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. We're on vacation, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: we don't have a great show for you. Congressman Brendan
Speaker 1: Boyle joins us to talk about the incoming dysfunction in
Speaker 1: the next Congress, the one hundred and nineteenth Congress. But
Speaker 1: first we'll talk to historian and Democracy Americana newsletter author
Speaker 1: Thomas Zimmer about how we prepare for Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five's assault on the America we know.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Thomas, Well, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1: Last time we talked, we talked about Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Y're an academic.
Speaker 1: You have been writing about this endlessly so smartly. I
Speaker 1: am a fan and also have tried really hard to
Speaker 1: put the focus on some of the stuff you're doing
Speaker 1: because it's so important. So I want you to talk
Speaker 1: to us about what you're doing with this and where
Speaker 1: you are in the trajectory of your life and also
Speaker 1: of this Project twenty twenty five coming into fushion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm by a profession, I'm a historian,
Speaker 3: I'm at Georgetown University, and I work on the relationship
Speaker 3: between mainstream conservatism and the radical right and since sort
Speaker 3: of the nineteen forties or so, and I guess, you know,
Speaker 3: over the past almost ten years now, there's no way
Speaker 3: if you're working on this as a historian, there's just
Speaker 3: no way that you're not talking about Trump and trump
Speaker 3: Ism and how do you get to that point? And
Speaker 3: so for me, over the past few years, I've tried
Speaker 3: to sort of grapple with, you know, these more radical
Speaker 3: forces within the broaders of right wing coalition within the
Speaker 3: Republican Party and why they have come to dominate the
Speaker 3: Republican Party and the American right more broadly, why they
Speaker 3: are so clearly in charge over there. They have always
Speaker 3: been there, This is not entirely new, but these more radical,
Speaker 3: really extreme factions and ideas they have moved so clearly
Speaker 3: to the power centers of conservatism. They have taken over
Speaker 3: the republic Party and they are in charge. And now
Speaker 3: they are back in power, or not quite yet, but
Speaker 3: there will be. And I think, to me, this is
Speaker 3: what sort drew me to paying attention to Project twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five. So this of big landing operation on the
Speaker 3: right that is spearheaded by Heritage, because it seemed to
Speaker 3: me this was really capturing these radical ideas on the
Speaker 3: right and how much they had sort of managed to
Speaker 3: take over what you know, maybe twenty years, thirty years,
Speaker 3: forty years ago was more of mainstream conservatism, not quite
Speaker 3: so radical. That's what made Project twenty twenty five interesting
Speaker 3: to me. That's what we always talked about, right, So
Speaker 3: if you look at these plans, right, this is the
Speaker 3: clearest window that we have ever had into what their
Speaker 3: vision is for American society, what they want to do
Speaker 3: to America and with America. And I think what we're
Speaker 3: seeing now and there was never any doubt about this
Speaker 3: that this is going to play a big role in
Speaker 3: what the incoming Trump and administration wants to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Here's the difference between John and Roberts and Clarence tom
Speaker 1: Right or Sam Alito.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: One, you have radical, radical, radical, you know stuff that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't you know Fox News, fever dreams, the rantings
Speaker 1: of Rush Limbaugh, and the other you have that ethos,
Speaker 1: but distilled in a much more genteel package. Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five sort of takes the mask off I would say.
Speaker 3: It does, and it does not, because it still comes
Speaker 3: in a way, it still comes packaged as all these people, right,
Speaker 3: they're all still they dress like you would expect like
Speaker 3: a very respectable conservative to dress, and they it's the
Speaker 3: Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 3: You know, they will say, oh, this is not some
Speaker 3: fringe right wing whatever online blog. No, it's the Heritage Foundation,
Speaker 3: which has been since the seventies really one of the
Speaker 3: nerve centers of conservatism. But yeah, if you actually look
Speaker 3: beyond just the packaging and you look at what they
Speaker 3: are saying, they could not possibly be clearer about the
Speaker 3: fact that they are just simply not on board with
Speaker 3: this idea of America being or becoming increasingly becoming an egalitarian,
Speaker 3: pluralistic kind of democratic society. They don't want that, right.
Speaker 3: They think that is actually not just America changing. They
Speaker 3: think that is America being destroyed. And so they have
Speaker 3: outlined very clearly what they think needs to be done
Speaker 3: in response to this quote unquote threat of egalitarian democratic pluralism,
Speaker 3: and that is kind of takeover government. They present it
Speaker 3: not as conservatism. They are very explicit about this is
Speaker 3: not a conservative project. This is a counter revolutionary project.
Speaker 3: I think that shift is really really important because for
Speaker 3: the people behind Project twenty twenty five, and some of
Speaker 3: them again are now going to hold some pretty influential
Speaker 3: positions in the next White House in the Trump administration,
Speaker 3: they think there is nothing left to conserve. They think
Speaker 3: the radical left revolution has already happened. The radical left
Speaker 3: has already taken over all these institutions, including these government institutions,
Speaker 3: and so you can't do conservatism anymore. You have to
Speaker 3: do counter revolution. And that is really kind of the
Speaker 3: project that they are outlining here, how to stage this
Speaker 3: comprehensive counter revolution takeover of American government in order to
Speaker 3: transform it into an instrument with which they can impose
Speaker 3: their vision for America against the majority of the American
Speaker 3: people onto the entire country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so explain to us what we're seeing, like the
Speaker 1: rest of announcement Toledomb. That seems like the clearest indication
Speaker 1: so far the Project twenty twenty five is Trump.
Speaker 3: So I'll say two things about this. I wouldn't even
Speaker 3: say Project twenty twenty five is Trump. I would say
Speaker 3: Trump Project twenty twenty five and all these other factions
Speaker 3: on the right, because there are other factions on the
Speaker 3: right that are kind of feuding with the Heritage people. Right,
Speaker 3: there's the America First Policy Institute, there's the Trump campaign people.
Speaker 3: They're not all the same and there are rivalries there,
Speaker 3: but what they all share, right, what they all share
Speaker 3: and what is expressed in Project twenty twenty five is
Speaker 3: this more radical consensus on the right that we need
Speaker 3: this kind of more radical or quote unquote counter revolution.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: And this guy Russell vadd And I know you've written
Speaker 3: about this guy, and I'm I've been working on some
Speaker 3: of a deep dive into his ideology that will probably
Speaker 3: out by the time this conversation comes up. He is
Speaker 3: a key figure in this because he's going to be
Speaker 3: the director of the Office of Management and Budget or
Speaker 3: and B, just like he was at the end of
Speaker 3: the first Trump administration. So why is it worth paying
Speaker 3: attention to this? This is not I'm assuming most of
Speaker 3: the people listening to us think Office of Management and Budget.
Speaker 3: That doesn't sound like, you know, the most important position,
Speaker 3: But he really is a He's one of the key figures,
Speaker 3: not just any contributor. He is one of the key
Speaker 3: architects behind Project twenty twenty five. And he's also a
Speaker 3: truly radical figure. He's a self identifying Christian nationalist, not
Speaker 3: at all on board with like a pluralistic democratic society,
Speaker 3: not at all. No, and he demands what he calls
Speaker 3: He fancies himself like an intellectual leader. What makes him
Speaker 3: kind of an interesting subject, you know, for someone like
Speaker 3: me he was trying to understand what's going on on
Speaker 3: the right. He's interesting because he fancies himself an intellectual leader.
Speaker 3: He will spell it out right, he will write down
Speaker 3: what he thinks the problem in America is and what
Speaker 3: needs to be done. And he calls it radical constitutionalism.
Speaker 3: And that is precisely this idea that says, look, well,
Speaker 3: don't even live in a constitutional order anymore, because the
Speaker 3: radical left has already destroyed it. And so in response
Speaker 3: to that, he calls for this again. He calls it
Speaker 3: radical constitutionalism, which basically amounts to you destroy the constitution
Speaker 3: in order to save it. And you do that because
Speaker 3: you can do this now. Because he really believes Trump
Speaker 3: is a kind of God sent chosen figure to lead
Speaker 3: this kind of counter revolution. So he really he combines
Speaker 3: sort of this kind of radical ideology with a great
Speaker 3: deal of competence. And this is really important. I think
Speaker 3: because as we're all kind of grappling with how much
Speaker 3: of what they want to do are they going to
Speaker 3: be able to actually do, actually able to be implemented, right,
Speaker 3: Because I mean in the first Trump administration, there was
Speaker 3: this thing, you know, it was of malevolence tempered by incompetence, right.
Speaker 3: It was sort of a famous saying in the early
Speaker 3: Trump administration, and that was definitely true. Right, these malevolent people,
Speaker 3: they just didn't know what they were doing. And if
Speaker 3: you look at some denomination chaos and the Mattgates story
Speaker 3: and Pete hex seven, all these people, it's very easy
Speaker 3: to come to the conclusion that this is just that
Speaker 3: all over again. These people are obviously incompetent, they don't
Speaker 3: know what they're doing. But then on the other end
Speaker 3: of the spectrum, you have someone like Russell Vadd who
Speaker 3: has worked in and around government for twenty years at
Speaker 3: every level, like starting as like a low level aid,
Speaker 3: a congressional aid, and making his way through all these
Speaker 3: different stages and institutions, and he really understands government like
Speaker 3: few other people. He knows what he's doing, and he
Speaker 3: combines that with sort of a very radical ideology. And
Speaker 3: so I think that is, you know, again, as we
Speaker 3: are trying to calibrate our expectations, where on the scale
Speaker 3: of you know, incompetence to sort of malevolence, are we
Speaker 3: going to land with this, Someone like Russell vadd is
Speaker 3: sort of, I think a reminder that you know, this
Speaker 3: is not just going to be a bunch of incompetent duphesis.
Speaker 3: There will be quite few of them also, but there
Speaker 3: will also be the Russell Vaultz, and I think they
Speaker 3: will provide the kind of counterweight to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is really so important to realize, Like, in
Speaker 1: my mind, a lot of this stuff in Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. The reason why it was so unpopular when
Speaker 1: when people started googling about it and Trump had to
Speaker 1: disavow it, which was, by the way, I love that
Speaker 1: all of his disavowing stuff, he was involved and worked right.
Speaker 1: He was like I mean, like voters really did believe.
Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, we're going to kick abortion back
Speaker 1: to the States.
Speaker 2: He overturned Robbie Wade.
Speaker 1: And then they're like right, Like, I just love that.
Speaker 1: At every point he was like yeah, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: what we're going to do, and people were like yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So he's like I know nothing about Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: and voters are like, Okay, he says he knows nothing,
Speaker 1: and there are things in there that really run counter
Speaker 1: to trump Ism, and I'm hoping you could talk about, like,
Speaker 1: for example, things like they're war on pornography, right, because
Speaker 1: like he went on all these bro podcasts and he.
Speaker 2: Was like, I'm one of you.
Speaker 1: We're all gonna have beers like talk to me about
Speaker 1: like this is Christian nationalism. And sooner or later they
Speaker 1: come for the pornography.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they come for the pornography, not just because
Speaker 3: they are so religiously you know, secat whatever. Yes, yes, no,
Speaker 3: but also because throughout if you read, you know, they
Speaker 3: put out there's a thousand page policy agenda thing. They
Speaker 3: call it a mandate for leadership. And if you look
Speaker 3: at whenever you know, they talk about pornography, they're not
Speaker 3: actually talking about pornography or just pornography. They try to
Speaker 3: link pornography to kind of sexual deviancy, and that's dangerous
Speaker 3: and that's trans people that that's all the same thing
Speaker 3: for them, right, So when they say we're banning pornography,
Speaker 3: what they actually talk about is we're going to ban
Speaker 3: everything and everyone who dares to deviate from our st
Speaker 3: you know, very very sort of conservative Christian understanding of
Speaker 3: sexuality and gender. And so it's not actually about pornography
Speaker 3: so much. It's more about imposing this very very reactionary
Speaker 3: Christian understanding of what the societal order should be. And
Speaker 3: I think that is I mean, look, this is Trump's
Speaker 3: kind of superpower, right when he goes on Joe Rogan
Speaker 3: or whatever, and he will just riff. And it is
Speaker 3: kind of true that Trump doesn't care whether or not
Speaker 3: pornography will be banned, Right, that's not his thing.
Speaker 2: Well, details are not his thing.
Speaker 3: No, he doesn't hold specific policy positions so much. Right,
Speaker 3: it's the same with abortion bands. Trump doesn't care is
Speaker 3: it going to be a six week ban, a ten
Speaker 3: week ban. He doesn't want to think about that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff. Too many people mistake that to mean Trump
Speaker 3: actually doesn't have ideological convictions or he will never implement
Speaker 3: this kind of radical stuff because he doesn't really believe it.
Speaker 3: But the thing is Trump does have a very clear
Speaker 3: ideological vision, at least in the sense that he has
Speaker 3: a very clear vision of how power should be distributed
Speaker 3: in society. He has a very clear understanding of who
Speaker 3: should be at the top in society and who should
Speaker 3: be the like who should be people like him, rich
Speaker 3: white men, powerful men. You truly believe that they should
Speaker 3: be in a position to, you know, exert power over everyone.
Speaker 3: They want to exert power over, especially women, right, and
Speaker 3: they should be in charge. I agree. That's not the
Speaker 3: same as like a fully fleshed out ideological He's not
Speaker 3: going to sit down and write his manifesto, right, clearly not.
Speaker 3: He's too lazy for that anyway. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: there isn't an underlying vision of how society should be ordered,
Speaker 3: of how society should be structured, of how power should
Speaker 3: be distributed in society. And he has a very clear
Speaker 3: vision of that. And so no, he doesn't care about
Speaker 3: specifically how you're going to set up an abortion band.
Speaker 3: But what he very much clearly cares about is, you know,
Speaker 3: all the radical feminists and all the loud women, and
Speaker 3: all the women who are now like not gonna let
Speaker 3: him touch them anymore. Whatever, They need to be put
Speaker 3: back in their place, right, they need to be reminded, No,
Speaker 3: this is a society in which people like me Donald
Speaker 3: Trump can do as they please, and they can exert
Speaker 3: power as they please, and that is a very clear
Speaker 3: ideological understanding of how society should work. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: he can go on Rogan and say pornography don't care,
Speaker 3: abortion band don't care. And then people hear this and think, oh,
Speaker 3: he's not going to implement this radical stuff. But that's
Speaker 3: I think a categorical misunderstanding. He will implement things that
Speaker 3: will again restore, or entrench or re entrench the kind
Speaker 3: of societal order in which he truly believes, and that
Speaker 3: is where he meets these kinds of people like Russell
Speaker 3: Vaud and Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation,
Speaker 3: because they also share this vision of what is fundamentally white,
Speaker 3: patriarchal Christian dominance.
Speaker 1: So what I think is very interesting here is that
Speaker 1: it's almost as if these two people Donald Trump and MAGA,
Speaker 1: because Donald Trump bis MAGA and this Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five crew, which is really sort of different ideological bent.
Speaker 1: It's a marriage of convenience, is that right?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, they meet on the basis of I think
Speaker 3: two things. One is they share this understanding that something
Speaker 3: has gotten out of control in America. The Woks are
Speaker 3: running wild and the feminists and the crazy identity activists
Speaker 3: and yeah, those are not my terms. This is the
Speaker 3: kind of how they talk, right, and something has this
Speaker 3: is not right, and we need to restore order. And
Speaker 3: by order they mean a kind of white Christian patriarchal
Speaker 3: dominance in all spheres of life. That's not just politics.
Speaker 3: That's also the family and the public square and the
Speaker 3: workplace and schools and all these places, right, all spheres
Speaker 3: of life. That's why they come together. And they also
Speaker 3: share again, they share an enemy. They are convinced that
Speaker 3: it's time for retribution and revenge and that you have
Speaker 3: a more traditional conservative politics just hasn't gotten the job done.
Speaker 3: They share this good disdain. Or they talk about it
Speaker 3: as the republic like an establishment and the conservative establishment,
Speaker 3: and they want nothing to do with that anymore. They
Speaker 3: think it's time for much more radical measures. And that's
Speaker 3: where they sort of come together, right, I mean Trump,
Speaker 3: It is true like Trump is not in some way. Right,
Speaker 3: Trump is sort of a not an ideal vessel for
Speaker 3: the kind of radical project that is outlined in Project
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, because he's not gonna sit down and
Speaker 3: read a thousand page policy report, and he is erratic
Speaker 3: and he is lazy. That's all true, right, That's that's
Speaker 3: absolutely and you will always infuse chaos, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 3: But then on the other hand, if you want something radical,
Speaker 3: like you know, again the vision that is outlined here
Speaker 3: in Project twenty twenty five, if you want that to
Speaker 3: be implemented, you need a radical figure in the White
Speaker 3: House who doesn't care about norms and doesn't care about
Speaker 3: precedent and only cares about again retribution, revenge and imposing
Speaker 3: his will on society. And that is Trump, right, And
Speaker 3: that is what these people understand, people like again Kevin
Speaker 3: Roberts and Russell Waud, that's what they see in Trump.
Speaker 3: They don't care so much. They know and understand that
Speaker 3: this is not someone who who has been a a
Speaker 3: social conservative his whole life or a religious conservaive. Trump
Speaker 3: has never been any of that. They understand this. But
Speaker 3: they see him as someone who will come in, take
Speaker 3: off the gloves, don't care about norms, don't care about precedents,
Speaker 3: and implement this radical stuff.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: He will not shy away from being radical and doing
Speaker 3: the kind of radical stuff that they think is now
Speaker 3: a sort of high time to move beyond conservatism. Move
Speaker 3: beyond traditional republicanism and move to something much more radical.
Speaker 3: And that's what they see in Trump. And I think
Speaker 3: they got that right in January.
Speaker 2: What's the thing that worris you the most?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what I think is really coming and coming right
Speaker 3: away is going to be the mass deportation stuff. This
Speaker 3: is also another of you know, another example for how
Speaker 3: Trump maga Trump campaign Project twenty twenty five, for how
Speaker 3: that all is not one thing but very much complimentary.
Speaker 3: That was Trump's number one promise throughout the campaign. That
Speaker 3: was his promise, We're going to do this mass deportation thing.
Speaker 3: And then you look at someone like Russell Vatt, who
Speaker 3: was in charge of one of the big planks of
Speaker 3: Project twenty twenty five. They call it the one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty day Playbook, basically a kind of sort of
Speaker 3: emergency immediate measures they want to take in the first
Speaker 3: six months back in office. And when he talks about that,
Speaker 3: what he really means is we have been drafting dozens,
Speaker 3: probably hundreds of presidential executive orders that are going to
Speaker 3: be ready on day one, and all sorts of regulations
Speaker 3: ready on day one to be implemented on day one
Speaker 3: by Donald Trump and much of that is centered around deportation,
Speaker 3: mass deportation. Right when he there was sort of a
Speaker 3: you know, a secret recording of a conversation that VOD
Speaker 3: had in during the summer when he's of proudly because
Speaker 3: this one hundred and eighty day playbook is secret, right,
Speaker 3: that's the one part of Project twenty twenty five that
Speaker 3: they have not made official. They want to keep that secret.
Speaker 3: But he was recorded talking about it, and he very
Speaker 3: explicitly said, look, we have these executive orders ready and
Speaker 3: a lot of this is going to be about mass deportation,
Speaker 3: and I think that's absolutely coming. Like again, that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean they will succeed at deporting fifteen million, twenty million,
Speaker 3: twenty five million people within a short span of time.
Speaker 3: It's very unlikely that they will be able to do that,
Speaker 3: and there will be chaos, but chaos doesn't mean moderation,
Speaker 3: and chaos doesn't save anyone. Chaos causes harm. So it
Speaker 3: will be extremely chaotic and it will be violent, and
Speaker 3: they will absolutely go ahead and do this. And I think, again,
Speaker 3: this is the big difference to twenty seventeen. When they
Speaker 3: came in in twenty seventeen, there was no one who
Speaker 3: had drafted dozens or even hundreds of executive orders. They
Speaker 3: didn't even know how to draft an executive order, right,
Speaker 3: that was the big deal with if people remembered the
Speaker 3: so called Muslim band that Trump tried to institute early on,
Speaker 3: like right away in his first presidency, the executive order
Speaker 3: was so badly written, right, that was very easy for
Speaker 3: courts to come in and say, okay, this is nonsense,
Speaker 3: stop it. Right, But this is not going to be
Speaker 3: the case this time. This guy Russell Vaught, he knows
Speaker 3: how to draft an executive order, and he says he's
Speaker 3: drafted them, and I see no reason to not believe him, right,
Speaker 3: And so I think that that is the type of
Speaker 3: stuff that we are in for this time, and that
Speaker 3: might be very different from last time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one hottest take is I thought for sure
Speaker 1: they would build camps, but now I think they'll use
Speaker 1: private persons.
Speaker 2: They may not have this faith in private persons, right.
Speaker 3: No, I think there will be a lot of chaos, right,
Speaker 3: And just drafting executive orders does not mean that this
Speaker 3: is going to work. And I want to be maybe
Speaker 3: say this towards the end of our conversation. If people
Speaker 3: feel like, oh my God, that is also depressing. Have
Speaker 3: we already lost? Is it even worth I don't now
Speaker 3: pushing back or you know, Look, there is a vast
Speaker 3: gulf between the aspirations of absolutist power from the Trump
Speaker 3: people and the realities of a complex modern society and
Speaker 3: modern state, because modern societies and modern states are enormously
Speaker 3: complex beasts, and any any authoritarian regime, regardless of how competent,
Speaker 3: will always struggle to make you know, modern society and
Speaker 3: a modern state fall in line. And in that gulf,
Speaker 3: in that gap is where the conflict will happen, and
Speaker 3: there will be enormous conflict, and there will be potential
Speaker 3: to push back and to fight back, and you know,
Speaker 3: to oppose these things. It would just not be the
Speaker 3: same as in twenty seventeen because we're looking at it completely.
Speaker 3: We're looking at a radicalized right. We're looking at a
Speaker 3: right that is better prepared than in twenty seventeen. And
Speaker 3: I know, again it's kind of hard to say this
Speaker 3: because people would then point to Pete Hexav and say, yeah,
Speaker 3: but that guy is not And I agree, again, it's
Speaker 3: not across the board, right, It's not across the board.
Speaker 3: And that's why there will be chaos, and there will
Speaker 3: be incompetence, and sometimes they will shoot themselves in the foot.
Speaker 3: That will all happen, But I think we need to
Speaker 3: be prepared for the fact that there's also going to
Speaker 3: be the Russell Vauds of this world in this administration,
Speaker 3: and they again, they have a plan and they will
Speaker 3: try to implement it, and there will be space to
Speaker 3: push back. But what have seen so far has not
Speaker 3: been very encouraging because instead of being very clear about
Speaker 3: the fact that this incoming trumpst regime is not normal
Speaker 3: and it's not just a normal, you know, incoming administration,
Speaker 3: instead we've seen a lot of sort of normalizing and
Speaker 3: legitimizing from our elected leaders, from our sort of nominally
Speaker 3: at least anti maga institutions. That has really frustrated me
Speaker 3: because we will need at some point, right we will
Speaker 3: need the American public to be prepared to push back.
Speaker 3: But if we spend the time from the election through
Speaker 3: inauguration saying, oh, no, this is a this is a
Speaker 3: totally normal, totally legit government coming in. When I say legit,
Speaker 3: I don't mean like, please don't indulge in kind of like, oh,
Speaker 3: the election was stolen stuff that is as conspiratorial, stupid
Speaker 3: nonsense today as it was. Well, it's also just we
Speaker 3: know it was no exactly, So that's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But when I hear like, I don't know, CNN or
Speaker 3: NPR going on about, you know, the musk Ramaswami Department
Speaker 3: of Government Efficiency as kind of like and they talk
Speaker 3: about it as if it is a kind of a
Speaker 3: good faith, serious effort at government reform, and that is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: It is not. We should not be legitimizing this kind
Speaker 3: of stuff, right. We need to prepare people to look
Speaker 3: at this and say, no, this has no legal or
Speaker 3: constitutional authority, and these guys shouldn't be anywhere near political power,
Speaker 3: and so we're not gonna accept this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And that is I think where again, that's where the
Speaker 3: conflict is, and that's where so maybe the job for
Speaker 3: someone like you or maybe me is to kind of
Speaker 3: tell people, look, no, let's not accept just because Donald
Speaker 3: Trump calls it the Department of Government Efficiency doesn't mean
Speaker 3: it's a department and it's had it has no legal
Speaker 3: or constitutional authority, And.
Speaker 1: Don't take the orwelly in no no descriptions seriously or literally.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely not. And don't don't buy into the bravado either, Like,
Speaker 3: don't listen to Steve Bannon and all those Oh we're
Speaker 3: so strong, we're so No, don't take any of that right,
Speaker 3: don't accept any of this nonsense that we have won
Speaker 3: and we're now in charge. No, it's going to be.
Speaker 3: Politics hasn't ended, and politics is not going to end
Speaker 3: on January twentieth or whenever the inauguration is. It's gonna
Speaker 3: it's going to continue. It's going to be conflict. But
Speaker 3: in order for people to be able to again see
Speaker 3: what is coming and push back, we need to be
Speaker 3: careful now and not again have Democratic senators go on
Speaker 3: television and say, oh, I think this is really a
Speaker 3: good idea because we really need government reform. This is ridiculous, right,
Speaker 3: So let's not do that. Let's be clear eyed about
Speaker 3: what is coming. Let's pay attention. Yeah, and then the
Speaker 3: conflict will continue.
Speaker 1: Thomas, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me on.
Speaker 3: Always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Congressman Brendan Boyle represents Pennsylvania's second district. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Representative Boyle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, great to be back with you.
Speaker 1: I'm so delighted to have you here because we're actually friends,
Speaker 1: which is nice. You've heard some of my insane theories before.
Speaker 1: It is the end of the two hundred and eighteenth Congress.
Speaker 1: How many bills did my Johnson pass?
Speaker 4: I think it's a little over twenty.
Speaker 5: I know, by some numbers, it's the least productive session
Speaker 5: of Congress since nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, Yeah, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: It is a real testament to the Republican majority we
Speaker 5: have right now that there were about as many votes
Speaker 5: for Speaker as there were bills that passed the United
Speaker 5: States House Representatives under this Republican majority.
Speaker 1: That is an incredible statement, a statement you probably thought
Speaker 1: you would never make, you.
Speaker 5: Know, especially when you compare it to what we did
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty two, dealing with
Speaker 5: the pandemic and with the same small majority that they had,
Speaker 5: and we were able to pass very meaningful legislation, from
Speaker 5: bringing down the cost of prescription drugs to the biggest
Speaker 5: infrastructure packaged since the nineteen fifties, to the chipsack, to
Speaker 5: all sorts of things.
Speaker 4: It's a big difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to talk about legislation and doing things
Speaker 1: for the American people.
Speaker 2: I'm here to tell you that's for cover.
Speaker 4: Silly me, silly me, it's so retro.
Speaker 1: Job of Congress. What is the job of Congress?
Speaker 5: There are two kinds of members of Congress. There are
Speaker 5: the legislators and they're the performance artists. And what we
Speaker 5: see on the other side, whether it's Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 5: or Nancy Mace and her current jihad on bathrooms.
Speaker 4: Or Lauren Bobert or.
Speaker 5: YadA, YadA YadA, they are filled with performance artists don't
Speaker 5: really give a damn about passing meaningful legislation, but unfortunately
Speaker 5: they are able to con a significant number of people
Speaker 5: into thinking, that's what we're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: How do we get here?
Speaker 4: And that is a.
Speaker 5: Longer subject than we probably have time for. I mean,
Speaker 5: going back many decades. I think part of it is
Speaker 5: the media ecosystem that is built up on the right
Speaker 5: that you're beginning with talk radio and Rush Limbaugh and
Speaker 5: his incredibly successful popular show, to then Fox News, to
Speaker 5: then all of the Limbaugh imitators who now are on social.
Speaker 4: Media and TikTok, etc.
Speaker 5: It didn't happen overnight, and in many ways, Donald Trump's
Speaker 5: rise was enabled by that in a way that it
Speaker 5: never would have happened in a previous generation when you
Speaker 5: had more mainstream media being basically the entirety of media.
Speaker 5: So I'm far from an expert on this, but I
Speaker 5: don't think it's a coincidence that you see the rise
Speaker 5: of someone like Trump and all these other characters now
Speaker 5: in a way that you just didn't do it in
Speaker 5: more boring, normal times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I also think it's a really good point.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: The reward structure is such that you have a Congress,
Speaker 1: it's heavily gerrymandered, so districts are more red or blue.
Speaker 1: When they're more blue, that means fighting for things like
Speaker 1: dental right glasses. When they're more red, that means fighting
Speaker 1: for things like bullying Sarah McBride into not being able
Speaker 1: to use the bathroom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's exactly right.
Speaker 5: I mean, they are pretty expert at using the cultural
Speaker 5: issues to inflame people to distract from the fact that
Speaker 5: their agenda is all about enriching the one thousand billionaires
Speaker 5: in this country. You know, you look at the infamous
Speaker 5: ad now with the tagline She's for they them, President
Speaker 5: Trump is for you, And what did that ad include
Speaker 5: transgendered prisoners, and illegal or undocumented immigrants all in the
Speaker 5: same AD.
Speaker 4: I mean that was sort.
Speaker 5: Of like a Poe Prie of Republican punching bags all
Speaker 5: into one ad. But that has been the playbook for
Speaker 5: a long time. Twenty years ago an election that I
Speaker 5: think was actually pretty similar to this one in two
Speaker 5: thousand and four, with a similarly close result and Republicans
Speaker 5: narrowly winning the White House. That was about a constitutional
Speaker 5: amendment to ban gay marriage at a time when we
Speaker 5: had war raging in Iraq and a pretty weak economy.
Speaker 5: So this is hardly the first time Republicans have used
Speaker 5: those sort of cultural issues to distract people from the
Speaker 5: fact that their economic agenda is not on the side
Speaker 5: of the world class, in the middle class in this country.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that AD because a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that AD was one of the things.
Speaker 1: And again, there's no one thing that made Donald Trump
Speaker 1: president again, right, he got these low propensity voters out there,
Speaker 1: He did a lot of things that changed the electorate.
Speaker 1: But I want you to talk about that AD because
Speaker 1: that was an AD. When it came out, I heard
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety from people in the political classes
Speaker 1: about how it actually did speak to people. So it's
Speaker 1: an ad and it uses a clip from Harris during
Speaker 1: the twenty nineteen primary cycle when people were asked to
Speaker 1: sort of make sense of things that were maybe more
Speaker 1: progressive than where the party was going, or more progressive
Speaker 1: than Harris was for sure.
Speaker 2: Just talk us through it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it was an ad that I must
Speaker 5: have seen hundreds of times. I mean, I literally live
Speaker 5: in the Philadelphia area, the biggest swing state, and I
Speaker 5: know it is an ad that they played a lot
Speaker 5: during sports and I watch a lot of sports, So
Speaker 5: I'm a Pennsylvania voter, I watches a lot of sports,
Speaker 5: and a male, so I was pretty much their target demo.
Speaker 5: I think that the lesson here is whether it was
Speaker 5: Ducaucus eighty eight or John Kerry getting swift voted, or
Speaker 5: Kamala Harris with that ad. Any time that you are attacked,
Speaker 5: you need to punch back, and you need to punch
Speaker 5: back hard. Do not just ignore it and assume people
Speaker 5: will figure out that the ads and exaggeration were flat
Speaker 5: out false. I also think, though to your first point,
Speaker 5: you know this in the end, both in Pennsylvania and nationally,
Speaker 5: it was about a one and a half point race,
Speaker 5: one point six percent to be exact, in the national
Speaker 5: popular vote, and one point seven percent here in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: So anytime you have a race that is actually one
Speaker 5: of the closest in American history, you can point to
Speaker 5: any one of one hundred things that you can say, oh,
Speaker 5: that made the difference because.
Speaker 4: The margin was so close.
Speaker 5: So I do share with you the kind of caution
Speaker 5: against saying there was any one thing that determined this race.
Speaker 5: But I do think we need to relearn the old
Speaker 5: lesson of you know, when your opponent is hitting you,
Speaker 5: you can't ignore it, as absurd and as crazy it
Speaker 5: may be. This is why in the ninety two campaign,
Speaker 5: James Carville, Paul mcgalich, and the Clinton campaign created the
Speaker 5: war room, because they learned from the eighty eight to
Speaker 5: Caucus experience that, hey, anytime the other side throws that garbage,
Speaker 5: we need to be fierce and batting it back down
Speaker 5: and fighting back on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, talk to me about Pennsylvania. That's your state. It
Speaker 2: is a state that Democrats must win or else they lose.
Speaker 2: As we saw just now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is the third consecutive presidential election that was
Speaker 5: decided here by a point and a half or less.
Speaker 5: The only other state that can say that is Wisconsin.
Speaker 5: So we are by far the two closest swing states,
Speaker 5: and if you're a Democrat, you have to have this
Speaker 5: unless you dramatically overperform, you know, south in the sun Belt,
Speaker 5: which is just more difficult. The reality is that we're
Speaker 5: the state that closest reflected the national popular vote for
Speaker 5: a reason. I mean, the state here looks a lot
Speaker 5: like the rest of the country, urban suburban, rural, fast
Speaker 5: growing suburbs as well as inner cities, rural areas that
Speaker 5: are shrinking. Basically every part of America is replicated here
Speaker 5: in just this one state. So I was on TV
Speaker 5: a lot saying that whatever the national popular vote is,
Speaker 5: it'll probably be about the same in Pennsylvania, and that
Speaker 5: proved to be right.
Speaker 2: Well, that's good, you or right.
Speaker 5: I wish I weren't, to be clear, I would have
Speaker 5: been very happy. I always said it was going to
Speaker 5: be closer to election. I thought it would be basically
Speaker 5: decided by.
Speaker 4: A point or so.
Speaker 5: I would have been very happy for a Democratic blowout
Speaker 5: and to have been proven wrong.
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like we're about to enter four
Speaker 1: years of being right and it being horrible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, t is out.
Speaker 5: What we win for being right is nothing, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1: Right the dystopia when the sense that we knew this
Speaker 1: was coming. I'm going to make you talk about something
Speaker 1: that's actually a little annoying and maybe you don't want
Speaker 1: to be asked about it, but too bad. Pennsylvania is
Speaker 1: a state that has never elected a woman at the
Speaker 1: top of the ticket, and before she ran for president,
Speaker 1: that was something I thought a lot about. I want
Speaker 1: you to talk about gender in this election because people
Speaker 1: are not talking about that, and I guess we're not
Speaker 1: supposed to talk about that, but it clearly seems like
Speaker 1: I mean, just looking back on the last three elections,
Speaker 1: like Democrats have tried to run a woman twice and
Speaker 1: both times the state of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin have
Speaker 1: said no.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, this is a tough and somewhat depressing
Speaker 5: subject we talk about. No, but we have to be
Speaker 5: This would have been a great time for our connection
Speaker 5: to go out, by the way, but the connection is strong,
Speaker 5: so I guess I'm talking about it.
Speaker 4: I have a ten year old daughter, as you know,
Speaker 4: and man.
Speaker 5: Just telling her the next morning that Trump had won
Speaker 5: again she was so dejected the rest of the day,
Speaker 5: wouldn't talk.
Speaker 4: And it does depress me to think.
Speaker 5: About the message this election is actually sending to the
Speaker 5: other ten year old girls throughout this country. And I
Speaker 5: do think that we have to acknowledge that perhaps it's
Speaker 5: not just a coincidence that both dimes Donald Trump narrowly
Speaker 5: won in this country both times she was up against
Speaker 5: a female Democrat, and that, unfortunately, we do have to
Speaker 5: recognize that misogyny still exists in the United States, and.
Speaker 4: There are still some voters.
Speaker 5: They're hardly a majority, but they're more than zero who
Speaker 5: are just either unwilling or at least reluctant, either consciously
Speaker 5: or subconsciously, to vote for a woman for president. I
Speaker 5: think we will eventually overcome that, but obviously we haven't yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, I'm sorry to ask you that question,
Speaker 1: because clearly everyone in the world, in the pendent class
Speaker 1: is trying to avoid answering it.
Speaker 2: So it's really unfair of me to ask it of you.
Speaker 2: But we are.
Speaker 4: Friends, that's okay.
Speaker 1: And you do have a daughter, and I do know
Speaker 1: I also have a daughter, and I do know how
Speaker 1: completely crushing it is to tell them that you had
Speaker 1: a very competent woman and a felon, and yet again
Speaker 1: the felon prevailed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would rather deal with it realistically though than
Speaker 5: pretend that it doesn't exist. It's hardly the only reason
Speaker 5: why she lost and Democrats didn't do as well in
Speaker 5: this election. I mean, let's just take a step back
Speaker 5: and acknowledge it's not a coincidence that this is the
Speaker 5: first year since nineteen oh five in which every party
Speaker 5: in power has lost the inflation crisis that was sparked
Speaker 5: as we kind of turned the economy back on as
Speaker 5: we recovered from the pandemic that has hurt parties in
Speaker 5: power from the UK and Germany to Japan and South Korea,
Speaker 5: South America, Canada and the US. And it doesn't, by
Speaker 5: the way, didn't end up making a difference if it
Speaker 5: was a conservative government, a liberal government, a centrist government.
Speaker 4: Every government in power.
Speaker 5: The last couple of years has paid the price for that,
Speaker 5: and so that in the end, I think was by
Speaker 5: far the biggest factor. But there are also these other
Speaker 5: factors as well, and I think it's better to be
Speaker 5: open and honest about it and discuss it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do think the anti incumbent headwinds were
Speaker 1: you know, it was a perfect glass cliff scenario where
Speaker 1: anti incumbent headwinds party and power that had very low
Speaker 1: approval ratings. Really she was set up in a way
Speaker 1: that was almost impossible. So last night, this is like,
Speaker 1: we're already in another Trump term and he hasn't even
Speaker 1: took office yet. He decided that he's going he's going
Speaker 1: to go tariff mad. He was elected to make things cheaper,
Speaker 1: but now he is going to indulge in tariffs.
Speaker 2: Make it make sense.
Speaker 5: You know, it's going to be an unfortunate reality if
Speaker 5: these tariffs come to pass. For the you know, working
Speaker 5: class voters in my district, and I have a very
Speaker 5: working class district, racially diverse, White working class, Black working class, Latino,
Speaker 5: and Asian working class.
Speaker 4: All four groups swung more.
Speaker 5: Right in their voting patterns than they had been. It's
Speaker 5: going to be a rude awakening if these tariffs come
Speaker 5: to pass. The goods that they're buying today will be
Speaker 5: instantly more expensive because of these tariffs. It's one of
Speaker 5: these things that maybe sounds good in fury, and yeah,
Speaker 5: we're going to stand up to them, these foreign companies
Speaker 5: and put on a tariff. But at the end of
Speaker 5: the day, it's American consumers who who pay the price,
Speaker 5: and the people who are the most impacted by it
Speaker 5: are those who have the least amount of distressal income.
Speaker 5: One thing, you know, economists are famous for being very
Speaker 5: on the one hand, but also on the other hand.
Speaker 5: One area in which liberal economists and conservative economists agree
Speaker 5: is that tariffs make things more expensive. You know, we
Speaker 5: had a broad spectrum economists saying that Trump's policies will
Speaker 5: make things more expensive. And that's the reality we're soon
Speaker 5: going to face if these tariffs actually come into existence.
Speaker 4: It could be he's bloviating. Wouldn't be the.
Speaker 5: First time I think that we need to stand up
Speaker 5: in Congress and do everything we can. I mean, I'm
Speaker 5: on the committee that actually deals with trade and tariffs.
Speaker 2: Are you the ranking member of it?
Speaker 5: I'm the ranking member of the Budget Committee, and also
Speaker 5: Ways and Means Committee as well. They're going to be
Speaker 5: a big part of the fights that we see in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Make me feel better about Russ fought, since this is
Speaker 1: just therapy for me, make me feel better about restaught.
Speaker 4: Okay, so you want me to lie to you?
Speaker 1: Yes, ro let's give for the people. We're not severely
Speaker 1: in this nightmare. Russ Vaught is now going to be
Speaker 1: Trump's head of omb Office of Management and Budget. He
Speaker 1: is now going to try to prevent the federal government
Speaker 1: from spending the money that Congress allocated to it.
Speaker 2: You are the ranking member on budget discuss.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, and it's our committee that is oversight
Speaker 5: in this matter. And I have to tell you that,
Speaker 5: and think of the low bar here that I'm talking about.
Speaker 5: Of all of the Trump appointees, one of the ones
Speaker 5: that concerns me the most is Russ Fought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mine too, I actually just wrote a column about it.
Speaker 5: Sorry, go on, Yeah, no, So you and I are
Speaker 5: not surprised. You and I are like minded on this.
Speaker 5: He is a true ideologue and an extremist. He is
Speaker 5: one of the masterminds behind Project twenty twenty five. He
Speaker 5: desperately wants to return the American government basically to what
Speaker 5: it was in the nineteenth century, before you had the
Speaker 5: New Deal, before you had Social Security, before you had Medicare, medicaid.
Speaker 4: A lot of the language in there about.
Speaker 5: What to do with the federal workforce and politicizing it.
Speaker 5: He has his fingerprints all over it, and we've dealt
Speaker 5: with him before because he was in this position during
Speaker 5: the first Trump presidency. He is indeed a very extreme person.
Speaker 5: If we want to be optimistic here, I would remind
Speaker 5: everyone that one difference from eight years ago and now
Speaker 5: as they eight years ago, House Democrats were pretty deep
Speaker 5: in the minority. I was entering my second term, we
Speaker 5: didn't even have two hundred House Democrats. They had over
Speaker 5: a forty seat majority. Well, now they're looking at a
Speaker 5: very thin majority. In fact, if we pick up these
Speaker 5: two final races in California, it looks like the House
Speaker 5: of Representatives in early January could be as close as
Speaker 5: two seventeen to two fifteen, because it would be two
Speaker 5: twenty to two fifteen at full strength.
Speaker 4: Gates has already resigned.
Speaker 5: Another Republican from Florida, Walls, is out the door on
Speaker 5: January twentieth, and then presumably at least to fanic we'll
Speaker 5: leave shortly thereafter. That would drop them to two seventeen.
Speaker 5: So we just need in mad scenario, we literally just
Speaker 5: need one House Republican to join with us to be
Speaker 5: able to stop any sort of thing that would require
Speaker 5: legislation to be passed where we'll have more difficulty. Are
Speaker 5: those things that Trump can do by executive order?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where we are. Would you please come back.
Speaker 5: I I'm a proud listener and I'd be happy to
Speaker 5: come back anytime.
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