Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie 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.
Speaker 2: And we are live from the DNC again with an
Speaker 2: absolutely insane lineup of people who will tell you such
Speaker 2: interesting things about what's going on in America today. Why,
Speaker 2: Senator Brian Schotz tells us his interesting take about what
Speaker 2: Kamala and Tim Walls mean for a new Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Then we'll talk to former Trump White House Press Secretary
Speaker 2: Stephanie Grisham about why she spoke at the DNC against
Speaker 2: President Trump. Next, President of the Association of Flight Attendants
Speaker 2: CWAAFL CIO Sarah Nelson tells us about the democrats embrace
Speaker 2: of labor unions. Then Peter Segel, the host of NPR's
Speaker 2: Weightweight Don't Tell Me, talks about Tim Walls being a
Speaker 2: Midwestern dad and the game changer that comes with it.
Speaker 2: Then human rights campaigns Kelly Robinson talks to us about
Speaker 2: protecting our most vulnerable fellow citizens. Finally, actor Mandy Patinkins
Speaker 2: tells us why he's at the DNC and why Dems
Speaker 2: need to win. But first we have inside elections. Jacob
Speaker 2: Rubashkin to talk to us about what he's seeing on
Speaker 2: the floor at the DNC.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Fast Politics, my friend, I think of
Speaker 3: you as a numbers guy.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to tell you I do, Jacob Robashkan.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: So Jacob, you rite for inside elections.
Speaker 3: You rank all of the map the Congress and the
Speaker 3: Senate who can win through polls, through polling. What I
Speaker 3: want first you're going to talk about is the part
Speaker 3: of the Democratic National Convention that people don't talk about.
Speaker 3: So a lot of what happens here in the morning
Speaker 3: and into the afternoon because the speeches don't start till
Speaker 3: about six, is that people go to these briefings that
Speaker 3: are held by super PACs and they tell you lots
Speaker 3: of stuff and they talk and it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's actually quite boring.
Speaker 3: But tell me briefings you've gone to and what you've
Speaker 3: heard about them, what sort of stood out to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So every morning, like you said, there are a
Speaker 4: whole bunch of events that carried through to the early afternoon.
Speaker 4: And you know, there are a lot of different stakeholders here.
Speaker 4: This is the super Bowl, it's the Olympics, it's this
Speaker 4: is the biggest moment in politics every four years, and
Speaker 4: so everyone's trying to get their message out. And I've
Speaker 4: been to a number of different events. A couple that
Speaker 4: come to mind the founders of Future Forward Pack, which
Speaker 4: is the big Biden's super pack. They're going to spend
Speaker 4: or excuse me, Harris super packets have only been a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks, but I still get tripped up. They're
Speaker 4: going to spend two hundred and fifty million dollars on
Speaker 4: Harris's behalf over the next three months. They did a
Speaker 4: very rare public appearance at a Cook Political Report event
Speaker 4: and the IOP and you know what they said, and
Speaker 4: it was interesting because it lined up with another group
Speaker 4: called Navigator that also did a polling briefing and Emily's
Speaker 4: List polling briefing that I attended is basically that this
Speaker 4: is still an incredibly close election. Everything is still in
Speaker 4: the margin of era, especially in those crucial swing states.
Speaker 1: And there's really the game.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And it's a real contrast because the energy here
Speaker 4: is so incredible. Democrats are fired up. They are clearly
Speaker 4: so happy with their candidate and how things have worked
Speaker 4: out and the momentum that she's brought to the table.
Speaker 4: But I think what these outside groups are trying to
Speaker 4: do is temper that a little bit and hammer home
Speaker 4: that this is not this is not a done deal.
Speaker 4: It is still very possible for Trump to win this election.
Speaker 4: What Harris has done is give Democrats a fighting chance.
Speaker 4: Biden was really struggling. She has pulled this election back
Speaker 4: into fighting chance territory. And so I think the outside
Speaker 4: groups have been very careful to make sure that while
Speaker 4: the energy keeps going, it doesn't turn into overconfidences as
Speaker 4: it can and has, you know, not so long in
Speaker 4: the past.
Speaker 1: So what weird stuff are you seeing? That's pretty interesting?
Speaker 4: Well, one of the things that I find striking, and
Speaker 4: you know, today on Thursday, the final day, there's a
Speaker 4: whole lineup of Senate candidates who are speaking at the convention.
Speaker 4: You know, people like Reuben Diego running for Senate in Arizona,
Speaker 4: Alyssa Slotkin in Michigan, even Colin Alread running for Senate
Speaker 4: against Ted Cruz in Texas all have speaking slots tonight.
Speaker 4: This is really something that I wouldn't have expected a
Speaker 4: month ago when this was still going to be the
Speaker 4: Biden convention. I mean, all of these candidates when they
Speaker 4: were making their case for the path to victory. It
Speaker 4: was all about how much they were going to outrun Biden.
Speaker 4: Biden was a wait around their next and the name
Speaker 4: of the game was how many additional voters can we
Speaker 4: get to come over to our side in the Senate race,
Speaker 4: if not the presidential I don't think that they would
Speaker 4: have been speaking here at a Biden convention, But with
Speaker 4: Harris at the top of the ticket, I think down
Speaker 4: ballot Democrats are much more comfortable affiliating themselves with her,
Speaker 4: aligning themselves with her, and taking advantage of the opportunity
Speaker 4: of the spotlight at this convention and hoping to translate
Speaker 4: that into success on election Day.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that has been a complaint
Speaker 3: I've heard is that this election has been too long.
Speaker 1: This election, not this election. This convention has been too long.
Speaker 3: The speeches, that doing six hours of speeches is making
Speaker 3: everyone crazy.
Speaker 1: Tonight.
Speaker 3: It sounds like these are all people who really need
Speaker 3: to be featured. We definitely saw some people I'm thinking
Speaker 3: of like the governor of New York right where that
Speaker 3: like we probably didn't necessarily need. Is the problem here
Speaker 3: that they're just not saying no to anyone discuss There.
Speaker 4: Are a lot of big personalities here. Everyone who is
Speaker 4: anyone in democratic politics is attending this convention, and they
Speaker 4: all want an opportunity to make their voices heard. Look,
Speaker 4: I think that conventions have always been kind of a slog.
Speaker 4: If you're listening at home.
Speaker 1: Then you are tired. You see franky, we are a
Speaker 1: day for we are fucking tired.
Speaker 5: Well, well it's.
Speaker 4: It's so the perception is so different because if you're
Speaker 4: just getting two or three hours in primetime, you really
Speaker 4: don't feel the full scope of the day, not just
Speaker 4: those morning briefings in then the afternoon speeches, and it
Speaker 4: really does go on for a very long time. There
Speaker 4: are a lot of people who want to talk and
Speaker 4: get to talk. And look, I think that you know,
Speaker 4: I've never heard anyone say, oh I wish that that
Speaker 4: that that politician spoke for longer, and I wish that speech.
Speaker 4: I wish we just got another five minutes of that speaker.
Speaker 4: That would have really made it. Look Tim Walls, last night,
Speaker 4: fifteen minutestes only fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: Wait, so we had an hour of someone who hasn't
Speaker 3: been president in a decade, and fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4: Of fifteen minutes. Our friends at sea Spanish for listeners.
Speaker 1: I'm hitting myself in the head.
Speaker 6: Here with.
Speaker 4: Our friends that see spend crunch the numbers. Tim Walls's
Speaker 4: VP acceptance speech was the shortest one since at least
Speaker 4: I think they went back to nineteen eighty eight to
Speaker 4: Geraldine Ferraro and Dan Quail, so they had all of
Speaker 4: those convention speeches by length. Tim Walls was the shortest.
Speaker 4: He spoke for twenty minutes, less than jd Vance. Jd
Speaker 4: Vance went for thirty five ti Tim Walls went for fifteen.
Speaker 4: And look, I think that the response to his speech
Speaker 4: shows that you don't need to speak for thirty five minutes,
Speaker 4: an hour, an hour and fifteen like some of these
Speaker 4: other candidates on both sides of the aisle. This is
Speaker 4: a bipartisan issue. But yeah, absolutely, I mean, speakers are
Speaker 4: running long, applause is running long and adds up speakers.
Speaker 3: This is our new nonpartisan issue. It stops speaking for
Speaker 3: so long at conventions.
Speaker 4: I think you would find a lot of supporters, a
Speaker 4: lot of people would sign that petition if you got
Speaker 4: that out there.
Speaker 1: Could you run for office just now?
Speaker 4: Discus on a convention platform?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Uh, what talk to me.
Speaker 3: So the thing I keep saying, I wrote about this
Speaker 3: before the convention started.
Speaker 1: I believe that I was really right.
Speaker 3: One of the many annoying things I do is I
Speaker 3: then talk about how I was right about things. Jesse
Speaker 3: is nodding furiously. Let the record show Jesse is not incuriously.
Speaker 3: But I often like to talk about how I was
Speaker 3: write about something I was right that I feel like
Speaker 3: this is like joy with underpinnings of intense anxiety.
Speaker 4: Well, it's the Democratic National Convention, it wouldn't It wouldn't
Speaker 4: be Democrats without anxiety. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4: There is there is a tremendous amount of exuberance, amount
Speaker 4: of energy, but there is you know, undercurrent of worry.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 4: I think any any sort of notion that Trump was
Speaker 4: unelectable was dispelled should have been dispelled in in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: And look that, I think twenty sixteen still looms very
Speaker 4: large in the minds of anyone involved in democratic politics.
Speaker 4: So absolutely, any sort of joy, any sort of exuberance,
Speaker 4: is going to be tempered by that anxiety. And I
Speaker 4: think that it's it's you know, the speakers have clearly
Speaker 4: been trying to drive that home that this isn't a
Speaker 4: done deal. That you know, go talk to your neighbors,
Speaker 4: your undecided friends. That's a note that Obama hit, that
Speaker 4: Bill hit that you know, Tim Walls is talking about
Speaker 4: everyone is I think, at least on stage cognizant of
Speaker 4: the fact that this is still a very losable election
Speaker 4: for Democrats.
Speaker 3: There is a I think that's really true. We just
Speaker 3: were ragging on the speeches, but there were a lot
Speaker 3: of really good speeches too. Can you talk about some
Speaker 3: of the speeches where you were like, oh, wow, that's
Speaker 3: really good.
Speaker 4: So I was on the floor for both. Michelle Amberock
Speaker 4: on Tuesday.
Speaker 3: Night controversial take that the two best orators and the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party were.
Speaker 1: The best speeches.
Speaker 3: Yes, continue, So but let's talk about how great to look,
Speaker 3: as I thinians in American life ever are.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's not a politican.
Speaker 4: She's she is not a politician, which is good news
Speaker 4: for Republicans because I think she'd be a very good one.
Speaker 4: She brought the house down. I you know, I would
Speaker 4: argue she was probably the got the best response of
Speaker 4: any speaker so far. You know, I think candidly, it's
Speaker 4: tough to get up there in front of you know,
Speaker 4: eighteen thousand people and millions more watching at home and
Speaker 4: deliver a super impassioned speech, even even for people who
Speaker 4: are involved in politics. I mean Tim Walls made a
Speaker 4: comment in his speech that he said, could you tell
Speaker 4: I haven't given very many speeches like this. It's it's
Speaker 4: not the easiest thing. I think he did a good job. Look,
Speaker 4: I think Doug em Hooff is another one of these
Speaker 4: guys who you know that he he is not a
Speaker 4: politician either. He's not really a he's more of a
Speaker 4: publican you're now, but he was not a public figure
Speaker 4: prior to the twenty twenty election, and he had a
Speaker 4: job to do, which was humanize her a little bit,
Speaker 4: tell some funny stories. And I think he accomplished that goal.
Speaker 4: It wasn't a barn burning speech. It wasn't. It wasn't like.
Speaker 3: Oprah, I want policy from the spouse, Yeah right, I mean.
Speaker 4: No want you want something different, you want something a
Speaker 4: little softer, And I think he he clearly delivered on that.
Speaker 4: You know, I think that the messages from the Republicans
Speaker 4: here were pretty you know, they were the most concise
Speaker 4: I think of any of the speakers between Jeff Duncan
Speaker 4: and John Giles, the mayor of Mace, Arizona. You know,
Speaker 4: they clearly were the most mission driven of these speakers.
Speaker 4: They knew what they were there for.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I want to talk about that for a second.
Speaker 3: Are we okay on time? One of the things that
Speaker 3: I really thought was important that they did was these
Speaker 3: Republicans created a permission structure for other Republicans to vote
Speaker 3: for a Democrat.
Speaker 1: Talk about that.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I mean, this is the goal that every party
Speaker 4: has when they transition to general election mode, is how
Speaker 4: do we siphon off enough voters from the other parties
Speaker 4: team to make a difference. And that's why you have
Speaker 4: Typically in years past you've had prominent Democrats speak at
Speaker 4: Republican conventions. I mean, this was a thing Joe Lieberman
Speaker 4: got in trouble for this. Zel Miller, the former governor
Speaker 4: and senator from Georgia, spoke at the Democrats spoke at
Speaker 4: the two thousand and four RNC. There's a long history
Speaker 4: of people crossing party lines to endorse the other party's candidate.
Speaker 4: I think it was notable this past our NC. They
Speaker 4: didn't have kind of a big figure. I mean, they
Speaker 4: had a couple of people who said that they were Democrats.
Speaker 4: But you know, we're talking about people like amber Rose,
Speaker 4: not you know, former senators or governors.
Speaker 1: Amber Rose is not a known politician, so.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, it's just it's a difference here. But clearly,
Speaker 4: you know, it's not a mistake that the two high
Speaker 4: profile Republicans for Harris that got speaking slots were the
Speaker 4: former lieutenant governor of Georgia, a very important state, and
Speaker 4: a mayor, a Mormon mayor from Arizona. The Democrats have
Speaker 4: made some real inroads in the LDS community in Arizona,
Speaker 4: especially in Nevada as well since Trump came on the scene,
Speaker 4: and that's something you know, they're clearly trying to target.
Speaker 3: And we interviewed someone yesterday who's running for a Caroline
Speaker 3: Gleek in Utah, who was talking about how just how
Speaker 3: much Trump has alienated the LDS community.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, there's it's
Speaker 4: all relative, right. LDS voters are among the most Republican
Speaker 4: voters overall, and so even with some significant attrition, we're
Speaker 4: still talking about a very Republican constituency. Caroline obviously running
Speaker 4: a very underdog race as a Democrat in Utah, but
Speaker 4: look in twenty sixteen, right, Trump got under fifty percent
Speaker 4: of the vote in Utah because of eleven muth Mullen
Speaker 4: and his candidacy, which drew twenty plus percent of the
Speaker 4: vote there. There's clearly no love loss between the LDS
Speaker 4: community or portions of the LDS community and Trump. And
Speaker 4: so again, Utah not about ground state, but significant population
Speaker 4: in Arizona, significant population in Nevada, and that matters in
Speaker 4: states that are being decided by a tenth of a
Speaker 4: percentage point.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I think that's a really good point. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so much of.
Speaker 3: This convention, in my mind, was about trying to pick
Speaker 3: off those voters, like create the progression structure for Republicans,
Speaker 3: make sure you get the young voters out there. And again,
Speaker 3: like everyone we're talking about the Obamas now because they
Speaker 3: are the best speakers in the entire Democratic Party, which
Speaker 3: you know, but they talked about how much you know,
Speaker 3: you know, fifty percent of both of their speeches were
Speaker 3: calls to action, right, They were like what you can
Speaker 3: do and how you can do it, which I think
Speaker 3: ultimately it's one thing to be a gifted orator, it's
Speaker 3: another thing to be a gifted orator and also be
Speaker 3: able to just you know, tell people what they need
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and it's a it's a benefit to Democrats that
Speaker 4: they have people like the Obamas who are widely popular
Speaker 4: not just among Democrats, but you know, other political affiliations
Speaker 4: since they've left office, that are willing to come and
Speaker 4: give these speeches. I mean, look, honestly, I would lump
Speaker 4: Oprah in with that category as well, people that you know,
Speaker 4: Trump doesn't have an Obama to come and vouch for him, right,
Speaker 4: Trump doesn't have an Oprah to come and vouch for
Speaker 4: him in a way that Harris does. And look, I've
Speaker 4: said this for a while that Harris's biggest advantage in
Speaker 4: this race is that she didn't have to run a primary. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a reason why when the Republicans make their ads
Speaker 4: and they pull their clips, it's almost exclusively from her
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen race because she took all sorts of stances
Speaker 4: on all sorts of issues that were really hot that year,
Speaker 4: like Medicare for all, like you know, a decriminalizing border crossing,
Speaker 4: things like that.
Speaker 1: That I think she did decriminalize.
Speaker 4: Okay, she didn't raise her hand on stage, but.
Speaker 1: I think I'm pretty sure that that more news. It
Speaker 1: was a little yeah, I mean, anyway, yees.
Speaker 4: She she took, she took a lot of stances. There
Speaker 4: were one, you know, the anti fracking stance that she
Speaker 4: since walked back. And that's where Republicans are going to, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, find their their oppo research on her, find
Speaker 4: find the hits. Because primaries got you in trouble like that,
Speaker 4: and she didn't have to run in one this time.
Speaker 4: She was able to kind of emerge from you know,
Speaker 4: uh Zeus's head fully formed as as the as the
Speaker 4: presidential nominee with a staff of twelve hundred and a
Speaker 4: budget of two hundred million dollars that she doubled in
Speaker 4: the first you know.
Speaker 1: She's raised five hundred million dollars now.
Speaker 4: Yes, since since in the months since she got in,
Speaker 4: they say she's raised five hundred million.
Speaker 1: Is that the most ever of anyone ever?
Speaker 4: It might be in terms of a month campaign. You know,
Speaker 4: Biden raised over a billion, over billion is now kind
Speaker 4: of the price for entry for a Democratic.
Speaker 1: Residential kidudent waste of money go on.
Speaker 4: But she I wouldn't I don't know specifically, but I
Speaker 4: would imagine that five hundred million in one month is
Speaker 4: got to be the record for.
Speaker 1: Okay, five hundred million in one month.
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ, it's an incredible amount of money.
Speaker 3: So there was so much, there were so many like
Speaker 3: people who were undermining her and underestimating her.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen a presidential launch go this, Well,
Speaker 1: that's a good question.
Speaker 3: And the matrix are money, excitement, enthusiasm, volunteers, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: these are I'm not even talking about polling matrix.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about things that are just like very kind of.
Speaker 4: You know, you know, she's she's executed about as well
Speaker 4: as you could possibly have hoped for if you're her
Speaker 4: or her team, and you know, she again, she's been
Speaker 4: aided by the fact that this is a sprint and
Speaker 4: it's one that she was so able to consolidate support
Speaker 4: for in that first twenty four hours and turn her
Speaker 4: attention to Trump. I mean, the problem that Democrats have
Speaker 4: is that, you know, they are a fractious party. They
Speaker 4: are a lot of different it's a it's a diverse party.
Speaker 4: It's not homogeneous, and and so they're not you know,
Speaker 4: the thing that unites them the most is a desire
Speaker 4: to get Trump away from the presidency, keep him out
Speaker 4: of the White House, and by asserting herself as the
Speaker 4: nominee within the first twenty four hours, that meant that
Speaker 4: she was the best shot, she was the only shot,
Speaker 4: and everything else has kind of followed from that. But no, absolutely,
Speaker 4: I mean she's between the initial rollout, locking down the
Speaker 4: supports Esiden exactly exactly. Now.
Speaker 1: I mean this is not to say that Biden.
Speaker 3: I think we will look back at Joe Biden as
Speaker 3: the best president I mean, one of the best president's
Speaker 3: Democrats have ever elected in modern history. But I also
Speaker 3: think that it is absolutely what you're saying is really important.
Speaker 4: You know. And again, she benefits from the fact that
Speaker 4: this is a one hundred day campaign. If your Biden
Speaker 4: was running for office for sixteen months, did he.
Speaker 8: Like the video?
Speaker 1: The video was so good? Are you sorry? I got
Speaker 1: worries myself.
Speaker 4: You know, A longer presidential campaign gives you more opportunities
Speaker 4: to make mistakes, make missteps, have events intervene. The fact
Speaker 4: that she only has to execute for one hundred days
Speaker 4: is a major advantage because look for as well as
Speaker 4: everything has gone for her thus far, if she had
Speaker 4: to do this for a year, who knows whether she
Speaker 4: would be able to do it. Whether there would be
Speaker 4: things that would happen that would cause trouble, There probably
Speaker 4: will be things over the next seventy four days that
Speaker 4: rock the campaign, that make for challenge is I would
Speaker 4: be surprised if this is just a clean kind of rise, rise,
Speaker 4: rise until election day. That's just not how these races were.
Speaker 3: Still, it's a you know, it's it's a honeymoon that
Speaker 3: seems to have a very very long honeymoon.
Speaker 4: Well, the timing. Biden's timing was pretty excellent all things considered,
Speaker 4: dropping out right after the RNC immediately endorsing her, allowing
Speaker 4: her to get a favorable news cycle from the launch,
Speaker 4: another one from locking down the support and the endorsements,
Speaker 4: another one from the fundraising, then another one the next
Speaker 4: week was the rallies, that rally in Milwaukee that went
Speaker 4: off so well, and then the week after that she
Speaker 4: launches the VP pick. Now we're in the convention, you know,
Speaker 4: we'll have kind of a quiet two weeks and then
Speaker 4: it's at the debate. There are opportunities here, given the
Speaker 4: calendar that that Biden kind of laid out with his
Speaker 4: own timing, that have allowed her to just kind of
Speaker 4: it's not a honeymoon. It's a snowball, right. It's she's
Speaker 4: got kind of signposts along the way that are are
Speaker 4: allowing her to generate new momentum, favorable news cycles. And
Speaker 4: you know, after the debate, I think is probably the
Speaker 4: most interesting time that'll be, you know, the last kind
Speaker 4: of major event that we know is going to happen.
Speaker 4: Maybe there'll be another debate between her and Trump. Maybe
Speaker 4: they'll be a VP debate. I'll believe all that when
Speaker 4: I see it. But for the moment, she's got a
Speaker 4: number of opportunities not just have a honeymoon, but to
Speaker 4: keep that snowball growing.
Speaker 3: You are, I'm going to ask you one last question,
Speaker 3: or Jesse's going to kill me. You are a polster
Speaker 3: by trade, right? Or you've started in polls. How many
Speaker 3: points does she get from this convention? What's the bomb here?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna and by the way, if you're wrong, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna be so well.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to be wrong because I'm not going
Speaker 4: to give you a number. No. Look, I think it's
Speaker 4: going to be difficult to disaggregate from everything else that's
Speaker 4: going on because she already has momentum, seen her kind
Speaker 4: of steadily tick up from where she began a month ago.
Speaker 4: If you look at the trend line, it's a slow
Speaker 4: but steady rise. Trump is remaining flat. His support has
Speaker 4: always been you know, RFK is going to drop out,
Speaker 4: that's gonna you know, do.
Speaker 1: You think those people go to Trump?
Speaker 4: I think that disproportionately. They probably do for two reasons.
Speaker 4: First is because I think RFK has pretty much aligned
Speaker 4: himself with Trump on a number of policy positions by now.
Speaker 4: And the other thing is I think that Democrats who
Speaker 4: were RFK curious when Biden was the nominee have come
Speaker 4: back into the Harris fold. If they were looking at
Speaker 4: RFK because they just didn't like Biden. She is giving
Speaker 4: them something new to latch onto. So the remaining RFK
Speaker 4: support the kind of the dwindling you know, rump. RFK
Speaker 4: support is already skewed toward Trump friendly voters, and so
Speaker 4: I would anticipate that most of that support, why they
Speaker 4: go to Trump, It'll go to Chase Oliver, jill Stein,
Speaker 4: doctor webs still over there, or or they'll stay on
Speaker 4: the couch, right, they just won't show up to vote.
Speaker 1: Three points from the convention, No, I don't.
Speaker 4: I looks she may have already right, like part there's
Speaker 4: there's a real argument to be made that some of
Speaker 4: this has already been baked in.
Speaker 1: Because and a half points.
Speaker 4: Sorry, she's because she got to introduce herself as the
Speaker 4: nominee with such a favorable news cycle. That's typically what
Speaker 4: the convention is for. She got to do that a
Speaker 4: month before the convention. So I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 4: it's I don't know. Look, I don't even know. I
Speaker 4: don't know if there will be a bump or if
Speaker 4: there'll just be a continued slight momentum upwards over the
Speaker 4: next couple of weeks coming into the debate.
Speaker 3: Okay, so if you're wrong, you're coming back to two
Speaker 3: points you, Jacob exactly.
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Speaker 2: Unusual dot bio. Brider Shots is the senior senator from Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Welcome back.
Speaker 3: You're like a frequent flyer here too fast Politics Senator Shots.
Speaker 6: Nice to see you.
Speaker 3: Nice to see we are in person at the Democratic
Speaker 3: National Convention.
Speaker 1: What number Convention is this for you?
Speaker 9: I think it's for I don't even remember, but I
Speaker 9: think I did both Obamas and then Clinton and then yeah,
Speaker 9: so this is four.
Speaker 3: So the vibes are a lot of people have said
Speaker 3: the vibes are Obama two thousand and eight.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think listen.
Speaker 9: I think level of enthusiasm is very comparable to Denver
Speaker 9: and the Obama experience. What for me feels different is
Speaker 9: that with Obama and even last night, with both of
Speaker 9: the Obamas, it was always inevitably and it's not their
Speaker 9: fault at least partly about them and how magnificent they
Speaker 9: are and how.
Speaker 6: Extraordinary they are because they're just so good.
Speaker 9: But you kind of have this problem of how you're
Speaker 9: going to build a team around Michael Jordan, right, and
Speaker 9: with Kamala and Tim Walls. They are both extraordinary leaders,
Speaker 9: but there's not this sense of kind of like messianic devotion.
Speaker 9: There is this set you remember during it was actually
Speaker 9: Bernie versus Hillary. His campaigns a slogan was not me
Speaker 9: us Yeah, and that's what this feels like. This feels
Speaker 9: like this is all of us as a team, as
Speaker 9: opposed to all of us saying we found our political Messiah.
Speaker 3: This is a hot take, and we know this is
Speaker 3: actually a smart take because Jesse Cannon just nodded, whereas
Speaker 3: with many of my interviews today he's been like.
Speaker 1: Just sits stoically, We'll be like, stop doing stuff.
Speaker 3: I can see somewhere else, which was he's very mean
Speaker 3: to me, but that's okay. But yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think that's a really important point. And when we talk
Speaker 3: about Walls, you know, I was an early Walls and
Speaker 3: for a number of reasons I had interviewed him, we
Speaker 3: had been texting. I think he gave me a cell phone,
Speaker 3: which it turns out he gives a lot of people
Speaker 3: his cell phone because my cousin, when I was branging
Speaker 3: about this to him, said oh I have it too.
Speaker 3: Oh really yeah, So I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 3: then there we go. So he has not texted me back,
Speaker 3: which maybe makes sense now that I know my cousin
Speaker 3: is also texting him. But one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: she chose him, I think, or at least from what
Speaker 3: we've extrapolated, is that he really is a team player, that's.
Speaker 9: Right, and he understands team concepts like I understand that people,
Speaker 9: you know, want to sort of project onto him coach
Speaker 9: Waltz and all the rest of it.
Speaker 6: But it's really true.
Speaker 9: There's no small thing to be a successful football coach,
Speaker 9: and it is no small thing to have been in
Speaker 9: the military and understand team dynamics. And I think that
Speaker 9: he understands he's playing a role and he's proud to
Speaker 9: do it. My own judgment is that Tim Walls is
Speaker 9: making the case because he's aggressively normal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like I.
Speaker 6: Found this one job right called United States.
Speaker 9: Senator, where if you are normal, right, that's a distinguishing characteristic. Yeah,
Speaker 9: And here's Tim Wallas. He's a governor and he just
Speaker 9: actually does seem like a regular guy.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, it does seem like Again, I got troll
Speaker 3: by the right for talking about how folksy he was
Speaker 3: because they feel I am insufficiently folksy, which I mean
Speaker 3: is clearly true. But I thought, like the mid Western
Speaker 3: dad vibes are top tier.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and it's not bullshit.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a difference, right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, when he's talking about how to fix a car,
Speaker 9: he clearly knows how to fix a car. It's not
Speaker 9: a shtick for him, it's not a presentation for him.
Speaker 9: This is genuinely the kind of person he is. Listen,
Speaker 9: in the first couple of days when he was doing
Speaker 9: that sort of cable TV run, right, everybody was very
Speaker 9: their curiosity was peaued. But my hesitation was whether he
Speaker 9: had kind of substance underneath it. And then you find
Speaker 9: out he's got all this governing success and just on
Speaker 9: a human level, he's a dad. He's a little bit funny,
Speaker 9: but not joky funny, and he just knows what he's doing.
Speaker 3: When he was a governor, it was the head of
Speaker 3: the DGA Democratic Governor's Association, explain to us what it
Speaker 3: means to do those leadership roles the DJA, or you
Speaker 3: have one that national Senate.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 9: It means that I mean, listen, the head of the
Speaker 9: DGA has to be unselfish, because you have to worry
Speaker 9: about other people's elections in places that you know generally
Speaker 9: don't necessarily mean anything to you in the narrowest political
Speaker 9: sense of it. So he has to be worrying about
Speaker 9: the Hawaii governorship and the California governorship in the New
Speaker 9: Mexico government governorship, and that, you know, builds his political chops.
Speaker 6: He can raise money and all the rest of it.
Speaker 9: But the other thing DGA does is they do convenings
Speaker 9: on stuff that's popping right now. There are lots of
Speaker 9: state based insurance crises.
Speaker 1: I know, hard of being the top Florida, but.
Speaker 9: Also condominiums like it's happening everywhere, and they end up
Speaker 9: serving as a platform for sharing information on the actual
Speaker 9: legislative pat of the job. So it's pretty good preparation
Speaker 9: for national leadership.
Speaker 3: Give me sort of two seconds on he was in Congress.
Speaker 3: So he's been in Congress, he's been a at the
Speaker 3: executive level, he's been a governor. And then you have
Speaker 3: Harris who has been an ag a DA but first
Speaker 3: female vice president ever. I mean, what do you think
Speaker 3: that sort of background looks like as.
Speaker 9: Cammie Well, I think, you know, they're sort of of
Speaker 9: the Congress, but not like creatures of Congress, like Kamala
Speaker 9: was there four years.
Speaker 6: I served with her for those four years.
Speaker 9: You know, Tim Walltz was a member of Congress but
Speaker 9: then went back and became a governor. And so it's
Speaker 9: great to have that kind of legislative experience. It maybe
Speaker 9: at some point turns a corner and becomes a downside
Speaker 9: risk politically, if you start talking like a member of
Speaker 9: Congress and you can only think like a member of
Speaker 9: Congress like these people have other both public service and
Speaker 9: human experiences that make them qualified.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Thank you, Senator Chads.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 3: awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
Speaker 3: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 3: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 3: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
Speaker 3: we have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 3: episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly Jong
Speaker 3: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube. And if you
Speaker 3: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 3: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 3: lock screen and it will play back just like a podcast.
Speaker 3: All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Speaker 3: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
Speaker 3: to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 2: Stephanie Grisham is the former White House Press Secretary under
Speaker 2: President Trump.
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. Welcome, Stephanie, Thank you for having me. So
Speaker 1: you just spoke at your first Democratic invention.
Speaker 8: Yes, I did.
Speaker 6: I'm still not believing it, but I did.
Speaker 3: What is it like to speak at a democratic invention
Speaker 3: after working in the Trump White House and really taking
Speaker 3: a stand again Trump is well?
Speaker 10: I mean, it's a joyful experience. It's a happy and
Speaker 10: welcoming experience, which is nothing that the Trump White House was.
Speaker 10: But in all seriousness, it's a great opportunity to talk
Speaker 10: to independence and other Republicans and kind of give them
Speaker 10: maybe the strength or the courage that it would take to,
Speaker 10: you know, go against your party. And I think when
Speaker 10: people can really understand what country over party means, that's important.
Speaker 10: And I really believe that if we can reach enough
Speaker 10: independence and like minded Republicans that when they go behind
Speaker 10: the privacy of a voting booth, that they'll vote their
Speaker 10: conscience and that they'll vote for honesty and integrity back
Speaker 10: into our White House.
Speaker 1: When you when you talk to voters and you tell
Speaker 1: your story, is there a moment when you were in
Speaker 1: the Trump White House where you were like, this is it?
Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore? And what was it?
Speaker 10: Ugh pry too long for this podcast.
Speaker 6: The moment hit me.
Speaker 10: Yes on a flight with the First Lady and with
Speaker 10: the President after a mass shooting. It was just a
Speaker 10: terrible moment. And I tried to resign actually a few
Speaker 10: times after that, and Milani and I were quite close.
Speaker 10: She got me to stay. That's why I moved back
Speaker 10: to the east wing at the end, and then January
Speaker 10: sixth was my line in the sand, obviously. But yeah,
Speaker 10: as I watched him evolve, I wanted out more and more.
Speaker 10: But that's scary too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of the things that you've done is you have
Speaker 3: really left the public life. Yes, and you're just back
Speaker 3: here because you know the importance of voting against Trump.
Speaker 1: Yet just talk about that for two seconds. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 10: You know a lot of people say people being Republicans
Speaker 10: right now, that I'm here for relevance, to get paid
Speaker 10: all of that.
Speaker 6: That's not true.
Speaker 10: It's scary to do this. Like I said, I've got
Speaker 10: a life that I really enjoy. But I feel so
Speaker 10: so passionate about this and about her that I'm going
Speaker 10: to step back into this spotlight here and see it
Speaker 10: through until election.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you, Stephanie Gresha, thank you.
Speaker 2: Sarah Nelson is the president of the Association of Flight
Speaker 2: Attendant c WAAFLC.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Sarah Nelson, my friend.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Mollie.
Speaker 3: Feel like this has been like the unspoken story of
Speaker 3: Chicago twenty twenty four as labor.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, listen, it's a completely different DNC that
Speaker 11: I've ever been to. And what we're showing is that
Speaker 11: labor is on the move. Look at the UAW strike
Speaker 11: and the pulling out of that seventy five percent of
Speaker 11: American supporting that there's nothing as popular as unions in
Speaker 11: this country right now. And it's because working people are
Speaker 11: like standing up and organizing and demanding our fair share.
Speaker 11: And so we're seeing that play out in our politics.
Speaker 11: I've been saying for a long time, Start in the
Speaker 11: work place and the politics will follow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you are a union leader. You have been
Speaker 1: doing this long time.
Speaker 3: Political parties like to pander to unions, but they don't
Speaker 3: necessarily like to make change for unions. But this Democratic
Speaker 3: Party seems like they are.
Speaker 11: Look, this is exciting because Joe Biden started it. Okay,
Speaker 11: he came right out of the gate, right when he
Speaker 11: was president and said that the government is not just
Speaker 11: supposed to let unions exist, to actually encourage unions, and
Speaker 11: people all across the country got the message on that
Speaker 11: the Starbucks campaign.
Speaker 8: Rose up out of that.
Speaker 11: You know, we saw the successful campaign at Amazon, We've
Speaker 11: seen all this other organizing. We've seen other people rise
Speaker 11: up in their unions and take control and want to
Speaker 11: be more militant and take on the boss. And this
Speaker 11: is not something that we have seen in a very
Speaker 11: long time, and so appreciate Joe Biden on that. But
Speaker 11: it also started before the pandemic. This is about Karen
Speaker 11: Lewis right here in Chicago with the Chicago teachers saying
Speaker 11: the word strike in twenty twelve and inviting the entire
Speaker 11: community into that strike, building enough power in this city
Speaker 11: to elect one of their own as mayor of Chicago
Speaker 11: right within ten years. And so we're seeing the results
Speaker 11: of that now. We're seeing that democracy doesn't just sort
Speaker 11: of exist with unicorn and rainbows everywhere. It exists within
Speaker 11: the system of capitalism. And right now money is controlling
Speaker 11: our politics, and so we have to go attack that
Speaker 11: money where it exists, where the capital exists, and the
Speaker 11: organizing with private companies is what's changing our politics right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's so important. We got to get
Speaker 1: some esoteric stuff from this convention. What has this convention
Speaker 1: been like, for you, what has been interesting and strange
Speaker 1: that you've noticed? Give us anything? Wow?
Speaker 11: You know, there's not a script for this convention. That's
Speaker 11: what's so incredible here. I think that what we are
Speaker 11: seeing is the perfect confluence of events here where we
Speaker 11: have needed a black woman to lead this country for
Speaker 11: a very long time.
Speaker 8: But to say that is a hurdle too high to.
Speaker 1: Get over in this country, it seems.
Speaker 11: So what we've done is, you know, labor's been organizing,
Speaker 11: we've been building for this moment, the fact that we
Speaker 11: need new leadership. This country has been calling out for leadership,
Speaker 11: and the idea was that we didn't have a bench.
Speaker 11: But here you lift the lid and we're going to
Speaker 11: get the leader that we need who's meeting the moment
Speaker 11: because working people are rising up. And I think this
Speaker 11: is allowing Kamala to be her true, authentic self. And
Speaker 11: so what we're seeing is a virtually unscripted convention, which
Speaker 11: is not what we have seen before. And I think
Speaker 11: people are feeling it and they're excited about it. That's
Speaker 11: what you fill in the room and they're going to
Speaker 11: go out and they're gonna act on that. I will
Speaker 11: tell you with unions. What this means is that we
Speaker 11: can have conversations with people that were otherwise a drudgery
Speaker 11: to have in politics, and we can tell we can
Speaker 11: engage people in conversations now about why the election matters
Speaker 11: because they're already in the conversation. We don't have to
Speaker 11: pull them into it.
Speaker 3: To start off with Sean Fain, he's pretty cool to discuss.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, listen, Sean Fain. I have been in
Speaker 11: a lot of UAW halls for the last ten years,
Speaker 11: and a lot of people have asked me around the
Speaker 11: labor movement, like I want to have a strong, fighting union,
Speaker 11: but I'm not so sure about my union. I've said,
Speaker 11: open up your constitution, your union belongs to you. And
Speaker 11: so here I was also saying.
Speaker 1: Women join unions, run unions.
Speaker 11: You know, we need your leadership. But young people, people
Speaker 11: of color, rise up. And so I've been telling you
Speaker 11: a w members, thank you for sending me a fighter,
Speaker 11: Thank you for sending me someone who is you know,
Speaker 11: going to push forward and use the power of that
Speaker 11: office to make change for working people, not just for
Speaker 11: UAW members, but to inspire people everywhere. Did you unions?
Speaker 11: And I've said to them, what I had to realize
Speaker 11: is I had to check my own biases because I
Speaker 11: didn't know you were going to send me a fifty
Speaker 11: five year old grandpa from Central Indiana. But here he is,
Speaker 11: and a lot of people are inspired. But we got
Speaker 11: to lock this in. There's a lot of leaders everywhere
Speaker 11: and a lot to do.
Speaker 8: Still.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you so much, Sarah, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Peter Siegel is the host of NPR's Wait Wait, don't
Speaker 2: tell me.
Speaker 1: We never talk about old podcasts.
Speaker 7: Oh right, Sorry, I actually have a very old podcast,
Speaker 7: so I wouldn't know. Oh yes, I never talked about
Speaker 7: the olden I'm going to ask you. I was on
Speaker 7: the bad podcast.
Speaker 3: Now I'm gonna go on trivia. Okay, Democratic National Convention.
Speaker 3: Which one is stuck in your head?
Speaker 5: Well, I've never been to one?
Speaker 1: Oh you've never been.
Speaker 5: This is my first time. Yeah, I've never been in New.
Speaker 1: York Chicago, I I know, not even well. Rena the
Speaker 1: ill fated makare Mackarena one. Was that ninety six?
Speaker 5: That was ninety six doing the Macharena. No, I wasn't
Speaker 5: living here.
Speaker 1: Then, Mackarina, remember that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, back in back in nineteen ninety six, I was
Speaker 7: an a political playwright living I don't even remember, I
Speaker 7: think in New York.
Speaker 1: Oh, good for you.
Speaker 5: We just had a senator walk by. I'm not used
Speaker 5: to that.
Speaker 1: What they do They just walked by.
Speaker 5: It was Mark Warner. He was just in. He was
Speaker 5: just in the floor.
Speaker 1: That's right, talking Virginia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know, the Great State.
Speaker 1: Is it weird to be at this convention?
Speaker 5: It's really weird.
Speaker 7: I'm associating it because it's the only point of reference
Speaker 7: I have with being at the Oscars, because it's a
Speaker 7: thing that I've only seen on TV and now I'm
Speaker 7: here in person, and it's both kind of cool. Oh
Speaker 7: I'm here, but you're really watching them take a TV show, yes,
Speaker 7: which is so.
Speaker 5: That's kind of fun. Yeah, and the floor is I mean,
Speaker 5: it's a good show, so I have no complaints.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a.
Speaker 3: Hot take right there, don't you think, Jesse Cannon you're
Speaker 3: watching it.
Speaker 5: Jesse was like what, looking at his Jesse's.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm so sick of these coordinating and it's like,
Speaker 3: I'm so sick of this person.
Speaker 5: I just had a really cool moment with Jesse because
Speaker 5: I've never met Jessie.
Speaker 1: He's the best.
Speaker 5: And he started talking I'm like, oh my god, it's Jesse.
Speaker 1: You can't do better than Jesse. Are you allowed to
Speaker 1: have opinions?
Speaker 7: It depends on the topic. I'm allowed to have opinions
Speaker 7: about food. For example, Okay, I can have.
Speaker 3: You seen any of the light up cowboy hats here?
Speaker 3: And what is your thought? I thought the light up
Speaker 3: when you've gotten me one.
Speaker 7: Go Well, first of all, I have no access to
Speaker 7: light up white cobbye where where we're at MPR. We
Speaker 7: can't afford anything that lights up hah. In fact, I
Speaker 7: was going to steal you know, I don't know if
Speaker 7: you saw, but they have The entire auditorium is got
Speaker 7: these little blinking lights that all the big shows have.
Speaker 7: Now they're all these radio control blinking lights, right, so
Speaker 7: they can do like light shows. And I was going
Speaker 7: to steal a bunch to use them for studio elimination
Speaker 7: because we have no budget and that would be cool.
Speaker 5: What did you ask me about.
Speaker 3: Your opinions about this convention or just tell us what
Speaker 3: you think the vibes are.
Speaker 7: The vibe, well, the vibes are like genuinely fun fun, and.
Speaker 1: Which for Democrats is not.
Speaker 5: No, it's a new thing.
Speaker 7: And I also feel like I'm spoiled because if I
Speaker 7: had been to any other democratic convention, I would assume
Speaker 7: they'd all be this joyful. Yeah, I don't, because I'm
Speaker 7: me and I have a brain that works. I think
Speaker 7: a little bit like yours does. I keep thinking about
Speaker 7: the alternative timeline in which it would be Biden and
Speaker 7: when she would be so forced there'd be a lot
Speaker 7: of obligatory excitement. That is something that I actually associate
Speaker 7: democratic conventions. For example, I remember two thousand and four
Speaker 7: as you were saying that that was a lot of
Speaker 7: obligatory excitement.
Speaker 3: One of the things that's happened with Harris is that
Speaker 3: the calculus has changed. Yes, and there is a lot
Speaker 3: of talent that was waiting in the wings, and now
Speaker 3: they may be waiting in the wings a while longer,
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Because like she's she just jumped up in line.
Speaker 1: She's in now, and if she wins, she's it for
Speaker 1: eight years.
Speaker 7: You're not going for like the passing of the torch
Speaker 7: thing like now it's to the younger generation, which by
Speaker 7: the way, she's we're the same age, and the fact
Speaker 7: that she is the younger generation is the best thing
Speaker 7: that's ever.
Speaker 5: Happened to me.
Speaker 1: It's true, I feel really young.
Speaker 3: It's great, but there are a lot of people for
Speaker 3: whom they now have to wait eight years.
Speaker 1: I don't cry for them. They'll be fine.
Speaker 3: But if sheel curious, how do you think that changes
Speaker 3: the calculus of this convention.
Speaker 7: It's hard to say, but you'd imagine that everybody would
Speaker 7: be excited because it hasn't like one of the conventional
Speaker 7: wisdom complaints about Democrats is they're all basically dating from
Speaker 7: the Jurassic. Yes, yes, not even the Cretaceous, which was
Speaker 7: the later part of the Mesosoic, but the Jurassic, which
Speaker 7: is even older.
Speaker 5: I might have a son who is really into a dinosaurs,
Speaker 5: or I've learned all this stuff.
Speaker 7: So presumably they'd all be excited that all of a sudden,
Speaker 7: the young generation meeting people in their fifties are taking over, right,
Speaker 7: I mean our sixties. You know that's also cool. So
Speaker 7: I think everybody would be excited. Everybody seems very excited
Speaker 7: right now.
Speaker 1: Right, No, it does, but there's quite a lot of ambition.
Speaker 5: Summary well, it sounds like you think there is.
Speaker 3: I think that there are a lot of really talented
Speaker 3: people who are now adjusting their expectations. And I think
Speaker 3: that's interesting because if Biden were the nominee, you would
Speaker 3: have like breakout star after a breakout star after a
Speaker 3: breakout star, and because now there's a real serious possibility
Speaker 3: of a Harris presidency, and that is exciting to me.
Speaker 3: I just am curious sort of the calculus of the
Speaker 3: people like Whitmre and Newsome and these people who were
Speaker 3: really running for president until about a month ago.
Speaker 1: So he is curious.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't have any I mean, you're much
Speaker 5: more wired than I am.
Speaker 7: But your theory is like Gretchen Whitmer, or the Gretch
Speaker 7: as she actually calls herself, bigretch.
Speaker 5: Excuse me, yeah, Bigretch.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: I think she's amazing.
Speaker 3: And I'm not calling her out so much as I'm
Speaker 3: just thinking in my head of all of those candidates
Speaker 3: who were.
Speaker 7: The idea is like they're thinking to themselves, Man, we
Speaker 7: had a chance to take the reins in twenty twenty eight, right,
Speaker 7: didn't we all assume that Trump was going to win,
Speaker 7: in which case there would be no elections in twenty
Speaker 7: twenty eight.
Speaker 1: And that's what I thought.
Speaker 3: This is my thinking too, But there were certainly some
Speaker 3: people I wouldn't underestimate how ambitious politicians are, not that
Speaker 3: we don't love them. In my head, I'm thinking about
Speaker 3: the sort of calculuses behind the scenes.
Speaker 7: One thing I could tell you is that here in
Speaker 7: Cook County it works very much like that, that there's
Speaker 7: a line and you're in line. There's an elderly African
Speaker 7: American congressman who used to represent me, I want to say,
Speaker 7: Danny Davis. Yeah, and there's a rumor a couple of
Speaker 7: cycles ago that he was going to retire. And according
Speaker 7: to a friend of mine who was wired in to
Speaker 7: the African American politics in the West side of Chicago.
Speaker 5: That means everybody moves up a step.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Like so somebody, of course, a couple of people
Speaker 7: a going to run for his seat, that one would
Speaker 7: get it, and then somebody runs for that person's scene,
Speaker 7: and everybody gets to move up. It's almost like, you know,
Speaker 7: like a like a conveyor belt that has been stopped.
Speaker 7: So there's that idea, but I don't know if it
Speaker 7: works that way in sort of national democratic politics.
Speaker 3: That's something I'm thinking about because we are trying to
Speaker 3: have takes about this convention that are.
Speaker 5: Not just joyful fun. This is great. We're having the
Speaker 5: best time ever.
Speaker 1: Just a little bit perhaps counterintuitive, but still smart, as
Speaker 1: my producer Jesse has told me to.
Speaker 7: But isn't I mean, I think the fact that you're
Speaker 7: looking for kind of a dark side is a very
Speaker 7: democratic thing to do, and out of all the people,
Speaker 7: because everybody's trying to do it, I mean, democrats in
Speaker 7: array of course, is like not a storyline that anybody
Speaker 7: can go with. And I think that yours is so
Speaker 7: far the most smart sounding.
Speaker 3: Well, I would just say, I just am thinking about
Speaker 3: what it's like to be a politician. And remember these
Speaker 3: are people whose entire lives have been decisions to get
Speaker 3: to this moment, right, and so I just am thinking
Speaker 3: about that in that way.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to meditate.
Speaker 5: Thinkat with him, think of the jobs.
Speaker 3: From NPR and your fancy and so we have to
Speaker 3: do things like meditate on ideas.
Speaker 5: I'm so not fancy.
Speaker 7: So in my show, I basically do dad jokes and
Speaker 7: fart jokes and dad far jokes.
Speaker 5: That's what I do. You're in the sophisticated wire speaking of.
Speaker 1: Dad jokes for a minute. One minute. We have one
Speaker 1: one minute left for you to talk about. He's very tough.
Speaker 1: He's a tyrant.
Speaker 5: You need them. We only need one minute.
Speaker 1: To talk about talent. There are air quotes now to
Speaker 1: talk about Tim Walls, the most dad of all dads.
Speaker 1: He has a tip top now he calls it a
Speaker 1: Tim talk.
Speaker 5: WHOA. Here's the terrifying thing about like you all the
Speaker 5: Tim Walls jokes.
Speaker 7: You know, Tim's the guy who'd like offered it, like
Speaker 7: pull over and offer to jump your cables. Tim Walls
Speaker 7: is the guy who's not only happy to give you directions,
Speaker 7: but will actually walk you down to the street and
Speaker 7: point you to the subway.
Speaker 5: All those things.
Speaker 7: I have done seventy five percent of those things, sometimes
Speaker 7: awkwardly in such a way that the person I was
Speaker 7: trying to do it for it did not appreciate it.
Speaker 7: But I felt such a familiar vibe. I think he
Speaker 7: represents me.
Speaker 1: So are you saying you are a Midwestern dad and
Speaker 1: you see yourself?
Speaker 5: I absolutely do. I feel represented.
Speaker 7: And he's also again my age, which is utterly terrifying
Speaker 7: and a new young generation. But yes, we Midwestern dads.
Speaker 3: Can you pull a thing out of your forward, a
Speaker 3: little piece of electronics?
Speaker 1: You saw the video where he pulled.
Speaker 5: That the little piece of the forward, and he figure,
Speaker 5: He's like, this is the guy.
Speaker 1: This is a eleven box.
Speaker 5: I can do that, but not with my Ford. I
Speaker 5: can do it with my Chevy.
Speaker 7: I have a Chevy bolt and it's got this little
Speaker 7: little it's not even a latch, it's a hook that
Speaker 7: the false top and my hatchback, and it's constantly falling out.
Speaker 7: And what I could do is I could pull it
Speaker 7: out and say this is what you need to use.
Speaker 7: You need to You can't use guerrilla glue. Gorilla glue
Speaker 7: doesn't work. You need to use superglue like quick glue
Speaker 7: in order to make it stay.
Speaker 1: So I could fell asleep, but I'm not awake anymore.
Speaker 5: Would be fascinated by that.
Speaker 1: So boring, but it's the charm. Maybe I'm asleep now.
Speaker 1: Is this all a dream?
Speaker 7: That's the charm of Tim Walls. It's all ultimately boring,
Speaker 7: and yet it's good. It's good boring. We could use
Speaker 7: fine right as opposed to like, you.
Speaker 5: Know, the stars exactly. Thank you, Peter, My pleasure.
Speaker 2: Kelly Robinson is the president of the Human Rights Campaign.
Speaker 1: Welcome Cali. Yeah, happy to be here, Delighted to have.
Speaker 3: You start by telling us what your organization's name is
Speaker 3: and what it does.
Speaker 12: Yeah, we're the Human Rights Campaign where the largest civil
Speaker 12: rights are organization focused on the LGBTQ plus community in.
Speaker 8: The United States.
Speaker 12: We've been around for forty years advocating fire issues, and
Speaker 12: we'll be around until we're all.
Speaker 8: The way free.
Speaker 1: What will that look like?
Speaker 12: You know, I think it's so interesting because it actually
Speaker 12: looks like the basics that everyone else has being true.
Speaker 12: You know, earlier this week, I was talking to one
Speaker 12: of our trans kids in Arizona and he was talking
Speaker 12: about wanting to go to prom. I was talking to
Speaker 12: one of the kids in Texas and this kid was
Speaker 12: talking about getting a driver's license that had the correct
Speaker 12: gender on it. So when I'm talking about us getting
Speaker 12: all the way free, I'm talking about us being able
Speaker 12: to live out loud, but like only when we are
Speaker 12: just like everybody else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Republicans the attacks on transgender children, Like,
Speaker 3: clearly they saw polls that showed their people liked it.
Speaker 3: But in my mind, I can think of nothing worse
Speaker 3: than a group of people who are already targeted by
Speaker 3: peers being targeted by adults in power.
Speaker 12: Exactly, I mean, it's bullying and it's mean spirited. You
Speaker 12: have whole adults. They're spending too much of their state
Speaker 12: legislative time attacking kids, trans kids, youth. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 12: I think that what has really happened is after Roe v.
Speaker 12: Wade was overturned, they thought they were going to be
Speaker 12: winning on abortion right. But then the twenty twenty two
Speaker 12: elections happened and we stomped on them right, with abortion
Speaker 12: ballot amendments winning all across the country, with anti abortion
Speaker 12: candidates losing.
Speaker 8: And then the American Principles.
Speaker 12: Project, their executive director Actor actually said this that after
Speaker 12: that election cycle, they came together and we're throwing ideas
Speaker 12: at the wall, and attacks on trans kids is what's stuck.
Speaker 12: So this is not about families, it's not about our kids.
Speaker 12: It is about political power, and we've got to make
Speaker 12: sure that we're increasing visibility for our community and not
Speaker 12: allowing these bullies to try to build their political power
Speaker 12: in the backs of our kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's right, and I think so much.
Speaker 1: You know, I have three teenagers and wants you is.
Speaker 3: LGBTQ, and I come from a groovy family where people
Speaker 3: are allowed to be however they want to be. So
Speaker 3: I've always been with my kids like you are who
Speaker 3: you are. But one of my kids is a lot
Speaker 3: of friends who being a teenager is hard, Being a
Speaker 3: trans teenager is ten times harder, being an LGBTQ teenager is.
Speaker 3: You know, it's all hard, and we have a Republican
Speaker 3: government that is obsessed with making it harder exactly.
Speaker 12: But the thing I always want to say is that
Speaker 12: it's not hard for a kid that is trans to
Speaker 12: be trans. What's hard is that they're living in an
Speaker 12: environment that doesn't support them in their identity and forces
Speaker 12: them to try to be somebody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 12: Right, So we got to fix the environment because these
Speaker 12: kids are amazing. And I think one of the other
Speaker 12: sides of this is that our opposition is scared. They
Speaker 12: see the same numbers that I see. Thirty percent of
Speaker 12: Generation Z identify as a member of our community, many
Speaker 12: of them being trans.
Speaker 8: Or non binary.
Speaker 12: They know that if this demographic can be fully who
Speaker 12: they are, they are never going to see political power ever.
Speaker 8: Again.
Speaker 3: Yeah and good, but it is interesting because they will
Speaker 3: quote that number as a reason why it has to
Speaker 3: be stopped, Like they'll say, why is it more kids
Speaker 3: than it was before, and they never put it together
Speaker 3: that finally people feel a little.
Speaker 1: Bit safe to be who they are exactly exactly.
Speaker 12: And you know, queer and trans people we have always
Speaker 12: been here. These identities are not something new. But what
Speaker 12: is changing is the environment that we're in. I mean,
Speaker 12: you've got culture creators like Beyonce that put ballroom and
Speaker 12: black clear culture on center stage. Yeah, you got Tracy
Speaker 12: Chapman's Fast Card now being sung in country music bars.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 12: Queer people have always been a part of the fabric
Speaker 12: of our nation, and now I think what scares them
Speaker 12: is that we're out of the closet and we're letting
Speaker 12: people know about it.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 12: But for me and I think that's the power of
Speaker 12: being at the DNC, is that in spaces like this,
Speaker 12: we're not afraid of the.
Speaker 8: Diversity of America. No, it's true, we understand it's our
Speaker 8: greatest strength.
Speaker 3: What does your organization do in this sphere, Like, what
Speaker 3: are the sort of nons and bolts that you guys do.
Speaker 12: Yeah, well, we are laser focused on making sure that
Speaker 12: we get Kamala Harris elected as president and Tim Wallas
Speaker 12: as vice president. You know, I think for the first
Speaker 12: time ever having a vice presidentidential candidate introduced to the
Speaker 12: country with a story about how he was an advisor
Speaker 12: yes for a gay Straight alliance.
Speaker 8: That's incredible.
Speaker 12: I mean you look back ten or fifteen years, that
Speaker 12: story wouldn't have been told as a testament to his
Speaker 12: character in the way that it was. So we're really
Speaker 12: making sure that at the federal levels, we're electing people
Speaker 12: that will advocate for the LGBTQ plus community. But also
Speaker 12: looking down the ticket right, looking at the United States Senate,
Speaker 12: looking at the United States House of Congress, looking at
Speaker 12: state legislatures. So here we're all about making sure that
Speaker 12: candidates get elected that will support us and letting people
Speaker 12: know what we expect when they are in office, because
Speaker 12: at the end of the day, you know, the election
Speaker 12: is only a moment in time, a very important moment,
Speaker 12: but just a moment. We have to make sure that
Speaker 12: people are ready to advocate for those people that we elect,
Speaker 12: to put in place laws and policies that protect us.
Speaker 12: And to do that you need the president, but you
Speaker 12: need a lot more folks to to support it.
Speaker 1: Are you heartened by the codifying of gay marriage, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's because that was the one thing when
Speaker 1: they were codifying things, there was the one thing that passed.
Speaker 8: Yeah, passed with bipartisan support.
Speaker 3: Well, I know, you couldn't pass anything that wasn't bipartisans
Speaker 3: exactly in one way, despite all the bad news, that
Speaker 3: was a bright spot.
Speaker 12: Yeah, And the real impact of that, I mean, I've
Speaker 12: talked to families all the time, is that the federal
Speaker 12: benefits that come along with marriage allow people to live.
Speaker 12: I was just talking to a couple. They've been together
Speaker 12: twenty nine years. Is Trina and Holly in Pennsylvania. They've
Speaker 12: been together twenty nine years by heart, but nine years
Speaker 12: by law. And I asked him, like, why was it
Speaker 12: so important for you to get legal marriage, and they said,
Speaker 12: because we have a child. If we moved out of
Speaker 12: the state that we're in, it's not guaranteed that both
Speaker 12: of us would be recognized as that child's parents. So
Speaker 12: when you think about the federal benefits, the ability to
Speaker 12: care for your.
Speaker 3: Family, because I was pregnant and we needed insurance, exactly,
Speaker 3: he had insurance and I didn't. I mean, I love
Speaker 3: him too, but we've been married for ten million years.
Speaker 12: But yes, yeah, but a marriage is not just about
Speaker 12: the party. It's about all the benefits that come and
Speaker 12: the way that it validates your relationships and your.
Speaker 1: Love and also you protect your kids.
Speaker 8: Exactly. Yeah, and the rest aren't off the table.
Speaker 12: I mean, you say, I'll have the Supreme Court saying
Speaker 12: that they want to revisit at Bergefell and Windsor and Lawrence.
Speaker 12: I mean, we have to be really mindful that with
Speaker 12: Roe v. Wade being overturned, it has opened the door.
Speaker 8: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. You are amazing.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Andandy Patinkin is an actor and singer known for his
Speaker 2: work in the Princess Bride, Homeland, as well as Broadway
Speaker 2: and countless other performances.
Speaker 3: I am like brought back the yen to aesthetic. Okay,
Speaker 3: because I have. You know, I'm the Jewish mother? Am
Speaker 3: I a Jewish mother?
Speaker 1: The worst?
Speaker 13: The do you have children?
Speaker 1: Oh my god?
Speaker 13: How many do you have a lot?
Speaker 1: Like two many?
Speaker 13: Like the lady with the shoe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have.
Speaker 3: I was the only child of my mother because she
Speaker 3: was thirty seven when she had me.
Speaker 1: Feminists didn't want to have kids, forget it. I have
Speaker 1: three kids. One is twenty and two or sixteen?
Speaker 13: Are they twins?
Speaker 1: Yes? And all I do is yen to.
Speaker 3: Them identical, no fraternal, but like all I do is
Speaker 3: say and then you're going to go here. You'll do
Speaker 3: this New York City, right, act tutor, and you have
Speaker 3: this and you have that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they're like, be busier because we.
Speaker 3: Can't stand you basically in a nice way, right, Jessie
Speaker 3: isn't in a nice way?
Speaker 1: Not really? Now I have one kid?
Speaker 13: Are you a good cook? Do you feed them?
Speaker 1: What are you kidding me? I'm a Jewish?
Speaker 13: Where do you get their dinner?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 13: Where do you get it from?
Speaker 1: It is willed to arrive.
Speaker 13: You remember silver Palette on Columbus and you were Sheila.
Speaker 13: I don't remember her name. We have the cookbook, but
Speaker 13: my wife would bring home. Her idea of cooking was
Speaker 13: when the kids were like two, three, four, five through
Speaker 13: you know eighteen, put twelve things on the table.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: There are many opportunities to eat.
Speaker 13: She can burn water, my wife. But both my sons
Speaker 13: are extraordinary cool.
Speaker 3: See this is a sign you're a feminist. Okay, welcome
Speaker 3: to mad talking.
Speaker 13: I'm talking about burning the water.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be on.
Speaker 13: Me as we were almost thrown out of our buildings.
Speaker 1: In the podcast, we.
Speaker 13: Were almost thrown out of our building because yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: Do you still live in New York? Yes, it sounded
Speaker 1: like you lived in Chicago.
Speaker 13: I'm from Chicago, South side of Chicago. Yes, but the
Speaker 13: fire department came regularly to our building in New York
Speaker 13: because she left the water boiling and then the pots
Speaker 13: would burn, and then we were asked essentially to leave
Speaker 13: the building.
Speaker 1: It's a victimless crime. Bad cooking.
Speaker 13: Actually maybe no, what it is, it's uh, you know,
Speaker 13: she hates cooking, she hates technology. She can't learn how
Speaker 13: to work the phone or her computer. Yeahs, she becomes
Speaker 13: you know, just jeckl and hide. It's it's frightening.
Speaker 1: You're an iconic actor. I'm sorry to tell you.
Speaker 8: You know who you're talking to.
Speaker 3: And you also you have strong political beliefs.
Speaker 1: Where did they come from? How did you get there?
Speaker 13: They came from my wife around the dinner table, my wife,
Speaker 13: Catherine Grodie, who brought our two sons and Isaac up
Speaker 13: along with the third son, Mandy, and taught us our
Speaker 13: political beliefs. Literally, she educated all of us in ways
Speaker 13: that when she asked me, were my parents' Democrats? Or Republicans.
Speaker 13: I'm from the South side of Chicago. We went to
Speaker 13: Congregation roadte phase Etach and I honestly answered her, I
Speaker 13: don't know. They were just men's club and sisterhood. I
Speaker 13: never knew what their political affiliations were. And then we
Speaker 13: just she just brought us along. And then when we
Speaker 13: started doing concerts, when every cause came up, we we would,
Speaker 13: you know, put out the word at the end of
Speaker 13: the concert, so we didn't bother people. The kids would
Speaker 13: come up, we'd put out a box, we'd you know,
Speaker 13: raise a lot of money for wonderful causes. You know,
Speaker 13: we I could, you know, a whole list of things
Speaker 13: that we did over the years, and it became the
Speaker 13: privilege of my life to do political work. When I
Speaker 13: was shooting Homeland, I got to Berlin in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 13: so I think that was a fourth or fifth season,
Speaker 13: and it was when the Syrian refugees were, you know,
Speaker 13: making the trek across the Balkan route to try to
Speaker 13: get to Germany, ironically, of all places, and the first
Speaker 13: episode of that season was in a Syrian refugee camp
Speaker 13: and a fictional Telember and I'm thinking to myself, I'm
Speaker 13: looking at these photographs of children and husbands, wives, and
Speaker 13: I'm thinking, that's my family, those are my children, those
Speaker 13: are my kids, that's my fav I need to be
Speaker 13: with those people. So I made phone calls and I
Speaker 13: got Ruth Messenger on the phone, who's a friend of ours.
Speaker 13: We work with often and we care deeply about her.
Speaker 13: She really walks the walk and you know she is
Speaker 13: done talked to talk. She's the real deal. And she said,
Speaker 13: get with the IRC and she told me who to call.
Speaker 13: And the day Homeland shooting was over. In that season
Speaker 13: in Berlin, I was on the first plane to Lesvos
Speaker 13: Grease and within moments a little girl in a pink
Speaker 13: jacket was put into my arms. I wanted to just
Speaker 13: walk with people and give them comfort. And I thought
Speaker 13: the child had died. She had a face mask on.
Speaker 13: She had an epileptic fit. In the boat. We got
Speaker 13: her immediate medical care. Family got separated. We brought them
Speaker 13: together and other people that we met, you know, we
Speaker 13: got them on the train and on the on the
Speaker 13: ships to get them to Germany. And it changed my life.
Speaker 13: When you go around with organizations like the International Rescue
Speaker 13: Committee and you see the beautiful work they're doing to
Speaker 13: make people more aware of the refugee crisis and teach
Speaker 13: people how to welcome them into your country because you
Speaker 13: were the product of a refugee at one point. Everyone
Speaker 13: virtually in America is It's very moving to see these women,
Speaker 13: basically who have watched their family be literally dismembered in
Speaker 13: front of their eyes, and yet they get their strength back.
Speaker 13: They build huts with their own hands, spend two hours
Speaker 13: a day to bring food to their children, to take
Speaker 13: them to school. And those are the ideas that Kamala Harrison,
Speaker 13: Tim Waltz care about. They care about humanity. David Miliband,
Speaker 13: who's the head of.
Speaker 1: International Rescue Committee.
Speaker 13: I was speaking one somewhere with him, and out of
Speaker 13: the blue, I just said, you know, I'm not a politician.
Speaker 13: I'm a humanitician. I care about human beings, all human
Speaker 13: beings all over the world. There are people on the
Speaker 13: other side of the political equation right now that care
Speaker 13: less about others and care more about themselves. And it's
Speaker 13: unconscionable and the level of hate rhetoric and violence and
Speaker 13: ego and no regard for the law of the constitution
Speaker 13: or democracy or the voting system all of it takes
Speaker 13: your breath away, it makes you dizzy. You really need
Speaker 13: to sit down and gather yourself. Joe Biden has done
Speaker 13: a wonderful job of rescuing our country and had the
Speaker 13: graciousness to pass the baton because we all get older.
Speaker 13: I'm getting older, girl, I'm getting older. And he said, Kama,
Speaker 13: take us, take us there, And she's taken us there,
Speaker 13: and we're going to change not just the United States,
Speaker 13: but we're going to support world democracy, morality, ethics, people
Speaker 13: who care about human beings. And that's what America is about,
Speaker 13: and that's what melez about. You know it in her smile,
Speaker 13: for God's sakes, And when you hear Tim Walls speak,
Speaker 13: you knew it immediately that this was a teacher for
Speaker 13: all of us, not just a coach, but a teacher.
Speaker 13: We've had the blessing of Joe Biden, and now we
Speaker 13: have this blessing. It reminds me my piano player retired
Speaker 13: in twenty fifteen after thirty years.
Speaker 8: Then I got a.
Speaker 13: New piano player, and I look up into the sky
Speaker 13: and I go, how come, how do I get these
Speaker 13: two people in my life that know my heart beat
Speaker 13: and hear me and I can make music with Well,
Speaker 13: if you work for Kamala Harrison, you get her and
Speaker 13: Tim Watson, you get them elected. And you do what
Speaker 13: you can as an individual. Don't think that you don't
Speaker 13: have power. If you don't have a lot of money,
Speaker 13: or you're not a notable person or have a radio
Speaker 13: show or whatever. You have a vote. And there's nothing
Speaker 13: more important in this world at this moment than the
Speaker 13: power of your vote. And go knock on doors, Tell
Speaker 13: one person, give yourself a goal. Like they said the
Speaker 13: other night, five people, finish doing that. Contact ten people. Yeah,
Speaker 13: finish doing that. And you know, don't wait till Monday
Speaker 13: to start your diet.
Speaker 1: Right, it's a good point.
Speaker 13: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for what
Speaker 13: you're doing.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.