Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and the irs predicts Doge will actually
Speaker 1: lose quite a lot of money for the United States.
Speaker 2: We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: Charlie Sykes stops by to talk about Pete hegsa's little
Speaker 1: group chat problem. Then we'll talk to academic and author
Speaker 1: of the Shadow Docket Stevid Fladdock about what is happening
Speaker 1: with this Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: But first the news.
Speaker 3: So Wali Postmaster Joy, a person that everyone has been
Speaker 3: looking to get rid of for a long time on
Speaker 3: the left, is no longer going to be leading the
Speaker 3: post office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to know, right, because Postmaster de Joy
Speaker 1: has been unpopular, But there are things worse than Postmaster Joy, right.
Speaker 1: For example, he has continued to keep the post office
Speaker 1: running in a certain way. So, I mean, look, the
Speaker 1: Joy is a great example of one of the failures
Speaker 1: of the Biden administration. And again I've talked about some
Speaker 1: of the really good policy stuff that the Biden administration passed,
Speaker 1: like the Chips and Sciences Act. They did a lot
Speaker 1: of good stuff, but one of the things they didn't do,
Speaker 1: which was.
Speaker 2: Really disappointing to a lot of us.
Speaker 1: They were so by the letter of the law and
Speaker 1: careful about things like the ups board of Directors that
Speaker 1: they felt they could not fire the Joy because they
Speaker 1: didn't have the votes on the board of directors.
Speaker 2: Now, FYI, Donald Trump would.
Speaker 1: Not have given a fuck about this, right, he would
Speaker 1: have just gone in there like a bull in a
Speaker 1: china shop. And again this gets the question of what
Speaker 1: is the right amount when you're faced with a lawless
Speaker 1: with the Republican Party that has foregone norms and institutions,
Speaker 1: is the question to be so profoundly careful like Merrick Garland?
Speaker 1: Or is the play to shore up norms and institutions?
Speaker 1: And sometimes that means taking risks and doing things that
Speaker 1: might not be exactly the way another place would do it.
Speaker 1: So the answer is I don't know. Right, thank god,
Speaker 1: that's way above my big grade. But to Joy has
Speaker 1: now resigned, this can mean any number of things, right,
Speaker 1: This could mean he's a GOP donor so he has
Speaker 1: you know, been very trumpy, but he did keep the
Speaker 1: post office running. Look, this administration has put worse people
Speaker 1: in this right, I mean the true The one truism
Speaker 1: is that Trump one point zero looks like Lincoln compared
Speaker 1: to Trump two point zero. So it's possible they put
Speaker 1: in someone who wants to privatize the mail. It's possible
Speaker 1: they put in someone who wants to make the mail
Speaker 1: ten times worse because they think it'll help Trump. There
Speaker 1: are any number of terrible permutations that could come downstream
Speaker 1: of this. I think what's important when you think about
Speaker 1: trump Ism is think about the intended consequences, but also
Speaker 1: think about the unintended consequences. So this will have intended consequences,
Speaker 1: but like with so many things in Trump world, when
Speaker 1: there's so much incompetence, there will also be unintended consequences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then there's also sometimes surprising, surprising rulings, like
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court shockingly standing up to Trump on press freedom.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, this is technically not exactly that.
Speaker 1: So the Supreme Court we saw yesterday they're not going
Speaker 1: to take a case called New York Times v.
Speaker 2: Sullivan.
Speaker 1: It was in nineteen sixty four, landmark defamation case. We
Speaker 1: actually had on this podcast a really smart journals from
Speaker 1: the New York Times who talk to us about it.
Speaker 1: This is a case from So this case got all
Speaker 1: the way up to the Supreme.
Speaker 2: Court with Steve win.
Speaker 1: You'll remember Steve Winn as a casino magnet and also
Speaker 1: a big trumper, right, big donor to Donald Trump. He
Speaker 1: was pushing a story against the AP in the hopes
Speaker 1: of getting this case looked at by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the goal of this was, you know,
Speaker 1: just like the Gawker case, to open the door so
Speaker 1: that everyday people could sue media organizations for you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote actual malice instead of the way it works
Speaker 1: with the New York Times versus Sullivan is there's a
Speaker 1: sort of little bit of a cutout for mistakes if
Speaker 1: you make a mistake. This could have opened up to
Speaker 1: any number of lawsuits, less and less press freedom. So
Speaker 1: the fact that they didn't take this is good. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, they have.
Speaker 2: Four years of being completely crazy.
Speaker 1: Just because Barrett and Justice Roberts aren't complete partisan hacks
Speaker 1: does not mean they get a parade for me. So
Speaker 1: this is going to be a yet another season of
Speaker 1: them remaking the country in completely insane wise.
Speaker 3: YEP, agreed, So we should do the full disclosure. Former
Speaker 3: guests of this podcast.
Speaker 2: And she's coming back.
Speaker 3: Love to hear it. Use Look she is running against
Speaker 3: a longtime Democratic incumbinant, Jan Schakowski in Illinois ninth district,
Speaker 3: and I thought her opening message was really really good
Speaker 3: and what we need right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, this is the Democratic tea Party
Speaker 1: and it's coming.
Speaker 2: And you know, we've we've talked about this a lot.
Speaker 1: Republicans were able to temper sort of the Democratic urges
Speaker 1: were able to push a more corporatey Democratic party. That
Speaker 1: corporatey Democratic Party lost, right, they lost. It turned out
Speaker 1: zero Liz Cheney Democratic voters. Well, that's bad news for
Speaker 1: the sort of more conservative Democrats. That's probably good news
Speaker 1: for the party. Right, there's a message that resonates, and
Speaker 1: it's not a kind of never Trump Republicanism. It's real
Speaker 1: democratic values. And by the way, Democrats want to give
Speaker 1: people stuff, Republicans want to take it away. I don't
Speaker 1: know why this is so hard. But the other thing
Speaker 1: is that Democrats are way too polite. They're super ossified.
Speaker 1: They have all of these people who have been in
Speaker 1: office forever, who are you know, who can't get better
Speaker 1: jobs so want to stay and it's time for them
Speaker 1: to go. I mean, this is a democratic tea party.
Speaker 1: The truth is you do not especially and look, I
Speaker 1: mean democrats said that this was an emergency right that
Speaker 1: democracy was on the ballot.
Speaker 2: I don't disagree.
Speaker 1: But if that's true, that means you don't get to
Speaker 1: just help your friends, you have to actually govern. And
Speaker 1: that's going to mean that some of these people have
Speaker 1: had these jobs forever are going to lose them. And
Speaker 1: I think that's correct. So we'll see more of this.
Speaker 1: I hope she wins. None of these seats should be safe, right,
Speaker 1: They're not safe. This is crazy, and I think we'll
Speaker 1: see more of this.
Speaker 3: I think more than crazy, it's just accountability of that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's time to start getting a referendum on
Speaker 3: so or of the people who sat in these seats
Speaker 3: and it kind of just kept them warm with very
Speaker 3: milk toast votes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and done nothing.
Speaker 3: So Molly, you wanted to talk about the protests. I
Speaker 3: personally get invited to oats of them enough to say,
Speaker 3: you know, I have a podcast to tape today. I
Speaker 3: can't quite make the protest, but boy, they seem abundant
Speaker 3: these days. I literally the other day was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: that's a lot of noise. This old man is hearing
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh, that's the type of noise I
Speaker 3: like a protest.
Speaker 1: Look, this is the other part of the Democratic Tea Party,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people maybe don't like this, but
Speaker 1: this is where it's going, is that American people are
Speaker 1: fucking mad. I actually wrote about this today in my
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair piece. Bernie and AOC had a rally in
Speaker 1: Colorado where they were expecting, you know, a couple thousand people,
Speaker 1: and they got thirty thousand people. And I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what's happening everywhere, right, is that voters are worried.
Speaker 2: They are not happy.
Speaker 1: They see this right, Like us in the bubble, you know,
Speaker 1: we only sort of see what we see, But here
Speaker 1: we're seeing the rest of the country is mad, and
Speaker 1: they are protests, and there are a number of other
Speaker 1: things that only happen when people are mad. Right, People
Speaker 1: are going to their congress people, they're going to these
Speaker 1: open houses, these town halls, and even like they had
Speaker 1: a town hall where the guy didn't show up and
Speaker 1: they just screamed at the chair, Like this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff is real. And the good news is the Democrats.
Speaker 1: JP Pritzker's chief of staff, I talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to say it again because I think
Speaker 1: this is the real question. The fight going on in
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party right now is not between hard life
Speaker 1: left and moderate. It's between those who want to fight
Speaker 1: and those who want a cave. And team fight stretches
Speaker 1: across all ideological aspects of the party. Misread this at
Speaker 1: your own apparel. So my question to you, Representative Jeffries,
Speaker 1: my question to you, Chuck Schumer, is our you team
Speaker 1: fight or our you team cave. Charlie Sykes is the
Speaker 1: author of the newsletter to the Contrary and the book
Speaker 1: How the Right Loss Its Mind Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Charlie.
Speaker 4: Sykes, Jesus, which something was happening in the world that
Speaker 4: we could talk about.
Speaker 1: You came for group chat, but you stayed for what
Speaker 1: the fuck is happening in Wisconsin?
Speaker 4: You know it is amazing. This is not New York,
Speaker 4: this is not California, This is not Texas or Florida.
Speaker 4: It's Wisconsin. And it looks like spending on the state
Speaker 4: Supreme Court race is going to edit one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 4: I mean, Elon Musk could parachute in here and you
Speaker 4: on handout big checks to every voter in the state,
Speaker 4: which basically is what he's doing. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: Elon Musk is all in on this state Supreme Court race,
Speaker 4: which could in theory, flip the State Supreme Court from
Speaker 4: a liberal majority to a conservative majority. But it is crazy.
Speaker 4: We've had intense races before, but nothing of this scope
Speaker 4: or the stakes.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about what that looks like.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money for the Wisconsin media market.
Speaker 4: No offense, no, no, that is my point. I mean,
Speaker 4: we only have one big media market unless you're going
Speaker 4: up into Minneapolis, so it's completely flooded the zone. So
Speaker 4: you get mail all the time. There's radio ads, there's
Speaker 4: television ads, and also this weird thing that these Musk
Speaker 4: backed groups are doing. They're putting out.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's more than just text messages, but I get
Speaker 4: the text messages saying, you know, Susan Crawford, who is
Speaker 4: the liberal candidate, Susan Cross for Progressive Champion, who favors
Speaker 4: the opposite of incarcerating criminals, and it looks like it's
Speaker 4: supporting her, but what it is is a must campaign
Speaker 4: to portray her as this really out of touch defund
Speaker 4: the police touchy feely progressive. You know, on one level
Speaker 4: it's kind of sophisticated. On another level, it's just the
Speaker 4: rank dishonesty of it that they're doing a false flag
Speaker 4: campaign here. And frankly, you have to look really closely
Speaker 4: to determine. I mean, I actually when I first got
Speaker 4: the first text, I'm thinking, Wow, this is interesting. This
Speaker 4: Susan Crawford is running this far to the left. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm really not sure that's the sweet spot in Wisconsin politics.
Speaker 4: And then I clicked on the link and it's like, no,
Speaker 4: there's just no way that this is for real.
Speaker 2: That is wild.
Speaker 1: So it's like they're advertising on the sphere. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no Wisconsin sphere. It's meant to be a joke.
Speaker 1: But where else can you spend that much money?
Speaker 4: I really don't know. I mean, that's really an interesting
Speaker 4: question where where all the money is going. But you're
Speaker 4: talking about, you know, massive contributes, and by the way,
Speaker 4: there's also contributions you know, from the Democratic Party and
Speaker 4: from liberal billionaires as well. But Musk's involvement and Trump's
Speaker 4: involvement is extraordinary. Like, I don't honestly know the answer
Speaker 4: to your question of how you'd spend that money. I've
Speaker 4: been in this media market for my entire career and
Speaker 4: unless you buy every single spot on every single television station,
Speaker 4: and I'm not even sure that's the most effective way.
Speaker 4: But every day I get mail for the conservative candidate,
Speaker 4: the right wing candidate for State Supreme Court, Brad Shimmel,
Speaker 4: and every single piece of literature, and I kid you,
Speaker 4: not shows Shimmel with Donald Trump, and it makes the
Speaker 4: appeal that you have to vote for Shimmel because he
Speaker 4: will protect Donald Trump, he will advance Donald Trump. These
Speaker 4: radical liberals will block Donald Trump. So Donald Trump and
Speaker 4: Elon Musk have made this a referendum on them. But
Speaker 4: the amount of money just creates this big question mark.
Speaker 4: Does it backfire or does it allow them to shape
Speaker 4: the entire narrative? And you know, we're going to find
Speaker 4: out very short the elections April first.
Speaker 1: Yes, And that's so interesting to me, is that, like Trump,
Speaker 1: what you really see here And I've said this a lot,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it is something we just don't
Speaker 1: talk about enough, which is Trump's brand is very good
Speaker 1: and Democratic brand is not so good.
Speaker 2: But you know it's really not good. Is the Republican brand?
Speaker 1: I mean that said Democrats right now, it's not a
Speaker 1: good moment, and that people are very mad at the party,
Speaker 1: including the base is mad at the party, which is
Speaker 1: an interesting phenomenon which we can talk about in a minute.
Speaker 1: But what is so interesting when you talk about those
Speaker 1: Bradshamel advertisements.
Speaker 2: Is that they know that the really the only.
Speaker 1: Way to get a Republican to win in this atmosphere
Speaker 1: is to just say Trump likes them, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: always work, as we've seen, you know, we saw, I mean,
Speaker 1: Carrie Lake is a great example of how trump Ism
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily scale well.
Speaker 4: And again, this is not a red state, this is
Speaker 4: a very even the balance state. And so yes, Trump's
Speaker 4: brand is strong among the Republican base. And I think
Speaker 4: that the theory of the case is that you will
Speaker 4: turn out those low propensity voters that turned out in November.
Speaker 4: They're not aiming across the aisle here. This is if
Speaker 4: we get a really huge Republican turnout, we can swamp
Speaker 4: the Democrats. So the Democratic challenge in Wisconsin and especially
Speaker 4: these lower turnout elections is always maximizing the turnout from
Speaker 4: Dane County in Milwaukee County eroding Republican leads in the suburbs.
Speaker 4: But it is an interesting, you know, moment, because we
Speaker 4: will find out whether or not Donald Trump's brand is
Speaker 4: is that strong here, and we will find out whether
Speaker 4: Elon Musk's brand is strong enough if he wins here.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think, look, I mean, the stakes for
Speaker 4: Wisconsin are huge on abortion, on redistricting, on public employee unions.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, the actual substance of the court.
Speaker 4: But I also think the imagery of Elon Musk coming
Speaker 4: into I won't say a random state, but you know,
Speaker 4: spreading across the country with massive contributions is really going
Speaker 4: to be a test of his role as a powerbroker
Speaker 4: and how much juice he has. And if he wins,
Speaker 4: it will certainly reinforce his power within the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, if he stumbles here in Wisconsin,
Speaker 4: it's going to be a warning sign. So, I mean,
Speaker 4: the stakes for Elon Musk's clout, which right now I
Speaker 4: don't think can be overstated. Republicans are just terrified of
Speaker 4: him because they know that he will drop more money
Speaker 4: than God on a primary challenge, and in Wisconsin, he's
Speaker 4: really flexing his muscles here, So we're going to see
Speaker 4: very very soon. So this is a local election that
Speaker 4: will have real national consequences.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we got to talk about the group chat?
Speaker 4: Oh please please?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Goldberg added to a group chat which includes the
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense, includes Mike Walt's National Security, includes S
Speaker 1: and M, which could not be more approposed, Stephen Miller.
Speaker 4: And of course the Vice president JD Vance's.
Speaker 1: Right, the Vice President, Like, is that the greatest thing
Speaker 1: to ever happen to anyone?
Speaker 4: It is so extraordinary, And the more you read about,
Speaker 4: the more you think about it, the more what the
Speaker 4: fuck just happened? Is it? I mean, it is just amazing,
Speaker 4: the recklessness, the carelessness, the arrogance of this. And somebody
Speaker 4: wrote this morning, I saw we do need to remember
Speaker 4: that in twenty sixteen, Donald Trump rode to the White House,
Speaker 4: you know, largely on the basis of concerns about national
Speaker 4: security and Hillary Clinton and her servers. I mean, what
Speaker 4: the hell?
Speaker 5: I mean?
Speaker 4: There are just so many aspects to this, including the
Speaker 4: incredible incompetence of allowing someone to be on this call,
Speaker 4: the arrogance of using a signal for these communications, because
Speaker 4: I think at some point you need to recognize, Hey,
Speaker 4: if they did this this badly, they've probably done it before,
Speaker 4: you know, in other cases, And you'd have to be
Speaker 4: very naive not to think that the Russians, the Chinese,
Speaker 4: the Arabians, and the North Koreans are not listening in
Speaker 4: to these these idiots.
Speaker 2: On everything, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not just the Atlantic that's getting added
Speaker 1: to the group chat. I think that's a top one.
Speaker 1: I actually want you to talk about what is not
Speaker 1: in this article, because Goldberg has done a bunch of
Speaker 1: interviews and has said that there's actually stuff he didn't
Speaker 1: put in this for national security reasons.
Speaker 4: No, he was very very careful about it, and that
Speaker 4: he needed to be careful about it. I mean, my
Speaker 4: initial concern was that they would come after him for
Speaker 4: violating something, but I don't see any.
Speaker 5: Indication of that.
Speaker 4: But again, wait five five minutes. No, he was obviously
Speaker 4: very very careful not to reveal secrets, not to reveal
Speaker 4: identities of people in sensitive positions, or the names of
Speaker 4: certain targets, anything that would have endangered our men and
Speaker 4: women in arms. But if somebody else was listening in
Speaker 4: to this clearly unsecured communication, they would have all of that,
Speaker 4: and I think that that's important. And I also think, look,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, there's a bigger pick sure here
Speaker 4: that this administration has been moving with shock and awe,
Speaker 4: and everybody's terrified of standing up against them, and the
Speaker 4: Democrats are in disarray. It is worth reminding ourselves that
Speaker 4: these people are dangerous, there's no question about it. But
Speaker 4: they're also idiots and they're deeply incompetent. Now that's not
Speaker 4: completely reassuring, because it's the same sort of incompetence that
Speaker 4: you will see with the handling of secure data from
Speaker 4: say the Social Security or the IRS, as Elon Musk
Speaker 4: moves through that. With the we're experiencing right now what
Speaker 4: could be the largest data breach in human history in
Speaker 4: the hands of people named big Balls.
Speaker 2: Big Balls, yes, with the broccoli haircut.
Speaker 4: And how confident can we be that they're going to
Speaker 4: take better care of that information?
Speaker 2: So not confident at all.
Speaker 4: We have all of the stars kind of aligning here
Speaker 4: just to remind us who these people are, and it's
Speaker 4: fascinating to watch them try to spin their way out
Speaker 4: of this without much success so far except to your
Speaker 4: maga Fox News base.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so let's just do two more minutes
Speaker 1: on this, because one of the things that I saw
Speaker 1: today was Trump's press secretary. What happens when something really
Speaker 1: big like this sprigs is that they can't figure out
Speaker 1: how to message it, right, Like, there's so much of
Speaker 1: what we see out of Trump World has to be
Speaker 1: workshopped so much because a lot of these people are
Speaker 1: not that smart, so they don't know how to message this,
Speaker 1: so they're all over the place. You had Hegseth getting
Speaker 1: off the plane and saying it's not real and everyone
Speaker 1: knows that the Atlantic is trash. Then you got Carolyn
Speaker 1: Levitt I want to talk about this Carolyn Levitt tweet
Speaker 1: because she says Jeffrey Goldberg is well known for his
Speaker 1: sensational ast spin. Okay that nobody would say that, I
Speaker 1: mean really right, I mean in.
Speaker 2: True or false.
Speaker 4: Look, he has the receipts here. We know that they
Speaker 4: hate him, and I guess that's also what makes this
Speaker 4: story so extraordinaries of all of the journals, was in
Speaker 4: the world right, great Goldberg and the Atlantic. I mean,
Speaker 4: this would be as if as if Joe Biden was
Speaker 4: having a national security call and Charlie Kirk and Steve
Speaker 4: Bannon were on the line. I don't even mean to
Speaker 4: compare them. But the whole thing about it's sensational. He
Speaker 4: has the receipts, you see the actual text messages, and frankly,
Speaker 4: given what actually happened, there's no way to sensationalize it
Speaker 4: because it is.
Speaker 2: It's sensational, sational, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: But also, just to get back to this tweet, One,
Speaker 1: no war plans were discussed, so clearly she's daring him
Speaker 1: to release the war plans. Two, she says no classified
Speaker 1: material were sent on the thread. Right, clearly that's fucking bullshit.
Speaker 1: But also three, the White House Counsel's Office has performed
Speaker 1: guidance on a number of different platforms. Anyway, the point
Speaker 1: is what Jake Sherman from punch Bowl also not some
Speaker 1: crazy leb says, right, I mean, like, by the way,
Speaker 1: no one is a liberal in any of this. I mean,
Speaker 1: and even though jeff has published a lot of things
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration doesn't like, he is very much
Speaker 1: ideologically about national security. Sherman says, the risk here for
Speaker 1: the White House is they are prodding.
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Goldberg into releasing the entire thread.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think that he will because he's a
Speaker 4: patriot and he's not going to do that. And if
Speaker 4: he did do that, they're legal jeopardy. So I don't
Speaker 4: think he's going to do that. But I think right
Speaker 4: now the question is who will they escape?
Speaker 5: Goat?
Speaker 4: Who's Donald Trump going to blame? You know, he's too
Speaker 4: invested in Pete Hegsith, who, by the way, is disgracing himself.
Speaker 4: Are they going to throw Mike Walls under the bus?
Speaker 4: I still think that they're going to circle the wagons
Speaker 4: because as we know, Trump has limited loyalty, but he
Speaker 4: will never acknowledge that he made a mistake. He will
Speaker 4: never concede that he's screwed up here. So they're in
Speaker 4: a trick box at the moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are living in a perfect storm here right
Speaker 1: Like you have a bunch of federal workers who are
Speaker 1: demoralized and defenestrated, right They've been fired, been rehired, They're furious,
Speaker 1: they are terrified. You have an administration that is super
Speaker 1: incompetent and needs them, needs federal workers to protect them.
Speaker 1: It is only a matter of time before this whole
Speaker 1: thing implodes spectacularly.
Speaker 4: You would hope. So I feel we've had this conversation.
Speaker 4: Over the last ten years, they tend to escape.
Speaker 1: But even Trump one point zero, there were so many
Speaker 1: scandals like this.
Speaker 4: Well, and also you had a million people who ended
Speaker 4: up dying of COVID. You know, there is that. I
Speaker 4: think that the thing to watch is that once that
Speaker 4: sense of vulnerability begins to grow, maybe people will stop
Speaker 4: bending the knees so quickly. Because right now there's the
Speaker 4: sort of the sense not sort of the sense I
Speaker 4: mean among law firms and universities and politicians that resistance
Speaker 4: is futile, that you cannot stand up against the borg.
Speaker 4: Therefore you need to cut the best deal that you can.
Speaker 4: But but what happens if you begin to see that
Speaker 4: you know, they're weak, they are vulnerable. You know, if
Speaker 4: we actually do push back against them, they might back off.
Speaker 4: The vulnerability is the key thing here, and also the
Speaker 4: recognition that these people are idiots, these people are not competent.
Speaker 4: I think there was a sense growing in people's heads like, man,
Speaker 4: they have a plan, they have this blueprint, you know,
Speaker 4: and they're moving so much quicker, and they have a
Speaker 4: strategy and we are in disarray. Well, they may have
Speaker 4: a strategy, but that doesn't mean, they're not idiots, and
Speaker 4: this is really important to cling to.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, and I think it's really worth just
Speaker 1: like talking about this for another minute, which is these people,
Speaker 1: they are idiots.
Speaker 2: They have no plan.
Speaker 1: And what we saw in trom one point zero is
Speaker 1: that resistance works. And what doesn't work is what's happening
Speaker 1: right now, not resisting giving up saying like ooh, it
Speaker 1: might be scary for me. The reality is if you
Speaker 1: push back, they stop. Like That's what we've seen again
Speaker 1: and again. The reason RFK Junior is the Director of
Speaker 1: Health and Human Services is in the cabinet is because
Speaker 1: no one fucking pushed back. Could have Collins, Murkowski and
Speaker 1: one other any other senator could have pushed back, and
Speaker 1: that guy.
Speaker 2: Would not be right.
Speaker 1: Cassidy is a doctor, could have pushed back and none
Speaker 1: of this would have happened.
Speaker 2: So the reality is pushback works.
Speaker 1: You have to push back in order to protect our
Speaker 1: norms and institutions. And by the way, voters want it.
Speaker 1: Like what we're seeing around the country is democratic.
Speaker 2: Voters are furious.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, there's no question about it. Look, I mean
Speaker 4: I think the most the most depressing active appeasement was
Speaker 4: that the big law firm, Paul Weiss. This is a
Speaker 4: law firm that rakes in two point six billion dollars,
Speaker 4: but which felt the need to kiss Donald Trump's toes.
Speaker 4: The assumption, of course, is that somehow this makes them safe,
Speaker 4: that they won't face the retribution of the federal government.
Speaker 4: But the reality is that every time somebody caves in,
Speaker 4: it emboldens them, It emboldens the jackals, it depresses and
Speaker 4: demoralizes the other targets. And as soon as Paul Weiss
Speaker 4: cut that deal, you notice they they issued in order
Speaker 4: that targets every single law firm in America. I mean
Speaker 4: they you know, we say they don't have a plan,
Speaker 4: but they in some ways they do have a plan.
Speaker 4: And the plan is to intimidate the federal judiciary, to
Speaker 4: discredit the justice system, and to intimidate lawyers to think
Speaker 4: twice that if somebody goes after Molly Jong Faster Charlie Sykes,
Speaker 4: we better not represent them, because you know that would
Speaker 4: be an existential threat. So you would hope that the
Speaker 4: legal profession would understand the stakes and would stand up,
Speaker 4: because if they did stand up, shoulder to shoulder collective action.
Speaker 4: I think that I think these guys would back off.
Speaker 4: But what they're realizing is they're so timid. They're so
Speaker 4: timorous that you can split them up and pick them
Speaker 4: off one at a time. You know that they won't
Speaker 4: hang together, We'll hang them all separately, and and and that,
Speaker 4: and that plan is working at least for the moment.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's good is that a bunch of other
Speaker 1: law firms were like fuckio, and we're like, we're not
Speaker 1: going to do that. And we just have to see
Speaker 1: more of that, right, Like the President Princeton talked about
Speaker 1: how he wasn't going to bend the KNAE. We just
Speaker 1: need to see more of that exactly because the reality
Speaker 1: with Trump world is if you give in to them,
Speaker 1: you cannot win.
Speaker 2: You will not win. Appeasement does not work exactly.
Speaker 4: This is a lesson that should be very very clear.
Speaker 4: And I guess part of the concern is that there
Speaker 4: are no limits on what Trump is prepared to do,
Speaker 4: and he's using the cudgel of the federal government, using
Speaker 4: government power to coerce private settlements. The corruption is so breathtaking,
Speaker 4: and I think that there's a loss of faith that
Speaker 4: it will be held accountable for that. But the reality
Speaker 4: is that a lot of the things people are caving
Speaker 4: in to, like when ABC settled the libel suit, CBS
Speaker 4: may as well the attacks on the law firms. These
Speaker 4: are all lawless, they are all unconstitutional. If they actually
Speaker 4: fought back, I think they would win a lot of
Speaker 4: what the administration is doing is completely into in a
Speaker 4: court of law. If people just took a deep breath
Speaker 4: and said, you know what, you know, we may not
Speaker 4: want to fight, but we need to have this fight.
Speaker 4: And if we have this fight, we will win. It's
Speaker 4: the surrender when you hold the high ground. That's I
Speaker 4: think the most disconcerting to me right now. It's like, seriously, guys,
Speaker 4: you will win these lawsuits. You will win these cases.
Speaker 2: Of course, why would you cave.
Speaker 4: In unless you're the cowardice and the fear is just
Speaker 4: you know, penetrated into your bones too deeply.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, so incredibly true. And I think that's a
Speaker 1: good point. And remember, you know, Rick Wilson, everything Trump
Speaker 1: touches sooner or later. You know so many people from
Speaker 1: Trump one point zero. I mean, think about Rudy Giuliani,
Speaker 1: like it never ends well for anyone.
Speaker 4: Well, I keep waiting for all that. Yes, absolutely and
Speaker 4: yet people continue to flock to the banner. People keep
Speaker 4: thinking it's going to be different with me, and right now,
Speaker 4: let's face it, they feel that the winds that they're back,
Speaker 4: at least before this incredible fuck with the phone call.
Speaker 4: I get. My one piece of advice, though, is I
Speaker 4: do think that it's very important to pick the targets,
Speaker 4: pick the issues that you want to do it. This issue,
Speaker 4: I think is extraordinary. This should be a major scandal.
Speaker 4: It really undermines everything Trumps said about keeping America safe
Speaker 4: and keeping America strong. I think what's happening with Social
Speaker 4: Security is just an extraordinary story. I was on television
Speaker 4: late last night with somebody I don't remember his name.
Speaker 4: I don't want to pick on him, but he was saying,
Speaker 4: you know, they have this concerted plan to undermine social Security.
Speaker 4: This is what they're doing, and this is why they're
Speaker 4: doing it. I completely disagreed. I don't think they had
Speaker 4: the slightest fucking idea what they're doing with Social Security.
Speaker 4: I think if you listen to the rhetoric about Social Security,
Speaker 4: you realize the downside of stalking your administration with completely
Speaker 4: out of touch, tone deaf billionaires who have no idea
Speaker 4: what they are messing with. And the headline in the
Speaker 4: Washington Post about how the cuts are really you know,
Speaker 4: bringing the Social Security Administration to the brink of collapse. No,
Speaker 4: there's a reason why we've always talked about this as
Speaker 4: America's political third rail. So I think that at some
Speaker 4: point choose the issues Donald Trump wants to talk about
Speaker 4: the eighty twenty issues, the issues were eighty percent of
Speaker 4: the public is behind him, whether it's you know, gang
Speaker 4: members or whatever. There are eighty twenty issues that he
Speaker 4: and Elon Musk are on the wrong side of, and
Speaker 4: Democrats need to really focus on those.
Speaker 2: Charlie Sikes, thank you.
Speaker 4: It is always a pleasure Molly.
Speaker 1: Stephen Vladdock is a CNN contributor, author of The Shadow Docket,
Speaker 1: and professor at Georgetown University. Welcome to Fast Politics. Welcome back,
Speaker 1: Steven Dan Molly.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's great to be with you. Although I
Speaker 5: wish we could find like a happier story Sunday, like
Speaker 5: you know, rainbows and unicorns and Steve Wade's here to
Speaker 5: tell you all about them.
Speaker 1: You had a peace last Sunday in the Times Opinion
Speaker 1: and I was reading it and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this guy is so smart and I can just text.
Speaker 2: Him and talk to him.
Speaker 1: Like, you know, as much as everything sucks, there is
Speaker 1: something so fucking cool about reading something smart and then
Speaker 1: knowing that I can actually talk to that smart person
Speaker 1: about said smart thing.
Speaker 5: Isn't that like much of what you write, Molly?
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1: But it is a horrible, horrible time to be a
Speaker 1: person who believes in the rule of law and American
Speaker 1: norms and institutions. But and maybe this is me as
Speaker 1: a cock eyed optimist, but it does feel like we
Speaker 1: are seeing firsthand why the law matters.
Speaker 5: I totally agree with that. I actually think that, you know,
Speaker 5: if we get through this somehow, there's been a remarkable
Speaker 5: public exhibit. I mean everywhere you look of why the
Speaker 5: law matters, of why do process matters, of why institutions matter,
Speaker 5: of why you know, nerdy things that law professors like
Speaker 5: me holler about from the rooftops matter. And you know,
Speaker 5: maybe it's going to take a lot of time and
Speaker 5: effort to build back those institutions and those ideals, but
Speaker 5: at least the costs and the sticks of not having
Speaker 5: them are now visible for all to see.
Speaker 1: I want you to talk about this piece that you
Speaker 1: wrote last week, which has a completely new title that
Speaker 1: it did five hundred and forty one comments ago, and
Speaker 1: you write about all the stuff we need to be
Speaker 1: worrying about right now. My hottest take is that as
Speaker 1: much as I love to criticize the Supreme Court, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, do you ever listen to this podcast five
Speaker 2: to four?
Speaker 5: Yep?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So they hate like they are so.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was texting with actually Kate Shaw, who's
Speaker 1: such a smart writer and lawyer and thinker, and I
Speaker 1: was saying, like, I feel shitty, but I can only
Speaker 1: imagine how shitty I would feel if I understood exactly
Speaker 1: why all of this was illegal. Yeah, that tracks I
Speaker 1: actually don't think the Supreme Court is. I actually have
Speaker 1: a little nuggetive faith in them.
Speaker 5: I agree with that, Molly, and I say this as
Speaker 5: someone who has is very closely associated with very strong
Speaker 5: criticisms of this Supreme Court. I don't have a lot
Speaker 5: of faith in the Supreme Court, but I have sub
Speaker 5: faith in the Supreme Court. And I think it's really
Speaker 5: striking that, you know, Chief Justice Roberts was impelled to
Speaker 5: actually make this remarkably rare public statement on Tuesday you know,
Speaker 5: basically saying, hey, like Trump, knock it off. We don't
Speaker 5: impeach judges, and we don't talk about impeaching judges just
Speaker 5: because you don't like their ruins. That's what appeals are for.
Speaker 5: That may have struck a lot of folks as a
Speaker 5: remarkably milk toast comment from the Chief Justice. I actually
Speaker 5: think it was a striking comment, and the fact that
Speaker 5: he made it at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too. And actually, I can't believe
Speaker 1: that was only Tuesday. I thought that was three weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Like when you said tuesday, I was like, and actually
Speaker 1: I just looked up your piece and it was from Wednesday.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I thought that was a big deal.
Speaker 1: And the reason I thought it was a big deal
Speaker 1: was this Supreme Court has really tried not to ject
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, except for the insane immunity decision.
Speaker 1: And in fact, you wrote an entire book about the
Speaker 1: shadow docket, which you were very critical about. Will you
Speaker 1: explain to us about the shadow docket and and why
Speaker 1: this Court sort of tries in a way not to
Speaker 1: sort of get involved in things that are not exactly
Speaker 1: on the schedule.
Speaker 5: Sure, I mean, so that the shadow docket is just
Speaker 5: this evocative shorthand that it wasn't even mine. I stole
Speaker 5: it from Will Bode, who's a conservative calm law professor
Speaker 5: at Chicago. But the basic point of the book was
Speaker 5: to help folks to understand all the ways in which
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court exercises power and how it gained all
Speaker 5: that power, besides the big fancy, you know, fifty to
Speaker 5: sixty seventy page decisions that they hand out at the
Speaker 5: end of each term. And you know, we've seen Molly
Speaker 5: a lot of those in the last couple of years
Speaker 5: that have had massive effects, whether it's you know, the
Speaker 5: Alabama redistricting cases or the Texas abortion case, or you know,
Speaker 5: the first round of the Trump Community case. And I
Speaker 5: guess you know, one of my real goals is to
Speaker 5: try to help everybody, you know, whatever your politics and
Speaker 5: whatever your background, have a better sense for how the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court operates, and for how much control it has
Speaker 5: over everything it does, and how that auto shape our
Speaker 5: perspective and our and our perception of the justices, Which
Speaker 5: gets back to why you know, someone like me reacts
Speaker 5: to the Roberts quote perhaps differently from someone who doesn't
Speaker 5: watch the Court is closely because it is so clearly
Speaker 5: out of the norm, and it's so clearly a break
Speaker 5: from both the Court's protocols and his own normal behavior
Speaker 5: that it's, you know, it's it really is to some
Speaker 5: degree the you know, the canary and the coal mine
Speaker 5: stopping the same. And that's that should in some respects
Speaker 5: molly alarm us, but also I think in bold in
Speaker 5: us because it suggests that even John Roberts is calling
Speaker 5: enough of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, and he did, he made this statement
Speaker 1: and then we saw him and bear It rule against
Speaker 1: some of the more craven of Trump world's plays. So
Speaker 1: there's really a sense in which the Supreme Court is
Speaker 1: probably not going to rubber stamp some of the really
Speaker 1: crazy shit, which again this is still, you know, a
Speaker 1: sad statement.
Speaker 2: But also an important one.
Speaker 1: It feels like we're hurtling towards, I mean, with the
Speaker 1: deportation staff, some kind of slow rolling constitutional crisis maybe.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think there's a real question here about
Speaker 5: just how far the administration really wants to go and
Speaker 5: pushing this. So the Venezuelan flights to El Salvador. Part
Speaker 5: of why this has become such a flashpoint is because
Speaker 5: the administration, for whatever reason, has decided that this is
Speaker 5: the hill it wants to die on, removing people it
Speaker 5: claims to be dangerous Venezuelan gang members. When it turns out,
Speaker 5: by the way that some of them got picked because
Speaker 5: they have like real Madrid tattoos, is apparently something that
Speaker 5: they think they can win on in the court of
Speaker 5: public opinion. And this is why I think it's so
Speaker 5: important for folks to understand that, like what really is
Speaker 5: implicated by those cases is due process. You know, is
Speaker 5: there a right on the part of someone the government
Speaker 5: just points at and says you are a Venezuelan gang member.
Speaker 5: Does anyone have a right to say, actually, I'm not
Speaker 5: before they get sent into a Salvadorian prison, Because if
Speaker 5: the answer is no, then what's to stop the government
Speaker 5: from pointing at any of us and saying that. But
Speaker 5: this is why I also think it's like really revealing
Speaker 5: that this is the case that provoked the Chief Justice.
Speaker 5: I mean, it was, you know, the judge who's presiding
Speaker 5: over this litigation in the DC Federal District Court, a
Speaker 5: guy named Jeb Bosberg. Is no ideologue, he's no radical,
Speaker 5: And it was when Trump called for his impeachment that
Speaker 5: we finally saw the Chief Justice issue of public statement.
Speaker 5: I don't think that's a coincidence, Molly. I mean, I
Speaker 5: think you know, the Chief Justice understands that this case
Speaker 5: too is special among all of the ones that are
Speaker 5: out there.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that, because so this is a judge.
Speaker 1: Judge Bosburg was put on the First Court by George
Speaker 1: w in the second Court by Obama.
Speaker 5: So yeah, on the DC's report yet.
Speaker 1: Right, so there's something to dislike for everyone.
Speaker 5: Or maybe he's just not ideological, right.
Speaker 1: So the Press secretary of Trump said he's an Obama judge.
Speaker 1: Garrett Haig said, actually, he's a deba be a judge.
Speaker 1: He is actually both, right.
Speaker 5: It's both. But also, I mean, we're talking about someone
Speaker 5: who was a federal prosecutor for a long time. You know,
Speaker 5: a group of people who are notoriously softies on gang
Speaker 5: members and territories something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Right, But also, Mollie, we're talking about someone who was
Speaker 5: hand picked by Chief Justice Roberts to sit on a
Speaker 5: couple of very very sensitive courts. The Foreign Intelligent Surveillance
Speaker 5: Court which does all of like the super classified national
Speaker 5: security surveillance cases, and a court that's never met, but
Speaker 5: that exists for cases where the government has to remove
Speaker 5: a non citizen based on class of information, a court
Speaker 5: called the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. I mean, John Roberts
Speaker 5: picked him. So you know, here's a judge who has
Speaker 5: just about as good a reputation and about as good
Speaker 5: a pedigree as you could have for someone who's like
Speaker 5: buy the book, you know, neutral, well respected, and they're
Speaker 5: going after him too, and I think there's there's an
Speaker 5: element of, you know, if they're going to go after him,
Speaker 5: they'll go after anybody. And I think that's you know,
Speaker 5: that gets us back to why I think it was
Speaker 5: so important, not just what I mean, not even what
Speaker 5: John Roberts said, but just when he said it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's true. So attacking the judges. We're seeing
Speaker 1: Elon do this a lot. We're seeing jd. Vance had
Speaker 1: floated this idea a couple of weeks ago, or maybe
Speaker 1: it was a day ago, or maybe it was yesterday,
Speaker 1: but about you know that we should just these judges.
Speaker 1: If the president doesn't have unilateral power over everything, maybe
Speaker 1: he doesn't have any power and we should just impeach him.
Speaker 1: But there are some grown ups in the room still
Speaker 1: despite where we are.
Speaker 5: I think that's right. I mean, I'm not sure that
Speaker 5: grown ups are in the room in the White House,
Speaker 5: but you know, and I think that's the biggest difference
Speaker 5: between this administration and the first Trump administration. But there
Speaker 5: are certainly some outlier federal judges out there, Molly, but
Speaker 5: there are also a whole bunch of grownups. You mentioned
Speaker 5: my piece in the Times. You know, the original headline,
Speaker 5: which was so much better, was the first time they
Speaker 5: ever used my headline was the Tom and Daisy Presidency.
Speaker 5: So it's about Yeah, I like Trump breaking everything. They
Speaker 5: changed it to make it about the courts. So now
Speaker 5: it's the courts alone won't save us, which I don't
Speaker 5: disagree with the kind of changes the point of the piece.
Speaker 5: But the broader point, though, is that it's not that
Speaker 5: the courts won't save us, it's that they won't save
Speaker 5: us alone. You know. I think it's remarkable as we
Speaker 5: sit here just over two months into the presidency, and
Speaker 5: you know, Trump has been subject to just an unprecedented
Speaker 5: number of temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions, and his
Speaker 5: supporters cry foul and say, well, you know, the courts
Speaker 5: are out to get us. But my response is no,
Speaker 5: the courts are responding to an unprecedented amount of lawlessness.
Speaker 5: That's impressive, but it's also, I think, a temporary condition.
Speaker 5: And the question is, you know, how can we get
Speaker 5: the courts back? How can we help them? And you know,
Speaker 5: the analogy I keep using is it's like the Trump adminstrations,
Speaker 5: like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. They're testing defenses went
Speaker 5: with regard to how much they can get away with
Speaker 5: and pushing on the courts around. Of course, the mistake
Speaker 5: that they made in Jurassic Park because they didn't reinforce defences.
Speaker 5: The question for us is how can we do that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: It feels like the real issue is how can we
Speaker 1: protect the courts?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, I think part of how we protect the
Speaker 5: courts is we have conversations like the one you and
Speaker 5: I are. We talk about why it's important to have courts.
Speaker 5: We talk about why do process really is about judicial process?
Speaker 5: We talk about how and why. You know, just because
Speaker 5: we might not like the judges doesn't mean that we
Speaker 5: don't have appreciation for the role that the courts are
Speaker 5: supposed to play in our system. You know, two things
Speaker 5: can be true at once you can be very, very
Speaker 5: very opposed to our current Supreme Court and believe at
Speaker 5: the same time that the Supreme Court as an institution
Speaker 5: plays a critical role in preserved on the rule of
Speaker 5: law in this country. And I think, you know, making
Speaker 5: sure everyone understands and leans into that nuance is part
Speaker 5: of how we backstop them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that you talk about in
Speaker 1: this piece is something that I'm a little bit obsessed with,
Speaker 1: and by a little bit obsessed with, I mean a
Speaker 1: hate that I'm obsessed with us is this Alien Enemies Act.
Speaker 1: And the reason why it's one of the many, many,
Speaker 1: many zombie laws that Trump World when they were working
Speaker 1: on Project twenty twenty five found and got excited about it.
Speaker 1: Seems like very I see legal framework to everyone. But
Speaker 1: they're still going to try so talk about it and
Speaker 1: then also talk about the sort of other zombie laws
Speaker 1: that this crew has teed up.
Speaker 5: Sure, I mean, so the Alien Enemy Act, you know,
Speaker 5: it's a statute, Molly that actually makes a fair amount
Speaker 5: of sense in the abstract. The idea is that if
Speaker 5: we're in a war with another country, you don't have
Speaker 5: to find some special reason to pick up people who
Speaker 5: are nationals of that country. So during World War Two,
Speaker 5: we didn't need a special reason to arrest German nationals
Speaker 5: living in the United States, because we just inherently suspected them.
Speaker 2: Right. Unfortunately, Well, let's go.
Speaker 5: On, no, I mean, so the problem is that, right,
Speaker 5: The question is how can you be sure that these
Speaker 5: folks are who you say they are? Right? And this
Speaker 5: is where I think the Trump administration just either was
Speaker 5: lazy or was totally malicious, because even a cursory perusal
Speaker 5: of the history of the statute would show anybody that
Speaker 5: there was a ton of judicial review that during the
Speaker 5: war eighteen twelve, during World War One, during World War two,
Speaker 5: literally molly hundreds of cases where people we were holding
Speaker 5: under this statute walked in the court and said, hey,
Speaker 5: I'm not a German, you know, I'm Swiss or I'm American,
Speaker 5: and courts reviewed that. And I think someone in the
Speaker 5: administration got the idea that this statute would allow for
Speaker 5: mass summary removals without hearings, and that's just nonsense based
Speaker 5: on the text and the history of the statute. So
Speaker 5: there's like the meta question, which is are we even
Speaker 5: at war with Trende.
Speaker 2: Araba, which we are not, which what I.
Speaker 5: Find sort of so remarkably self defeating about the administration's approaches.
Speaker 5: Even if they somehow convince the courts that the government's
Speaker 5: entitled to a little bit of difference on that hold
Speaker 5: your nose squint a little bit, maybe this is enough
Speaker 5: of an invasion to get us there. Even if they
Speaker 5: went on that, you still are required to give judicial
Speaker 5: review on an individualized basis to everyone who you're seeking
Speaker 5: to remove, which means they got to go to a
Speaker 5: judge and show that each of these people are in
Speaker 5: fact members of Trendi iradwa.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You know, it's been in bout three times, right, War
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve, World War one, World War two, So
Speaker 1: you would have to have a war.
Speaker 5: Yeah, At the risk of just being slightly fair to
Speaker 5: the Trump administration, you know, the statute does say declared
Speaker 5: war or invasion or predatory incursion by a sovereign nation
Speaker 5: or government. And so you know, obviously we're not at
Speaker 5: war with Venezuela. Obviously we're not being invaded by Venezuela.
Speaker 5: But if you accepted the premise, and I'm not saying
Speaker 5: we should, that trend de ar Agua is like effectively
Speaker 5: exercising governmental powers. You know, Mollie, it's there are crazier
Speaker 5: arguments out there than that trenda a Agua is involved
Speaker 5: in some kind of predatory incursion in the United States.
Speaker 1: We're going to agree to disagree. But the one good
Speaker 1: thing about this is and you are the legal scholar.
Speaker 2: I am not, but you.
Speaker 1: Do have if you do that they're working on a
Speaker 1: deal to put non citizens or a handful of you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think they really care who ends up in
Speaker 1: there in these Venezuela in prison. And so if they
Speaker 1: start going to war with Venezuela and they're Venezuela is
Speaker 1: going to stop lending them put people in their prisons.
Speaker 5: Right, And I mean, I don't buy this argument. I'm
Speaker 5: just saying that it's it's slightly more plausible than some
Speaker 5: of the other.
Speaker 4: Nonsense out there, right, no question.
Speaker 5: But the other problem though, is like, so, what made
Speaker 5: all of those prior invocations different is that you had
Speaker 5: some affirmative declaration by Congress, Right, so you know war
Speaker 5: be eighteen twelve, Congress declared war on Great Britain, World
Speaker 5: War one, Congress declared war on Germany World War two,
Speaker 5: and so you know, part of the problem that Trump
Speaker 5: administration has is like, it's one thing when Congress says,
Speaker 5: yes we're at war or yes we're being invaded, is
Speaker 5: something else entirely for the president to say we're being invaded?
Speaker 5: Trust me. That's why I think this case is so
Speaker 5: sort of important because to win, the Trump administration has
Speaker 5: to win on that issue, and then it has to
Speaker 5: persuade the federal courts that they have no role to
Speaker 5: play in individualized determinations about whether individual folks are actually
Speaker 5: members of turned the Aragua in a context in which
Speaker 5: it is entire obvious what it would mean if that
Speaker 5: weren't subject to judicial review. So I just, you know,
Speaker 5: I think there's a reason why folks like me have
Speaker 5: sort of singled this case out from all of them
Speaker 5: as perhaps as big a test of the rule of
Speaker 5: law as any of the cases we've seen from the
Speaker 5: Trump adminstration so far, even bigger, I would say, right
Speaker 5: than Mahmud Khalil, the green card holder from Columbia who
Speaker 5: was arrested, you know, a week and a half ago.
Speaker 1: He's still in a detention facility. Is there any sort
Speaker 1: of update on that?
Speaker 5: Yes, So, Khalil's still in immigration detention in Louisiana. His
Speaker 5: immigration proceeding is supposed to start this week. The lawsuit
Speaker 5: that was filed on his behalf in New York was
Speaker 5: transferred last week from New York to New Jersey because
Speaker 5: by all accounts, Khalil was in New Jersey at the
Speaker 5: time that his lawyers filed a habeas petition on his behalf,
Speaker 5: and you know, law beying this macabre opera. That's the
Speaker 5: court that has jurisdiction. So we have sort of two
Speaker 5: tracks in his case. We have the litigation in New Jersey,
Speaker 5: which is continuing to proceed on whether the federal courts
Speaker 5: can sort of preempt the immigration proceedings, and then we
Speaker 5: have the immigration proceedings, which are scheduled I think to continue,
Speaker 5: you know, later this week.
Speaker 2: Right, this is important case because well, I.
Speaker 5: Mean, Khalil's an important case because the government's resting on
Speaker 5: this crazy authority that it has used so far as
Speaker 5: we can tell, maybe one or two times before, that
Speaker 5: would basically allow the Secretary of State to point at
Speaker 5: any non citizen, no matter their immigration status, and say,
Speaker 5: I think you should be removed from the country because
Speaker 5: I've determined that your continuing presence poses a risk to
Speaker 5: our foreign policy interests. You know, that would basically give
Speaker 5: the Secretary of State the unilateral power to remove anybody
Speaker 5: for any reason, at any time, and so that has
Speaker 5: problems all its own. What is I think molly different
Speaker 5: about the Khalil case is that even in that case,
Speaker 5: the government is not contesting that he's entitled to some
Speaker 5: process and a hearing before he's removed. That's why I
Speaker 5: think the Venezuela cases are such a bigger deal, because,
Speaker 5: you know, whatever the answers are to these substantive legal questions,
Speaker 5: if we don't have due process, if we don't have
Speaker 5: judicial process, then those answers are going to be provided
Speaker 5: by the president and not by the courts. And that's
Speaker 5: not how our system was designed, and especially today, I
Speaker 5: think it's not something any of us should abide.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate you, thank you.
Speaker 5: That's molly always great to be with you, No.
Speaker 2: Mo Jesse canon Smite.
Speaker 3: There is this odd thing with RFK that everybody kind
Speaker 3: of was like, what a freak of nature. You know,
Speaker 3: this guy's off the deep edd And now there's a
Speaker 3: lot of people who seem to be like well, what
Speaker 3: if seed oils are not the greatest thing, and maybe
Speaker 3: we should just let them do some things. And then
Speaker 3: there's some of us who studied him closely or are like,
Speaker 3: this is not a guy you let play around in
Speaker 3: the lab because the lab could blow up in your face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's pretty interesting. There's actually a big
Speaker 1: fight going on right now with MAGA influencers about the
Speaker 1: idea of banning soda from snap.
Speaker 3: I seem to recall that a New York Mayer wanted
Speaker 3: to just limit the sizes of sodas and these people
Speaker 3: were pretty mad.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing that's fascinating about Kennedy's MAHA stuff, right,
Speaker 1: is that what he wants to do is I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2: A lot of this stuff is whoey.
Speaker 1: You got measles in Texas, it's in New Mexico, it's
Speaker 1: in like a bunch of different states. You know, we've
Speaker 1: had some children die of it. We have Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy Junior musing about how cod liver oil might be
Speaker 1: a good fixed for this this This guy is wrong
Speaker 1: about most things, but and I would like to point
Speaker 1: this out, I do think the one thing about him
Speaker 1: is that he has eaten a lot of roadkill. So
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he's right about ceed oil, But honestly,
Speaker 1: I think this guy is a pretty big grifter. What
Speaker 1: I'm struck by when we talk about all of this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff is, in my mind, what is the
Speaker 1: most interesting here is that we're seeing lobbyists. What happens
Speaker 1: is like, for example, with the soda stuff, it turns
Speaker 1: out that a lot of soda is bought on snap.
Speaker 1: I know you'll be shocked to hear this, but food
Speaker 1: stamspy a lot of soda. So if they ban food
Speaker 1: samspying soda, it's going to be a real kick to
Speaker 1: like the soda companies.
Speaker 2: This is happening with a lot of.
Speaker 1: Different stuff right, Like for example, they wanted to ban TikTok.
Speaker 1: TikTok got a ton of lobbyists. Now they're not going
Speaker 1: to ban TikTok. And that's happening with everything. For example, universities,
Speaker 1: right a lot of these universities are worried that Trump
Speaker 1: World is going to change the irs structure because right
Speaker 1: now they don't have to pay taxes on their endowments,
Speaker 1: or they don't have to pay a sort of market
Speaker 1: level tax on their endowments. Here's the question, right, So
Speaker 1: now you're seeing more and more university hiring lobbyists. It's
Speaker 1: not that MAGA is getting money out of politics. It's
Speaker 1: that MAGA is getting more money into politics. Look, just
Speaker 1: the anti vax stuff is a real sign that Washington
Speaker 1: will just do whatever they think is popular. What we're
Speaker 1: going to see and what we're seeing and what you
Speaker 1: know between the NIH cuts, I mean, look, these NIH
Speaker 1: cuts are going to mean that we're missing years and
Speaker 1: years of study for Alzheimer's and cancer and the cancer
Speaker 1: you get now there could be a cure that is
Speaker 1: not happening because fucking Elon Musk said that they should
Speaker 1: limit the grants, the indirect funding for these grants. I mean,
Speaker 1: that is what we're living with right now. So the
Speaker 1: anti vax stuff is bad. The NIH stuff is bad.
Speaker 1: You know, almost everything Kennedy is doing is bad. That's
Speaker 1: it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
Speaker 1: make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.