Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie john Fast and this is Fast Politics. Well,
Speaker 1: we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's
Speaker 1: best minds, and.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has said people won't have to vote again
Speaker 2: in four years if he's elected. We have such a
Speaker 2: great show for you today for Mayor Michael Tubbs stops
Speaker 2: by to talk to us about his run for a
Speaker 2: lieutenant governor of California. Then we'll talk to the Shadow
Speaker 2: Docket author Steven Vladick. We'll tell us about the further
Speaker 2: erosion of trust in the Supreme Court. But first we
Speaker 2: have the host of the Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project Zone,
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: Mollie john Fast, can.
Speaker 1: You explain the JD Van's couch sex thing?
Speaker 3: So, first off, I want to start out with two
Speaker 3: basic rules of politics. Rule Number one is, as everyone's
Speaker 3: probably heard this rule, if you're explaining, you're losing. And
Speaker 3: the second rule harks back to Lyndon Baines Johnson in
Speaker 3: one of his first congressional races, where he one time
Speaker 3: leaned over to somebody at an event and he goes,
Speaker 3: you know, my opponent as fuck pig, and they're like what.
Speaker 3: And they get in the car after this event and
Speaker 3: his campaign manager goes, lind and you can't say that
Speaker 3: he fucked a pig. You don't know he fucked a pig.
Speaker 3: And then he goes, I don't think he did fuck
Speaker 3: a pig, but I want to see him deny it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: That is where Advance is right now. And here's why
Speaker 3: this story is funny because JD. Vance. I have no
Speaker 3: knowledge or evidence the Jdvans fucked a couch, but I
Speaker 3: look at JD. Vance and I think a lot of
Speaker 3: other Americans do too and go, that's a guy that
Speaker 3: could fuck a couch. He's just fucking weird. Okay, that's
Speaker 3: why it took off. Because he's a weirdo, because he's strange.
Speaker 3: And look, you add on top of the unbelievable shit
Speaker 3: he says about women and all that stuff is just
Speaker 3: rolling out. Every day there's some new piece of video
Speaker 3: or whatever, and you realize two big things. One, this
Speaker 3: motherfucker is out of touch in a profound, fundamental way
Speaker 3: with what has happened in this country. Sends his boss
Speaker 3: stack the court in overturned Row and the Dobbs decision.
Speaker 3: And the second thing that he's so out of touch
Speaker 3: about and this is the one that truly gets me.
Speaker 3: He's obsessed about this sort of white replacement myth. Bullshit,
Speaker 3: we have to breed our way out of our problem. So,
Speaker 3: you know, people who don't have children should pay more
Speaker 3: in taxes, people who have more and children shouldn't have
Speaker 3: the same rights to have their voices heard in the
Speaker 3: political process as people with children. It's a longer discussion
Speaker 3: than this call. There's this entire new right philosophical orientation
Speaker 3: about again, it all stems from this like white racial
Speaker 3: replacement theory panic. But here's my point, JD. Vance is
Speaker 3: a choice that was made, and the buyer's regret you're
Speaker 3: hearing about Jade Vance is because it was a choice
Speaker 3: that was made when the Trump campaign was ride and high,
Speaker 3: when they thought their world was a crisp, clean, nothing
Speaker 3: but net play right to the White House. Okay, they
Speaker 3: really thought they had it in the bag, and it
Speaker 3: turns out they didn't. It turns out at the minute
Speaker 3: you took Joe Biden out of the equation, the entire
Speaker 3: predicate of the Trump campaign turned into garbage. And so
Speaker 3: their panic right now is coming in three forms. One JD.
Speaker 3: Vance Is. I mean, there are actively people talking about
Speaker 3: replacing him now. Now I don't think it's likely.
Speaker 1: How would that even work? I mean, can you even
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 3: Who knows? I mean, is it possible. I suppose it's possible.
Speaker 3: But this is like Tara incognitive for us. Right, the
Speaker 3: last time a VP candidate was replacing a hot swap
Speaker 3: was Musky and it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: Wait, who's Musky?
Speaker 3: Edwin Muski? And in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: Two, wait, why was he replace.
Speaker 3: He was replaced because Muski went out and admitted he'd
Speaker 3: had electroshock therapy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that'll do it.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing they're talking about replacing Vans. They're nervous now.
Speaker 3: Trump is out like swinging at every pitch that's out there.
Speaker 3: None of this feels right to them. They're all in
Speaker 3: a bad spot. And Trump is now making phone calls
Speaker 3: it and he's calling Kelly Anne, He's calling Sean Hannity,
Speaker 3: Chris Ruddy, Corny Lewandowski, all these dipshits. Right, He's on
Speaker 3: the phone at night now and he's like, do you
Speaker 3: think Christis is your due to good job?
Speaker 1: Right? He's starting to doubt the whole thing.
Speaker 4: Uh, huh.
Speaker 3: You know who else is back? Who else is circling
Speaker 3: now like a shark jeering. These guys are in a
Speaker 3: world of shit and they don't even know it yet,
Speaker 3: and it is absolutely glorious. I'm eating this up with
Speaker 3: a giant spoon right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, what I think is interesting about this
Speaker 1: is like, the message here is don't let Don Junior
Speaker 1: a pick.
Speaker 3: You're of VP right and a bunch of techno brologarcs right,
Speaker 3: which by the way, I didn't make that word up,
Speaker 3: but I fucking wish I had. God damn, it's a.
Speaker 1: Good So Trump was shot. Terrible. Violence is never good. Terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible moment. Right afterwards, a lot of these right wingers
Speaker 1: who had wanted to say Trump came out. So you
Speaker 1: had the All In podcast bros are part of the
Speaker 1: PayPal mafia, and you had a couple of other people
Speaker 1: like Bill Ackman. You had all those tech bros come
Speaker 1: out and Mark Andreasen and they were all like, this
Speaker 1: is it. We're going full in on tech oligarchy. We
Speaker 1: are going to destroy the country because we hate freedom and.
Speaker 3: Women, because we're butt hurt about women wanting the vote
Speaker 3: or whatever the whatever. Their bit is. I mean, here's
Speaker 3: the thing, you know, and this is another part of
Speaker 3: it that Jade Vance is. Another reason he's a weirdo.
Speaker 3: Is there's this whole like neo monarchist movement in the
Speaker 3: tech bro world, that whole like Curtis, Jarvin, jd Vance,
Speaker 3: Peter Thiel. They all believe that democracy is a thing
Speaker 3: of the past and it makes America week and so
Speaker 3: they want to replace it with some other kind of
Speaker 3: neo feudalism of some kind. So look, they know, they
Speaker 3: know they screwed up. They never been messed up with things.
Speaker 3: They know they know he's not working out. They're very
Speaker 3: nervous about it.
Speaker 1: And he wrote the introduction for Kevin Roberts Foundation right
Speaker 1: his book. So if you're wondering if jd Vance has
Speaker 1: anything to do with Project twenty twenty five, check out
Speaker 1: the introduction of Kevin Roberts book.
Speaker 3: And also and also by the way, I mean, I
Speaker 3: want to say this to look back on the couch story. Again,
Speaker 3: we don't have any evidence jd. Vans fucked a couch.
Speaker 3: We really don't. There's no evidence of it. His propensity
Speaker 3: to flip over on his tummy end.
Speaker 1: A writer, but Molly but Molly, the.
Speaker 3: Most important news story is not the couch. The most
Speaker 3: important news story is the dolphin porn.
Speaker 4: All right, out of you.
Speaker 1: I feel like I opened the door.
Speaker 3: You did, and you fucking did everything. I'm like a vampire.
Speaker 3: May I come in the house? Say no, sinny.
Speaker 1: Woman, I should have said now, that's that's that sort
Speaker 1: is my T shirt's going to say, I just threw.
Speaker 3: A quote from Lost Boys and I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's all right, I'll be okay. So let's
Speaker 1: just talk about these polls. She is now catching up
Speaker 1: with him in the polls. In the swings day polls,
Speaker 1: she is already two points ahead in a national poll.
Speaker 1: As we know the way the electoral college works, she's
Speaker 1: got to be more than two points ahead for her
Speaker 1: to win the presidency because the electoral college is really
Speaker 1: helps Republicans. So explain to us. You are a campaign guy.
Speaker 1: I know you're working on a lot of campaigns right now,
Speaker 1: Explain to us how you do this. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: gen O'Malley Dylan, what do you do right?
Speaker 3: If you're jene o' melli Dillon, you have a bigger
Speaker 3: map than you had last week. Okay, you have a
Speaker 3: better map than you had last week.
Speaker 1: Because she has a lot more upside than Biden.
Speaker 3: She is a lot more upside. And one of the
Speaker 3: things that was deeply concerning in Biden world was that
Speaker 3: there was a sense that there was a lack of
Speaker 3: enthusiasm for the ticket that is now one hundred percent
Speaker 3: turned on its head. Now you've got enthusiasm for the
Speaker 3: ticket across the board. You have money flowing in at
Speaker 3: a rate that no one could have imagined it would
Speaker 3: flow in, and you have a world that looks a
Speaker 3: lot better and a lot more productive as a candidate.
Speaker 3: So she can go into places now like Georgia and
Speaker 3: North Carolina and Nevada. And look, you got to pull
Speaker 3: out of Michigan today with Trump with black voters at
Speaker 3: zero zero zero buck Kiss, Now, look, I may have
Speaker 3: been a philosophy major, but the last time I checked,
Speaker 3: and pulling zero is a bad place.
Speaker 1: I mean the other thing. And again, I don't want
Speaker 1: to speak badly of Biden, because I felt that this
Speaker 1: needed to happen organically and that the party needed to
Speaker 1: get there, and the three weeks between the debate and
Speaker 1: when he dropped out really gave them the moment to
Speaker 1: do it and his hand off to the vice as
Speaker 1: an end has been incredible, and it's just been a
Speaker 1: kind of brilliantly done and whether intentional or not intentional,
Speaker 1: it's been really better than could be scripted. So here's
Speaker 1: the question for you. Now that she is the nominee,
Speaker 1: she really can campaign in a way. He did not
Speaker 1: have the energy to discuss that.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. In fact, she can also campaign in
Speaker 3: a way Donald Trump doesn't have the energy. Yes, let's
Speaker 3: be real here, Molly. Donald Trump likes his leisure. Donald
Speaker 3: Trump likes to sit his his rotund ass in a
Speaker 3: golf cart for at least twelve hours a day. This
Speaker 3: is not a man who is dedicated, shall we say,
Speaker 3: to fitness and effort. I think she'll run Trump ragged.
Speaker 3: I think she'll run him ragged. This is a guy
Speaker 3: who he doesn't want to do this. He doesn't like
Speaker 3: any of this stuff, you know, especially now that he's saying,
Speaker 3: I can't do the rallies anymore.
Speaker 1: Right, we can't do the outdoor rallies right because of
Speaker 1: the Secret Service. And he can't do the indoor rallies
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to pay for it, right, because
Speaker 1: that's money that could go to legal bills.
Speaker 3: He liked going to like a state fair ground where
Speaker 3: the grounds fee was twenty five hundred bucks as opposed
Speaker 3: to an auditorium where it's one hundred grand or seventy
Speaker 3: five grand or whatever whatever the number is. Right. He
Speaker 3: hates the idea he has to go out and like
Speaker 3: spend money or take time to do things. You know,
Speaker 3: none of this is difficult to explain. Trump is cheap.
Speaker 3: He's lazy, and being cheap and lazy in a campaign
Speaker 3: are you can be one or the other, but you
Speaker 3: can't be both. And I think Harris is going to
Speaker 3: go out. I think she's just going to exhaust him.
Speaker 3: And especially because today, you know, you see Trump now
Speaker 3: walking back on doing a debate. You see Trump pretending
Speaker 3: that he's not going to do the debate because bruck
Speaker 3: HUSINU to Obama.
Speaker 1: I love that he got Hussein out of there, like
Speaker 1: you know he's.
Speaker 3: I said to Stephen Chunk, I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: calling hi Hussein and three dollars and sixty five cents
Speaker 3: gets you up? Can spice latte?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You know that's just not an effective attack anymore.
Speaker 1: For any number of reasons, Yes, for so many reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but at the end of the day moment, I
Speaker 3: think we're going to be in a position where the
Speaker 3: polls are going to continue to shift away from Trump.
Speaker 3: And look as I also, you know, I'm a realist,
Speaker 3: you know me. I'm always willing to watch watch my
Speaker 3: friends of the Democratic Party do what they do and
Speaker 3: fuck it up. Please don't. But here's the part that
Speaker 3: I think is impressive. She has this cultural connection to
Speaker 3: gen Z. And as much as Republicans always said liberal
Speaker 3: holy would they would cut off their arms to get
Speaker 3: somebody better than Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan and Lee Greenwood
Speaker 3: on their celebrity team. Yeah, they would kill their mothers
Speaker 3: to do something with people who weren't fifth tier, quasi
Speaker 3: ex celebrities. And none of those things are going to change.
Speaker 3: So her connection to the culture is very strong. That
Speaker 3: counts for a lot. It's going to turn up younger voters,
Speaker 3: going to turn up gen Z. All of that really
Speaker 3: matters here. It really it will have a real, meaningful,
Speaker 3: measurable impact African American voters, Indian American voters, Pacific and
Speaker 3: Asian voters. They are all looking at her as someone
Speaker 3: who is breaking a barrier, who is representative of them,
Speaker 3: and in a weird way. I mean, Hillary was going
Speaker 3: to break the glass sealing, et cetera. But this has
Speaker 3: a kind of strangely broader appeal to more Americans who
Speaker 3: aren't just like sort of the more elite East coast
Speaker 3: of CELA Corridor influencers, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I also think that Hillary had a And again I'm
Speaker 1: not going to malign Hillary.
Speaker 3: No, no, I mean that just clinically, honestly, no.
Speaker 1: But she had the Clinton baggage. Oh and Harris does
Speaker 1: not have that. She was da, she was ag she
Speaker 1: was the second female black senator ever, she was vice
Speaker 1: president and Clinton really was senator and then she was
Speaker 1: secretaries date. Harris is a totally different kind of candidate,
Speaker 1: has had a totally different history. One of the things
Speaker 1: we saw with Clinton was that Trump World used Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton's problems with women to tar Hillary. And whether or
Speaker 1: not it worked, you know, his goal was to flood
Speaker 1: the zone with shit, right, just as we've heard from
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon. Hey, rip, where is Steve Bannon?
Speaker 3: Steve Bannon is currently in the punishment block of the
Speaker 3: Federal Correctional Institution at Danbury, Connecticut. He is there because
Speaker 3: they he's not allowed to receive tentacal porn in that prison,
Speaker 3: and yet somebody keeps sending him tentacle porn. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Just talk me through the down ballot races now, I mean,
Speaker 1: how does this change the calculus for down ballot races?
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, Molly, I think there will be a change
Speaker 3: in some of the down ballot stuff. It's going to
Speaker 3: take another week for it to what I call, you know,
Speaker 3: what we call sugaring out. It's gonna settle down a
Speaker 3: little more. But here's the thing. There's been a drop
Speaker 3: off in maga enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: Right Are they gonna be okay?
Speaker 3: I hope not.
Speaker 1: Will someone check on Frank Lattz.
Speaker 3: Oh, fuck Jesus Christ, all the folks in the maga
Speaker 3: world right now, who really, really, really really really thought
Speaker 3: everything was in the bag. Even before Joe Biden had
Speaker 3: the terrible debate from Hell, Republican statewide candidates were running
Speaker 3: behind the Democrats in almost every one of the swing states,
Speaker 3: and there was a little bit of head scratching in
Speaker 3: McConnell world, like what, I don't hog quality funding their
Speaker 3: own campaigns to overcome the fact that Donald Trump's reputation
Speaker 3: stinks like shit when you.
Speaker 1: Pick people for money, you know, the whole idea that
Speaker 1: they write.
Speaker 3: We've got a Democratic field that was already pulling between
Speaker 3: three and seven points ahead depending on the state of
Speaker 3: the candidates, of the of the of the state wide
Speaker 3: type candidates. You've got a bunch of Republicans who are trumpelike, knockoffs, boring,
Speaker 3: not particularly great at the work, and those folks are
Speaker 3: It's not over. I don't want to I don't want
Speaker 3: to over overstate the case, but they should have been
Speaker 3: in a much better position. And now that Biden is out,
Speaker 3: they're going to be looking at at the drop offs
Speaker 3: in some of these demographic groups they had hope to win.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you pro choice Republican women, which are
Speaker 3: a thing as you and I've talked about many, many times.
Speaker 3: They're now like they've got somebody that's like, Okay, she's
Speaker 3: fucking around. I can trust her. You know, because if
Speaker 3: Dave McCormick goes to pro choice Republican women and says
Speaker 3: I'll take care of it, don't worry about me, He'll
Speaker 3: do it in a whisper at best, he can't actually
Speaker 3: do it, and So the secret of all this is
Speaker 3: going to be that the demographic co works they need
Speaker 3: to win are going to start being either looser around
Speaker 3: Trump or actually moving to Harris. Either one is a
Speaker 3: bad scenario because as we've seen their fault, they're all
Speaker 3: pacing behind Donald Trump. Well, that a good news. That
Speaker 3: is a very difficult situation for them to find themselves in.
Speaker 3: In fact, I heard this on Sunday Nights last week
Speaker 3: that Trump was angry that he had picked up from
Speaker 3: a candidate, a statewide candidate, that McConnell's people are telling us,
Speaker 3: you know, if Trump goes crazy, we may have to
Speaker 3: back away from him.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 3: He was not happy. I guess what they will. And
Speaker 3: then he'll get mad, and then his people will say
Speaker 3: they're protruding, true, and they won't come out. I mean
Speaker 3: down Bau a drop off. It's many a slip between
Speaker 3: the cup and the lip. And we have a long, long, long, long, long, long,
Speaker 3: long long long way to go. But there's a chance
Speaker 3: here that Trump's instability and insanity combined with a competent
Speaker 3: Harris campaign, which we will have a competent Harris campaign,
Speaker 3: there's a real possibility that we run the table and
Speaker 3: actually get the Senate back. These guys are in deep
Speaker 3: trouble right now.
Speaker 1: Well, and they also have really, really shitty Senate candidates.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just picked rich guys that they thought
Speaker 1: would somehow so that Trump could spend the money on
Speaker 1: legal will. Elon Musk abandoned Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: He already has. Look the only thing that mattered from
Speaker 3: Elon was the promise of forty five million dollars a month.
Speaker 3: And right now Elon's probably should prepare himself for all
Speaker 3: the MAGA voters who suddenly became like Tesla fans to
Speaker 3: burn their vehicles in the street. You know, he could
Speaker 3: say woke mindvirus all he wants at this point, but
Speaker 3: it will be perceived correctly that he renemned on a
Speaker 3: promise to Donald Trump. They won't like it.
Speaker 1: So true, so true, Rick Wilson, thank you, Mulla.
Speaker 3: John Fast, That's always a delight.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five awful Trump's
Speaker 1: second term could be? Well, so are we, which is
Speaker 1: why we teamed with iHeart to make a limited series
Speaker 1: with the experts on what a disaster Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five would be for America's future. Right now. The first
Speaker 1: four episodes, with the final episode coming next week, are
Speaker 1: available by looking up Molly John Fast Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five on YouTube. If you are thinking you are more
Speaker 1: of a podcast person and not a YouTuber, you can
Speaker 1: hit play when you get to the video, put the
Speaker 1: phone on lockscreen and it will play back. New episodes
Speaker 1: are dropping in the next week as well. We need
Speaker 1: to educate America on what Trump's second term would do
Speaker 1: to this country. Please watch and help us spread the word.
Speaker 2: Michael Tubbs is the former mayor of Stockton, California, is
Speaker 2: running through lieutenant governor in California.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Michael Thobbs.
Speaker 4: I missed you, Thanks for having me, Thanks.
Speaker 1: For coming on. So tell us about what you're up to.
Speaker 4: I am excited to share with you and your listeners.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to be ready for the lieutenant governor
Speaker 4: of California in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: So explain to us how that works. The governor is
Speaker 1: up for reelection and you're primary the lieutenant governor.
Speaker 3: Or.
Speaker 1: How does this work?
Speaker 4: No, No, it's a completely open seat. So the current
Speaker 4: lieutenant governor and Lenny Queenilckez, she's termed out, so she's
Speaker 4: ready for governor. Our beloved governor Gavin Newsom turned out,
Speaker 4: he'll be surrogating and making sure that making sure that
Speaker 4: we have a democracy. I'm moving forward. So it's the
Speaker 4: open seat. It's second highest office in California, acting governor
Speaker 4: when the governor's out. But also really I call it
Speaker 4: the caretaker of the future. Still the uc C Issue
Speaker 4: and Community College Board, it's still on the State Lands Commission.
Speaker 4: And you also have this bully pulpit to talk about
Speaker 4: the issues that I that I care about. That then
Speaker 4: California's care about, which is A how do you make
Speaker 4: sure California is affordable? B how do you make make
Speaker 4: sure that we're able to house people? Know how many
Speaker 4: people who are homeless? And see, how do you make
Speaker 4: sure we embrace technology, we embraced entrepreneurship, we embraced unions,
Speaker 4: and we also have light size regulations so that we
Speaker 4: don't continue to have stratifying an equality.
Speaker 1: You were the mayor of Stockton. Talk to us about
Speaker 1: minimum basic income and what you did in Stockton and
Speaker 1: how it worked.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I can't believe it's been that long. But
Speaker 4: seven years ago when I was mayor, of Stock. Then
Speaker 4: I announced that I would do the first municipal guaranteed
Speaker 4: basic income program. Now when we gave five hundred dollars
Speaker 4: a month, no strings attached to one hundred twenty five people,
Speaker 4: and for folks listening, that might seem like dub people
Speaker 4: been doing that the past couple of years, but we
Speaker 4: were the first, And in doing so, I created a
Speaker 4: group called Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and Councils for
Speaker 4: a Guaranteed Income. But now we had over o one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty mayors, sixty pilots, and every week it
Speaker 4: seems like another city is coming out with research that
Speaker 4: shows what we proved in stocked and that a small
Speaker 4: amount of money a basic income is hundred dollars or
Speaker 4: one thousand dollars, doesn't make people stop working. It actually
Speaker 4: allows people to move from paradigmic school to have work.
Speaker 4: It allows people to say, it allows people to take
Speaker 4: care of their kids. It has all positive impacts and
Speaker 4: it reduces all the negative things we complained about. Just
Speaker 4: since Denver they announced maybe the Guaranteed Income program where
Speaker 4: they gave one thousand dollars a month to folks experiencing
Speaker 4: homelessness and what they found is that when folks were
Speaker 4: giving money, they were able to afford hoursand they were
Speaker 4: able to ed take shelters, they were able to reduce homelessness.
Speaker 4: So incredibly proud of that work. I think the child
Speaker 4: tax credit stimulus checks all those things we had during
Speaker 4: the pandemic and have now become like national policies that
Speaker 4: people talk about really started and seated in stopped in
Speaker 4: California when I was mayor.
Speaker 1: Explain to us why minimum basic income works.
Speaker 4: A minimum basic income or a guarantee basic income works
Speaker 4: because we live in a society where where money is
Speaker 4: what's needed to have a ship of time and to
Speaker 4: have agency. So if someone has five hundred dollars or
Speaker 4: one thousand dollars, that's enough between eviction and that for
Speaker 4: people who are dealing with lives and rents. And as
Speaker 4: we've seen in research that the average cost that leads
Speaker 4: to someone being evicted is not three hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: it's three hundred dollars. So it guarantee basically income acts
Speaker 4: as an almost an economic shock absorber. Can we know
Speaker 4: times are so volatile, we know guaranteed income works because
Speaker 4: time is money. Literally, so if you're working a part
Speaker 4: of time job, you don't have paid time off. So
Speaker 4: what happens when you're sick? What happens if your child sick,
Speaker 4: Either you make a decision and send the child a
Speaker 4: school sick or you stay home with the child. But
Speaker 4: then you lose that money. But a guarantee income allows
Speaker 4: you to still have some income coming in, so even
Speaker 4: though you lose your hourly money, you still have a
Speaker 4: little bit to deal with the shocks of life. And
Speaker 4: that's really why it works. It just allows people to
Speaker 4: have a foundation so that no matter what happens and
Speaker 4: the craziness of life, that the bottom doesn't fall out
Speaker 4: underneath people, because people at least have a bottom. And
Speaker 4: what we've seen is people have used that money to
Speaker 4: start businesses. I've used that money to take time after
Speaker 4: part time work to apply for a full time job
Speaker 4: and get it. I've used that money to take care
Speaker 4: of health issues, to buy glasses, to get racist, to
Speaker 4: get dentures. How to use that money to pay off
Speaker 4: credit card, then how to use that money to put
Speaker 4: deposit down on an apartment. And it just shows how
Speaker 4: we're far too many people in our community. The issue
Speaker 4: is in character the issue isn't intelligent If that wages
Speaker 4: haven't kept up with inflation, it's just started. Wealth continues
Speaker 4: to strives by. It's just start focusing a little bit
Speaker 4: of money, just so small amount to serve out the
Speaker 4: springboard to real opportunity.
Speaker 1: Just give us like a two second. I want you
Speaker 1: to talk, because it is out there about the sort
Speaker 1: of the campaign against you and how you came back
Speaker 1: from it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, two seconds. I'm haters gonna hate. No, no, no, in
Speaker 4: all seriousness, I think we're going to see it against
Speaker 4: that vice president, et cetera. But I was the first
Speaker 4: black may of start that, I was the youngest mayor
Speaker 4: of a big city ever. That folks use social media
Speaker 4: just to spread lies about me. They said I was
Speaker 4: a bug, I was a liar, that was unqualified, and
Speaker 4: I stole money, just all the racist tropes we have.
Speaker 4: I did some black people, and they exped people that
Speaker 4: every single day for three years, and for far too
Speaker 4: many people in my community they succumbed to it. And
Speaker 4: I think what I was able to bounce back because
Speaker 4: I learned that a you have to have a very
Speaker 4: sophisticated social media presence. You have to respond to lives
Speaker 4: in real time. You have to have a counter narrative
Speaker 4: and b we just continue to do the work. So
Speaker 4: even after I lost re election, I started starting as
Speaker 4: a special advisor to Governor knew some focus on the
Speaker 4: issues I had of unstocked the economic mobility better than
Speaker 4: marriage for Guaranteed INCOLND which went for one Marria to
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifteen Marriors started in poverty in California.
Speaker 4: I've got up and down the state, meeting with communities,
Speaker 4: working all the legislation like baby bonds and hope accounts
Speaker 4: and childd Satan's accounts, a summer youth job. So I
Speaker 4: think the work continued even with the tempery setback. And
Speaker 4: now I'm fired up to be back in the or
Speaker 4: we know again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're lucky to have you. Can you talk
Speaker 1: to us about what the challenges California is facing right
Speaker 1: now and how you would address them.
Speaker 4: Well, California for is so interesting to me because it
Speaker 4: were a golden state. I'm from Stockton, I'm from South Stockton.
Speaker 4: I grew up in poverty. My dad's still in jail.
Speaker 4: So I've also experienced in non golden parts of the state,
Speaker 4: and I think as there's a cast on between rhetoric
Speaker 4: and results oftentimes, So when we talk about the issues
Speaker 4: of California, whereas state that values opportunity and inclusion and diversity,
Speaker 4: but a lot of people are leaving the state because
Speaker 4: I can't afford it, That young people can't afford to
Speaker 4: buy house, That we don't have enough afford of our housing,
Speaker 4: which expends our homelessances, that black folks only make up
Speaker 4: six percent of the state, but thirty percent of folks
Speaker 4: around the house. It's those types of addictions that really
Speaker 4: motivate me to run because I do think given the
Speaker 4: values of our communities, given the ways democrats hold power,
Speaker 4: that we'll be able to show that government could work,
Speaker 4: I think oftentimes, and the perceptions that we just want
Speaker 4: to throw money at problems. And when I came to
Speaker 4: Stuff and we were bankrupt, I'd spent eight years helping
Speaker 4: us redown from that. So I'm very adamant that money
Speaker 4: alone isn't enough. We have to make sure we know
Speaker 4: how the money is being spent and that the money
Speaker 4: is being spent well, and if it's not, we have
Speaker 4: to course correct. But to do what it works, we
Speaker 4: have to use data to guide our decision making. And
Speaker 4: I also think that California is at a pylow juncture
Speaker 4: in just in terms of the investments we make that
Speaker 4: I live in La Now, I love it. I love
Speaker 4: the Bay Area, went to school there. But the future
Speaker 4: in California in many respects will rest on how well
Speaker 4: we invest in the central value where I'm from, the
Speaker 4: stock Dens and Fresnos, the Mercedes, the Baker's fields. So
Speaker 4: I think we have to do a better job there,
Speaker 4: and then we still have to be a beacon of freedom.
Speaker 4: But I love the fact that California is a state
Speaker 4: where folks know that with this extreme product in twenty
Speaker 4: five agenda that's already being implemented in many states, that
Speaker 4: folks could come to California for reproductive healthcare and healthcare
Speaker 4: generally can come to California and Nbay or be trands
Speaker 4: like folks can come to California and really experience freedom,
Speaker 4: And I just think they have to marry that with
Speaker 4: real economic dignity for everyone. So folks are here but
Speaker 4: are able to afford to be here, able to afford
Speaker 4: housing here, So we don't have as many people homeless,
Speaker 4: and we don't have as many young people Philly like
Speaker 4: the California and dreams out of reach.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us besides how expensive it is,
Speaker 1: how is climate change a California.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think California has really led the way in
Speaker 4: terms of being smart and thinking about climate change, but
Speaker 4: thinking about it as an existential crisis. Of course, fossil
Speaker 4: is an economic development driver, so that was mayor of Stoff.
Speaker 4: Then we did our work in terms of preparing for
Speaker 4: the green economy and spinning out how we train our
Speaker 4: folks to be the folks that work on electric cars,
Speaker 4: that that are part of this new ecosystem that's going
Speaker 4: to be built through the transition from fossil fuels to
Speaker 4: clean energy, and I think elect to continue to do so.
Speaker 4: There's a huge opportunity in CALIFORNI Oh, yeah, there is.
Speaker 4: There's Lithium Valley, which is in a very poor community
Speaker 4: that fits upon some of the most valuing lifthium in
Speaker 4: the world, and thinking about how do we extract that
Speaker 4: lithium in a way that's randular friendly, but how do
Speaker 4: you also make sure the community benefits from the wealth
Speaker 4: they sit on. So that's the question I think in
Speaker 4: California we need to continue to think about climate as
Speaker 4: as not just the excidential crisis it is, but to
Speaker 4: convince people, particularly folks and communities that defend on fossil fuels,
Speaker 4: that no economic freedom is also tied into sort of
Speaker 4: this new technology that this green economy. So I think
Speaker 4: we'll continue to lead the way and continue to think
Speaker 4: about ways to link folks, particularly folks who are usually
Speaker 4: left behind, to the jobs that this green economy transition
Speaker 4: will create.
Speaker 1: Explain to us what it means to have Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: as our nomine and what your role will be here.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. What it means to everyone is that
Speaker 4: we have a real fighting chance to feat Maga extreme
Speaker 4: father than twenty five Handmaidian's tail, Like, we actually have
Speaker 4: a real shot. We have someone who has been an
Speaker 4: attorney general, a district attorney, a US Senator, and a
Speaker 4: vice president. I know there's no one else in this
Speaker 4: country with that resume in terms of those positions. Like
Speaker 4: she's unique, She's Beyonce says, she's one of one. And
Speaker 4: I'm excited about the enthusiasm that's been shown for a candidacy.
Speaker 4: We have someone who's going to be full throated and
Speaker 4: her support of freedoms and fundamental freedoms, including reproductive freedom,
Speaker 4: including the rights to gain abortion. We have someone, like
Speaker 4: she says, who has prosecuted sex perals, who has prosecuted frauds,
Speaker 4: who has prosecuted shooters, who has prosecuted scammers, like that's
Speaker 4: her whole career and no one behold, that's literally who
Speaker 4: she's running again. So I mean, it's not what it's
Speaker 4: come out for us, but I'm excited. And then not
Speaker 4: to mention that she'll be our first woman president, like what, Like,
Speaker 4: I think it's right, it's a huge opportunity. So I'm excited,
Speaker 4: and I think my job, everyone's job, is to be
Speaker 4: not just cheerleaders, but footsoldiers to correct the record because,
Speaker 4: like I said earlier, because she looks different than any
Speaker 4: of the president we've had, because she's had this different
Speaker 4: experiences than any other president we've had, she wants to
Speaker 4: get attacked mercilessly yea, barely and falsely, so we have
Speaker 4: to correct the falsehood. It's like, no, she did not
Speaker 4: just no one that can sleep away to be a
Speaker 4: vice president senator. It's the most ridiculous argument of her
Speaker 4: I'm like, how what, But.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this for a second, because QOP house
Speaker 1: leader urges members please stop making race comments about Harris Discuss.
Speaker 4: Well, they can't help themselves, right when the head your
Speaker 4: party is a racist, what can you do? And they
Speaker 4: can't attack her record, so they have to go. And
Speaker 4: I think that's what the contrast of this racist so important,
Speaker 4: because she'll appear to our better angels, like we believe
Speaker 4: in law and morder, like no one's the law, we
Speaker 4: believe in freedom. They're gonna appeal to like these racist,
Speaker 4: evil demons out under our country for so long they
Speaker 4: want to pull us backwards to a time where being black,
Speaker 4: or being women, or being Asian was this qualifying for leadership.
Speaker 4: But that's not the day we're in anymore. So, I
Speaker 4: mean the GOP could say that thing, but in the
Speaker 4: next day you have I'm the vice president giving the
Speaker 4: speech saying she's done nothing but collect the government check
Speaker 4: for twenty years, trying to dog whistle the welfare queen tropes.
Speaker 4: I mean, they'll they'll say it, and I think one
Speaker 4: day the GOP could get there. But I think it's
Speaker 4: very clear this is a party that's incredibly racist, not
Speaker 4: just against black people, but against Muslim people, against immigrants,
Speaker 4: of all times, like they is not there are a
Speaker 4: party on once to take us back to a time
Speaker 4: where if you weren't a Christian, straight white men, you
Speaker 4: did not matter, you had no rights, and this country
Speaker 4: wasn't for you. And I think we're all in the
Speaker 4: agreements saying we're not going back there. We don't want
Speaker 4: to go there. That's dystopia, that's a I can and
Speaker 4: that's not the country we are or are going to
Speaker 4: be in the future. Right.
Speaker 1: No, And I think that it's really incredible that Republicans
Speaker 1: made a decision when they ran with Trump that they
Speaker 1: were going to embrace the racist part of their base.
Speaker 1: That was the decision. They decided that there were enough
Speaker 1: racists to get Donald Trump elected. So now they are
Speaker 1: running against a black woman, and that is where we are, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, is that sort of what happened? Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I love the contrast because I'm just someone I
Speaker 4: like things to be very clear, and in this case,
Speaker 4: it's very clear, like what type of country do we
Speaker 4: want to be? In the contrast that we started, I
Speaker 4: forgot to mention that Donald Trump is literally the oldest
Speaker 4: presidential nominee we've ever had. Someone who confuses Nazy Lowci
Speaker 4: with Nikki Haley and doesn't know the vice president's last name.
Speaker 4: Like this is so ridiculous and so grotesque the contrast
Speaker 4: that I get it will go to show who we are.
Speaker 4: And I just not just optimist. I've spent so much
Speaker 4: time with folks, so I think the vast majority of
Speaker 4: folks seeing Donald Trump for who he is, as c. J. D.
Speaker 4: Vash for who they are, and understand that they work
Speaker 4: for no one but themselves and Elon Musk and Peter Field.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just an incredible time to be alive, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you got, you know, the idea that they
Speaker 1: are saying that our vice president slept her way to
Speaker 1: the top when Donald Trump had to pay off a
Speaker 1: porn star and a playmate because he had an affair
Speaker 1: with the porn star right after his third wife had
Speaker 1: delivered his fifth child. Right, so we're going to bring
Speaker 1: a promiscuity here as an issue. It's pretty incredible. And
Speaker 1: I don't know that that is the play. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: and I think it's so important and interesting, is that
Speaker 1: you do have as vice president who has been a
Speaker 1: sex crimes prosecutor.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, hard to imagine a more perfect person to take
Speaker 1: on Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: And I think I was reflect when you were speaking
Speaker 4: about Like when I was mayor of Stockton, I had
Speaker 4: three Republicans on my city council and the vast majority
Speaker 4: of them where like Trump is Ibhorn, it's not what
Speaker 4: we stand for. So I think even like most good
Speaker 4: Republicans see like we don't want a sex criminal. He
Speaker 4: was just in the Epstein files and there.
Speaker 1: Are numerous pictures of him with Epstein.
Speaker 4: This is not like a regular bad person. This person
Speaker 4: represents the worst of like excess in our society, like
Speaker 4: the worst of what we could be. And he's just
Speaker 4: at the rally when he was praising authoritatian leaders as strong,
Speaker 4: be able to get things done, like this is bad
Speaker 4: news and nothing to played with. And I think Molly
Speaker 4: would get you from me is that we've seen this before.
Speaker 4: We saw this in twenty sixteen to twenty twenty and
Speaker 4: I was a mayor then. I remember having the hustle
Speaker 4: with other marriage or in COVID that the kids trust
Speaker 4: what was coming out of the federal government where we
Speaker 4: were like we were literally trying to procure our own supplies. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like it was wild times. I remember having to talk
Speaker 4: to like immigrant communities and going to the mosque and
Speaker 4: going to the Catholic churches because by my immigrant community,
Speaker 4: my Muslim community were terrified about what his election meant
Speaker 4: for them. I remember talking to gay kids and then
Speaker 4: the Transdell people my first month was mayor, because they
Speaker 4: were terrified about what would have like. I just remember
Speaker 4: the reign of terror and not to mention the economy
Speaker 4: always collapsing, the two twenty dollars and tax cuts to
Speaker 4: the rich, and that was the best we would get
Speaker 4: from him. Because now he's unhinged. Now he's like the
Speaker 4: loss of them fighting me. Now the Supreme Court has
Speaker 4: said he could do whatever he wants, so I shuddered
Speaker 4: to think what giving him the keys to the whitouse
Speaker 4: again would mean for our country. So I'm fleishing it
Speaker 4: and talking a lot, but I'm just past it.
Speaker 1: Are black men as excited as black women and all women.
Speaker 4: I was on the call, yes, said the black men
Speaker 4: for Harris.
Speaker 1: Callus, yes, please talk about that, four five thousand of us,
Speaker 1: And we were adding it that we were at least.
Speaker 4: For the match where our sisters raised because we are
Speaker 4: all in for Vice President Harris, because we we all
Speaker 4: not not because you're the woman's because as the leader,
Speaker 4: but then also as a black woman, we know sort
Speaker 4: of we're going to be where we were, whether for
Speaker 4: our grandmas, our moms, our aunties, our wives, our partners.
Speaker 4: So we are fired up and I think I've been excited, Joe.
Speaker 4: I was talking to my good friend Shannon Wats today
Speaker 4: about how white women are organizing for Vice President Harris
Speaker 4: because I know in twenty sixteen fifty three percent but
Speaker 4: for Trump, and I'm sure that number will be reversed
Speaker 4: to the extreme with Vice President Harris, and I'm looking
Speaker 4: forward to that. To your point about all communities organized
Speaker 4: around Kamal heiras, but do not believe the lies. Not
Speaker 4: believed Tim Scott are and Ben Carson and Byron Daniels
Speaker 4: maybe the two other black people up against they have
Speaker 4: Cannie Olans, black folks, black men. We support Vice President
Speaker 4: Harris not because she's black, but because our policies speak
Speaker 4: to improving our experiences, and the fact that she's black
Speaker 4: is added. Plus I think most people almost supported her
Speaker 4: for those reasons as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Michael Tubbs. You are great. I
Speaker 1: hope you'll come back, and I.
Speaker 4: Hope you win anytime. Michael Tubbs FORCA dot Com for
Speaker 4: this all.
Speaker 1: Yes, Dubbs.
Speaker 2: Stephen Vladdock is a CNN contributor and author of The Shadow.
Speaker 1: Dott Welcome to Fast Politics. Welcome back, Steven, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I was excited to have you
Speaker 1: because I feel like you've sort of been on to
Speaker 1: the nefariousness of the Supreme Court for a long time,
Speaker 1: and you wrote a book about the Shadow Docket, which
Speaker 1: was this sort of thing they were doing to pull
Speaker 1: the wool over the American people's eyes even before they
Speaker 1: became so radicalized. I mean, is that a fair assessment?
Speaker 1: And if not, tell me why. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's fair.
Speaker 5: I think it's it's a little bit sort of a
Speaker 5: cynical view of my view, But you know, I mean,
Speaker 5: I've been trying for a long time before trying to
Speaker 5: persuade everyone that there's something rotten in Denmark, I've at
Speaker 5: least been trying to change how we talk about the
Speaker 5: Court because I think we are so conditioned to viewing
Speaker 5: the Court as just the sum of its big decisions,
Speaker 5: and the reality is it is a lot more than that.
Speaker 5: And the more that we talk about the Court as
Speaker 5: an institution, the more we look at it holistically, I
Speaker 5: actually get the more trouble we see, and the more
Speaker 5: that we can actually find problems that are not just
Speaker 5: Dobbs bad Bruin bad, and that are more about, you know,
Speaker 5: the sort of the shift in institutional relationships right between
Speaker 5: the Court and every other institution in government.
Speaker 1: And no place is that shift more apparent than Chevron,
Speaker 1: don't you agree?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I would say Chevron and the whole suite of administrative
Speaker 5: law cases the Court headed down this term. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think you know what folks should understand about these
Speaker 5: cases is they reflect for better or for worse? I
Speaker 5: would say for worse, but certainly, just as a matter
Speaker 5: of fact, a massive transfer of power away from executive
Speaker 5: branch agencies, away from Congress and to courts, and to
Speaker 5: courts who are now going to have much more power
Speaker 5: to decide for themselves what agency actions are appropriate in
Speaker 5: which ones aren't. Much more power after the Ohio versus
Speaker 5: EPA decision to decide whether the agency you know, dotted
Speaker 5: the eyes and frosts the t's in just the right way.
Speaker 5: It really is all about power all the way down.
Speaker 1: Explain to us about Ohio versus EPI.
Speaker 5: So this was actually, I think the administrative law case
Speaker 5: that got the least attention out of the court this term.
Speaker 1: So, and it's an important case, which is why I
Speaker 1: want to talk about it.
Speaker 5: So, the buy An administration and basically had put out
Speaker 5: these ozone pollution regulations. And the idea is that, you know,
Speaker 5: the EPA regulates ozone pollution in upwind states on the
Speaker 5: theory that downwind states can't do it themselves. If unit
Speaker 5: state then receives a lot of pollution from another state,
Speaker 5: that's why we need the federal government. And so a
Speaker 5: bunch of states and a bunch of companies had challenged
Speaker 5: the so called good neighbor ozone pollution rule, and before
Speaker 5: the lower courts could even resolve that challenge, the states
Speaker 5: and the challengers went to the Supreme Court for a
Speaker 5: form of emergency relief. And what the court did in
Speaker 5: Why versus EPA is they branded that relief molly based
Speaker 5: on a remarkably creative, you might even say disingenuous reading
Speaker 5: of exactly how the EPA went about adopting on this rule.
Speaker 5: What's really striking about this case is Justice Barrett actually
Speaker 5: wrote the descent on behalf of herself and the three
Speaker 5: Democratic appointees, and her descent is just a brutal takedown
Speaker 5: of Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion because Grossive basically holds the
Speaker 5: EPA to a standard that's impossible to meet, says they
Speaker 5: didn't do things that they did, and just sort of
Speaker 5: nit picks his way all the way home in a
Speaker 5: way that's going to push agencies in the future. I
Speaker 5: think to be even more wary about these kinds of rules,
Speaker 5: because if courts can strike them down based on this
Speaker 5: kind of invented rationale, you know why bother so.
Speaker 1: Explain that to us a little bit. The EPA case
Speaker 1: in the descent of Amy Cony Barrett, who is I
Speaker 1: want to say, like the one Trump pick who has
Speaker 1: been again, this has largely been true in oral arguments,
Speaker 1: though the EPA case is a good example of her.
Speaker 1: She's largely been. You can tell she's not buying this
Speaker 1: incredible hypocrisy the way the other two guys are just
Speaker 1: sort of falling in line except when it comes to
Speaker 1: Native Americans and corsage. But what is the sort of
Speaker 1: fake reason for this case and how does it run
Speaker 1: contrary to the others that they decide sure hypocritical.
Speaker 5: The argument that the challengers had brought was that, you know,
Speaker 5: the agency basically couldn't adopt a national rule until it
Speaker 5: gave the states a chance to adopt their own rules.
Speaker 5: That's not what the Supreme Court focused on. The Supreme
Speaker 5: Court because that argument was such transparent nonsense. The Supreme
Speaker 5: Court focused on the idea that when the EPA engaged
Speaker 5: in what's called notice and comment rulemaking, and this is
Speaker 5: a pretty standard practice when an agency says, hey, public,
Speaker 5: we're considering a rule that's going to do this. We
Speaker 5: are inviting your feedback so that we can make sure
Speaker 5: we've accounted for all of the things that perhaps we
Speaker 5: haven't thought about in formulating this rule. That's the typical
Speaker 5: sort of noise and comment process. And the basic gist
Speaker 5: of the majority opinion is that the EPA didn't do
Speaker 5: a good enough job of responding to the thousands of
Speaker 5: public comments that it received about the proposed good Neighbor rule.
Speaker 5: And only part of why that's such nonsense, as Justice
Speaker 5: Barrett point out in her dessentate, is one, the EPA
Speaker 5: actually did a pretty good job of responding to the
Speaker 5: public comments. But two, I mean in the posture of
Speaker 5: this case where it hadn't even gone through the lower
Speaker 5: courts yet, where there hasn't been fact binding you know,
Speaker 5: for the Supreme Court to sort of jump over and say,
Speaker 5: we are in the best position to decide exactly whether
Speaker 5: the DPA brushed its teeth correctly. You know, bespeaks a
Speaker 5: kind of judicial second guessum of agencies that goes way
Speaker 5: beyond the demise of Chevron, that goes way beyond how
Speaker 5: agencies interpret statutes and really gets all the way into
Speaker 5: the nitty gritty of everyday agency bureaucracy and agency processes.
Speaker 5: That really opens the door, molly to a new generation
Speaker 5: of challenges. I don't like what this agency did, so
Speaker 5: I'm going to find one technical, you know box they
Speaker 5: didn't check correctly as a way of throwing out the
Speaker 5: whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really part of the situation here. So because
Speaker 1: I think of Chevron and the immunity decision to be
Speaker 1: more and again, you know, they came out on July first,
Speaker 1: large so that the Supreme Court wouldn't have to deal
Speaker 1: with any push back, right, you know, they do this
Speaker 1: before they go on vacation, because why not. But they
Speaker 1: are largely even though they're not about the same thing. Right,
Speaker 1: Chevron is about trying to dismantle federal agencies. Community is
Speaker 1: about Donald Trump getting away with it. They are ultimately
Speaker 1: sort of tied. And I'm hoping you could talk about
Speaker 1: these two decisions, which are both earth chattering, explained to
Speaker 1: us what they both are, and sort of explain it
Speaker 1: feels like they're laying the groundwork for something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think they're both basically molly about
Speaker 5: the same idea, which is, you know, sort of who's
Speaker 5: going to have the last say about the way the
Speaker 5: law ought to be in this country, And they both
Speaker 5: end up in the same place, which is the courts. So,
Speaker 5: you know, the Trump Community case, I mean, it's been
Speaker 5: portrayed in a lot of circles as this massive affirmation
Speaker 5: of executive power, right sort of given the president more
Speaker 5: and more power to act with impunity. And I think
Speaker 5: that's true to a degree. But there are so many
Speaker 5: questions that the Trump Community decision raises about where the
Speaker 5: relevant lines are, you know, exactly which powers that the
Speaker 5: president has are, in the words of the Supreme Court,
Speaker 5: conclusive and preclusive, so his core powers, like where does
Speaker 5: that stop? You know, where's the line between official acts
Speaker 5: and unofficial acts? And you know, Molly, those are questions
Speaker 5: that are ultimately going to have to be answered by courts.
Speaker 5: You know, it's not hard to imagine that course might
Speaker 5: answer those questions differently dependent upon how much they like
Speaker 5: or dislike the current president. I think that's the same
Speaker 5: thing about the Chevron case. You know, when the court says,
Speaker 5: ultimately it's going to be up to the courts and
Speaker 5: not the agency to decide what is the best interpretation
Speaker 5: of an ambiguous statute, right, that's not necessarily fatal to
Speaker 5: what the agency is doing. It's just giving them the
Speaker 5: courts of veto. And so it's basically saying, you know,
Speaker 5: the courts will decide if they like a policy, just
Speaker 5: like the courts will decide if they think a president
Speaker 5: has crossed the line. It's just everything is about, you know,
Speaker 5: the court doing what it wants when it wants, and
Speaker 5: had been the ultimate power to decide what everybody else
Speaker 5: in our system is allowed to do.
Speaker 1: It's such a weird moment. Well, I know it's not
Speaker 1: Supreme Court talk, but I would love to talk about
Speaker 1: the a Leen Cannon weareness. Can you talk about that sure.
Speaker 5: I mean, so, you know, the headline here is that
Speaker 5: Judge Cannon throughout the classified Documents prosecution in Florida on
Speaker 5: the ground that Jack Smith had not been properly appointed
Speaker 5: by Attorney General Garland. And the problem, well, there are
Speaker 5: many problems with this argument. The big problem with this
Speaker 5: argument is that there are decades of precedent to the
Speaker 5: contrary where courts have considered similar challenges to how special
Speaker 5: councils and special prosecutors in the Dustice Department are appointed.
Speaker 5: Courts have rejected those challenges. Most recently, the DC Circuit,
Speaker 5: you know, the very powerful appeals court in Washington, rejected
Speaker 5: a very similar challenge to the appointment of ben special
Speaker 5: counsel Robert Muller in twenty nineteen. It really is, malli
Speaker 5: a very very strained reading of the relevant statutes, and
Speaker 5: it's just a completely preposterous reading of the precedents. You know,
Speaker 5: the idea that the Attorney General doesn't have the power
Speaker 5: to appoint inferior prosecutors is rather belied by the one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty four years that we've had a Justice Department.
Speaker 5: And you know, I think part of the problem here
Speaker 5: is that the argument sounds sort of superficially plausible to
Speaker 5: folks who were already inclined to believe that everything Jack
Speaker 5: Smith does is illegitimate. But if you actually peel away
Speaker 5: the layers and look at the relevant statutes and look
Speaker 5: at the constitutional law on the subject, you know, it's
Speaker 5: pretty clear that this appointment was perfectly kosher. We're back
Speaker 5: in the space of really sort of right wing Trump
Speaker 5: appointed judges handled down rulings that really just sort of
Speaker 5: smack of a judge who decided what they wanted the
Speaker 5: outcome to be first, and then figured out how to
Speaker 5: rationalize a second right.
Speaker 1: And that is in this same vein as the Trump
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Right, you have results you want, and you
Speaker 1: will twist a lot to get at them.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think that that is, unfortunately a charge
Speaker 5: that can be leveled against. Yes, a lot of what
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court does. I wouldn't say everagething.
Speaker 1: No, they had a few weirdly not terrible decisions, but.
Speaker 5: Yes, I mean, I think you know, the whole sort
Speaker 5: of what is supposed to separate judges from politicians in
Speaker 5: our system is the idea that judges are following ostensibly
Speaker 5: neutral legal principles and that those neutral principles are going
Speaker 5: to lead them to results that sometimes are actually inconsistent
Speaker 5: with their political preferences. And you know, this gets to
Speaker 5: me at what one is I think really the biggest
Speaker 5: indictment of both of the big Trump decisions from the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court this term, not just the immunitficase, but also
Speaker 5: the Colorado ballot access case, where you have justices who
Speaker 5: purport to be staunch originalists, you know, who say that like,
Speaker 5: we believe that this is the one true way to
Speaker 5: interpret the Constitution, because we believe that this is the
Speaker 5: only objective method through which you can really sort of
Speaker 5: obtain a particular or singular, you know, quote true unquote result.
Speaker 5: And you know what you have in book the Colorado
Speaker 5: case and in the Troubamility case is judges who purport
Speaker 5: to be originalists doing profoundly unriginalist things where originalism is
Speaker 5: nowhere to be found, where the discussions are very consequentialist
Speaker 5: in their approaches. And Molly, that's weird for people like
Speaker 5: me because I am a bit of a consequentialist, Like
Speaker 5: I have less trouble with the idea that the Court
Speaker 5: should be thinking about the consequences of its decisions. But
Speaker 5: these are justices historically who have taken exactly the opposite approach,
Speaker 5: and so it looks and smacks like hypocrisy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, smacks like it does certainly seem very hypocritical a
Speaker 1: lot of what they're doing. Can you explain a little
Speaker 1: bit about this textualism argument, just for the people who
Speaker 1: are not one hundred cases deep in this cluster book,
Speaker 1: Explain to us what originalism is. Is it different than textualism.
Speaker 1: I've heard them both used to describe the same thing.
Speaker 1: And also just what to pivot is from conservatives in
Speaker 1: previous Supreme courts.
Speaker 5: Sure, I mean so. Textualism is basically the idea that
Speaker 5: all things being equal, when the text of a statute
Speaker 5: or the text of the constitution is clear, that's the answer.
Speaker 5: And there's there's no matter how strong the policy arguments
Speaker 5: might be for a different result, no matter how strong
Speaker 5: the contextual arguments might be, you go with the text.
Speaker 5: Originalism is slightly different, right. Originals is the idea that
Speaker 5: one of the ways of resolving what unclear text means
Speaker 5: is to look at how it was understood at the
Speaker 5: time the test was adopted. So, you know, Molly, the
Speaker 5: Constitution says the president has to be at least thirty
Speaker 5: five years old. That text is clear, right, No one
Speaker 5: seriously argues that that's thirty five adjusted for life expectancies, right,
Speaker 5: versus constution says the IFM prohibits cruel and unusual punishment,
Speaker 5: well what makes punishment cruel and unusual? And originalists would
Speaker 5: say we should look at how those words were understood
Speaker 5: at the time that the Constitution was adopted, or at
Speaker 5: the time that that lianguage in particular was agreed to.
Speaker 5: So in the Eighth Amendment context at seventeen ninety one
Speaker 5: in the you know, in the Colorado ballot case, that
Speaker 5: means looking at when seption three of the fourteenth Amendment
Speaker 5: was adopted in eighteen sixty eight. And you know, if
Speaker 5: you actually look at the context of the history, at
Speaker 5: the discussions around section three in the eighteen sixties, it's
Speaker 5: pretty clear that folks understood that it could apply to
Speaker 5: people running for the presidency, That both understood that states
Speaker 5: could decide for themselves who could could not run for office.
Speaker 5: And you know, the Supreme Court in saying, actually that's
Speaker 5: not true. States can't do that, Molly didn't actually try
Speaker 5: to argue that that's because of what the original understanding requires.
Speaker 5: The court sort of ran away from the original understanding.
Speaker 5: And you know, I have no problem with the Court
Speaker 5: taking a more pluralistic approach to the Constitution in the abstract.
Speaker 5: The problem comes from when you have a cohort of
Speaker 5: justices who insist that they're not doing it, Matt, and
Speaker 5: who rely upon what they claim originalism demands in cases
Speaker 5: like Bruin about guns or in the administraty of law
Speaker 5: cases and say, I was thinking about Bruin.
Speaker 1: That was what I was thinking about, right, Can you
Speaker 1: just explain the whole point of Bruin? Was that? Just
Speaker 1: explain that the sort of one line on Bruin the
Speaker 1: gun's case.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So Bruin is the twenty twenty two decision where the
Speaker 5: Court said that in order for a gun control law
Speaker 5: to pass constitutional scrutiny to survive a Second Amendment challenge,
Speaker 5: the government that wrote that law has to find some
Speaker 5: analog to that restriction that was on the books at
Speaker 5: the time the Second Amendment was adopted in seventeen ninety one,
Speaker 5: or at least at the time that it was applied
Speaker 5: to the States in eighteen sixty eight. And so this
Speaker 5: has led, as you know, Molly, to this crazy effort
Speaker 5: to basically try to analogize, you know, laws that for example,
Speaker 5: prohibit gun possession by those subjects of domestic violence restraining
Speaker 5: orders to you know, a period where domestic violence wasn't
Speaker 5: a legal category at all.
Speaker 1: What happened with Bruin was that they, excuse my friend,
Speaker 1: fucked themselves. And so when he came down, which was
Speaker 1: people commit to best ballence? Should they have guns? Perhaps
Speaker 1: they should? They had to clean up on Aisle Supreme Court, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the problem that cuts across all of
Speaker 1: this is you cannot in one breath say we have
Speaker 1: to hand down this massively.
Speaker 5: Controversial rule because originalism forces us to, and then in
Speaker 5: the other breath say, oh, but we only apply originalism sometimes, right,
Speaker 5: right now. That's the real disconnect here is having justices
Speaker 5: who purport to be bound to follow the originalist result
Speaker 5: in all cases selectively decide and when to follow the
Speaker 5: originalist result. And then there's the sort of the secondary
Speaker 5: point that they can't even all agree on what originalism
Speaker 5: is because.
Speaker 1: When you're making stuff up, it's hard to follow.
Speaker 5: Right, That's exactly right. And so you know, for people
Speaker 5: like me, listen, I mean that huge constitional law. I
Speaker 5: would never try to tell my students that the original
Speaker 5: understanding of a provision is irrelevant. Right, The question is
Speaker 5: should it be dispositive? And you know, I think the
Speaker 5: problem is that it's really really unpersuasive to have the
Speaker 5: position that it's dispositive in one set of cases and
Speaker 5: not in another without a very very coherent explanation for
Speaker 5: what that line.
Speaker 1: Is right exactly. When you're making shit up, you should
Speaker 1: be consistent, or.
Speaker 5: At least you should be consistent about when you get
Speaker 5: to make it.
Speaker 1: Up right exactly. But I'm wondering if you can talk
Speaker 1: about where you see this Supreme Court going next year.
Speaker 5: I think it really depends on the election. I mean, hat,
Speaker 5: I know that's such a trite answer in our current circumstances.
Speaker 1: As a constitutional law professor, you must feel like this
Speaker 1: is insane because that is not what the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is supposed to be at all.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, and it's worth putting the court in context.
Speaker 5: I mean, one of my real goals, as we said
Speaker 5: at the top, was it's to change how we talk
Speaker 5: about the court. I mean, the Court decided only fifty
Speaker 5: nine cases this term, that's actually way down. Historically, the
Speaker 5: Court has not been decided this few cases since eighteen
Speaker 5: sixty four. It just feels like the Court is constantly
Speaker 5: you know, in our lives because the cases the justices
Speaker 5: are picking to decide are all these massive, high profile,
Speaker 5: socially or politically or culturally divisive disputes versus the more technical,
Speaker 5: mundane stuff that historically it has been where the court
Speaker 5: builds its credibility. So you know, what happens next year?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think in a world in which you
Speaker 5: have if it is Vice President Harris, who is the
Speaker 5: president next year, I think it's probably more of the
Speaker 5: same with in prison calls to reform the court, as
Speaker 5: the Court continues to stand, you know, athwart the sort
Speaker 5: of the democratic political agenda, you know, Molly. In a
Speaker 5: world in which Trump wins, I mean, I think folks
Speaker 5: have not quite prepared themselves for the specter of a
Speaker 5: second Trump term where the Court is actually pushing a
Speaker 5: back against him and he's ignoring it.
Speaker 1: Right, That will be crazy if that happens. I mean,
Speaker 1: I could see that happening, but it will be crazy.
Speaker 5: I mean we had a flashpoint for this. I mean,
Speaker 5: so in January in a case that got very little attention,
Speaker 5: there was this five four Supreme Court ruling that allows
Speaker 5: the Biden administration to keep removing razor wire that Greg
Speaker 5: Abbott had placed along the US Mexico border and Molly.
Speaker 5: Within like twelve hours of that ruling, Chip Roy is
Speaker 5: on national television telling Abbot to defy the court. You know,
Speaker 5: folks are so critical of the court right now for
Speaker 5: reasons I think are mostly understandable that I think they
Speaker 5: haven't stealed themselves for the possibility that the story of
Speaker 5: a second Trump term is going to be Trump's, you know,
Speaker 5: resistance to the court, even as I think the Court
Speaker 5: would be inclined to push back against at least some
Speaker 5: of the more excessive things he might do. So two
Speaker 5: very very different futures depending upon what happens this November insanity.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Steve, and I hope you will
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 5: I love it, always great to talk to you.
Speaker 3: No moment full.
Speaker 1: My moment of fuckory is Today FBI Director Ray testified
Speaker 1: on Trump's injury from the assassination attempt. There's some question
Speaker 1: as to whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel.
Speaker 3: I am totally unsurprised by that, Molly, And look, I
Speaker 3: have taken to referring to this not as an assassination attempt,
Speaker 3: but as an attempted murder, because this kid was a
Speaker 3: broken brained, sorry, sick little guy. And I mean that
Speaker 3: in the most sympathetic way to people with profound mental illnesses,
Speaker 3: which he clearly had. This was not motivated by wokeness
Speaker 3: or by George Soros. My favorite fuckery this week, Molly,
Speaker 3: is Trump chicken shitting out on the debates because Trump
Speaker 3: is now like, we don't know if she will even
Speaker 3: be the nominee. I'm like, no, bitch, she won't be
Speaker 3: the nominee. And they're pretending like there's some uncertainty here,
Speaker 3: and there's no uncertainty here, folks. There's no uncertainty here
Speaker 3: at all. She's going to be the nominee. And Donald
Speaker 3: Trump and Stephen Chung and Jason Miller and all these
Speaker 3: other idiots can tweet all they want. It doesn't change
Speaker 3: the fact that Donald Trump is hiding like a little bitch.
Speaker 3: He's running away. What that's it? You got my chicken noise?
Speaker 3: Now you've heard heard it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Rick Wilson, Thanks Molly.
Speaker 3: I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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