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 Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says,
Speaker 1: I love working for President Trump. It's the greatest honor
Speaker 1: of a lifetime. And if President Trump chooses to nominate
Speaker 1: somebody else and asks me to go do something else,
Speaker 1: I'll say thank you very much. I love you, sir.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today. As
Speaker 1: the world churns Andy Levy stops by to talk about
Speaker 1: Maga's anger at Trump over the chaos of the Iran War.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Democracy forward Sky Perriman about how
Speaker 1: they are pushing back against the Trump agenda.
Speaker 2: But first the news, Molly, another beautiful night of seeing
Speaker 2: Democrats outperform insane numbers no one would expect against Republicans
Speaker 2: in these special elections and in the primaries.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so here's what's going on. Donald Trump is on
Speaker 1: the ticket, and even when he's not on the ticket,
Speaker 1: he's on the ticket, and so we're seeing these kind
Speaker 1: of insane like democrats are winning. The great example is
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green give a per seat in Rome, Georgia
Speaker 1: that is a seat she won. I don't know, is
Speaker 1: it twenty eight points? I mean some crazy, crazy number.
Speaker 1: Trump won Marjorie Taylor Green's district by thirty seven points.
Speaker 1: So now here we are and it's you know, not
Speaker 1: even two years later, and this is a seat now
Speaker 1: that the Democrat, I mean the Democrat lost, but not
Speaker 1: by thirty eight points, just by twelve points. So it's
Speaker 1: a real if you think about that's like a twenty
Speaker 1: point little more than twenty point shift. That's crazy. That's
Speaker 1: what we're seeing around the country. That's what we're seeing everywhere,
Speaker 1: and so that's what we're seeing in Wisconsin. So Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: this is the state Supreme Court race. Remember we had
Speaker 1: a lot of these people on this podcast because it
Speaker 1: was a very tight Wisconsin Supreme Court. You know, it's
Speaker 1: an elected judgeship, and we had been back and forth
Speaker 1: on this and Democrats were running. It was really tight.
Speaker 1: There was going to be a majority, a Republican majority.
Speaker 1: Democrats flipped it, and now it's about to be a
Speaker 1: Democratic majority. And this is a state, Wisconsin, that is
Speaker 1: really one of the most sort of evenly split states.
Speaker 1: And if you think about it, it's like the governor
Speaker 1: is a guy Tony Ivers, who is just a sort
Speaker 1: of really nondescript He's a Democrat, but you might not know,
Speaker 1: you know, he's a very sort of nondescript white guy
Speaker 1: and he barely won. Realize, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: really like if you're if the voters of Wisconsin are
Speaker 1: saying this, then the voters of Texas and California and
Speaker 1: this is the Canarian the coal mine. So this is
Speaker 1: what we're seeing and we're going to see more of this,
Speaker 1: and good because Donald Trump is a complete lunatic and
Speaker 1: no one is running a check on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, a thing that you really pointed
Speaker 3: out well was how much in the midterms last time
Speaker 3: to remind people that people said that like these three
Speaker 3: point or four point spreads are not worth sinking our
Speaker 3: money into, and people didn't donate to these candidates and
Speaker 3: then they'd lose by a point because of all the
Speaker 3: voter enthusiasm, and we could have not had Senator Ron
Speaker 3: Johnson was something you pointed out that was really astute
Speaker 3: if we had just not felt like the cook PVI
Speaker 3: is what it was in the midterms and things like that,
Speaker 3: and we got to see right now that there is huge,
Speaker 3: huge possibilities to flip a lot of these seats.
Speaker 4: So we really really got to go.
Speaker 1: In huge and Mandela Barnes. Let me tell you about
Speaker 1: Mandela Barnes, who was running a Wisconsin for that senate seed.
Speaker 1: I was told by even very smart white guys that
Speaker 1: was too much to hope that Wisconsin would not elect
Speaker 1: a black senator. FYI he lost by like one point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm so small.
Speaker 1: Run and on just borned money into that race.
Speaker 4: Important money into junk polls.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, And so you know, the Democrats abandoned Mandela Barns.
Speaker 1: That would have been a really easy pickup. It's such
Speaker 1: a good example of like why it's what Mandilipman says,
Speaker 1: you have to run everywhere, and especially in a landscape
Speaker 1: like this where Republicans are getting significant headwinds, and it
Speaker 1: just is just a moment where Democrats need to run
Speaker 1: at every seat because the thing is like we all
Speaker 1: know there will be a time, and I know it
Speaker 1: feels like it's not true. Okay, I'm gonna tell a
Speaker 1: story here. So last night I went to a dinner
Speaker 1: with people who are working on safeguarding democracy, and there's
Speaker 1: lawyers and judges and all sorts of things. And the
Speaker 1: most important thing is, first of all, the elections are
Speaker 1: not run by the federal government. They are decentralized. So
Speaker 1: everyone needs to stop thinking they're going to cancel the elections.
Speaker 1: There is no there. They cannot do that. Okay, will
Speaker 1: Donald Trump try to do a lot of who we undoubtedly,
Speaker 1: but we all need to be sane and not panic
Speaker 1: until it's time to panic, because if everyone is at
Speaker 1: eleven right now, then when we really need to be
Speaker 1: at eleven, we're going to miss it. And so what
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you is there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people trying to keep your elections safe and secure.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of lawyers and a lot of
Speaker 1: democracy watchers, and a lot of people focused on making
Speaker 1: sure that your vote is counted, that it is free
Speaker 1: and fair. So we all have to do our part
Speaker 1: by knowing that we're going to have free and fair
Speaker 1: elections and just making sure that we show up and
Speaker 1: we register voters and we do all of these important
Speaker 1: democratic works. And I really there are some people who
Speaker 1: are resistance heroes who are saying things like Trump's going
Speaker 1: to cancel the election, and you need to tell those
Speaker 1: people no, because it is voter suppression to six months
Speaker 1: before the election believe that Donald Trump has a power
Speaker 1: to unilaterally cancel the elections.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we need people realizing we got to get out
Speaker 3: on the streets and not fearing the miasma of that
Speaker 3: there might be doom coming. These voices who are saying
Speaker 3: that's got to really knock this off because conjecture right.
Speaker 1: And also just remember the people who are saying that
Speaker 1: are incentivized for you to be scared to get clicks.
Speaker 4: Okay, Molly, that is very important. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: So pap body is going to try to dodge talking
Speaker 3: about Epstein in front of Congress. Congress is saying fuck off.
Speaker 3: Nancy Mace Everyone's faith.
Speaker 1: You may know her as a complete lunative. Again, we
Speaker 1: have these moments in this podcast in America politics, at
Speaker 1: this moment where a Nancy Mays or a Thomas Massey
Speaker 1: or a Alex Jones, this is the case, maybe might
Speaker 1: be saying the right things, might be saying things we
Speaker 1: agree with, but we can still know that they are
Speaker 1: complete lunatics. That said, Nancy Mays wrote conna subpoena bondi
Speaker 1: or they wrote a letter to Bondi saying she still
Speaker 1: has to testify. Todd Bland said, no, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: And this goes back to what we were just saying
Speaker 1: before about elections. All of this happens if people make
Speaker 1: it happen. BONDI will testify if she's forced to testify, right,
Speaker 1: like Christy Noam was the Homeland Security Secretary until she wasn't.
Speaker 1: So everyone needs to push really hard and make sure
Speaker 1: things happen the way they're supposed to and the way
Speaker 1: they're legally supposed to. I mean, Rocanna has been really interesting.
Speaker 1: It has been a really interesting voice in all of
Speaker 1: this because what he's doing and again, and I think
Speaker 1: the model is Robert Garcia, but what they're doing is
Speaker 1: that they are just not being polite. They are just
Speaker 1: pushing and pushing and pushing. I want to add something else.
Speaker 1: We have eighty I think it's even more than members
Speaker 1: of Congress that are now pro impeachment of Trump. Again,
Speaker 1: now remember Democrats don't control the House, but we have
Speaker 1: like about eighty Democrats who are now pro impeachment and
Speaker 1: have signed on to an impeachment thing. And this is
Speaker 1: AOC and Maxwell Frost and Robert Garcia and Sarah McBride
Speaker 1: and Rashida Talib and Rocanna. So here I want to
Speaker 1: talk about this because it's important. Nancy Pelosi is the
Speaker 1: person driving this, or at least is the person getting
Speaker 1: credit for driving it. So it's more than fifty House Democrats.
Speaker 1: I think it's at sixty now Marquy Ron Wyden are
Speaker 1: to senators who've also followed along with that. Why this
Speaker 1: is smart. Nancy Pelosi is almost done serving in Congress,
Speaker 1: so she's doing something here where this is good for
Speaker 1: her because she then becomes a hero to the base,
Speaker 1: doesn't need to run for reelection, doesn't have to make
Speaker 1: deals with Republicans. Now, Norday leader Hakim can pretend he
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about it. Maybe he didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about it, but it's just a very smart way to
Speaker 1: do it. Look, is Donald Trump going to get impeached?
Speaker 1: Not until Democrats flipped the House. But yesterday was an
Speaker 1: insane day. And if ever there were a moment that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump should be impeached, that America really knew they
Speaker 1: were being run by a mad king, it was yes
Speaker 1: Andy Levy is the host of As the World churns
Speaker 1: Andy Andy Well I have been saying this for a while,
Speaker 1: but I think yesterday was or yesterday, whatever day it is,
Speaker 1: it's we are recording this on Wednesday and Tuesday. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's threatened to base basically genocide, I mean, not really genocide,
Speaker 1: just sort of level an entire entree because not entirely
Speaker 1: clear why. And so he in the morning I went
Speaker 1: to do Morning Joe, and we're there and like, looking
Speaker 1: at this tweet, that's like, you know, I might just
Speaker 1: just wipe this civilization from the face of the earth,
Speaker 1: because I can thank you for your attention to this matter,
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump. What I didn't know is that I
Speaker 1: actually think that that was a day. It was like
Speaker 1: the day that Donald Trump said, like we put the
Speaker 1: light inside the body and it kills the COVID. Remember that,
Speaker 1: Like it was like one of those days where everyone went, oh, right,
Speaker 1: he's nuts.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I thought, that's right.
Speaker 6: I mean, for the for the people who somehow, you know,
Speaker 6: I don't know, ten years into this shit, haven't remembered
Speaker 6: that or figured it out yet. But you know, you said,
Speaker 6: you're you aren't really sure why he said that. I
Speaker 6: think I'm pretty sure why he said that.
Speaker 5: Because we're losing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, and that's what you do when you're losing,
Speaker 6: particularly if you're losing and you have nuclear weapons, you.
Speaker 5: Say stuff like that if you're a psychopath. On top
Speaker 5: of all that.
Speaker 1: And what happened almost immediately was we saw so Tucker
Speaker 1: as soon as Donald Trump launched this thing. And again,
Speaker 1: no one has to hand it to Tucker, right, No
Speaker 1: one has to hand it to Techer. You knew him
Speaker 1: and his anti war stuff is very wrapped up in
Speaker 1: anti Semitism, anti Israel, anti this, anti that. So no
Speaker 1: one is handing it to Tucker Callson. But he has
Speaker 1: been staunchly anti Iran Moore, maybe because he's anti war,
Speaker 1: maybe because he's anti Semitic, maybe both. Yesterday we saw
Speaker 1: Alex Jones driving in his car, I don't know why
Speaker 1: he couldn't pull over, saying we need to do the
Speaker 1: twenty fifth Amendment, which of course means getting rid of
Speaker 1: the president. These are two of the people who made
Speaker 1: him the nominee in twenty sixteen. Right, it is hard
Speaker 1: to think of two people who are more responsible for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump winning the nomination than Alex Jones. Remember, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump went on Alex's Jones's show when he was the
Speaker 1: very fringiest French and Tucker Carlson. Remember Donald Trump went
Speaker 1: on Tucker Carlson Show when he was the very most
Speaker 1: the most sort of mainstreamy MAGA you know Fox News host.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think the reason Alex Jones couldn't pull over
Speaker 6: is he was afraid his car was going to get
Speaker 6: repossessed if they caught up to him. But yes, I
Speaker 6: know a lot of the MAGA people who are public
Speaker 6: facing are not happy with the Iran war, you.
Speaker 5: Know, the cheerleaders that Fox Aside.
Speaker 6: My only feeling is I don't know if that translates
Speaker 6: to the rank and file MAGA. The polling I've seen
Speaker 6: shows that they're okay with the Iran war, and because
Speaker 6: they're not as much ideological as they are just you know,
Speaker 6: in a cult, in a cult, so if Trump does it,
Speaker 6: it must be right. But okay, putting that aside, yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean, we are definitely seeing.
Speaker 5: A huge split.
Speaker 6: Is I guess would be putting it maybe kindly, but
Speaker 6: I think accurately.
Speaker 1: And yesterday Tuesday, there was this one voice that was
Speaker 1: still defending him or had I mean, besides Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 1: who has gotten creamed partially probably because of anti Semitism,
Speaker 1: but also because he's staunchly pro Israel and thus staunchly
Speaker 1: pro this war, and his numbers are just going down.
Speaker 1: He's hemorrhaging viewers. MAGA turns out, Maga does not have
Speaker 1: a huge appetite for whatever that is. But one of
Speaker 1: his last defenders was Megan Kelly, and Jesse is going
Speaker 1: to play us a clip of where Megan Kelly is
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 8: As you can imagine, that post did not go overwell
Speaker 8: with the Iraniance or with many Americans. I mean, I
Speaker 8: don't know about you, but I am sick of this shit.
Speaker 8: I'm just I'm sick of it.
Speaker 7: Can't he just.
Speaker 9: Behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly like the
Speaker 9: President three and eight. Yes, shut up, fucking shut up
Speaker 9: about that shit. You don't threaten to wipe out an
Speaker 9: entire civilization. We're talking about civilians, just casually in a
Speaker 9: social media post go Andy as someone who knows her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, just the idea.
Speaker 6: This isn't even like, you know, the sort of famous.
Speaker 6: I can't believe the leopard date my face, the leopard
Speaker 6: ate her face like she's she was the original, you know,
Speaker 6: blood coming out of her or wherever, and she's sitting
Speaker 6: there going, why is why can't he not be like this?
Speaker 6: You know, eleven years later, we're twelve whatever, however many
Speaker 6: years ago that was. I mean, that's just insane. But
Speaker 6: I will say this, Megan Kelly does have her finger
Speaker 6: on the pulse of the assholes. And you know, if
Speaker 6: she's out there saying this, because look, I don't believe
Speaker 6: that Megan Kelly really has a set of core beliefs
Speaker 6: at this point. So if she's out there saying this stuff,
Speaker 6: she sees which way the winds are blowing, and she's
Speaker 6: very good at that. You know you can't deny that.
Speaker 6: So you know, again, I think the magabase is fine
Speaker 6: with Iran. The Magabase is never gonna not be fine
Speaker 6: with Trump. It's the people who aren't the Magabase but
Speaker 6: who voted for Trump. Those are the ones you gotta
Speaker 6: get see.
Speaker 1: And I disagree, okay, And I'm gonna push back. And
Speaker 1: now I could be wrong, wrong, Molly. I know you're
Speaker 1: gonna be shocked to hear this, but I had been
Speaker 1: wrong before. So remember, part of what happened with Trump
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty was that he lost He lost the Indies, right,
Speaker 1: the normal people, the people who are like I don't
Speaker 1: like the tweets, I don't like the racism, but I
Speaker 1: really want a tax ted. So I'm going to whle
Speaker 1: my nose at both him. This is not that, this
Speaker 1: is the pure Maga. This is the royers. This is
Speaker 1: the young men who like racism. And here's my take, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that Tucker and Alex Jones and Megan Kelly
Speaker 1: are not reflecting their own views. They're reflecting the views
Speaker 1: of their people. They're on the Internet seeing their people,
Speaker 1: and their people are saying like, we don't We're not
Speaker 1: into this, and so this about face, it's a real
Speaker 1: split in the core of maga that you really have
Speaker 1: because remember, like if you think about it, if you
Speaker 1: look at Ben Shapiro and you see that he is
Speaker 1: just hemorrhaging viewers, listeners, whatever it is he has. So
Speaker 1: part of that can could be anti Semitism for sure,
Speaker 1: because he's very but some of that has to be
Speaker 1: anti war stuff, right because he has been a just
Speaker 1: a continual voice for the war, and so these people
Speaker 1: are learning that lesson. I mean, I'm reminded of like
Speaker 1: when we saw I mean, we've seen phenomenons like this
Speaker 1: where YouTubers are sort of on you know, their popularity
Speaker 1: hinges on what they go along with or don't. I
Speaker 1: think that this is I think this may actually really
Speaker 1: be a canary in the coolen.
Speaker 5: A couple of things. One, it's not that I completely
Speaker 5: disagree with you.
Speaker 6: I was saying, more like, just from an electoral perspective, right,
Speaker 6: the pure MAGA people you know, are probably voting for
Speaker 6: jd Vance or whoever in twenty eight But it's the
Speaker 6: not pure MAGA people who are looking around now and saying,
Speaker 6: you know, it's the ones who, for instance, keep saying,
Speaker 6: this is not what I voted for, even though it's
Speaker 6: what they voted for.
Speaker 1: Right right.
Speaker 6: Fun you know, you go get a poll, do you
Speaker 6: oppose or support the war with Iran? Maga Republicans support
Speaker 6: it seventy seven percent to.
Speaker 1: Forteen right true. Okay, So that's where.
Speaker 6: I would push back on. I'm saying that it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, MAGA as a block is not happy. They
Speaker 6: may not be happy with how it's being prosecuted, but
Speaker 6: they're not opposed to the war because Donald Trump is
Speaker 6: doing it and you know, in Trump we trust. So
Speaker 6: that's my only that that that's my pushback on that there. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but I agree with you again the forward facing MAGA
Speaker 6: people who are influential, and and the fact that seventy
Speaker 6: seven percent number doesn't have to be there forever. You know,
Speaker 6: if if the Megan Kelly's and the Tuckers and the
Speaker 6: Alex Joneses and the you know, I don't think Tim
Speaker 6: Poole is on that list.
Speaker 1: Is timpole still.
Speaker 5: I think I think he's basically going around saying we won.
Speaker 3: What I would say is he's hitely skeptical occasionally, but
Speaker 3: mostly in on mister Trump's plague three D trust exactly.
Speaker 3: We don't want my interjection and so feel free to
Speaker 3: do your analysis.
Speaker 1: Why can't we have your interjection? And are you not
Speaker 1: supposed to exist? I mean people know you.
Speaker 5: Exist, Jesse as the Wizard of Oz. They're not happy
Speaker 5: about it, but they know, no, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, they know they know the guy that's right every time.
Speaker 1: But yes, I do think it's an impossible situation for
Speaker 1: them because they have to you know, they got where
Speaker 1: they are defending the indefensible right, but now the indefensible
Speaker 1: doesn't track with America first right.
Speaker 6: I do think again, not to hand it to him
Speaker 6: in the slightest bit. I do think Tucker Carson is
Speaker 6: legitimately quote unquote anti war, and I do think that
Speaker 6: he would be if even if we were winning this war,
Speaker 6: I think he would be opposed to it. I don't
Speaker 6: feel that way about Megan Kelly or or some of
Speaker 6: the other people that you've mentioned.
Speaker 5: By the way, is this the fastests we've ever lost
Speaker 5: a war in our history?
Speaker 1: Well, it was always this war was always like we're
Speaker 1: going to war and you said why and they said
Speaker 1: because nukes. Well do they have nukes? No? Could Could
Speaker 1: they have nukes? Maybe in two weeks? Maybe not, Maybe
Speaker 1: they have them, maybe they're a week away. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, there was like literally no effort to sell
Speaker 1: the war, even w Right, even Wa even his dad,
Speaker 1: Like there was a sort of like it was, you
Speaker 1: know what, there's a threat, there's this you know. I
Speaker 1: mean I remember after nine to eleven when they were like,
Speaker 1: we're going to go into Afghanistan, and I was like, Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: but none of the hijackers come from Afghanistan. Oh, you
Speaker 1: can't go into Saudi Arabias, so we're gonna go.
Speaker 5: Into Afghanistan, right, But it didn't.
Speaker 1: Make any sense. But at least there was you know,
Speaker 1: it was nine to eleven. We were all super traumatized,
Speaker 1: you know, at least right exactly, we at least they
Speaker 1: were trying to make the But it was I mean,
Speaker 1: it still was a moment where I was like, but Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: why Afghanist? Like it didn't make any sense.
Speaker 6: But but yeah, like I didn't even hear about yellow
Speaker 6: Cake this time.
Speaker 1: Around, all right, yellow Cake? Yeah, well there was definitely
Speaker 1: last time that was it felt like a real threat.
Speaker 1: This just feels like he's trying to descrive from the
Speaker 1: Epstein Files. And it really does feel at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, like, you know, people say that's such
Speaker 1: a that's such a like that. The dad says sort
Speaker 1: of not, you know, it's a it's a simplistic take
Speaker 1: on Donald Trump, but it may actually be true.
Speaker 5: I'm sort of it in the simplistic take group.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it might be part of it. I'm not saying
Speaker 6: it's not part of it. I don't think it's the
Speaker 6: whole reason. I don't think he's sitting there going I
Speaker 6: got to do something to distract from the Epstein files.
Speaker 4: I'm going to bomb you around.
Speaker 6: It's something he wanted to do, and and to me,
Speaker 6: he did it because he was convinced that there would
Speaker 6: be financial gain from it. Yeah, and you know, and
Speaker 6: it's turning out to be, of course, exactly the opposite.
Speaker 6: Although he is claiming that we are somehow going to
Speaker 6: make money off tolls.
Speaker 5: In the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaker 6: I really don't think that's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: But you know, my favorite part of the whole thing
Speaker 1: is that he's like, straights were clear, right, we went
Speaker 1: to war, straits are not clear. Donald Trump's like, we're
Speaker 1: going to make money on this.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, look, it's you know, you can sit
Speaker 6: there and try to parse his language and try to
Speaker 6: analyze everything he says, and then you just at a
Speaker 6: certain point you have to say, why am I doing this?
Speaker 6: Why am I pretending that he actually means something intelligent,
Speaker 6: you know, and and and rational?
Speaker 5: Yeah, because he doesn't.
Speaker 6: And and like you said before, it's like it's you know,
Speaker 6: to stop with the three dimensional chess bullshit. I mean,
Speaker 6: I think a lot of people have stopped with that
Speaker 6: at this point, but there are still some people out
Speaker 6: there who should know better, who keep saying that he's
Speaker 6: doing this. Because it's like, no, he's just he's just
Speaker 6: not right in the head. And on top of which
Speaker 6: he's you know, sundowning. So you put that together and
Speaker 6: you end up with this.
Speaker 1: It is interesting though to you know, like oil is
Speaker 1: so expensive and now he's you know, he clearly tacoed.
Speaker 1: But I mean, we shouldn't even say tacoed because like
Speaker 1: it was another civilization that he threatened to annihilight for
Speaker 1: seemingly no reason. So is it a taco or is
Speaker 1: it just like a came to your senses. But oil
Speaker 1: and gas really expensive, like really really expensive. And you
Speaker 1: know there's this Goldman Sax prophecy of oil at two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a barrel, like there is not this could
Speaker 1: keep going. And while this is happening, Donald Trump canceling
Speaker 1: wind solar clean energy that could be quite useful at
Speaker 1: this moment.
Speaker 6: Yeah, again, but it will make money for his you know,
Speaker 6: buddies in the oil industry and stuff like that. And
Speaker 6: again I do think saying distraction from the Epstein files again,
Speaker 6: there's there's some truth to that, but not not as
Speaker 6: a whole. As a whole, it's how can I help
Speaker 6: me and my buddies get richer?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I really think beyond everything else. That is the
Speaker 6: sort of motivation, you know, whatever motivation he has left
Speaker 6: in his little right when he gets up in the
Speaker 6: morning is kleptocratic. It's how can I enrich myself? How
Speaker 6: can I enrich you know, my friends? And that's what,
Speaker 6: in my opinion, ultimately, this was all about that because
Speaker 6: for some reason, again not a rational or logical reason,
Speaker 6: he thought that what he's doing now would make him richer,
Speaker 6: would make Jared richer, and et cetera.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. And let me tell you
Speaker 1: was someday we're going to find out about all the
Speaker 1: shit that's going on behind the scenes that's so illegal
Speaker 1: and sketchy.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I mean we already know enough to know
Speaker 6: that pretty much every single person in this administration in
Speaker 6: a in a just insane world would not be walking
Speaker 6: around free in the future. And like you said, that's
Speaker 6: just the stuff we know, the daily shit that the
Speaker 6: stuff that you know doesn't reach the level of billions
Speaker 6: of dollars of graft and corruption, the stuff that's only
Speaker 6: like you know, a half million a year, a couple
Speaker 6: of million there that we don't I mean, that's got
Speaker 6: to be just off the charts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean a fair number of people will
Speaker 1: go to jail events. Yeah, eventually, Andy Levy.
Speaker 5: Molly John Fast, will you come back?
Speaker 1: Sky Perriman is the founder of Democracy Forward. Welcome, Welcome, Sky,
Speaker 1: so good to be here. Let's talk about where we
Speaker 1: are right now with the midterms. We know that voting
Speaker 1: is decentralized in this country, so we know that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has no power over the midterms. But I'd love
Speaker 1: you to talk us through why we're going to have safe,
Speaker 1: free and fair midterms.
Speaker 10: We're going to have safe, free and fair midterms because
Speaker 10: lawyers are going to do everything they can in court
Speaker 10: to prevent any type of subversion of voting or the
Speaker 10: midterm elections. And because people in this country like the
Speaker 10: fact that we live in a democracy, or we are
Speaker 10: supposed to be living in a democracy, and that people
Speaker 10: in this country take the right to vote very seriously.
Speaker 10: People are energized. People of all political ideologies are energized.
Speaker 10: They're upset about what they're seeing happen in their communities.
Speaker 10: And people are going to show up, and people are
Speaker 10: going to show up in numbers, and they're going the
Speaker 10: results that the American people is going to show just
Speaker 10: like what you saw in Minneapolis, you are going to
Speaker 10: see people show up and refuse to allow this government
Speaker 10: to take away something that is so sacred to all
Speaker 10: of us, which is our right to vote in our
Speaker 10: community and our humanity with each other. Now, that sounds good,
Speaker 10: and that's what we're going to do, but there's going
Speaker 10: to be a lot of work to make that happen.
Speaker 10: And I don't want to minimize the work that we
Speaker 10: have to do now all the way through the midterms,
Speaker 10: beyond the midterms, to make sure these votes are counted
Speaker 10: and the election certified and a new Congress is fully
Speaker 10: able to sit and to come into being.
Speaker 7: That's going to be a lot of work.
Speaker 10: I'm confident that the American people are up to the task,
Speaker 10: and I'm confident that the lawyers are up to the task.
Speaker 1: What does that run ups look like?
Speaker 10: Well, right now people are asking is Donald Trump trying
Speaker 10: to will he try to undermine the midterms? And the
Speaker 10: answer is he is already doing that. So we know
Speaker 10: a few things. We know that the Department of Justice
Speaker 10: has been trying to get voter roll data and voter
Speaker 10: roles from states, that every single court that has looked
Speaker 10: at these issues has that there is no basis for
Speaker 10: the Department of Justice to be demanding these voter rules.
Speaker 10: So that's playing out in the courts, and the courts
Speaker 10: are doing the right thing and the lawyers are doing
Speaker 10: the right thing by bringing those cases. In one of
Speaker 10: our cases at Democracy Forward, the government has had to
Speaker 10: reveal in public dockets it has had to admit that
Speaker 10: DOSE Team members last year had access to sensitive social
Speaker 10: security data and that a DOSE Team members signed a
Speaker 10: voter data agreement with a third party organization that has
Speaker 10: been involved in questioning state election results.
Speaker 7: So that was happening as early it's last year.
Speaker 1: Is that cyber Ninjas.
Speaker 10: The government has not yet said what group it is,
Speaker 10: but we are demanding discovery. We file a separate lawsuit
Speaker 10: to demand more information. We're investigating this through all the
Speaker 10: ways we can, and we're going to get to the
Speaker 10: bottom of it, and you'll see throughout the summer you're
Speaker 10: going to see litigation and investigatory demands and a range
Speaker 10: of the tools that we have and that other groups
Speaker 10: have to really shed light on what's happening and to
Speaker 10: start challenging it.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 10: We don't have to wait until the midterms when we
Speaker 10: know many of these things are ongoing, so it's going
Speaker 10: to look like that, and then you're going to see
Speaker 10: the president do things in his fear mongering way. This
Speaker 10: week he threatened that he was going to use nuclear weapons.
Speaker 10: You're going to see him continue to try to distract people.
Speaker 10: You're going to see him continue to potentially try to
Speaker 10: deploy the National Guard to polling places. That's against the law,
Speaker 10: it would be blocked, but you may see that effort
Speaker 10: and then you'll see ICE. This is why the administration
Speaker 10: wants so much funding for ICE. They want to be
Speaker 10: able to deploy ICE and mask agents around the country
Speaker 10: to scare people, and lawyers will have to go to
Speaker 10: court to stop that. But our communities also will step forward,
Speaker 10: just like we saw in Minneapolis. Communities will step forward
Speaker 10: and be there and protect each other, engage in that
Speaker 10: mutual aid everything that we're seeing.
Speaker 7: This the best of this country come out in this crisis.
Speaker 1: So the place that this administration has really been losing
Speaker 1: is the court. Besides in like, it's just not popular
Speaker 1: what's doing, but they've really been losing the court. I
Speaker 1: would love you to explain to U US a little
Speaker 1: bit about what losing in the courts is looking like,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of what cases are losing and what
Speaker 1: delian state looks like there.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, it's really unbelievable, Mollie. You know, it's
Speaker 10: been about we've been here and doing We've been up this,
Speaker 10: you know, a year and a few months now you've
Speaker 10: seen over seven hundred federal court litigations filed. And that
Speaker 10: does not include all the immigration detention cases or all
Speaker 10: the civil service cases.
Speaker 7: It is the largest.
Speaker 10: Effort because of how the administration is operating that we've
Speaker 10: seen legally, and you're seeing the administration lose seventy to
Speaker 10: eighty percent of the time. Even with the way they
Speaker 10: try to go to the Supreme Court, they're still losing
Speaker 10: so much of the time, including before judges the President
Speaker 10: Trump himself appointed.
Speaker 7: So the texture of what this looks like now.
Speaker 10: Has taken on a new life just in the last
Speaker 10: few months where DOJ can't keep up with the amount
Speaker 10: of unlawful actions of the President's taking in the amount
Speaker 10: of lawsuits that are being filed, and so you're seeing
Speaker 10: DJ come into court and sometimes not even answer the complaints,
Speaker 10: and judges have to issue orders because DOJ doesn't even
Speaker 10: have a response does have a defense, doesn't have a
Speaker 10: response to what the president's doing. You're seeing the Department
Speaker 10: of Justice abandon appeals on big.
Speaker 7: Cases that we won.
Speaker 10: So we won a big case before I judge the
Speaker 10: President Trump him self appointed against the administration in Stephen
Speaker 10: Miller's effort in the Department of Education to stamp out
Speaker 10: racial justice and racial studies. DEI was a dear colleague letter.
Speaker 10: It was issued last year. We challenged it, won a
Speaker 10: court order. They said they were going to appeal it,
Speaker 10: took an aggressive stance. They didn't appeal it. They walked
Speaker 10: back their appeal, meaning that we've been able to preserve
Speaker 10: funding for K through twelve and higher ed on these
Speaker 10: critical issues. So you see that happening across the board.
Speaker 10: At first, we thought that would only happen in cases
Speaker 10: that maybe the White House didn't really care that much about.
Speaker 7: But we're seeing it happen on some of these big priorities.
Speaker 10: And so you're seeing that, and then you see the
Speaker 10: administration lose because of the words that the President and
Speaker 10: other administration officials use. So they make their case weaker
Speaker 10: because we'll go sue and say you're retaliating against you know,
Speaker 10: the nation's pediatricians.
Speaker 7: You don't like what they have to.
Speaker 10: Say about vaccines or about child health, you're retaliating against them.
Speaker 10: And before the Department of Justice can really make their defense,
Speaker 10: RFK Junior goes out on Twitter or True Social or
Speaker 10: x or whatever and admits he's retaliating against them.
Speaker 7: And so we see that all the time.
Speaker 10: We always say, let them talk and let them tweet,
Speaker 10: because we'll probably win in those instances.
Speaker 7: So that's looking good now.
Speaker 10: I'm not trying to minimize the harm that so many
Speaker 10: people in the country are facing, that communities are facing.
Speaker 10: Many communities have been harmed by the Supreme Court shadow docket,
Speaker 10: which has put a pause on some of the court
Speaker 10: orders that we've won in a way that's really been harmful.
Speaker 10: But by and large, the courts are protecting the American
Speaker 10: people in pretty extraordinary ways.
Speaker 1: And Bondie is out to say more.
Speaker 10: I mean, look, I think it's all the things that
Speaker 10: have been said. I mean, she obviously has a legacy
Speaker 10: of the Department of Justice that will be marked by
Speaker 10: everything from incompetence to cruelty to actually taking action against
Speaker 10: the very profession that the Department of Justice represents. Remember,
Speaker 10: they went after an unprecedented way as lawyers and law
Speaker 10: firms and have threatened judges. But I'll also say that
Speaker 10: it doesn't matter you know who the attorney general is.
Speaker 10: It's not the Pambondi.
Speaker 7: We heard that.
Speaker 10: You know, the President said, well, he was upset that
Speaker 10: Pambondy wasn't able to prosecute his enemies as aggressively as he.
Speaker 7: Had wanted to see.
Speaker 10: That's not going to happen regardless of who is the
Speaker 10: attorney general, because so much of what the administration has
Speaker 10: done is baseless and doesn't have a real legal basis.
Speaker 10: And so I do think that the administration is playing
Speaker 10: damage control right now.
Speaker 7: They're trying to distract people.
Speaker 10: They're having a real bad series of weeks because the
Speaker 10: American people aren't having it. You had eight million people
Speaker 10: in the streets at no kings this rash of legal
Speaker 10: wins that we're able to achieve right now because they're
Speaker 10: breaking down in the courts. But I also think that
Speaker 10: like the administration has a hard road ahead of it,
Speaker 10: and it doesn't have to do with who specifically the
Speaker 10: Attorney General is. It has to do with what they're
Speaker 10: trying to do with the Department of Justice, So we're
Speaker 10: watching it very carefully. Todd Blanche of course has been
Speaker 10: hand in hand with Bondi, so that's not a real
Speaker 10: market change and how the Department's going to operate.
Speaker 7: And of course many people.
Speaker 10: Thought that this departure was because of the oversight that
Speaker 10: was happening with the Epstein files, and we see that
Speaker 10: today as we're recording this, the Department of Justice has
Speaker 10: said that Pan Bondi isn't going to show up to
Speaker 10: Congress as she's required to do. So I think that
Speaker 10: there will be more to see along those lines in
Speaker 10: the coming days.
Speaker 1: What is the rationale for that that she doesn't want
Speaker 1: it or is there some like legal.
Speaker 10: Yeah, no, there's not a legal basis for it. They
Speaker 10: will want people to think, well, oh, now that she's
Speaker 10: not Attorney general, she doesn't have to come to Congress. Well,
Speaker 10: Congress makes a lot of people will come to Congress
Speaker 10: and aren't attorney general, And especially when the questions that
Speaker 10: they have is about what happened in an official position,
Speaker 10: it's absolutely the case that people need to show up
Speaker 10: and answer questions. So I believe you'll see a lot
Speaker 10: of efforts to distract and to confuse people around this,
Speaker 10: but she absolutely, you know, will need to appear, and
Speaker 10: it'll be important that our lawmakers, you know, make her
Speaker 10: and continue to push this issue.
Speaker 1: We've seen Nancy Mays and Roe Conna say that they
Speaker 1: will hold her in contempt of Congress if she does
Speaker 1: not testify. I know this from my grandfather. You've naturally
Speaker 1: be jailed for contempt of Congress. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: that Trump won't probably allow it, but or he'll try
Speaker 1: to do something crazy about it, but theoretically, at least
Speaker 1: that could happen.
Speaker 10: Right, Yeah, And I mean this is where you have
Speaker 10: to sort of look at what we've seen from this administration.
Speaker 10: So we have not yet seen the administration operate with
Speaker 10: like a level of courage or consistency. So typically what
Speaker 10: happens is they say, well, we're not going to do this,
Speaker 10: and you say, well, the law makes you do it,
Speaker 10: and we're going to enforce the law. And we've largely
Speaker 10: seen them at that point, they come up with some
Speaker 10: rhyme or reason, they go out and say a bunch
Speaker 10: of confusing things, but they actually do show up and comply. Now,
Speaker 10: I don't believe that they're lawful people. I think their
Speaker 10: lawless people. But I think that they are a people
Speaker 10: in an administration that is not impervious to public pressure,
Speaker 10: and so it'll be interesting to see how all of
Speaker 10: this plays out.
Speaker 7: But you absolutely can't.
Speaker 10: There are very direct penalties for being in contempt of Congress.
Speaker 10: It's not something that anyone would recommend you had. Steve Bannon,
Speaker 10: I think, served time because of his refusal to cooperate
Speaker 10: with the process. And we'll have to see what happens.
Speaker 10: We'll have to see what happens there. But one thing
Speaker 10: that we've wanted people to like understand here is that
Speaker 10: what we've seen is that when people push back, whether
Speaker 10: that's in the courts, whether it's Congress pushing back, whether
Speaker 10: it's people you know, showing up and using their voice
Speaker 10: and making their phone calls and getting in the streets,
Speaker 10: the administration often doesn't really know what to do and
Speaker 10: it kind of wobbles around. I mean, that's how we've
Speaker 10: been able to force them to comply with court orders.
Speaker 10: They'll go out and say we're not going to comply
Speaker 10: with the court order. They try to not comply with
Speaker 10: the court order. But then when you pull them back
Speaker 10: in and get them in the room under oath, they
Speaker 10: haven't yet, just really wanted to. You know, they make
Speaker 10: up a bunch of arguments. It's about why they think
Speaker 10: they're complying. I mean, they haven't yet. We haven't seen
Speaker 10: them take that next step. We sure might by the
Speaker 10: time this administration's over. I'm not minimizing how lawless they are,
Speaker 10: but some of this is really about the will of
Speaker 10: the people, and people and their lawmakers and the lawyers
Speaker 10: and everyone having to just keep putting them through their
Speaker 10: paces and forcing them to operate within our system of laws.
Speaker 1: So you're doing a lot of cases, and you're winning
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, But what cases do you think
Speaker 1: are not happening that you think should be happening, or
Speaker 1: what is happening that you feel is so important.
Speaker 10: So I think a lot of the cases that are
Speaker 10: happening are really important. And the challenge for us as lawyers,
Speaker 10: and the challenge for people that are able to support
Speaker 10: legal work and organizations like Democracy Forward or the ACLU
Speaker 10: or State AGS is we've got to keep them going
Speaker 10: because you know, the private bar and I was a
Speaker 10: member of private law firms for many years, but they're
Speaker 10: not stepping up to the plate right now and doing
Speaker 10: this work and so the fact that you have the
Speaker 10: largest and most successful legal effort at this point and
Speaker 10: mistration's history. This is being driven by empowered by people,
Speaker 10: and we've got to keep moving. So I think the
Speaker 10: cases we're doing are super important ones that I like
Speaker 10: to highlight. The administration's immigration agenda. I really don't like
Speaker 10: to call it an immigration agenda. It's really an autocratic
Speaker 10: power grab that they try to use immigration as the excuse.
Speaker 10: But it has gone very poorly for them overall. I mean,
Speaker 10: we're winning. There was a big headline in the La
Speaker 10: Times over the weekend about just how the rash of
Speaker 10: legal losses the administration has experienced, the retaliation cases, the
Speaker 10: presidents saying you can't say the I'm going to put
Speaker 10: them on a list, and those are all the administrations
Speaker 10: losing those. We want people to understand that so they
Speaker 10: don't feel as afraid. And then the funding case is
Speaker 10: trying to weaponize the federal government against you know, and
Speaker 10: everything from snap beneficiaries to you know, homeless housing projects.
Speaker 10: You know, we've been able to largely win a lot
Speaker 10: of those cases. I think cases that aren't happening, and
Speaker 10: it's not for a lack of trying it's for some
Speaker 10: of the weaknesses in our laws are the administration is
Speaker 10: deeply corrupt, and that government corrupt at this point, and
Speaker 10: the president's family is seeking to profit off of the presidency,
Speaker 10: and all of these things that have been regardless of
Speaker 10: you know, both political parties that have been sort of
Speaker 10: held sacred in terms of this public service. This administration
Speaker 10: doesn't get that, and they're operating with just levels and
Speaker 10: levels of corruption. We are going to bring cases, and
Speaker 10: we have brought cases to get at that. We were
Speaker 10: going to start looking at private actors that are out
Speaker 10: in the world benefiting from the president's corruption to see
Speaker 10: what levels of accountability we can see there. But when
Speaker 10: there is the next governing moment, it is going to
Speaker 10: be important for the United States to put in place
Speaker 10: more protections against broad scale government corruption. Our nation was
Speaker 10: set up for the government to actually not want corruption
Speaker 10: and to want to root out corruption. And this administration
Speaker 10: has taken away all those levers, the Inspectors General, the
Speaker 10: Office of Special Counsel. They've weakened all these levers and
Speaker 10: they've left a big gaping hole where a.
Speaker 7: Lot of corrupt activity can happen. Now. I believe a
Speaker 7: lot of that back to is criminal.
Speaker 10: I think a lot of that activity can be litigated
Speaker 10: in the civil system, but it is not easy, and
Speaker 10: we need to we need to be able to build
Speaker 10: and bring more of those.
Speaker 7: You'll see us do that in the days ahead.
Speaker 10: But we'll also need a nation that, after we get
Speaker 10: through this moment, says enough is enough, We're never going
Speaker 10: to let this happen again. That puts in place stronger
Speaker 10: guardrails there. Yeah, very very true. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 10: thank you, Sky, thanks.
Speaker 7: For having me.
Speaker 1: No moment full Jesse Cannon Smiley.
Speaker 3: A lot of us are finding this pretty disturbing. The
Speaker 3: DOJ is really up at the ANTEA now showing they're
Speaker 3: actually seriously going to go after Cassidy Hutchinson for her
Speaker 3: testimony during the January sixth trials.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but look, they are going to go after everyone, right,
Speaker 1: They're going to go after Cassidy Hutchinson. They went after
Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg, They've gone after They are just going to
Speaker 1: keep going after people. But here's the good news. It
Speaker 1: doesn't work because you cannot get juries to indict these
Speaker 1: people because this is not We're not a Banana Republic yet,
Speaker 1: and this is sort of the problem. Trump ism keeps
Speaker 1: running into is that like we have norms, we have
Speaker 1: a system which keeps our crazy president in check. I
Speaker 1: mean as much as anything. Though it doesn't totally work,
Speaker 1: but they're going to go after her. I know, you
Speaker 1: think Casey Hutchinson is a really great example because she's young,
Speaker 1: she doesn't really have money. They're really targeting her in
Speaker 1: the hopes of, you know, scaring her and getting her
Speaker 1: to feel like there's no one to protect her. It's appalling.
Speaker 1: It shows how terrible they are, but it's also really transparent,
Speaker 1: so I don't think it's going to work for them.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.