Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Biden cancels nearly four point three
Speaker 1: billion dollars in public worker student debt. We have such
Speaker 1: a great show for you today. Talking Feds, Harry Littman
Speaker 1: tells us about Trump's latest legal aggressions. Then we will
Speaker 1: talk to the Washington Post Ben Harris about the dj
Speaker 1: who is influencing Trump and if you're thinking it's Kid Rock, spoiler,
Speaker 1: it's not.
Speaker 2: But first the news.
Speaker 3: Somali ho Man, We have a lot of you on
Speaker 3: news to go through, but first tell me what you're
Speaker 3: seeing with these judges in the Senate.
Speaker 1: So one of the really good things that Biden is
Speaker 1: doing is Trump confirmed a ton of judges. Biden has
Speaker 1: confirmed he's expected to secure his two hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: fifth judicial confirmation of his presidency as soon as Friday.
Speaker 1: This means that he will have installed one more judge
Speaker 1: than Donald Trump. And Democrats have put an extra emphasis
Speaker 1: on the federal courts following Trump's far reaching first term,
Speaker 1: where he filled three Supreme Court seats. Now Biden only
Speaker 1: got to fill one Supreme Court seat. But these federal judges,
Speaker 1: it's a big deal. It's really good. And this is
Speaker 1: the work of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He's tied
Speaker 1: up the votes on two potential California district judges, likely
Speaker 1: to be the last judicial confirmations this year before the
Speaker 1: Senator the Congress adjourns and makes way for a new
Speaker 1: Republican led Senate. He we're seeing Schumer trying to finish
Speaker 1: all these votes by the end of Friday. The first
Speaker 1: confirmation will tie Trump's number, the second will break it.
Speaker 3: So Molly Elon Musk our new president and we didn't
Speaker 3: elect He's really messing with this CR vote. It seems
Speaker 3: like he has no clue what he's doing. But the
Speaker 3: threat of primary any Republican with all his money is
Speaker 3: scaring a lot of people.
Speaker 2: What are you seeing here, Minni Trump? Elon Musk was
Speaker 2: very excited.
Speaker 1: He was online late into the night and he said
Speaker 1: he didn't want the Democrats to pass the CR. By
Speaker 1: the way, the CR cooked up by Mike Johnson, a.
Speaker 2: Republican House speaker installed by one Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1: All reasons why President Musk's newfound government interest was a
Speaker 1: bit strange, because he's a Republican cr put together by
Speaker 1: a Republican house that needed Democratic votes. Anyway, he was
Speaker 1: quite mad. He said, shut down the government. Don't open
Speaker 1: it till January twenty first, showing again he has no idea. Right,
Speaker 1: if you shut down the government, you have troops, you
Speaker 1: have people who work in the Federal air.
Speaker 3: The TSA at Christmas time when people fly.
Speaker 1: Right, and you also have people not able to support themselves.
Speaker 1: You have national parks closed. I mean it'll be you know, non.
Speaker 2: As center their favorite thing, or are not a central government.
Speaker 1: It'll be a real problem. So Musk got very excited.
Speaker 1: He said he was going to Prime with lots of people.
Speaker 1: He got, you know. But then it turned out that
Speaker 1: somebody must have explained to him how the government works.
Speaker 2: And now cooler heads are prevailing. But before that he
Speaker 2: wrote on X won't be fine for thirty three days
Speaker 2: without government funding.
Speaker 1: By the way, one of the things that when he
Speaker 1: cut this big str it's not much money for him,
Speaker 1: but it's still real money. One hundred and thirty something
Speaker 1: million dollars for kids with cancer.
Speaker 2: That's right before Christmas.
Speaker 1: It was allowing children with relapsed cancer to undergo treatments.
Speaker 1: Write this strip of language that would have allowed children
Speaker 1: with relapsed cancer to undergo treatments with a combination of
Speaker 1: cancer drugs and therapies. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration
Speaker 1: is only authorized to direct pediatric cancer trials.
Speaker 2: Of single drugs.
Speaker 1: The bill didn't include an extension of the program that
Speaker 1: gave financial lifelines in the form of vouchers too small
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical companies working on rare pediatric diseases.
Speaker 2: It also missed.
Speaker 1: Earlier provisions that would have allowed for kids on Medicare
Speaker 1: or chips, that is, poor children to access medically complex
Speaker 1: care across state lines. So right before Christmas, the richest
Speaker 1: man in the world wants to make sure that kids,
Speaker 1: poor children can't get cancer treatments. I am shocked, I
Speaker 1: tell you at how much this is resembling a Christmas store.
Speaker 3: I was literally about to say, I really hope with
Speaker 3: the ghost of Christmas past President future visit him and
Speaker 3: give him a really lovely holiday break.
Speaker 2: Personally unbelievable.
Speaker 3: So when he wasn't doing this though, what was he
Speaker 3: doing BALI he was cheering on the neo Nazi German Party.
Speaker 1: Yes, Elon Musk we know his political believes now and
Speaker 1: they're quite far right. So Mosk endorsed the alternative for Germany,
Speaker 1: the AfD, a far right, anti immigrant and anti Semitic
Speaker 1: party that's gaining popularity among conservative Germans. Elon said only
Speaker 1: the AfD can save Germany. The billionaire wrote on x
Speaker 1: Mosk has also endorsed other far right figures, Prime Minister
Speaker 1: George Maloney, who's visited many times. He loves Nigel Farage.
Speaker 1: He said that a fd's views they didn't sound extreme
Speaker 1: to him. He questioned if he was missing something. I
Speaker 1: adf his vehetmently anti immigration, particularly with regards to Muslims,
Speaker 1: calling for a net zero number of immigrants entering Germany
Speaker 1: in the coming years. It sounds a lot like what
Speaker 1: Elon believes. Leaders of the party have repeatedly made racist
Speaker 1: and anti semitic statements, emphasizing a need to return to
Speaker 1: a German ident toitay and pushing other white nationalist views.
Speaker 2: I wonder what happened the last time Germans did that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think this is h seem.
Speaker 1: To remember a little thing called the Holocaust.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think this is a good progression in
Speaker 3: our world, but not great. You know, we don't have
Speaker 3: a crystal ball, so we don't know where that will.
Speaker 3: But you do it, Molly. You and I did not
Speaker 3: need a crystal ball to know where this Trump administration
Speaker 3: was going. And what we're seeing here is exactly what
Speaker 3: we described in the documentary we made on Project twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you'll be shocked to know that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is doing or at least going to do a
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff he threatened to do but then
Speaker 1: changed his mind. So Donald Trump has moved to install
Speaker 1: loyalists in jobs that Congress did not intend for a
Speaker 1: new president to replace at the start of his term.
Speaker 1: That we're thinking about, like how Donald Trump is going
Speaker 1: to Christopher Ray is now going to resign. Christopher Ray,
Speaker 1: you will remember, is the head of the FBI. He
Speaker 1: will resign. Trump is hoping to get Cash Patel into
Speaker 1: that job. You'll remember that Cash Patel is pretty much
Speaker 1: has made his number one job will be to install
Speaker 1: loyalists and to hunt Trump's enemies.
Speaker 2: Allah Jay Edgar Hoover.
Speaker 3: So Friend of the Show, Tim Miller, he talked to
Speaker 3: Steve Bennon, not Friend of the Show, about Cash Patel
Speaker 3: and if he's really serious, all the things he's going
Speaker 3: to do with his enemy's list, and Mollie, what he
Speaker 3: said does not make me feel good.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the one thing I will say is
Speaker 1: that what Steve Bannon does is he tries to make
Speaker 1: you scared. So just again, none of this is good.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying, like, these people want you to
Speaker 1: be scared. So but he did say that said he
Speaker 1: said Tim Miller Cash didn't even try to hide the football.
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon didn't try. Bannon asserted, speaking in the third
Speaker 1: person as one does after speaking to America Fest, a
Speaker 1: yearly gathering of MAGA diehards hosted by Turning Point USA.
Speaker 1: He made a fucking wow, that's very nice movie called
Speaker 1: Government Gangsters, and the first guy is Mayor Garland, Okay,
Speaker 1: and Lisa Monico's in there. Who in the nation doesn't
Speaker 1: know we're trying to make these people famous. So no,
Speaker 1: first of all, it has to happen, and number two,
Speaker 1: it's going to happen.
Speaker 4: Look good stuff.
Speaker 1: It's bad, But I also would say, you know, these
Speaker 1: guys really want you to be scared, So the most
Speaker 1: important thing you can do is be brave. Harry Littman
Speaker 1: is a former US attorney and the host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Talking Feds.
Speaker 5: Okay, here we are with another Molly mashup where she
Speaker 5: talked politics, I talk news and we try to figure
Speaker 5: it out together. This is like maybe half a dozen
Speaker 5: or something, but our first since November fifth. I think
Speaker 5: so kind of gruesome when a lot of stuff to
Speaker 5: talk about.
Speaker 1: How are you, Molly, I'm good, you know, just another
Speaker 1: in almost Trump's America. Actually would love you to talk
Speaker 1: about this. So Trump World has a bunch of executive
Speaker 1: orders all lined up, and we don't exactly know the
Speaker 1: structure of them, but we know that there are going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of them, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them are going to focus on immigration, and probably a
Speaker 1: lot of them are going to focus on these kind
Speaker 1: of I want to say, federal government smashing, you know,
Speaker 1: kinds of things like maybe he doesn't take apart the
Speaker 1: Department of Education like he says he wants to.
Speaker 2: So I'm wondering if you could talk to us.
Speaker 1: About the sort of legality of executive orders and what
Speaker 1: can happen and what can happen in them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, first, you're totally right. My sense is a
Speaker 5: whole part of the workshop of Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: Maybe like third subterranean is these executive orders. The law
Speaker 5: on it, MALLI is they really only control what the
Speaker 5: executive branch does. But the executive branch at like the
Speaker 5: federal government, has it hooks in everything, so you can
Speaker 5: really influence quite a bit, even if you're just giving
Speaker 5: commands to the executive branch. Now, the thing that's going
Speaker 5: to be easiest, like twelve oh one on the twentieth,
Speaker 5: there's going to be all these executive orders rescinding Biden
Speaker 5: executive orders, and those there's really going to be very
Speaker 5: little way to challenge that.
Speaker 2: Would be things like stay in Mexico, right.
Speaker 5: Well, so that those when once we get to immigration, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think there's there's you know, reproductive freedom, but also
Speaker 5: you know, public lands and really all kinds of shits.
Speaker 5: But there are going to be others that will, like
Speaker 5: you know, just as they're gearing up on executive orders,
Speaker 5: that people will be gearing up to sue and the
Speaker 5: and the real question is going to be whether they're
Speaker 5: divesting rights that third parties have. And you know, there's
Speaker 5: a there's a whole complicated stewol of law about when
Speaker 5: executive orders can be challenged. But Basically, the easiest time
Speaker 5: is to just order the you know, federal employees, here's
Speaker 5: my executive order. Everyone wears a tie, who works for
Speaker 5: the executive brand, not much to do about that, but
Speaker 5: the executive order. Everyone who contracts with you know, land
Speaker 5: and are certain climate change stuff or whatever has to
Speaker 5: have these kinds of procedures. Now, there's gonna be lawsuits
Speaker 5: in general. There's gonna be you know, dozens and dozens
Speaker 5: of lawsuits sort of from day one. But that's the
Speaker 5: basic distinction. Anything big and nasty they want to do.
Speaker 5: If you want to talk about abortion or immigration and
Speaker 5: the like, he won't be able to do. This is
Speaker 5: a gross generalization, but it's larsi true. Just just by
Speaker 5: a stroke of the pen, then the litigation will come right.
Speaker 1: For example, when it comes to executive orders that talk
Speaker 1: about deportation, I mean from churches, from schools, from hospitals.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that legislators can do or can the
Speaker 1: courts that the courts can stop them?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I'm first thing about the courts and the
Speaker 5: answer is yes, And that's going to be the battle
Speaker 5: is going to be really joined to two levels. Level
Speaker 5: one is going to be the people themselves, and I
Speaker 5: think you probably know there's a shadow army, really an army.
Speaker 5: It's impressive of litigators, including you know, big shot pro
Speaker 5: bona types lining up to represent people who they try
Speaker 5: to deport. And that's a very good example of something
Speaker 5: that an executive order can't just do away with. They
Speaker 5: have vested rights and there's a whole system, and the
Speaker 5: President doesn't just declare it null and voiding. That's the
Speaker 5: authority there comes from Congress. And then the other level
Speaker 5: is going to be state authorities. There's going to be
Speaker 5: Blue states especially who say you can't screw with me
Speaker 5: on that we have. These are our citizens. When you
Speaker 5: do this, it's going to really affect our economy. We
Speaker 5: have standing to challenge it, and there's going to be
Speaker 5: big court battles. Now you know something like this, it
Speaker 5: is probably going to work its way up to the
Speaker 5: US Supreme Court, and you always hold your breath there.
Speaker 5: But it's not going to be the you know, just
Speaker 5: unilateral action by court. There's you know, states have a stake,
Speaker 5: a real state and also the potential deportees themselves. And
Speaker 5: that's leaving aside, what what can states do to gear
Speaker 5: up actually legislation that could be a really big battle.
Speaker 5: You've seen that the Trump guys the borders are says
Speaker 5: that if anyone tries to harbor immigrants, we may come
Speaker 5: after them criminally under federal law. It's going to be
Speaker 5: ugly civil war reconstruction shit that. You know, We're gonna
Speaker 5: kind of a shameful episode, I think in you know,
Speaker 5: the history books. All right, my turn, So since the
Speaker 5: fifth I and and not just me, but I mean
Speaker 5: people I respect, everyone really out there saying it is happening.
Speaker 5: Look at the FBI, look at the media, look at
Speaker 5: the nominees. It's happening here and now, and it does
Speaker 5: feel like it's hard to get the message through. You've
Speaker 5: made some comments about the Democratic Party and its friendliness
Speaker 5: is one way you put it, But it's certainly not
Speaker 5: you know, not being a kind of vehement opposition party,
Speaker 5: is it? The Democratic Party?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 5: The media? How do you account for the kind of
Speaker 5: lack of panic or even focus out there in the
Speaker 5: world you know we live in, but also you know,
Speaker 5: America to what seems to me and a lot of
Speaker 5: people I respect, I mean, I really think it's so
Speaker 5: to be in real time before our eyes now real
Speaker 5: assaults on norms and democratic rule.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there are two problems here.
Speaker 1: One is that Donald Trump has not taken office yet.
Speaker 1: So I'm not defending Donald Trump by any stretch imagination.
Speaker 1: But we're not there yet, right, He's not president yet.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's acting like he's president and he may
Speaker 1: shut down the government, but he's not actually president. So
Speaker 1: I think part of my thinking, at least when I
Speaker 1: think about how to talk about Donald Trump's assault on democracy,
Speaker 1: which we think is coming, and he's certainly picked.
Speaker 5: Up we think is here, but go ahead.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but he's not in office, right.
Speaker 1: He has cabinet picks that are ranging from unseerious, too scary,
Speaker 1: and some are okay, like Marco Rubio, don't agree with him,
Speaker 1: but hard to imagine a world where Marco Rubio.
Speaker 5: Grown up isn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think that until he starts doing things,
Speaker 1: the promise of doing things is not the same as
Speaker 1: doing things, and so I do think that is reasonable.
Speaker 2: I also think people are exhausted.
Speaker 1: Where I would fault Democrats if you want to get
Speaker 1: into faulting Democrats, which maybe don't.
Speaker 2: Here's what I would say.
Speaker 1: Democrats did much better down ballot than they probably deserve to,
Speaker 1: considering the anti incumbent headwinds. But I would also say
Speaker 1: they lost some races they shouldn't have lost, like that
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Center race. And also they lost all of the
Speaker 1: swingy states, so every single one, and they lost by
Speaker 1: one point five points, which is in this polarized world,
Speaker 1: quite a lot. So I would say, if you were
Speaker 1: to pause and sort of be reflective of this, there
Speaker 1: were there was clearly some problems with Joe Biden that
Speaker 1: were not addressed soon enough, and that you know, it
Speaker 1: was a maybe it was a messaging problem. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was an inability to transmit the economy that was really
Speaker 1: humming along under Biden. That maybe perhaps Democrats were not
Speaker 1: good enough at addressing the problem of inflation, explaining it
Speaker 1: in a way that was helpful for people. Whatever, there
Speaker 1: are any number of reasons. The other thing that I
Speaker 1: would say that I think is really important is Democrats
Speaker 1: said when they were running, they said that Trump is
Speaker 1: an existential threat against democracy. Now I absolutely one hundred
Speaker 1: percent believe that, But then if Donald Trump is an
Speaker 1: existential threat against American democracy, then every single thing you
Speaker 1: do should be when you're a democratic legislator should be
Speaker 1: at least well, you still have the Senate and the
Speaker 1: Presidency and a very close margin in the House, should
Speaker 1: be trying to safeguard those norms and institutions and not
Speaker 1: say worrying about the country's bald eagle and making sure
Speaker 1: that that becomes the bird.
Speaker 2: If you think that this is D Day, I don't mean.
Speaker 1: Real D Day, I mean philosophical D Day, then you
Speaker 1: should be thinking about the ways in which you can
Speaker 1: protect the norms and institutions.
Speaker 5: So they are not the follow where you think huh.
Speaker 1: I think you can't make that case unless you really
Speaker 1: believe it. And if you really believe it, then you
Speaker 1: should not be doing bald egle bills. You should be
Speaker 1: doing protecting the sort of even just the nuts break yeah,
Speaker 1: not even breaking glass, because remember you of one party
Speaker 1: that believes in norms and another that doesn't. So but
Speaker 1: at least safe, at the very minimum, safeguarding the things
Speaker 1: we hold.
Speaker 5: So, dear amen, okay, your turn.
Speaker 1: My question is you have an enemy's list. You have
Speaker 1: a very very distinct possibility that cash Fattel could end
Speaker 1: up in charge of the FBI. How much you and
Speaker 1: I were probably not on the first, second, or third list.
Speaker 1: But we're probably somewhere on a list somewhere. So what
Speaker 1: kind of protections? And I'm certainly not asking this question
Speaker 1: for myself. Protections absolutely, guy happens to if your name
Speaker 1: rhymes with Holly, should you what should you be doing?
Speaker 5: Okay, very personal question, and I'll like I myself, so
Speaker 5: I tend to agree. I've just determined to try to
Speaker 5: live my life, and I think they'd have to be
Speaker 5: digging really deep before my name would come up. That said,
Speaker 5: I have now a somewhat robust defamation policy so that
Speaker 5: if I get hit with a bogus defamation lawsuit that's
Speaker 5: really about nuisance value and making me spend a lot
Speaker 5: of money, that money will be spent out of insurance.
Speaker 5: God forbid I get hit with a legitimate one. But
Speaker 5: that's sort of on me. I'm being damned sure that
Speaker 5: my taxes are in order and going through with accountants now,
Speaker 5: because that's going to be I mean, if they're if
Speaker 5: they're really If your your name Molly comes up on
Speaker 5: the list, the question I think will be first and foremost,
Speaker 5: how to harass you, how to make you miserable, how
Speaker 5: to drag you through the mud rather than you know,
Speaker 5: the threats now against Liz Cheney contemptible on louder Molk's part,
Speaker 5: but they don't. They're not going to have anything criminal
Speaker 5: on her, and if that happened, the courts would be
Speaker 5: there to protect. But there's things they can do to really.
Speaker 2: Make your life annoying and maybe.
Speaker 5: Even a little more than annoying. So I am, in
Speaker 5: fact assuring that up I do. I feel a little
Speaker 5: bit like crap. I can't believe it's come to this,
Speaker 5: but I do a final read of everything I write,
Speaker 5: and for the lay people out there when you think
Speaker 5: about defamation, any thing about statements of opinion versus statements
Speaker 5: of fact, and I just have in my mind red
Speaker 5: light green lights sort of all the way down. But
Speaker 5: that's all I mean. I'm like, I do think we've
Speaker 5: seen this part of what your last answer was media
Speaker 5: really being you know, Colt and kind of tacking his
Speaker 5: way because of fear of what they'll do. And I,
Speaker 5: if anything, become tried to become more independent. You know,
Speaker 5: I left the La Times so I don't have to
Speaker 5: be subject to others kinds of coward or whatever, or flinching,
Speaker 5: you know, on that basis, I mainly myself. The main
Speaker 5: thing I'm doing is you know, self therapy or whatever.
Speaker 5: They just like be sured that the north Star is
Speaker 5: telling the truth and you know, trying not to be
Speaker 5: too nervous as a result. But I got the defamation policy,
Speaker 5: and then there's some things. If it really really gets ugly,
Speaker 5: you know, and you get a subpoena for something, I've
Speaker 5: got to suck it up. At that point. There really
Speaker 5: is a phalanx of people out there, I think, ready
Speaker 5: to help against people who are being here at you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but also do you know we got to be brave.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's what, George, that's it.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's right.
Speaker 2: I have a question for you.
Speaker 5: No you don't because it's my turn. You post an Instagram. Well,
Speaker 5: I'll just cut to the chase. Elon Musk, you said
Speaker 5: he's birthed the mini Trump and his name is Elon Musk.
Speaker 5: I wonder if you see it. But I wonder more
Speaker 5: this is a little less politics and more psychology. But like,
Speaker 5: what is the deal there? Is he gonna you know,
Speaker 5: regret it down the line? Will Trump turn on him?
Speaker 5: Is he you know a patriarch? They're making like Russia.
Speaker 5: What's the deal?
Speaker 1: Let's look to Trump one point oh right, So who
Speaker 1: were the people who surrounded Trump and Trump?
Speaker 2: One point zho? And why are none of them helping Trump?
Speaker 2: Two point zero?
Speaker 5: None of them are back? I guess that's right.
Speaker 1: Huh Right, Rudy is whatever and losing his rings mind.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but he's also.
Speaker 1: Losing his like you know, he had World Series rings
Speaker 1: or something, I mean his watch collection.
Speaker 2: So you got.
Speaker 1: Rudy, you got Mike Pence not the vice president this time,
Speaker 1: you know. No, I mean these people are all gone.
Speaker 1: So I think the question is and even like, yes,
Speaker 1: certainly some people like Roger Stone and Steve Bannon, but
Speaker 1: those guys are on the outside.
Speaker 2: People on the inside.
Speaker 1: Mark Meadows is gone, right, I mean, Susie Wilds is new.
Speaker 2: All these people are new. So look for now.
Speaker 1: Now there is this alliance between Trump and techros. But
Speaker 1: you could see a world right where everything Trump touches
Speaker 1: dies right where the people it tends to be, the
Speaker 1: people in his inner circle tend to go. And even
Speaker 1: like Mike Johnson, you could see Mike Johnson's having a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble now passing the cr looks like they're
Speaker 1: going to break it up. Looks like there's going to
Speaker 1: be some government funding. It's hard to imagine. I mean,
Speaker 1: Trump is not super loyal, so I'll be curious to
Speaker 1: see how this plays out. I don't know when Trump
Speaker 1: gets sick of Musk. And look, Musk has a lot
Speaker 1: of money, right, He's the richest man in the world,
Speaker 1: so Musk, you know, Trump is not going to be
Speaker 1: able to just snap his fingers and get rid of Musk.
Speaker 1: But I would not bet on that friendship in the
Speaker 1: long term.
Speaker 5: And there are some very rich people in Russia who lost.
Speaker 1: R Okay, my question for you, Joel, you left the
Speaker 1: La Times. The owner of the La Times. He's all
Speaker 1: over the place, but it seems like he's very trump curious.
Speaker 1: And why to I mean, talk about a billionaire who
Speaker 1: is just all about getting his hands and everything.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about why he left the La Times.
Speaker 5: I didn't mean to sort of take it out on
Speaker 5: him personally, and well, yes I did in a way
Speaker 5: because it was his conduct. He is trying to have
Speaker 5: his hands and everything, you know, the Lakers, et cetera.
Speaker 5: But I think that's what has given Trump. This is
Speaker 5: the bad thing. And it's also happened. I think, you know,
Speaker 5: it's part of what happened with ABC and Disney, It's
Speaker 5: part of what happened with the Washington Post. The legacy
Speaker 5: media have these big corporate holdings, and that's I think
Speaker 5: what they're scared of the boardroom at Disney or Bezos
Speaker 5: thinking about Amazon. They're not caring about the paper per se.
Speaker 5: So it did seem to me. I don't want to
Speaker 5: psychoanalyze them, but the action stand for themselves, and they've
Speaker 5: just gotten worse in the last couple of weeks. It
Speaker 5: just came out, I think yesterday, that he wants to
Speaker 5: have a hiatus on writing about Trump. And then before that,
Speaker 5: the idea was, if you write anything about Trump, you
Speaker 5: need to have something on the other side. And then
Speaker 5: before there's the notion that if you're writing about Trump,
Speaker 5: he wanted to see the draft first, and he wanted
Speaker 5: to know the name of the drafter. And look, if
Speaker 5: this were a concerted sense that like Trump has really
Speaker 5: been treated unfairly on the merits and the crazy liberal
Speaker 5: press just takes off after him, it'd be one thing,
Speaker 5: but it isn't that nobody. It's just then this goes
Speaker 5: back to our first question, mam. The stakes are high
Speaker 5: and it's a time for choosing and the notion of balance,
Speaker 5: as I put in the substack letter explaining it, there's,
Speaker 5: you know, on the one hand, on the other hand, coverage,
Speaker 5: which is what he's trying to you know, think like
Speaker 5: a is a sort of very well packaged defense. There
Speaker 5: is no other hand. The first sort of norse star
Speaker 5: responsibility of the papers have to be for just giving
Speaker 5: the facts and the truth. And we have a situation
Speaker 5: in which, time and time again, I think maybe one
Speaker 5: hundred percent of the time, when something happens, Trump is
Speaker 5: driven by a lie. And there's you know, you were
Speaker 5: you were beginning to analyze the election results. But at
Speaker 5: least part of what happened is that a lot of
Speaker 5: people got fed accounts of the news that obscured that.
Speaker 5: And so if the press isn't allowed to do that
Speaker 5: on some bogus idea of balance, we're in grievous shape again.
Speaker 5: And it goes back to what I was saying before
Speaker 5: that we are in this really difficult moment where a
Speaker 5: lot of guardrails are already being mowed down, and you
Speaker 5: really have to look through the press. I think, I mean,
Speaker 5: what I'm trying to do myself, and I think more
Speaker 5: people are doing it, including you. Is have your own
Speaker 5: kind of independent voice, so at least you know, people
Speaker 5: can just judge you on your own words, but no
Speaker 5: one can think. You know, you're being asked to shade
Speaker 5: and you're agreeing to you know, when you contrast it's
Speaker 5: happening here with say Watergate or what do you expect
Speaker 5: of the media, and you compare it with you know,
Speaker 5: what has happened in societies that have devolved toward authoritarianism
Speaker 5: like Hungary. It's it's fucking terrifying. I think, yeah, I
Speaker 5: think that's right. Speaking of weird, terrifying developments in American society,
Speaker 5: I wonder what you think about the kind of lionization
Speaker 5: of Mangione, the guy who did the cold blooded killing
Speaker 5: of the CEO of Healthcare right outside of New York
Speaker 5: Hotel America has this funny kind of history of vigilantes.
Speaker 5: Do you think it's the current political climate? What do
Speaker 5: you make of this sympathy that he's listening and especially
Speaker 5: to the extent you can break it down this way
Speaker 5: among younger voters, he really is, you know, sort of
Speaker 5: has found a number of champions among this generation X crowd.
Speaker 1: So I would say, look, this guy killed someone, right,
Speaker 1: killing someone is bad, no matter who you can kill all. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't kill people.
Speaker 2: Now. I'm not going to say, but you're.
Speaker 5: Not what's the next word? We're listening hard.
Speaker 1: You can't say killing people is bad, but but you
Speaker 1: can say the fact that this is meant by cheering
Speaker 1: is a sign.
Speaker 2: It's two things. I think.
Speaker 1: One is it's not a good sign for where American
Speaker 1: society is right now, right because you have a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are feeling very disenfranchised. People being delighted
Speaker 1: that someone has been murdered is not a sign that
Speaker 1: society in America is humming along in a good way.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That's you just it's like, you know, it's like having
Speaker 1: a fever. Right, something is wrong. Yeah, I would add that.
Speaker 1: I also think one of the things that breaks my
Speaker 1: heart is that there's a lot of populist sentiment and
Speaker 1: Democrats were unable to make the case that.
Speaker 2: They were the populist party.
Speaker 1: So you had Joe Biden pouring money into things that
Speaker 1: would lessen the inequality in this country, and because they
Speaker 1: were unable to transmit that, voters went and voted for
Speaker 1: a billionaire oligarch, exactly the opposite of what at least
Speaker 1: they seemed to want. So that is a failure on
Speaker 1: the part of the Democrats. It's also a failure on
Speaker 1: the part of the voters. It's sort of a failure everywhere.
Speaker 2: So in my mind, the heartbreaking thing about it is.
Speaker 1: You have people who are really suffering in this country,
Speaker 1: because nobody celebrates a murder unless things are really bad.
Speaker 2: So that's number one.
Speaker 1: And then I would say the worst part is they're
Speaker 1: really suffering, and so they decide to elect someone who
Speaker 1: will only increase their suffering. And in my mind, that
Speaker 1: is the tragedy of where we are right now. I
Speaker 1: wrote about this this week from Manny Fair, like, so
Speaker 1: many of Trump's policies are you know, reenacting these zombie
Speaker 1: laws right anti you know, Victorian laws about you know,
Speaker 1: anti pornography, sort of anti you know that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: or laws that are able to kind of put people
Speaker 1: who are enemies in camps or to jail them because
Speaker 1: they are representatives of the country that you're at war
Speaker 1: with because they come from those countries. So so much
Speaker 1: of this is sort of Victorian era or even you
Speaker 1: know World War One or eighteen twelve, you know the
Speaker 1: War of eighteen twelve, the Alien Enemies Act. So many
Speaker 1: of these laws are laws from another time.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Trump Ism functions in an idea of bringing America back
Speaker 1: to a time that never existed. And so I would say,
Speaker 1: in my mind, the thing that makes me the saddest
Speaker 1: is you have all these people who are hurting so bad,
Speaker 1: and the thing they did is something that's going to
Speaker 1: cause them more pain.
Speaker 5: You know, it's a really nice point. It's the time
Speaker 5: of enity toward the other, and you know the other
Speaker 5: can be many incarnations all we're out of time again.
Speaker 5: It's always such a so fun to do it. To
Speaker 5: see you in thirty days. I just want to pick
Speaker 5: up one little strand and tell everybody if you do
Speaker 5: not know Howard Fast not just his story but his writing.
Speaker 5: He was my dad's favorite, one of the first like
Speaker 5: grown up type novels I read, still really relevant in
Speaker 5: Germaine and dust them off. What's the big one?
Speaker 4: Is it Freedom Road?
Speaker 2: Freedom Road? Or Spartacus?
Speaker 5: Spartacus? Yeah, the source of the great movie. Okay, happy
Speaker 5: holidays to all and see you in January.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks Harry Thank you.
Speaker 1: Ben Terris is a reporter at the Washington Post and
Speaker 1: author of The Big Break, The Gamblers Party, Animals and
Speaker 1: True Believers trying to win in Washington while America loses
Speaker 1: its mind Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Ben.
Speaker 4: Harris, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: I was excited to.
Speaker 1: Have you because you are such a good writer, and
Speaker 1: also because this is like a piece that I'm sure
Speaker 1: you sat down to write as sort of a curiosity,
Speaker 1: but it has in my mind.
Speaker 2: It captures a larger story that I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: So this publisher slash DJ is this publisher slash DJ
Speaker 1: the most powerful man in Trump's transition.
Speaker 2: He's a prison I have literally never heard of discuss Well, that's.
Speaker 4: Partly why I wanted to write about him.
Speaker 6: You know, I love finding people that most people haven't
Speaker 6: heard of that actually have kind of like a secret
Speaker 6: amount of power.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I'm like, not even most people. I tend
Speaker 2: to know some things.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I didn't really know who he was either
Speaker 6: before I caught his name in an article somewhere about
Speaker 6: this new job that he had in Star started looking
Speaker 6: into him and was like, oh, man, Sergio Gore, I
Speaker 6: should really get to know this guy. And make sure
Speaker 6: that you know, the American people really know this guy too.
Speaker 2: So he's a DJ. How does this happen?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well he's an amateur DJ.
Speaker 6: He DJ's you know MAGA parties around mar A Lago
Speaker 6: as one does. He's very popular among kind of the
Speaker 6: MAGA set in general. And the way he got this job,
Speaker 6: and the job is the Director of Personnel for the
Speaker 6: White House, which means he will be vetting, finding, helping nominate,
Speaker 6: helping place about four thousand political appointees in the government,
Speaker 6: which is incredibly powerful, right. I mean, Trump has been
Speaker 6: talking about how he wants his government to be different
Speaker 6: this time around than last time, and this is the
Speaker 6: guy who's going to be largely responsible for that, finding
Speaker 6: people who are loyal to the president, who believe in
Speaker 6: the America First ideology, none of these kind of turncoat
Speaker 6: types that they feel like, you know, hindered their ability
Speaker 6: to do all the things they wanted the first time around.
Speaker 6: And so he has this huge job, and the way
Speaker 6: he got it's basically by being super loyal to Trump,
Speaker 6: lovedy loved by Trump's family. Working on this story was
Speaker 6: insane for me. It's usually very hard to get certain
Speaker 6: folks on the phone, and they were all calling me
Speaker 6: to sing praise of this guy, partially because of the
Speaker 6: role he's about to have, but also partially because I
Speaker 6: think they just like this guy, which you know, that's
Speaker 6: a character witness of sorts.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they like him, and now he's leading the transition.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Ultimately Donald Trump gets to decide who's in his government.
Speaker 6: But when there's four thousand jobs, you don't have time
Speaker 6: for all that. And so this guy, along with you know,
Speaker 6: Charlie Kirk and Don Junior and probably JD. Vance and others,
Speaker 6: are going through applications of thousands and thousands of people
Speaker 6: and placing them all around the government. And it's just yeah,
Speaker 6: like I said, it puts him in this very powerful
Speaker 6: position where people all over town are going to feel
Speaker 6: like they owe him favors. And you know, his resume
Speaker 6: includes things like being Matt Gates's wedding officiant. These are
Speaker 6: points you get in magaworld by being that close to
Speaker 6: the stars of the Trump world.
Speaker 2: How did he get himself into this though.
Speaker 6: Well, his backstory is he originally worked for Rand Paul.
Speaker 6: He was a communications guy.
Speaker 2: So he had some political experience.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, Yeah, he definitely did. He worked for
Speaker 6: Rand Paul, He worked for a number of House Republicans.
Speaker 6: You know the types he might expect, Michelle Bachman, Steve King,
Speaker 6: the kind of fringy people who no longer are necessarily
Speaker 6: seen as as fringy. I mean, Steve King and Michelle
Speaker 6: Bachman are gone, but their type of Republican politician is
Speaker 6: very much, you know, in vogue right now in Trump's universe.
Speaker 6: And so he has experience on the Hill. Jared Kushner
Speaker 6: told me on the phone, he called me when he
Speaker 6: was doing criminal justice reform. Sergio Gore was somebody who
Speaker 6: really helped him navigate the Hill. So he does have
Speaker 6: this understanding of Washington that not everyone in the Trump
Speaker 6: world had in twenty sixteen. So he's been kind of
Speaker 6: a helpful figure for that time.
Speaker 4: But then he really.
Speaker 6: Got into Trump's orbit by joining his fundraising operation in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty. And also, probably more importantly, he started a
Speaker 6: publishing house with Dawn Junior. Okay, and the point of
Speaker 6: this publishing house was conservative authors need a place where
Speaker 6: they can write their books without fear of being canceled
Speaker 6: by the publisher. If you are a controversial Republican and
Speaker 6: you write a book for Penguin, and then you go
Speaker 6: out and say something, It's possible they might say, we're
Speaker 6: no longer going to publish your book. Sergio Gore was
Speaker 6: not going to have that issue. People were not going
Speaker 6: to have that issue with Sergio Gore's publishing house. He'd
Speaker 6: publish any conservative, regardless of how controversial. I mean, yes,
Speaker 6: they had to pitch their books to him, and he,
Speaker 6: you know, could say no, but he wasn't going to
Speaker 6: say no, because you know, something they said was you know,
Speaker 6: if he was more like, is this book going to
Speaker 6: do well? Are you enough of a star? So he
Speaker 6: published books by like Charlie Kirk and the like, and
Speaker 6: he also published Trump's books. So Trump's picture book, I
Speaker 6: don't remember what it's called, Save America, White Firm America,
Speaker 6: something like that, you know, the one with him on
Speaker 6: the cover, bloodied up and huping his fist. That was
Speaker 6: a Sergio Gore book. And these books did really well.
Speaker 6: And you know, I think Trump likes to be associated
Speaker 6: with people who help him make money, help him become successful.
Speaker 6: He's also a Mara Lago member and would hang out
Speaker 6: with Trump late at night singing Phantom of the opera
Speaker 6: on the patio. He just kind of had Trump's ear.
Speaker 6: Trump liked being around him, and that is enough to
Speaker 6: make you, you know, kind of a star in his government.
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So he's going to staff up the Trump White House.
Speaker 4: Correct, Yeah, that's right, White House.
Speaker 6: You know, the agency is pretty much anything under Cabinet
Speaker 6: secretary that's an appointee, a political appointee, falls under his purview.
Speaker 6: And so he'll, you know, have people come in for interviews,
Speaker 6: give them tests, loyalty tests, definitely, loyalty test for sure,
Speaker 6: asking how they voted in twenty sixteen, how they voted
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty, how they voted in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 6: what they thought about January sixth. When I talked to
Speaker 6: Don Junior for the story, he told me that the
Speaker 6: most important date for people going through this process is
Speaker 6: where were you on January seventh? If you were with
Speaker 6: us on January seventh, great, If you weren't, you probably
Speaker 6: aren't going to get a job.
Speaker 1: Okay, what does that seem like it looks like to you?
Speaker 1: I mean, does this guy have other loyalties or is
Speaker 1: it really just Trump?
Speaker 6: He is loyal to the movement for sure, I mean,
Speaker 6: he's loyal to America.
Speaker 4: First.
Speaker 6: He's definitely definitely loyal to Trump. I don't know what
Speaker 6: his like pure ideology is, right, Like, he was kind
Speaker 6: of a libertarian at times. He worked for Rand Paul,
Speaker 6: and you know, Paul and Donald Trump are not exactly
Speaker 6: the same. They have plenty of differences. I think he's
Speaker 6: loyal to the people in power and the people that
Speaker 6: are loyal to him. I think he just kind of
Speaker 6: has a mutual love for people that can help, I
Speaker 6: don't know, help them move up in the world. He's
Speaker 6: got a real ambitious streak. And so there are people
Speaker 6: I talked to for the story who worked a lot
Speaker 6: alongside him and under him, who definitely did not feel
Speaker 6: as positively about him as all the kind of powerful
Speaker 6: people I talked to for the story.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, and that does sort of make sense, right,
Speaker 1: that he would have two different kinds of personalities. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if you can talk to us, like
Speaker 1: sort of pull this out a little bit and talk
Speaker 1: to us about other people in Trump's universe who we
Speaker 1: may not be totally focused on, but who may have
Speaker 1: an outsized role.
Speaker 4: It's a good question.
Speaker 6: I mean, this is one of the things I'm trying
Speaker 6: to figure out as I report. Right, we have this
Speaker 6: new government coming in with all these new figures, and
Speaker 6: it's going to be really hard to know where the
Speaker 6: actual power is. There's a lot of talk about, you know,
Speaker 6: Elon Musk and the veik Ramaswami and their so called department,
Speaker 6: and is this going to be what changes the government?
Speaker 4: It might be, right, that might end.
Speaker 6: Up being one of the most powerful government adjacent organizations,
Speaker 6: if you can call it. That really might change the
Speaker 6: shape of, you know, of the United States government. But
Speaker 6: also it might be that somebody in some of these
Speaker 6: agencies ends up with all the power, and we just
Speaker 6: don't know that yet. And I think it's going to
Speaker 6: be really hard to know who actually has power until
Speaker 6: these people take over, right, We're not going to actually
Speaker 6: be able to know who Trump is leaning on, who's
Speaker 6: getting advice from because the way that the Trump is,
Speaker 6: you know, that can shift on a day to day basis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's very changeable, which is perhaps not super surprising.
Speaker 1: I'm curious as you're starting to cover this, what you
Speaker 1: see as the differences.
Speaker 2: Between Trump one point zero and Trump two point zero.
Speaker 6: Well, for sure, they're more organized now. I mean, this
Speaker 6: process that Sergio Gore is running is an organized process.
Speaker 6: They have a whole team of people that are scouring,
Speaker 6: you know, public statements, past performances, making sure that everybody
Speaker 6: is going to be as loyal as they need them
Speaker 6: to be and as competent. And a big change too,
Speaker 6: is that more people want to be part of this government.
Speaker 6: One thing that Jared Kushner told me when I was
Speaker 6: talking to him is that in twenty sixteen they could
Speaker 6: barely give away ambassadorships. People were so kind of hesitant
Speaker 6: about Trump's presidency.
Speaker 4: They didn't really know what it meant.
Speaker 6: He was more controversial to your average Republican. Back then,
Speaker 6: people didn't really necessarily want to be a part of
Speaker 6: something that could be a complete disaster. And now Republicans
Speaker 6: are fully on board for who Donald Trump is, and
Speaker 6: these positions that once were hard to give away, now
Speaker 6: they're getting twenty applicants per position. And so that means
Speaker 6: that one of the big changes is that he really
Speaker 6: does have kind of a complete stranglehold over the Republican
Speaker 6: Party in a way that early in his presidency he
Speaker 6: didn't necessarily have, you know, over the course of that presidency,
Speaker 6: Republicans kind of bent to his will, but now he
Speaker 6: starts with that, which I don't know. It's a pretty
Speaker 6: big advantage for somebody trying to make a new government
Speaker 6: to have everybody on his side.
Speaker 1: Right, that is certainly true, and it's a big different
Speaker 1: from what the original Trump was.
Speaker 2: Like I'm wondering if you.
Speaker 1: Could talk about what you think Trump's like the ethos,
Speaker 1: if it's different, Like so there are more people willing
Speaker 1: to work in the Trump two point oh than Trump
Speaker 1: one point zero, But do you think that Trump two
Speaker 1: point zero is different in other ways? Like do you
Speaker 1: think he is more organized or less crazy, or more
Speaker 1: unbound or just sort of from what your senses?
Speaker 4: I mean, my guess, and I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't know anything that's going to happen, because you know,
Speaker 6: anyone who tries to.
Speaker 4: Make creative in this business is always wrong.
Speaker 6: And then you can always, you know, point to everything
Speaker 6: they said and been like, well, why would you trust
Speaker 6: any of these people because they're wrong about anything. So
Speaker 6: I can't say for sure, but what it seems to
Speaker 6: me is like Trump is the same he's always been,
Speaker 6: but more so and now he has the ability to
Speaker 6: maybe from the jump accomplish the things he wants to accomplish.
Speaker 6: I mean, it did take time for the government to
Speaker 6: kind of the Republicans and the government to I don't know,
Speaker 6: align themselves with him. There was a hesitancy, and now
Speaker 6: to have everybody on his side from the beginning, I
Speaker 6: don't know. I feel like he feels empowered because he is.
Speaker 6: He won again, and it just has become very clear
Speaker 6: that the Republican Party is the Maga party, and I
Speaker 6: just feel like that must make him feel like he
Speaker 6: has more control than he's ever had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is not great.
Speaker 1: One of the things I've been really surprised by is
Speaker 1: that I sort of thought that Trump's alliance with r
Speaker 1: f K Junior was more about RFK having delivered him
Speaker 1: some level of woman voter and that he wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: is attached to him.
Speaker 2: And from what I understand, Trump actually loves RFK J.
Speaker 2: Can you explain this well?
Speaker 6: I mean, for one thing, I think Trump loves anybody
Speaker 6: who helps him, right, so that's definitely going to be
Speaker 6: a big part of it. And also, I don't know,
Speaker 6: they kind of must be able to shoot the bull
Speaker 6: in a way that he can't with other people. You know,
Speaker 6: he must love being around a what does he always
Speaker 6: talk about He talks about.
Speaker 2: He likes a convert. I feel like he.
Speaker 4: Likes a convert for sure.
Speaker 6: He also likes people who are from quote central casting, right,
Speaker 6: and like what's central casting than a Kennedy? And you know,
Speaker 6: Kennedy has stories and he must love to tell and
Speaker 6: he's controversial in ways that Trump is controversial, and I
Speaker 6: think they probably can just connect on that level. I
Speaker 6: think that's got to be a big part of it.
Speaker 6: And also I think Kennedy must go into these meetings
Speaker 6: feeling empowered himself just because of who he is. He
Speaker 6: has like a sense of self and a sense of
Speaker 6: you know, he's got an ego. And Trump must kind
Speaker 6: of like hanging out with somebody who feels almost like
Speaker 6: an equal to him, because my guess is he often
Speaker 6: feels like he's, you know, the coolest guy and most
Speaker 6: impressive and most powerful person in the room, and here's
Speaker 6: somebody who can, I don't know, go toe to toe
Speaker 6: with him a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So you wrote about Joe Biden and Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: this photo op they did together.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a strange moment.
Speaker 6: If listeners don't remember, this was shortly after the election,
Speaker 6: you know, and the election was this hard fought democracy
Speaker 6: is on the line, Authoritarianism is on the rise.
Speaker 4: Watch out for fascism.
Speaker 6: You know, if you elect Donald Trump president again, you know,
Speaker 6: we could lose our country.
Speaker 4: Kind of deal.
Speaker 6: That was sort of the message and the vibe of
Speaker 6: the election. And suddenly, after the election is over and
Speaker 6: Trump has won, Joe Biden welcomes Trump into the Oval
Speaker 6: Office for a photo shoot. They shake hands, they kind
Speaker 6: of laugh with one another, and the line that really
Speaker 6: stuck out for me was Joe Biden said to Trump,
Speaker 6: welcome back. He was welcoming this man back into the
Speaker 6: White House. And there were kind of two schools of
Speaker 6: thought about this.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: There were the norms lovers who were like, this is
Speaker 6: important for Biden to welcome the rightful winner of the
Speaker 6: White House back, to show that there will be a
Speaker 6: peaceful transfer of power. This is a way to differentiate
Speaker 6: the Democrats from the Republicans. Everyone remembers what happened last time.
Speaker 6: And then there were the people who said, well, how
Speaker 6: can we trust democrats now? We if democrats they're going
Speaker 6: to say this guy is an existential threat and then
Speaker 6: just go ahead and welcome him back in this kind
Speaker 6: of friendly, cozy oval office meeting. There was a fire roaring.
Speaker 6: It just felt like a real kind of nice time.
Speaker 6: If democrats are going to do that, how can we
Speaker 6: trust them when they say somebody is an existential threat
Speaker 6: to democracy?
Speaker 4: And so I wrote about that.
Speaker 6: I tried to capture the moment and also tried to
Speaker 6: talk to a lot of folks who had differing opinions about,
Speaker 6: you know, where they came down on whether this was
Speaker 6: the right move or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, such an unbelievably unprecedented moment. Do you have any
Speaker 1: thoughts of like historical moments that feel to remain to this.
Speaker 4: That's a good question. I don't know. I'm not sure
Speaker 4: that anything quite comes to mind.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm sure there are moments of world leaders
Speaker 6: meeting with authoritarians or dictators that they've spoken about as
Speaker 6: strong men who need to be feared, and then having
Speaker 6: kind of handshake moments they get captured in photos for
Speaker 6: people to digest.
Speaker 4: Stuff like that.
Speaker 6: Probably, I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on
Speaker 6: that moment, if you had thoughts on you know, Trump
Speaker 6: and Biden meeting in the Oval Office. Did you have
Speaker 6: like an initial response to that.
Speaker 1: I mean, my thinking is you can't tell people that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is an existential throughaut to American democracy and
Speaker 1: then be like, and it's business as usual. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be too nice about this, because I do
Speaker 1: think there is a fair amount of incompetence going on here.
Speaker 1: But ultimately you cannot have one party that is interested
Speaker 1: in protecting norms and institutions and another that is just like,
Speaker 1: you know, let's do authoritarianism. So I that's where we are.
Speaker 1: I am not happy, but I also am I understand
Speaker 1: the tension there, if that makes sense.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's a real complicated moment. I
Speaker 6: should have called you for the story.
Speaker 2: Well that's all right, I'm happy to not be quoted.
Speaker 1: But I also think it is this thing where you
Speaker 1: have to wonder how much like this is. This was
Speaker 1: a moment where even a really truly gifted politician, he
Speaker 1: was faced with an opposition party like the Republicans who
Speaker 1: didn't believe in the norms.
Speaker 2: Would have a very tough time. Yeah, and that is
Speaker 2: not Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: So I think it's unrealistic to expect things that were
Speaker 1: not possible. But it's also just really jarring to see
Speaker 1: and fundamentally, like, if you're going to use that rhetoric,
Speaker 1: then you have to be prepared to back it up,
Speaker 1: which they were clearly not.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's an unenviable situation. The best way to have
Speaker 6: dealt with it would have been just to win.
Speaker 2: I guess right, And there you have it. Thank you,
Speaker 2: Ben Harris. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anytime.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 4: No moment perfectly.
Speaker 3: Jesse Cannon, Oh Molly, we're getting close to the end
Speaker 3: of the year, and I always remember that the Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: they're the one governing body that they go pretty late
Speaker 3: in the year. They they keep going. They're not just
Speaker 3: throwing Christmas parties. And that's a bad thing because when
Speaker 3: I hear about what these people do during these hearings,
Speaker 3: it makes me want to die.
Speaker 1: Just as Alito, you know him as someone who clearly
Speaker 1: watches a lot of Fox News during the oral arguments
Speaker 1: in US v. Scremetti, it's a case about something he
Speaker 1: engaged in sustained and aggressive questioning of an attorney about
Speaker 1: factual data outside the record that was never subjected to
Speaker 1: the crucible of legislation. So basically, Alita was very patronizing
Speaker 1: to the US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelager, who's quite smart,
Speaker 1: and I think it was another moment of court watchers
Speaker 1: seeing just what incredible sexist Alito is, and perhaps there
Speaker 1: are sprinklings of misogyny in there too. I know you'll
Speaker 1: be shocked to know that the guy who took away
Speaker 1: your constitutional rights over your own body may also not
Speaker 1: be a fan of women working outside the home and justice. Alito,
Speaker 1: you are once again.
Speaker 2: Our moment of fuckery.
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