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 Donald Trump has lost his last
Speaker 1: ditch effort to delay the hush money trial. We have
Speaker 1: such a great show for you today. Congresswoman Becca Balint
Speaker 1: stops by to talk to us about the Comstock Act
Speaker 1: and the effect it could have on women's reproductive healthcare
Speaker 1: across America. Then we'll talk to Whitney Fox about her
Speaker 1: run against one of Congress's most unhinged Maga Republicans. But
Speaker 1: first we have the host of the Lawrence O'Donnell Show,
Speaker 1: MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Fan favorite
Speaker 1: and honestly my favorite.
Speaker 2: Laurence o'doll and survivor of the eclipse. More importantly, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the ninety percent eclipse in New York City, which was
Speaker 2: really great and was beyond my expectation for it. Actually
Speaker 2: the drop in temperature that was really amazing. You certainly
Speaker 2: come out of it with a newfound gratitude for the sun,
Speaker 2: something I've avoided my entire life. The sun has been
Speaker 2: my enemy, and I just I'm a shade seeker, but
Speaker 2: now I'm beginning to get it. I'm beginning to understand
Speaker 2: why the sun is there.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about today was, Okay, so we're now getting close
Speaker 1: to two hundred days from this election.
Speaker 2: You know when I found out it's two hundred days
Speaker 2: right now, this second, this is when I found it out.
Speaker 1: It's a depressing it's depressing.
Speaker 2: Right, No, I don't find it depressing. Oh good, No, No,
Speaker 2: I mean, look, it is a little bit of life
Speaker 2: strategy involved, but it's mostly for you know, reasons of
Speaker 2: real information and the way things look. But the life
Speaker 2: strategy and this I learned this very very late in life.
Speaker 2: And it was a movie star who taught me this lesson.
Speaker 2: And so I can't say his name because it would
Speaker 2: be too much name dropping, but and the lesson was taught.
Speaker 2: The lesson was taught to me while we were waiting
Speaker 2: for our cars out of la at a Hollywood party
Speaker 2: where I had a pilot in development at a network
Speaker 2: at the time, and I said something about, you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to find out, you know, next week if
Speaker 2: they want to make the pilot. Out of ten scripts
Speaker 2: they make maybe you know, one or two pilots so
Speaker 2: and I kind of left it at that, and he
Speaker 2: said to me, well, you know, optimism is a choice.
Speaker 2: And by the way, that that was my bad imitation
Speaker 2: of him, so like anyone who's trying to guess so,
Speaker 2: and I went geez, And I never it never crossed
Speaker 2: my mind that it was a choice. I thought, you know, realism,
Speaker 2: which is to say, cynicism in the culture I grew
Speaker 2: up in, is the only reasonable position because you will
Speaker 2: arrive first at life's recurring destination, which is disappointment. So
Speaker 2: if you are expecting the worst, congratulations, you know you
Speaker 2: got it. But then every once in a while you
Speaker 2: don't get the worst. And so what that means is
Speaker 2: you spent a considerable amount of time feeling the depression
Speaker 2: of being hit by the worst, and then you didn't
Speaker 2: get hit by it. And in fact, you know, the
Speaker 2: network made my pilot and put it on the air.
Speaker 2: So I feel like, if the presidential election goes in
Speaker 2: the direction that I don't like on November fifth, I
Speaker 2: will have plenty of time beginning the midnight of November
Speaker 2: fifth to feel unbelievably depressed about it. And none of
Speaker 2: you people who got a head start on me will
Speaker 2: feel any less depressed than I will. Okay, so let's
Speaker 2: wait for them. These may be the final pleasant days
Speaker 2: of our lives. Let's not rush, you know, to the horror.
Speaker 2: If someone told you, you know, you have two hundred
Speaker 2: days of goodwill and you know goodness in your life,
Speaker 2: and then bad stuff's going to happen. I choose to
Speaker 2: enjoy those two hundred days.
Speaker 1: That's sage wisdom right there.
Speaker 2: I think it's the kind of wisdom you have to
Speaker 2: age into. I was not available to that idea when
Speaker 2: I was thirty five, Like, I was not available to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, I think for sure. One of the
Speaker 1: other very smart things you've said to me was that
Speaker 1: being an outsider to American politics and not is actually
Speaker 1: huge advantage when you're looking at it. I wonder if
Speaker 1: you could talk about that, especially right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because unfortunately politics now has too much data, way,
Speaker 2: way way too much data. You know. It's it's it's
Speaker 2: like what's happened to professional baseball? You know where they
Speaker 2: have you know the number of seconds between pitches and
Speaker 2: the number of times this guy has hit third pitch
Speaker 2: that has been thrown to him. And you know, when
Speaker 2: I was a kid. They had batting averages and runs,
Speaker 2: baut it in and strikeouts, and you know that was
Speaker 2: about it, you know, and it's really all you needed
Speaker 2: to know. I mean, if you look at the minimal
Speaker 2: data baseball players of say the nineteen fifties, of the
Speaker 2: you know, these Demaggio's and Ted Williams nineteen sixties, Willie
Speaker 2: Mays and these people, there's no new form of data
Speaker 2: that would increase your understanding of how great Willy Mays
Speaker 2: was at the game of baseball in every single angle
Speaker 2: of the game of baseball. And so that incredible limited
Speaker 2: amount of information that fans and coaches and players had
Speaker 2: and say the nineteen sixties and sport was adequate. You
Speaker 2: don't need this extra stuff. And so we now have
Speaker 2: this crazy amount of data, just a crazy amount, way
Speaker 2: more data than we ever had, you know, decades ago.
Speaker 2: So many different entities doing polls, you know, universities doing polls,
Speaker 2: the reason they're paying money to do a poll. Let's
Speaker 2: say your name is Suffolk University, and can I have
Speaker 2: a show of hands of people who've ever who know
Speaker 2: where Suffolk University is? Thank you? I'm the only one, okay,
Speaker 2: because pretty much everyone in my family except me went
Speaker 2: to Suffolk University. Suffolk University is a commuter college in downtown.
Speaker 2: It's in downtown Boston, which, of course, as you know,
Speaker 2: is Suffolk County, right. So the only reason you know
Speaker 2: Suffolk University can be known outside of this commuter college
Speaker 2: market that it has been in since my father went
Speaker 2: there when he was a Boston company. He went to
Speaker 2: College Knights. Is to do a poll, is to pay
Speaker 2: for a poll that we then announced to the world
Speaker 2: is a Suffolk University poll. Or here's another one, and
Speaker 2: raise your hand, and I'm going to exclude one state,
Speaker 2: but in forty nine states, if you can tell me
Speaker 2: where Quinnipiac College is, I will buy you a car.
Speaker 2: So you know, I you know. And I knew where
Speaker 2: Quinnipiac College was before it started paying for polls because
Speaker 2: I was working for senator representing the entire state of
Speaker 2: New York, and so you had to know about obscure
Speaker 2: little places like Quinnipiac College and upstate New York. These
Speaker 2: players are in this game trying to get attention for
Speaker 2: their schools so that kids out there applying to colleges
Speaker 2: will go, oh, yeah, I've heard of that place. I
Speaker 2: mean it's the likelihood of you applying to a college
Speaker 2: you've never heard of is much lower than you applying
Speaker 2: to a college you've heard of. And so when you
Speaker 2: think about what they're trying to actually do, it's not
Speaker 2: inform voters. No one's trying to inform voters with a pole.
Speaker 2: They're trying to inform reporters with a pole and say
Speaker 2: to report orders, this is the way you should think
Speaker 2: about doing your horse race coverage. And in the competition
Speaker 2: of you know, Emerson College, which is a college, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll do this one quickly, a college in Boston, Okay,
Speaker 2: which trains actors and musicians, and decided to get in
Speaker 2: the business of paying for polls so that they could
Speaker 2: attract more applications from you know, other places in the
Speaker 2: world and try to compete with NYU and USC in
Speaker 2: these places. So they're all in competition with these other
Speaker 2: businesses called things like CBS News and the New York Times,
Speaker 2: who also pay for polls, which is to say, they
Speaker 2: purchase news stories to put in a possessive way on
Speaker 2: the front page of the New York Times. Because the
Speaker 2: New York Times paid for this news by paying for
Speaker 2: the poll. So there's this poll saturation that is unhelpful.
Speaker 2: And the more you can pull back from that and
Speaker 2: ignore it, and the more you know about polls, the
Speaker 2: more you ignore them and you start to pay attention
Speaker 2: to them and around August of the election year, because
Speaker 2: only then do you start to get likely voter polls,
Speaker 2: which are the only ones that matter, and you start
Speaker 2: to get them in the so called battleground states which
Speaker 2: matter because you know, a pole of California doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: a poll of Massachusetts doesn't matter. Because the founders, in
Speaker 2: their infinite stupidity, which was as big as their infinite wisdom,
Speaker 2: I'm going to grant them infinite wisdom as long as
Speaker 2: we grant them simultaneous stupidity in creating the electoral college,
Speaker 2: which really wasn't so stupid from their perspective, because they
Speaker 2: were mostly anti democratic men. They did not believe in
Speaker 2: democracy as we understand it. They believed in this very
Speaker 2: select group of people choosing the people who would be
Speaker 2: in government. And so the idea that you know, just
Speaker 2: a giant popular vote of the whole country, of everybody
Speaker 2: you know over a certain age who can vote, they
Speaker 2: would think that was insane. They would object to that
Speaker 2: and so many of them. If they were, you know,
Speaker 2: back here today, they'd go, hey, we're really proud of
Speaker 2: the electoral College because at least that is anti democratic
Speaker 2: and that's that's working the way we wanted it to.
Speaker 2: But you know, so polls, you know, they become interesting
Speaker 2: when you're talking about likely voters. None of them are
Speaker 2: likely voter polls. Now they're all registered voter polls, you know,
Speaker 2: likely voter polls. Closer to the election, they become kind
Speaker 2: of interesting. But if you've lived through Michael Ducaccus's eighteen
Speaker 2: point lead after the convention, After both conventions in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight, Michael Ducaccus had an eighteen point lead over
Speaker 2: George Bush, the first George Bush And there is no
Speaker 2: do Caucus Presidential library because it turns out those were
Speaker 2: useless polls and those polls were way outside the margin
Speaker 2: of error. We have not seen a lead that big
Speaker 2: in a presidential poll since Bill Clinton had a lead
Speaker 2: like that over Bob Dole in the spring of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six, and it narrowed, it went down. It was
Speaker 2: much smaller towards the end there. But you know, you
Speaker 2: have to know that there was not a single poll.
Speaker 2: And now I'm teaching ancient history. What it's worth knowing
Speaker 2: there wasn't a single poll in America that predicted that
Speaker 2: the Republicans would win the House of Representatives for the
Speaker 2: first time in forty years in nineteen ninety four. That
Speaker 2: was not predicted by a single pundit or a single poll.
Speaker 2: It was also not predicted at the very same time
Speaker 2: that the Republicans would win the United States Senate, win
Speaker 2: it back. They'd won it before, but you know, win
Speaker 2: it back in nineteen ninety four. So that and that,
Speaker 2: by the way, was the biggest electoral surprise of my lifetime.
Speaker 2: Were both of those things, you know, the Republicans winning
Speaker 2: the House, which literally had never happened in my lifetime,
Speaker 2: and the Republicans winning the Senate. Those were much bigger
Speaker 2: electoral sup eyes actually than Trump winning in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: And so there's just no comfort or wisdom to be
Speaker 2: taken in polls. And you know, if the polls, if
Speaker 2: every single poll you simply flipped the outcome, right, if
Speaker 2: you put the name Biden where the name Trump is,
Speaker 2: you know, Trump is ahead by two points or something
Speaker 2: in this poll. No one, no one rooting for Biden
Speaker 2: would feel better. You know, if you think, oh my god,
Speaker 2: Trump's going to win, where do you get that confidence
Speaker 2: looking at the poll? Because the polls are so tight,
Speaker 2: you know, they're just so narrow that if Biden was
Speaker 2: on the had the higher number in these polls every
Speaker 2: single time, no one would feel any more comfortable. You're
Speaker 2: not going to get comfort out of polls in the
Speaker 2: modern presidential election environment because they're just going to always
Speaker 2: run way too close.
Speaker 1: Right, And it's still within the margin of error.
Speaker 2: Again, a note about the margin of error when someone
Speaker 2: when you read the poll and it says the margin
Speaker 2: of error is, let's round it up to four points,
Speaker 2: let's call it three, which is a low margin of error.
Speaker 2: They're usually higher. Three points means that if someone is
Speaker 2: pulling at forty five, that person could be as high
Speaker 2: as forty eight or as low as forty two. It's
Speaker 2: actually a band of six points within which that person's
Speaker 2: number lives somewhere same thing with the other person's number.
Speaker 2: So pretty much every one of these polls all the
Speaker 2: time is a tie within the margin of error.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the things, though, that Trump has definitely
Speaker 1: seen is that a bore is that he's lising on abortion,
Speaker 1: and that is why last night or yesterday he put
Speaker 1: out this statement. You talked about this on your show
Speaker 1: last night. You've talked about this really in an important
Speaker 1: and interesting way, and you have a little bit of
Speaker 1: history from your earlier career in the working in the Senate.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious what your take on this is. It's
Speaker 1: like nineteen seventy three again, right, yeah, Well.
Speaker 2: You know, Trump has never understood abortion politics since he
Speaker 2: became a candidate. And because he never understood anything about it,
Speaker 2: he just adopted the Republican position word for word in
Speaker 2: his first run for the presidency, and he understood by
Speaker 2: the way that he absolutely had to do that in
Speaker 2: order to get the nomination. And Mitch McConnell had to
Speaker 2: combine with him to produce a list of judges that
Speaker 2: he would nominate. Now, no one's ever done that before
Speaker 2: in the history presidential campaign saying here's the list of
Speaker 2: people I will nominate to the Supreme Court, if you know,
Speaker 2: with the vacancy that was being held open for him,
Speaker 2: and that list, of course, Trump didn't know a single name, Honor,
Speaker 2: He didn't know anything about it. It's just like, this
Speaker 2: is what I have to do, so I have to
Speaker 2: do to get the nomination, then to hold onto those votes,
Speaker 2: I'll do it. And now he's discovering the challenge because
Speaker 2: he thinks, you know, he's a moron. Of course, so
Speaker 2: he thinks he's found a solution that can work for
Speaker 2: the Republican candidate, and of course it doesn't because he
Speaker 2: has now embraced as right and just every single abortion
Speaker 2: in the biggest abortion state in the Union, which is
Speaker 2: of course California, because it is the biggest state for everything,
Speaker 2: including agriculture and every other thing that begins with a
Speaker 2: California or any other letter, California has the most of it.
Speaker 2: So Donald Trump is saying, you know what, it's up
Speaker 2: to the states, So every single abortion in California is
Speaker 2: one hundred percent fine with me. And he's also saying
Speaker 2: at the very same time that the Idaho law that
Speaker 2: sentences you to prison for five years for involvement in
Speaker 2: an abortion is also totally fine with Trump. And so
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why Donald Trump would be very
Speaker 2: afraid of a presidential debate, which I suspect has a
Speaker 2: strong chance of not happening and I hope doesn't, because
Speaker 2: they're not debates, and they're just stupid exercises. But the
Speaker 2: problem for him in a debate where he can't escape
Speaker 2: being confronted with certain things being said to him is so, Donald,
Speaker 2: you approve of the five year prison sentence in Idaho.
Speaker 2: You think that is correct, that states should be allowed
Speaker 2: to do that, and he has to say yes or
Speaker 2: no to that. Of course, he wouldn't say yes or
Speaker 2: no to it. He would just run around in crazy
Speaker 2: verbal circles. And at the same time, you can say, Tom,
Speaker 2: you approve of every abortion in California and New York, Right,
Speaker 2: you approve of all of those. And so that's the
Speaker 2: crazy box. You know that he has put himself in,
Speaker 2: and he's a known liar. Trump voters know he's a liar, right,
Speaker 2: and so everyone on every side of the issue knows
Speaker 2: he's trying to lie his way through it. That's what
Speaker 2: he's trying to do now, while, of course, because he
Speaker 2: has no other accomplishments, werowdly taking credit for overturning roversus way,
Speaker 2: you know, just proudly taking credit for it as something
Speaker 2: that is opposed by a very very large majority of
Speaker 2: the voters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that video was so incredible because he's like, I
Speaker 1: did that, And then he's like, but, by.
Speaker 2: The way, can I say a word about the video
Speaker 2: because I do this this thing on my show that
Speaker 2: for the first time last night, after the show, I
Speaker 2: began to second guess. I won't give Trump the whole screen, right,
Speaker 2: because it's just too repulsive in every way to have
Speaker 2: him on the screen. But when we have to see
Speaker 2: him say something, I give him half the screen and
Speaker 2: then I occupy the other half. Or if I have guests,
Speaker 2: I give him a small amount of the screen and
Speaker 2: we all occupy the screen so that you at home
Speaker 2: will not be alone with Donald Trump on your screen.
Speaker 2: And however, after the show last night, so I see
Speaker 2: a tiny image of Trump because I'm looking at it
Speaker 2: in this tiny monitor during the show when we do
Speaker 2: those shots, right and after the show, I see the
Speaker 2: full screen video. Stephanie Rule runs the full screen video
Speaker 2: of him saying the same stuff, and I couldn't believe
Speaker 2: what was on his face. There was some unbelievably strange
Speaker 2: bronze mud, someone who like someone who grabbed some forty
Speaker 2: year old bronzer, and just he looked like a monster
Speaker 2: to anyone who was looking at that, and You've got
Speaker 2: to wonder like the people working for him. I guess
Speaker 2: they're so terrified. None of them consider him mister president,
Speaker 2: which is what they have to call him a person.
Speaker 2: The shit on your face really is a bad idea,
Speaker 2: you know? Or are they just doing us the favor.
Speaker 2: Are they sitting there going, you know what hey like
Speaker 2: in their memoirs and then go, yeah, I'm the guy
Speaker 2: who made sure Trump look really awful in his videos.
Speaker 2: You know, thirty years from now, that's that's going to
Speaker 2: be their big reveal. I just couldn't believe what he
Speaker 2: looked like.
Speaker 1: I too had that same thought. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Lawrence for joining us. I hope you will come back.
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Spring is here and I bet you are trying to
Speaker 1: look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all
Speaker 1: new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store
Speaker 1: with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
Speaker 1: and top bags. To grab some head to Fastpolitics dot com.
Speaker 1: Becca Blind represents Vermont's Soul congressional district. Welcome back, Congresswoman.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's so exciting about you is
Speaker 1: that you are young. You represent Vermont's only congressional district. Yes,
Speaker 1: the stuff that is high on your agenda is the
Speaker 1: kind of really smart stuff that I too care passionately about.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the Comstock Act. When did you
Speaker 1: learn about this act from more than one hundred years ago?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's like a undred and fifty year old
Speaker 4: misogynistic law, right design role women, one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: Created to prevent pornography from being sent in the mail.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, yes, pornography, but also anything.
Speaker 3: That was considered obscene, a corruption of.
Speaker 4: Morality, and it criminalized sending contraception, anything related to abortion
Speaker 4: through the mail.
Speaker 3: And it was not exclusively that.
Speaker 4: There were also some parts of Comstock that were about
Speaker 4: male scams basically. But that we're most concerned about, of course,
Speaker 4: is the fact that this was essentially criminalizing women's bodies.
Speaker 4: And so it is so outrageous and ridiculous that we're
Speaker 4: even having to talk about this now.
Speaker 3: But this is the playbook.
Speaker 1: It's from eighteen seventy three. It was an anti obscenity
Speaker 1: law that banned the mailing, sale, advertisement, or distribution of
Speaker 1: any drug or implement that can be used to cause
Speaker 1: an abortion. When did you realize that Republicans were cooking
Speaker 1: up a plan for this.
Speaker 4: I was in the state legislature before I was in Congress,
Speaker 4: and we saw so much in the playbook that the
Speaker 4: Republicans were using in state legislatures, and they really signaled
Speaker 4: to us it wasn't just that they were going to
Speaker 4: try to make abortion difficult. They wanted to completely ban it.
Speaker 3: So we in.
Speaker 4: Vermont we said about codifying reproductive rights in statute and
Speaker 4: then in our state constitution. But I don't know if
Speaker 4: you know this about me. I have a master's in history,
Speaker 4: so you actually knew about those, yes, And when you
Speaker 4: think about you know, here's this man who was a
Speaker 4: Union Army veteran who essentially went from his place in
Speaker 4: Connecticut to New York City and felt like, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: New York City is a denisin. We have to control
Speaker 4: these licentious women. And so it also got to the
Speaker 4: point of ridiculousness. I was telling my staff earlier. He
Speaker 4: would also try to ban the showing of Bodicelli's The
Speaker 4: Birth of Venus in New York. So it was Sweeten
Speaker 4: really sweeping what he considered to be obscene, and so
Speaker 4: it's shocking to think that this is what the Republicans,
Speaker 4: in the MAGA movement, in the Trump movement, what they
Speaker 4: want to do is bring us back to that time
Speaker 4: when women don't just have access to their own bodies
Speaker 4: and making sure that we have a right to a
Speaker 4: full range of reproductive health, including abortion. They want to
Speaker 4: bring us back to a place where contraception is also
Speaker 4: called into question whether we have a right to that.
Speaker 4: It is absolutely about controlling women's bodies and dragging us
Speaker 4: all back to the eighteen seventies. Think about that.
Speaker 1: When I listened to these oral arguments and I heard
Speaker 1: a Leado and Thomas talking about the Comstock Act, what
Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting was they didn't refer to
Speaker 1: it by the name. They referred to it by the number.
Speaker 1: And I think that was very intentional because they knew.
Speaker 3: But they're sneaky right.
Speaker 1: Leto said telling effective, well, that's a widely known do
Speaker 1: you come in do run into interference with the widely
Speaker 1: known and commonly used you know? And he didn't say
Speaker 1: Comstock Act, he said you know two three four seven
Speaker 1: or something, And I was like, oh shit, they're really
Speaker 1: going to use the Comstock Act to try to ban
Speaker 1: sending stuff.
Speaker 3: In the mail exactly.
Speaker 4: We heard them say, quote, this is a prominent provision.
Speaker 4: It's not some your sub section of a complicated obscure law. Right.
Speaker 4: Every field knew about it, So they're they're breathing more legitimacy.
Speaker 4: Back to the Concept Act, which has been considered dead
Speaker 4: law for a long time. I want to bring up
Speaker 4: for listeners that if you haven't taken the time to
Speaker 4: go back and look at what project twenty twenty five
Speaker 4: is all about. And Jonathan Mitchell, who is one of
Speaker 4: the lead architects, he is this extremist attorney who he's
Speaker 4: always looking for loopholes and he's looking for workarounds. He
Speaker 4: does not want the Supreme Court to have jurisdiction authority
Speaker 4: over these issues, and so he's trying to do an.
Speaker 3: And run around it.
Speaker 4: He was the one with the mastermind behind the creepy
Speaker 4: provision in the Texas law that said Americans could spy
Speaker 4: on each other and turn.
Speaker 5: In bounty hunters, right xactly exactly, And so he said, quote,
Speaker 5: there's this smortgash board of options available to us because
Speaker 5: comstock is still on the books.
Speaker 3: That's what we're dealing with now.
Speaker 1: Right, I remember that. And what's interesting I think about
Speaker 1: SBA was SBA really was the was the precursor to
Speaker 1: grow A full year before the Supreme Court was able
Speaker 1: to overturn Roby Wade. With Dobbs, they had really pretty
Speaker 1: much outloud abortion in Texas. It's just a little like
Speaker 1: bit of trivia. Comstock Anthony Comstock was actually ultimately later
Speaker 1: in his life became Bruce Choice.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But what happened in all of the years of
Speaker 4: his crusade is he actually delighted in the fact that
Speaker 4: he was terrorizing women who he saw as not upholding
Speaker 4: morality and had him in several instances floating about the
Speaker 4: fact that he pushed women to suicide over the issue
Speaker 4: of contraception and abortion. It's so important for us to
Speaker 4: understand that things that we think are absolutely beyond the
Speaker 4: pale and crazy and would never happen. That's what they're
Speaker 4: planning for right now. That's what they want. They absolutely
Speaker 4: want us to lose the ability, not again, not just
Speaker 4: to lose our ability to have.
Speaker 3: Access to abortion.
Speaker 4: They are entertaining the fact of not giving people access
Speaker 4: to a full range of contraception, and they also want
Speaker 4: to bring back felony punishment that is part of the
Speaker 4: Constack Act. They want to punish women for making decisions
Speaker 4: about our own bodies.
Speaker 3: Right, These are not misdemeanors.
Speaker 4: It's shocking that so many Americans thought that Republicans were
Speaker 4: not focused on over turning Roby Wade, because they they
Speaker 4: absolutely signaled that that is exactly what they've been working
Speaker 4: on for so so long, which is why we have
Speaker 4: to think really carefully about all the different things that
Speaker 4: we can put into place, you know, considering overturning Comstock
Speaker 4: being one of them. We were talking earlier today, my
Speaker 4: staff and I about how they're going to try to
Speaker 4: moderate their views because they've been caught saying the quiet
Speaker 4: stuff out loud. And so you've got a situation where
Speaker 4: Carrie Lake made a statement today saying that Trump didn't
Speaker 4: speak for her when it came to abortion, because they're
Speaker 4: realizing now that he didn't speak for her, and also
Speaker 4: that the Arizona decision was going to be politically damaging,
Speaker 4: and so we can't be fooled. You've got Trump himself
Speaker 4: has changed his position on abortion thirteen times in the
Speaker 4: last twenty five years, so he can't believe anything that
Speaker 4: he says he, you know, he and those like him,
Speaker 4: they push forward anything that's politically convenient. So what we
Speaker 4: need to look at is the playbook that they're all following,
Speaker 4: which is the Project twenty twenty five playbook reinstituting comstock,
Speaker 4: controlling women's bodies, and beyond that, criminalizing our decisions about
Speaker 4: our own bodies.
Speaker 1: The Arizona judiciary, right their Supreme Court allowed the reinstatement
Speaker 1: of a law from eighteen sixty four, so right around
Speaker 1: just you know, one hundred and sixty years ago, but
Speaker 1: who's counting. So now you cannot get an abortion. A
Speaker 1: doctor who helps perform an abortion could go to jail
Speaker 1: from two to four years.
Speaker 4: And no exceptions for rape and incess It is clear
Speaker 4: that when you say there will only be exceptions for
Speaker 4: the life of the mother, that is so ill defined.
Speaker 4: You've got doctors right now living in fear that they're
Speaker 4: going to be prosecuted or locked up.
Speaker 3: And so this this is terrible for women.
Speaker 4: And girls in Texas right now, excuse me, well in
Speaker 4: Texas too, but in Sona.
Speaker 3: Basically, if you look at when that law was.
Speaker 4: Passed in eighteen sixty four, okay, women weren't allowed to
Speaker 4: vote right, slave right, exactly right. They couldn't own property
Speaker 4: if they were married, they couldn't sign contracts, and so
Speaker 4: this is essentially again when we say they want to
Speaker 4: bring us back one hundred and fifty years, it's no joke,
Speaker 4: like it's not hyperbole. We need to understand that these
Speaker 4: these attorneys, these conservative attorneys and all their apologists in Congress,
Speaker 4: they want a national band in.
Speaker 3: Every possible the way. And the reason why they want.
Speaker 4: To rein state essentially comstock is because two thirds of
Speaker 4: all abortions right now.
Speaker 1: Are the pills that come in the mail, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to get around sending stuff for the mail, and
Speaker 1: you won't be able to get birth control pills in
Speaker 1: the mail.
Speaker 3: Either, exactly.
Speaker 4: And as I was talking with an attorney friend of
Speaker 4: mine who works in this space, and she said, they're
Speaker 4: also concerned that if you have a sweeping interpretation of comstock,
Speaker 4: that means also you can't send medical gloves through the mail,
Speaker 4: you can't send anything that could possibly be used within
Speaker 4: an office for abortion right. So it's absolutely would bring
Speaker 4: it to a nationwide band, and they could do it
Speaker 4: by simply bringing back into use this archaic one hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty year old law.
Speaker 1: It was originally a morality law for a different time.
Speaker 1: One of the things I'm struck by is, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this new byn ad where you have this woman
Speaker 1: in Texas who's so brave and really these women who
Speaker 1: have come forward, you know, they've had these terrible, tragic
Speaker 1: situations and then they've had to go in front of
Speaker 1: people and to share one of the most personal, devastating
Speaker 1: things that can happen. But during this ad she narrates
Speaker 1: that she had to carry it. You know, she was
Speaker 1: a human coffin until she was allowed to give birth
Speaker 1: to a dead baby. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: I'm struck by is like, better legislation, more clear legislation
Speaker 1: would have prevented. It's one thing to want to ban abortion.
Speaker 1: It's another thing to give so little of a shit
Speaker 1: that you don't write the laws in order for them
Speaker 1: to be enacted. And you have women as collateral damage
Speaker 1: throughout the country, and now you have all of these
Speaker 1: women living in states where they can't have abortions. So
Speaker 1: talk to me about like legislative you serve with some
Speaker 1: of these people, you're in committees with them. I mean,
Speaker 1: do they just not give a fuck, or are they
Speaker 1: just stupid?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, that was many of them believe, and they
Speaker 4: show this through their actions. They believe women are second
Speaker 4: class citizens. They do, and they legislate that way, you know,
Speaker 4: and they have candidates running on the GOP ticket this
Speaker 4: year who said women shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Be allowed to vote.
Speaker 4: Like they're saying the quiet part out loud, that is
Speaker 4: they absolutely they want to control us, they want to
Speaker 4: take away our rights. They do not believe that we
Speaker 4: should be treated as full citizens. I honestly believe that
Speaker 4: based on what I'm seeing and what's interesting too, Molly
Speaker 4: So having worked so hard on reproductive issues in my
Speaker 4: home state, which is, you know, a very left leaning state, Vermont, right,
Speaker 4: even among some of my Democratic male colleagues, they would
Speaker 4: say to us, you know, in caucus.
Speaker 3: Why are we working on this?
Speaker 4: Why aren't we working on something that really impacts people,
Speaker 4: And of course the women in the caucus, you know,
Speaker 4: we would be absolutely furious.
Speaker 3: But that is this idea that is still.
Speaker 4: Very much in I think the minds of Americans, an
Speaker 4: American men in particular, even if they see themselves as
Speaker 4: being supportive, being pro choice, they do not understand that
Speaker 4: this issue is not just about abortion. It's about the economy.
Speaker 4: It's about women's autonomy. It is about our ability to
Speaker 4: control when and how we have children. It is our
Speaker 4: ability to not, as you said, carry a dead fetus
Speaker 4: in our because some men don't actually even understand how
Speaker 4: the women's reproductive systems work.
Speaker 3: And I have been on multiple call in shows in my.
Speaker 4: Time as a politician talking about these issues. When I
Speaker 4: would get callers and I would be so it was
Speaker 4: so clear to me they didn't understand women's bodies, and
Speaker 4: ultimately they believed it was the woman's responsibility to manage
Speaker 4: whether they got pregnant or not. And you know, and
Speaker 4: since we're you know, we're being real with each other.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I would say to constituents
Speaker 4: if it was a male caller saying it was all
Speaker 4: the women's responsibility, I would ask them straight up on
Speaker 4: live radio, have you always used protection when you had sex?
Speaker 3: And they would sort of you know, well.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, for real, like if you are
Speaker 4: policing my body, let me reflect back to you know,
Speaker 4: a logical conclusion there, And we have to have full
Speaker 4: roaded allies in this. And yes, women need to show
Speaker 4: up at the ballot box on mass this November.
Speaker 3: But dan it, we need our allies.
Speaker 4: We need all of the people who love and support
Speaker 4: the folks that will be impacted and are impacted by
Speaker 4: these laws to stand up and to not make women
Speaker 4: have to once again do the work that benefits all
Speaker 4: of us.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny because it's like, I think so
Speaker 1: much about when SBA passed and everyone was saying, me,
Speaker 1: you're crazy, this is not going to be the end
Speaker 1: of Row. And even when Roe was overturned, you had
Speaker 1: people like Rich Lowry and Sarah Igris Flores writing abeds
Speaker 1: saying that Roe was baked in voters don't care about Row,
Speaker 1: And I mean, how much do women have to die
Speaker 1: before anyone gives a shit about them? And it really is,
Speaker 1: you know, we're half the population here. Guys like so
Speaker 1: crazy and just infuriate into me.
Speaker 4: It is, it's infuriating, and we have to turn that
Speaker 4: fury and that anger into action because, as I said,
Speaker 4: we know the playbook, we understand what it is that
Speaker 4: they're trying to to do, and I strongly believe that
Speaker 4: it is absolutely about controlling women's bodies and their minds.
Speaker 3: Our ability to vote.
Speaker 4: These folks are not trustworthy partners in government.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's the understandment of the year, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting though, as you say that, they say, oh,
Speaker 4: Roe is not going to be overturned. I got that
Speaker 4: as well when we were codifying it in our statute
Speaker 4: in Vermont and in our Constitution. I definitely heard that
Speaker 4: you are reacting. You're hysterical, you're over the top. This
Speaker 4: isn't going to happen. And here we are not just
Speaker 4: with Roe overturned, but with these sick conservative attorneys trying
Speaker 4: to bring back into play one hundred and fifty year
Speaker 4: old misogynistic law.
Speaker 3: It is a desperate attempt to try to control us.
Speaker 3: Can't let them.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3: Really appreciate you, Oh appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Whitney Fox is a candidate in Florida's thirteenth congressional distract.
Speaker 1: Become to Fast Politics. Whitney Fox, thank.
Speaker 3: You so much for having me, Mollie, happy to be here.
Speaker 1: So tell me what district are you running in and
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about your race.
Speaker 6: Sure, yes, I'm running in Florida's thirteenth congressional district. It's
Speaker 6: the Saint Petersburg Clearwater area of Florida, and I'm running
Speaker 6: against Anna Paulina Luna, who you might know.
Speaker 3: As a podcast.
Speaker 1: Yes, tell us a little bit about what your district
Speaker 1: is like.
Speaker 6: Sure, So my district is a very moderate, pragmatic district.
Speaker 6: It's Charlie Chris Old seat previously.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: A third of our voters are independence and a lot of.
Speaker 6: Our district they really pride themselves on their independence here
Speaker 6: in Nllis County. So it's a great little place here
Speaker 6: in Florida, and they are fired up and ready for November.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you that.
Speaker 1: Anna Paulina Luna, I think of her like Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 1: but not as famous.
Speaker 3: Right, That's exactly right.
Speaker 6: And it's interesting because this is not a Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 6: Green or Matt Gates district, Molly. This is a like
Speaker 6: I said, very moderate district of thoughtful voters and they
Speaker 6: are eager for new leadership. They are shocked that Luna one.
Speaker 1: How did they lack that person?
Speaker 3: Yes, you might know.
Speaker 6: Twenty twenty two was a rough year across the board
Speaker 6: in Florida. I mean, voter turnout was quite low and
Speaker 6: for Democrats it was it was a pretty tough year,
Speaker 6: so that she won with just fifty three percent of
Speaker 6: the vote in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: So for her, this is her first term in office.
Speaker 1: She's done a lot of crazy stuff. Talk to me
Speaker 1: about sort of her a little bit about sort of
Speaker 1: what she's famous for.
Speaker 6: Yes, well, I think that she's most famous for really
Speaker 6: being focused on chasing culture war headlines, and you know,
Speaker 6: then she is addressing everyday issues of Americans.
Speaker 3: She's concentrated on you foes.
Speaker 6: She's written a children's book about how the election was stolen,
Speaker 6: So I mean it was, you know, a children's book,
Speaker 6: like a banana that looks like Biden and an oran
Speaker 6: that looks like Trump, and the banana cheats to win
Speaker 6: a foot race.
Speaker 3: So these are the tides.
Speaker 6: Of things she is concentrating on, I mean, And every
Speaker 6: chance she gets, she's calling to defund government agencies whenever
Speaker 6: they don't give her what she wants. She tries to
Speaker 6: shut down the government every chance she gets. Impeachment's ousting
Speaker 6: any speaker if they have a conversation with a Democrat.
Speaker 6: So she's just in DC, causing chaos and doing nothing
Speaker 6: for her constituents, which is part of the reason why
Speaker 6: I'm running.
Speaker 1: What is your story in Florida and how did you
Speaker 1: get there?
Speaker 6: Well, I was born and raised here in the Tampa
Speaker 6: Bay Area. This is where I grew up. I'm now
Speaker 6: raising two little girls of my own, a four year
Speaker 6: old and a two year old, and my parents live here.
Speaker 6: And I've been working for our district and public transportation.
Speaker 6: Most recently so I was the director of Communications and
Speaker 6: marketing and working on legislative priorities at our Panela Sun
Speaker 6: Coast Transit Authority. And you know, really seeing the people
Speaker 6: who rely on public transportation and how it connects us
Speaker 6: to everything from affordable housing and food of course, are
Speaker 6: to jobs or medical appointments, and really a lot of
Speaker 6: people are struggling here in the district. But what really
Speaker 6: fired me to run for office was, I'll be very
Speaker 6: honest with you, was having a baby. The medical bills,
Speaker 6: the lack of paid parntal leave, the lack of affordable childcare.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe that.
Speaker 6: This is how we start families in America and that
Speaker 6: we aren't in the streets screaming about it. Because I
Speaker 6: think it's so important that we care for people from
Speaker 6: the very start. And you know, so many other countries
Speaker 6: have figured out how to take better care of their people,
Speaker 6: and I think that we could be doing a much
Speaker 6: better job.
Speaker 1: What would that look like in your mind?
Speaker 6: I think it really starts with focusing on the issues
Speaker 6: that people care about, right, like the affordability crisis that
Speaker 6: we're facing here, especially in Florida are.
Speaker 3: I mean, our inflation.
Speaker 6: Is two times higher than the rest of the country,
Speaker 6: and people are really struggling with skyrocketing insurance and you know,
Speaker 6: not finding affordable housing. So I think that that's something
Speaker 6: that we definitely need to address. You know, I think
Speaker 6: about when I grew up also, I remember, you know,
Speaker 6: I was raised by my single mother here in Tampa Bay,
Speaker 6: and we used to kind of every Sunday, we have
Speaker 6: an activity of clipping coupons out of the Sunday paper
Speaker 6: and organizing them in her coupon box before we'd go
Speaker 6: grocery shopping. And I know what it's like to grow
Speaker 6: up with, you know, a single mother and making sure
Speaker 6: that we're making ends meet. And I know that a
Speaker 6: lot of families are struggling with that today as well.
Speaker 6: And even more so, we also have a lot of
Speaker 6: seniors in our district and they're scared of losing their
Speaker 6: Social Security and Medicare and worried about boarding prescription drugs
Speaker 6: and especially on their fixed incomes. But really it's just
Speaker 6: a we're focusing on taking care of people, and people
Speaker 6: are tired of the polarizing politics and they just want
Speaker 6: a functioning government so that they can make, you know,
Speaker 6: put food on the table, roof over their head, and
Speaker 6: work one job and you know, get their basic needs met.
Speaker 6: And I think that of course, a big one for
Speaker 6: us is it's going to be fighting for reproductive rights.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's a.
Speaker 3: Huge issue here in Florida.
Speaker 6: As I'm sure you're well aware with everything that's going
Speaker 6: on in the state of Florida with when it comes
Speaker 6: to abortion and the new six week band that's going
Speaker 6: to be going into effect and the ballot measure that's
Speaker 6: going to be on you know, on the ballot this November.
Speaker 6: That's going to be a big point that we're talking
Speaker 6: about on this race.
Speaker 1: You have a maga governor who has really not spent
Speaker 1: much time worrying about what's happening in Florida because he's
Speaker 1: been busy trying to run for president. Now that dream
Speaker 1: is dead. You have inflationary problems you have. Your insurance
Speaker 1: premiums are crazy. Talk to me about the flood insurance
Speaker 1: climate staff in your state.
Speaker 6: That's probably one of the number one issues that we're
Speaker 6: hearing about when it comes to insurance. I mean, everyone's
Speaker 6: feeling that it's a huge issue in Florida and people
Speaker 6: are struggling, and I know that that's something that we
Speaker 6: are A lot of people will say, oh, that's an
Speaker 6: issue that's going to be addressed or needs to be
Speaker 6: addressed at a state level, but we're not taking that
Speaker 6: as an answer. We are looking into what can be
Speaker 6: done at a federal level and what actions can we
Speaker 6: take to help people, whether that's making sure that they
Speaker 6: have proper incentives to make upgrades to their homes and
Speaker 6: really investing in infrastructure right because we want to make
Speaker 6: sure that we are investing in the right infrastructure to
Speaker 6: make sure that when these storms hit, when hurricanes even comes,
Speaker 6: that people are prepared, that our infrastructure is prepared. One
Speaker 6: dollar spent in prevention is we're fixed dollar and recovery.
Speaker 6: So instead of waiting until a storm hits or where
Speaker 6: there's flooding and you know, fixing it afterwards, we need
Speaker 6: to make sure that we're putting the proper things in
Speaker 6: place beforehand to be prepared for those types of things.
Speaker 1: So one of the major conversations that everyone has been
Speaker 1: having with me, the sort of like annoying behind the
Speaker 1: scenes conversation that people keep having, is people in the
Speaker 1: pundent industrial complex keep saying Florida does not really imply.
Speaker 1: It's nice that Biden thinks Florida's employed, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: really think for Florida's implay. So is Florida implay?
Speaker 6: Well, I definitely think it is, especially I mean even
Speaker 6: before the ballot measure, but now even more so, I
Speaker 6: mean our race specifically with you know, Anna Pauline A
Speaker 6: Luna in District thirteen. We know that this is the
Speaker 6: most flippable congressional seat in the state of Florida, and
Speaker 6: it's because of how extreme Anna Pauline Aluna is and
Speaker 6: that is not aligned at all with the people here
Speaker 6: in this district.
Speaker 3: And we know that people are.
Speaker 6: Just tired of the red versus Blue, the Democrat versus Republican,
Speaker 6: and they want a functioning government and things have just
Speaker 6: gone too far in Florida and too extreme. And thinking
Speaker 6: about the fact that Anna Paulina Luna supports a national
Speaker 6: abortion ban without exceptions of rape, invest or life of
Speaker 6: the mother, that she has these extreme stances of wanting
Speaker 6: to shut down the government focusing on all these other issues.
Speaker 1: That bring back family separation right exactly.
Speaker 6: So we know that a lot of people are feeling
Speaker 6: that it's just gotten too extreme. I mean I have
Speaker 6: moderate Republicans in our district reaching out to.
Speaker 3: Me saying, what can I do to help you? She
Speaker 3: has got to go.
Speaker 6: So we think that it's very true that things have
Speaker 6: just gotten too extreme in Florida and people are tired
Speaker 6: of it.
Speaker 1: Clardik was sort of known as a safe haven for
Speaker 1: abortion in the South. Really do you think now you
Speaker 1: have a six week fan and you're as extreme as
Speaker 1: any other Southern state? I mean you as a Florida resident,
Speaker 1: someone who grew up there. I mean, are people kind
Speaker 1: of shocked by that?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 6: Yes, well, and I think my heart is broken for
Speaker 6: what this is going to do for.
Speaker 3: Women, for families. I mean this is huge.
Speaker 6: I mean recently I volunteered as an escort at a
Speaker 6: women's clinic, escorting women from their cars to the clinic.
Speaker 6: And they need these escorts because there are protesters who
Speaker 6: are just shouting the most violent things at these poor
Speaker 6: women as they are looking for just contraception or a
Speaker 6: well women visitor, reproductive healthcare. And a lot of the
Speaker 6: women I escorted were from outside of Florida, were from
Speaker 6: neighboring states. And to think that now Florida is joining
Speaker 6: in these neighboring states and that there is no access
Speaker 6: anywhere in the southeast of the country, this is dire.
Speaker 3: Women will die, I mean, doctors will leave the state.
Speaker 6: There will be a chilling effect on women seeking medical
Speaker 6: help for SEE related issues. And then what's next, Florida
Speaker 6: will be investigating miscarriages as potential felonies.
Speaker 1: Well, that's happened in Ohio. I mean remember the Brittany
Speaker 1: Watts case where Brittany was actually had to sit and
Speaker 1: wait to find out if she was going to be
Speaker 1: indicted for what was it called mishandling a corpse and
Speaker 1: she had gone to the hospital twice for this miscarriage.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are women having miscarriages being arrested.
Speaker 6: It's terrifying because I mean I myself had a miscarriage
Speaker 6: and it was a frightening experience.
Speaker 1: I mean mine, Yes, yeah, if you're over the age
Speaker 1: of thirty and you're trying to get pregnant, you know
Speaker 1: you're more likely. I mean, yeah, go.
Speaker 6: On, Well, good for you to go through that emotional
Speaker 6: roller coaster and that you know, traumatizing experience of having
Speaker 6: a miscarriage and now having to be afraid of, you know,
Speaker 6: obviously a third degree felony if they're going to investigate you,
Speaker 6: if they think it could have been an abortion or
Speaker 6: not seeking the care that you need. It's heartbreaking to
Speaker 6: think that women will be afraid to seek the care
Speaker 6: that they need if they do have a miscarriage.
Speaker 1: It's just completely disturbing. So what are you hearing from voters?
Speaker 1: What are they saying? What's your sounds?
Speaker 6: Most of the voters that we are talking to, whether
Speaker 6: they are Democrat, independent, Republican, they believe that women should
Speaker 6: have the freedom to make these decisions themselves without government overreach.
Speaker 6: I mean, the people in my district feel very strongly
Speaker 6: that government should not be reaching into this issue. They
Speaker 6: should not be in their bedrooms, they should not be
Speaker 6: in the doctor's offices, and they are fired up and
Speaker 6: they are ready to go to war because I mean,
Speaker 6: I have had many conversations with older women who've said, we've.
Speaker 3: Already fought this fight. We thought this was settled.
Speaker 6: We know what it's like to not have access to
Speaker 6: reproductive health care.
Speaker 3: We're not going through that again.
Speaker 6: And they are very fired up. And then of course
Speaker 6: we have many people who are upset about all the
Speaker 6: issues about IBF as well. I mean people who are
Speaker 6: struggling to have families and want to go to process.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's really raised a lot of eyebrows with
Speaker 6: especially moderate Republican women who are very upset about what's
Speaker 6: happening with that, you know, not potentially having access to IBF.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a legislative thing that could have also
Speaker 1: been avoided. But I think what's so interesting about that
Speaker 1: one is that you had Republicans, you know, they had
Speaker 1: this quest for embryonic personhood and they had been working
Speaker 1: behind the scenes to do this for a while. Like
Speaker 1: with so many of these reproductive health laws that Republicans
Speaker 1: have passed, they're so badly thought out. Like IVY is
Speaker 1: an enormous business, right, Doctors make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: It's super expensive. Yeah, what did they when they you know,
Speaker 1: they closed down They end up closing down all the
Speaker 1: iView clinics in Alabama, right, because nobody put together that
Speaker 1: embryonic personhood would then shut down IVF. And furthermore, like
Speaker 1: when they legislated it, they just decided they would indemnify
Speaker 1: the clinics instead of actually creating you know, some kind
Speaker 1: I mean, like is this there are still very much
Speaker 1: on this embryonic personhood gig right.
Speaker 6: Right well, and like you said, I mean, all of
Speaker 6: this is just unnecessary and could have been avoided. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's the natural consequence of you know, life begins at
Speaker 6: conception laws, and they just didn't care what the consequences were.
Speaker 6: And I think that especially with the Republican Study Committee's
Speaker 6: budget that they just put out, I mean, which Ana
Speaker 6: Paul Lena Luna is obviously a.
Speaker 1: Part of eighty percent of the Republicans.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so, I mean, which endorses legislation that would threaten
Speaker 6: IVF nationwide and backs the Life at Conception Act granting
Speaker 6: will rights to like you said, to embryos from the
Speaker 6: moment of fertilization. So it's terrifying what it is, and
Speaker 6: we have a lot to fight for. And trust me,
Speaker 6: this is a These are bipartisan issues that people feel
Speaker 6: very strongly about in my district. Especially you know, having
Speaker 6: these conversations with both women and men and families, and
Speaker 6: the story that I've heard and that they've told me,
Speaker 6: it's heartbreaking and they are scared, especially with the six
Speaker 6: week band going into effect and you know, become.
Speaker 1: All all of this.
Speaker 6: I mean, Florida is now the primary battleground for abortion
Speaker 6: rights here in America, especially being the third largest state.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that's the other thing I think with
Speaker 1: this abortion ban is that the numbers in Florida, I
Speaker 1: mean are humongous. So now you'll have women and all
Speaker 1: of these southern states who will have you know, miles
Speaker 1: and miles and miles. I'm wondering, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: You're talking to people in your district. You're out there,
Speaker 1: You're doing town halls. Tell me how you're campaigning.
Speaker 6: Yes, I mean we are talking. We're going to different
Speaker 6: community events, of course, talking to voters. And one thing
Speaker 6: that is really important to me, especially you know, being
Speaker 6: a mom of two little ones, is meeting voters where
Speaker 6: they are and we are even you know, going to
Speaker 6: playgrounds to talk to families and having playground meetups. We're doing,
Speaker 6: you know, going to different community events and organizational events
Speaker 6: to make sure that we are out talking to voters.
Speaker 6: We're having even a mother's Day event where we're saying,
Speaker 6: come and you know, we'll have activities for your spouse
Speaker 6: and the.
Speaker 3: Kids while you come. Come in and hang out and have.
Speaker 6: You know, a relaxing mother's day, and we'll talk about
Speaker 6: the issues. There's not really not been much of a focus,
Speaker 6: especially from a mother's perspective, I think in Congress. I mean,
Speaker 6: I recently learned that I think it's less than seven
Speaker 6: percent of members of Congress or mother's with young children.
Speaker 6: So I'm making sure that we are tapping into these
Speaker 6: different voters that maybe don't get a chance to have
Speaker 6: their voices heard or have these conversations. So definitely making
Speaker 6: sure that we are getting out to speak with the
Speaker 6: people in the district and hear what issues are most
Speaker 6: concerning to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's really a good point. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a flippable seat, and Florida's a different state
Speaker 1: than it was two years ago or four years ago.
Speaker 3: It truly is.
Speaker 6: And I think that that's what's so interesting, you know
Speaker 6: about this race, is because a lot of people are
Speaker 6: feeling hopeless this election year, and then they are having
Speaker 6: a hard time knowing what they can do and feeling
Speaker 6: all they can do is vote. But our race, we
Speaker 6: are getting a lot of feedback that people are saying
Speaker 6: that we are inspiring hope, and this is a race
Speaker 6: where you can actually make a difference by you know,
Speaker 6: supporting our race, supporting my candidacy, or this being not
Speaker 6: just the most livable seat in the state of Florida,
Speaker 6: but our shot of getting a one of the most
Speaker 6: conservative far right extremists and Freedom Caucus members out of Congress.
Speaker 6: So you know, investing in a race like ours can
Speaker 6: actually make it a difference and supporting us and people
Speaker 6: of lives, especially on these issues like abortion when Anna
Speaker 6: Pauline de Luna is the supporter of a national abortion band.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Whitney Fox.
Speaker 3: Of course, thank you so much for the time. I
Speaker 3: really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Molly No Moment, Jesse Cannon, Molly John Fast.
Speaker 7: We often joke about how the MAGA people say the
Speaker 7: choi a part out loud that they shouldn't be saying.
Speaker 7: But then what it's funny is when the MAGA people
Speaker 7: have their Venn diagram overlap with the RFK people because
Speaker 7: they are one in the same.
Speaker 1: RFK is New York. I don't know she works for
Speaker 1: his campaign.
Speaker 7: She's a ballad expert.
Speaker 1: Oh even better, and she has said she has said
Speaker 1: the choir part loud. She said that basically the only
Speaker 1: reason he's running is to make Biden lose. These people
Speaker 1: are not smart, and thank god they're not, because this
Speaker 1: is one of the most important elections, probably the most
Speaker 1: important election we'll ever and they're not smartness. They're saying
Speaker 1: the quiet part loud is our moment of fuck right.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.