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 Texas Republican Michael McCall says, I
Speaker 1: think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States. No, really,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately it's infected a good chunk of my party's base. Oh,
Speaker 1: you don't say. We have a fascinating show for you today.
Speaker 1: Talking Feds, Harry Littman tells us about the stakes of
Speaker 1: Judge Aileen Cannon's latest insane ruling. Then we'll talk to
Speaker 1: Inside Elections Jacob Rubashkin about some of these very exciting
Speaker 1: house races. But first we have the host of the
Speaker 1: Time of Monsters the Nations, jed Here. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics The Nations. My friend jed.
Speaker 2: Here, always great to be on the show. Willy, So, I.
Speaker 1: Want to talk to you about something that got no
Speaker 1: coverage but that I know happened because I watched c
Speaker 1: SPAN and I'm a total nerd. Yesterday Bernie Sanders. You'll
Speaker 1: remember Bernie Sanders because he was really probably very likely
Speaker 1: could have been president. Whatever. We're not going to relitigate
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, but we'll just say this Bernie Sanders has become,
Speaker 1: and of course it gets no media attention because there's
Speaker 1: no drama. One of the great champions of Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: And yesterday he was at the White House talking about
Speaker 1: how drug prices. I mean, this was like I was
Speaker 1: listening to this and I was like, holy shit, this
Speaker 1: is the thing that I've been obsessed with forever. That
Speaker 1: an inhaler will cost six hundred dollars in America and
Speaker 1: ten bucks in Germany, that you know, in asthma medicine
Speaker 1: will cost seven hundred dollars in America and two dollars
Speaker 1: in the UK. Joe Biden has really satiated a lot
Speaker 1: of the stuff Bernie Sanders had been has been trying
Speaker 1: to a pass. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: I mean one thing about Joe Biden is he's really,
Speaker 2: on almost all issues a party man, and then he
Speaker 2: will go where the party is. And I think that
Speaker 2: he more than a lot of mainstream Democrats saw, you know,
Speaker 2: like how far Bernie got in twenty sixteen, and to
Speaker 2: be fair, even like in twenty twenty, where he did
Speaker 2: less well in a more crowded field, but still he
Speaker 2: was like, you know, the number two guy. And so
Speaker 2: I mean, I think Biden realizes that you have to
Speaker 2: have a functioning party, you have to like include you know,
Speaker 2: the first time is like the second most popular person,
Speaker 2: like two times in a row. The drug prices is
Speaker 2: a great example of this. I mean, I think there's
Speaker 2: other stuff like it sort of builds back better the
Speaker 2: sort of infrastructure spending. It's such a no brainer, and
Speaker 2: it's such a way to draw contrasts between the Democrats
Speaker 2: and the Republicans and between Biden and Trump, particularly since
Speaker 2: you know, like I think, actually what weakness of Trump
Speaker 2: is that he can no longer really own the economic
Speaker 2: populism in a way that he kind of did with
Speaker 2: like Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen, We're not seeing like
Speaker 2: you know, answert of like trade issues or other issues.
Speaker 2: Biden seeding that ground. And furthermore, I mean, I think
Speaker 2: the great thing he is like Trump barely talks about
Speaker 2: this stuff. I mean he does kind of talk about trade,
Speaker 2: but like, you know, much more grandiose and I think
Speaker 2: frightening to a lot of people, like you know, to.
Speaker 3: Say, you know, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well where else you know, like I actually think,
Speaker 2: like in twenty sixteen, like you know, the moment I
Speaker 2: got terrified was when the speeches he was making in
Speaker 2: places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, where you know, like often
Speaker 2: he's undisciplined, but like when he was there, I don't
Speaker 2: know if Steve Bannon or somebody else was like really
Speaker 2: you know, like whispering in his ears. But he really
Speaker 2: hit the economic populism everything hard about, you know, like
Speaker 2: deanersitization and job losses. But I actually think, like you know,
Speaker 2: Democrats have regained that territory. Yeah, I mean, Burney deserves
Speaker 2: a lot of credit, and you know, like I want
Speaker 2: to be fair, like Biden deserves a lot of credit
Speaker 2: here too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I mean I don't think it matters.
Speaker 1: Like Bernie did come in and he was really involved
Speaker 1: in the budget stuff and in the Inflation Reduction Act,
Speaker 1: which by the way, reduced inflation, right like government spending works.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the crazy thing we've seen, Like in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight during the financial crisis. We now
Speaker 1: know that the reason that it fucked up was because
Speaker 1: we didn't go big enough.
Speaker 2: Right Yeah, no, no, no, that's right. And I want to
Speaker 2: say something else on the inflation front, because it ties
Speaker 2: in with this economic populism and the way Biden has
Speaker 2: observed a lot of this stuff. I mean, there is
Speaker 2: a kind of debate among economists at a very high level,
Speaker 2: you know, like what was the cause of this recent
Speaker 2: spurt of inflation. Basically, people like Larry Summer's have a
Speaker 2: sort of monitorist view like the spending that caused the inflation,
Speaker 2: and the only cure of this is to like radically
Speaker 2: raise interest rates. And then like Larry Summers that actually said,
Speaker 2: you know, you need like seven point five percent unemployment
Speaker 2: or maybe ten percent unemployment, that's the only cure. Right
Speaker 2: where is that? There are other economists like Isabella Waverer
Speaker 2: who made that quite rational or like argument, like we're
Speaker 2: talking about inflation, like what actually happened here? There was
Speaker 2: like you know, like a pandemic. There were like in
Speaker 2: these shortages of goods, and then companies were able to
Speaker 2: exploit this to do sort of price gouging and that
Speaker 2: if you address that issue you can have a better
Speaker 2: take on this. And one notices that like Biden, he's
Speaker 2: talking about you know, things like shrinkflation, but also like
Speaker 2: corporate profit hearing, you know, like yeah, this was not
Speaker 2: a natural thing for Biden.
Speaker 3: By the way.
Speaker 2: I mean I think he was actually initially there. The
Speaker 2: White House was reluctant to go this path. But all
Speaker 2: the polls show like if you actually talk about inflation
Speaker 2: in those terms, that like like this is not like
Speaker 2: you know, just some act of God or some cause
Speaker 2: of like simply monetary policy, that that they are actually
Speaker 2: people who have taken advantage of the chaos caused like COVID,
Speaker 2: and that we will go after them. That resonates with
Speaker 2: the experience of a lot of people. I mean people
Speaker 2: actually experience this with eco shopping, prograsseries and they suddenly
Speaker 2: notice that like the cereal box is like half empty,
Speaker 2: Like there's something save more higher price with a half
Speaker 2: empty box.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I actually think it's kind of really great.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I've really been struck
Speaker 1: by in Biden world, which I like and appreciate and
Speaker 1: I hope to see more of, is them being pressured
Speaker 1: into doing the right thing. Sometimes they do the wrong thing,
Speaker 1: and the activist side is able to sort of get
Speaker 1: them to do what needs to happen. What the right
Speaker 1: thing to happen there is Can you talk about that
Speaker 1: a little bit?
Speaker 2: The question is like when you're talking about politics, like
Speaker 2: what sort of theory of change do you have? And
Speaker 2: I think that, like, you know, for me, it's always
Speaker 2: been that there's two sort of preconditions for like sort
Speaker 2: of you know, progressive politic in the last century, like
Speaker 2: let's not talking about the nineteenth century, where you know,
Speaker 2: you had the Republican you actually had good Republicans like
Speaker 2: Lincoln in Ulysses Grant. But in the twentieth and twenty
Speaker 2: first century, what do you need to actually have probably
Speaker 2: like two things. One is the Democrats political party having
Speaker 2: power like the presidency, Congress. The second pre condition, though,
Speaker 2: is that you need a mass movement that is actually
Speaker 2: prodding them to like do something. Because to be honest,
Speaker 2: like I think, like you know, like natural condition a
Speaker 2: lot of politicians is you know, like you get away
Speaker 2: with as tho as you can, like if you can
Speaker 2: make people happy by declaring, you know, well, this is
Speaker 2: National pine Cone Day and don't we all love pinecones?
Speaker 2: Like they'll do that, right, Like they could do that
Speaker 2: all day long, every day, three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 2: days a year, right, Yeah, like you know, like hug
Speaker 2: your dog day. Sure, But if you actually have you know,
Speaker 2: people out on the streets like the unions were in
Speaker 2: the thirties, or like the anti war movement and the
Speaker 2: civil rights movement we're in the sixties, or act Up
Speaker 2: was in the nineteen nineties. And you don't have Republicans
Speaker 2: who just not listen to people, you actually have Democrats
Speaker 2: who know that well these are actually are voters. Then yeah,
Speaker 2: you can actually prad and change things. So my theory
Speaker 2: of change so always been you need those two things,
Speaker 2: most of them, and I think the fallacy that people
Speaker 2: fall into is like seeing only one side of the equation. Well,
Speaker 2: we just need to like you know, vote blue, no
Speaker 2: matter who you know, then that will be a fight
Speaker 2: or con recently, you know, like we just need to
Speaker 2: kind of protest, although I actually you actually have to
Speaker 2: like vote that people are going to listen to you
Speaker 2: into office and then you protest.
Speaker 1: One of these sort of interesting moments here that we
Speaker 1: saw is that there's a real sea change in Democratic
Speaker 1: leaders from Bill Clinton, who got in there, Like I'm
Speaker 1: struck by you have a Republican base that is just
Speaker 1: controls drives the fucking ship right. They want no abortion,
Speaker 1: they want no birth control pills, they want no anything.
Speaker 1: They want no, no fault divorces, and Republicans are like yes,
Speaker 1: And then you have a Democratic base that want like
Speaker 1: clean air. You know, maybe Exon shouldn't be you know,
Speaker 1: controlling our federal government. We don't think kids should get
Speaker 1: cancer from dirty air. And you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like these are not wildly progressive ideas, and there's still
Speaker 1: quite a bit of pushback in the Democratic Party. And
Speaker 1: I think that Biden world has been much better about that.
Speaker 2: Biden hasn't been about that. I mean, I think this
Speaker 2: is sort of like is this change that take it
Speaker 2: a long time to get together? And you know, like
Speaker 2: not to speak ill of the dead, but I think
Speaker 2: an emblematic figure, well I will speak ill of is
Speaker 2: Joel Liberman. You know, it was like remember the sort
Speaker 2: of you know, Democratic vice presidential like nominee in the
Speaker 2: year twenty oh oh and like you know, right with
Speaker 2: Al Gore and was seen as like, well, this is
Speaker 2: the guy we need to win over the moderate boats.
Speaker 2: But you know, it was a major Democrat, but his
Speaker 2: major achievements were always like, you know, to go against
Speaker 2: the base of his party to the point where like
Speaker 2: you know, like he got primary doun where they you know,
Speaker 2: like the Democratic voters of Connecticut said Noah, and then
Speaker 2: he ran as an independent. I think the easing out
Speaker 2: of figures like Joe Lieberman is a kind of significant factor.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's still you always get a few Senators
Speaker 2: who like to show vote by doing that, but I
Speaker 2: think that particular type of politics doesn't have a future.
Speaker 2: And once he's actually also with the sort of like cinema,
Speaker 2: like I think, like, you know, the fact that she
Speaker 2: is going to be like, you know, one term senator
Speaker 2: is not an accident, Like you cannot get very far
Speaker 2: with that sort of politics anymore. And I think Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: you know, like he's been around for a long time,
Speaker 2: but partly he's been around for a long time because
Speaker 2: he knows which way the wind is shifting, and he
Speaker 2: knows what the party is and where the party is going.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I mean, I think he does
Speaker 2: kind of deserve credit, and I think he understands that
Speaker 2: old sort of primelation model does not work anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of the things about Joe Biden, which
Speaker 1: I actually really do appreciate is bin World has actually
Speaker 1: been really good at working within the kind of weird
Speaker 1: metrics of what the American system is right now. Like
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking of that I think was a real
Speaker 1: three dimensional chess move was this bordered bill. Because that
Speaker 1: border bill. So you know, we've had in America, we've
Speaker 1: had zero border legislation since for about twenty years. So
Speaker 1: there's no money going to the border and no legislation.
Speaker 1: So surprisingly it's not going great. And everyone who is
Speaker 1: there on the left on the right agree is they
Speaker 1: need money. They need money for judges and agents and
Speaker 1: care for people and you know, everything from food to enforcement.
Speaker 1: Both sides agree that when you starve a part of
Speaker 1: the federal government, it really sucks. I mean Republicans wanted
Speaker 1: to suck and Democrats don't, but they agree on that
Speaker 1: central premise. You know what Biden world did was they
Speaker 1: were like, Okay, you guys are going to negotiate this
Speaker 1: border bill, which had it passed, it is a very
Speaker 1: restrictive fell right, it involved border closures. By the way,
Speaker 1: border closures one of the dumbest Republican ideas. You know
Speaker 1: how many people go across the border Republicans for dinner,
Speaker 1: for shopping, for vacations. I mean, like anyway it would
Speaker 1: have involved border shutdowns. It would have involved very stringent
Speaker 1: numbers and would have you know, limited immigration in a
Speaker 1: million different ways, and you had Mike Johnson saying it
Speaker 1: was dead on arrival. I mean, was Biden World playing
Speaker 1: three dimensional chess or did they just get lucky? Well?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I do think that they have a
Speaker 2: pretty good sense of how dysfunctional the Republicans are now
Speaker 2: they can shoot themselves in the fund coming out of
Speaker 2: the border thing, like I think, like it really was
Speaker 2: a sort of clarifying moment, especially like this particular Republican
Speaker 2: Congress where both the margins are small, but also like
Speaker 2: Johnson is perhaps the most incompetent party leader like I've
Speaker 2: ever seen in a lifetime of the anti Nazi Pelosi,
Speaker 2: and then they'll be holding too extremists and they don't
Speaker 2: know how to control that. I mean, the big picture
Speaker 2: is Biden has up and where when what I wanted
Speaker 2: him to be, like in the polls. But things are
Speaker 2: tightening now and things are improving, and I think it's
Speaker 2: partially this clarification issue where like you know, like if
Speaker 2: you actually see how incompetent and extremist the Republicans are,
Speaker 2: then I think Biden's virtues shining forth, and they are
Speaker 2: virtues of sort of like you know, actual governance, actual policies,
Speaker 2: you know, like he maybe does this sort of you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm trying to be bipartisan more than I
Speaker 2: would like. But actually, because the Republicans are so incompetent,
Speaker 2: like it actually has worked out. The times actually like
Speaker 2: show how extreme and bad they are. So I agree that,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of like, you know, very
Speaker 2: positive developments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is this sort of interesting world where
Speaker 1: you're really on a knife sedge. One of the things
Speaker 1: that we're going to watch this week is whether Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson can keep his job. Marjorie Taylor Green is getting
Speaker 1: increasingly insane and mad at him, called him a Democrat.
Speaker 1: One of the things that really annoyed the fuck out
Speaker 1: of me, to be honest, is that I was reading
Speaker 1: some reporting about it, and the reporter, a mainstream where
Speaker 1: political reporter was saying, well, Democrats should watch out because
Speaker 1: they could get someone more conservative than Mike Johnson. Now,
Speaker 1: eventually this Republican party will get more conservative than Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1: But I mean, don't you think Mike Johnson.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's a pretty conservative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is the day that no holds
Speaker 2: war theocrat, like, you know, we want to control what
Speaker 2: is I always forget the number of mountains. It's like five,
Speaker 2: six mountains whatever, Like yeah.
Speaker 3: Seven mountains.
Speaker 1: It's some crazy yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This sounds like a theme parky you
Speaker 2: take your kids to, Like We're going to seven mountains
Speaker 2: this weekend. By all evidence, just in a very extreme
Speaker 2: theocrat and you know, like hardline conservative all along the way.
Speaker 2: But the media is still psyched with his idea. You know,
Speaker 2: it's up to the Democrats to create a good Republican party.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I think Democrats as a whole have
Speaker 2: moved on that. There's ha been a shift. I mean,
Speaker 2: it is interesting. I think it also like how Biden
Speaker 2: conceives of the presidency is different. Like I think that
Speaker 2: both Clinton and Obama saw themselves as trying to be
Speaker 2: this independent force of the party that can you know,
Speaker 2: negotiate between Democrats and Republicans, whereas I think Biden has
Speaker 2: more parliamentary sense, like I am the leader of this
Speaker 2: party and I represent the interests of this party when
Speaker 2: I'm negotiating with Republicans. And I think that is a
Speaker 2: sort of significant shift. I mean, I think that is
Speaker 2: a model one once for democratic presidents going into the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. Chid here. I hope you'll
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 2: You can't keep me away.
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Speaker 1: Harry Litman is a former US attorney and host of
Speaker 1: the podcast Talking Feds. Welcome back you to my podcast,
Speaker 1: Meet your podcast. Hi Harry Lettman.
Speaker 4: Hey, Hey, Hey, Molly Dong Fast It is another Molly
Speaker 4: mash up, the special correspondent extraordinaire for Fanny Fair, the
Speaker 4: host of the podcast Fast Politics. So yes, we're we're
Speaker 4: having an unholy marriage here between Fast Politics and Talking Fed.
Speaker 2: And you know the rules.
Speaker 4: Now, you show every question, baby, totally candid, and then
Speaker 4: I get to turn the tables on her. So I
Speaker 4: want to start with your nerdiest, pointy headedness little legal
Speaker 4: question and see if you can stump me. I'm ready.
Speaker 1: This is not my nerdiest question, but this is the
Speaker 1: thing that everybody's interested in it seems as if things
Speaker 1: have escalated with Judge Cannon and Jack Smith. Right that
Speaker 1: there was sort of a back and forth, and now
Speaker 1: Jack Smith is kind of like he kind of gets
Speaker 1: what a bad faith after she is talk to me
Speaker 1: about where you think this case is and more importantly
Speaker 1: where it can go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you're one hundred percent right. This was the
Speaker 4: big move Monday night. Remember what has she been doing
Speaker 4: entertaining all kinds of fur cocked ideas from Trump but
Speaker 4: also even worse delaying, delaying, not ruling.
Speaker 3: And the like.
Speaker 4: And that put the DOJ in a tricky position because
Speaker 4: they have a previous bad ruling by her, and if
Speaker 4: you combine it with another, that'd be a case to recuse.
Speaker 4: But she doesn't give them anything and purposely doesn't give
Speaker 4: them anything to grab onto as a ruling. This latest
Speaker 4: thing is a perfect example, one hundred percent bizarre idea.
Speaker 4: Let's just talk about jury instructions based on law that
Speaker 4: doesn't exist. Let's just talk about it though, engage with
Speaker 4: right the radical. Yeah, well, let's have a little salon
Speaker 4: about this. And you know that's not a ruling to
Speaker 4: try to reverse. And there have been different versions of this,
Speaker 4: and this time it got even more ominous because she suggested,
Speaker 4: maybe I'll just do this at trial and the jury stage,
Speaker 4: and guess what, at trial if she pulls this crap
Speaker 4: at trial, you can't. It's a double jeopardy and you
Speaker 4: can't retry him. So that's like the perfect prime. I
Speaker 4: think people sort of sense the tone of it, but
Speaker 4: it's stronger than people are appreciating. He really drew the
Speaker 4: line this time. First he came out and said, this
Speaker 4: whole Presidential Records Act, it is completely ludicrous. I'm not
Speaker 4: going to play ball with you, judge. I'm not going
Speaker 4: to do a little jury instruction based on it because
Speaker 4: it's totally nuts. But guess what, here's the real jury instructions.
Speaker 4: And now you, judge, have to rule. So you've been
Speaker 4: sort of dithering around and the if you don't, so
Speaker 4: you know right now he's there with like nothing to
Speaker 4: sort of grab ontos. And so the movie made is
Speaker 4: rule on the Presidential Records Act. If you rule for Trump, great,
Speaker 4: we take you right up to the eleventh Circuit and
Speaker 4: we try to refuse. You rule for us. Okay, good,
Speaker 4: move to another day. But if you keep not ruling
Speaker 4: the m word comes into play, and it was just
Speaker 4: subtle at that we are going to Manda, miss you.
Speaker 4: It's a special writ. It is hard normally to.
Speaker 1: Bring and explain what it means.
Speaker 4: It's a sort of all purpose just like mandate.
Speaker 1: It's getting a judge kicked off in case.
Speaker 4: Well, there's a separate thing that is recusing. But Mandamus
Speaker 4: is just going to a quarter fields and saying just
Speaker 4: correct her course of fields are normally very receptive to it.
Speaker 4: But he's really set the table perfectly, and they know
Speaker 4: what's going on to say. If you don't rule, we're
Speaker 4: going to do a man damis. And they found a
Speaker 4: couple cases where it had happened, so it it would
Speaker 4: be a game changer for a couple reasons. One, she
Speaker 4: could see the riding on the wall and actually rule
Speaker 4: not too likely, or she could keep farting around. They
Speaker 4: could bring emotion to man Damus. If the eleventh circuit
Speaker 4: is receptive, they bounce her and now a lot of
Speaker 4: time is past. You know, it's not so easy, but
Speaker 4: there's the actual chance this case is really cut and dried.
Speaker 3: Molly.
Speaker 4: It's been the easiest one and a serious one, and
Speaker 4: there's a chance with a new judge, it could actually
Speaker 4: get back on track and be heard say in the summer,
Speaker 4: lead to a conviction and the like. But Smith is
Speaker 4: this is the filing. It's the most important since the indictment,
Speaker 4: where Smith is saying, we're not going to take it
Speaker 4: anymore if you don't act like a real judge and
Speaker 4: decide things, We're going to use that very fact of
Speaker 4: not giving us anything to appeal to appeal. Does that
Speaker 4: make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Wow, yeah, all right, wow, big day satisfied.
Speaker 3: Yes, Okay.
Speaker 4: You recently wrote one of you're really both. I mean,
Speaker 4: you have a way of saying this is not supposed
Speaker 4: to be a spoosh fest, but you're just really good
Speaker 4: at making things find interesting but also trenched.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you.
Speaker 4: In your recent piece Trump's Losing Touch, you say the
Speaker 4: road to Democrats having kept the Senate thus far is
Speaker 4: lined with Trump's bungled attempts to play king maker. Now
Speaker 4: you know, in the last several years, his whole inter
Speaker 4: rearm effect, as I have understood it, with Republicans who
Speaker 4: mainly behind the scenes hate his guts, have been there
Speaker 4: terrified that he could primary them, and that's his whole
Speaker 4: secret power. And now you're talking about a run of
Speaker 4: times where he is trying to do the same and
Speaker 4: he's losing again and again. Has he lost his magic
Speaker 4: powers here?
Speaker 1: So one of the interesting things about Trump is that
Speaker 1: he's never been amazing at picking candidates, and part of
Speaker 1: that is because she's open to candidate. Like, one of
Speaker 1: the things that Trump did was he took over the
Speaker 1: Republican Party. Right, he bullied people either with the threat
Speaker 1: of primary or with the threat of their physical safety.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about Romney had to pay all that
Speaker 1: money for extra security. And he took over and what
Speaker 1: happened then he became the de facto leader of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party. And one of the things like, you could
Speaker 1: criticize Nancy Pelosi, right, you could say she isn't lefty enough,
Speaker 1: she's this, she's that. But at the end of the date,
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi was very organized, right, so you wouldn't see
Speaker 1: votes come up that would fail and rules committee. And
Speaker 1: another thing she's really careful about was she wouldn't make
Speaker 1: her purple district Dems who had to be up for
Speaker 1: reelection in a year or even less. She wouldn't make
Speaker 1: them vote on things she knew could be used against
Speaker 1: them an election. Now fast forward to this Republican party
Speaker 1: where you have blue state Republicans. You have a bunch
Speaker 1: right in New York and California, people like Mike Lawler,
Speaker 1: I mean, like Michael Goes on MSNBC and says he's
Speaker 1: the sane Republican. But he's had to vote for both impeachments. Right,
Speaker 1: he voted to impeach a cabinet official, the first time
Speaker 1: in more than one hundred years that's happened. You know,
Speaker 1: there were no high crimes and misdemeanors. They just didn't
Speaker 1: like him. And he voted to a peach show Biden,
Speaker 1: and again that was a completely vibes based impeachment.
Speaker 4: Or he voted to keep the investigation going right, right,
Speaker 4: to open the impeachment.
Speaker 3: You'll open, That's what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, outs try to go ahead.
Speaker 1: So what you have with trump Ism is there's nobody
Speaker 1: driving the ship. Right, He's in charge, but he's not
Speaker 1: really driving the ship. So when you have these candidates,
Speaker 1: nobody is saying like, this is not a good candidate
Speaker 1: for swing voters. This candidate is an extremist candidate. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the original sins of trump Ism
Speaker 1: one of the things that ultimately I think very likely
Speaker 1: will be his undoing, though I don't want to predict
Speaker 1: the future, is that he went way more right wing
Speaker 1: and let the party kind of control him. Right. He
Speaker 1: sort of embraced the bassist act aspect of the party,
Speaker 1: which is not what you do right. Usually you get
Speaker 1: elected and you try to pivot to the middle so
Speaker 1: that you can get the Democrats so you can grow
Speaker 1: the electorate. Right, and so what he never learned the
Speaker 1: lesson that you don't want and nominate the most extreme
Speaker 1: person as a candidate because voters don't like it. In
Speaker 1: ruby red states, he was able to win with these
Speaker 1: candidates so often they've delivered results that were below what
Speaker 1: the polling average would be. Right, but he would get
Speaker 1: these people elected. But his swing candidates always always always
Speaker 1: failed because they were just too extremely Oh this is
Speaker 1: dating back.
Speaker 3: I see. This is always from.
Speaker 1: Roy Moore right right in Alabama. I mean, the man
Speaker 1: turned an Alabama Senate s blow. He has never been
Speaker 1: a good candidate picker. Like the one time he ever
Speaker 1: picked anyone who was a winner was Mike Pence, who
Speaker 1: helped him win. But otherwise everyone else has just been
Speaker 1: a disaster. And you know a lot of times he's
Speaker 1: just endorsed people to get his numbers to be better.
Speaker 1: He has endorsed like people who were running for reelection.
Speaker 1: But ultimately he's a very bad candidate picker. And you know,
Speaker 1: why shouldn't he be. You know, he doesn't have any
Speaker 1: you know, he's only been in politics since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 4: And I mean, he just it seems to he just
Speaker 4: picks based on patty, personal things, not not any kind
Speaker 4: of political calculation.
Speaker 1: If you suck up to him, he likes you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very busy calculus. Yeah, okay, your turn. So the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court right now is looking at this idea of
Speaker 1: presidential immunity, which is, as we all know, completely silly
Speaker 1: and not concealed Team six murder your political opponent. Yes,
Speaker 1: because crimes are on crimes if you're president. There is
Speaker 1: no world in which any of this flies. So why
Speaker 1: is it taking so long? Obviously Alito and Thomas are
Speaker 1: all in on this, But what do you think the
Speaker 1: timetable is on this? Are they going to try to
Speaker 1: keep it going till June? What do you think this happens?
Speaker 1: And also, like people like who are trying to pretend
Speaker 1: to be real justices like Justice Kavanaugh kekestand I mean
Speaker 1: he must be pretty pissed too, and a certain way.
Speaker 1: So let's talk it through with me.
Speaker 4: Great question.
Speaker 3: You're right.
Speaker 4: There is no world in which Donald Trump, at the
Speaker 4: end of the day gets a ruling from the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court or any court that says he's out of jail
Speaker 4: free because his actions are covered by presidential immunity.
Speaker 1: Right, it's not how any of this works.
Speaker 4: Right, there's no world where s that happens. But of
Speaker 4: course Trump always operates on two levels, a delay level,
Speaker 4: maybe the most important, and then the merit. He will
Speaker 4: not win the merits, but delay is everything, especially for him.
Speaker 4: This's a federal case, and I think you all your
Speaker 4: listeners know this, But all that has to happen if
Speaker 4: he wins, he just tells the doj oh, that little
Speaker 4: prosecution drop it. So the thing about immunity that from
Speaker 4: day one has always been so worrisome is it's a
Speaker 4: right not to stand trial in the first place, and
Speaker 4: as a result, and a trial court rules against you,
Speaker 4: you can make an immediate appeal. Almost everything else. You
Speaker 4: have to go to trial, be convicted, go through it,
Speaker 4: and then make all your claims. But immunity is special. Okay,
Speaker 4: so we've known that, and we already he played his
Speaker 4: card on immunity and got a pretty good delay out
Speaker 4: of chuck In, but a really excellent opinion by the
Speaker 4: DC Circuit it might have been the end of it there.
Speaker 4: And yes, so now here comes the US Supreme Court. First,
Speaker 4: they took two weeks to decide, so some shit was
Speaker 4: going on there, and then we'll we'll eventually find that out.
Speaker 4: But the big question is, here's the concrete risk. And
Speaker 4: it's not small to me, Molly that they decide they
Speaker 4: have to look out for not just the case, but
Speaker 4: the principle that they set down. Let's say they think,
Speaker 4: all right, you know Trump, of course, but there could
Speaker 4: be a situation a president bomb's Cambodia and you know,
Speaker 4: he gets sued criminally. There could be a situation where
Speaker 4: we want to hold that the constitution prohibits the a
Speaker 4: criminal charges against the president. All they have to do
Speaker 4: is annunciate some test like that, and what happens is
Speaker 4: it goes back for a remand Judge Shutkin takes an
Speaker 4: hour and a half to say it doesn't apply to Trump.
Speaker 4: But then Trump gets a shorter, but another trip up
Speaker 4: and down.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, could that really happen one percent?
Speaker 4: That's a risk that I think is more than fifty percent.
Speaker 4: So now let's talk about the court. They can do
Speaker 4: things quickly. They just in the Colorado case, the insurrection case,
Speaker 4: they made a point of issuing the opinion on the
Speaker 4: Monday before Super Tuesday, so people wouldn't know. You might
Speaker 4: have thought that they here would do the same thing,
Speaker 4: because we really want to have a trial, even if
Speaker 4: you're pro Trump. The value to the American people of
Speaker 4: having a trial so people know the results when they
Speaker 4: go to the polls. As best I can tell, that
Speaker 4: factor matters to the court zero. I think the Court
Speaker 4: has decided that's not our lookout. We're gonna take our
Speaker 4: regular time. They could have made the argument earlier. Instead,
Speaker 4: they put it on the last day of the term
Speaker 4: where there was one slot. You gotta imagine there's more
Speaker 4: than one opinion. So in other words, the earliest this
Speaker 4: comes out is like early June. And then okay, if
Speaker 4: it comes out early June and it's just affirming totally
Speaker 4: the DC Circuit, now Chuck's back in business.
Speaker 3: But if it.
Speaker 4: Comes out early June and it states, any test, any
Speaker 4: test where sometimes a president can be immune. Now we
Speaker 4: have the extra little road trip for Trump of back
Speaker 4: down and back up, and man, it looks very remote.
Speaker 1: And that waits till September.
Speaker 4: I think even without that little extra trip, it's sort
Speaker 4: of September. So it might just blow it out of
Speaker 4: the water. Let's say it is September by the time,
Speaker 4: because remember when it goes back to chuck In, he's
Speaker 4: still got to write this Trump to raise some things.
Speaker 4: So now it's September. Wow, So this most serious of
Speaker 4: all trials, with him having to be in the seat
Speaker 4: in the home stretch, he's going to stay to the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court. You've got to not let that. But we
Speaker 4: should have such problems because that is right now. The
Speaker 4: best case scenario and a likely one I'm really afraid of,
Speaker 4: is there's another round of a reman and September doesn't
Speaker 4: even happen. Okay, we're on time if we go quick.
Speaker 4: My turn Florida, which I grew up with always thinking
Speaker 4: Florida the crazy place that decides elections. So when this
Speaker 4: week the Florida Supreme Court out of the blue, on
Speaker 4: the one hand, kind of paves the way for a
Speaker 4: six week band, they just say it's the eighteen week
Speaker 4: so it could be six weeks. But on the other
Speaker 4: green light that initiative, which is a pro choice initiative.
Speaker 4: So there's going to be such focus and over the
Speaker 4: last two cycles, the issue is always played to the
Speaker 4: Democrat's advantage. But Florida is not your you know, your
Speaker 4: two thousand Florida which is on a knife SiGe. Florida
Speaker 4: is more read than that. So do you see any
Speaker 4: state of affairs in which the whole abortion thing actually
Speaker 4: puts in play in terms of winning or losing in
Speaker 4: the presidential election the great state of Florida.
Speaker 1: I'm going to add something to your question, which is
Speaker 1: one of the things that this Supreme Court did was
Speaker 1: they said that now the six week abortion ban can
Speaker 1: go into action, and that is I think actually a
Speaker 1: really important data point because Florida has always been a
Speaker 1: state with pretty lax abortion laws for the South, and
Speaker 1: the people of Florida have never had the experience of
Speaker 1: being really a place where you can't get an abortion.
Speaker 1: So now you have Florida obgyns, we're going to have
Speaker 1: to practice obgyn care, maternal fetal healthcare as if they're
Speaker 1: in the state of Louisiana or Texas. And what that's
Speaker 1: mean is going to be a real sea change, because
Speaker 1: we've already seen this happen in the states that banned abortion.
Speaker 1: It will be in thirty days more dangerous to be
Speaker 1: a pregnant woman in Florida than it is in Connecticut
Speaker 1: or New York, or Rhode Island or Vermont, because if
Speaker 1: you're a pregnant woman in Florida, your doctor is always
Speaker 1: thinking I could go to jail for this, I could
Speaker 1: lose my license for this, I could be fined one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars for this. Maybe Ron DeSantis, who we
Speaker 1: already know is kind of a loose canon, wants to
Speaker 1: make this Miami guynecologist an example. So already you're going
Speaker 1: to have doctors practicing defensive medicine. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I would say that I don't think we spend
Speaker 1: enough time talking about when we talk about choice in
Speaker 1: reproductive health care, is that pregnant women who are not
Speaker 1: necessarily pro choice, people who aren't Republicans, who never wanted
Speaker 1: to get an abortion, who never thought you should have
Speaker 1: the legal right to get abortions, don't necessarily realize how
Speaker 1: much their pregnancy care Chaine. Now that doctors are worried
Speaker 1: about getting arrested. From May to November, you're going to
Speaker 1: see the state of Florida as an abortion desert. So
Speaker 1: when those voters come to vote on those ballance initiatives,
Speaker 1: they're going to know really what they're voting for. And
Speaker 1: I think that is a really important data point. And
Speaker 1: historically we have seen that when people experience losing that right,
Speaker 1: they understand why it's so important. So I do think
Speaker 1: that'll be a big deal. Will Democrats win Florida, It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. What matters is Republicans are now worried that
Speaker 1: Florida might be in played. This changes the map, right.
Speaker 4: And the money right, money, money, money, money, money, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's a very expensive media market Florida. And
Speaker 1: you've got Trump running defense in a state he thought
Speaker 1: would be a cake walk. And remember Florida is like
Speaker 1: the first time ever Florida population is going down now, right,
Speaker 1: people are leaving the state because of inflation because they
Speaker 1: have such bad inflationary pressures when it comes to insurance
Speaker 1: and inflation and the cost of goods and housing. So
Speaker 1: I actually think it's going to be a real problem
Speaker 1: and we'll a Democrat win Florida. Most pundits would say
Speaker 1: absolutely not. But again, we don't really know, right, we're
Speaker 1: basing all of this on polls. Maybe these poles are
Speaker 1: all totally correct, but there certainly has been a lot
Speaker 1: of cross tab volatility there.
Speaker 4: And that's a really good point. And it's not just
Speaker 4: of course, the presidency. There's guys like Rick Scott, etc.
Speaker 4: All Right, we're down to five minutes and we've each
Speaker 4: had two rounds, and Jesse is very strict. I think
Speaker 4: we only have one question left.
Speaker 1: What case is the case that you think might surprise
Speaker 1: us of the Trump cases? Or is there like a
Speaker 1: sleeper case like the case with the California bar. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think there's a case that might sort of
Speaker 1: move the needle that we are not even looking out for?
Speaker 4: Right, So I'll just say the legal needle and the
Speaker 4: political needle. Because we've had different cases where judges have
Speaker 4: found he basic lee is guilty as sin but not
Speaker 4: in the criminal context. And what you just named the
Speaker 4: Eastman and Jeff Clark disciplinary proceedings have that including like
Speaker 4: it was a really big thing. We got a preview
Speaker 4: of the what's going to be a killer witness in
Speaker 4: the January sixth trial, the Ramrod straight hats, Philbin, Pat Sippoloni,
Speaker 4: White House Council folks who invoked executive privilege in the
Speaker 4: January sixth committee. But they won't at trial, So that
Speaker 4: stuff is going to be killer. They'll also, you know,
Speaker 4: Hope Picks, I think, is going to be killer in
Speaker 4: this upcoming trial. In other words, there are trials that
Speaker 4: could be sleepers. But I think the real point is
Speaker 4: most of everything we've heard so far has been argument
Speaker 4: and people kind of you know, screaming in each other.
Speaker 4: But there's going to be these pristine, crystalline moments of
Speaker 4: testimony where like, what the hell is he going to
Speaker 4: say about that? I mean, these are witnesses from hell.
Speaker 4: For I want you to give me ninety seconds to
Speaker 4: do a plug.
Speaker 3: Can I do that?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 4: We just start arted a new speaker series out here
Speaker 4: called Talking San Diego. Jamie Raskin was here last week,
Speaker 4: Jensaki is coming. We got to have really a great
Speaker 4: slate of speakers. So if you're anywhere in the area,
Speaker 4: just go to Talkingsan Diego dot net and now I'll
Speaker 4: give you the info and you can buy a ticket
Speaker 4: for it. There's my self promotion name. Heyay.
Speaker 1: Jacob Rubashkin is an analyst and reporter for Inside Elections.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Jacob, Thanks for having me explain.
Speaker 1: To us what you guys have right now that's new
Speaker 1: and exciting.
Speaker 3: So we just publish at the end of last week
Speaker 3: our quarterly House Overview. You know, I think Inside Elections
Speaker 3: were the only ones who do with the kind of
Speaker 3: depth and regularity a look at the full house battlefield.
Speaker 3: We wrote about one hundred and ten house races that
Speaker 3: have either interesting general elections, interesting primary is special elections,
Speaker 3: something cool is going on there. We took about twelve
Speaker 3: thousand words the full issue to write a little bit
Speaker 3: about every single house race worth knowing about taking place
Speaker 3: around the country. And so we put out that issue
Speaker 3: at the end of last week, and along with that
Speaker 3: we included a number of ratings changes. So we assess
Speaker 3: the likelihood of each party winning every single seat across
Speaker 3: the nation, and we make adjustments to that as the
Speaker 3: cycle progresses. And so of those one hundred and ten
Speaker 3: that we wrote, about twelve of them the circumstances have changed,
Speaker 3: and so we updated the rating to more accurately reflect
Speaker 3: where we think those races sit today.
Speaker 1: So one hundred and ten is a lot of races.
Speaker 1: Of those one hundred and tens, sort of exciting. That's
Speaker 1: about a third, right, of all the races in Congress, right, well.
Speaker 3: A little less than a fourth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like four hundred three hundred. I write
Speaker 1: a ton about Congress for someone who's like a general
Speaker 1: opinion columnist, and I still, you know, I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: like three seventy five, four hundred, four fifty. But what
Speaker 1: I want to ask you is, so only a fourth
Speaker 1: are even worth sort of like looking into, right, because
Speaker 1: three fourths of them are people who've either been there
Speaker 1: for a million years or are just so there an
Speaker 1: R plus twenty seven or something, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know I think that even of that
Speaker 3: one ten.
Speaker 1: Of those one hundred and ten, how many are competitive.
Speaker 3: Competitive in a general election? We currently carry seventy two
Speaker 3: seats on our House battlefield, so that is seats that
Speaker 3: will need.
Speaker 1: That's actually higher than I thought.
Speaker 3: And it's a little higher. It'll get smaller as we
Speaker 3: progress through the cycle. But I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of uncertainty right now, and so what we try and
Speaker 3: do is give ourselves some latitude in both directions. Right,
Speaker 3: we're looking at seats that could be competitive in a
Speaker 3: good Democratic year, but we're also looking at seats that
Speaker 3: could be competitive in a good Republican year. And as
Speaker 3: we get to the summer and serve only to the fall,
Speaker 3: as the presidential election becomes a little bit more clear,
Speaker 3: we will know that a lot of those seats are
Speaker 3: no longer on the battlefield. Right if if we're in
Speaker 3: October or even if we're in July, right and the
Speaker 3: presidential race looks like it's going to be in favor
Speaker 3: of one candidate or the other, that's going to shift
Speaker 3: how the presidential battlefield goes. But for now, we've got
Speaker 3: a lot of seats that could go one way or
Speaker 3: the other. And then we've got a seat like West
Speaker 3: Virginia second District, which is not a competitive general election seat,
Speaker 3: but it's an open seat. There's going to be a
Speaker 3: Republican primary, and there's going to be a new member
Speaker 3: of Congress, and even if that's going to be a
Speaker 3: Republican like the outgoing member, it's always important when you
Speaker 3: get a new member of Congress, they come in with
Speaker 3: their own set of priorities, their own background, and as
Speaker 3: we've seen over the last year or six months, the
Speaker 3: individual personalities of all of these members can have an
Speaker 3: outsized impact on how the House functions.
Speaker 1: See, you're straight reporter, so you can't say what I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: which is you can always get it crazy like Marjorie
Speaker 1: Taylor Green, who will hijack the entire party. See, you
Speaker 1: can't say it, but I can just not.
Speaker 3: There are differences within each party's conference that can be
Speaker 3: just as important as whether you're a D or an R.
Speaker 3: I'll put it that way.
Speaker 1: Let's get talking about this seventy two competitive seats. What
Speaker 1: are the sort of I'd love to know, what are
Speaker 1: the sort of ones that you were surprised by or
Speaker 1: that you were like, oh wow.
Speaker 3: So there are a couple that I think have not
Speaker 3: necessarily gone the way I might have expected at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the cycle, kind of in both directions. On
Speaker 3: the Democratic side, for instance, Nevada right in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: Nevada was one of the big big prizes of the
Speaker 3: House battlefield. I mean, we saw both Democrats and Republicans
Speaker 3: super PACs spend tens of millions of dollars in the
Speaker 3: Las Vegas media market. There were three congressional districts that
Speaker 3: were looked at as up for grabs, the first, the third,
Speaker 3: and the fourth all held by Democrats. Republicans really wanted
Speaker 3: to win them, and they spent a ton of money
Speaker 3: trying to and they lost all them narrowly, but they
Speaker 3: didn't win any of those Nevada seats. And heading into
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, I think there was an expectation this
Speaker 3: is a really competitive presidential year, this is going to
Speaker 3: be a top state in the Senate battlefield. These house
Speaker 3: races are going to be front and center again. And
Speaker 3: in fact, what we've seen is a lot of Republican
Speaker 3: pessimism about Nevada. They've been unable to recruit top tier candidates.
Speaker 3: They are not really talking about those races and those
Speaker 3: Democratic incumbents as top tier pickup opportunities. That's wild, and
Speaker 3: so a state that was so central to the battlefield
Speaker 3: last time has really become a bit of a backwater,
Speaker 3: even as that Senate race is super, super interesting, the
Speaker 3: presidential is super interesting, and I.
Speaker 1: Always think of Nevada as like a worry for them.
Speaker 1: It's like it's in the D column until it's not
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the big problems Republicans are
Speaker 1: having right now is money. That they have a cash crunch,
Speaker 1: and because Donald Trump's legal fees are so high, it's
Speaker 1: like a cash crunch for them. You can see it
Speaker 1: in down ballot races, which that would make the most sense, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Republicans have struggled to keep pace with Democrats
Speaker 3: on the fundraising side. On the candidate side, I'll be specific,
Speaker 3: because the Republican super PACs generally have more money than
Speaker 3: their Democratic counterpart. So like the Congressional Leadership Fund, which
Speaker 3: is the main Republican super pac, tends to have more
Speaker 3: money to throw around in the House Majority Pack, which
Speaker 3: is the analogous institution on the left. But of course
Speaker 3: those dollars they don't go as far because it's you
Speaker 3: get a better rate for advertising if you're the candidate
Speaker 3: then if you're an outside super pack. So it's definitely
Speaker 3: a factor for Republicans, the money.
Speaker 1: So tell me what else you're seeing that's interesting and
Speaker 1: surprising like that.
Speaker 3: There were a few races that we moved in republicans favor.
Speaker 3: I'll point out two of them here, Michigan's tenth District,
Speaker 3: which kind of Assits. It's a suburban district right north
Speaker 3: of Detroit. It has an incumbent Republican Congressman named John James.
Speaker 3: He won a very narrow election in twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: open seat race. Congressman Andy Levin held this seat for
Speaker 3: a while, but when Michigan redrew their maps, he chose
Speaker 3: to run in a Democratic primary against his colleague Hailey Stevens.
Speaker 1: He lost and lost.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, if he had run in this district, he
Speaker 3: would have won.
Speaker 1: Oh no, Hailey's still running.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, she's running for her seat again. But Andy Levin,
Speaker 3: there was some thought maybe he would run against John James,
Speaker 3: but he obviously is not doing that. This is a
Speaker 3: really marginal district. Trump would have carried it in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty by about a percentage point. But if you look
Speaker 3: at the results of the twenty twenty two elections in
Speaker 3: Michigan in this seat, they were all quite good for Democrats.
Speaker 3: Gretchen Whitmer, Jocelyn Benson, and Dana Nessel, who were the
Speaker 3: three women at the top of the ticket for Democrats
Speaker 3: in Michigan, all carried this district by double digits, and
Speaker 3: John James won by around two thousand votes.
Speaker 1: Isn't John James the guy they keep running for Senate?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he he ran for Senate in twenty eighteen
Speaker 3: and twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like the one black Republican.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they actually I believe there are now more
Speaker 3: black Republicans in Congress than ever.
Speaker 1: Before, right, but it's still like four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's four or five. But yes, he
Speaker 3: ran for Senate twice nearly one in twenty twenty and
Speaker 3: then barely won this congressional seat. The Democrats look like
Speaker 3: they're going to nominate a guy named Carl Marlinga, who
Speaker 3: is the nominee last time. He is a very old
Speaker 3: school attorney in the area. He was a judge in
Speaker 3: Macomb County. He was a prosecutor, a defense attorney. He
Speaker 3: was the nominee last time. But he is not a
Speaker 3: good fundraiser, and he's got some legal baggage from his
Speaker 3: time as a judge and a defense attorney because a
Speaker 3: lot of defense attorneys take on unsavory clients that Republicans
Speaker 3: were able to weaponize really effectively last time, and the
Speaker 3: fact that this should be a top tier pickup opportunity,
Speaker 3: they were not able to attract a real top tier
Speaker 3: challenger for James, and so in all likelihood Marlingo will
Speaker 3: be the nominee. Again, he's not going to have a
Speaker 3: lot of money. It's going to be a really expensive
Speaker 3: media market in Detroit because of that Senate race and
Speaker 3: the presidential and so this is one that again we
Speaker 3: kind of expect it to be a little bit more competitive.
Speaker 1: Democrats could flip yeah, but they don't nominate the right
Speaker 1: person for it, so they can't. That's Michigan one, Michigan ten.
Speaker 1: I have a question about the ladies who control Michigan,
Speaker 1: the governor, the ag yeah, and the Secretary of State.
Speaker 1: Do they help down ballot candidates in Michigan or is
Speaker 1: there no correlation?
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty two, they pretty clearly did because when
Speaker 3: they were on the ballot in Michigan, all three of
Speaker 3: its statewide offices are up in non presidential years, so
Speaker 3: none of them will be on the ballot this time.
Speaker 3: But clearly in twenty twenty two, the fact that you
Speaker 3: had three strong candidates at the top of the ticket
Speaker 3: was a big boon for Democrats running down ballot. Remember,
Speaker 3: you also had that abortion referendum that passed by a
Speaker 3: pretty significant margin. That was helpful. And you had Republicans
Speaker 3: in two of those three races. Republicans nominated candidates that
Speaker 3: were pretty trumpy, that were pretty baked in with the
Speaker 3: conspiracy theories about the twenty twenty election. So for Governor
Speaker 3: Tutor Dixon and for Secretary of Straight Christina Caromo, and
Speaker 3: so two out of the three state wide candidates couldn't
Speaker 3: raise any money and were really unpalatable to a lot
Speaker 3: of voters. And so that's why you saw Michigan was
Speaker 3: such a bright spot for Democrats in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: In twenty four when they're not on the ballot, I
Speaker 3: don't think it helps nearly as much.
Speaker 1: But the Republican Party in Michigan has had some real problems. Yes,
Speaker 1: you want to talk about that.
Speaker 3: The Republican Party in Michigan kind of underwent a schism.
Speaker 3: I guess it's the best way to think about it.
Speaker 3: So Christina Karama, who was that Secretary of State nominated,
Speaker 3: she is pretty wild. She has a lot of conspiracy
Speaker 3: theories about I think she said like Beyonce was demonic,
Speaker 3: Like it's just she's kind of all over the place.
Speaker 3: So she was elected the chairwoman of the state party
Speaker 3: in Michigan a couple of years ago in a pretty
Speaker 3: contentious race and running against actually the guy who was
Speaker 3: the nominee for attorney general, who performed the best out
Speaker 3: of the three statewide Republican candidates last cycle. So she
Speaker 3: beat him. The party was pretty torn up about it,
Speaker 3: and I mean, we're talking fistfights on camera at Michigan
Speaker 3: GOP retreats. It's been really rocky for the last year
Speaker 3: or so in her tenure. And she was ousted a
Speaker 3: little while ago, and she claimed that it was illegal
Speaker 3: and that she was still the rightful chair. For a
Speaker 3: little while, there were two dueling websites, they had two
Speaker 3: dueling conventions. But since then things kind of have settled.
Speaker 3: A federal judge ruled that she was properly ousted, and
Speaker 3: Pete Hawkstra, who is a former congressman, is kind of
Speaker 3: viewed by pretty much everyone now as the chairman of
Speaker 3: the Republican state party. They're still broke, they still don't
Speaker 3: have any money. But ultimately, whether or not you have
Speaker 3: a strong state party is a pretty secondary or tertiary
Speaker 3: concern when we're talking about federal races at least, right.
Speaker 1: But turnout is still helped by a good stay party. Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk to me about the races that keep people up
Speaker 1: at night. Marjorie Taylor Green is going to stick it out.
Speaker 1: But Lauren Bobert, right, I mean, there's a little excitement there.
Speaker 3: This race has so many twists and turns. Talk about
Speaker 3: things that didn't end up how we anticipated heading into
Speaker 3: this cycle. Adam Frish, who I believe you've had on
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 1: Before multiple times, Yes, took.
Speaker 3: Lauren Bobert to a very very narrow and most narrow
Speaker 3: congressional victory of the twenty twenty two cycle just a
Speaker 3: couple hundred votes. He was back for a rematch. He
Speaker 3: was raising a ton of money. It became very clear
Speaker 3: that he was going to be a real threat to
Speaker 3: her in the general election. And then she got a
Speaker 3: primary challenger as well, who started getting some real backing
Speaker 3: from some of the more moderate and establishment Colorado Republicans.
Speaker 3: So she decided to switch districts and run in the
Speaker 3: fourth district, which is not currently represented by ken Buck,
Speaker 3: but up until about two weeks ago was represented by
Speaker 3: ken Buck. And this is really the thing that always
Speaker 3: really gets me as I remember in twenty ten when
Speaker 3: ken Buck was the Tea Party Darling he was nominating
Speaker 3: him in Colorado was a sign that the right wing
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party had really come into the four
Speaker 3: And when he lost that race to Michael Bennett, it
Speaker 3: was held up kind of in the same conversation as
Speaker 3: Sharon Engel and Christine O'Donnell, Republicans nominating unelectable candidates is
Speaker 3: costing them the Senate. Fast forward to decade and Ken
Speaker 3: Buck is the voice of reason in the Republican Party
Speaker 3: and is so fed up with how things have gone
Speaker 3: that he's calling it quit. So he is not running
Speaker 3: for reelection. He resigned his seat and on very short notice.
Speaker 3: And so now you've got an open a vacant seat,
Speaker 3: You've got an open Republican primary, and you've got a
Speaker 3: special election all taking place at the same time. Bobert
Speaker 3: is trying to win the Republican primary. She's not running
Speaker 3: in the special election. There are a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: local elected officials who are also running in the primary.
Speaker 3: It's gotten pretty.
Speaker 1: Nasty who's running in the special So.
Speaker 3: The special and Colorado is weird about this. Colorado doesn't
Speaker 3: do primaries for special elections. Yeah, they have a committee.
Speaker 3: They call them vacancy committees, which are basically committees of
Speaker 3: local elected officials and Republican Party officials or Democratic Party
Speaker 3: officials who meet up and choose the nominees at a convention.
Speaker 3: So the Republican nominee is a guy named Greg Lopez.
Speaker 3: He is a former gubernator candidate. He was a mayor
Speaker 3: of a town in the nineties. He was picked as
Speaker 3: the nominee for the special. He's not running in the
Speaker 3: regular elections.
Speaker 1: The reason Lauren Boper didn't run in the special was
Speaker 1: because if you run in the special, you can't run
Speaker 1: in the general. Right.
Speaker 3: Well, no, so you can do both. The reasons she didn't,
Speaker 3: I'm of two minds. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 3: why she didn't is because she was worried she would lose.
Speaker 3: She wouldn't get the nomination and that would be embarrassing.
Speaker 3: The other thing is if she ran on the special
Speaker 3: and won, she would have to resign her current seat,
Speaker 3: right because you can't hold two seats in Congress at once.
Speaker 3: She didn't put her name in contention. Lopez did, but
Speaker 3: he said up front that he was only going to
Speaker 3: serve till the end of the year if he won,
Speaker 3: And so he's the Republican nominee. The Democratic nominee is
Speaker 3: a woman named Trish Caborezi, who is a former speech
Speaker 3: writer currently works for the National Science Foundation, has a
Speaker 3: bit of a background in democratic politics. She's a real underdog.
Speaker 3: This is a very Republican seat. So that race will
Speaker 3: take place on June twenty fifth, on the same ballot
Speaker 3: as the primary featuring Bobert and a number of other
Speaker 3: Republicans for the full term.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, for the primary. So this is wild stuff.
Speaker 1: Please tell me what the most fascinating house race you've seen.
Speaker 3: I think the Alaska is super interesting. It's the most
Speaker 3: Republican state currently held by a Democrat. Democrat Mary Poltola,
Speaker 3: of course, won that big special election in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: beat Sarah Palin. Alaska has a unique system of doing
Speaker 3: congressional and Senate races. It's a top four instant runoff
Speaker 3: rank choice voting election. Nowhere else in the country does
Speaker 3: their elections like this. And she faces two Republican challengers,
Speaker 3: Lieutenant governor named Nancy Dlstrom and a tech entrepreneur named
Speaker 3: Nick Begich, who is the one Republican and the very
Speaker 3: democratic and very prominent Begich family in Alaska, and this
Speaker 3: should be a seat that Republicans are winning. Democrats have
Speaker 3: very little business holding a seat a statewide seat in Alaska.
Speaker 3: But because there are two Republicans in the race and
Speaker 3: neither of them are getting out, it's looking more likely
Speaker 3: that they're going to get in each other's way and
Speaker 3: really allow Peltola to do what she's done for the
Speaker 3: last two years, which is be relentlessly positive. She raised
Speaker 3: up million seven this quarter. That goes a long way
Speaker 3: in the Anchorage media market. She has caught a real
Speaker 3: lucky break because Republicans can't unify behind one candidate ahead
Speaker 3: of the general election. So I think Alaska politics is fascinating.
Speaker 3: That's a seat that Democrats absolutely have to hold if
Speaker 3: they want to maintain the majority or reclaim the majority.
Speaker 3: But you know they're going to have to have some
Speaker 3: things break their way over the next couple months for sure.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for having me a moment.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon by drug Fast.
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of weird. It's almost like Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's a vengeful guy. Where are people getting this?
Speaker 1: Trump says he'll jail his opponents members of the House
Speaker 1: January sixth Committee are preparing. Yes, they're ready because if
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, I am sorry, this is insane. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is threatening to jail members of the January sixth Committee.
Speaker 1: Their crime is recognizing his crimes. And in case you're wondering,
Speaker 1: if Trump gets re elected, your crimes will be doing
Speaker 1: anything that draws attention to his crimes. So may I
Speaker 1: suggest that perhaps we should cover this election as the
Speaker 1: insane fiasco it is, and not business as usual. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump making overtures towards jailing his political opponents, and his
Speaker 1: political opponents trying to prepare for jail is our moment
Speaker 1: of fuck ray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
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Speaker 1: for listening.