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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Biden's EPA will take over the

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Speaker 1: cleanup of the toxic Ohio train derailment disaster. We have

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Speaker 1: the show of all shows today, the Daily be Swill

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Speaker 1: Sohmer joins us to talk about his new book Trust

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Speaker 1: the Plan, the rise of QAnon, and the conspiracy that

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Speaker 1: unhinged America. Then we'll talk to Professor Joanna Schwartz about

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Speaker 1: her new book Shielded, How the Police became Untouchable. But

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Speaker 1: first we have the author of Too Much and Never Enough,

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Speaker 1: the host of the Mary Trump Show and not my therapist,

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Speaker 1: Mary Trump. Welcome Too Fast Politics, my friend and yours,

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Speaker 1: Mary Trump. Hey, Molly, it's so good to be back

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Speaker 1: with you. I'm so happy to have you. I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: We were just talking about our parents getting older and

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Speaker 1: you said we're long lived, Fawn. I was thinking to myself,

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Speaker 1: I actually read an article about how all of these

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Speaker 1: Republicans were hoping that Donald Trump. I'm sure you saw

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Speaker 1: that article in the Atlantic by the great great McKay

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Speaker 1: coppins about how all these Republicans were hoping that at

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Speaker 1: seventy six, with all the fast food, the party could

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Speaker 1: outrun Donald Trump. Yeah. I haven't read it yet, but

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Speaker 1: I will. I'm sorry to rain on everybody's grade, but well,

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Speaker 1: it's true. My grandfather lived to be ninety three and

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Speaker 1: he was a reason like, he didn't exercise, but he

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Speaker 1: was a very strongly built man with no bad habits. Right.

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Speaker 1: My grandmother's oldest sister lived to be ninety eight, chain

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Speaker 1: smoking and drinking. Yeah, so I haven't feeling like I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna end up in my dad's cap and the rest

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Speaker 1: of them will kill me young, younger, whatever, but I

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Speaker 1: know it's a terrible bet to place. One of my

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Speaker 1: theories is that meanness is a preservative. Yeah, oh, no question.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about the twenty twenty four meaning we

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Speaker 1: have spent almost a decade talking about Donald J. Trump

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Speaker 1: shit show that we are facing. You know, Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: very well, unfortunately for you. I think the question on

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Speaker 1: every Republican and Democrats' mind is would Donald Trump accept

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Speaker 1: if he is not the nominee? And I just want

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Speaker 1: to add a bit of a caveat because you know,

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Speaker 1: people will point out that when it said I know

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump even though I literally haven't spent any kind

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Speaker 1: of quality time, not that there's such a thing as great.

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Speaker 1: I was going to see a significant amount of time

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Speaker 1: with him since like the late nineties. The reason I

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Speaker 1: know him so well is because, and this is a

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Speaker 1: red flag, the man hasn't changed since he was a teenager. Right,

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Speaker 1: So he's constitutionally and psychologically the same person. Trapped at amber,

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Speaker 1: he won't accept anything, and I think his voices then

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Speaker 1: become running as a third party candidate or just fighting

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Speaker 1: the It was rigged, it's a hoax, it was stolen

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Speaker 1: from a card. Right. Either way, Republicans won't be able

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Speaker 1: to get his voters. No, that is the thing that's

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Speaker 1: so fascinating to me, that's absent from all of their calculations.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if somebody else is close in the polls,

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Speaker 1: or even maybe leading in the polls. There is at

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Speaker 1: least thirty percent of the Republican Party voters that will

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Speaker 1: not vote for anybody else. What do you do when

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Speaker 1: you're starting at that kind of death visit. The thing

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Speaker 1: I find so fascinating about this whole scenario is Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump is back to the Republican Party into a corner

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Speaker 1: They kept thinking that he would at some point go quietly, right, like,

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Speaker 1: if he just lost enough races, he would say like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is enough. I mean that never happens, right, never.

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Speaker 1: And which works though, is that they've never said this

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Speaker 1: is enough. They could have gotten themselves out of this

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Speaker 1: problem many, many times, starting in twenty fifteen. Right, all

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Speaker 1: they had to say was, if you want to run

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party, you have to release your tax returns

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Speaker 1: or something like that. Right, all right, I think you're right.

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Speaker 1: They kept thinking, as Republicans often do, that they can

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Speaker 1: control the monster they created, and then, of course the

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Speaker 1: monster ends up taking over the whole party, and that's

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Speaker 1: what they're stuck with. So so we can engage in

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Speaker 1: a little bit of schadenfreude about this, right, but at

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Speaker 1: one we still have to deal with fucking Donald all

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Speaker 1: the time too. And I set this back in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 1: the fact that he had a point zero zero zero

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Speaker 1: one percent chance of winning in November was terrified, and

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Speaker 1: now the percentage is much higher. Right, the Republican Party

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Speaker 1: has worked really hard to try to keep from having

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Speaker 1: to off against Trump. They've worked really hard to avoid conflict.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thinking of Nicky Haley who just jumped

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Speaker 1: in the race. Nicky Haley was a member of Trump's administration.

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Speaker 1: She was a good little girl. She had been normal.

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Speaker 1: She had sort of tried to play along the way

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Speaker 1: a normal politician would, but she tried to avoid confrontation.

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Speaker 1: And the problem is, I don't think you can do

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Speaker 1: that with Donald Trump. Well, you can't afford confrontation on

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Speaker 1: the one hand, and you can't be more him than

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Speaker 1: he is, right right, That's I think Josh Marshall said

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Speaker 1: this recently. It's like, if this is a contest about

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Speaker 1: who is the best Donald Trump, which it will be,

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Speaker 1: who can beat the guy who actually is Donald? Right? Well,

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Speaker 1: that's Ron Sands. It's biggest problem is that you can't

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Speaker 1: be the rich man's Donald Trump. No you can't. Haley

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Speaker 1: reminds me of Pence and that each of them did

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Speaker 1: the right thing once, right it January sixth with Haley

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Speaker 1: was taking the Confederate flagtown and that's the thing that

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Speaker 1: is going to doom their candidacy. It's so pathetic. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's like we're laughing, but it's tragic, Like this is tragic,

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Speaker 1: This is tragic, This is terrible for American democracy. This

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Speaker 1: is terrible for everyone except perhaps hopefully the Democratic Party. Hopefully.

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Speaker 1: It's a high stake scambal that I personally, as someone

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Speaker 1: who doesn't like high skate stake scambals, would rather not

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Speaker 1: like I'd rather can't you know that Biden runs against

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Speaker 1: a normal candidate. But I don't see a world where

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Speaker 1: this Republican Party produces that there aren't deady anymore, even

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Speaker 1: if by some bizarre like if an asteroid hits the

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Speaker 1: planet and every other Republican is disabled and Haley's the

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Speaker 1: only person left standing. She's also not a normal candidate anymore,

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Speaker 1: like none of them, even Sinunu in New Hampshire, who

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Speaker 1: pretends to be. He recently said that if Donald gets

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Speaker 1: a nomination, he's voting for Donald. So what good is that? Right?

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Speaker 1: So right, right, they all have made this bet, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like they're gambling with the rest of our sanity

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Speaker 1: because it's unsustainable. Every freaking election can't be about whether

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Speaker 1: or not democracy is going to survive, and yet here

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Speaker 1: we are again. I mean, the only thing I would

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Speaker 1: say is that eventually, as long as Democrats win, and

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Speaker 1: again that's a big caveat because we don't know how

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Speaker 1: this goes. And if any you know, if twenty sixteen

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Speaker 1: has been any proof, it's that, you know, you can

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Speaker 1: think all you want and still but as long as

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Speaker 1: democracy survives, I actually think that Republicans will eventually get

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Speaker 1: stick of losing. I think so. But it also depends

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Speaker 1: upon democrats willingness. Obviously that they're complicating factors there, but

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Speaker 1: the Democrats willingness when they are in power to marginal

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Speaker 1: continue to marginalize this Republican party into non existence. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I read this piece about some new New today in

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Speaker 1: the Times, and there certainly is a sense, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: there is a message. It has not necessarily permeated the

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Speaker 1: base yet, but there certainly is a message that, you know,

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Speaker 1: Republicans cannot win anything other than bright red America with

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump or trumpy candidates. And we saw that, really,

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Speaker 1: really in stark relief during the midterms. Oh we did.

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Speaker 1: And hence the geomadering and hence their problem with primaries

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Speaker 1: and the need to lie, to eat and steal in

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Speaker 1: every election. But as long as they're in a position

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Speaker 1: to continue rigging the system, or I should say, taking

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Speaker 1: advantage of the system that's pre rigged, in their favor.

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Speaker 1: You know, thanks Founders, We're always going to be in

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Speaker 1: this very tense standoff, like how much can we accomplish

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Speaker 1: like Democrats. I think that the idea that Democrats would

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Speaker 1: ever have a supermajority in the Senate is like vanishing Leasball,

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Speaker 1: right right, right, yes, no question. So we'll have to

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Speaker 1: do what we can do within the reality of having

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Speaker 1: two sort of non Democrats in the Democratic majority. Just

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Speaker 1: do our best to get enough people in there to

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Speaker 1: get rid of the Filbusler. Yeah, I think that's right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think I wouldn't underestimate that eventually Republicans

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Speaker 1: will get sick of losing. But I don't know when

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Speaker 1: that happened. I mean, we're seeing right now McCarthy is

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Speaker 1: in the House trying to he's elevated this Freedom Caucus. So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a lot of there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of Trumpism in the means of like unforced errors

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Speaker 1: happening in the Republican Party, which is pretty interesting if

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Speaker 1: nothing else. Yeah, And what's sort of interesting, unexpected and

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Speaker 1: a little bit upsetting, is that it's it's their incompetence

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Speaker 1: that seems to be breaking through to people it's not

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Speaker 1: the racism, it's not there. It's not the stuff that

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Speaker 1: discuss us. Yeah, yeah, it's it's that they're holding hearings

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Speaker 1: on these absolutely bullshit things that that are irrelevant to

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Speaker 1: everybody's day to day lives and they're wasting money doing it.

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Speaker 1: So I guess that's good. But again it's against the

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Speaker 1: backdrop of they're having such an electoral advantage and knowing

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Speaker 1: that in order to win, all they really need to

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Speaker 1: do is focus on three states, right. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: is interesting to me, though, I will say, like Benghazi

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Speaker 1: worked in twenty fifteen, like it worked, it worked well,

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Speaker 1: it worked for Republicans. They ruined Hillary like they did it.

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Speaker 1: McCarthy was psyched, he said, he announced it on TV.

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Speaker 1: He was delighted. So I don't think that what we're

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Speaker 1: seeing now is a kind of like I do think

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Speaker 1: voters are getting a little more savvy. Yeah, that is

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Speaker 1: absolutely true, and that is something that should make us

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Speaker 1: give us a little boost of, if not hopelessly positivity,

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Speaker 1: because it's so egregious and it's so constant, like there

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Speaker 1: are no breaks here. Right when you saw the polling

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Speaker 1: on this Weaponization Committee, which was the brainchild of one

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Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson. You know, Tucker Carlson told McCarthy in early

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Speaker 1: January that if he wanted to be the speaker, he

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Speaker 1: needed to start a church committee, then Tucker might bestow

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Speaker 1: the speakership on him. By the way, that's not how

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Speaker 1: it's supposed to work. In case you're wondering, he did it,

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Speaker 1: and the polling showed that the America people knew right

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Speaker 1: away what it was, so that I think is actually

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Speaker 1: a pretty hopeful sign. It is. The question, though, is

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Speaker 1: how much davage can be done in the meantime. You know,

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Speaker 1: we just found out that Kevin McCarthy gave said Tucker

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Speaker 1: Fish the Carlson access to all of the video from

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Speaker 1: January sixth, Right, it makes you wonder what that's all about.

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Speaker 1: You know, what are they planning? And we just continue

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Speaker 1: to be in this extraordinary period of norm breaking to

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Speaker 1: the point that norms don't matter anymore except for norms

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Speaker 1: of course, right exactly. But I mean that's a good point.

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Speaker 1: I mean, think about a news hoost is getting these videos.

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Speaker 1: He's right now being sued. His network is being sued

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Speaker 1: by the voting machine company from the twenty twenty election

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Speaker 1: because it is clear, and there is text message evidence

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Speaker 1: that Tucker and Laura Ingram and John Hannity didn't believe

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Speaker 1: anything they were shopping for the last two years. So

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Speaker 1: we're way past norm breaking. What do we need a

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Speaker 1: word for norm breaking? When you are really like post

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Speaker 1: post post norm breaking. I'll work on it. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: need to work shop a word for you know you norms.

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Speaker 1: Those those were waved us bye bye a long time ago. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it did. It shows you that the ease with which

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Speaker 1: it happened leads us, I should say, to having discovered

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Speaker 1: also how vulnerable our institutions are and how willing so

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Speaker 1: many people are to kind of put pressure at their

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Speaker 1: weakest joints. Yeah, we've got a lot of rebuilding to do,

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Speaker 1: but I think we also have a lot of reconceptualizing

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Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, I'll say, I mean, for example, there's

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Speaker 1: a special counsel right now called Jack Smith. I guess

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Speaker 1: he still exists allegedly. What right do we have to know?

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Speaker 1: We're all the American people again, like all these people

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Speaker 1: who you know, these rioters, A lot of them went

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Speaker 1: to jail, but you know who didn't go to jail?

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Speaker 1: Any one above that? Yeah, that's the danger point, we

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Speaker 1: cannot consider any justice to have been done. If that

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Speaker 1: remains the case, I mean, it is entirely untenable. And

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Speaker 1: with the same will, we can say the same thing,

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Speaker 1: at least hypothetically in Georgia. If charges are brought against

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Speaker 1: everybody except like Mark Meadows and Donald Trump, how is

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Speaker 1: that justice? I mean, that's the big question. And again

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Speaker 1: it's too soon to know. Before people start yelling at me,

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Speaker 1: it's certainly possible that tomorrow, as soon as this podcast publishes,

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Speaker 1: Jack Smith puts out a ton of indictments, and we

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Speaker 1: are all eating our shoes, by the way, I just

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Speaker 1: want to say, and look, I would be delighted to

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Speaker 1: eat my shoe. I do think Donald Trump, for you know,

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Speaker 1: will run on these indictments. And I mean, don't you think,

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Speaker 1: oh he'll run on them. He'll fundraise off of them.

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Speaker 1: One thing Donald likes he likes having a lot of

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Speaker 1: people against them, like he wants the Republican feel to

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Speaker 1: be as big as it was in twenty sixteen. That

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Speaker 1: just works in his favor. He likes having multiple fronts

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Speaker 1: to fight on because thinks that demoralize us, like cheating,

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Speaker 1: lying and stealing and name calling and ad homam him

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Speaker 1: attacks kind of make him happy and bright, delight him,

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Speaker 1: build stronger. Yeah, yeah, he'll use that and he'll he's

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Speaker 1: already called the sentis a pedophile for God's sex, or

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Speaker 1: replied that he was one. So it's going to be

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Speaker 1: completely nasty. And there are enough people. Again, We've got

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Speaker 1: at least least thirty percent of the Republican electorate that

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Speaker 1: will finance this stuff because it's the only thing in

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Speaker 1: their lives that make them feel better than or make

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Speaker 1: them feel empowered. Yeah. Mary Trump, I am delighted to

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Speaker 1: have you. I look forward to having you back. We

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Speaker 1: will survive the next two plus years. We will, indeed,

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Speaker 1: and we will we will thrive well. Sohmer is a

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Speaker 1: reporter at The Daily Beast, an author of Trust the Plan,

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Speaker 1: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy then Unhinged, Amrapath, Welcome,

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Speaker 1: q ask Politics, Will Somar Molly, thanks for having me

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Speaker 1: Trust the Plan, but we really shouldn't trust the Plan.

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Speaker 1: Huh No. Yeah, so the book is called Trust the Plan.

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Speaker 1: I'm using sort of a QAnon slogan there that they

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Speaker 1: encourage their believers to just sort of lay back and

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Speaker 1: let q and Donald Trump take care of these satanic

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Speaker 1: pedophiles who run the world. But of course things, you know,

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Speaker 1: when you do trust the plan, I think things tend

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Speaker 1: to go a little awry. And the books about that

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Speaker 1: and how both were QAnon believers and the rest of us,

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Speaker 1: how bad things we've gotten. Can you just explain to

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Speaker 1: us what is happening right now with QAnon? Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean they're still cooking. I mean so so q told

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Speaker 1: a few years ago said to the believers, said stop

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Speaker 1: identifying yourselves as QAnon, stop talking publicly about it. And

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Speaker 1: so as a result, I think we see it a

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Speaker 1: lot less visibly now, but they're still at it. You know,

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Speaker 1: q pops in every couple months to post, and I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, we see a lot of evidence that I

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Speaker 1: think we're gonna have a resurgence of QAnon as not

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Speaker 1: just sort of broader as sort of conspiratorial thinking or

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Speaker 1: talk about groomers and cabals and this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: But I think Qan on itself we'll have a resurgence

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four and as we move into that.

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Speaker 1: But I think really the biggest thing with them is

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Speaker 1: how Donald Trump has moved to outright and endorsed them

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Speaker 1: and you know, he posts all day on truth social

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Speaker 1: you know, memes of him wearing q buttons and all

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So, I mean, that does seem

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Speaker 1: like a really important sea change, Like we had Trump

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Speaker 1: sort of flirted with them, but he kind of knew

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Speaker 1: it was naughty. And then now since he you know,

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Speaker 1: in his desperate quest to hold on to power, all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, he was like, oh, yeah, this will

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Speaker 1: work for May for so long. It's sort of the

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Speaker 1: arc of Trump and QAnon. As these guys they wanted,

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Speaker 1: they believed in Trump so bad he was like their

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Speaker 1: messianic figure, and all they wanted as they endured all this,

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Speaker 1: you know, mockery from people who knew them, all they

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Speaker 1: wanted was for Trump to say Quanon was real. And

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Speaker 1: so you know, they would go to these rallies. They

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Speaker 1: talked about trying to break into the White House to

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Speaker 1: ask him this kind of stuff. And then you know, actually,

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Speaker 1: you know, if the Trump campaign kind of put them

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Speaker 1: to the side and said, well, why don't tell you're okay,

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Speaker 1: you can come in, but don't wear your shirts and

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Speaker 1: maybe don't stand in front of the TV cameras. Maybe

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Speaker 1: don't freak people out and then in twenty Trump starts saying, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe these people are onto something, and then

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Speaker 1: now more explicitly, he's he's he's embracing them a lot more.

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Speaker 1: It seems to me, like with the anti vaxers and

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Speaker 1: like people like the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi, it

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Speaker 1: does seem to me like there's a kind of liberal

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Speaker 1: sect of QAnon. I hate even saying that because it

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Speaker 1: doesn't sound like English. Yeah, this is sort of a

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Speaker 1: fascinating aspect of it. This stuff really took off during

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Speaker 1: the pandemic. There's various terms for them. They're called pastel QAnon.

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Speaker 1: In some ways. It sort of spreads along online yoga

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Speaker 1: and wellness communities on Instagram. There's also this aspect called

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Speaker 1: Save the Children, which is sort of a QAnon front

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Speaker 1: group where people would say, aren't you concerned that six

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand children go missing a year? Which is which

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Speaker 1: is not true, But people say, yeah, right, I was

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Speaker 1: gonna say, it seems like a lot of kids. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that would be about a third of the kids born

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Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, and so yeah, it doesn't make any sense,

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Speaker 1: but I wouldn't be very concerned about that. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: that's sort of the funnel is that then you know

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Speaker 1: people well, meeting people who wouldn't consider themselves Trump supporters,

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Speaker 1: they sort of travel down this rabbit hole and say, well,

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Speaker 1: why are these kids going missing? And someone says, well,

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Speaker 1: let me tell you about a lady named Hillary Clinton.

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Speaker 1: And that's how you get a lot of these kind

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Speaker 1: of liberal QAnon believers. Yeah, and did these people eventually

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Speaker 1: vote for Trump? I think that's how it works out

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Speaker 1: is often these when I talk to people about like

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Speaker 1: why did you get into QAnon when it is a

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Speaker 1: more liberal person, You know, they get into it because

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Speaker 1: of maybe they're already in kind of like alternative wellness

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Speaker 1: spaces or selling essential oils and an mlm oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: don't tera exactly exactly. A lot of the appeal of

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Speaker 1: QAnon that I think often gets undercovered, but we talked

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Speaker 1: about in the book is there's a very personal aspect

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Speaker 1: of it, and there's this promise of you know, if

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Speaker 1: you have debts, it will be abolished, or if you

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Speaker 1: wrench your house, suddenly you'll come to own this house.

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Speaker 1: So been people in kind of desperate circumstances they get

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Speaker 1: into it and then then they okay, well, who's the

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Speaker 1: guy who's going to make all this happen. Well, his

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Speaker 1: name is Donald Trump, right right, right, So let me

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Speaker 1: ask you. I want to ask you about this Epstein list.

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Speaker 1: They all think there's some Epstein list coming out right

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Speaker 1: right right, that there's this you know, this Epstein client

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Speaker 1: list that the deep State won't release, but it's coming

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Speaker 1: any day, right exactly exactly, And they right, and so

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Speaker 1: you know, or you know, even sometimes they'll circulate sort

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Speaker 1: of photoshopped aspects of it where it'll say, oh, John Roberts,

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Speaker 1: was you know, on the Epstein list or whatever? Is

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Speaker 1: there a list coming out? No, No, there's no list, Molly.

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Speaker 1: I mean, as far as I know, I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: the government has never said we're going to put out

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Speaker 1: a list. Oh so this is completely made up? Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: it's made up. Oh wow, that's really freaky. I have

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Speaker 1: been really surprised, and again I'm not saying that I

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Speaker 1: am going to join this insane cult, but I have

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Speaker 1: been very surprised at how little of the Epstein stuff

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Speaker 1: has been released. I think often, you know, I certainly

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Speaker 1: don't mean to to brush this, you know, Epstein stuff

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Speaker 1: under the rug. I mean I think often qNaN is

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Speaker 1: is most effective when there there really are like very weird,

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Speaker 1: disturbing things happening in the news, you know, whether it

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Speaker 1: was the pandemic or um or or the Epstein stuff,

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Speaker 1: which is really weird. And then he supposedly died in jail.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of shady stuff around it,

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Speaker 1: and usually that that can make a great recruiting tool

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Speaker 1: to then say, well, you know what else is weird

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Speaker 1: and then you know, sort of lead someone down the path, right, No,

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Speaker 1: I mean just crazy. First, I want to ask you,

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Speaker 1: is there any sense that this is getting better or

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Speaker 1: are we really all going to die? Well? I think certainly,

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Speaker 1: you know, I occasionally talk to people who leave Qunan,

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Speaker 1: and but I honestly think that this, this kind of

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Speaker 1: conspiratorial thinking and this kind of the Quanan movement is

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Speaker 1: something that's going to be with us for a while.

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, there are like a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot of legitimate problems in American society, and I

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Speaker 1: think people are often driven in, you know, they get

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Speaker 1: in these kind of dire straits, often like dead or

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Speaker 1: you know, medical issues, stuff like this, and they see

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Speaker 1: these conspiracy theories as an escape and kind of a

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Speaker 1: fun fantasy world that they can live in, and then

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Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it unfortunately ends up in being January sixth,

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Speaker 1: or you know, these other kind of QAnon violent moments.

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Speaker 1: How much of the geopy base is really QAnon? Very conservatively,

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Speaker 1: I would say ten percent, but I think it's probably

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Speaker 1: higher than that. I mean, we see poles that say,

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Speaker 1: you know, when you ask someone do you believe in QAnon,

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Speaker 1: perhaps you get as high as fifteen percent, Whereas if

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Speaker 1: you say, more broadly, do you believe that there is

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Speaker 1: a Satanic cult that abuses children and drinks their blood,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, it's actually much higher than that, Like it's

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Speaker 1: in the thirty percents. Yeah, yeah, Jesus. And so at

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Speaker 1: that point, you know, and people can say, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: look at that, Oh well it's not a majority. Well

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Speaker 1: that's great. You know, we're still we're talking about tens

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Speaker 1: of millions of people. Yeah, there's are a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: So then this leads to my next question, which is

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Speaker 1: this group is not transferable, right, like Ron de Santis

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Speaker 1: can't harness the power of QAnon, right, I don't think

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Speaker 1: so at this moment. You know, I think if you know, someday,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump will leave and someday we'll get a new

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Speaker 1: iteration of this conspiracy theory. But but until then, I mean,

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Speaker 1: they really, you know, he is the he's the god figure.

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Speaker 1: They call him the god Emperor, you know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is the god Emperor. Wait? Really yeah? Yeah? Wait?

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Speaker 1: They called Donald John Trump the god Emperor. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: and looks it's a little tongue in cheek, Malli, but

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Speaker 1: they do call it, you know, they call him geodas right,

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Speaker 1: the God Emperor of the United States. Jesus fucking Christ.

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Speaker 1: They know, the same guy we're talking about, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's the Donald Trump, right, I mean, and that

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Speaker 1: is you know, I think we're starting to see but

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Speaker 1: speaking of the Santas, we're starting to see Trump kind

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Speaker 1: of waghe into weaponizing these pedophile allegations against him, right

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Speaker 1: because he you know, he posted this picture and he said, oh,

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Speaker 1: Rod parting with high schoolers? Is this true. The thing

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Speaker 1: that I don't understand about this is like these people,

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Speaker 1: when these things are debunked, they don't ever like have

422
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 1: a moment where they're like, oh, we weren't right about this,

423
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: so maybe we're not right about everything. And I mean

424
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 1: that is the sort of the cognitive dissonance that's so

425
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: fascinating about it, where when one of these moments doesn't happen,

426
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:17,560
Speaker 1: then you know you have to kind of jigger it

427
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: around in your head and so suddenly, you know. I

428
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 1: talked to Q and On people when Biden was inaugurated,

429
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 1: which was of course a huge moment let down for them,

430
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: and this woman said, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna

431
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: throw up. But then they kind of go back and

432
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 1: they say, well, I guess the deep State was a

433
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 1: little tougher than we thought, and we'll just have to

434
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:35,919
Speaker 1: redouble our efforts. I imagine if they spend all that

435
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 1: time working on stuff that was actually real. Let's talk

436
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 1: about what is happening at Project Fairitas. What is happening

437
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: at Project Veritas? Oh my gosh, Molly, where do I start?

438
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: So give us a little for my dad, who is

439
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: hopefully listening to this, because if you've lost your dad,

440
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: you're really in deep shit. Please explain what Project Fairtas is. Sure, so,

441
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:00,919
Speaker 1: Project Veritas is a nonprofit. I want to underline that

442
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: because that comes up later. Yes, Insane is a political

443
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: group run by James O'Keefe, who's kind of the this

444
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: right wing figure who pioneered these hidden camera stings, and

445
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: so most famously he dressed up as a pimp and

446
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: went into the liberal group Acorn and said, you know,

447
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 1: I'm a pimp, and how can I traffic underage girls? Essentially,

448
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 1: And a lot of these videos were accused of being

449
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:25,119
Speaker 1: misleadingly edited. But he's been very effective at embarrassing and

450
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 1: in some cases taking down liberal groups with these stings.

451
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 1: And he also went after Times Reporter and went after

452
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 1: I mean, he's done a bunch of these kind of

453
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: things and they're very sketchy, and the idea is to

454
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:43,640
Speaker 1: prove that the media is somehow trying to get conservatives exactly.

455
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: They do a lot of honey pots, for example, where

456
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 1: you know, a lovely young lady from Project Veritas, or

457
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: as James O'Keefe refers to them as pretty young things.

458
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: Jesus you know he internally. Yeah, So that's the kind

459
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 1: of environment they're working with, feminist icon and so you

460
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 1: know they'll try to for example, when when Trump was

461
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: an office, they would try to catch FBI agents saying, oh,

462
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: we can't wait to get this Trump guy. Or they

463
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: go after journalists and so that's kind of their bread

464
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:11,719
Speaker 1: and butter. How bad must it have been for them

465
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: to have fired him because he's the boss, right, And

466
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: so there's all this kind of crazy stuff going on

467
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 1: a project Veritas. So they were there under FBI investigation

468
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: over the theft of Ashley Biden's diary, right, which may

469
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,879
Speaker 1: or may not be her diary, right exactly. There are

470
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:31,160
Speaker 1: these lawsuits from employees who suggest this very sexist culture

471
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: of James O'Keeffe. Shocked who could have seen that, I

472
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,879
Speaker 1: mean realize James O'Keeffe like pulling up porn on his

473
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 1: computer at work, allegedly really hard partying. They claimed someone

474
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: pooped on the floor at a party, another guy had

475
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: a drug overdose. So then this all comes to a

476
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: head over James O'Keefe spending the kind of the Marquee

477
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: expense here, and we're talking one hundreds of thousands of dollars.

478
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,239
Speaker 1: Is James O'Keefe is a big musical theater fan going

479
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 1: back to high school. And they have admitted this is

480
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: that he started a production of Oklahoma I think in

481
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. This is true, And so they paid

482
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars to basically relocate Project Veritas staffers so

483
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: that he could work with them and I think Virginia

484
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: while he was doing this Oklahoma production, and then they

485
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: had to admit to the irs like, okay, yeah, I

486
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: guess this was not within our purview as a nonprofit.

487
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 1: So this spending has been out of control. According to

488
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: the board. It seems as though he fired some people

489
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:27,360
Speaker 1: who were looking into it, and then they stepped back

490
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 1: in and reinstated them. And then now this kind of

491
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: comes to a head on Monday where James O'Keefe marches

492
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: into the office and records this nearly hour long video

493
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 1: where he's kind of ranting here, Oh, I would hope,

494
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: I mean, because you know, he's a recording guy, so

495
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 1: you know, I'm interested to see because you know, his

496
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: staff says he alleges that he's been very abusive a

497
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 1: lot of the staffers, and so that I'm curious all

498
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 1: these people with hidden cameras and all this expertise whether

499
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: there's a video or audio of him that's going to emerge.

500
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: But he basically had this kind of bizarre video where

501
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: he ranted against the board and he's just he's crying

502
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: and stuff like this, and then he announces, you know,

503
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 1: I'm quitting Project Veritas and I'm going to create my

504
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 1: own rival, new Project Veritas. So now there's this this

505
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: chance that there's there are going to be these two

506
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 1: rival organizations at each other's throats. Oh Jesus, I mean

507
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: I did see Don Junior. A lot of these guys

508
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 1: are team James O'Keefe. They certainly are. You know, It's

509
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: interesting to me because the board here, you know, people

510
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 1: like Don Junior are painting this board as you know,

511
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: a bunch of liberals. But I mean these are James

512
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 1: O'Keefe loyalists who stepped in here, and so it makes

513
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 1: me think that, you know, essentially, there's what the board

514
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: is arguing is that it got to the point where

515
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: they they were at risk of breaking the law themselves

516
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: if they didn't rein him in. But you have people

517
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: like Don Junior who are arguing that this nonprofit should

518
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: be run as the James O'Keefe piggy bank for musical productions. Well,

519
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,959
Speaker 1: why should it be any different than his dad's pack. Honestly,

520
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:57,959
Speaker 1: I do think Donald Trump's charity is the model here.

521
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 1: I mean this idea that they say, well, James raised

522
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: all this money, but he didn't raise it for you know,

523
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: one of the allegations is that he spent nearly twenty

524
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 1: thousand dollars taking a private jet to go meet one

525
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: of his boat repair men. I mean, this is not

526
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: supposed to be for right technically now, but it's kind

527
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: of incredible. I am without speech honestly, I mean I

528
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: just am without speech with this. So you think that

529
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: James O'Keefe now goes off and starts his own Project

530
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: Veritas Part two, Yeah, I think that's the plan. And really,

531
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 1: I mean Project Veritas, I think you could easily replicate it.

532
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty much James O'Keeffe and sort of some

533
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: some wayward youths who are willing to to do honey pots.

534
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm sure he can buy some more

535
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: hidden cameras, so I think he will do that. And

536
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: I think the board here I don't think there are

537
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: under any illusions that it's going to continue without him.

538
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: It speaks to how concerned they were about his spending that.

539
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like they let up get away

540
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: with a lot and then they said, hey, James, you know,

541
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: maybe we skip this musical and then you know, it

542
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: all blew up. But you do also see how unhinged

543
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: a lot of these people are, right, I mean, like

544
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: obviously James o'keith had a pretty good gig. He just

545
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: couldn't keep himself from blowing it off exactly. And you know,

546
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: often what I run into covering covering the right is

547
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: how many personality issues come up. And probably Veritas had

548
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: a great thing going. It sort of seems as though

549
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: O'Keefe's personality, you know, according to the board and his spending,

550
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: and you know, also I really don't underline. I mean,

551
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: his underlings allege just haine his treatment. They said he

552
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: would just go after people and what they call public

553
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: crucifixions at work. It seems like a very rough place.

554
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: But it's hard for me to imagine. And this is

555
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: the thing with these MAGA workplace disputes, Like the whole

556
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: thing of MAGA is mistreating people, right, So like what

557
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: are you going to be like? This is not a

558
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: healthy workplace, Like you're working for a guy who said

559
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: all Mexicans were rapists? Like how do you what? There's

560
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: no decorum here? I mean, I don't know how you

561
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: have a leg to stand on. Well, you know, it

562
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: is funny. I mean this idea, these same people who

563
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: are saying, oh, you know these let's explode, expose these

564
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:05,840
Speaker 1: liberal snowflakes. And then, you know, especially, I mean big

565
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: Project Veritas target has been labor unions, and then suddenly

566
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: these workers are like, all right, we gotta organize, we

567
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: gotta go to the Yeah. Right, this is kind of amazing.

568
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: I mean it's like, you know, it is like they're

569
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: rediscovering all of these liberal values again and again. You know,

570
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: maybe unions have a good point here. Thank you so much,

571
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: will I hope you'll come back. Thanks for having me.

572
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: I know you, our dear listeners are very busy and

573
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of

574
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: pieces of punditentry each week. This is why every week

575
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles

576
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love

577
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up

578
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: at Fast Politics pod dot com and click the tab

579
00:31:55,160 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: to join our mailing list. That's Fast politics pod dot com.

580
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: Professor Joanna Schwartz is the author of Shielded, How the

581
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: Police Became Untouchable. Welcome to Fast Politics. Professor Joanna Schwartz

582
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: thank you. Thanks for having me. Very excited to have you.

583
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: So I feel like the book. I think we have

584
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: to say the title of the book because it is

585
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: exactly what we're going to be talking about right now.

586
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: It is called Shielded, How the Police Became Untouchable. I'm

587
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: sure you wrote this during the middle of police you know,

588
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: there have been so many of these police misconduct incidents.

589
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 1: So tell me. I want to first ask you, how

590
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 1: did you when did you decide to write this? Yeah. So,

591
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: I was a civil rights litigator in New York City

592
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands, and when I was bringing

593
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: these cases with a small civil rights firm in the city,

594
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: I started thinking about how civil rights cases actually work

595
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: on the ground and all of the challenges that there

596
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 1: are to relief in these cases. And then when I

597
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: became a law professor about fifteen years ago, I started

598
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: focusing my research on civil rights litigation and many of

599
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 1: the questions that I first was asking as a young

600
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: lawyer bringing these cases about how the rules actually work

601
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: on the ground. And so I wrote a bunch of

602
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: law review articles that lawyers and law students and advocates read. Then,

603
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 1: in the wake of George Floyd's murder. I decided to

604
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: write this book, and I was getting a lot of

605
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: calls from legislators and from journalists trying to understand how

606
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: the system worked and why there are so many barriers

607
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 1: to relief in these cases. And so I wanted to

608
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: write Shielded to describe all of these barriers in ways

609
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: that people who aren't lawyers and don't tenderly read law

610
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: review articles could understand, and to explain all of the

611
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: interlocking ways in which there are challenges to getting justice

612
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: at each stage of the litigation. That's how I came

613
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: to write Shielded. Give us a little taste of what

614
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: they are sure well, there's been a lot of conversation

615
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,720
Speaker 1: in the news, particularly after the murder of George Floyd,

616
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: about a legal protection called qualified immunity, and it's a

617
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: protection that essentially means that even if an officer has

618
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: violated the Constitution, they're protected so long as there's not

619
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 1: a prior court decision with virtually identical facts in which

620
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 1: that similar conduct was held to be unconstitutional. And as

621
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: I describe in the book, there is a case coming

622
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: out of Fresno, California, where a police officer stole a

623
00:34:56,120 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: quarter of a million dollars in money and rare points

624
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:05,720
Speaker 1: when conducting a search. That officer got qualified immunity because

625
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 1: there wasn't a prior court decision where something so outrageous

626
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: had been done. And that meant that the person whose

627
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: home was searched, who lost a quarter of a million dollars,

628
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: didn't get any relief and the officer didn't suffer any

629
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 1: consequences of that extreme misconduct. And that's only one of

630
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: the barriers. The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution, which

631
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: protects against unreasonable searches, in seizures, in ways that allow

632
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 1: police to arrest, assault, and even kill people who've done

633
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: nothing wrong, so long as they can say it was

634
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: objectively reasonable for them to do so at the time

635
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 1: because they thought the person had a gun in their hand,

636
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: for example. And I also talk about how difficult it

637
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: is to get justice against local governments, even truly dysfunctional ones.

638
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: It's very difficult, given the Supreme Court standards, to get

639
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 1: relief from them as well. Obviously, you are not the

640
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: first person to come on this podcast and talk about

641
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:12,240
Speaker 1: this wildly conservative Supreme Court, and you know it's certainly

642
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 1: something we focus on a lot. But I want to

643
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: get back to this idea. Do you think that some

644
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: of this is founded on the notion which I, as

645
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: in New York are fined completely bizarre, but is clearly

646
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: like a big selling point to some people outside of

647
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: the cities that you can shoot people if they show

648
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 1: up at your house. Well, there is a really interesting

649
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 1: way in which gun control or lack of gun control,

650
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 1: and police violence intersect. And in fact, one of the

651
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 1: stories that I tell in the book is about a

652
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: person who is playing video games in their home at night,

653
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,399
Speaker 1: doing nothing wrong. Police pounded on their door at one

654
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning because they thought, for no good

655
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 1: reason at all, that this person owned a motorcycle that

656
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: had possibly been involved in a crime earlier that night.

657
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: And this man, Andrew Scott, had a gun that he

658
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,719
Speaker 1: lawfully possessed. He brought it to the door down at

659
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 1: his side. But someone is pounding on his door at

660
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: one thirty in the morning and doesn't say who they are,

661
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,399
Speaker 1: and when he opens the door, he's shot by a

662
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 1: deputy sheriff, and then the deputy sheriff. The claim against

663
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: him is dismissed because the deputy was reasonable in the

664
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 1: court's mind to shoot him because he had a gun. Well,

665
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 1: that was a gun. He was lawfully in possession of

666
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: the law. The constitution is, you take it by interpreted

667
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: by the Supreme Court, says you can have a gun anywhere,

668
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: but if an officer thinks that you're gonna hurt somebody,

669
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:53,240
Speaker 1: they can shoot you and they have not violated the constitution. Great,

670
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 1: great country we live in. The thing I'm all strapped

671
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,799
Speaker 1: by is that it just seems like, I mean, I know,

672
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 1: there was statistics about at how few crimes police actually

673
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,399
Speaker 1: do solve, and it does strike me with a lot

674
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 1: of this. Certainly a lot of this. There's racism, I

675
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 1: mean a lot right like back to Rodney King the

676
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,799
Speaker 1: history of much of this, and especially in the LA

677
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: Police department, but in other police departments. We've had people

678
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: on here talking about the gangs and the police departments.

679
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: I mean, there's certainly a lot of racism and a

680
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 1: lot of other sort of rot in the institution. But

681
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 1: it also does strike me the police or just not

682
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: that good at this. I think that we as a

683
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: society give police a tremendous amount of authority to do

684
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: things that are difficult to do. I'm not sure, and

685
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 1: I think we as a country are starting to think

686
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: about whether they actually should be given authority to do

687
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: these things. There are discussions across the country about how

688
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: to handle people who are having mental health crises and

689
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:59,280
Speaker 1: to not have people with guns responding. Philadelphia recently passed

690
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: all that would limit police power to stop people for

691
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: minor traffic violations, right, which is how a number of

692
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: these shootings happen. Right. Yeah. I mean my book really

693
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:15,799
Speaker 1: focuses on what to do once officers have violated the

694
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,800
Speaker 1: constitution and the law, what is the path toward justice?

695
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: But I think a full consideration of all possible reforms

696
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 1: also means we need to think about what we allow

697
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 1: police to do, what we authorize them to do, and

698
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: some of it are things that police really are not

699
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 1: well suited to accomplish, and we should be thinking about

700
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:40,239
Speaker 1: how to run our society differently. I totally agree, and

701
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 1: this is like one of the largest problems of our age.

702
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: But I just want to mention, like you know, with

703
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: the Gabby Petito saying, even cases where you know it's

704
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 1: a white person and by other white people, they are

705
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: still just appalling and atrocious. And I mean that's the thing.

706
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm just by how bad they are with

707
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 1: domestic violent I mean, I just don't understand how this

708
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: group has so much political capital. If you had a

709
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 1: company that was doing this, you would fire the CEOs.

710
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: I think that the political capital point is a really

711
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:17,279
Speaker 1: powerful one, and part of what I focus on in

712
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:22,720
Speaker 1: the book is that that political capital has really been

713
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: built up based on fear mongering about what society would

714
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: look like if it was too easy to get justice,

715
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: if there were more constraints on police and what they

716
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 1: could do if there was more transparency, And really, in

717
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 1: response to any effort to have more oversight over police,

718
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: there have been claims that courthouses would be overflowing with

719
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 1: frivolous cases, and officers would be bankrupted for reasonable mistakes

720
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 1: made in a split second, and no one would agree

721
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: to become a police officer, and without a police force,

722
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: there would be chaos. And I've really spent my academic

723
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 1: career studying these and other justifications for all of the

724
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: limits on transparency and justice, and those claims are overblown,

725
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:10,479
Speaker 1: if not false, but they're scary, and I think that

726
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:14,760
Speaker 1: it's hard for politicians to say I'm going to pass

727
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: these reforms, I'm going to demand this transparency in response

728
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 1: to union officials and police officials saying, if you do this,

729
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: your constituents will be unsafe. I want to talk to

730
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:29,879
Speaker 1: you about qualified immunity because I think a lot about doctors. Right.

731
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: Doctors have medical malpractice, right, and if you kill a patient,

732
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: you can be sued. Right. Yeah. Police want qualified immunity

733
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: because they don't want to be held responsible for things

734
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 1: like killing a prisoner. But that would be what that

735
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: would mean, right, Well, I think that there is. I mean,

736
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:54,319
Speaker 1: qualified immunity does create those real protections even when the

737
00:41:54,440 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: constitution has been violated. The constitution itself, though, also creates

738
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: protections so that prisoners can be killed even if qualified

739
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 1: immunity wasn't there. The way in which the courts have

740
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,919
Speaker 1: understood the constitutional power is so limited, and in fact

741
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: it's especially limited when you're talking about prisoners, even more

742
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 1: so than police. Yeah, I mean I just am struck

743
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 1: by you know, yesterday there was a news event of

744
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: a man who had they had called the police on

745
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 1: him because he had addiction problem. The police had put

746
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: him in the freezer. He had frozen. To us his temperature,

747
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,280
Speaker 1: his body temperature was seventy two. I mean, so clearly

748
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 1: we are seeing police cruelty as an American epidemic. Yeah, no, absolutely,

749
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:43,880
Speaker 1: and we see it again and again in these moments

750
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:48,360
Speaker 1: when there is a high profile case like Tyree Nichols

751
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: and like George Floyd before him. These are moments where

752
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 1: the public's attention is captured and there is the sense

753
00:42:55,400 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 1: that we need to improve things. But every day there

754
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: are stories if you look, of terrible injustices that have

755
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 1: occurred that don't get that kind of public attention. And

756
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:09,720
Speaker 1: those are really the stories that I try to tell

757
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 1: in this book, because those are the cases where the

758
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: shields protecting against accountability are. They're most powerful in the

759
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 1: cases that have the least political salience. Yeah, I mean

760
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 1: that certainly seems like where we are and just how

761
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: do we get out of this? Well, I think that

762
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: there's a lot of barriers to relief, there's a lot

763
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: of barriers to justice, and the bright side of that

764
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: is that there's a lot that can be done at

765
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 1: every level of government to improve where we are. I

766
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 1: think that we should applaud and continue to explore ways

767
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: to limit the reach of policing, certainly with people who

768
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,839
Speaker 1: are suffering mental health crises, with people who have done

769
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: minor traffic violations and don't need to be pulled over.

770
00:43:57,440 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: There are also important things to do with police internal

771
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: discipline and to undo some of the protections that have

772
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 1: been negotiated through union agreements that make it very difficult

773
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 1: for police departments to take any action against their officers.

774
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: But then I also think, and this is really where

775
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 1: the focus of shield it is that we need to

776
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: make the back end systems of accountability work better than

777
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:27,880
Speaker 1: they do, which are happening in a variety of different ways.

778
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:32,360
Speaker 1: State governments across the country are trying to create greater

779
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 1: restrictions on what police can do and do away with

780
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: protections like qualified immunity. And there's a lot that can

781
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: happen at city at the level of city government as

782
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: well that people can ask their own city officials to

783
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: make valuable changes that I outline in the book. I

784
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:52,319
Speaker 1: want to ask you about the police union because, as

785
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: someone who's a granddaughter of communists terry committed to unions,

786
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:01,800
Speaker 1: we've had a lot of trouble getting unions to really

787
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:06,399
Speaker 1: do for workers. The police union does not have any

788
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: trouble with that. Can you explain why, well, I mean,

789
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:15,280
Speaker 1: police and corrections unions are really among the most powerful

790
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:19,359
Speaker 1: unions that we have in the country, and I do

791
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: think that that power has been fueled in part by

792
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: these claims that without the protections that they're given, our

793
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,440
Speaker 1: country will not be safe, people won't agree to service officers,

794
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 1: and that those dangers of increased crime and lack of

795
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:44,279
Speaker 1: protection are going to be on the responsibility of legislators,

796
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,239
Speaker 1: who then have to answer to their constituents. It's a

797
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 1: very powerful message that I think union leaders in corrections

798
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: and in law enforcement have been using for decades and

799
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 1: decades to increase protections, and it's they are powerful in

800
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: a large part because of that message that I think

801
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: it's very difficult for legislators to push back against. Yes, agreed,

802
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:17,839
Speaker 1: and also OI, it's such a grim, grim reality. We

803
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: in New York have a mayor who was a policeman,

804
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: and he is very into a lot of whatever I am.

805
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan, but in a way we're sort

806
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: of more stock when it comes to reform because of

807
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: our mayor. Yes, no discuss well. I think that New

808
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:43,840
Speaker 1: York is a unique place for a variety of reasons

809
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:47,440
Speaker 1: when it comes to policing. The New York City Police

810
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: department is dramatically larger than any other police department in

811
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,840
Speaker 1: the country. The next largest, I believe is Chicago, and

812
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 1: it's like a third of the size of the MYPD.

813
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: And then of course the are just budget. It's a

814
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 1: very very powerful part of the New York City ecosystem.

815
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: You also have very strong advocates for reform, both private

816
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 1: citizens and lawyers and folks on the city council. There

817
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 1: is a tremendous amount of power that law enforcement has.

818
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:23,319
Speaker 1: There is also a tremendous amount of important work that's

819
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 1: being done by local city council members and by advocates.

820
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 1: In other parts of the country, there aren't lawyers that

821
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 1: do this work. There aren't civil rights organizations that bring

822
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: these cases and bring attention to them. So you've got challenges,

823
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:44,640
Speaker 1: But you also have people who are focused on improving

824
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:48,480
Speaker 1: policing in the NYPD. Yeah, so interesting. I hope you

825
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: will come back anytime. Jesse Cannon, Molly Jong Fast. These conservatives,

826
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 1: they just always can find some dumb nitpick thing about

827
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:06,919
Speaker 1: where you didn't visit, where you're not at each day,

828
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: and they're mad. President Biden is doing an unprecedented visit

829
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:14,400
Speaker 1: to the Ukraine, you know, the Ohio trained derailment. On

830
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: this podcast, we have taken it very very seriously because

831
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 1: we do not like environmental catastrophe is unline, you know,

832
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: unlike the rest of the world, which also doesn't like

833
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 1: environmental catastrophes. But you know, especially once that are caused

834
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: by deregulation. You'll remember deregulation as Donald Trump's favorite thing

835
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: in the kioworld. You guys, deregulation, that's what happens when

836
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: you deregulate industries like trains. And so Donald Trump going

837
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: to Ohio on his tour to tell the many people

838
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,439
Speaker 1: of Ohio how bad he feels for them and how

839
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:54,239
Speaker 1: deregulation had nothing to do with this enormous environmental catastrophe

840
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: that could have been prevented by regulation. Very mad at

841
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: Biden for going to Ukraine during President's Day, one of

842
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 1: the very rare times a sitting president had gone into

843
00:49:04,160 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: an active war zone. He took an eight to ten

844
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:12,040
Speaker 1: hour train ride. Secretly, it was quite a ballsy move.

845
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:17,479
Speaker 1: Republicans are mad that he's not in Ohio because Joe

846
00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: Biden is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't.

847
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

848
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:28,720
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the best minds

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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you

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00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:34,719
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend

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00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.