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 Alvin Bragg told Jim Jordan to
Speaker 1: respect states rights and not interfere with his case against Trump.
Speaker 1: We have the show of shows today. University of Michigan
Speaker 1: economics professor Justin Wolford stops by to talk fed rate
Speaker 1: hikes and bank runs. But don't worry, we make it fun.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to the New York Times Charlie Savage
Speaker 1: about Trump's latest legal troubles and the media manipulation he
Speaker 1: created or added. But first we have the host of
Speaker 1: the next level, The Bullworks, Tim Miller. Welcome back, Too
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Tim Miller. By second appearance, I'm going for
Speaker 1: that green jacket. How many appearances do I need to
Speaker 1: get jacket? After forty five appearances, we buy you a
Speaker 1: green jacket. Okay, great, I'll hold you to that. Forty
Speaker 1: three more to go. So Trump has neither been arrested
Speaker 1: nor indicted. I have purple blue balls like I've been
Speaker 1: waiting for it all week. I've just been waiting for
Speaker 1: this to pop the champagne, and it sucks. It is
Speaker 1: it's been disappointing. Definitely, folks got played by Trump. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of whispers out there that he was
Speaker 1: going to get indicted. I don't think I would have,
Speaker 1: you know, bought into this Tuesday arrest that he put
Speaker 1: on his pretend Twitter that he has if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for the fact that, like on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
Speaker 1: your little TV producers were texting me. There were whispers,
Speaker 1: you know, things were happening. Trump's Kid's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And so then when Trump sent out the fake the bleat,
Speaker 1: you know, it felt real. But alas it hasn't been,
Speaker 1: though hopefully it's imminent there. We had a great bullwork
Speaker 1: article this week. Do you know there's probably there are
Speaker 1: six different investigations active into him right now. Six it's
Speaker 1: just one of six. Well, there's Georgia, there's New York,
Speaker 1: there's Jack Smiths Action one, there's one into truth Social
Speaker 1: and there's the classified docs. Right But I want to
Speaker 1: like real talk with you for a second. Even if
Speaker 1: we see something from these six, I don't think it
Speaker 1: hurts him. This has been the conventional wisdom out there,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't necessarily disagree with you, but
Speaker 1: I do want to offer a potentially more hopeful take,
Speaker 1: a more bright eye take, which is that the weight
Speaker 1: of all of this overtime compounds. Right like, Trump was
Speaker 1: at his weakest a few months ago because the news
Speaker 1: environment around him was so awful. As the election had
Speaker 1: gone bad, Trump had endorsed these terrible candidates. There was
Speaker 1: the January sixth committee that was going on all of
Speaker 1: these investigations, and that's when in some of these poles
Speaker 1: run de Sanctis was beating him, right, and some of
Speaker 1: these had the headpoles at that time, right right, And
Speaker 1: that was a real thing that there are Republican voters
Speaker 1: that still like Trump that are susceptible to you know,
Speaker 1: a series of bad news environments that make them feel
Speaker 1: like he can't win. Right. If they feel like he
Speaker 1: can't win, they won't go with them. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that right now, in the short term, sure,
Speaker 1: it's been a little booie. People want to stand by
Speaker 1: their man, They want to come to his defense, you know,
Speaker 1: but over time, if this one drops and then another
Speaker 1: one drops, and then another one drops, which is what
Speaker 1: I expect to happen, then I think the weight of
Speaker 1: all of that, and the fact that like this guy's
Speaker 1: got like four different arraignments coming up in a nine
Speaker 1: week period. It might make you know, have not his
Speaker 1: core MAGA folks, right, Not the core magas they're never
Speaker 1: going to go, but this this wishy washy group, but
Speaker 1: the key group in the Republican primary, which is people
Speaker 1: that we like Trump but we're not sure are we
Speaker 1: ready to go on the ride a third time? Or
Speaker 1: do we just want to give him a gold watch
Speaker 1: and put them on Mountain Rushmore and say, you know,
Speaker 1: we're ready to move on? Right? Like that person. You know,
Speaker 1: I think right now it's helping Trump with that person,
Speaker 1: but I think over time it could go the other way.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this because we had Sarah Longwell on
Speaker 1: this podcast and the Best and I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of hers, and she talks to a lot of people,
Speaker 1: but she and she talks to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: She talks to more people than any of us, right,
Speaker 1: because she is doing these focus groups. She said that,
Speaker 1: you know, she really feels like Jasantis is less dangerous
Speaker 1: than Trump. I disagreed with her pretty strongly on that.
Speaker 1: What is your take on that? Like in this imaginary
Speaker 1: world where one of them is the president. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd be interested to hear your disagreement. I would side
Speaker 1: with Sarah. And the simple answer is this Trump has
Speaker 1: now been through this one time. He's been in there
Speaker 1: four years. He tried the oh, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: some adults around, the John Kelly's and the and the Maddises,
Speaker 1: and as as gross as all those people were in
Speaker 1: how complicit they were, at some level, it was a
Speaker 1: bumper around him, right, Like his craziest ideas didn't go through,
Speaker 1: you know those Gary Cohn was like not was literally
Speaker 1: not putting things on his desk and like pocket vetelling
Speaker 1: things that government should work, by the way, but whatever, okay,
Speaker 1: this next time around. The types of people that around
Speaker 1: him right now are absolute lunatics. It's the dregs of
Speaker 1: the dregs. And I think he would feel so embolded
Speaker 1: to do whatever he wants. I think that he goes
Speaker 1: a little kind of a scared little mouse that first year,
Speaker 1: and he didn't think he was gonna win. He couldn't
Speaker 1: believe he's gonna win, So he did plenty of damaging
Speaker 1: ship and it was plenty horrible. But I just think
Speaker 1: a second Trump term is like literally an extinction level
Speaker 1: event potentially for the democracy. I don't want to like
Speaker 1: scare people, but that's where I'm It's like a move
Speaker 1: to Mexico City, cut level events, and like the Scantis
Speaker 1: is bad and I and we could go through all
Speaker 1: the things I don't like about what the Santis is
Speaker 1: doing in Florida, but I do think he would bring
Speaker 1: the adults in and you know, they might be more
Speaker 1: effective at at enacting some of these policies that that
Speaker 1: progressives don't like that I don't like in certain cases.
Speaker 1: But I just think that like the worst case scenario
Speaker 1: is just literally catastrophic, the end of American upper Trump
Speaker 1: and for de Santis, it's like this is bad, right, right, rights.
Speaker 1: My question for you, I actually think that Trump is
Speaker 1: a sort of known quantity and desands is really really
Speaker 1: hyper focused and very effective, and in my mind, these
Speaker 1: two things make him and he's also and again you know,
Speaker 1: I have many LGBTQ people in my life, present company included,
Speaker 1: you included, but he has really made this the target
Speaker 1: for him in a way we have never seen. I
Speaker 1: mean in my lifetime, I have never seen or at
Speaker 1: least in the last twenty years. I've never seen someone
Speaker 1: really hone in to a group of people who where
Speaker 1: everything is settled law, same sex marriage is fucking codified,
Speaker 1: and the man is just going after gay people in
Speaker 1: a way that I don't think in my head I
Speaker 1: could have even imagined. Yeah, very few people have been
Speaker 1: as vocally upset about the don't Say Gay bill in
Speaker 1: particular in Florida as I was. I wrote about it
Speaker 1: and you will have a child, Yeah, I have a child,
Speaker 1: and that's why I wrote about her. Very early on.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is crazy, This is insane, this
Speaker 1: idea that a kindergarten her. You know that my child
Speaker 1: couldn't come home and do a homework assignment. You know
Speaker 1: about a family tree that some karen in Florida, you know,
Speaker 1: could sue the school over that. That's literally the rule.
Speaker 1: The fact that teachers couldn't talk to my kid about
Speaker 1: her own family. Yeah, that is outrageous. What he's been doing, obviously,
Speaker 1: talking to transfolks in drag is also outrageous. As the
Speaker 1: head to head with Trump comparison thing, another thing that
Speaker 1: you've had with the santass I just wanted to pop
Speaker 1: this bubble a little bit about his effectiveness. He's been
Speaker 1: pretty effective. But a lot of these bills are unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: You know, our mutual friend Roddie Kaplan is working on
Speaker 1: the Don't Say Gay Bill and pushing that out. She's
Speaker 1: the best. The Woodstop Woke Act has already been overturned. Right,
Speaker 1: A lot of this stuff is just nakedly unconstitutional, and
Speaker 1: so I actually don't know that he's quite He's a
Speaker 1: little bit more deft about it and puts a shinier
Speaker 1: coat of paint on it than Trump does. Right, but
Speaker 1: still it's still unconstitutional, and still we've had courts, you know.
Speaker 1: Hold that. I think that there are specific areas, and
Speaker 1: the LGBT area maybe prime among them, where De Santis
Speaker 1: would likely be, you know, more effective and more narrowly focused,
Speaker 1: you know, on on getting legislation that I don't like.
Speaker 1: Past again, I would strongly support Joe Biden overrun to Santis.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's even a close call head to
Speaker 1: head against Trump, where it's like, Okay, we can fight
Speaker 1: this piece of legislation, right, we can fight what he
Speaker 1: wants to do in schools which run to Santa's versus,
Speaker 1: like this dude might literally take us out of NATO
Speaker 1: and end the you know, Western World alliance and threaten
Speaker 1: the very fabric of our democracy. Like that's just how
Speaker 1: I how I assess that. But um, you know, no,
Speaker 1: it's not good either way. I wish that. I wish
Speaker 1: the other option on the other side was Chris Sanuno
Speaker 1: or somebody that you know, we could charitably agree and
Speaker 1: disagree on various That's not the case. And both of
Speaker 1: them are very bad. I just assess Donald Trump to
Speaker 1: be end times level. So they're set. It's quite interesting
Speaker 1: to me. I have to say that snow he had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to differentiate himself and he and he didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he went right along with Trump. I dislike
Speaker 1: Chris Christie a lot. Yeah, you're not alone. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have a we have a actually a party every year.
Speaker 1: It's a secret location because unfortunately, people would be storming
Speaker 1: the gates to get in. It's just such a popular
Speaker 1: ticket to Chris Christie hate party. But you know, he
Speaker 1: at least would be able to go toe to toe
Speaker 1: with Trump, right, and all these other guys are just
Speaker 1: such politicians. And the problem is he just has all
Speaker 1: this baggage now from everything from Bridge Gates. Just is
Speaker 1: never Trump stuff. I just don't think the MAGA voters
Speaker 1: are going to listen to him. But that snow New
Speaker 1: is a nice guy, and I disagree with him on
Speaker 1: certain things, agree with him on others. He would certainly
Speaker 1: be much preferable in the other two that it's just
Speaker 1: like this guy isn't gonna be able to go toe
Speaker 1: to toe on the stage. It's just not where the
Speaker 1: party is, right, Like, the party wants MAGA, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to decide do we want the OG MEGA, who's
Speaker 1: who might not be electable anymore and we're a little
Speaker 1: nervous about, you know, all of his baggage, or do
Speaker 1: we want a MEGA that is pretty close to the
Speaker 1: OG but you know we might be able to convince
Speaker 1: ourselves as more electable. That like, that is basically what's
Speaker 1: happening in the Republican primary. And I think anyone that
Speaker 1: doesn't fit in that MEGA world doesn't really have a chance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing, Right, we are in a situation here where
Speaker 1: like if a Republican had been brave, there would be
Speaker 1: an alternative. Well, I go back to the second impeachment.
Speaker 1: Had ten more Republicans voted to convict him, we'd be
Speaker 1: done with him. This is the thing that drives me
Speaker 1: the most crazy right now, Molly, is all these guys
Speaker 1: who you know, just want to be rid of Trump
Speaker 1: and who are like slowly pushing the scantist you at
Speaker 1: the chip Roys of the world, and you know people
Speaker 1: in the Senate who are out there talking about how
Speaker 1: you know, I just, John Thune, I just trust that
Speaker 1: the voters won't do this again. Why are you trusting them?
Speaker 1: Why didn't we just do your job, John Thune. Had
Speaker 1: seventeen Republicans voted to convict him, he would would have
Speaker 1: been he would have been borrowed from running, and all
Speaker 1: of this would be moot, and we could have it
Speaker 1: out on stage between the Santis and Haley and Pompeo,
Speaker 1: and you know, all those guys can right and you
Speaker 1: could have a real primary. Yeah, they were cowards. They
Speaker 1: failed again for the one hundred millionth time since twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen to do their job, and so now they're getting
Speaker 1: stuck with them again. And so there's a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, if the stakes were so high, there'd be
Speaker 1: a little bit of schadenfreud there. It's like it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, John Thune, you're getting back in, you know,
Speaker 1: with you're getting in back in the muttering with the
Speaker 1: pig again. Good luck, enjoy it. But but unfortunately the
Speaker 1: stakes are too high for me to kind of fully
Speaker 1: fully appreciate the schadenfreud of that. Yeah, no, me too,
Speaker 1: And I think I would like to keep our Democrats
Speaker 1: say there's a world in which like there's some Republican
Speaker 1: who stands up to him, But I guess not because
Speaker 1: that's not where the base is and the numbers aren't there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, sure, stand up. Yeah, I think that they're
Speaker 1: going to be some to push back on him, but
Speaker 1: are they going to do it? Well? Right, I got
Speaker 1: PTSD this week. I don't know about you. When robah
Speaker 1: Santis went to Peers and and was like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean donalds was, I don't know a whole lot
Speaker 1: about this world of paying off porn stars. And I
Speaker 1: would have been a little tougher than him on Fauci.
Speaker 1: And you know, these kind of limp attacks on you
Speaker 1: know that are like not really attacks, Like you know,
Speaker 1: Donald's like ripping his face off. You're a groomer, you
Speaker 1: might be gay, you're a whole ball, right, Donald, And
Speaker 1: he's like, well, I'm not so sure. He's doing the
Speaker 1: normal politician stuff. And I was like, we I we
Speaker 1: did this already in twenty sixteen. I was like, I
Speaker 1: lived through this. You know, everyone did this. Scott Walker
Speaker 1: tried this, Jeb tried this, Marco trying to Ted Cruz. Right,
Speaker 1: it's like, this strategy doesn't work. You know where Trump
Speaker 1: goes alpha predator and you you know, kind of do
Speaker 1: a light jab back at him, right, and they're they're
Speaker 1: living We're just living through this all again. Pompeo, Hailey
Speaker 1: deciantists are all making the same mistakes that we're made
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Like the only path to beating him
Speaker 1: is to either go is to either go through him
Speaker 1: or tomorrow complete yeah, completely an alternative vision and hope
Speaker 1: he self destructs. I don't think that that would work.
Speaker 1: That's second path don't work, but it might it could,
Speaker 1: we don't know, like a year from now. But the
Speaker 1: person who does that is Lisz Chainy. She's there, she
Speaker 1: did it right well, I mean but she's these megafolks
Speaker 1: aren't going to vote from it, liszt change. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's primary so yeah, so that and that's like going
Speaker 1: around and like by supporting Democrats. But I mean, like, hypothetically,
Speaker 1: I think you can get in and say, look, I
Speaker 1: think Donald Trump's kind of pathetic, and I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: focus on here's all the things that I do. I
Speaker 1: don't know that that. I don't know that that would work,
Speaker 1: but but at least then you know you're offering something
Speaker 1: to people, right, which is like here, I'm maga two,
Speaker 1: I'm mega like you. I don't think that that what
Speaker 1: he's gonna do is work. It's kind of sad how
Speaker 1: he's lashing out and I'm just gonna focus on this
Speaker 1: other stuff and I'm gonna ignore him. Now, maybe that
Speaker 1: wouldn't work. Maybe you have to just punch his face out,
Speaker 1: and that's I'm surely your old friend Rick Wilson would say.
Speaker 1: But either of those are at least viable options. Getting
Speaker 1: in and like, you know, doing this like pillow fight
Speaker 1: with him while he's like gnawing that you're a jugular
Speaker 1: is not like that doesn't work right, right, And yet
Speaker 1: they're all doing it again. It is interesting. The thing
Speaker 1: with the Santis that I never understand is like, if
Speaker 1: you could have Trump, why would you have the guy
Speaker 1: who's like lesser Trump. I think the hope is again
Speaker 1: when you think about the Median Republican voter, right, like
Speaker 1: the so there's some people, you know, let's take out
Speaker 1: the people who are like Liz Cheney curious and take
Speaker 1: out the people who are storming the capital for Trump, right, like,
Speaker 1: but they're all those folks out. What percentage of voters
Speaker 1: are those that we're talking about. You've got maybe ten
Speaker 1: percent at best, probably a little less than that that
Speaker 1: are never, you know, that are totally off the train
Speaker 1: of Trump. Then you've got probably twenty five percent that
Speaker 1: are Trump always, Trump forever, right, And and we can
Speaker 1: all we could quibble. It might be fifteen on one side,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty on the other. Right, but let's just let's
Speaker 1: just say the big middle sixty percent fifty percent of
Speaker 1: the party is people that like Trump but having one
Speaker 1: hundred percent the side of their Trump forever, okay, And
Speaker 1: like that is the center of the party right now.
Speaker 1: They might just decide I like Trump, I thought it
Speaker 1: was good, but man, I don't know, I'm really sick
Speaker 1: of losing to Democrats, and you know, he's got all
Speaker 1: this other, all this other stuff happening that I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure about in the tweets, and it was fun
Speaker 1: for a little while, but I might be already changed
Speaker 1: the channel, right like, but again, I really do like him,
Speaker 1: and I don't like it when the Libs are mean
Speaker 1: to him, right Like, that person is the key person
Speaker 1: in determining who's going to be the Republican nominee. And
Speaker 1: so the hope was that DeSantis could win that person
Speaker 1: over by being Trump like. But like, in practice you
Speaker 1: can see why that doesn't work because Trump goes straight
Speaker 1: for your head. Like Trump's gonna push him down to
Speaker 1: the ten. He's like, oh, you want to try to
Speaker 1: win these people who like me? Okay, well I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make that And so like that might work again a vacuum,
Speaker 1: right if you had an academic study and you know
Speaker 1: ran the primary out and you know in imaginary land
Speaker 1: that the Desanta strategy might work. But in real land,
Speaker 1: where Trump is crushing you, it's a lot harder to
Speaker 1: pull off. It's prediction time. Oh god, And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you're wrong, you don't get the blue coat or
Speaker 1: the green coat, okay, the green jacket after actually be
Speaker 1: right in every prediction. Yeah, yeah, it's a very high bar.
Speaker 1: What case goes first. Yeah, to me, it seems like
Speaker 1: Bragg is imminent. I know, the imminent word is like
Speaker 1: an eye roll now and MSNBC at this point, all
Speaker 1: signs point to that. I think the only thing that
Speaker 1: would prevent a Brag from Big first is if he
Speaker 1: steps off the ledge and just you know, or the
Speaker 1: grand jury. You know, something happens in the final days
Speaker 1: with the grand jury. So I think Brag is the
Speaker 1: most likely. And to me, it seems like Jack Smith.
Speaker 1: It seems like the federal stuff is moving very fast.
Speaker 1: And then I think that the federal investigation, um, they're
Speaker 1: conscious of the timeline, right like the debate start in August, right,
Speaker 1: These guys don't want to be doing indictments in August,
Speaker 1: right like after the campaign has really right, But they themselves,
Speaker 1: I think, feel like there's some imaginary date in their minds.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the first debate, maybe it's after you know,
Speaker 1: certain number people announce or whatever, where it's like the
Speaker 1: campaign is on right now, like we can't interfere. So
Speaker 1: I think that the federal stuff would happen next. And
Speaker 1: then I don't have as much insight into what's happening
Speaker 1: in Georgia. But that seems very live too. There's a
Speaker 1: lot that there's a lot of live grenades out there.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's my half prediction is that bragg is
Speaker 1: going to happen first, just not as quickly as we thought.
Speaker 1: Tim Miller, thank you, Thank you. I'm JF. Justin Wolfers
Speaker 1: is a professor at the University of Michigan and the
Speaker 1: host of the podcast Think Like an Economist. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Justin and Fast Economics, Molly. So, I can't
Speaker 1: decide whether to start with the raid hike or the
Speaker 1: bank runs, So I'm going to let you choose. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's get bank runs and just explain a little bit
Speaker 1: about what happened with these bank runs and what they
Speaker 1: meet in Yeah. So, if anyone has seen the movie
Speaker 1: It's a Wonderful Life. Yes, what happens is someone in
Speaker 1: town thinks that the bank may not have enough money
Speaker 1: in its vault, so then they run to the bank,
Speaker 1: and then other people along the way also think, oh no,
Speaker 1: there might not be enough money in the vault, so
Speaker 1: they also run. And so now there are a whole
Speaker 1: lot of people inside the bank trying to withdraw their money,
Speaker 1: and there's more people than there is money in the vault,
Speaker 1: and so a bank run is the self fulfilling prophecy
Speaker 1: when everyone fears there won't be money in the vault,
Speaker 1: so they all want to get to the bank and
Speaker 1: we draw their money before someone else takes the last dollar,
Speaker 1: and then you end up with no money in the vault.
Speaker 1: That was what happened in a wonderful life. That's what
Speaker 1: happened throughout the Great Depression, and that is what happened
Speaker 1: to Silicon Valley Bank. There's an interesting caveat which is
Speaker 1: wealthy venture capitalists were involved in this bank run, so
Speaker 1: a particularly unsympathetic bunch of characters. The way a bank
Speaker 1: run goes down is actually kind of everyone's a little selfish, right,
Speaker 1: You're like, I hear the banks in trouble. You could
Speaker 1: pull the manager enough he support, but you can raise
Speaker 1: there to beat your neighbor. And if you really want
Speaker 1: to think of who's most likely to exhibit that sort
Speaker 1: of behavior, pet Teal's pretty high on my list. Supposedly though,
Speaker 1: and I want to I want to ask you about this.
Speaker 1: Supposedly he did not. He is saying, at least he
Speaker 1: said to some journalists that he had fifty million in
Speaker 1: that bank, and he did not pull his money out.
Speaker 1: That said Founder's fund, which is a fund that he
Speaker 1: has some affiliation with, UM did pull its money out.
Speaker 1: And pet Teal has a long history of always telling
Speaker 1: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing about the truth. Well,
Speaker 1: my favorite is David Sachs. Who can you who's a
Speaker 1: venture capital? I mean, I don't, I can't tell. Can
Speaker 1: we say, like this is just like a gallery of pricks?
Speaker 1: Can we say? David Sacks is a entrepreneur who is
Speaker 1: a middle aged guy who went to Stanford and blocked
Speaker 1: me on Twitter. He was another spreneur involved in this.
Speaker 1: But you know what I think is pretty interesting about
Speaker 1: all of these libertarians is that the minute Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: Bank was in trouble, they weren't crying not to their
Speaker 1: own bootstraps, but to the federal government because of a
Speaker 1: much broader and much harder truth, which is that even
Speaker 1: if you're the most fervent believer in market forces, while
Speaker 1: we're on markets require regulation. And nowhere is that more
Speaker 1: clearly the case than we're thinking about the banks making system.
Speaker 1: Banks have what economists call multiple equilibria, And I'm going
Speaker 1: to explain that Molly before you never invite me back. Yes,
Speaker 1: go basically most days of the week, probably in January
Speaker 1: twenty third last year, you woke up and you thought,
Speaker 1: to yourself, finance is so boring. I promise not to
Speaker 1: think about it all day. And that's an equilibrium because
Speaker 1: if everyone does that, we'll just leave our money in
Speaker 1: the bank and the next day's boring. What happened at
Speaker 1: the end of last week was a bunch of people
Speaker 1: woke up and they said, I'm worried them may not
Speaker 1: be enough money in the vault. And it may not
Speaker 1: even be I'm worried. It could be molly that I'm
Speaker 1: worried that you're worried. Now, if I'm worried that you're
Speaker 1: worried there's not enough money in the vault, I'm worried
Speaker 1: you're going to go withdraw your money and then there'll
Speaker 1: be no money in the vault. And so what I
Speaker 1: do is I run. And that's the other equilibrium, the
Speaker 1: other outcome. And so the thing is banks can flip
Speaker 1: from the good boring state to the oh my god,
Speaker 1: I've got to beat you their state just overnight. Click
Speaker 1: your fingers, just like that. It turns out remarkable fact
Speaker 1: here the economics to solve the problem of bank runs
Speaker 1: solved it, totally solved it. So if you look at
Speaker 1: the number of bank runs that occurred in the US,
Speaker 1: they're incredibly common all the way through the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: the nineteen hundreds up until the Great Depression, or an
Speaker 1: enormous number of bank runs destroyed the financial system, and
Speaker 1: in the wake of the Great Depression were instituted what's
Speaker 1: called deposit insurance. Deposit insurance says well, if your bank
Speaker 1: goes bast we will pay you back, We'll give you
Speaker 1: the money. And so what that means, Molly is let's
Speaker 1: go back to January twenty third. Remember that was a
Speaker 1: morning you work up and you thought finances so boring.
Speaker 1: I promised not to think about it. If you have
Speaker 1: less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars every day,
Speaker 1: is that boring? Right? And if you think the day
Speaker 1: is boring, then I don't need to run to the
Speaker 1: bank to withdraw my money before you do, because I
Speaker 1: know that you think it's boring. So deposit insurance solved
Speaker 1: the problem. You might well, but justin there was a
Speaker 1: bank run. The thing about Silicon Valley Bank is all
Speaker 1: of its depositors were not all A huge number of
Speaker 1: its depositors were VC and startups. The thing about those
Speaker 1: folks is they have gobs of money, heaps of it piles.
Speaker 1: You're only inshored up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So what that meant was all the folks you mentioned before,
Speaker 1: they're effectively uninsured. And so what that meant is that bank,
Speaker 1: and that bank alone effectively was outside the framework that
Speaker 1: has prevented bank runs from being a major feature of
Speaker 1: American life ever since the Great Depression. But what happened
Speaker 1: was that the Biden administration actually did what the Silk
Speaker 1: and Valley people wanted them to do, which was to
Speaker 1: guarantee over a two hundred and fifty thousand Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's go back to David Sachs and his brethren. So
Speaker 1: when a bank run happens one bank, that took a
Speaker 1: lot of bets, and maybe you should have known better
Speaker 1: than to put your money there. If you're a super
Speaker 1: smart Silicon Valley millionaire, when one bank goes south, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's bad for you. And I just want to
Speaker 1: be clear about the stakes here, by the way, which
Speaker 1: is there's probably enough value in the organization that David
Speaker 1: Sacks was going to get ninety cents out of every
Speaker 1: dollar that he'd deposited. So this was not like losing
Speaker 1: all your money anyway. It was like losing a tenth
Speaker 1: of all your money. By Monday morning, you would have
Speaker 1: got half of it, and within a few weeks you
Speaker 1: would have got I'm guessing ninety percent or even one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of money back. There's educated guesses. So when
Speaker 1: your bank's going south, you don't want anyone else to
Speaker 1: know about it, because that will actually cause it to
Speaker 1: go south. As soon as your banks collapse, though, what
Speaker 1: you want to do is create fear elsewhere, which is
Speaker 1: what David Sachs did. These guys, libertarian heroes went to
Speaker 1: Twitter and started screaming the banking systems collapsing. Washington has
Speaker 1: to do something now. And that's because it wanted you
Speaker 1: and I to believe that our bank might collapse. And
Speaker 1: in fact, if they succeeded, that would have been enough
Speaker 1: for my bank to collapse. If enough people were fearful,
Speaker 1: they would have withdrawn their money. We would have had
Speaker 1: another old fashioned bankrupt and at that point that's called contagion.
Speaker 1: And the federal government has to do something to stop
Speaker 1: this spreading to a million other banks. So that's why
Speaker 1: these guys incredible misbehavior are screaming the whole systems going down,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that they knew they were going to
Speaker 1: get at least ninety percent of their money back. And
Speaker 1: it's because they wanted to create the macroeconomic conditions that
Speaker 1: would give the government no choice but to rescue them.
Speaker 1: And it created not just the economic conditions, but also
Speaker 1: the political conditions, and so the government effectively said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, remember that part where he said everyone's
Speaker 1: insured for the first two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: just kidding, everyone's insured for everything, which would be like
Speaker 1: totally awesome if it applied to the rest of our lives. Well,
Speaker 1: it's good to see libertarians getting away with it because,
Speaker 1: i mean, you know, good for them. Now, these people
Speaker 1: are not going to see any it's just hard warming.
Speaker 1: I mean, none of what they did was illegal. No
Speaker 1: one was going to go to jail for this. This
Speaker 1: is just another day of fun in manipulating markets. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But let's not minimize that, Molly. Let's call bad behavior
Speaker 1: bad behavior. Let's call trying to cause economic destruction terrible.
Speaker 1: Let's call trying to drag down the financial system in
Speaker 1: order to get your bailout deplorable. May not be illegal, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it is morally reprehensible, though I'm not sure morally
Speaker 1: reprehensible is something that these guys consider to be a
Speaker 1: bad thing. We lost like two of these regional banks.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think the rest of the banks
Speaker 1: are safe? Number one? It seems like his time has passed.
Speaker 1: We're getting a sense that they are. Let's pose there. Yes,
Speaker 1: And the reason he is Silicon Valley Bank was unusual
Speaker 1: in two respects. One, it was essentially uninsured because it
Speaker 1: had all rich customers. Two, what management did is they
Speaker 1: went off to the casino and laid some big bets
Speaker 1: and banking one I one is you don't do that?
Speaker 1: And the other thing I want to ask you is
Speaker 1: it seems to me, like with the railroads, that this
Speaker 1: would be a case for a regulation would have prevented Certainly,
Speaker 1: you know regulation would have prevented this. I mean, will
Speaker 1: there be regulation? And do you believe that? So there
Speaker 1: are a variety of different responses, all of which I
Speaker 1: believe so a different answer. I don't know how you
Speaker 1: feel about this is maybe we should have insured all
Speaker 1: deposits to start with, because if everyone's deposits, even billionaires,
Speaker 1: were insured, then none of them have will start a
Speaker 1: bank run because they all know that their money will
Speaker 1: be there whether they go on with draw it or not.
Speaker 1: So that's one possibility. It's a form of regulation. Another
Speaker 1: answer is maybe we should be pretty comfortable with where
Speaker 1: we're at, which is we ensure most deposits, just not
Speaker 1: the super rich. But we shouldn't allow banks to only
Speaker 1: cater to those who are uninsured, as Silicon Valley Bank did.
Speaker 1: Another answer is what Silicon Valley Bank did was the
Speaker 1: double whammy of being uninsured and then taking the money
Speaker 1: to the casino. Why was it allowed to take it
Speaker 1: to the casino? And I should be clear to your
Speaker 1: listeners what it actually did was brought long term government bonds,
Speaker 1: which sounds like it's safe government bonds. That sounds safe,
Speaker 1: but long term government bonds is effectively betting that interest
Speaker 1: rates will be low forever, and so it took a
Speaker 1: bet I call that going to the casino. So it
Speaker 1: used to be that banks of Silicon Valley Bank's size
Speaker 1: were subject to closer supervision by the authorities to make
Speaker 1: sure they don't go to the casino. And then in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Silicon Valley Bank and other small and regional
Speaker 1: banks went to Washington, looked the authorities in the eye
Speaker 1: and said, we are not systemically important. You don't need
Speaker 1: to worry about us. We shouldn't be regulated like this.
Speaker 1: Just you know, if we screw up, let us fail
Speaker 1: and it won't have a big problem. They succeeded, and
Speaker 1: so the regulations were weakened. That helped allow them to
Speaker 1: go to the casino. And then of course they go
Speaker 1: to the casino, they lose all their money, and then
Speaker 1: they say, just kidding, federal government, we're really important. If
Speaker 1: you don't say if us, she'll bring the economy down.
Speaker 1: And they ended up getting pailed out. Just amazing stuff.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about the rate hikes. Inflation has
Speaker 1: not gone away, or at least the anxiety inflation has
Speaker 1: not gone away. So if you're used to thinking about
Speaker 1: inflation over recent months as being say six or seven
Speaker 1: or eight percent, I've got really good news for you.
Speaker 1: It's probably closer to four four points something. It may
Speaker 1: be coming down, but it may not be because the
Speaker 1: recent news hasn't been as exciting or positive as we
Speaker 1: might have hoped. And so that then means the Fed's
Speaker 1: got to do something to bring down inflation. And what
Speaker 1: it normally does as it raises interest rates. And before
Speaker 1: this financial mess, it had suggested it might even raise
Speaker 1: interest rates by half a percent today, and today it
Speaker 1: decided to go for the simple no surprises approach and
Speaker 1: raised interest rates by about a quarter of a percent.
Speaker 1: And it's very hard to fault its logic here. I
Speaker 1: think there are some who are going to be concerned that, wow,
Speaker 1: maybe they shouldn't have raised interest rates at all given
Speaker 1: the distress in the banking system. But what you heard
Speaker 1: from Chairman Powell was actually a fair bit of confidence that,
Speaker 1: you know what, those guys at Silicon Valley Bank were
Speaker 1: a bunch of Wacker hurdles and we don't think other
Speaker 1: banks look like that, and we don't think that they're
Speaker 1: that important to their broader economy. And in any case,
Speaker 1: the way we fix those problems is what we do
Speaker 1: is we lend money to banks who don't have enough
Speaker 1: in the vault. So we have a solution. So we
Speaker 1: use lending money to banks providing liquidity is the tool
Speaker 1: for solving financial distress and then we go back to
Speaker 1: using good old fashioned interest rates to glob or inflation.
Speaker 1: And that seems to be what Powell is trying to do. Like,
Speaker 1: if you were power, would you do this? I were power,
Speaker 1: there'd be a lot more listeners to your podcast. They
Speaker 1: may not be the listeners you want. I think it's
Speaker 1: a very sensible, very defensible, straight down the middle of
Speaker 1: the line, straight down the middle of the road view.
Speaker 1: I think if one we're looking for a liberal critique,
Speaker 1: it's the one that Elizabeth Warren has correctly raised, which
Speaker 1: is when we raise interest rates to reduce inflation, what
Speaker 1: we're doing is we are saying we are going to
Speaker 1: throw some people out of work, sacrifice them on the
Speaker 1: altar of lower inflation. And once you start to think
Speaker 1: about those people, you start to think, well, maybe we
Speaker 1: should really be sure we need to do it. And
Speaker 1: so that would be like, I really don't want to
Speaker 1: believe inflation. Is this stubborn, But I'm really going to
Speaker 1: wait until they learn that rather than accidentally overdoing it.
Speaker 1: That would be I think the liberal critique, and I
Speaker 1: think it's quite serious. The conservative critique would be if
Speaker 1: you sit back and let inflation take hold. Everyone's just
Speaker 1: going to get used to it, and then inflation becomes
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling prophecy where I ask for higher wages
Speaker 1: because my customer living rose, and then my employer raises
Speaker 1: its prices because it's wage bill rose. Unfortunately, we're not
Speaker 1: in that position, and so I do think that you know,
Speaker 1: there are a range of arguments, but it's a pretty
Speaker 1: defensible view. Now Here. We are in this kind of
Speaker 1: period where there's a lot of anxiety that we're headed
Speaker 1: towards a recession, but really no one knows, right, No
Speaker 1: one ever knows. Economists are fantastic at predicting recessions approximately
Speaker 1: two to three months after they begin. What are the
Speaker 1: indicators you're looking at and what are they telling you?
Speaker 1: So I'm an optimist. Now, I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: I'm not promising your listeners there will be no recession.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think the simplest way of thinking about
Speaker 1: it is, over the past century, there's been fourteen recessions.
Speaker 1: So that says in any given year, there's a one
Speaker 1: in seven chance or a recession. And then so I reckon,
Speaker 1: why not think about that this year? Now, A lot
Speaker 1: of people are a lot more pessimistic than I am.
Speaker 1: They're like interest rates are high, so therefore we might
Speaker 1: think it's more likely maybe, but you know, they're not
Speaker 1: that high. And I is a very simple rule of thumb,
Speaker 1: the very the single best indicator for the future path
Speaker 1: of the economy is how's it going now? It tends
Speaker 1: to repeat itself, and things are pretty good right now.
Speaker 1: Unemployment is at a fifty year may have been a
Speaker 1: tick higher this month. The rate of job growth over
Speaker 1: recent months has been at a level that in normal
Speaker 1: times would be called a boom. Yet for some reason,
Speaker 1: the headlines are being recession. So I think there is
Speaker 1: an enormous disjunction between the extraordinary pessimism I hear out
Speaker 1: there in the actual heart economic numbers, which so far
Speaker 1: I keep being amazed. But so far just keep looking
Speaker 1: really really good, and let's just keep hoping it continues. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you know what else, or what are
Speaker 1: the other choices? What are the things that you're like
Speaker 1: a little bit worried about in your head. The FEDS
Speaker 1: put out its latest forecast today, and one reason I
Speaker 1: pay a lot of attention to that is the FED
Speaker 1: as an institution is literally hundreds of PhD economists who
Speaker 1: spend their whole day just noodling over numbers, and as
Speaker 1: far as we can tell, they're the single best predictor
Speaker 1: of the state of the future of the economy. Really
Speaker 1: does see the economy slowing over next year. Now, I
Speaker 1: want to be clear, they're also not infallible, so that
Speaker 1: gives me real concern. I worry about the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. What's going you know. I think there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things that could go wrong there. I
Speaker 1: think the biggest, dumbest, stupidest thing that could happen is
Speaker 1: that the federal government will decide to default on the
Speaker 1: debt as a result of debt ceiling brinksmanship within Congress.
Speaker 1: And I think this is a wildly dysfunctional Congress, and
Speaker 1: simply refusing to pay your bills is just punching the
Speaker 1: American economy in the face. And given that the right
Speaker 1: wing of the Republican Party already like punching Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: in the face, I think they like regular Americans even less.
Speaker 1: So I worry a lot about that. Yeah, I mean too,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll
Speaker 1: come back. The great pleasure mane. Charlie Savage is a
Speaker 1: Washington correspondent at The New York Times. Welcome to you
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Charlie. Thanks for having me up. Delighted to
Speaker 1: have you so super interesting moment in American media. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump told us he was going to be arrested on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: It is now Thursday, and nothing true. We of course something,
Speaker 1: which is that Alvin Bragm, Manhattan District Attorney, is continuing
Speaker 1: to work with a grand jury in New York and
Speaker 1: seems to be close to a final decision to seek
Speaker 1: an indictment. But Trump obviously had no actual knowledge that
Speaker 1: he was going to be arrested on Tuesday or this
Speaker 1: would be done on Tuesday, but was throwing out a
Speaker 1: specific day as sort of a call to arms to
Speaker 1: his supporters, which is now come and gone. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean nothing is happening, though, It just means that Tuesday
Speaker 1: was made up. So explain to us a little bit,
Speaker 1: because what so I wanted you to talk about this
Speaker 1: piece that you just did. Possible Trump indictment puts attention
Speaker 1: on execution for real discretion, because we're in a situation
Speaker 1: where there are so many possible cases for this defendant
Speaker 1: that the question we've hit a moment of like who
Speaker 1: goes first? Right, there is a sequencing issue, not that
Speaker 1: anyone has the authority to tell one prosecutor versus another
Speaker 1: in New York or Georgia or Washington, DC. You have
Speaker 1: to wait for this unrelated other matter to go first.
Speaker 1: They're all kind of independent agents here, which is a
Speaker 1: little bit chaotic where you have seen a lot of
Speaker 1: commentary of people who are critical of Trump and Drew
Speaker 1: Saint that he committed various crimes and should be held
Speaker 1: accountable for that. So people that elk nevertheless wringing their
Speaker 1: hands over the prospect that this case will go first.
Speaker 1: Is this the first case to break that seal? And
Speaker 1: for the first time in American history, an ex president
Speaker 1: is being charged with a crime, This ex president in particular,
Speaker 1: being charged with a crime when the matter at hand,
Speaker 1: apparently bookkeeping fraud to cover up a campaign europe payment
Speaker 1: to a porn star, is obviously so much less significant
Speaker 1: than the events surrounding January six and attempts to overturn
Speaker 1: the election, or even holding on to classified documents and
Speaker 1: obstructing the government's efforts to retrieve them the other matters
Speaker 1: at hand, not just because the actions seem to be tawdry,
Speaker 1: as they are less important than those other things, but
Speaker 1: also because there is a sense that the legal theory
Speaker 1: the album Brag the Manhattan da is considering may itself
Speaker 1: be novel in some way. And the problem is we
Speaker 1: don't really know what his theory of the case is,
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of speculation, but that speculation
Speaker 1: may be raw. But the issue is that we're pretty
Speaker 1: confident that he's primary charged is bookkeeping fraud for writing
Speaker 1: and Trump organization records that repayments to Michael Cohen for
Speaker 1: this payoff to Stormy Daniels were for a legal retainer
Speaker 1: that didn't exist, as opposed to writing down what they
Speaker 1: were actually for, which is reimbursing him for this hush
Speaker 1: money payment during the election. I mean, is that a
Speaker 1: tax fraud issue or is that a campaign fraud issue? Well,
Speaker 1: that's the issue. So bookkeeping fraud in the state law
Speaker 1: is normally, if it's just by itself, it's a crime,
Speaker 1: but it's not a big crime. It's a misdemeanor two
Speaker 1: year statuted limitations. You're not going to you're not going
Speaker 1: to go after a president on misdemeanor. That's old, But
Speaker 1: it becomes a felony. The fraud was for the purpose
Speaker 1: of committing or covering up a second crime. So that's
Speaker 1: the question. One is the second crime that Bragg is
Speaker 1: thinking about. There's been chatter that it may be a
Speaker 1: campaign finance violation. Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court
Speaker 1: to violating campaign finance law by making this payment and
Speaker 1: not disclosing it. But that's a federal charge. Presidential campaigns
Speaker 1: are regulated by federal laws. Or raises the question of
Speaker 1: whether a state prosecutor who doesn't have jurisdiction over federal
Speaker 1: law can invoke that. Is there some way of making
Speaker 1: it a state campaign law and so people are nervous
Speaker 1: about doing something that hadn't been done before. It may
Speaker 1: also be the case that everyone is wrong, and Bragg
Speaker 1: has some other set of evidence it's not public, that
Speaker 1: perhaps Trump intended to for I'm just making this up now, right,
Speaker 1: Perhaps he has evidence that Trump intended to deduct those
Speaker 1: payments to go in right state, to take a tax
Speaker 1: right off on his payment to a sexual partner. YEA,
Speaker 1: By the way, I would not put it past him.
Speaker 1: But I want to ask you, and I want to
Speaker 1: go back to something we were talking about a minute ago,
Speaker 1: which is you said that there is sort of confidence
Speaker 1: that Brag is still meeting about this indictment. Can you
Speaker 1: explain to me where that comes from. Well, the DA's
Speaker 1: office is locked down, but the people who are called
Speaker 1: for the grand jury to testify are allowed to talk
Speaker 1: about what they were asked. Lawyers for people who are
Speaker 1: being given a chance to try to head off an
Speaker 1: indictment or the defendant potential defendant itself are free to
Speaker 1: talk about it. And so in these investigations, even without
Speaker 1: there necessarily being inappropriate leaks from a prosecutor's office, especially
Speaker 1: if it's high profile enough, the high mind of the
Speaker 1: press corps is generally able to suss out puzzle pieces
Speaker 1: that give us an idea of what's going on and
Speaker 1: whether the grand jury is being used for this purpose
Speaker 1: on this day or being asked to ask some unrelated case.
Speaker 1: It looks like this is not going to be resolved
Speaker 1: this week, and so it continues, and in the meantime
Speaker 1: then people there's the void is filled by this commentary.
Speaker 1: Is this the case to go first? Is this the
Speaker 1: weakest case relative to the others, at least is Bragg
Speaker 1: it's going to be vulnerable here to attacks from Trump
Speaker 1: in his world that he's doing something that's never been
Speaker 1: done before selectively for political reasons. And so that that
Speaker 1: discussing into those issues of prosecutorial discression. What is selective prosecution?
Speaker 1: What would Trump have to show if you did get
Speaker 1: charged and brought that was the purpose of that piece
Speaker 1: you brought up. I guess that group is meeting today,
Speaker 1: but not about this. Can you explain that, Well, a
Speaker 1: grand jury is not convened generally for one particular investigation.
Speaker 1: The grand jury might have several unrelated batters. And so
Speaker 1: there are reports out of New York that the grand
Speaker 1: jury is not focused on this case today, in which case,
Speaker 1: assuming that it's correct, they're you know, they're not going
Speaker 1: to make a decision today, of course that you know,
Speaker 1: maybe this is wrong. And by three pm the world
Speaker 1: looks very different. But there's a whole lot of like
Speaker 1: looking at this through a glass darkly for all of
Speaker 1: us on the outside. Right, there's this case, there's a
Speaker 1: possible DOJ case, right, we don't really know if that
Speaker 1: where that is right? Two possible federal cases, both of
Speaker 1: which are being handled by the Special Council of Jack Smith,
Speaker 1: one about Trump's attempts to overturn the election leading up
Speaker 1: to encompassing the events of January six and the other
Speaker 1: about the classified documents at Marlago and obstructing the efforts
Speaker 1: to get them back. And then there's Georgia. Yes, And
Speaker 1: then the local prosecutor in Atlanta Fulton County in Georgia
Speaker 1: has a January sixth investigation of her own going focused
Speaker 1: on Trump's attempts to overturn Biden's narrow win in Georgia,
Speaker 1: specifically including the famous taped and leaked phone call to
Speaker 1: the Secretary of State which Trump asked him to quote
Speaker 1: find the ten thousand or so votes he needed to
Speaker 1: flip the outcome, and efforts to get Trump supporters to
Speaker 1: declare themselves to be electoral voters electoral college voters, which
Speaker 1: would then set up Mike Pence to not certify the election.
Speaker 1: Isn't there another Georgia case? There's another phone collumns. Sorry,
Speaker 1: there's a phone call that we didn't really know about.
Speaker 1: There are multiple phone calls in Georgia, multiple efforts to
Speaker 1: get people in to pressure Georgia officials to find a
Speaker 1: way to flip the outcome of that election. And so
Speaker 1: the Fannie Willis, the DA down there is looking at
Speaker 1: both that on election crimes related to that and the
Speaker 1: fake electors piece, and she has indicated that she's also
Speaker 1: looking at a racketeering tis an interesting twist. Racketeering charges
Speaker 1: were written to deal with criminal organizations like the mafia gangs,
Speaker 1: where you had groups of people working together committing a
Speaker 1: series of crimes, but all with a common purpose. And
Speaker 1: so she seems to be toying with the notion that
Speaker 1: Trump and his associates were together committing various crimes, all
Speaker 1: with the unified purpose of trying to flip that election,
Speaker 1: and that potentially could violate RICO, the racketeering one. Until
Speaker 1: she puts together her a grand jury, there will be
Speaker 1: no charges out of Georgia and there is no grand
Speaker 1: jury yet. So yes, people may have heard that there
Speaker 1: was a grand jury, and famously the chairwoman of that
Speaker 1: went on this somewhat crazy publicity tour giving interviews. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not necessarily coming off as the most serious looking person.
Speaker 1: But that was a special grand jury that was merely
Speaker 1: it's this thing that doesn't exist in federal law. It
Speaker 1: was merely to gather evidence. That is to be the
Speaker 1: body that oversees people testifying and turning over documents. But
Speaker 1: we're a longer term investigation. It lacks the authority to
Speaker 1: decide whether to actually bring charge. It will make recommendations.
Speaker 1: So Fannie Will still needs to decide whether she wants
Speaker 1: to ask a regular grand jury does this pile of
Speaker 1: testimony and documents add up to chargeable offenses? And as
Speaker 1: far as we know, she hadn't decided whether or not
Speaker 1: she's going to do that at this point. So there
Speaker 1: definitely are steps in the Georgia case that would need
Speaker 1: to happen before anything happened. Well, and in the New
Speaker 1: York case and in the recent case. Trump has not
Speaker 1: been charged, No grand jury has voted to invite him anywhere,
Speaker 1: but all kinds of things are boiling. Do you think
Speaker 1: that Trump? And again, I know how annoying it is
Speaker 1: to come on this podcast and for me to ask
Speaker 1: opinion questions because you're a straight journalist, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask you an opinion question, but at least it's
Speaker 1: not partisan. Since Saturday, we have sort of lived this
Speaker 1: news cycle that was a little bit of Trump's making, right,
Speaker 1: even if there were absolutely do you think Trump sort
Speaker 1: of won that news cycle? I mean, well, He certainly
Speaker 1: focused attention on this, and he put his rival RHNDA
Speaker 1: scantists on the hot seat, sort of forced him to
Speaker 1: show his hand a little bit about whether he was
Speaker 1: going to be on Trump's side or let Trump stew here.
Speaker 1: In that sense, he at least was controlling the narrative.
Speaker 1: He decided, this is what we were on them to
Speaker 1: talk about, and we did. An element of this. Which
Speaker 1: is interesting though, is that part of his commentary since
Speaker 1: Saturday morning has been a very clear call to arms,
Speaker 1: helping them to protest. Now was the time protest protest protests,
Speaker 1: notably not using the word peacefully. Yes, he did once
Speaker 1: in his notorious January sixth speech, and so then when
Speaker 1: people later accused him of assitement, his supporters could say, no,
Speaker 1: he said peacefully, you know, in the middle of all
Speaker 1: that other stuff. He finally did, by the way, say
Speaker 1: peacefully this morning in a true social post that used
Speaker 1: the word very insidiously. Right. He didn't say, go protest peacefully.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, I'm in a said Bragg's out
Speaker 1: of control. He's an animal. They're destroying our country, and
Speaker 1: they tell us to be peaceful, you know, right, kind
Speaker 1: of the opposite of urging people to be peaceful. Right, So,
Speaker 1: but what I was getting at is the protest that
Speaker 1: he called for have not seen much of a response.
Speaker 1: There's been a few sort of halfhearted gatherings of small
Speaker 1: numbers of people that are generally outnumbered by the number
Speaker 1: of media who showed up to see what was going
Speaker 1: to happen. And so maybe some of that is just
Speaker 1: no one really knows when the day is, If he's
Speaker 1: actually in the courthouse, maybe you know, being fingerprinted, maybe
Speaker 1: people will spontaneously flow there. But it's raising the prospect
Speaker 1: that January sixth was a one off and that his
Speaker 1: supporters aren't willing to do that again. All kinds of
Speaker 1: you know, people rotting in jail and having to pay
Speaker 1: for their own bills. And also this you know that
Speaker 1: was about obviously it was a lie, but the election
Speaker 1: was stolen. Your vote was taken away from you, and
Speaker 1: maybe that's more galvanizing than hey, they're trying to charge
Speaker 1: me with their crime over this payoff to a porn star,
Speaker 1: which lacks that sort of your vote was element. But
Speaker 1: in any case, we'll see what is he still able
Speaker 1: to create or not, you know, to be exciting. He
Speaker 1: may have revealed himself to not be able to reassemble. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to predict he hasn't been able to
Speaker 1: do that. But if he isn't able to reassemble a mob,
Speaker 1: that maybe people in his own party and such, to me,
Speaker 1: we consider how deferential they want to be to him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that is a certainly very interesting situation where
Speaker 1: you have members of the Republican Party more willing to
Speaker 1: defend him than anyone else. I mean you have to wonder,
Speaker 1: like we had thought for such a long time that
Speaker 1: it was the base, but what if it's the party
Speaker 1: itself that has Stockholm syndrome? Right? I mean you don't
Speaker 1: have to answer that, because I know you was like
Speaker 1: a real reporter, I will neither. But so I want
Speaker 1: to ask you what else are you watching for? Again,
Speaker 1: we're not going to predict, you know, we taping this
Speaker 1: on whatever day this is. It will come out on Friday.
Speaker 1: We're not going to try to predict what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But what else are you watching for in the macro
Speaker 1: micro level whatever? Just tell me what you're looking at? Right,
Speaker 1: So I'll say two things. One is the piece that
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier about prosectual discretion. Make it at something
Speaker 1: that becomes important if Trump is charged and then his
Speaker 1: lawyers file a motion to dismiss on the basis of
Speaker 1: prosecutorial misconduct or selective prosecution, which certainly his pr statements
Speaker 1: are pointing towards. You know, this was politically motivated, and
Speaker 1: no one a weak case, no one else would be
Speaker 1: charged with this. Therefore it's improper. As I understand it
Speaker 1: from having read the cases now and talked to a
Speaker 1: number of professors who've written in this space. The fact
Speaker 1: that there's never been a case quite like this before
Speaker 1: may get Trump some traction in the court of public
Speaker 1: opinion and try to portray it this way. He will
Speaker 1: have tremendous difficulty in an actual court of proving selective prosecution,
Speaker 1: because what he would need to show is that other
Speaker 1: people have in New York has to be the same
Speaker 1: prosecutor's office. Can't just be you know, someone in North
Speaker 1: Carolina or whatever. Other people in New York have done
Speaker 1: this same thing, these same action, and the prosecutor chose
Speaker 1: not to charge them, and those other people had invoked
Speaker 1: their First Amendment rights to have different expressed different political
Speaker 1: views them with me, right, because he has to be
Speaker 1: an exercise of a constitutional right or some disfavored category
Speaker 1: of like religion or race, like people are being treated
Speaker 1: differently based on one of these things. And so it's
Speaker 1: just not there are any other examples of New Yorkers
Speaker 1: falsifying business records to cover up campaign era payoffs to
Speaker 1: people that are embarrassing, even if they're otherwise lawful. And
Speaker 1: so if he can't point to other examples, Roman Manhattan
Speaker 1: DA could have charged someone with this and didn't, he
Speaker 1: will not succeed in a selected prosecution case. So that
Speaker 1: was interesting, very very difficult, and it's apparently has been
Speaker 1: like a century since even anyone that's succeeded in selected
Speaker 1: prosecution claim, even though defendants raise it all the time.
Speaker 1: So that's what. The other thing that's interesting that going
Speaker 1: on right now is House Republicans Jim Jordan at all
Speaker 1: comer have been sort of galanized into action to try
Speaker 1: to help Trump and have been demanding information, demanding testimony,
Speaker 1: demanding documents from Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA who this
Speaker 1: Morning's had his lawyers send them back a letter saying,
Speaker 1: buzz off this federalism. You have no legitimate purpose in
Speaker 1: doing this. Even the federal DOJ does not tell you
Speaker 1: about open investigations. We're a state court as well, sovereign
Speaker 1: state of New York Tenth Amendment array of defenses. And
Speaker 1: it appears to me that it is likely that this
Speaker 1: is just the beginning and there will be similar attempts
Speaker 1: by the House DPD to get into the Georgia case,
Speaker 1: maybe the Jack and the Jack Smith two cases we
Speaker 1: may be ending up with. Can they get something to
Speaker 1: the floor for contempt? If these prosecutors tell them to
Speaker 1: go away, will we be back in court as we
Speaker 1: were with The politics flipped one hundred and eighty degrees
Speaker 1: in the last two years of the Trump administration, when
Speaker 1: the Democratic controlled House kept keening entities ranging from Trump's
Speaker 1: former lawyer Don Began, White House Council month Don Agan,
Speaker 1: to Mazurs, his financial accounting firm, and sort of Trump World.
Speaker 1: People were arguing, these subpoenas are invalid, These go beyond
Speaker 1: Congress is legitimate legislative authority. This is just you know,
Speaker 1: political fishing expeditions, and therefore, judge, you should quash the subpoena.
Speaker 1: You know, it used to be exceedingly rare for Congress
Speaker 1: to be in court pursuing litigation over trying to enforce subpoenas,
Speaker 1: and that became kind of commonplace in the last two
Speaker 1: years of Trump. Fancy stonewalled the Democratic House, and I
Speaker 1: think that same set of issues is going to be
Speaker 1: all over the place again now and we're starting to
Speaker 1: see the leading edge of that, except now it'll be
Speaker 1: Republican House trying to get its subpoenas enforced. Yeah, ironee yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. This was so interesting. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Thanks, Charlie, my plan, sure, Molly jun Fast,
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon. It's always fun when the petty little foot.
Speaker 1: None of this is funny, fun, ironic fun. I smile
Speaker 1: with Matt Gates attacks Rod de Santists to defend his
Speaker 1: boy Donald Trump. That makes me smile, But I'm maybe
Speaker 1: a little deranged. So the whole idea here that Gates
Speaker 1: and co. Have decided is that somehow does Santists could
Speaker 1: protect Trump by stopping extradition from the state of Florida. Again,
Speaker 1: Trump has yet to be charged with anything like these
Speaker 1: people in a rush to defend the guy who hasn't
Speaker 1: been charged with anything, they're making up a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: But The new thing is that Matt Gates wants to
Speaker 1: santist to stop Trump from getting extradited, which isn't happening.
Speaker 1: So there's nothing braver than defending someone for something that
Speaker 1: you don't understand at all. Congratulations Matt Gates. I think
Speaker 1: you're just arguing for this because you really want to
Speaker 1: build that mode. Yes, I want to build the mode.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.