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 Florida wants to ban students from
Speaker 1: discussing menstruation. We have a mind blowing show today, The Guardians.
Speaker 1: Margaret Sullivan stops by to discuss the upcoming Fox News lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to CNN's Edward Isaac Dovert and he'll
Speaker 1: tell us about how Democrats are pushing abortion rights using
Speaker 1: ballot initiatives. It's an old GOP playbook. But first we
Speaker 1: have the host of the Laurence O'Donnell Show, MSNBC's Laurence O'Donnell.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Ban favorite, Laurence O'Donnell. Great
Speaker 1: to be here, delighted to have you. I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you first about what is going on in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: I feel like that is something right out of the
Speaker 1: West Wing. It really is. It's also something out of
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. And the reason Martin Luther King's life
Speaker 1: ended in Tennessee is that he was there to participate
Speaker 1: in a worker's strike. The sanitation workers all went out
Speaker 1: on strike one day when two of them were killed
Speaker 1: in what we now call an industrial accident on the job.
Speaker 1: They were killed by the truck that they were working on.
Speaker 1: And the conditions were so unsafe and the pay was
Speaker 1: so low, and they were not unionized that they all
Speaker 1: went out on strike and just to form a union.
Speaker 1: And the slogan that they had at the time for
Speaker 1: their protest march, which they were doing at gunpoint, by
Speaker 1: the way, was I am a man. And if you
Speaker 1: wanted to reduce what happened in the Tennessee legislature on
Speaker 1: Thursday when they were expelling these two men, you could
Speaker 1: reduce their statements to I am a man or I
Speaker 1: am a person, and I need to be recognized as
Speaker 1: a person with the right to speak in this body,
Speaker 1: which they were denied, which is the kind of the
Speaker 1: missing part of the coverage, in a way, is what
Speaker 1: led up to it. You're not allowed to speak in
Speaker 1: that crazy legislature. And so they were standing in a
Speaker 1: very long tradition and dark and horrible tradition in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: which at its worst moments has turned into progress. And
Speaker 1: so we'll see less than a week after being expelled,
Speaker 1: they will both be back at their desks in that
Speaker 1: Legislative Chamber, and so what do we do? Do we
Speaker 1: thank I really have been thinking about do we thank
Speaker 1: the Republican Speaker of the House for doing this? Because
Speaker 1: I didn't know Justin Pearson existed. I didn't know Justin
Speaker 1: Jones existed. Justin Pearson is his speeches and debate he
Speaker 1: was in debate on the House floor reached a level
Speaker 1: that I've never seen before. You know, no one has
Speaker 1: outdone Martin Luther King in public speaking in the history
Speaker 1: of the United States of America, but no one has
Speaker 1: ever outdone Justin Pearson in debate in the United States
Speaker 1: of America. What he was doing was a combination of
Speaker 1: public speaking and debate because he was taking all this
Speaker 1: input from these Republicans making statements at him and pointing
Speaker 1: fingers at him, you know, trying to expel him, and
Speaker 1: he was responding to them in the moment, with no teleprompter,
Speaker 1: no script, no night to think it over. You know,
Speaker 1: what am I going to say if he says this?
Speaker 1: It was just the one most remarkable thing. You know,
Speaker 1: as I was watching it, you know, we originally scheduled
Speaker 1: one segment on it for the show, and I was
Speaker 1: as I was watching you know, Representative Pearson. I just
Speaker 1: kept saying, oh, no, we gotta get rid of we
Speaker 1: gotta get rid of the Trump segment, that we can
Speaker 1: do that tomorrow. And then I was like, now you
Speaker 1: gotta get rid of this other thing. And it ended
Speaker 1: up being the whole show and we could barely do
Speaker 1: it justice in the whole show. Yeah, it's so interesting
Speaker 1: because it is the two of them. Justin Pearson and
Speaker 1: Justin Jones were both kicked out, but these six year
Speaker 1: old white woman was not. I just didn't believe they
Speaker 1: could be that stupid. But man, I am so embarrassed
Speaker 1: at having underestimated stupid in America since the rise of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, because I really thought I had my finger
Speaker 1: on the pulse of stupid in America. We've talked about
Speaker 1: this before, Yeah, I mean I grew up with a
Speaker 1: lot of it, you know, and so like it was,
Speaker 1: it was all around me, and I just I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, America. I overestimated how smart you were.
Speaker 1: I thought you were thirty percent stupid. So when I
Speaker 1: saw them not expel the Representative Johnson, a white woman,
Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, they realize what Justin Jones said in
Speaker 1: his final words, which is the whole world is watching
Speaker 1: and they realize this looks bad and we're going to
Speaker 1: stop this. And the only logic I could see unfolding,
Speaker 1: the only story logic in front of me, was Okay,
Speaker 1: they're pulling back from this crazy idea. They're not going
Speaker 1: to expel her. They're obviously then not going to expel
Speaker 1: the next guy, you know, Representative Pearson, and then they
Speaker 1: will probably go back and revote on the other guy
Speaker 1: or something to try to fix it. And it's like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no no, no, no, no no. Guess how
Speaker 1: stupid they are. They're going to keep the white person
Speaker 1: and then expel the next black person. Unbelievable. And I
Speaker 1: think that you know, there's a GOP donor retreat in Nashville,
Speaker 1: Tennessee this weekend. Yeah. And of course, you know, there
Speaker 1: used to be a notion in politics that you know, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the big bunny people, they all kind of
Speaker 1: gravitate toward the same place, a very similar place in politics.
Speaker 1: So if you were to go back, say to the
Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties, say to the Clinton era of running
Speaker 1: for president, and you were to say, what is the
Speaker 1: policy difference between big dollar donors to president, the first
Speaker 1: president Bush running for reelection and Bill Clinton running against
Speaker 1: him for president, and you would say, you could put
Speaker 1: all those big dollar donors, the corporate the corporate big
Speaker 1: dollar donors, not the Hollywood big dollar donors, because they've
Speaker 1: always been liberal and they're they're different, you know. But
Speaker 1: you could put the corporate big dollar donors in a
Speaker 1: room together, and you wouldn't if you just were overhearing
Speaker 1: them talk. It would take you quite a while to
Speaker 1: figure out which one is with Bush, you know. And
Speaker 1: and surely all of them would be saying how much
Speaker 1: they don't like taxes, right, but some of them would
Speaker 1: be contributing to the Democrat. But there was a very
Speaker 1: significant overlap in the way they thought. And now there's none.
Speaker 1: There is no overlap between the thinking of the big
Speaker 1: money corporate people contributing to Republicans and the big money
Speaker 1: corporate people contributing to Democrats. There's no overlap at all,
Speaker 1: which is extremely dangerous because it means that the insular
Speaker 1: and very stupid thinking of rich Republican corporatists will only
Speaker 1: get stupider because they will only be you know, talking
Speaker 1: to themselves and interacting with themselves and developing a set
Speaker 1: of you know, political contribution incentives that get stupider and stupider,
Speaker 1: and so they will find themselves contributing to the party
Speaker 1: that is nationally threatening to destroy their businesses and their
Speaker 1: accumulated wealth in one fell swoop with the debt ceiling
Speaker 1: that no one's ever threatened them at that level before.
Speaker 1: And because they too are stupid, they continue to be
Speaker 1: handcuffed to the stupid party. And so the you know,
Speaker 1: the Republican donors no longer are the force that we
Speaker 1: could rely on to avoid collisions on things like the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling. And I still hear it, you know, I
Speaker 1: still hear oya. You know, the money men are telling
Speaker 1: McCarthy he has to fix the debt ceiling and he
Speaker 1: can't fool around, right, There's no evidence to support that.
Speaker 1: If you said that about Gingrich in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: I'd go, yeah, okay, good, that'll take care of it.
Speaker 1: Not Now, this dovetails to the next question. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, which is the most recent reporting from
Speaker 1: that left wing rag Pro Publica about one Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 1: We have publicly revealed the most corrupt Supreme Court in history.
Speaker 1: And the good news about that is that in the
Speaker 1: entire history of the Supreme Court, there has been next
Speaker 1: to not a whiff of scandal at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So and I guarantee you that you know, in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy that did not mean that the wives of Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices were highly politically active people secretly who were
Speaker 1: trying to harm the country. They were profoundly inactive people
Speaker 1: at the time. And so the nature of the scandal
Speaker 1: that we have now, which is very much a spousal scandal,
Speaker 1: it's very much a Jinny Thomas scandal because this Nazi
Speaker 1: memorabilia collecting billionaire, the first thing he does is hey
Speaker 1: personally pay Clarence Thomas's wife out of his pocket. He
Speaker 1: funds an organization with all the money it needs to
Speaker 1: then pay a salary to Clarence Thomas's wife. And by
Speaker 1: the way, it's a salary that instantaneously doubles the income
Speaker 1: of a Supreme Court justice's home. And one of the
Speaker 1: challenges in the modern real estate market of the Washington,
Speaker 1: DC area is how do you live on a Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justice's salary in a way that you would expect
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court justice to live. And one of the
Speaker 1: answers to that in the Thomas family is well, number one,
Speaker 1: don't worry about the Supreme Court justice's salary. And so
Speaker 1: you know, the level of corruption there is colossal and
Speaker 1: unaddressable by the current system. Yeah. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: John Roberts, you just have a wife who is a
Speaker 1: legal Oh but I mean he one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why he can't go near this is his wife lives
Speaker 1: an equally corrupt life. Okay, his wife lives an equally
Speaker 1: equally corrupt life. I shouldn't be laughing, but it's just
Speaker 1: grim in the legal community. Now, let's take a look
Speaker 1: at the vice president's husband. Okay, because we're not saying
Speaker 1: you can't have a job. We are saying the founders
Speaker 1: lived in a world in which no wife would ever
Speaker 1: have a job, so they never had this kind of
Speaker 1: thing never crossed their minds. Okay, but now we live
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century, so sure your spouse can
Speaker 1: have a job. What did the vice president's husband do?
Speaker 1: High powered lawyer, very high income lawyer in a big
Speaker 1: worldwide law firm. He quit his law firm. He represents
Speaker 1: entertainment clients. He didn't represent any clients with any issues
Speaker 1: before the government in any way. But he thought, I
Speaker 1: can't be a associated with a law firm whose London
Speaker 1: office might someday be involved in a case that somehow
Speaker 1: reflects on some aspect of American governing. And so the
Speaker 1: Vice President's husband quits the high Pang law firm and
Speaker 1: he becomes a law professor at a local law school
Speaker 1: in Washington, DC. And that is the model. There is
Speaker 1: utterly nothing slightly corrupting about that model, and it is
Speaker 1: entirely honorable. And he will get no credit for that
Speaker 1: by anyone out there in the news media who looks
Speaker 1: at these issues. While the news media will just be
Speaker 1: looking at the Jenny Thomas and the Chief Justice Robert's
Speaker 1: spousal situations and say, well, you can't say that they
Speaker 1: can't have a job. You know, they'll take the stupidest
Speaker 1: possible angle on it. And the answer is, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you can have a job. Tell me what the job is.
Speaker 1: And I've seen senators go from being United States senators
Speaker 1: to being lobbyists, and I consider that a dishonorable transition.
Speaker 1: I have also seen senators go from being United States
Speaker 1: senators to being presidents of universities, and I think, yes,
Speaker 1: that's what you should do. Do something like that, that
Speaker 1: is not using the actual day to day currency of
Speaker 1: what you did in government to add to the personal
Speaker 1: currency of your bank account, right exactly. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that was super interesting about this pro Publica's
Speaker 1: story was not so much because we had all sort
Speaker 1: of thought after that two thousand and four front page
Speaker 1: story in the La Times where I talked about how
Speaker 1: Thomas had gotten gifts, and then he slowly stopped declaring gifts. Okay,
Speaker 1: that we're not so shocked by that. But one of
Speaker 1: the things I was really struck by was all of
Speaker 1: the conservative writers on Twitter who had gotten money from
Speaker 1: Harlan Crowe by the way, that name is like right
Speaker 1: out of Central Casting, who then were staunchly defending him
Speaker 1: and saying things like, well he has communist art or
Speaker 1: he has and you really did see how much of
Speaker 1: conservative media is a donor based I would say, Harland
Speaker 1: Crowe is a smart corruptor, right, He's a corruptor of
Speaker 1: the reviewers of his work, you know, in that sense,
Speaker 1: you know, by pumping the money in there. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you a story about the way this is supposed
Speaker 1: to work okay. Senator Moynihan representing New York had a
Speaker 1: very strong association with Puerto Rico, which does not get
Speaker 1: a United States Senator, and so Puerto Rico, when it's lucky,
Speaker 1: has certain United States Senators at certain times in history
Speaker 1: that kind of adopt it, and they tend to be
Speaker 1: New York Senators. And in the geopolitical dynamics of the region,
Speaker 1: Ambassador Moynihan at the United Nations was very much concerned
Speaker 1: every day when he was hearing from other countries about
Speaker 1: how Puerto Rico is just a colony, and he would
Speaker 1: be insisting, no, it's not. It's a commonwealth that can
Speaker 1: vote its own status anytime it wants to and all
Speaker 1: that you know. And Cuba was doing an awful lot
Speaker 1: of disinformation about Puerto Rico at the time, and anyway,
Speaker 1: he took a strong interest in it. And so when
Speaker 1: I was working for him in the Senate, he had
Speaker 1: to go down to Puerto Rico to meet with the
Speaker 1: Governor of Puerto Rico about a very important tax provision
Speaker 1: in the US tax code that helps support the Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican economy. And it was very hard to hold onto
Speaker 1: because people looked at it as a corporate loophole, which
Speaker 1: in a way it was, but it was a very
Speaker 1: strong supporter of an economy that was by far the
Speaker 1: poorest economy that is part of the United States of America.
Speaker 1: So he wanted to go down there, and a friend
Speaker 1: of his said, you can use my plane to go
Speaker 1: down there. And I and all my time working for
Speaker 1: Senator moynihan, never knew him to fly on anyone's private plane.
Speaker 1: And this was a friend of his he'd had since
Speaker 1: he was a Harvard professor. And so the Senate rule was,
Speaker 1: you are allowed to take that gift from someone who
Speaker 1: you can document was your friend before you became a senator.
Speaker 1: Which is very important about this definition of friend. Okay,
Speaker 1: because everybody who comes at you after you're a senator
Speaker 1: police don't ever use the word friend. Don't use the
Speaker 1: word friend. You've got to have a separate word for them.
Speaker 1: So I knew how long he'd known the guy. I
Speaker 1: knew the whole thing, and I said to him, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, I just don't want to be trying
Speaker 1: to explain this to the Buffalo News when they run
Speaker 1: the story about the senator takes a private jet to
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, you know, for a vacation. I don't want
Speaker 1: to have to explain. No, it was to meet with
Speaker 1: the governor. And yes, it included a weekend, so I
Speaker 1: guess you could call the weekend vacation. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to explain this whole thing, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to explain or fifty year relationship with this guy.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, you know, my knee and my hip,
Speaker 1: and you know, he's seventy something at the time, and
Speaker 1: this is a tough one, right, and his wife is
Speaker 1: going to go with him and she's not feeling great
Speaker 1: and this would be so much better. And so I
Speaker 1: have about two weeks to change his mind on this,
Speaker 1: because I'm not going to give up. Because yes, it
Speaker 1: fits within the Senate Ethics rules to do this, but
Speaker 1: you will have to put it on a disclosure form,
Speaker 1: and you will have to explain it all on a
Speaker 1: disclosure form, and the Buffalo News and the New York
Speaker 1: Post are going to see that disclosure form, and then
Speaker 1: I am going to have to explain it, and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do that. And in fact, the unspoken subtext
Speaker 1: of where I am going with this with the Senator
Speaker 1: was if you do this, I will quit. And the
Speaker 1: reason I will quit is I don't want to have
Speaker 1: to explain it. And by the way, the problem with
Speaker 1: most politicians is that they don't have anyone around them
Speaker 1: ever who would quit over something like that or anything else.
Speaker 1: So I work on him, and I work on him,
Speaker 1: and I have the schedule of FI the Delta flights
Speaker 1: connecting through Atlanta, you know, from Washington, just terrible, right,
Speaker 1: and it's awful, And I keep working it and he
Speaker 1: keeps saying no, no, no, and he's getting like huffy
Speaker 1: and angry about it. And then literally the day before,
Speaker 1: like literally the day before, he finally says, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Shiloh will will do Delta through a laptop. And you
Speaker 1: know what he knew. He knew. I never said to him,
Speaker 1: you know, if you do this private plane, then I'm
Speaker 1: going to leave. I never said that, but I think
Speaker 1: he could feel the force of how seriously I felt this,
Speaker 1: And ultimately what I did get through to him was
Speaker 1: there's nothing we will be able to defensively say to
Speaker 1: the people of Buffalo, who might when this story breaks,
Speaker 1: be buried under two feet of snow. There is nothing
Speaker 1: that I will be able to say to them, right,
Speaker 1: that will make them say, oh, I'm glad he took
Speaker 1: the private yet. I'm glad he took his friend's private yet.
Speaker 1: And we were a mile away from the ethics line
Speaker 1: on this Okay, it wasn't even close to the ethics line.
Speaker 1: It was a mile away, and I wouldn't let it happen.
Speaker 1: And that's the way it should be. The ethics line
Speaker 1: is here, you don't put your toe on it. You know,
Speaker 1: you get as far away from it as you can.
Speaker 1: You get to the point where you say, I will
Speaker 1: never ever be in a public discussion about an ethics
Speaker 1: choice I make in this arena. And Clarence Thomas says,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't want to know where the
Speaker 1: line is. I just want to ride in a private
Speaker 1: plane in the yachts. Don't tell me about lines. Laurence O'Donnell,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 1: Margaret's Ellivan is a columnist at The Guardian US on
Speaker 1: media and culture. She's also the author of Newsroom Confidential,
Speaker 1: Welcome Too Fast, Politics, Welcome Back, My Friend and Yours.
Speaker 1: Margaret Sullivan, Thank you, Molly, it's nice to be back
Speaker 1: with you. I am just delighted to have you on
Speaker 1: full disclosure. We are friends, and I have to really
Speaker 1: handle you to get you on the podcast, so I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it when you agree. You're very welcome, and
Speaker 1: it is true that we are friends. We're pretty good buddies. Actually,
Speaker 1: we survived COVID together by walking in the park and
Speaker 1: have consulted on many things. That's right. I first want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about Evan. Tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about Evan. Yes, so we're talking about Evan Gershkovic,
Speaker 1: who very unfortunately and very unfairly has been detained in
Speaker 1: Russia on espionage charges. He is a reporter for the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal. He's thirty one years old. I know
Speaker 1: Evan pretty well because so I was the public editor
Speaker 1: at the New York Times for about four years until
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. And that job is very strange. It doesn't
Speaker 1: consist anymore. But it was the job of sort of
Speaker 1: reader representative, ambud's woman in my case, and kind of
Speaker 1: an internal media critic. And it's an isolating job that
Speaker 1: you know you are crazy to take, but I did,
Speaker 1: and I always had one assistant, and I kind of
Speaker 1: rotated through a few different young wonderful, brilliant young people,
Speaker 1: all of whom have gone on to do incredible things.
Speaker 1: But Evan was the last one of them. And that
Speaker 1: was so it was in twenty sixteen, and he was
Speaker 1: twenty three or twenty four years old. He was one
Speaker 1: year out of Bowden College and fresh faced, very handsome,
Speaker 1: very good natured, smart, driven young man, and he helped
Speaker 1: me with this difficult job. He kind of did the
Speaker 1: triage of the complaints coming in from readers, and so
Speaker 1: they complaints a week about The New York Times, and
Speaker 1: so we would get the first products. A horrible job,
Speaker 1: it is, and then he would say to me, you know,
Speaker 1: my assistants would say to me, well, we're hearing a
Speaker 1: lot about this, and maybe you want to take this
Speaker 1: up in a blog post or at a column. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we got to know each other really well
Speaker 1: because we were in such a very tight, little two
Speaker 1: member department. And I also was very fond of Evan
Speaker 1: because you know, for many reasons, but one was that
Speaker 1: he was a little younger than my son Alex and
Speaker 1: a little older than my daughter Grace, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we had that kind of thing going on as well.
Speaker 1: A week or two ago I'm in Washington, DC, and
Speaker 1: I'm in a hotel room by myself, and it's the morning,
Speaker 1: and I start seeing these headlines about a Wall Street
Speaker 1: journal reporter detained on espionage charges in Russia. And my
Speaker 1: initial reaction was, oh, my gosh, that's so awful. And
Speaker 1: I start thinking about what a difficult time this is
Speaker 1: for journalists and how you know, we're in kind of
Speaker 1: a new Cold War and Putin's been cracking down on journalists.
Speaker 1: And then I took another look at the headshot the photograph,
Speaker 1: and I realized it was Evan, And I mean, I
Speaker 1: felt like the color of the world just changed. You know,
Speaker 1: it was a devastating moment, which hasn't actually improved since then.
Speaker 1: It's true, I don't want to laugh. It's just so depressing. Well,
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's in prison. Can you explain a
Speaker 1: little bit about exactly what the story is he was arrested. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he you know, I mean, I don't really know
Speaker 1: exactly what the reason was. He was arrested on espionage charges,
Speaker 1: but that are clearly bullshit. Yeah, I mean, the thought
Speaker 1: was that he was gathering information about the Russian military,
Speaker 1: which is very possibly true because reporters do gather information,
Speaker 1: to gather information together documents. In fact, that is the
Speaker 1: definition of journalism and reporting. And it's not a crime.
Speaker 1: It's not a crime here, and it shouldn't be a
Speaker 1: crime anywhere, because this is how we get informed. And
Speaker 1: you know, as you know, Molly, a lot of journalists
Speaker 1: left Moscow and left Russia altogether because it's become so
Speaker 1: dangerous for journalists, and a lot of Russian journalists are
Speaker 1: in prison or have been detained, I believe very unfairly.
Speaker 1: But this is the first time that a foreign correspondent
Speaker 1: has been arrested and detained in the modern era. So
Speaker 1: is a very unusual, very alarming, and very appalling kind
Speaker 1: of thing to have happened. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that I've read about the editor of the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: the new editor of the Wall Street Journal, said that
Speaker 1: one of the most important things that when you have
Speaker 1: a journalist like that who gets detained, is to keep
Speaker 1: him in the news. That's right, Emma Tucker, who is
Speaker 1: the real as you say, the relatively new top editor
Speaker 1: of the Wall Street Journal, who seems to be doing
Speaker 1: a great job with this situation, has said very clearly
Speaker 1: that you know, people and should keep him top of mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, the worst thing is for somebody like Evan
Speaker 1: to be forgotten and languishing in prison in Russia, and
Speaker 1: you know who knows what happens to him. So the journal,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal has been doing a wonderful job
Speaker 1: I think of writing stories about this. They did a
Speaker 1: great profile of Evan. They have a hashtag I Stand
Speaker 1: with Evan, And the thought is that you know, whether
Speaker 1: you're a journalist or a non journalist, regular person, you
Speaker 1: can at least, you know, keep him in the conversation.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really important. So I want to
Speaker 1: ask you what we're on this topic of authoritarian government's
Speaker 1: not liking media coverage. Elon Mosk yesterday just sort of
Speaker 1: had this. He decided that he was going to make
Speaker 1: a false equivalency between media outlets like the British Broadcasting Company,
Speaker 1: which are media out let's say, get some money from
Speaker 1: the British people, versus Russia today, which is an arm
Speaker 1: of the state. You know, he's going to keep the
Speaker 1: algorithms so that all of these actors good and bad
Speaker 1: get the same kind of boost from the algorithm. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about where you think that goes and what
Speaker 1: you think about that. Yeah, the first piece of that
Speaker 1: I heard about was when NPR was branded on Twitter
Speaker 1: as state affiliated media. Right. NPR gets a very tiny
Speaker 1: percentage of its revenue from the government. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like one something like that. Most of its funding comes
Speaker 1: from listeners like you and me as they like to.
Speaker 1: And similarly, the BBC does get some government funding, but
Speaker 1: they are not state affiliated in the sense that they're
Speaker 1: an arm of the government or that elected officials or
Speaker 1: bureaucrats tell them what to do. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: very very they're regular independent media. Right. It's certainly misleading
Speaker 1: at the very least, and probably worse than misleading. I
Speaker 1: actually harmful for Twitter for Moss to be branding those
Speaker 1: news organizations that way. It makes people think that there's
Speaker 1: something that they're not, and it's really not right. It
Speaker 1: is interesting, though, I mean, here is someone who has
Speaker 1: many many business dealings. He has factors in China, he
Speaker 1: has a product he needs to sell around the world.
Speaker 1: I mean Twitter is a technology company, but ultimately I
Speaker 1: mean he wants to make it a media company. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I've always felt that the big platforms, and
Speaker 1: I would include Twitter and Facebook and others are in
Speaker 1: fact media companies because they are a source of they're
Speaker 1: a source of I mean, they don't produce news, but
Speaker 1: they are an incredible source of distributing the news, and
Speaker 1: so there's incredible power there. And pretty much everything that's
Speaker 1: happened to Twitter since Musk bought it has been damaging
Speaker 1: to the way we use it and the way that
Speaker 1: it's and I think to certainly too its revenue and
Speaker 1: it's financial future, but also to the usefulness of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it always had some problems, as we know,
Speaker 1: and could even be described, you know, at times as
Speaker 1: sort of assesspool. But in general, you know, I think
Speaker 1: it was a place where you could get good information
Speaker 1: and you could distribute your work, and you could promote
Speaker 1: other people's work and now and sort of choose how
Speaker 1: you wanted information to come to you. And a lot
Speaker 1: of that has gotten very messed up. And you know,
Speaker 1: one symbol of that is the verified check mark, which
Speaker 1: you know, for a long time was a way that
Speaker 1: you could say, as a user, you could say, oh,
Speaker 1: is this a fake New York Times or is that
Speaker 1: actually the New York Times. And so now, as Musk says,
Speaker 1: he wants people to basically buy that check mark or
Speaker 1: buy that verification, so now it's pointless. In fact, if
Speaker 1: it comes off the real ones and is only available
Speaker 1: to those who buy it, it will be actively misleading.
Speaker 1: So that's a bad move. Yeah. It's super interesting though, right,
Speaker 1: because we have come to the moment where technology and
Speaker 1: media they've gone from using our content for free to
Speaker 1: build their platforms to wanting to charge us to use
Speaker 1: our content, right exactly. And it's very frustrating and at
Speaker 1: the same time, so for my friends who don't use Twitter,
Speaker 1: they'll say it's dumb, why don't you just come off it?
Speaker 1: But for journalists it is a really important and valuable tool.
Speaker 1: There's nothing so far that has replaced it as sort
Speaker 1: of a gathering place and a place to develop sources
Speaker 1: in a place to quickly find information and follow breaking
Speaker 1: news and all that stuff, or meet new friends. Right, Molly,
Speaker 1: that's how we met pretty much. Well that's not actually
Speaker 1: how we met, but close enough. Yeah, no, it's not,
Speaker 1: but what we had established that we kind of liked
Speaker 1: each other on Twitter, that I met you in person,
Speaker 1: it was like meeting an old friend even though we
Speaker 1: didn't know each other. Oh yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 1: good point though, that we find ourselves in a real
Speaker 1: place of dependent Well we'll see. I mean some people
Speaker 1: have left, but they also seemed to kind of come
Speaker 1: trickling back as well. So I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: I've sort of changed my use of Twitter a little
Speaker 1: bit by being more careful and less you know, just
Speaker 1: sort of being a little bit more passive. I'm more
Speaker 1: likely to sort of lurk and read things rather than
Speaker 1: necessarily post a lot of original stuff myself, although I
Speaker 1: always post, you know, I write a column for The
Speaker 1: Guardian and I do post that all the time, and
Speaker 1: it's helpful, you know, it helps get the word out
Speaker 1: that hey, here's this thing, you might want to read it.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious what you think about the sort of
Speaker 1: Trump news cycle that we'd just come in and out
Speaker 1: of very quickly. Well, I mean it's been fascinating. As
Speaker 1: you know, we can never as a society seemed to
Speaker 1: tear our eyes from Donald Trump, no matter what, and
Speaker 1: so in that sense, it's just been another chapter of
Speaker 1: the insanity. But I do think that his base will
Speaker 1: never desert him. Trump has said a lot of false things,
Speaker 1: but I actually think one of the truer things he
Speaker 1: said early on was that he could probably shoot someone
Speaker 1: on Fifth Avenue and his base would not desert him.
Speaker 1: That seems to be sort of true, and that, you know,
Speaker 1: being indicted, being arraigned, being charged with all these felonies
Speaker 1: has only helped him fundraise and made his base of
Speaker 1: followers feel more closely tied to him. But I do
Speaker 1: think that a lot of people who are not the closest,
Speaker 1: the most maga hat wearing people have gotten dissolution. And
Speaker 1: while I believe that journalists should not make predictions because
Speaker 1: we're very, very very bad at it, I will nevertheless
Speaker 1: say that I think that he could be and likely
Speaker 1: will be the Republican nominee for president. But I think
Speaker 1: that his ability to actually get elected in a general
Speaker 1: election has been somewhat damaged. Yeah, I mean, it does
Speaker 1: seem like that, and he did lose last time. So
Speaker 1: if he runs against Biden, which again is looking more
Speaker 1: likely since Biden has now told l Roker of all people,
Speaker 1: run No, not that he's planning to run, but that
Speaker 1: he's planning to have more Easter egg roles at the
Speaker 1: White House, so that you know, I mean, who among us? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm curious, you know here you are. You've been
Speaker 1: the public editor of The Times, you have written a
Speaker 1: media column from the Washington Post, and now you're reading
Speaker 1: a writing a media column for The Guardian. I was
Speaker 1: curious to know you have been really in the forefront
Speaker 1: of covering the media. Have we gotten batter well in
Speaker 1: some ways? I mean, I think that we've learned some things.
Speaker 1: And it was a steep learning curve with Trump because
Speaker 1: there was this tendency to cover Trump the way other
Speaker 1: elected officials or would be elected officials had been covered,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of give them the benefit of the
Speaker 1: doubt when they said something newsworthy, put it in the headline,
Speaker 1: all of that kind of thing. But I think we
Speaker 1: have learned some lessons about not constantly magnifying false information,
Speaker 1: so that is good. But there is still a tendency
Speaker 1: to focus too much on things that are outrageous, to
Speaker 1: go with the sensational rather than the substantial, and to
Speaker 1: some extent, we're all obsessed with what could be called
Speaker 1: engagement if you want to be polite about it, or
Speaker 1: could clicks if you don't want to be so polite
Speaker 1: about it. And we as media people in general, work
Speaker 1: for corporations, not everybody. So there's a profit motive that's
Speaker 1: running a lot of the decision making and that is
Speaker 1: hard to get away from. Yeah, it is such an
Speaker 1: interesting and strange time in American life because we're seeing this,
Speaker 1: how can media survive in a world where you know,
Speaker 1: some tech owners really hate the media? Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: mean that has been what we've seen play out with Musk.
Speaker 1: But then there's also you know, the whole Fox News drama, right, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: will you talk about that a little bit? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, basically, we're coming up on the trial in
Speaker 1: Delaware this month of Dominion voting Systems suing Fox for
Speaker 1: billions of dollars for harming their reputation about whether they
Speaker 1: rigged the election, which was something that was promi gated
Speaker 1: after the twenty twenty election on Fox News, at least
Speaker 1: by their opinion hosts and and so on. So dominion
Speaker 1: did not like that, and now we're seeing it play out.
Speaker 1: And what's happened in the pre trial filings is that
Speaker 1: all of this stuff has come out about you know,
Speaker 1: the text messages and the emails that have come out
Speaker 1: about how vehemently Fox did not want to say some
Speaker 1: of the true things, like the election was legit and
Speaker 1: because their audience, their vast audience didn't want to hear
Speaker 1: it and was decamping to more, you know, even more
Speaker 1: right wing places like Newsmax in one America. So it's
Speaker 1: going to be really interesting to see how it plays out.
Speaker 1: I mean it so far we're not talking about a settlement.
Speaker 1: We're talking about an actual trial, and I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be riveting. Yeah, I mean, it seems like
Speaker 1: Delaware is the hot it's right now now, just kidding,
Speaker 1: but I mean it does seem like Dominion wants to
Speaker 1: see hosts on the stand. They want to see Rupert
Speaker 1: Murdoch on the stand. Yeah. Yeah, And so Rupert's free now,
Speaker 1: he's not engaged anymore, so I hope that he's going
Speaker 1: to be available. And you never know, you know, you
Speaker 1: can meet people in court, so why not. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm making a place to meet wife number whatever. He's
Speaker 1: on five, I think, I guess, or have there been five?
Speaker 1: I can't keep it straight. That was like a what
Speaker 1: two week engagement didn't really it didn't really pan out,
Speaker 1: really pan out, But you know, I mean, there's life
Speaker 1: is really long, I guess, so you never know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very interesting stuff, Margaret Sullivan. I hope I can convince
Speaker 1: you to come back at some point. Always fun to
Speaker 1: talk Edward. Isaac Dovert is a senior reporter at CNN. Welcome,
Speaker 1: Too Fast Politics, Isaac. Thanks, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to have you on because I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you about abortion rights, but I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about some other stuff too, So
Speaker 1: get ready. Okay, So this article you wrote really struck
Speaker 1: me because it's like something we talked about a lot
Speaker 1: on this podcast. Democrats pushed abortion rights to the ballot
Speaker 1: in twenty thirty four, using an old Goop playbook, explain, well,
Speaker 1: what we've seen over the last year since the Dobs
Speaker 1: decision leaked and then when it finally came out a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks after that, is that this issue is
Speaker 1: incredibly politically potent and in ways that I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody had really anticipated. And you saw that prove out
Speaker 1: in some of the ballot meaisters. Remember when Kansas, which
Speaker 1: was not a state that anybody expected would be an
Speaker 1: abortion rights state, had that ballot measure that protected abortion
Speaker 1: rights in the end, and by a significant margin, given
Speaker 1: that it was Kansas, but then going into the midterms
Speaker 1: in November, abortion rights were really resonating with a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and in Michigan there was a balot measure
Speaker 1: there that also ended up protecting abortion rights. It passed
Speaker 1: with the support for that, but importantly for Democrats who
Speaker 1: were linking things, it was part of powering a lot
Speaker 1: of turnout for Democrats that gave them a very good
Speaker 1: year there. All the statewide races went for Democrats, such
Speaker 1: of house races that were seen as on the bubble
Speaker 1: could go either way, ended up going for Democrats. And
Speaker 1: the lesson that Democrats started to take from that was, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: we should really be talking more about this, apparently, and
Speaker 1: continuing to press it because it is a live, live issue.
Speaker 1: That is all the mindset that they were in going
Speaker 1: into the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race last week, which
Speaker 1: again was supposed to be this very competitive race, very
Speaker 1: narrowly divided state. Wisconsin, the very narrowly divided state obviously
Speaker 1: very close in twenty sixteen and in twenty twenty and
Speaker 1: the presidential elections there. The Senate race in Wisconsin last
Speaker 1: year was a very narrowly divided race between the incombent
Speaker 1: Senator Ron Johnson, who was reelected in Mandela Barnes, So
Speaker 1: it went for the Republicans then, But then the governor
Speaker 1: of the state was reelected Tony Evers, and the attorney general, Democrat,
Speaker 1: was reelected. So that division is there. But this race
Speaker 1: for a state Supreme Court, which is you know, usually
Speaker 1: state Supreme court races and years past, we're not a
Speaker 1: big deal. But this between a huge deal, in large
Speaker 1: part because the way the other judges on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: And this is also it's weird to some people that
Speaker 1: there are even elections for a state Supreme Court, but
Speaker 1: they are a Wisconsin but the judges are evenly divided
Speaker 1: in most people's assessment over how they will vote on
Speaker 1: upholding a law that goes back to eighteen forty nine
Speaker 1: that banned abortion in Wisconsin, which would be on the
Speaker 1: books after the Dova's decision. And so this judge, whoever
Speaker 1: was elected, was going to probably be the tie breaking vote.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, one of the main issues in the fact,
Speaker 1: when you look at all the advertising spending that was
Speaker 1: part of this race, it was the top issue was
Speaker 1: abortion rights. And that race, which was not a close
Speaker 1: race at all, In the end, it was an eleven
Speaker 1: point win for the Democratic backhandate the one who will
Speaker 1: vote to preserve abortion rights in Wisconsin. That means two Democrats. Again,
Speaker 1: it's another proofpoint this is an issue that is really
Speaker 1: politically potent. They say that Republicans have overreached, that they
Speaker 1: are continuing to not recognize how people are reacting to this,
Speaker 1: and for them that means talk about abortion rights going
Speaker 1: into next year to all the elections, but also really
Speaker 1: forced the issue by trying to find other states that
Speaker 1: they can put ballot measures on the ballot in places
Speaker 1: that they want to juice turnout. And that goes back
Speaker 1: to something that that's the Republican playbook from two thousand
Speaker 1: and four when Karl Rove did this to help George W.
Speaker 1: Bush when reelection. He oversaw the strategy to put ballot
Speaker 1: measures in a lot of swing states about banning gay marriage.
Speaker 1: So that was banning gay marriage in two thousand and
Speaker 1: four helped Bush. Then in twenty twenty four, it looks
Speaker 1: like it will be protecting abortion rights that Democrats are
Speaker 1: pushing in a hope of helping looks like Joe Biden
Speaker 1: if he indeed runs for reelection seems like he will,
Speaker 1: and a lot of other candidates for the House and
Speaker 1: Senate and governor. I want to get back to this
Speaker 1: idea of balant initiatives helping top of the ticket candidates,
Speaker 1: because that's sort of interesting, isn't it. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit counterintuitive. Well, like it gives people another reason to
Speaker 1: turn out and vote and makes them connect with an issue.
Speaker 1: You have a presidential candidate or even a governor senator candidate,
Speaker 1: and you may think, Okay, well, why do I care
Speaker 1: about that person, or what is it that's really grabbing
Speaker 1: me about that person? But a ballot measure can be
Speaker 1: a reason to go and vote, and it's you see
Speaker 1: that about a lot of things. I remember to go
Speaker 1: back to Michigan actually in twenty eighteen when there was
Speaker 1: also a good year for Democrats then, and one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that was cited to me for why they
Speaker 1: had such a good year in Michigan that year by
Speaker 1: the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party on election night.
Speaker 1: He said to me, the big part of it was
Speaker 1: that there was a measure to legalize marijuana. Right that
Speaker 1: drew a lot of people out, people who might not
Speaker 1: have voted otherwise, including so I mean the younger voters,
Speaker 1: but not just younger voters. That that cuts across a
Speaker 1: lot of groups. That gave people a reason turn out
Speaker 1: to vote, and when they're there. Very rarely do people
Speaker 1: go in to vote and vote on just one thing
Speaker 1: and turn around and so looking for these issues that
Speaker 1: can connect with voters who are likely to be with
Speaker 1: you on other things and then making them get to
Speaker 1: the polls. That's that's what this is about. And it's
Speaker 1: pretty smart because if you think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that Biden has been struggling with
Speaker 1: recently is getting excitement among young voters. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: a perennial thing. Look, I remember in twenty twelve writing
Speaker 1: an article about whether Obama would be able to connect
Speaker 1: with young voters again like he did in two thousand eight.
Speaker 1: That's a crazy thing to think about. Well, but in
Speaker 1: the end, the youth turnout was there for Obama in twelve,
Speaker 1: the youth turnout was there for Biden in twenty despite
Speaker 1: the bat is obviously not a young man himself. But
Speaker 1: what I the conversations that I've had with elected officials,
Speaker 1: younger elect officials, people like Maxwell Frost that twenty five
Speaker 1: year old congressman. Yeah, who was just on this podcast
Speaker 1: on Monday. Well, there you go. It's all connected. Molly
Speaker 1: Frost said to me right after he was elected, when
Speaker 1: he was in Washington, he said, look, I think that
Speaker 1: young people are going to turn out for Biden because
Speaker 1: of his focus on things that Frost fields are very
Speaker 1: important to his generation. A lot of the climate change
Speaker 1: measure is a big part of that was obviously a
Speaker 1: big part of what was in the Inflation Reduction Act
Speaker 1: last year. But these sorts of issues that can connect
Speaker 1: with younger voters and are a part of it. But
Speaker 1: it's when you talk to the people who have been
Speaker 1: involved with making these very successful ballot measures elsewhere around
Speaker 1: the country last year, what they say is that this
Speaker 1: is it doesn't work as well to say vote for
Speaker 1: Democrats there for abortion rights, or if you want abortion rights,
Speaker 1: Democrats are your people. What they say is that what
Speaker 1: works is to talk about it in terms of rights
Speaker 1: and in terms of Republicans stripping away freedoms and the
Speaker 1: government getting involved, not even Republicans so much, but getting involved,
Speaker 1: and that if you do that, that connects to a
Speaker 1: broader feeling that is there for a whole range of
Speaker 1: voters that they feel like the government is not paying
Speaker 1: attention to them and is not looking out for them,
Speaker 1: and is following their own agendas and all those sorts
Speaker 1: of it's more of a swingy message. Yeah, and look,
Speaker 1: when you get that, you get people who are really
Speaker 1: connected with this issue already on top of it. That
Speaker 1: ends up being a lot of voters. When you have
Speaker 1: states that are being decided by small margins in the
Speaker 1: presidential election or in lower level races, whether it's senator
Speaker 1: down to House, a couple thousand votes means a lot.
Speaker 1: If in twenty twenty, Donald Trump had won I think
Speaker 1: it's forty four thousand votes between four different states, he
Speaker 1: would have been reelected president. He would not have won
Speaker 1: the popular vote, right, Biden still had many million vote lead,
Speaker 1: but the electoral College would have gone to Trump again.
Speaker 1: So you think about that forty four thousand votes between
Speaker 1: four states, it's not a lot. And states where some
Speaker 1: of the action is being talked about for these ballot
Speaker 1: measures next year include Nevada, Arizona, right, some of those
Speaker 1: closely divided states, but they all so include Montana, where
Speaker 1: there is a Senate race John Tester running for reelection
Speaker 1: and seen as probably going to be again as it
Speaker 1: has been the every time he's run a very very
Speaker 1: competitive race. Also in New York. New York already has
Speaker 1: a ballot measure that is set for the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four ballot. The legislature approved it a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: New York is not going to be a competitive state
Speaker 1: in the president wow, except that there are all these
Speaker 1: House seats right that Democrats fucked up. Excuse my French,
Speaker 1: but I can curse because we're not on cable news.
Speaker 1: You know, there's the George Santos seat, etc. There are
Speaker 1: six seats that are represented by Republicans now in districts
Speaker 1: that Biden carried in twenty twenty. If that isn't a
Speaker 1: case that Jay Jacobs should resign, I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is. Well, I'll leave that for you. And that's
Speaker 1: six seats just in New York. And you know how
Speaker 1: many seats it would take for the Democrats to be
Speaker 1: in the majority of the House. Five Yeah, house race
Speaker 1: they're never decided by that many votes in close districts.
Speaker 1: So with that ballot measure in New York, that in
Speaker 1: itself could be the thing that changes the dynamics of
Speaker 1: next year's elections. I'm going to ask you about a tweet.
Speaker 1: It's very annoying to be asked about a tweet, but
Speaker 1: it's not one of your tweets. So there's something if
Speaker 1: it's about one of my tweets, and it's of course
Speaker 1: not annoying. Month So, on April seventh, after this yet
Speaker 1: another Texas abortion ruling, Dan Diamond, who writes for the
Speaker 1: Washing Post Very Smart, noted that there were twenty six
Speaker 1: Senate Democrats who waited in on this ruling and only
Speaker 1: one Republican who waited in on it, and it was
Speaker 1: Senator Cindy Hyde Smith, who is from a very red
Speaker 1: state and also not a genius from Mississippi, which is
Speaker 1: where the Dobb's decision originated. That comes from Mississippi. She's
Speaker 1: also most famous for having dressed up as a Confederate soldier.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just saying I don't think of her
Speaker 1: as like having her finger on the pulse or she
Speaker 1: does for Mississippi. Yeah, and that's her job, is to
Speaker 1: represent Mississippi. I'll tell you this. I went down to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court on the day the Dobb's decision was argued,
Speaker 1: not when it was decided, and there was, as often
Speaker 1: as the case for big events like that, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of protesters on both sides of it. I
Speaker 1: looked around. I could not find any elected officials there
Speaker 1: at all, except for Roger Wicker, who's the other senator
Speaker 1: from Mississippi. It's not that far from the Capitol to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, say maybe a three minute walk, I
Speaker 1: should say. I couldn't find any Republican elected official either
Speaker 1: than Wicker. There were some Democratic officials who'd been part
Speaker 1: of protests and speaking, and I walked up to Senator
Speaker 1: Wicker and I said to him, why do you think
Speaker 1: you're the only Republican here? And he said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: people are busy their committee hearing, isn't it And I said,
Speaker 1: the Senator, it's pretty close, and it seems like an
Speaker 1: important case. Don't you think the people would want to
Speaker 1: be part And he said, well, you know, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things, and he kind of dismissed it
Speaker 1: and then said he had to get back to his
Speaker 1: office himself. What we see from then, from when the
Speaker 1: Dobbs decision leaked, from when the decision officially came out
Speaker 1: and ongoing is Republicans who very much would rather not
Speaker 1: talk about this. The people who are most engaged with
Speaker 1: trying to win elections see this as a mostly losing
Speaker 1: issue for them with swing voters, and that they feel
Speaker 1: just as the Democrats field, it's proved out in their favor.
Speaker 1: The Republicans see the same numbers and see the same results,
Speaker 1: and that's why they want to try to avoid it.
Speaker 1: But that is not an option that a lot of
Speaker 1: the people who are leaders in the Republican Party seem
Speaker 1: to want to give them. Lindsay Graham last year introduced
Speaker 1: a fifteen week ban on abortion that would be at
Speaker 1: the federal level. Ronda Santis looks like he is on
Speaker 1: the cusp of signing what would be a six week
Speaker 1: ban after six weeks out of which is essentially a
Speaker 1: ban in Florida. Right. Mike Pence has been a very
Speaker 1: adamant and clear that he thinks that there should be
Speaker 1: a national abortion ban. Obviously, he's very committed to the cause,
Speaker 1: whatever the constituency for that is. He's the former vice president.
Speaker 1: He looks like he's probably going to be running for president.
Speaker 1: He is going to keep talking about this himself, right,
Speaker 1: And the only Republican presidential candidate, and that I saw,
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm wrong. Who reacted to the Texas Judge's
Speaker 1: ruling was Pence, who said, this is a great thing.
Speaker 1: It corrects a wrong of this pill being available for
Speaker 1: the last twenty years. So when that is going on,
Speaker 1: and then you see things like the Susan B. Anthony List,
Speaker 1: which is one of the leading groups committed to pro
Speaker 1: life cause, saying there's a call that the president of
Speaker 1: that group did earlier this year with reporters, and she
Speaker 1: said that she doesn't think it's an acceptable option for
Speaker 1: Republicans to either a well, i'll put this in the
Speaker 1: affirmative case. She thinks that it's important that Republicans are
Speaker 1: very committed to a full approach of backing more restrictions
Speaker 1: and more laws that would make abortions illegal and the
Speaker 1: procedures and everybody involved with them not happen. And she
Speaker 1: also said she said that Republicans shouldn't adopt the which
Speaker 1: she said the Ostrich strategy of trying to talk about this,
Speaker 1: She and others are going to say, this is an
Speaker 1: issue we want to hear from our candidates about, and
Speaker 1: that's candidates from president on down and they want them
Speaker 1: to be very clearly on one side of this. She's
Speaker 1: going to drive Republicans into a ditch, which I think
Speaker 1: is great, but I'm just saying it does seem an
Speaker 1: important data point. Yeah, you also see Donald Trump, who
Speaker 1: has a complicated history of where he stands on this issue,
Speaker 1: and best complicated and worst perhaps you know. Right in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen when he was running, there was a moment
Speaker 1: where Chris Matthews asked him about whether he thought there
Speaker 1: should be a punishment for women who get abortions, and
Speaker 1: he said there has to be some punishment. Then they
Speaker 1: walked it back like an hour later and said that's
Speaker 1: not really what he meant. There was this weird moment
Speaker 1: in an interview that Trump did with Maureen Daub where
Speaker 1: he was not clear on whether he had ever been
Speaker 1: involved with a woman who had gotten an abortion. But then,
Speaker 1: of course he appointed three of the judges to the
Speaker 1: report who were part of the dab's decision. And yet
Speaker 1: after the mid terms, which did not go well for Republicans,
Speaker 1: or at least as well as they wanted to and
Speaker 1: where the historical trends would have put them, Trump started
Speaker 1: complaining publicly through his truth social posts that too many
Speaker 1: Republicans had been for too many restrictions and that's not
Speaker 1: what people wanted. And that turned off a bunch of
Speaker 1: his evangelical supporters who were like, wait a second, I
Speaker 1: thought you were with us. You're the first and only
Speaker 1: president who showed up at the March for Life in
Speaker 1: Washington appointed these justices. Now you're turning on us. So
Speaker 1: it's not like Trump is going anywhere in the Republican primary,
Speaker 1: and so all of these things are there. But what
Speaker 1: it does seem to mean is that the Republicans themselves
Speaker 1: are going to keep talking about this issue, while at
Speaker 1: the same time, in a bunch of state legislatures, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of bills moving that would be more
Speaker 1: abortion restrictions, a couple that would classify abortion as a
Speaker 1: homicide or put a penalty like murder, one that would
Speaker 1: have the death penalty for abortions, and you have one
Speaker 1: of those has been introduced in South Carolina. Tim Scott,
Speaker 1: who is very consistent a pro life senator thinking about
Speaker 1: running for president himself. He was asked about that a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago on Fox News, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a terrible idea, right, And that's the pincer that they,
Speaker 1: the Republicans, seem to be caught in. And as this
Speaker 1: is all happening in a democratic political operatives, could not
Speaker 1: be happier to watch them not know where to go,
Speaker 1: because that's all just the opportunity for them to make
Speaker 1: an issue of this. Yeah, thank you so much. I
Speaker 1: hope you'll come back. I hope you'll invite me back.
Speaker 1: Molly John Fast Jesse Cannon. That Diane Finestein, she's a
Speaker 1: little old at eighty nine. Diane Feinstein. Look, she has
Speaker 1: served her constituents in a great way. She has been
Speaker 1: a statesman and a leader. She is now because she's
Speaker 1: sick with shingles, which is terrible. She is in the
Speaker 1: hospital and unable to vote on the judicial nominees. So
Speaker 1: Democrats don't have the numbers to confirm judges on the
Speaker 1: judic Cherry Committee, and so they are out of luck.
Speaker 1: While Diane Finstein recuperates, it could be very easy for
Speaker 1: her to take this moment to retire and let Democrats
Speaker 1: continue putting judges on the bench. And as much as
Speaker 1: we respect and appreciate her hard service, it probably is
Speaker 1: time for her to retire. And that is why this
Speaker 1: entire situation is our moment of fuckeray. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.