: be able to know who Trump is leaning on, who's

741
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 6: getting advice from because the way that the Trump is,

742
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 6: you know, that can shift on a day to day basis.

743
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's very changeable, which is perhaps not super surprising.

744
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: I'm curious as you're starting to cover this, what you

745
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: see as the differences.

746
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 2: Between Trump one point zero and Trump two point zero.

747
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 6: Well, for sure, they're more organized now. I mean, this

748
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 6: process that Sergio Gore is running is an organized process.

749
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 6: They have a whole team of people that are scouring,

750
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 6: you know, public statements, past performances, making sure that everybody

751
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 6: is going to be as loyal as they need them

752
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:01,879
Speaker 6: to be and as competent. And a big change too,

753
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 6: is that more people want to be part of this government.

754
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 6: One thing that Jared Kushner told me when I was

755
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 6: talking to him is that in twenty sixteen they could

756
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 6: barely give away ambassadorships. People were so kind of hesitant

757
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 6: about Trump's presidency.

758
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 4: They didn't really know what it meant.

759
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 6: He was more controversial to your average Republican. Back then,

760
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 6: people didn't really necessarily want to be a part of

761
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 6: something that could be a complete disaster. And now Republicans

762
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 6: are fully on board for who Donald Trump is, and

763
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 6: these positions that once were hard to give away, now

764
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 6: they're getting twenty applicants per position. And so that means

765
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:36,720
Speaker 6: that one of the big changes is that he really

766
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 6: does have kind of a complete stranglehold over the Republican

767
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 6: Party in a way that early in his presidency he

768
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 6: didn't necessarily have, you know, over the course of that presidency,

769
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 6: Republicans kind of bent to his will, but now he

770
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 6: starts with that, which I don't know. It's a pretty

771
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 6: big advantage for somebody trying to make a new government

772
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 6: to have everybody on his side.

773
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 1: Right, that is certainly true, and it's a big different

774
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: from what the original Trump was.

775
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 2: Like I'm wondering if you.

776
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:10,440
Speaker 1: Could talk about what you think Trump's like the ethos,

777
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:12,799
Speaker 1: if it's different, Like so there are more people willing

778
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: to work in the Trump two point oh than Trump

779
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: one point zero, But do you think that Trump two

780
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: point zero is different in other ways? Like do you

781
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: think he is more organized or less crazy, or more

782
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 1: unbound or just sort of from what your senses?

783
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:30,920
Speaker 4: I mean, my guess, and I don't.

784
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 6: I don't know anything that's going to happen, because you know,

785
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 6: anyone who tries to.

786
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 4: Make creative in this business is always wrong.

787
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 6: And then you can always, you know, point to everything

788
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 6: they said and been like, well, why would you trust

789
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 6: any of these people because they're wrong about anything. So

790
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 6: I can't say for sure, but what it seems to

791
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 6: me is like Trump is the same he's always been,

792
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 6: but more so and now he has the ability to

793
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,160
Speaker 6: maybe from the jump accomplish the things he wants to accomplish.

794
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 6: I mean, it did take time for the government to

795
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 6: kind of the Republicans and the government to I don't know,

796
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 6: align themselves with him. There was a hesitancy, and now

797
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 6: to have everybody on his side from the beginning, I

798
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 6: don't know. I feel like he feels empowered because he is.

799
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,720
Speaker 6: He won again, and it just has become very clear

800
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 6: that the Republican Party is the Maga party, and I

801
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:22,799
Speaker 6: just feel like that must make him feel like he

802
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 6: has more control than he's ever had.

803
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is not great.

804
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 1: One of the things I've been really surprised by is

805
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: that I sort of thought that Trump's alliance with r

806
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:36,359
Speaker 1: f K Junior was more about RFK having delivered him

807
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:41,360
Speaker 1: some level of woman voter and that he wasn't necessarily

808
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:42,359
Speaker 1: is attached to him.

809
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 2: And from what I understand, Trump actually loves RFK J.

810
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 2: Can you explain this well?

811
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 6: I mean, for one thing, I think Trump loves anybody

812
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 6: who helps him, right, so that's definitely going to be

813
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 6: a big part of it. And also, I don't know,

814
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:56,960
Speaker 6: they kind of must be able to shoot the bull

815
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,239
Speaker 6: in a way that he can't with other people. You know,

816
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 6: he must love being around a what does he always

817
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 6: talk about He talks about.

818
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 2: He likes a convert. I feel like he.

819
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:06,400
Speaker 4: Likes a convert for sure.

820
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 6: He also likes people who are from quote central casting, right,

821
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 6: and like what's central casting than a Kennedy? And you know,

822
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 6: Kennedy has stories and he must love to tell and

823
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 6: he's controversial in ways that Trump is controversial, and I

824
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 6: think they probably can just connect on that level. I

825
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 6: think that's got to be a big part of it.

826
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,720
Speaker 6: And also I think Kennedy must go into these meetings

827
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 6: feeling empowered himself just because of who he is. He

828
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 6: has like a sense of self and a sense of

829
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 6: you know, he's got an ego. And Trump must kind

830
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 6: of like hanging out with somebody who feels almost like

831
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:38,919
Speaker 6: an equal to him, because my guess is he often

832
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 6: feels like he's, you know, the coolest guy and most

833
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 6: impressive and most powerful person in the room, and here's

834
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 6: somebody who can, I don't know, go toe to toe

835
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:46,839
Speaker 6: with him a little bit.

836
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:48,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.

837
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: So you wrote about Joe Biden and Donald Trump and

838
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,280
Speaker 1: this photo op they did together.

839
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:56,799
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that.

840
00:45:57,200 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a strange moment.

841
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:02,280
Speaker 6: If listeners don't remember, this was shortly after the election,

842
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 6: you know, and the election was this hard fought democracy

843
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 6: is on the line, Authoritarianism is on the rise.

844
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 4: Watch out for fascism.

845
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:14,319
Speaker 6: You know, if you elect Donald Trump president again, you know,

846
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 6: we could lose our country.

847
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 4: Kind of deal.

848
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,759
Speaker 6: That was sort of the message and the vibe of

849
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 6: the election. And suddenly, after the election is over and

850
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 6: Trump has won, Joe Biden welcomes Trump into the Oval

851
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 6: Office for a photo shoot. They shake hands, they kind

852
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 6: of laugh with one another, and the line that really

853
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:34,280
Speaker 6: stuck out for me was Joe Biden said to Trump,

854
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 6: welcome back. He was welcoming this man back into the

855
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,759
Speaker 6: White House. And there were kind of two schools of

856
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 6: thought about this.

857
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 5: You know.

858
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 6: There were the norms lovers who were like, this is

859
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 6: important for Biden to welcome the rightful winner of the

860
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 6: White House back, to show that there will be a

861
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 6: peaceful transfer of power. This is a way to differentiate

862
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,359
Speaker 6: the Democrats from the Republicans. Everyone remembers what happened last time.

863
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 6: And then there were the people who said, well, how

864
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 6: can we trust democrats now? We if democrats they're going

865
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 6: to say this guy is an existential threat and then

866
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 6: just go ahead and welcome him back in this kind

867
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 6: of friendly, cozy oval office meeting. There was a fire roaring.

868
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:11,880
Speaker 6: It just felt like a real kind of nice time.

869
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 6: If democrats are going to do that, how can we

870
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 6: trust them when they say somebody is an existential threat

871
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:17,040
Speaker 6: to democracy?

872
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 4: And so I wrote about that.

873
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 6: I tried to capture the moment and also tried to

874
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 6: talk to a lot of folks who had differing opinions about,

875
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 6: you know, where they came down on whether this was

876
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 6: the right move or not.

877
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:32,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, such an unbelievably unprecedented moment. Do you have any

878
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:37,400
Speaker 1: thoughts of like historical moments that feel to remain to this.

879
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 4: That's a good question. I don't know. I'm not sure

880
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 4: that anything quite comes to mind.

881
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm sure there are moments of world leaders

882
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 6: meeting with authoritarians or dictators that they've spoken about as

883
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:51,479
Speaker 6: strong men who need to be feared, and then having

884
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 6: kind of handshake moments they get captured in photos for

885
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 6: people to digest.

886
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 4: Stuff like that.

887
00:47:56,680 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 6: Probably, I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on

888
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,880
Speaker 6: that moment, if you had thoughts on you know, Trump

889
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 6: and Biden meeting in the Oval Office. Did you have

890
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 6: like an initial response to that.

891
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 1: I mean, my thinking is you can't tell people that

892
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is an existential throughaut to American democracy and

893
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: then be like, and it's business as usual. I don't

894
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: want to be too nice about this, because I do

895
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:21,439
Speaker 1: think there is a fair amount of incompetence going on here.

896
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: But ultimately you cannot have one party that is interested

897
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: in protecting norms and institutions and another that is just like,

898
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: you know, let's do authoritarianism. So I that's where we are.

899
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: I am not happy, but I also am I understand

900
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: the tension there, if that makes sense.

901
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's a real complicated moment. I

902
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 6: should have called you for the story.

903
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:50,840
Speaker 2: Well that's all right, I'm happy to not be quoted.

904
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: But I also think it is this thing where you

905
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: have to wonder how much like this is. This was

906
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: a moment where even a really truly gifted politician, he

907
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: was faced with an opposition party like the Republicans who

908
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:11,919
Speaker 1: didn't believe in the norms.

909
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 2: Would have a very tough time. Yeah, and that is

910
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:15,280
Speaker 2: not Joe Biden.

911
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:20,319
Speaker 1: So I think it's unrealistic to expect things that were

912
00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: not possible. But it's also just really jarring to see

913
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: and fundamentally, like, if you're going to use that rhetoric,

914
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:30,359
Speaker 1: then you have to be prepared to back it up,

915
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:32,279
Speaker 1: which they were clearly not.

916
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's an unenviable situation. The best way to have

917
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 6: dealt with it would have been just to win.

918
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 2: I guess right, And there you have it. Thank you,

919
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:41,439
Speaker 2: Ben Harris. I hope you'll come back.

920
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, anytime.

921
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:43,399
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me.

922
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 4: No moment perfectly.

923
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 3: Jesse Cannon, Oh Molly, we're getting close to the end

924
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 3: of the year, and I always remember that the Supreme Court,

925
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 3: they're the one governing body that they go pretty late

926
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 3: in the year. They they keep going. They're not just

927
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 3: throwing Christmas parties. And that's a bad thing because when

928
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 3: I hear about what these people do during these hearings,

929
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 3: it makes me want to die.

930
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: Just as Alito, you know him as someone who clearly

931
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:21,760
Speaker 1: watches a lot of Fox News during the oral arguments

932
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 1: in US v. Scremetti, it's a case about something he

933
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:33,720
Speaker 1: engaged in sustained and aggressive questioning of an attorney about

934
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 1: factual data outside the record that was never subjected to

935
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 1: the crucible of legislation. So basically, Alita was very patronizing

936
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 1: to the US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelager, who's quite smart,

937
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:54,240
Speaker 1: and I think it was another moment of court watchers

938
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: seeing just what incredible sexist Alito is, and perhaps there

939
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: are sprinklings of misogyny in there too. I know you'll

940
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:07,839
Speaker 1: be shocked to know that the guy who took away

941
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 1: your constitutional rights over your own body may also not

942
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 1: be a fan of women working outside the home and justice. Alito,

943
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:18,640
Speaker 1: you are once again.

944
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:20,440
Speaker 2: Our moment of fuckery.

945
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

946
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:30,920
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best

947
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

948
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:38,400
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

949
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going.

950
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.