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 Trump's former chief of staff says
Speaker 1: Trump didn't realize Hitler's generals were Nazis? What did he
Speaker 1: think they were? We have such a great show for
Speaker 1: you today, the Mary Trump Shows. Mary Trump stops by
Speaker 1: to talk about her uncle's cognitive decline. Then we'll be
Speaker 1: joined by CNN's Ellie Reeve to talk about her encounters
Speaker 1: with voters in Georgia. But first the news.
Speaker 2: So Molly Trump's former chief of staff, very regarded man
Speaker 2: in many circles, John Kelly, has finally decided to do
Speaker 2: the right thing and start spilling the beans about what
Speaker 2: mister Trump is like behind the scenes. And the kids
Speaker 2: like to say, you're spilling tea when you do things
Speaker 2: like this. I'd like to think he kicked the Starbucks
Speaker 2: tea stand over in the whole place.
Speaker 1: So I would say John Kelly has spoken before, but
Speaker 1: he never spoken like the way he has recently. So
Speaker 1: he basically gave Mike Schmidt from The New York Times.
Speaker 1: He answered a bunch of questions on the record, taped.
Speaker 1: They are on the New York Times website, and they're
Speaker 1: worth listening to. Basically, Mike Schmidt cues him up, says
Speaker 1: do you think Trump wants to be a dictator? And
Speaker 1: Kelly does, in fact answer these questions in his own voice.
Speaker 1: Now you'll remember Kelly John Kelly is a retired US
Speaker 1: Marine Corps general. He served as White House Chief of
Speaker 1: Staff for Donald Trump for two years from twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: to twenty nineteen. He was also before that, he was
Speaker 1: the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. He went to
Speaker 1: the Naval War College. He's a very serious military guy.
Speaker 1: This is not the kind of person who does interviews
Speaker 1: like this unless he is really worried. And I think
Speaker 1: that it's worth realizing that someone like this coming out
Speaker 1: and saying something like this at this moment is because
Speaker 1: he didn't necessarily want to, but he knew he had to.
Speaker 1: And The Times has done a lot of really good
Speaker 1: reporting on this. Somehow none of it has been none
Speaker 1: of it has made it to the front page, which
Speaker 1: I think is really disappointing, but it is good to
Speaker 1: see that people are covering it. Jeff Goldberg wrote about
Speaker 1: it for The Atlantic and got into this sort of
Speaker 1: minutia about Trump didn't know that Hitler's generals were Nazis,
Speaker 1: and he also wanted to have the same kind of
Speaker 1: generals that Hitler did. It's a little bit of where
Speaker 1: is my Roy Cohen, But the idea is the same.
Speaker 1: He would like a lawyer who would do anything for him,
Speaker 1: he would like a general who would do anything for him.
Speaker 1: There's also a really bleak part in it where he
Speaker 1: says he's going to bury this woman who's in the military,
Speaker 1: who's a general who was murdered and was Mexican, and
Speaker 1: then he starts yelling about how he said he was
Speaker 1: going to pay for it. He starts yelling about how
Speaker 1: it costs sixty thousand dollars, and he says some really
Speaker 1: racist stuff. And then her sister is now voting for
Speaker 1: Trump and is quite upset that this story somehow might
Speaker 1: be used against Trump. So it's not a cult exactly,
Speaker 1: but it kind of is. John Kelly is not the
Speaker 1: only person who believes that Donald Trump is an autocrat
Speaker 1: and a danger Jesse can you play the clip from
Speaker 1: CNA sure kem Chief of Staff.
Speaker 3: Kelly also said that he believed that Donald Trump fell
Speaker 3: under the definition of a fascist do you also consider
Speaker 3: Donald Trump to be a fascist?
Speaker 4: You know, I've spoken out against lowering the civil discourse
Speaker 4: in this country and personal tax and labels and stuff
Speaker 4: like that. So look, I'm not going to get into
Speaker 4: that type of labeling if you will, But you know,
Speaker 4: John Kelly did something and he looked it up in
Speaker 4: ationnaring if you if you look it up, I think
Speaker 4: everybody should ask yourself does he fall into those categories?
Speaker 4: And it's hard to say that he doesn't when you kind.
Speaker 1: Of look at those terms.
Speaker 4: But you know, he certainly has those inclinations, and.
Speaker 1: I think it's something we should be worried about. Yes,
Speaker 1: he certainly has so brave, he certainly has those inclinations.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, for Mark Asper to say this
Speaker 1: on CNN, these people are saying this because they are
Speaker 1: really worried, right, Like, they don't do this lightly. This
Speaker 1: is not like a pundit saying this. These military guys
Speaker 1: are trained not to do stuff like this. So I
Speaker 1: do think it's meaningful. Another thing that Harris did which
Speaker 1: was really smart, was today at one o'clock she gave
Speaker 1: a statement about how meaningful it was that these guys
Speaker 1: were coming forward. Look, the Trump base. They don't care. Right,
Speaker 1: it's baked in. They are not going to be moved
Speaker 1: by this, but they are not going to be moved
Speaker 1: by anything. What Harris needs is to is for the
Speaker 1: normal people in this country to go, oh, this is
Speaker 1: really important and to take heed that this is not
Speaker 1: a normal election cycle and Donald Trump is not a
Speaker 1: normal candidate.
Speaker 2: So let's turnover to another fella that we unfortunately have
Speaker 2: to discuss all the time. One Elon Musk. Governor Walls
Speaker 2: at a recent rally described him properly as Elon's on
Speaker 2: that stage, jumping around, skipping like a dipshit. Musk did
Speaker 2: not like this song.
Speaker 1: Right, we know what Musk believes now, we know that
Speaker 1: he is quite right wing. He's gone full in on
Speaker 1: the Trump train, giving him millions and millions of dollars
Speaker 1: and supporting him in any way, shape or form he can.
Speaker 1: He was incredibly mad at Walls. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: ridiculous thing to do, jumping on stage, but whatever. So
Speaker 1: Musk responded to Walls on X by saying, you're going
Speaker 1: to lose at Tim Walls, saving the American people from
Speaker 1: the torture of hearing you for four years was worth it.
Speaker 1: Maybe Elon Musk people relate to this nefarious South African billionaire.
Speaker 1: I sure don't, Okay, So Jesse, I'm hoping you can
Speaker 1: not to just clip from CNN today, but I'm hoping
Speaker 1: you could play this tape of Christin Unu, who is
Speaker 1: the new Hampshire governor. But he's term limited out and
Speaker 1: he is unable to disavow Trump. So basically the interviewer
Speaker 1: asks him, if he disavows Trump, just listen to this
Speaker 1: fucking thing.
Speaker 5: Good new comments and the new warning from Donald Trump's
Speaker 5: former and longest serving Chief of Staff, Marine General John Kelly. Kelly,
Speaker 5: speaking on the record in a series of interviews, just
Speaker 5: out saying that Trump fits the definition of fascist and
Speaker 5: also confirming Trump's affinity for Hitler and Hitler's generals. According
Speaker 5: to John Kelly, I want to play for you what
Speaker 5: Kelly told The New York Times overnight.
Speaker 6: Bon Myers, people who are dicators said that falls into
Speaker 6: the general definition of fascist.
Speaker 2: More than one, you know, into some good things.
Speaker 1: And of course.
Speaker 6: If you know history, again, I think he's lacking a matter.
Speaker 3: But if you know what his you know, hit was
Speaker 3: all about, uh, you would be pretty.
Speaker 7: Hard to make an argument that he did anything good.
Speaker 5: John Kelly also spoke with The Atlantic. Kelly says that
Speaker 5: he once asked Donald Trump, then President Trump, about his
Speaker 5: statement that he needed generals like Hitler had. Surely you
Speaker 5: can't mean Hitler's generals, Kelly asked him. Trump responded that
Speaker 5: that is exactly what he meant. Yeah, yeah, Hitler's generals.
Speaker 5: Joining us right now is Republican Governor of New Hampshire,
Speaker 5: Governor Christen You. It's good to see you, Governor, thanks
Speaker 5: for being here. Hearing that, does that change how you
Speaker 5: feel about Donald Trump and your plans to vote for him?
Speaker 8: Now? Look, I respect General Kelly. I think he's great,
Speaker 8: and he's got a long term relationship with the president.
Speaker 8: You know, when you get into these final weeks, it's.
Speaker 1: All about it's all about results.
Speaker 8: So of course you're going to get salacious things said
Speaker 8: and all that, and I'm not taking away the general's
Speaker 8: conversation with the former president. But at the end of
Speaker 8: the day, you just what that poll that your team
Speaker 8: is just looking at depends what independence, what results. They
Speaker 8: don't want that kind of ultraliberal extremism. They want to
Speaker 8: be told the truth. They want to get their cost
Speaker 8: of living down. That's where voters are going to go.
Speaker 8: So it's not just a Chris Sano thing or a
Speaker 8: General Kelly thing. If you're talking to the American voters
Speaker 8: out there.
Speaker 1: The American voters want fascism, so let's give it to them.
Speaker 1: Very brave, Kristin Unu. We should not have expected anything
Speaker 1: last from a Trump Sicka fan who could have not
Speaker 1: been that way. By the way, these people are not
Speaker 1: constitutionally mandated to go on CNN. If you can't defend
Speaker 1: the indefense ball, you don't need to go on television.
Speaker 1: Mary Trump is the host of The Mary Trump Show
Speaker 1: and the author of Who Could Have Or Love You?
Speaker 1: A family memoir? Hello Mary Trump, Hello Mulla jung Fest.
Speaker 1: I feel like, what's less than fumes?
Speaker 6: What is?
Speaker 1: What is two weeks to the election? It's actually thirteen days?
Speaker 1: Or are we twelve days when this drops?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, uh huh yes, so yes, what is less
Speaker 7: than fumes? I think it depends on your understanding about
Speaker 7: energy works, because I've heard it's a big amorphous thing.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I think less than fumes is existing in.
Speaker 9: An airless vacuum.
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like I am a NEPO baby.
Speaker 1: You may know this, and one of the things I
Speaker 1: truly hate is talking about my famous parent. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking about you, and my famous parent is not
Speaker 1: even that famous, nor is she that objectionable. And then
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, like, fucking poor Mary, she has
Speaker 1: to be related to this guy. I'm sorry. So I
Speaker 1: want you to know I'm sorry.
Speaker 7: Well I appreciate that, especially since like I'm not even
Speaker 7: an EPO baby, Like, I didn't get it from him.
Speaker 1: Now, if anything, you got less from it.
Speaker 9: He stole from me.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was thinking about this because I was reading
Speaker 1: something where he used to trust to pay his bills, right,
Speaker 1: and I was like, god, damn it. I was like,
Speaker 1: she didn't even get like, I have a nice ring,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 10: I'm sorry, No, It's just it's like the funniest thing
Speaker 10: that people say to me when they think they're being
Speaker 10: clever and cruel, is that it's despicable that I griffed
Speaker 10: off his name.
Speaker 9: I'm like, first of all, it's kind my name.
Speaker 1: Exactly e.
Speaker 9: Secondly, what exactly is the grift?
Speaker 7: I'm not selling anybody gold sneakers or non fundible tokens.
Speaker 1: You just have to do two seconds on, I need
Speaker 1: the kind of general's Hitler had. All right.
Speaker 7: I know all of us have been asking this question
Speaker 7: for years ago, almost a decade, but given everything that's
Speaker 7: happened just in the last two weeks in terms of.
Speaker 11: His obvious cognitive mind and the fact that it seems
Speaker 11: like some of the psychiatric disorders he's been walking around
Speaker 11: with for decades are reaching a.
Speaker 7: Point, a critical point, and the disinhibition.
Speaker 1: It's a really good point, the disinhibition.
Speaker 12: Sorry, go on, yeah, and just even less comprehensible, less
Speaker 12: aware of where he is or what is the appropriate
Speaker 12: context in which to be, you know, calling the sitting
Speaker 12: president a fat pig or the vice president shit.
Speaker 9: It's all unraveling.
Speaker 7: So my question has been, is there anything he can do,
Speaker 7: given basically losing his mind on stage for thirty nine
Speaker 7: minutes and doing it again for another twenty minutes, is
Speaker 7: there anything he can do that will cause the corporate
Speaker 7: media or the Republican Party to decide that it was disqualified.
Speaker 1: So far, the.
Speaker 9: Answer seems to be no.
Speaker 7: And we are literally living in a time when we
Speaker 7: have people who worked in his administration saying he's fascist
Speaker 7: to the core, and he adores and looks up to
Speaker 7: Adolf Hitler and wants his generals to be like Hitler's generals.
Speaker 9: You know, It's like when I saw the.
Speaker 7: Boat parade, Why that's the thing is beyond my comprehension.
Speaker 7: Down in Florida, a boat full of his supporters were
Speaker 7: flying swastika flags and from twenty twenty four flags, Like what.
Speaker 9: Are we doing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's funny because it's like the weird thing.
Speaker 1: And I always think of you when we talk about
Speaker 1: mental illness, because you've worked in the field of psychology
Speaker 1: and you really know what you're talking about as on
Speaker 1: another level too, because that's what you do. And what
Speaker 1: I'm struck by is it's almost as if the party
Speaker 1: that is going along with this is almost more crazy
Speaker 1: than the guy who's you know, just declining.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, actually they're worse because yes, you can say
Speaker 7: a lot of his so called followers and a lot
Speaker 7: of his sick offense within the party, there's something seriously
Speaker 7: wrong with them. But then you have the people like
Speaker 7: JD Vance or Mitch McConnell who are cynically taking advantage
Speaker 7: of the situation.
Speaker 9: And I don't want to give Donald the past.
Speaker 7: He's horrible human being Most people with serious mental illnesses
Speaker 7: are suffering from cognitive decline, aren't.
Speaker 9: He's all of those things right.
Speaker 7: But the people in the Republican Party.
Speaker 9: Know what's going on, and they have not once.
Speaker 7: Stepped up to put a stop to this at a time,
Speaker 7: and there have been many times actually when the leadership
Speaker 7: of the Republican Party actually could have stopped him, chose to.
Speaker 9: Go down this road.
Speaker 7: Here we are twelve days out from this election, and
Speaker 7: now it just seems like they just want to drag
Speaker 7: him across the finish line. So come January twentieth, twenty
Speaker 7: twenty five, we're going to have the triumvirate of JD Events,
Speaker 7: Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk running the country.
Speaker 1: That's sort of what I've been been sort of shocked
Speaker 1: by is Mitch McConnell could have said, vote to convict,
Speaker 1: then he can't run again. Then we'll reconnect, we'll figure
Speaker 1: it out, we'll you know, find a candidate who we
Speaker 1: think can win. And instead Mitch McConnell was like, no,
Speaker 1: it's too hard, Let's just let this fucking guy. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of an amazing place to be twelve days out.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't know anything. All we I know
Speaker 1: is that that Harris is running this very very ambitious
Speaker 1: campaign where she's going to swing states, and she's doing
Speaker 1: these town halls with Liz Cheney, which I actually think
Speaker 1: are really excellent. What do you think of them?
Speaker 9: I don't know. I'm of two minds.
Speaker 7: Honestly, I think it's necessary. I think that Harris has
Speaker 7: to be pulling out every single stop. It's not my
Speaker 7: favorite part of presidential campaigns, right.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, and my family has been long time
Speaker 1: no go on the Chenese.
Speaker 7: Right, But this is a different kind of election, like
Speaker 7: it's it's it makes sense this time around. But just
Speaker 7: to be clear, like Republicans never do that with Democrats,
Speaker 7: when Republicans never talk about what Democrats should be in
Speaker 7: the cabinet of the Republican president. I think there's a
Speaker 7: way to do it without pissing off the base. But
Speaker 7: I also understand that we have there are extreme circumstances here,
Speaker 7: and they do need to reach out to voters by
Speaker 7: utilizing people like Liz Cheney and Adamkinzinger and all the
Speaker 7: other Republicans who normally would not be people we would
Speaker 7: be hanging out with at rellies. It's the gratuitous stuff
Speaker 7: that matters, Like I'm not entirely sure why we need
Speaker 7: to talk about Dick Cheney at all or thank him
Speaker 7: for his service to America, right, because that I don't
Speaker 7: think that helps your case, Like that's not necessary to
Speaker 7: talk to Republican voters, and all that does is alienate Democrats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do think though, what is important
Speaker 1: is that this is not normal. This is not a
Speaker 1: normal election, and this is one of these moments where
Speaker 1: you may not like a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: she stands for, though she's very centrist. You need to
Speaker 1: do this because otherwise the other guy's nots Yep.
Speaker 7: This is the thing, Molly that definitely makes my brain
Speaker 7: short circuit.
Speaker 9: We could say this, Kala Harris.
Speaker 7: You may not agree in every single one of her positions,
Speaker 7: but Donald Trump is out of his mind, or Donald
Speaker 7: Trump is in serious cognitive decline. Or Donald Trump is
Speaker 7: a fascist, donald Trump is a trader, donald Trump is
Speaker 7: a convicted felon, Donald Trump is an adjudicated rapist. Any
Speaker 7: one of those things should be enough, yes, and yet
Speaker 7: all of them together are not enough to get us
Speaker 7: more than within the margin of error.
Speaker 9: What seriously is wrong with us.
Speaker 1: It's not good. It's not good. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get depressed because there's a lot of really interesting stuff
Speaker 1: happening right now. I mean, I think of like in Nebraska,
Speaker 1: you have the Senate candidate who is an independent who
Speaker 1: could win.
Speaker 9: Yeah, listen, I think there's a lot to be hopeful about.
Speaker 9: It just means that we can't forget.
Speaker 7: Where we are now after we win. We cannot do
Speaker 7: that anymore. There's so much work to be done, and
Speaker 7: I think that should incentivize people. Hey, the more power
Speaker 7: Democrats have, the larger margin, the more we can start
Speaker 7: doing the real work instead of continuing to fight that
Speaker 7: rearguard action against fascism, which is what we've been doing
Speaker 7: for eight years now.
Speaker 9: Even when we've.
Speaker 7: Been in power, we haven't been able to do as
Speaker 7: much as we might have otherwise because we're continuing to
Speaker 7: deal with the fact that Donald Trump is the leader
Speaker 7: the Republican Party and the Republican Party supports him one. So,
Speaker 7: you know, by by focusing on what we could do
Speaker 7: if that weren't the burden, that should motivate us.
Speaker 1: It's so true, and there are like things the government
Speaker 1: could do. I mean, I think about climate change, which
Speaker 1: is like this absolutely existential crisis heading our way at
Speaker 1: a faster clip than any of us had possibly dreamed,
Speaker 1: including you know, scientists for whom they had been worried
Speaker 1: about climate change that you know, they're shocked at how
Speaker 1: much worse it is, and we're just not addressing it
Speaker 1: because we're so busy with the terrifying spread of authoritarianism.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and you know, how do you focus on that
Speaker 7: message when everything else feels like.
Speaker 9: A crisis on a day to day basis.
Speaker 7: It's also like, climate change is honestly something that I
Speaker 7: can't pay attention to because it freaks me out so much. Yeah,
Speaker 7: but it's an issue that shockingly has not been at
Speaker 7: the forefront of our politics, and the fact that it
Speaker 7: actually the biggest issue is that it has been made political.
Speaker 7: And this is another instance in which the Republicans drive
Speaker 7: the narrative. Why do Democrats act like, Yeah, immigration is
Speaker 7: one of the two most important issues.
Speaker 9: What why give Republicans.
Speaker 7: That much power to shape how we talk about this
Speaker 7: country and the future of this country?
Speaker 9: And I feel like.
Speaker 7: That that's kind of one of the things that's happened
Speaker 7: with climate change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's for sure true and if anything has
Speaker 1: ever really shown the platebook for climate change, it's COVID. Right.
Speaker 1: I was sure when COVID came that Republicans would be like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is serious. People are dying, Our people are dying.
Speaker 1: We have to take this seriously. And instead it was like, no,
Speaker 1: now it was not real.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and actually I don't like giving Donald's credit for anything.
Speaker 7: Any other Republican who ran to be the nominee in
Speaker 7: twenty whatever it was sixteen would have handled COVID like
Speaker 7: any Democrat except Donald Ryan.
Speaker 1: No, it's true, it's so bad. It's so bad. I mean,
Speaker 1: we really are in the worst possible timeline.
Speaker 9: It feels that way.
Speaker 7: I mean, obviously we're not in terms of our day
Speaker 7: to day lives. People are getting put into caps yet
Speaker 7: and et cetera. However, we are time limited here by
Speaker 7: the as you put it, the existential crisis of climate change.
Speaker 9: We don't have.
Speaker 7: Time to turn this thing around if the worst case
Speaker 7: scenario happens on have ever fit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we absolutely don't. And in fact, that's where we
Speaker 1: are right now, right, is that there is a limited
Speaker 1: window for climate We are seeing it happen in front
Speaker 1: of us. And if Donald Trump gets back in office,
Speaker 1: we will have missed the window, which is fine if
Speaker 1: you don't want to live on Earth, but bad if
Speaker 1: you want to live on Earth.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm a I want to live.
Speaker 7: On birth person, right, So sat that MASI?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 9: Know, I don't know.
Speaker 7: Maybe maybe you know, Musk has convinced a lot of
Speaker 7: people that Mars will be an option.
Speaker 9: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the dunning Kirger effective. Actually right there.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable because I before Elon Musk got on the internet,
Speaker 1: I was like, this guy is amazing, you know, before
Speaker 1: he started tweeting, I was like he's really smart and
Speaker 1: these people and we're really And then now I'm like nope, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I was like nope.
Speaker 7: And it's just a perfect storm of heart horrible that
Speaker 7: the most powerful, richest, most privileged people who have the
Speaker 7: most access to our data are also the biggest fucking
Speaker 7: morons on the planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Not to put peop find a point on it.
Speaker 1: No, no, I think that's a very fair assessment as
Speaker 1: to where we are in this moment. And I might
Speaker 1: add just unbelievably depressing. I am impressed with Kelly coming out.
Speaker 1: I am impressed with these generals, you know, their whole careers,
Speaker 1: they're told never to be political, and they're told never
Speaker 1: to do this kind of thing. So I do understand
Speaker 1: what a big deal it is.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it is. But also I would suggest it is
Speaker 9: not political.
Speaker 1: Right, No, exactly. That's a really good point.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So, and also I think that the timing is good, yes, gone, no,
Speaker 7: just because it's not going to be one of those
Speaker 7: things that gets baked in, like we're constantly told, oh,
Speaker 7: Donald's is a rapist.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's baked. He lies all the time. Yeah, nobody cares,
Speaker 9: it's baked it. Well, hopefully the fascism Hitler thing will
Speaker 9: kind of like resonate a little bit.
Speaker 7: I don't know, I haven't seen it on the front
Speaker 7: page of the paper, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, and I think that as we're just
Speaker 1: talking about this, we are in a moment that hopefully
Speaker 1: will be the lowest moment and that from here will
Speaker 1: all be up.
Speaker 9: Well. The good news is that again, if we win
Speaker 9: Donald's seventy eight, he cannot just like because we're all mortal,
Speaker 9: you know.
Speaker 7: He cannot continue to be the center of the Republican universe.
Speaker 7: It just it's untenable simply by virtue of his age
Speaker 7: and what appears to be his declining health.
Speaker 9: I mean the fact that, I mean, I know what the.
Speaker 7: Excuse is, but the fact that he's not playing golf
Speaker 7: to me as a red flag. Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 7: an indication of what might just be going on.
Speaker 1: And the disinhibition in the things you were talking about before,
Speaker 1: where he's talking about Arnold Palmer's penis, Like, we didn't
Speaker 1: see that in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 9: We didn't see that in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it would be useful if more people
Speaker 7: kind of did the comparent contrast. You know, they did
Speaker 7: it by in twenty four hours a day. Why don't
Speaker 7: we do it with Donald Trump? Because the differences are
Speaker 7: even starker.
Speaker 9: And there's also a difference between.
Speaker 7: You know, getting a little old and rambly and slower
Speaker 7: and you know, starting to talk about rounding up millions
Speaker 7: of people and just having the most bizarre conversations about
Speaker 7: dead golfers and not knowing where you are for thirty
Speaker 7: nine minutes while you try to remember how to spell ymca.
Speaker 7: You know, it's clearly a much more dangerous kind of
Speaker 7: decline A neurologist said this, I wish I could remember
Speaker 7: who it was. Joe Biden is aging, Donald Trump is dementing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dementing is a really good word, and I think
Speaker 1: disinhibition is the watch word, you know, Mary Trump, Thank.
Speaker 9: You, Thanks Molly, this is great to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 1: episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly John
Speaker 1: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
Speaker 1: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 1: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back just like a broadcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
Speaker 1: to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 1: Ellie Reeve is a correspondent for CNN and the author
Speaker 1: of black Pill. Welcome to Fast Politics. Sally us.
Speaker 13: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I want you to talk first about Black Pill and
Speaker 1: the book you wrote, and a little bit about sort
Speaker 1: of what your thesis was and how you got there.
Speaker 13: So it's a flick us about how all of this
Speaker 13: Internet insanity that seems to a simbarole and unimportant became
Speaker 13: at the center of American politics. You know, I had
Speaker 13: this kind of epiphany on January sixth. I'm standing by
Speaker 13: the White House watching Groody Juliani said, we're gonna have
Speaker 13: trial by combat, and there's a guy in front of
Speaker 13: me in his fifties wearing a Pepe of the Frog shirt.
Speaker 13: And you know, it had been years of teenage internet
Speaker 13: fascist like tweeting pepees at me, and now it's on
Speaker 13: this guy and he doesn't even know where it came from.
Speaker 13: The name black Pill is this kind of it's a sensibility,
Speaker 13: it's a feeling, a vibe. It's a gleeful nihilism that
Speaker 13: everything around you is hopelessly corrupt and it's going to collapse,
Speaker 13: and you should hasten the collapse of society because what
Speaker 13: comes next will be better. And it's a take on
Speaker 13: Red Pill, which most people are familiar with, which it
Speaker 13: generally refers to taking on right wing ideas, sometimes white nationalists,
Speaker 13: sometimes just kind of pro Trump.
Speaker 1: So explain to us how that world became the Rudy
Speaker 1: Giuliani on January sixth world.
Speaker 13: Yeah, it was a slow and steady process. So it
Speaker 13: begins with this guy, Frederick Brennan, who has a teenager
Speaker 13: Oh I know.
Speaker 1: Him, Yeah, he yes, our listeners won't know who he is,
Speaker 1: so explain who he is.
Speaker 13: So in twenty thirteen, he is a brilliant but very
Speaker 13: angry young man. He's nineteen. He has brittle bone disease
Speaker 13: that makes him about three feet tall, and he's very fragile.
Speaker 13: His broad's break really easily, and he's had a really
Speaker 13: rough life. Okay, he has a reason to be angry,
Speaker 13: but that's taken him into the world of in cells,
Speaker 13: which they believe that some men are so ugly or
Speaker 13: unlovable that no woman will ever have a relationship with them,
Speaker 13: and they become really embittered. And this might seem silly,
Speaker 13: but it's produced multiple mass shooters.
Speaker 1: Right right, No, it's the in cell culture, right.
Speaker 13: Yes, though he created a takeoff from four chan called
Speaker 13: eight chan that would be ultimate free speech. The only
Speaker 13: thing that would not be allowed would be what's illegal
Speaker 13: in the United States. And he had this idea that
Speaker 13: this would bring about, you know, this frothy marketplace of
Speaker 13: ideas with great ideas rising to the top. But no,
Speaker 13: only the worst ideas became dominant, and that was white supremacist,
Speaker 13: great replacement, that kind of stuff. And then it became
Speaker 13: the home of q andon. Qnon was actually kicked off
Speaker 13: for Chan, and once it became the platform for qnon,
Speaker 13: it becomes a destination for baby boomers who are obsessed
Speaker 13: with this conspiracy theory. But it also is a place
Speaker 13: for other bad actors to target those boomers and try
Speaker 13: to accept them with other more radical ideas like white nationalism.
Speaker 13: And it's on that message board that QAnon takes off
Speaker 13: into this like quasi religious movement that fuels to stop
Speaker 13: the steal movement.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what happens next, hm, q Andon,
Speaker 1: we end up in QAnon Ultimately sort of they lose
Speaker 1: interest in right and keep going with that. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about where QAnon goes.
Speaker 13: Qnon kind of fades away in part because of what
Speaker 13: these grand predictions don't come true. Is not an apocalyptic
Speaker 13: woman On June six, where Trump stays in office. There's
Speaker 13: a series of other events where Trump's supposed to step
Speaker 13: in again and it doesn't happen again. Further, the people
Speaker 13: who own the site that came after Hm e Kun,
Speaker 13: essentially through some mistakes in the way they authenticated QAnon posts,
Speaker 13: they reveal that the owner, Jim Watkins, fundamentally just controls QAnon,
Speaker 13: and so that strips away the illusion that the person
Speaker 13: q who has been posting is this like godlike person
Speaker 13: deep within the government with a high level security clearance.
Speaker 13: But that stuff's not necessary anymore. There's it's all like
Speaker 13: cult a personality around from a President Trump. Further, it
Speaker 13: doesn't need to be anonymous anymore. There are plenty people
Speaker 13: who are willing to say this with their real names
Speaker 13: and their real faces on Twitter and elsewhere. Ideas that
Speaker 13: were only on the margins that you could only say
Speaker 13: hidden behind Pepe avatar.
Speaker 1: Right now, Donald Trump says them out loud. So you
Speaker 1: don't need it.
Speaker 13: Donald Trump says them. Tucker Carlson says it. Elon of
Speaker 13: Musk get least interacts with it.
Speaker 1: Is that sort of the thread of how January sixth happened?
Speaker 1: And is it sort of what the political movement of
Speaker 1: trump Ism is now.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 13: So I saw this play out twice Charlotte'svilla January sixth,
Speaker 13: where people who'd gotten pulled into this world. You know,
Speaker 13: I went into their chat rooms where they thought they
Speaker 13: were only talking to themselves. People pulled it into this world.
Speaker 13: They're posting the same propaganda and comments and memes over
Speaker 13: and over and over and over, and they feel like
Speaker 13: they have mass momentum. They feel like they're getting stronger.
Speaker 13: They feel like they're finally meeting their real friends who
Speaker 13: really get it. Really they don't actually know each other,
Speaker 13: and it builds and builds and builds towards this giant
Speaker 13: in person event where they all get to see each
Speaker 13: other people they've only known online, and there's supposed to
Speaker 13: be some confrontation with the left, and that's how they
Speaker 13: prepare themselves for violence. They talk about how they'll have
Speaker 13: to do, what kind of self defense they'll have to
Speaker 13: do to defend themselves from the depraved leftists. You know,
Speaker 13: even if on January sixth, no leftists show up, you know,
Speaker 13: they're end up battling police, not anti Ema. So that
Speaker 13: energy happened twice. Now these days, the alt right, the
Speaker 13: people behind Charlotte'sville. They're hosting these like hours long podcasts
Speaker 13: where they're asking themselves, why weren't we the ones? Why
Speaker 13: weren't we the guys behind Trump? We are the ones
Speaker 13: who would have defended American civilization instead of what the
Speaker 13: alt right sees is, you know, the magatypes like your
Speaker 13: Tim Pools, they were called the alt light for a while.
Speaker 13: They see those people as not as smart, not as effective.
Speaker 13: But I think the lesson that many on the fire
Speaker 13: right learn from Charlottesville is you can't go full Loancy
Speaker 13: if you go on Hitler, Hiland, Swasika waiting, Like Americans
Speaker 13: think that's weird. Even Americans who might have a little
Speaker 13: bit of racial bias, you know, like they still think
Speaker 13: that's weird. But if you do a lot of those
Speaker 13: same authoritarian ideas behind the American flag, a lot more
Speaker 13: people will sign up for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's talk about what you're seeing right now
Speaker 1: on the ground. You're talking to voters. Where are you
Speaker 1: talking to voters and what is it looking like.
Speaker 13: I've been talking to voters a lot in Georgia lately.
Speaker 13: I went to the most pro Trump county in a
Speaker 13: swing state, and that was in Georgia, Brandley County, it's
Speaker 13: in the southeast part of the state. And then I
Speaker 13: just came back from Clayton County, which is south of Atlanta.
Speaker 13: It was the most pro Biden county in twenty twenty.
Speaker 13: So Brandley County went for Trump by more than ninety percent,
Speaker 13: Clayton County went for Biden by more than eighty percent.
Speaker 13: The Trump people that I talked to, there's like this
Speaker 13: idea in the media of people think Trump is a jerk,
Speaker 13: but he's their jerk. He's fighting for them on their behalf. Like,
Speaker 13: I don't meet people who say that. The people I
Speaker 13: meet think he is a good man, that he hears
Speaker 13: about them. They don't see any cynicism at all. I
Speaker 13: mean this, one woman showed me sort of picture that
Speaker 13: she'd had me like a it looks like a painting,
Speaker 13: but it's a print and it's Trump next to Jesus
Speaker 13: walking on water. So yeah, I meet a lot of
Speaker 13: people like that. I did in Branley County meet two
Speaker 13: old guys who thought Trump was despicable. They called him
Speaker 13: by American.
Speaker 1: Wow, were you shocked?
Speaker 3: It was?
Speaker 13: Because you know, often in the South it breaks down
Speaker 13: by race, like very sharply, especially outside of the cities
Speaker 13: in the inner suburbs. These are all white guys. You know,
Speaker 13: everything about them would be coded conservative, what they wear
Speaker 13: or how they talked, their whole vibe. But this one
Speaker 13: told me he thought Trump was anti American, that he
Speaker 13: was trying to overthrow the government. Another said Trump should
Speaker 13: have done something to stop the police or being beaten
Speaker 13: and that Harris was the only option to vote for.
Speaker 1: Oh, so they're going to vote for Harris.
Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah, these two guys.
Speaker 1: Wow, were you shocked?
Speaker 9: I was.
Speaker 13: I mean, you know, you look at the numbers. Those
Speaker 13: ten percent have to come somewhere, But generally you see
Speaker 13: it as just breaking down, just like all white were
Speaker 13: Trump and all black volks for Harris, like in the
Speaker 13: Deep South, in the Deep South. But this wasn't that,
Speaker 13: and they weren't afraid to say it. We were at
Speaker 13: a table with a bunch of Trump supporters that they
Speaker 13: all knew, they're all friends, they all joked with each other,
Speaker 13: but they weren't afraid to say it.
Speaker 1: So what did you see in the pro Biden County?
Speaker 13: Well, I saw a lot of people who are on
Speaker 13: the fields because there had been so much money with
Speaker 13: the COVID stimulus.
Speaker 1: And they gave Trump credit for signing the checks, right, Yeah.
Speaker 13: And they never before, like I'd never heard someone really
Speaker 13: explain it to me, like twelve hundred dollars, you know,
Speaker 13: how is that really that much? But what they talked
Speaker 13: about was there was also the unemployment insurance. There was
Speaker 13: a lot of more money in the economy and people
Speaker 13: who didn't have a lot of money. This one spam
Speaker 13: business owner was telling me that people were in the
Speaker 13: area were afraid that the government would claw back that
Speaker 13: stimulus check and so they cashed it right away and
Speaker 13: they would just walk around with all the money in
Speaker 13: their pocket and spend it. So this guy owned a
Speaker 13: pet store and he was just like raking in the money.
Speaker 1: When Trump was in office, right.
Speaker 13: And then once inflation hit and then people had less money,
Speaker 13: that stimulus went away. You know, he's making less money,
Speaker 13: and he says he's paying more taxes on it. So
Speaker 13: I met six or seven black men sort of who
Speaker 13: were self employed. They didn't like Trump, but they missed
Speaker 13: the money that they associated with his administration.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 13: I mean I was surprise. Yeah, no, I've heard that,
Speaker 13: I've seen it in polls. I just hadn't talked to
Speaker 13: anyone like that. I also met a woman who like misinformation,
Speaker 13: Like she was just kind of spoke to the power
Speaker 13: of misinformation. She like, she said she would get tons
Speaker 13: and tons of mailers from campaigns and then she'd go
Speaker 13: and she'd research it. But from what she said, I'm
Speaker 13: not sure she got the very best sources from her research,
Speaker 13: Like she would search Twitter, that kind of thing, and
Speaker 13: you know, at the end of it, she said she
Speaker 13: was on the fence and that she believed that if
Speaker 13: aliens came, Trump would not hide it from the American
Speaker 13: people because he wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut,
Speaker 13: and that was something she liked about him.
Speaker 1: Oh good, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So
Speaker 1: did that leave you feeling optimistic?
Speaker 13: Well, one, misinformation is really powerful to a lot of people.
Speaker 13: Do not have faith in our institutions. I know, we
Speaker 13: know that, but then when you hear it from someone,
Speaker 13: it just hits a lot harder. When you hear from
Speaker 13: someone who's not paid to read the news and talk
Speaker 13: about politics, it hits a lot harder. And I and
Speaker 13: then a lot of people who said it was the
Speaker 13: lesser of two evils, or that I met I met
Speaker 13: a guy who didn't even want to vote.
Speaker 1: Right, had he voted in the last election, He didn't say.
Speaker 13: He said that he sometimes voted. He said he voted
Speaker 13: in local elections and that mattered a lot more, but
Speaker 13: on the national level it never. Basically they didn't feel
Speaker 13: listened to, that they're what they wanted didn't really matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just am a little bit baffled by that.
Speaker 1: But so, sort of where do you think we are
Speaker 1: now with this kind of far right world of this
Speaker 1: is really now the politics that informs Donald Trump? Any
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. So since you've sort of studied this culture,
Speaker 1: what would the sort of next step be Where do
Speaker 1: you think this goes?
Speaker 13: Well, it depends on it are elected. But yeah, I
Speaker 13: do think that is the most interesting part going forward
Speaker 13: to me is how radicalized the Republican elites are, you
Speaker 13: know JD.
Speaker 9: Vans.
Speaker 13: I tend to think people believe what they say. You know,
Speaker 13: there's this kind of this idea for a while that
Speaker 13: people were just ironic racist, or they were just you know,
Speaker 13: cynically saying provocative things to get attention. I don't really
Speaker 13: believe that. I believe that people generally generally believe what
Speaker 13: they say, you know so JD. Vans was a lot
Speaker 13: of these podcasts talking about something I've heard from other
Speaker 13: pretty far right influencers, this idea of seizing institutions of
Speaker 13: the left and a kind of like new velo McCarthyism
Speaker 13: where you route out you know, wokeness from the universities
Speaker 13: and other institutions, the cat lady stuff. I mean, like
Speaker 13: pepe avatars used to tweet that at me all the time.
Speaker 13: It's like astounding to hear it from like a mainstream
Speaker 13: a senator. And I went back and watched a lot of
Speaker 13: his old high cast and Advance talked about having read
Speaker 13: a book by Pat Buchanan called Death of the West
Speaker 13: when he was a teenager and how it was very influential. Hell,
Speaker 13: and you know, Pat Buchanan was so fringe for a
Speaker 13: long time that he was kind of a choke. I mean,
Speaker 13: he was on Rachel Nas show a lot, right like
Speaker 13: he wasn't a threat, but his ideas have taken hold.
Speaker 9: Party.
Speaker 1: Jadie Vance seems strikes me as a person who says
Speaker 1: a lot of shit. He doesn't mean, he's quite smart.
Speaker 1: He knows where this is going, right, He's gotten on
Speaker 1: the Trump train. He wasn't on the Trump train as
Speaker 1: little as three years ago. So either he's completely changed
Speaker 1: everything he believes in three years is certainly possible, he's
Speaker 1: changed his name like five times, or he's just doing
Speaker 1: this to get elected. Either way, I mean, it would
Speaker 1: mean that both people on the ticket don't believe anything
Speaker 1: they're saying, which is certainly possible.
Speaker 9: But do you.
Speaker 1: Think that's what it is? Like? Do you think he
Speaker 1: really believes the stuff he's saying, and that, like going
Speaker 1: with Trump, has emboldened him. It strikes me that the
Speaker 1: stuff he was saying three years ago did not show
Speaker 1: a lot of Pappy pan in it.
Speaker 13: That's true, it didn't, But when you look at how
Speaker 13: he explains those positions now, it's really interesting. He has
Speaker 13: a lot of angerness and bitterness towards the elite culture
Speaker 13: that he clawed his way into from Ohio, and that
Speaker 13: feeling is not completely alien to me. I am also,
Speaker 13: I'm roughly his age. I was two states away in
Speaker 13: small town Tennessee in high school. You know, there's this
Speaker 13: photo of him, but I almost like reco like his clothes,
Speaker 13: what he's wearing. It's like I know him without knowing him,
Speaker 13: and I do understand what it's like to think there's
Speaker 13: something better on the East Coast and you work and
Speaker 13: work and work to get there, and it's not quite
Speaker 13: what you thought it would be. And he speaks with
Speaker 13: great bitterness about the careerism of the people he met
Speaker 13: at you know, and this is also something Peter Teal
Speaker 13: has talked about a lot, that people are working so
Speaker 13: hard to secure positions that are very prestigious, but that
Speaker 13: make them miserable, and that seems to be how he's
Speaker 13: explained his position to himself, and he said he also
Speaker 13: says that like, oh, I saw the passport where I
Speaker 13: could have made a lot of money telling everybody that
Speaker 13: the people where I came from are just racist idiots,
Speaker 13: and I don't think that that's actually true.
Speaker 1: He did make quite a lot of money. Ellie, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 13: Oh yeah, it was great talking to.
Speaker 2: You now Momentecly Jesse Cannon, Saba junk fest Elon. Every
Speaker 2: right winger on Twitter and Trump love to do this,
Speaker 2: especially oh yeah, I forgot Speak of the House, Mike Johnson.
Speaker 2: They love to push that it's going to be all
Speaker 2: immigrants voting in the election, so they could try to
Speaker 2: say it was stolen. Georgia's secretary of state might have
Speaker 2: a word with them. What are you seeing here, Well.
Speaker 1: Georgia has a Republican Secretary of State, Brad Ravensburg. It
Speaker 1: has a Republican governor, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and they discussed.
Speaker 1: They have announced that they prevented non citizen voting by
Speaker 1: taking twenty people off the state's voter rolls. You know
Speaker 1: how many people are on the state's voter rolls, eight
Speaker 1: point two million, and only nine of those twenty non
Speaker 1: citizens have ever cast a valid So there are only
Speaker 1: twenty non citizens on the voter rolls of eight point
Speaker 1: two million in the state of Georgia. And that is
Speaker 1: our moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday
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Speaker 1: all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send
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Speaker 1: for listening.