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 Bob Woodward says Trump is far
Speaker 1: worse than Richard Nixon, and he would know. We have
Speaker 1: such a great show for you today. The Nation's jeet
Speaker 1: here talks Donald Trump's continued to send into madness. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to author Jonathan Alter about his new book
Speaker 1: American Reckoning, inside Trump's trial and my own. But first
Speaker 1: the news.
Speaker 2: So, Molly, last night, you and I were on stage
Speaker 2: doing our file Day of Politics as unusual, our little
Speaker 2: tour with Rick Wilson, and we missed out on mister
Speaker 2: Trump doing what I would call some demented behavior of us,
Speaker 2: swaying back and forth on stage. When I watched this
Speaker 2: last night, I literally just kept saying what the fuck
Speaker 2: very loudly through my house.
Speaker 1: Trump told his supporters to go out and vote on
Speaker 1: January fifth. A few much.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: I like it then the election, but still a good call.
Speaker 1: I think Republicans should definitely go vote on January fifth.
Speaker 1: He rambled about the late great Hannibal Lecter, you may
Speaker 1: remember him. Then somebody fainted and another person fainted, so
Speaker 1: he stood frozen and silent on stage as music played
Speaker 1: for thirty seven minutes. Thirty seven minutes.
Speaker 2: Listening to the Shrek soundtrack, at points.
Speaker 1: His soundtrack, which included ave Maria a lot of good
Speaker 1: stuff in there, but also thirty seven minutes of standing
Speaker 1: on stage sort of voguing for the crowd.
Speaker 2: I would call it a light sway sachet type thing.
Speaker 1: A sort of be bomp okay, Yes, yes, imagine if
Speaker 1: a Democrat, imagine if Joe Biden did that. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: would be Molly Hemingway, the whole Federalist crew, the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal opinion page. They would be screaming from the rooftops.
Speaker 2: Well, since he's really losing his mind today, he's at
Speaker 2: the Economic Club of Chicago and talking to Bloomberg editor
Speaker 2: in chief John Micklethwaite, Which, if I fucked that pronunciation up,
Speaker 2: I'll punch in later. What'd you see here? Today?
Speaker 1: Molly Trump is focused on his economic agenda.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he is.
Speaker 1: Right, which includes whatever. So he has about two moves
Speaker 1: when it comes to economy. One is tariff's. He says
Speaker 1: that a ten percent tariff, which he has vowed to
Speaker 1: impose on all other countries importing the US is insufficient
Speaker 1: to bring jobs back to the country. For that outcome,
Speaker 1: you need tariffs of fifty percent. So fifty percent tariff
Speaker 1: will mean that what are you buying. You're buying a
Speaker 1: thing of hangers. Right, your hangars will cost instead of
Speaker 1: costing five bucks for ten hangars, it will cost eight
Speaker 1: bucks for ten hangars, or seven dollars and fifty cents,
Speaker 1: and everything will get more expensive, which will be inflationary.
Speaker 1: The moderator the edit entry food, Bloomberg said, tariffs have
Speaker 1: another side. You could be plunging America into the biggest
Speaker 1: trade war. Trump says, no, all you have to do
Speaker 1: is build the plant in the United States and then
Speaker 1: you don't have any tariffs.
Speaker 2: Huh. Those immigrants that are going to leave.
Speaker 1: I want to play his answer on government spending.
Speaker 4: That's tremendous. Will give me an example of something you
Speaker 4: will do that will get rid of governments.
Speaker 3: But let me give you an example.
Speaker 4: When I came into government, I was the first example
Speaker 4: coming forward. This is going forward because it's the same thing.
Speaker 4: When I first sat down, a general came into my
Speaker 4: office and he said, sir, it's nice to meet you.
Speaker 4: When you please sign this.
Speaker 1: I said, what is it.
Speaker 4: It's a contract for a new air force one which
Speaker 4: is actually two planes, not one two Boeing seven forty seven.
Speaker 4: And I said, how much is it? Five point seven
Speaker 4: billion dollars. It's the hell of an expensive plane. But
Speaker 4: there's reasons for that. He said, nope, I'm not signing it.
Speaker 4: I said, who negotiated BARACKU, Sai and Obama. I said,
Speaker 4: I'm not signing it. Why because he because there's a
Speaker 4: lot of fat. He said, I'm not signing. It's got
Speaker 4: to have it three on it. Anyway, long story short,
Speaker 4: some of you have heard this.
Speaker 3: I got it down.
Speaker 4: Too, because first week they cut off four hundred million,
Speaker 4: he said, I'll cut I met with the head of Boeing. Wait, Dennis,
Speaker 4: I said, Dennis got to have a three. Five point
Speaker 4: seven is too much? Five point seven billion? He said,
Speaker 4: the most I'll take off is four hundred million dollars.
Speaker 4: I said, well, let's not bad for one conversation. So
Speaker 4: I got it down. I said, nope, I'm not accepting.
Speaker 4: Then he took off two more. Then he took off anyway.
Speaker 4: Two months went by, three months went by. I thought
Speaker 4: we blew the deal. And I was okay with me.
Speaker 4: I didn't care. But we should have a new are
Speaker 4: force one when we see these planes from Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 4: from different countries brand new, and ours is like thirty
Speaker 4: two years old, and it's a very different plane. It's
Speaker 4: much smaller plane. Yeah, the whole thing. The United States
Speaker 4: should have.
Speaker 2: The best plane, something real same well.
Speaker 1: And also like, so he's going to lessen government spending
Speaker 1: by trying to cheat his vendors, right, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that is I'm not sure that's a scalable answer. The
Speaker 1: thing that I was the most upset by was that
Speaker 1: Trump wants to influence the FED moves. So remember one
Speaker 1: of the things that Project twenty twenty five wants to
Speaker 1: do is to make the FED, the DOJ, many aspects
Speaker 1: of the sort of the non partisan actors in the
Speaker 1: federal government to be partisan hacks arm of the Donald
Speaker 1: Trump campaign. And that's what's happening here. Trump says he
Speaker 1: wants to influence FED move and then he sort of
Speaker 1: said he wouldn't order them, but he definitely thinks he's
Speaker 1: smarter than the chairman of the FED who he actually installed,
Speaker 1: Jerome Palell. And he says, in fact, look, I think
Speaker 1: it's the greatest job in government. You show up to
Speaker 1: the office once a month and say, let's flip a coin,
Speaker 1: and everyone talks about you like you're a god. He added,
Speaker 1: I think I'm better than he would be. I think
Speaker 1: I'm better than most people would be in the position.
Speaker 1: By the way, somebody give me this kind of self
Speaker 1: esteem because I never think, oh my god, I'm better
Speaker 1: than this person. I mean, like, oh, to be a
Speaker 1: mediocre white guy. I don't think I should be allowed
Speaker 1: to order it. Oh, okay, well that's nice. But I
Speaker 1: think I have the right to put in comments as
Speaker 1: to whether or not interest rate should go up or down.
Speaker 1: By the way, all he wants is for them to
Speaker 1: go down. He also refused to answer whether or not
Speaker 1: Google should be broken up. Again. He basically just meandered
Speaker 1: and talked about something else. And then when Mikaelwithe asked him,
Speaker 1: can you say yes or no? Have you talked to
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin since being president? Trump was like, no, but
Speaker 1: if I had, it would have been great, which is
Speaker 1: he didn't say no. He said I won't comment on that,
Speaker 1: and he said, but I will tell you that if
Speaker 1: I did, it's a smart thing. So there you go.
Speaker 1: If he did, it's a smart thing. What do you
Speaker 1: want to bet he did.
Speaker 2: I'm not betting against that.
Speaker 1: So that's Trump at the Economic Club of Chicago. Though
Speaker 1: at least he did talk and not just sway to
Speaker 1: the wind, and for that we should all be impressed
Speaker 1: that he at least tried to answer some questions. Get
Speaker 1: here is a contributor to the nation and the host
Speaker 1: of the time of Monsters. Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Jed here always good to be on the program.
Speaker 1: So I am so glad to have you on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and I have so many things I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about, the first of which is Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: little dance thirty seven minutes of bopping' and Weavin.
Speaker 3: I wanted the woke to use liberals, Wade, I mean,
Speaker 3: you're complaining he gives like two hours of advocating fascism
Speaker 3: and the mass deportations and spreading horrific conspiracy theories that
Speaker 3: could get people killed, and then he gives you something
Speaker 3: different where he's just swaying gently to like, you know,
Speaker 3: the village people. Yeah, abra ave Maria, yeah, exactly. Why
Speaker 3: not celebrate the fact that this is the most benign
Speaker 3: Donald Trump we've ever seen. Why not have a president
Speaker 3: who's a swaying tree.
Speaker 1: A swaying tree, well.
Speaker 3: Moves to the wind. This is like him and his
Speaker 3: best i've ever seen. I have followed this guy since
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties. I've never seen such a benign you know,
Speaker 3: just sort of smile like Grandpa after you've given him
Speaker 3: a lot of worphying.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you listeners of full context. Here.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was in South Dakota being interviewed by South
Speaker 1: Dakota Governor Christy Nome, who is most famous for killing
Speaker 1: her puppy. And again, the Washington Post just absolutely got
Speaker 1: it right here. They said Trump sways and bops to
Speaker 1: music for thirty nine minutes in bizarre town hall episode.
Speaker 1: The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called
Speaker 1: Trump seventy eight unstable and called into question his mental acuity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, aget, I want to set up for Donald Trump here. Well,
Speaker 3: you wanted to be talking to Christy Nole and like, well,
Speaker 3: what about like the best way to kill domestic pets? No, right,
Speaker 3: the suthlist was good. It's the Trump favorites. I'm always
Speaker 3: in favor of bringing.
Speaker 1: Oh, the town hall was in Pennsylvania. I'm sorry the
Speaker 1: town hall was in Pennsylvania, but it was with South
Speaker 1: Dakota Governor Christine. Thank you Seamus for that fact check.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, So again I have to say, what more
Speaker 3: do you people want? I believe that you know they
Speaker 3: were because of the sort of heat waves. I think
Speaker 3: that there were some people in the audience who had.
Speaker 1: Two different passed out.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. Trump showing the leadership and command that you
Speaker 3: want with someone who's gonna might have his finger on
Speaker 3: the nuclear button, said the best thing to do right
Speaker 3: now not get overheated with political rhetoric, but like if
Speaker 3: we all slay gently, we can create a wind that
Speaker 3: will help the people in the audience revive. I have
Speaker 3: to say, a masterful performance from the former president.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I want to just square the circle here.
Speaker 1: He's seventy eight years old. He's the oldest person to
Speaker 1: ever run for president. He makes Reagan. I mean Reagan
Speaker 1: was like almost a decade younger when he ran, and
Speaker 1: until July, he was running against someone who was older
Speaker 1: than him, President Biden. And he made his whole case
Speaker 1: against President Biden was that President Biden was too old
Speaker 1: and too doddering.
Speaker 3: And he sees an opportunity there. You had a campaign
Speaker 3: that was all about Joe Biden being too old and
Speaker 3: you know, raising these important issues about age, and then
Speaker 3: once Biden, like you know, did a huge disservice to
Speaker 3: the country by withdrawing in the Trump's no, no, no. We
Speaker 3: have to make these issues key to the political campaign.
Speaker 3: And I will take the role that Joe Biden had.
Speaker 3: I will even go far beyond anything Joe Biden never
Speaker 3: did in terms of flaking out, not just at this event,
Speaker 3: but at other events, somehow pronouncing words in the strangest
Speaker 3: possible ways, meandering and re associating, which my friend's English
Speaker 3: professors will tell me is a form of post Wadern
Speaker 3: discourse called the weave. Yes, the weave and you know
Speaker 3: like which too much of the public is a good
Speaker 3: public service on the issue of Yes. In an aging society,
Speaker 3: you want to be seeing the doctor. You want to
Speaker 3: be getting those cognitive tasks. I say, he's doing us
Speaker 3: all a favor.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, he's doing He's reminding us about what it
Speaker 1: is that the stakes are. The other thing I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about is so Trump has this
Speaker 1: closing message, and it's like authoritarianism. For example, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about Aurora. So when Aurora, he said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to invoke this act that's a wartime act. It's
Speaker 1: called it's a law from the seventeen hundreds. It's the
Speaker 1: Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight. It gives the
Speaker 1: president power to detain or deport foreign enemy as could
Speaker 1: be broadly applied to target any non citizens. By the way,
Speaker 1: that's me, not you, because you live in Canada whereas
Speaker 1: we'll soon live. I'm kidding. I will never leave this
Speaker 1: country unless I'm deported, which could be possible. He did
Speaker 1: this at Aurora. I feel like this should be the
Speaker 1: only story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely no. I think Trump and his people
Speaker 3: are basic betting that you know, they can win this
Speaker 3: election on anti immigration shysteria, and also being willing to
Speaker 3: do far more than any government has in decades. I mean,
Speaker 3: there are, you know, in Kenaian American history examples of
Speaker 3: pretty horrific anti immigrant action, but I mean Trump wants
Speaker 3: to revive that. I think the act that he wants
Speaker 3: to revive was pretty specifically one of the foundation stones
Speaker 3: for the interrement of Japanese Americans is basically an attack
Speaker 3: on the idea of citizenship has come to be in America,
Speaker 3: especially after the Civil War, the idea of sort of
Speaker 3: birthright citizenship, and the idea that you know, like a
Speaker 3: naturalized citizen, someone who's an immigrant gives a citizen, is
Speaker 3: a citizen, and you know, like trying to create a
Speaker 3: class of provisional citizens, your citizens. You know, as long
Speaker 3: as you make Trump happy, and if he doesn't like you,
Speaker 3: doesn't like the color of your skin or just what
Speaker 3: you right, and will unleash the full force of the
Speaker 3: military and police against it. Yeah, I think that. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's a couple of interesting things. Is one of which is,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, don't hear about inflation that much anymore,
Speaker 3: you don't hear. But like a lot of other issues,
Speaker 3: this is the one issue. And you know, one could
Speaker 3: argue that this has always been the core of trump Ism,
Speaker 3: you know, going back to coming down the elevator and
Speaker 3: talking about Mexican rapists. But this is what it has
Speaker 3: come down to. And you know the issue is, you know,
Speaker 3: are there enough Americans who will blame immigrants and CEO
Speaker 3: and think that there's enough of a trouble with immigrants
Speaker 3: that they're willing to suspend the Constitution. I'm cautiously hopeful
Speaker 3: that there aren't enough Americans, but it's much closer than
Speaker 3: it should be.
Speaker 1: We have no idea. Yeah. During this town hall, which
Speaker 1: is pretty wacky, was on October fourteenth, he told his
Speaker 1: supporters to go out and vote. On January fifth, he
Speaker 1: talked about the late great Hannibal Lecter, who you and
Speaker 1: I know is not real. He acted confused when asked
Speaker 1: if they should end the event and play a walk
Speaker 1: off song, and then he stood frozen and silent on
Speaker 1: stage as music played for thirty plus minutes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I mean, I having the whole music.
Speaker 3: I mean it is a very I mean I would
Speaker 3: encourage listeners to, like just to watch some of the
Speaker 3: clips around. It's very bizarre because you could tell that
Speaker 3: the people around him are like kind of puzzled, like, well,
Speaker 3: why is he doing this? What's exactly going on? And
Speaker 3: it is you know, I mean, people use a very sundowning,
Speaker 3: but I think that this is something that's maybe even
Speaker 3: a little bit of more extreme. And you can just
Speaker 3: see this in Trump's rhetoric, right, you know, tought would
Speaker 3: it just be giving a meandering speech and occasion you mentioned,
Speaker 3: you know, like, well, you know what if I just
Speaker 3: went to the beach and like, you know, just relax there,
Speaker 3: or you know, like sometimes I just want to get
Speaker 3: in a truck and just like drive. And I think
Speaker 3: that the technical term in psychology is, if not quite
Speaker 3: suicidal ideation, maybe end bass ideation. Trump is kind of
Speaker 3: trying to imagine the end is near. How am I
Speaker 3: going to finish it off? How am I going to
Speaker 3: get in a good position to see the white light.
Speaker 1: The other thing I'm struck by is like one of
Speaker 1: the things that we have so removed ourselves from because
Speaker 1: we've been living in this election cycle for what feels
Speaker 1: like one hundred years, is that Donald Trump is still
Speaker 1: running for president in order to avoid all of his
Speaker 1: criminal charges.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well no, I mean that's the only reason he's
Speaker 3: running for president. I kind of feel at this point
Speaker 3: there's something a little bit different. I do kind of
Speaker 3: feel if people always said a line, well, it's like
Speaker 3: the producers. He doesn't really want it, but.
Speaker 1: He wants to win. I think because he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to go to jail.
Speaker 3: I think that's wrong. But he wants to win. But
Speaker 3: he wants this time more than even in the past.
Speaker 3: He wants to win for like purely utilitary and self
Speaker 3: interested reasons, and I'm not sure his heart is in it,
Speaker 3: and so he kind of I mean in terms of
Speaker 3: what I'm talking about, like these kind of like meandering speeches.
Speaker 3: This is something a little bit different than before. Like
Speaker 3: I think he's thinking about the end of his life,
Speaker 3: the end of the road, much more than he ever has.
Speaker 1: We're all thinking about that our own lives. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been a decade of covering this guy, and we're
Speaker 1: all very tired.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well he's tired. He's tired too, Like he can't
Speaker 3: even pretend anymore to care. And it's like he's like decided,
Speaker 3: like you know, like no, I don't want to take questions.
Speaker 3: I don't want to talk to this South the Quota
Speaker 3: bulhunt for this audience of Pennsylvania hillbillies. I just want
Speaker 3: to like, you know, sway in the wind and listen
Speaker 3: to the Maria. Yeah, listen to my music, you know,
Speaker 3: put on a few show tunes.
Speaker 1: He just loves show tunes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think, you know, like if you could somehow
Speaker 3: arrange the scenario where he gets to, you know, sit
Speaker 3: on the beach and listen to Andrew Lloyd Weber until
Speaker 3: the white Light comes to get him.
Speaker 1: So let's just talk about last week. I saw the
Speaker 1: Apprentice movie, which Trump is very angry about. He truth
Speaker 1: quote unquote truth about it.
Speaker 3: Well, he gave the best possible review because I actually
Speaker 3: think I know the movie is doing, but I actually
Speaker 3: think that this will help the movie quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I watched the movie, and you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up in this city, My parents grew up in
Speaker 1: this city. The you know, my grandfather knew Roy Cone
Speaker 1: because Roy Cone was involved in the House on American
Speaker 1: Activities and putting my grandfather in jail for his political beliefs.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he was like McCarthy's like second of command.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as I'm watching this movie, and you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things about this movie is Jeremy Strong from
Speaker 1: Succession is like an incredible does an incredible character study
Speaker 1: of Roy Cohne and Roy Cone is probably one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting and evil characters in American political life.
Speaker 1: And he touched on all of these things. But also
Speaker 1: you had in this movie Roger Stone and it just
Speaker 1: was a very it struck me as it reminded me
Speaker 1: again There's questions about whether or not how much of
Speaker 1: how successful Roy Cone was in making Donald Trump, crafting
Speaker 1: Donald Trump into his image, or if Donald Trump was
Speaker 1: always like that, but it was still I thought quite interesting.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I know, I know, actually do think that
Speaker 3: Roy Cone is one of the expealitions of who Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is. Not to say that, you know, he took
Speaker 3: this young, unison, decent man and corrupted him. Yeah, Rather,
Speaker 3: I mean Trump already had a rotten in his soul,
Speaker 3: but I mean Roy Cohne was the figure who out
Speaker 3: in the ropes. And the thing is, people forget this
Speaker 3: but Roy Cone, because Roy conn is such a villain,
Speaker 3: you know, was so involved with McCarthyism, was a corrupt
Speaker 3: lawyer who like basically owned a lot of judges that
Speaker 3: was disbarred, and was a self hating gay man who
Speaker 3: you know, like such a vicious figure. But he was
Speaker 3: also a power in the land. I mean Roy Cohn
Speaker 3: in the sort of seventies and eighties, you know, like
Speaker 3: at any top New York party would be hanging out,
Speaker 3: and he would hang out with people from the liberal
Speaker 3: media because he could do people favors, right, like Barbara Walters,
Speaker 3: you know, bless her soul was very close to Roy Cone,
Speaker 3: and so Roy Cone knew that particular New York power
Speaker 3: structure which is all about so her favors and but
Speaker 3: also getting the dirt like he was able. He's only
Speaker 3: he's like a terrible lawyer in terms of knowing the law,
Speaker 3: but he knew the dirt on all the judges and
Speaker 3: he knew how to blackmail them, right, And so I
Speaker 3: think absolutely, I don't think you can make sense of
Speaker 3: Donald from without how to say interestingly enough, I mean
Speaker 3: he said, you know, thumbs down from Donald Trump for
Speaker 3: the movie. But rogers Stold actually gave me a good
Speaker 3: recommendation where he said, you know, I knew Roy Cohen
Speaker 3: and you know this movie.
Speaker 1: It really does seem like Roy Kahn.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, No, no, no, I mean no, And
Speaker 3: it's I mean, I think that the movie captures, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, like an important part of the story which
Speaker 3: I think people outside of New York in particular weren't understand.
Speaker 3: There is that New York world. The late novelist Sidney's
Speaker 3: Ion described it.
Speaker 1: Which is called sid giont.
Speaker 3: Yes, Sid which is all about like Markers, It's all
Speaker 3: about favors, it's all about the back room deals that
Speaker 3: you can do, and that's you know, that's a big
Speaker 3: part of Trump's path to power in terms of show business,
Speaker 3: but also the relationship with the National A Choir. And
Speaker 3: then also you know, like the basic roy Cone code,
Speaker 3: which is like you never apologize, never forgive, you always
Speaker 3: on the attack, you know. I mean that is the
Speaker 3: Trump methodology. So I don't know how much time you
Speaker 3: want to do like sort of psychologue, but I mean
Speaker 3: that's Trump at his peak. You know, the movie is
Speaker 3: the young Trump learning his ropes, but like, you know,
Speaker 3: what we saw over the weekend was, you know, this
Speaker 3: is the end of the road for the guy, cautiously
Speaker 3: opul He doesn't win.
Speaker 1: But I do think the point of like this world
Speaker 1: being just sort of a by gone world that he
Speaker 1: is sort of the last vestiges of is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I want you to sort of talk about how Harris
Speaker 1: can win this thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, the race is a lot tighter than it is,
Speaker 3: but I don't want to do too much backseat driving
Speaker 3: because I think, right, they've actually been doing a lot
Speaker 3: of the right things.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's what I think too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a super fan of like touting the Chinese
Speaker 3: or Alberta Gonzalez as much.
Speaker 1: As they have ignore should you be that's not for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not for me. But also I'm not sure,
Speaker 3: like if I'm actually like looking at the numbers, you know,
Speaker 3: it seems like there's still she's a little bit lagging
Speaker 3: still with young people, people of color, and sort of
Speaker 3: white working cost So like I actually think, like you know,
Speaker 3: like I think a traditional Democratic campaign of the type
Speaker 3: that Joe Biden you know, ran in twenty twenty and
Speaker 3: Obama around in twenty twelve are the way to go,
Speaker 3: Like you know, do the union halls spend just a
Speaker 3: lot of time in those Midwestern states, just shore up
Speaker 3: those I mean, this is a little bit of good news,
Speaker 3: which is, you know, you look at the early numbers
Speaker 3: in Pennsylvania and in Michigan especially like you know, like
Speaker 3: Detroit and Flint are like you know, forty percent return
Speaker 3: rate much higher than the rest of the state. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, like if I think, like locking down the
Speaker 3: urban vote, which is like people of color, black voters,
Speaker 3: young voters, I think that puts you over the top.
Speaker 3: And I think, like for me, that's what I would
Speaker 3: concentrate on. I know that they also have hopes of
Speaker 3: you know, expending in the suburbs of Philadelphia with this
Speaker 3: never Trump stuff. But yeah, I'm looking at them. I
Speaker 3: think there's just a lot more you know, votes from
Speaker 3: the base than there is, like any more juice to
Speaker 3: be squeezed out of that never Trump.
Speaker 1: The big question is can you get the nikky Haley
Speaker 1: voters without alienating the people that you need your base,
Speaker 1: that you need to juice. And I think that is
Speaker 1: the tension that you're explaining, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that is the tension. I mean's partially.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not so much worried about alien because
Speaker 3: I think the people who the Democratic base understands a
Speaker 3: problem with Trump. I mean, I just I just think
Speaker 3: there in terms of juicing up the numbers of getting
Speaker 3: people out there, you know, even though it's country but Obama,
Speaker 3: I thought, you know, having Obama out there is good.
Speaker 3: I just think that you have to That's where I
Speaker 3: would concentrate the energy. And I think, you know, the
Speaker 3: one the way to unify this very fragmented coalition is
Speaker 3: remind people about Trump, which I think that they're doing
Speaker 3: more of. I think that the closing message is about
Speaker 3: the dangers of Trump and.
Speaker 1: The good news is Trump is reminding people of Trump
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3: I know Trump is in different ways, both in terms
Speaker 3: of the scary Trump who's like calling for basically a
Speaker 3: race war against immogrants, and the more benign grandfather Trump,
Speaker 3: who's kind of like swaying to music and is like
Speaker 3: you're wonder You're like, well, you know, it's this actually
Speaker 3: going to be president. I mean, I think both of
Speaker 3: those things, because I mean the other aspect is Vance,
Speaker 3: who they decided. I mean, I think I thought it
Speaker 3: was a mistake to like go benign on Vance and
Speaker 3: the vice president because like, if it's Trump, Trump is scary,
Speaker 3: and they did a good job early of like Vance
Speaker 3: is weird.
Speaker 1: But Advance is really scary too, though.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and it won't be I mean, the thing is,
Speaker 3: if you have a sundowning Trump as president, it will
Speaker 3: be Advance and all these guls from the Aratis Foundation.
Speaker 3: So so I actually think, like, yeah, like just reminding
Speaker 3: people of all the Project twenty twenty five, how you know,
Speaker 3: like weird and freaky Advances and how deal like unstable
Speaker 3: Trump is both in his own authoritarian stakes and also
Speaker 3: he's like sundowning before our very eyes.
Speaker 1: And also one last thing is that I really think
Speaker 1: that what I saw when I was watching that debate,
Speaker 1: the ad vice presidential debate, was that if fascism comes
Speaker 1: to this country, maybe we escape at this time. But
Speaker 1: it did feel like if it comes, it comes wrapped
Speaker 1: up in a Harvard Degrae telling you that they're going
Speaker 1: to fix Obamacare or not that they're going to end it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think that these that
Speaker 3: sort of slick, sleep ivy league of authoritarianism is always
Speaker 3: the end game here with the federalist society authoritarianism. But
Speaker 3: those guys can never went on their own. They needed
Speaker 3: you know, Trump's genuine popular touch and ability to reach people.
Speaker 3: I think actually in that sense, like the additional anti
Speaker 3: advancing that they did was very important and was very effective,
Speaker 3: and I'm a little bit disappointed that they've you know,
Speaker 3: backed away from that, and that is the true price
Speaker 3: of this kind of you know, attempt to get the
Speaker 3: never trumpet. They decide to go easy on Vans and
Speaker 3: the vice presidential debate. You know, you said, the election's
Speaker 3: gone on forever, but like if we're living in France
Speaker 3: or England or Canada, you know, three weeks is the
Speaker 3: election like it's it's the three weeks, the last three
Speaker 3: weeks where you really make the sprint and make the case,
Speaker 3: and that's when people have to pay attention. So I
Speaker 3: don't actually think it's too late for the Harris campaign
Speaker 3: to do any of the stuff I talked about.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Read here always great to talking news.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be? Well so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 1: episode series. They're all about by looking up Molly john
Speaker 1: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
Speaker 1: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 1: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back just like a podcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
Speaker 1: to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Alter is the author of the substack Old Goats
Speaker 1: and his latest book is called American Reckoning, Inside Trump's
Speaker 1: Trial and My Own. Welcome to Fast Politics, Jonathan Alter.
Speaker 5: How are you, Mollie.
Speaker 1: Great to have you so, Jonathan, you are a legend.
Speaker 1: You are longtime just journalist who's done everything written and everywhere,
Speaker 1: has been covering this White House, covering the trial, and
Speaker 1: now you have a new book I do.
Speaker 5: It's called American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial and My Own.
Speaker 5: So basically, Molly, as you say, I've been covering politics
Speaker 5: for a really long time. This is my twelfth presidential campaign,
Speaker 5: and I interviewed nine American presidents. But I started either before, during,
Speaker 5: or after their presidencies. But I started having a kind
Speaker 5: of a crisis of faith in the common sense of
Speaker 5: the half of the American public.
Speaker 3: And so I think when.
Speaker 5: I say my trial, what I mean is the trial
Speaker 5: the ordeal that so many of us have gone through
Speaker 5: with this wicked man, Donald Trump, and he's shaken some
Speaker 5: of my faith. So this is sort of how I
Speaker 5: came to this idea of covering the trial. And I
Speaker 5: was in the courtroom in Manhattan all twenty three days.
Speaker 5: I was one of the only reporters who was there
Speaker 5: for the duration of the trial, and I saw this
Speaker 5: man from just a few feet away, you know, basically
Speaker 5: all the time. You know, sometimes when I'd be sitting
Speaker 5: on the aisle, you know, he'd walk past me in
Speaker 5: and out of court, I'd be like three inches from him,
Speaker 5: over and over and over again. Over the course of
Speaker 5: his trial, I witnessed what I think has to be
Speaker 5: considered one of the most dramatic moments of the twenty
Speaker 5: first century, where a majority or person said guilty, guilty, guilty,
Speaker 5: thirty four times. And this was the first ever trial
Speaker 5: of the American President. And I wanted to be there
Speaker 5: and see it and bear witness to it for very
Speaker 5: personal reasons that I explained in the book.
Speaker 1: So tell us some of those personal reasons.
Speaker 5: Well, in twenty twenty three, I had this dream of
Speaker 5: about my late father, and the dream was something about
Speaker 5: my dad, cigarettes, vodka, and a gun. And I couldn't
Speaker 5: really figure out what it was. And then I kind
Speaker 5: of puzzled through why was I dreaming about Dad's cigarettes, vodka,
Speaker 5: and a gun. And the reason was that he had
Speaker 5: told me a story. Died about ten years ago when
Speaker 5: he was shot down over Hungary during World War Two.
Speaker 5: He was a navigator Bombedier on be twenty four, and
Speaker 5: he was under orders to use his revolver to destroy
Speaker 5: the Norden bomb site. Vombiteer it's used didn't work very well.
Speaker 5: It was a primitive computer and it didn't work in
Speaker 5: the cloud, so it didn't really help my dad very
Speaker 5: much dropping bombs. But those were his orders. So when
Speaker 5: they were shot down and made emergency landing, emptied his revolver,
Speaker 5: his gun into the device, came out with his hands up,
Speaker 5: and it turned out they were Russian Soviets, and they
Speaker 5: spent the night at where they were shot down drinking
Speaker 5: vodka with Soviets. They traded their disabled aircraft for partns
Speaker 5: of cigarettes and safe passage back in your base. So
Speaker 5: that's what the dream was about. But it got me
Speaker 5: thinking about my father leaving Purdue University in nineteen forty two,
Speaker 5: right after Pearl Harbor and enlisting and going to fight
Speaker 5: for democracy. He goes away for more than three years
Speaker 5: from home to fight for an idea for democracy, and
Speaker 5: you know who else did that? Molly. George H. W.
Speaker 5: Bush was the youngest pilot in the Navy, enlisted on
Speaker 5: his eighteenth birthday, and when I was covering is a
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty eight campaign, and there were a lot of
Speaker 5: descriptions of his being shot down in the Pacific, and
Speaker 5: at the time he said was asked, what were you
Speaker 5: thinking about? And he said, I was thinking about Barbara
Speaker 5: and where my next meal would come from, whether I'd
Speaker 5: be rescued, which he was by submarine, and I was
Speaker 5: thinking about the separation church in State. And we all
Speaker 5: snickered at that, And I'm actually ashamed of having snickered
Speaker 5: at that, because he really was going to fight for
Speaker 5: the Constitution and for democracy. And so I said to myself, Okay,
Speaker 5: your father went and risked his life for democracy. What
Speaker 5: are you going to do to defend democracy?
Speaker 3: What will you do?
Speaker 5: How can you use your gills? Everybody has a different
Speaker 5: role to play. You know, if you're a lawyer, you
Speaker 5: needed to go to a battleground state and make sure
Speaker 5: that you're there to you know, as a poll watcher
Speaker 5: or troubleshooter, to make sure that Republicans are not preventing
Speaker 5: people from voting. You know, if you're wealthier, you need
Speaker 5: to give money. Everybody's got something that they can do.
Speaker 5: And so I was sort of thinking, well, what can
Speaker 5: I do I don't have to risk my life to
Speaker 5: do it like Dad. And that then took me back
Speaker 5: to an interview that I did with Richard Nixon. So
Speaker 5: in nineteen eighty eight, I wanted to meet Nixon for
Speaker 5: a quote. So I made arrangements for him to come
Speaker 5: to new where I was then working in covering politics
Speaker 5: and writing a column for twenty years, and Nixon came
Speaker 5: in the fall of nineteen eighty eight. I asked him,
Speaker 5: how will history remember Ronald Reagan? And he said, well,
Speaker 5: you have to distinguish the great history and the historians, because.
Speaker 3: The historians are like you. They're liberal.
Speaker 5: It's you're a conservative, you go into business. If you're
Speaker 5: a liberal, you write history or journalists. And in thinking
Speaker 5: back on this, I realized that this man who had
Speaker 5: been hate watching little boy Nixon had seeing me, had
Speaker 5: my number. The only thing I bring is bearing witness,
Speaker 5: using whatever I can do as a journalist to bear
Speaker 5: witness and make a contribution that way. So that's a
Speaker 5: very long winded explanation for why I wanted to cover
Speaker 5: the trial. And first I tried to cover the you
Speaker 5: know what I call the coup trial and Washington and
Speaker 5: Jack Smith case, and then that, of course, was delayed
Speaker 5: by the immunity question after I had been credentialed for it.
Speaker 5: I got credentialed for Belanie trial in Manhattan through the
Speaker 5: Washington Pumply magazine many years ago instarted writing articles for
Speaker 5: the New York Times opinion section.
Speaker 1: Was there I'm hoping you could explain to our listeners,
Speaker 1: for example, in some ways, Trump is his own thing, right,
Speaker 1: his own singular threat to American democracy that is in
Speaker 1: itself unlike anything we've ever seen. That said, in some ways,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can listen to Trump's speeches, not now
Speaker 1: because he's so diminished, but in twenty sixteen, and you
Speaker 1: could get two or three minutes where if you close
Speaker 1: your eyes, you'd hear Richard Nixon right, and even with
Speaker 1: Reagan right, make America great again. You know, the aspects
Speaker 1: of performative politics, the belief in really in nothing, a
Speaker 1: sort of nihilistic quest for power. What do you you think,
Speaker 1: as someone who has covered politics for such a long time,
Speaker 1: distinguishes Trump and Trumps from say, Newt Gandridge trying to
Speaker 1: burn down the entire Congress.
Speaker 5: Well, just to talk about Nixon for a second. So
Speaker 5: there are some very clear comparisons. When I was in
Speaker 5: the courtroom, you know, I realized that Watergate, a lot
Speaker 5: of it was about finding hush money, right and paying
Speaker 5: off the Watergate burglars with hush money, and Nixon approved
Speaker 5: that cover up.
Speaker 3: And you know the hush.
Speaker 5: Money, well, Prump was basically the same thing. It was
Speaker 5: Trump covering up Michael Phone's hush money view. So you know,
Speaker 5: there are comparisons like that, and in some ways there
Speaker 5: were elements of Watergate that were significantly worse. But Nixon,
Speaker 5: even though he liked Trump, believed that politics was essentially
Speaker 5: the mobilization of resentments. Nixon, you know, had his own
Speaker 5: grievances that he nursed that were in some ways similar
Speaker 5: to Trump's. And Nixon arguably committed more war crimes than
Speaker 5: so wise he was worse. But when Nixon would play
Speaker 5: the Wraith card, for instance, with his Southern strategy, he
Speaker 5: and other politicians of the early sixties and seventies, they
Speaker 5: used code words or dog whistles. Nixon's famous code word
Speaker 5: in nineteen sixty eight was law and order. There's a
Speaker 5: big difference between law and order. And they're eating dogs
Speaker 5: and pets. You know, the Haitians are coming to get
Speaker 5: you right. So Trump's racism is much much more raw, vicious,
Speaker 5: and dangerous than anything that ever came out of Richard
Speaker 5: Nixon's or George Wallace. Many Trump supporters are the either
Speaker 5: elderly former Wallace supporders or the children of Walason. Wallace
Speaker 5: ran twice with President nineteen sixty eight since them too,
Speaker 5: and he didn't get as far as Trump, so you know,
Speaker 5: he never was in serious danger of becoming president. So
Speaker 5: we're actually a lot worse off in terms of a
Speaker 5: racist demmagou now than we were at the height of
Speaker 5: George Wallace. Right, So this is worse. And you talked
Speaker 5: about these other you know, Nixon and Reagan.
Speaker 1: Not nude gangrage, weaponizing the federal government against itself. But
Speaker 1: I get where you're going with this. I want you
Speaker 1: to sort of explain though, a little bit about you
Speaker 1: were supposed to cover the Jack Smith trial. That trial
Speaker 1: did not happen because of MAGA. Judge threw it out, right,
Speaker 1: which is like pretty egregious that nothing happened. Then she
Speaker 1: just threw it out and that was it.
Speaker 5: Maybe someday that was not the trial that I was
Speaker 5: potential to cover. That's the word to try with Eileen Cannon,
Speaker 5: and she's a Trump lackey who threw that out. But
Speaker 5: if Harris win, Jack Smith can go back and do
Speaker 5: what he did in the Washington what I call the
Speaker 5: coup trial, the big trial for trying to govern in
Speaker 5: the documents case, he can go back and you know,
Speaker 5: reindict Trump. If Harris wins. If Harris doesn't win, all
Speaker 5: these cases all go away, all of them. By the way,
Speaker 5: I thought at the time I wrote the book that
Speaker 5: the Georgia and New York cases could possibly survive. But
Speaker 5: I've been told by lawyers who would be wise to
Speaker 5: getting rid of them to jump wins. But so they
Speaker 5: can bring up the monologal documents another way, they can
Speaker 5: Reindicke and so this is not an end of the
Speaker 5: And tim shut in Washington was the big rial of
Speaker 5: some trying to overcurrent the election that you know Jack
Speaker 5: Smith is making progress on, and they carved out a
Speaker 5: very compelling argument that would get past the Supreme Court
Speaker 5: decision on immunity for official Act. And they are basically
Speaker 5: going to argue next year if wins the election, and
Speaker 5: they have a trial, which in all likelihood is Larry
Speaker 5: tribesays in all likelihood there will be this mother of
Speaker 5: all constitutional trials next year if Harris wins, because they've
Speaker 5: been able to establish in their arguments that I think
Speaker 5: even the Supreme Court will likely recognize that Trump was
Speaker 5: acting as a candidate when he was telling Brad Rathensberger,
Speaker 5: you know, I need eleven thousand, seven hundred rods. He
Speaker 5: wasn't acting in his official capacity as president. So that's
Speaker 5: what Supreme Court said. They drew this distinction official and unofficial,
Speaker 5: and going to be very hard for Trump to argue
Speaker 5: that his actions as a candidate were official. It will
Speaker 5: mean that some of his conversations with lawyers who worked
Speaker 5: in the White House will be carved out of this case,
Speaker 5: in the same way that Hope Hicks his testimony from
Speaker 5: when she was communication director, who was very incriminating testimony,
Speaker 5: will be carved out of Trump's felony conviction in New York.
Speaker 5: But there's enough other evidence that he will go down anyway,
Speaker 5: and I believe that it will be held uphelding Yal, I mean.
Speaker 1: Aren't you sort of horrified at the miscarriage of justice here, Like,
Speaker 1: here's a guy who literally tried to overturn the election,
Speaker 1: and he has managed to punt or get rid of
Speaker 1: all of his cases, and now he is running for
Speaker 1: president just like a normal candidate. I mean, doesn't that
Speaker 1: strike you as like an incredible failing on the part
Speaker 1: of the justice system.
Speaker 5: Yes, broadly speaking, I deal with a lot in American reckoning,
Speaker 5: and because when I say, you know, inside Trump's trial,
Speaker 5: in my own my own reckoning is with having some
Speaker 5: of my illusions about the American people, uh and the
Speaker 5: justice system shaken. So I used to like to identify
Speaker 5: myself as JFK called himself an idealist without illusions, and
Speaker 5: I realized they had more illusions, maybe than I thought.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of other people feel the same way.
Speaker 5: But when you say that he got away with it,
Speaker 5: he did not. In the felony case, He's going to
Speaker 5: this election as a convicted felon and he's awaiting sentencing.
Speaker 5: On November twenty sixth, and for reasons that related to
Speaker 5: the immunity decision, Judge Wan Mshan delayed sentencing, but he
Speaker 5: didn't eliminate sentencing. He will be sentenced, and I think
Speaker 5: there's a decent chance that he will be sentenced to
Speaker 5: short jail time in a country club jail at the
Speaker 5: end of November, so you know, he won't start serving
Speaker 5: that sentence until his appeals are exhausted, but he will
Speaker 5: be sentenced. So the idea that the criminal justice system,
Speaker 5: you know, completely failed, I don't think is accurate. And
Speaker 5: we saw basic accountability on May thirtieth when that Jerry
Speaker 5: Ford person said guilty thirty four times, and this was
Speaker 5: a very gratifying moment. It should be seen as a
Speaker 5: gratifying moment, and I think it is very much part
Speaker 5: of the subtext of this campaign or even the text
Speaker 5: of it. So as the Hutchinson, the former Republican governor
Speaker 5: of Arkansas, that he cannot vote for Donald Trump because
Speaker 5: he's the convicted fela and tom La Harris as the prosecutor,
Speaker 5: has framed this election in part as prosecutor versus perp
Speaker 5: and that's one of the reasons she's doing well, is
Speaker 5: that he is a convicted felon. That very much helps
Speaker 5: the Aras campaign.
Speaker 1: Do you have something you want to tell us about
Speaker 1: in the book that is sort of new that you're
Speaker 1: excited about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a lot that's new in the book about
Speaker 5: what happened inside that surreal courtroom where the trial wasn't televised,
Speaker 5: so people who were not there got only a tiny
Speaker 5: bit of just the barest headlines of what it was
Speaker 5: actually like inside the courtroom. So there's a lot of
Speaker 5: new stuff about that. But then I also have a
Speaker 5: section called black Swan Summer, which is about how Nancy
Speaker 5: Pelosi maneuvered Joe Biden off the ticket, and as she said,
Speaker 5: she will go to her grave without describing exactly what
Speaker 5: she and Biden talked about, but I got the outlines
Speaker 5: of it and more about it than anybody has so far,
Speaker 5: including Bob Woodward with his Tony Blinken story. So basically
Speaker 5: what happened was that after the June twenty seventh debate,
Speaker 5: at first Alosi thought it was survivable, as she said publicly,
Speaker 5: but then she started seeing polls from House members and
Speaker 5: their race as House members who were expected to win,
Speaker 5: and they were in deep trouble. And what she really
Speaker 5: cares about is the House, right, She's an institutional, So
Speaker 5: she made a secret visit to the White House to
Speaker 5: see her friend of forty years, Joe Biden. Not on
Speaker 5: any log the existence of the trip, I revealed for
Speaker 5: the first time. She did not show him any of
Speaker 5: those polls. She did not say, Joe, it's time to go.
Speaker 5: She said, I'm here for you, Joe, hear for you.
Speaker 5: I know this is a difficult time. Let's talk. Let's talk.
Speaker 5: And then that led to a series of conversations on
Speaker 5: the telephone, the upshot of which was, as somebody very
Speaker 5: close to Pelosi told me, she can cut off your
Speaker 5: head and you won't even know it. And what she
Speaker 5: did was she began the process of getting him to
Speaker 5: think about it, and then she pressured him on Morning
Speaker 5: Joe on July tenth, which when she said that he
Speaker 5: hadn't made a decision yet, when he actually had made
Speaker 5: a decision, which was strong. That then ignored everybody else
Speaker 5: in the Democratic Party that they could start pressuring him,
Speaker 5: the donors and everybody else. But she was annoyed at
Speaker 5: that moment, even resentful of the men, meaning Clinton, Obama, Jeffreys, Schumer,
Speaker 5: and she thought the men were quote m Ia, and
Speaker 5: she wondered, why are my the only blow by fingerprints
Speaker 5: on the knife.
Speaker 3: This is pretty.
Speaker 5: Dramatic stuff that she pulled off, this feat, this brilliant,
Speaker 5: brilliant political feat, until she was joined a week later
Speaker 5: by the men who eventually got in gear and showed
Speaker 5: Biden the bad polling. Initially she had to launch this
Speaker 5: historic effort to get him off the ticket. And then
Speaker 5: I also learned from somebody very close to Biden that
Speaker 5: COVID was the last straw, that without COVID, he probably
Speaker 5: would have toughed it out, run out the clock, and
Speaker 5: he would be the nominee right now, head a certain
Speaker 5: defeat when he got COVID and he saw that split
Speaker 5: screen of Trump and him getting off the airplane coughing,
Speaker 5: and he realized that he had to seriously consider whether
Speaker 5: it's step down from the ticket.
Speaker 1: Jonathan, this is so incredibly important and fascinating. We will
Speaker 1: all be just digging in this book. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank.
Speaker 5: You, thanks much for having me. Malia, no moment.
Speaker 2: Cofecly Jesse Kennon Maley Jung fasts. So I'm going to
Speaker 2: shock you here. Seems like the right wing was trying
Speaker 2: to smear to Wall. So it's a day ending and
Speaker 2: why what do you see here?
Speaker 1: So they had this account which was more recent was
Speaker 1: recently known as the ABC quote unquote whistleblower Hoaxter. So
Speaker 1: a far right account on acts, the one that had
Speaker 1: the handle is called doc net YouTube, which sounds very,
Speaker 1: very very legit had a lengthy post over the weekend
Speaker 1: that they had received information that Walls had an inappropriate
Speaker 1: relationship with the minor. This account had previously blown up
Speaker 1: for its claims that ABC had a whistleblower proving that
Speaker 1: President Vice President Harris had gotten the questions before the debate. Well,
Speaker 1: the proof never materialized. Numerous politicians, including MTG Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: jumped on the story. So I'm gonna go with that
Speaker 1: this is not true, And in fact, we know it's
Speaker 1: not true because, as noted by numerous users, the dates
Speaker 1: at the top of the email are inconsistent. Well, some
Speaker 1: correctly feature commas, others didn't, indicating that the emails are fabricated. Ironically,
Speaker 1: another popular account known as Agent Self FBI first identified
Speaker 1: the user errors. So it's just a completely silly made
Speaker 1: up thing. An anonymous X account made it up. But
Speaker 1: you know X is now a place for fake news,
Speaker 1: and the right runs with fake news whether or not.
Speaker 1: It's trail.
Speaker 2: That sounds about right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that in itself is our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1: Doctor net YouTube on X and X's crazy miss Him
Speaker 1: from Flooding is our moment of fuckery. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Speaker 1: and Saturday to hear the best minds in politics make
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