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 Matt Gates and Elise Stefanik are
Speaker 1: introducing legislation stating that Donald Trump did not engage in insurrection.
Speaker 1: This season of stupid American government dies is even more
Speaker 1: depressing than the last.
Speaker 2: We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: Mike Izikoff and Daniel Kledeman join us to talk about
Speaker 1: their new book, Find Me the Votes, A hard charging
Speaker 1: Georgia Prosecutor, a rogue President, and.
Speaker 2: The plot to steal an American election.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Heated editor Emily Atkin about the
Speaker 1: misinformation surrounding Biden's latest move to protect the environment and
Speaker 1: slow climate change. But first we have the bulwarks Charlie Sykes.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Charlie.
Speaker 3: Sykes, who had nothing's going on.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing about this border bill insanity is that
Speaker 1: there's this bill, It's in the Senate. Republicans of the
Speaker 1: House don't want the Senate to vote on it even
Speaker 1: and instead they have a standalone Israel package which pro Israel.
Speaker 1: People don't want them to take.
Speaker 2: A vote on.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I mean this is about as screwed up
Speaker 3: as you can get. But also there's a certain amount
Speaker 3: of clarity, isn't there, you know? I mean you Republican
Speaker 3: Zoo have been running around saying that the border was
Speaker 3: an existential crisis. Your children were dying, they were handing
Speaker 3: out fentanyl like candy, and perhaps we had to do
Speaker 3: something about it right now. We could not pass that
Speaker 3: Ukraine bill right because the American border situation was so urgent.
Speaker 3: And so basically we wake up and they get everything
Speaker 3: they want with the border bill and they go, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: just kidding, really not serious about it. We would so
Speaker 3: much rather have it as an issue than as is.
Speaker 3: So I mean, this is this the difference between the
Speaker 3: you know, performative bullshit that has now substituted for actual governance.
Speaker 3: I mean, people used to think that if there was
Speaker 3: a problem that we would have, you know, Congress would
Speaker 3: deal with it, and if there was a possibility that
Speaker 3: you could come up with a bipartisan compromise to change
Speaker 3: the law that gave you eighty eighty five percent of
Speaker 3: what you wanted, you'd take it. But those are the
Speaker 3: before times.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, pro is a group's want Speaker Johnson to
Speaker 1: pull the bill, but the leadership has not been receptive
Speaker 1: to that. I mean, it is it's performative bullshit. That's
Speaker 1: a really good point. Talk to me about the action
Speaker 1: in the Senate, because that is Langford is not some
Speaker 1: centrist libtard cock.
Speaker 2: I had a Rick Wolson moment there.
Speaker 3: Sorry, No, you're right, you could have gone on even longer. There. No.
Speaker 3: And I'm fascinated by this because, you know, and then
Speaker 3: Langford has become the go to guy saying to his
Speaker 3: fellow conservatives, guys, this is a good bill. You know,
Speaker 3: get off Facebook. You're being lied to a out to
Speaker 3: this bill. And so when you know Langford says this
Speaker 3: is a good bill, it's a very different thing than
Speaker 3: somebody on you know you or me on MSNBC saying it,
Speaker 3: or you know, a democrat in the Senate. He's saying, look,
Speaker 3: we get almost everything that we want in this bill.
Speaker 3: And you can just sense his frustration as he's looking
Speaker 3: around him. And of course, because he's telling the truth
Speaker 3: about this bill, he has now become Donald Trump's number
Speaker 3: one enemy. I mean, if you noticed that, this is
Speaker 3: like it's become kind of an old pattern now by
Speaker 3: now a familiar pattern. You have Donald Trump running the
Speaker 3: United States Senate. I can't believe I'm about to say
Speaker 3: this running the United States Senate from the Dan Bongino Show,
Speaker 3: you know, because of course this is the future we deserve.
Speaker 3: So he goes on Dan Bongino Show and says, yeah,
Speaker 3: I never endorsed that guy. He lied he did, But
Speaker 3: you know this is going to cost him his job
Speaker 3: because he actually tried to solve a problem that Donald
Speaker 3: Trump has been whining about four years and was never
Speaker 3: able to actually solve himself.
Speaker 1: And the genesis of this was Republican said we will
Speaker 1: not fund Ukraine the borders of Ukraine until you solve
Speaker 1: our border.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is a great talking point, right, Except what
Speaker 3: they weren't counting on was the Biden administration saying, okay,
Speaker 3: let's do it.
Speaker 4: We want the.
Speaker 3: Ukraine aid and we're willing to give you a lot
Speaker 3: of what you want. You say that you don't want
Speaker 3: catch and release, fine, you want more border agents, Fine,
Speaker 3: let's do all these things. You want more border fence
Speaker 3: will give you that. You know, it's interesting you get
Speaker 3: a sense of what a big win this was for
Speaker 3: conservatives if they were willing to take it, which of
Speaker 3: course they're not by the fact that Border Patrol Union,
Speaker 3: which is about as trumpy a union as exists, has
Speaker 3: endorsed this bill said yeah, this is pretty good, please
Speaker 3: pass it now. By the way, who was it They
Speaker 3: have to look this up much. I think it was
Speaker 3: classic quote from I think was Joni Ernst of Iowa
Speaker 3: who said, you know, we should have given Senator Langford
Speaker 3: and the other negotiators the benefit of the doubt that
Speaker 3: they would come up with something good. Unfortunately, all this
Speaker 3: stuff got out there on social media. But it's out there,
Speaker 3: and now it's affective public opinion, and we have to
Speaker 3: take that into consideration, which is like, do you listen
Speaker 3: to yourself.
Speaker 2: It didn't come out there.
Speaker 1: It was an organized campaign by Donald Trump and his people, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, Don Junior is not acting on his own
Speaker 1: knowledge of the nineteen page bill.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think that's a safe bet. I think that's
Speaker 3: actually a safe bet.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: And again, what it comes down to is that it
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with the policy. It has nothing
Speaker 3: to do with actually addressing it. It is just simply
Speaker 3: this moment where compromise is bad. Anything that might make
Speaker 3: Joe Biden look good is bad. Anything that helps Donald
Speaker 3: Trump demagogue this issue more is good. It's just the
Speaker 3: cynicism is so naked, and I suppose we shouldn't be
Speaker 3: surprised about it, but it's like, guys, this is your
Speaker 3: own freaking bill. This was the one that you said
Speaker 3: posed a real, existential, imminent threat to American security, and
Speaker 3: now you're going, yeah, not really go on it.
Speaker 1: It is interesting to me, Like, the question is, is
Speaker 1: the Biden administration playing three dimensional chess? Did they plan
Speaker 1: this out knowing that it could never pass?
Speaker 2: Or do you think right?
Speaker 1: I mean, because had it passed, which it looks like
Speaker 1: it absolutely will not, it would have really infuriated a
Speaker 1: lot of progressives. I mean, Representative Jayapaul already said that
Speaker 1: she had a lot of problems with the bell. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think this was sort of Biden world playing three
Speaker 1: dimensional chess or now?
Speaker 3: It's a really interesting question, though, isn't it. That is
Speaker 3: a very interesting question because the way it's played out,
Speaker 3: you know, had they set out to do it, it
Speaker 3: would be a pretty effective play because now they can
Speaker 3: spend the rest of the year saying, look at which
Speaker 3: we had in hand, and this do nothing Congress. And
Speaker 3: I keep coming back to my favorite campaign, of course,
Speaker 3: nineteen forty eight. You know, Harry Truman running, he needs
Speaker 3: to do nothing Congress. He's got the perfect talking point. However,
Speaker 3: I don't think they were playing. You know, sometimes this
Speaker 3: stuff happens. Joe Biden's DNA is to negotiate deals. That's
Speaker 3: his strength and his weakness. He wants to put together,
Speaker 3: cobble together this bipartisan deal. And I think that as
Speaker 3: late as last week there was reason to think that maybe,
Speaker 3: just possibly this time, there might be a deal and
Speaker 3: that they might possibly have the backbone to pass it.
Speaker 3: And I think that they played that string out as
Speaker 3: long as they possibly could. Now we're left with the
Speaker 3: everybody's got their talking point.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that, because the House is going to
Speaker 1: impeach Alejandro Mayorchis again. I want to quote Jonathan Turley, Right,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Turtley, it says that you can't technically impeach people.
Speaker 1: That impeachment is supposed to be about high crimes and
Speaker 1: misdemeanors and not people not doing what you want them to.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But this Republican Congress does not see a problem with that.
Speaker 1: They don't have the votes yet, but they think that
Speaker 1: all have the vote to impeach the secretary after rejecting
Speaker 1: voting on the bill.
Speaker 3: Well, see, I think this is another one of those
Speaker 3: just you know, just freeze frame this moment. What do
Speaker 3: the Republicans want? Do they want to solve the problem
Speaker 3: or they want to have a bogus sham show trial,
Speaker 3: Chrick question, because you know exactly what they want now.
Speaker 3: They're not going to get the bogus sham show trial anyway,
Speaker 3: because it's not going to take place in the Senate.
Speaker 3: They're basically engaging in sort of this form of you know,
Speaker 3: political base masturbation, and everybody feels good about themselves. But again,
Speaker 3: they're doing it booke ended with the fact that they
Speaker 3: had an opportunity to actually make substantive changes in the
Speaker 3: law and refuse to do it. So it's like, again here,
Speaker 3: on the one hand, is your performative politics versus the
Speaker 3: actual business of governing. And this is not breaking news, Molly,
Speaker 3: because you know, the party has been moving away from
Speaker 3: serious governing for a long time now. But this is
Speaker 3: one of those little freeze frame moments of like what
Speaker 3: was going on twenty twenty four when they had a
Speaker 3: chance to actually do something about a crisis that at
Speaker 3: least one of the major political parties said was just
Speaker 3: the biggest thing happening in the Northern hemisphere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so hypocritical, but I do think there are
Speaker 1: a lot of Trump supporters who believe this sort of
Speaker 1: earth to theories of trump Ism.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, I mean, how does it work. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is part of the cynicism. I mean, the cynicism
Speaker 3: is that, you know, the worst things are, the more
Speaker 3: likely voters are to blame Joe Biden. So let's keep
Speaker 3: things as bad as they are if we can, in fact,
Speaker 3: pour more kerosene on the fire that we hope that
Speaker 3: the voters will blame the person in the White House.
Speaker 3: That's deeply cynical. It's deeply reckless and irresponsible, but it's
Speaker 3: not necessarily wrong. Generally, you try to put more of
Speaker 3: a fig leaf on it than what you're seeing right
Speaker 3: now in Washington.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another bit of wild news is that the DC Circuit
Speaker 1: has decided, thank you, is that Trump is not a king.
Speaker 1: But Trump is hoping that the Supreme Court will decide
Speaker 1: that he is.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I wish he either had popcorn or I'd want a
Speaker 3: warm Bath just to talk about this, because this is
Speaker 3: an amazing do yourself a favor. I'm looking at all
Speaker 3: the listeners. Go download and print out. You can get
Speaker 3: more ink and paper from your printer. This whole opinion
Speaker 3: by the unanimous panel of the DC Circuit explaining that no,
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, you are not the king, you are not
Speaker 3: above the law. No officer of the United States is
Speaker 3: above the law, and just demolishing all of his arguments.
Speaker 3: This is one of those moments where you do see
Speaker 3: the institutions behaving the way they were intended to behave.
Speaker 3: He can do two things, you know this. He can
Speaker 3: appeal this get to an on bank ruling of the
Speaker 3: DC Circuit Court all a dozen or more judges, I
Speaker 3: don't know how many judges there are. They don't have
Speaker 3: to do that. He will definitely appeal to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: But this is the case that he's not going to win.
Speaker 3: You and I have, I think, talked about this on television.
Speaker 3: I think the US Supreme Court should disqualify him on
Speaker 3: the Fourteenth Amendment grounds, but I don't think they will.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's any chance they're going to. But
Speaker 3: they may split the baby here say we're not getting
Speaker 3: you off the ballot, but we're also stripping you of
Speaker 3: any pretense of immunity. And quite frankly, I think that's
Speaker 3: on balance a win. That's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing about Trump is that the longer he kicks
Speaker 1: the can, right, the more he wins.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's all about delay, right, Yeah, yeah, he gives
Speaker 3: himself an advantage. But we don't know how the movie ends.
Speaker 3: I mean, you have a couple of dynamics here. Everybody
Speaker 3: understands the need of a time. Having said that, what
Speaker 3: took the DC Circuit Court so long? I mean, I
Speaker 3: think but it was like scrilling you people. But you
Speaker 3: have a judge, Chuckkin, they're in DC, who is going
Speaker 3: to move as quickly as she can. And you're exactly right.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's entire strategy at this point is to play
Speaker 3: this out to delay any sort of a conviction before
Speaker 3: the election, because and again, don't base you know, we
Speaker 3: got to have a certain amount of skepticism about poles, right,
Speaker 3: But there does seem to be a consistent line in
Speaker 3: the polls that when you ask people would you support
Speaker 3: Donald Trump if he was a convicted felon, people are
Speaker 3: not so hot for that, and he knows that that's
Speaker 3: the big problem. It's one thing to run as the
Speaker 3: martyr victim. You know, they're coming after me, candidates, something
Speaker 3: else to be an actual convicted felon. And so Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's going to do the you know, the delay, delayed, delay,
Speaker 3: but that this has been a strategy for what twenty
Speaker 3: thirty years now, You've been watching him. He does this
Speaker 3: on all litigation.
Speaker 2: You know, it's worked for him thus far.
Speaker 3: It has worked for him, I mean, And the fact
Speaker 3: that we are now in February of twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: and there have been no trials about his criminal behavior,
Speaker 3: with the exception of the Egene Carol case, which I
Speaker 3: believe you have some familiarity with, is an indication of
Speaker 3: some success. I don't know if you and I have
Speaker 3: talked about this. I continue to be baffled by the
Speaker 3: way he went out of his way to call attention
Speaker 3: to case where he's been found to have raped and
Speaker 3: then defamed a woman. You know, maybe the reptilian instinct
Speaker 3: has some limitations.
Speaker 1: Just saying I think Trump thought that if he just
Speaker 1: made everything candidate Trump, that his cases.
Speaker 2: Would go away.
Speaker 1: But it strikes me that Candidate Trump and defendant Trump.
Speaker 2: They do not have the same goals.
Speaker 3: No, they definitely do not have the same goals. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 3: his performance in the courtroom has not been designed to
Speaker 3: impress the judge or to impress the juries, and he's
Speaker 3: paying a price for it. So he's assuming that he's
Speaker 3: playing to a much friendlier court of public opinion. But
Speaker 3: you know, coming back to that Egene Carroll case, I
Speaker 3: don't think I can overstate how many voters in this
Speaker 3: country just didn't know anything about that case before Donald
Speaker 3: Trump decided to hang this gigantic bable on it by
Speaker 3: showing up every day. I mean, you and I follow it.
Speaker 3: You know the characters. I mean, there are tens of
Speaker 3: millions of Americans that have just learned relatively recently about
Speaker 3: this case. Now there's a lot of spin out there
Speaker 3: of denial. You know, one thing, A loan doesn't move
Speaker 3: the needle. But it's now in play in a way
Speaker 3: that it wasn't before Donald Trump put it in play.
Speaker 1: And we're still waiting for this federal fraud judgment.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, judging Gorn. You mean, yeah, well, you know
Speaker 3: the interesting thing about that judgment is, you know how
Speaker 3: it's going to turn out this is another one of
Speaker 3: the cases. You know how it's going to turn out.
Speaker 3: The question is how big is it going to be?
Speaker 3: And my guess is it's going to be huge. And
Speaker 3: that thing is getting worse for him because we were
Speaker 3: expecting to get that ruling last week. Judge put it off.
Speaker 3: I think the intelligence speculation is that maybe they're looking
Speaker 3: at possible perjury charges involving that. So nothing about that
Speaker 3: gets better for him. And plus that's about something he
Speaker 3: really genuinely cares about, his money, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and his family business, right which I feel like
Speaker 1: it's the legacy of trump Ism and Trump himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it shatters the myth. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, it's the Golden Tower does built on lies
Speaker 3: and bullshit that convince people. And by the way, you know,
Speaker 3: the fun NBC have a lot to answer for for
Speaker 3: the whole Apprentice thing and putting him out there because
Speaker 3: a lot of people thought, hey, he's a successful businessman
Speaker 3: when he wasn't.
Speaker 1: Right, he has become way more powerful than the Republican Party, right,
Speaker 1: and you're seeing that, right, Like, we don't know if
Speaker 1: he's going to fire Ron Romney McDaniel. There's some evidence
Speaker 1: our chief of staff just resigned that maybe that happened.
Speaker 1: If he loses, does the Republican Party get to now
Speaker 1: will they be able to reconstitute themselves or do they
Speaker 1: lose those people forever? I mean, is trump Ism just Trump?
Speaker 1: Or is trumpsm this anti democratic movement?
Speaker 3: We should devote an entire podcast to this question.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: Trump Ism will be with us for a very very
Speaker 3: long time. You've lost a lot of people, but also
Speaker 3: you've brought a lot of people into politics in the
Speaker 3: last decade now who think this is normal. And there's
Speaker 3: this massive infrastructure, financial infrastructure, but also a media ecosystem
Speaker 3: that rewards trumpy behavior. So I don't see this going
Speaker 3: anytime soon. I mean, just look at what happens to
Speaker 3: any decent Republican that stands up and says this is wrong.
Speaker 3: Look at them all, you know, whether you're talking about
Speaker 3: Liz Cheney or Adam Kinsinger or I don't know how
Speaker 3: you feel about him, but I mean, Chris Christy did it.
Speaker 3: You know, Look what's happening to James Langford even as
Speaker 3: we speak, they are they become non persons immediately. And
Speaker 3: look who are the rock stars of this party And
Speaker 3: a lot of those people are going to be around
Speaker 3: for I'm sorry to say this, twenty thirty forty years
Speaker 3: in Republican politics, so this is not something that's going away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thank you so much, Charlie.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. It's always a pleasure to come back
Speaker 3: on your podcast anytime.
Speaker 1: Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klydeman are the authors of Find
Speaker 1: Me the Votes. A hard charging Georgia prosecutor or a
Speaker 1: Rogue President and the Plot to Steal an American Election.
Speaker 1: Welcome Too Fast Politics. Daniel Hi, and mister Mike Iisikov.
Speaker 2: Hi there, Mollie.
Speaker 1: So have you done a bunch of books together or
Speaker 1: is this your first book together.
Speaker 5: No, this is our first book together. But we have
Speaker 5: worked together on and off, mostly on since nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 5: So we were investigative reporters together at Newsweek, and then
Speaker 5: we worked.
Speaker 4: Together at Yahoo for about almost ten years.
Speaker 1: So the book is called Find Me the Votes. You
Speaker 1: really hit the timing on this in a pretty interesting way.
Speaker 1: Tell me your original plan for this book, how you
Speaker 1: sort of started working on it.
Speaker 6: Basically, Look, the first germs of the idea came in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty one, when it looked like Fonnie Willis was
Speaker 6: the only prosecutor who was going to go after Donald
Speaker 6: Trump for his efforts to steal the twenty twenty presidential election.
Speaker 6: If you remember, shortly after the phone call January second
Speaker 6: of twenty twenty one, in which Trump tells Raffinsburger to
Speaker 6: find eleven seven hundred and eighty votes, just one more
Speaker 6: than is needed to flip Georgia's electoral votes, Fannie Willis
Speaker 6: indicated she would have to investigate because rad Rathlisberger was
Speaker 6: in Bolton County. What he took that phone call in
Speaker 6: John's Creek, just a couple of miles inside the county line,
Speaker 6: and Fannie Willis knew that a potential crime had taken
Speaker 6: place in her jurisdiction. For the longest time, she was
Speaker 6: the only ballgame in town, although she was swamped with
Speaker 6: a lot of other pressing cases, thousands of unindicted murders
Speaker 6: and the sexual assaults and all, so it took her
Speaker 6: a while to get up to speed. And if you remember,
Speaker 6: all for a long period of time it was not
Speaker 6: clear the Justice Department was going to do anything. At
Speaker 6: the end of the day, she was the last, but
Speaker 6: we believe it was the most consequential case of all.
Speaker 6: Donald Trump didn't do what he did on his own.
Speaker 6: He had an army of Confederates who helped him pressure
Speaker 6: state officials, lie about election workers, and put pressure all
Speaker 6: across the board in Georgia to get him the votes
Speaker 6: he needed to win that state. And Fannie Willis brought
Speaker 6: a racketeering conspiracy case. It's the only conspiracy case that
Speaker 6: captures the full enormity of what Donald Trump was trying
Speaker 6: to do in Georgia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Molly, there were other dimensions to the case
Speaker 5: and what happened in Georgia that we thought were important
Speaker 5: and would make a compelling narrative. One thing was the
Speaker 5: human toll in Georgia that you didn't quite see in
Speaker 5: the same way in any of the other potential cases.
Speaker 5: Georgia was where Trump's efforts were most furious, and where
Speaker 5: the alleged criminality, you know, there was sort of the
Speaker 5: widest scope of alleged criminality that just touched more people
Speaker 5: and more sort of average Americans than in any of
Speaker 5: any of the other cases. And in particular, the sort
Speaker 5: of climate of fear and the threats that rained down
Speaker 5: against so many people who were involved in administering the
Speaker 5: election and poll watchers. People know the stories about Ruby
Speaker 5: Freeman and her daughter, Shay Moss, but it was up
Speaker 5: and down from the highest levels of government Brad Raffensberger obviously,
Speaker 5: and people in his office and their families, their spouses,
Speaker 5: their children, their brothers and sisters. I mean, it was pervasive,
Speaker 5: and we thought it was important to tell that story
Speaker 5: because that climate of fear could very easily be reignited
Speaker 5: going forward. We are likely to have a rematch between
Speaker 5: Trump and Biden, and so we just thought that was
Speaker 5: an important part of the story.
Speaker 4: The sort of human dimension.
Speaker 1: Did you have any inkling of the relationship between the
Speaker 1: prosecutor and Nathan Wade?
Speaker 5: We did not, Molly, And you know what's interesting, And
Speaker 5: I've talked to people inside the DA's office. The people
Speaker 5: around her and who worked most close mostly with her
Speaker 5: had no inkling either. I understand they were shocked when
Speaker 5: they learned about it.
Speaker 4: It did happen.
Speaker 5: It sounds like, at least according to Nathan Wade's account
Speaker 5: in a sworn Affidavid in that filing on Friday came
Speaker 5: in response to the original emotion. It did not start
Speaker 5: until quite a bit after Nathan Wade was hired, and
Speaker 5: it was not something that they were doing openly and
Speaker 5: you know, ostentatiously, so we did not get an inkling
Speaker 5: of it at all.
Speaker 4: Let me just add a couple of things.
Speaker 6: Look, who's clearly a misstep on her part had this
Speaker 6: relationship to give any ammunition at all to Trump and
Speaker 6: his co defendants in this case. But that said, if
Speaker 6: you take a step back and sort of look at
Speaker 6: this from you know, a higher lens, it really may
Speaker 6: end up being a complete nothing burger. I mean, if,
Speaker 6: in fact, what Nathan Wade put in that smorn Affidavid
Speaker 6: last Friday, and backed up by Fannie Willims's own filing
Speaker 6: is accurate, and the relationship didn't begin until after he
Speaker 6: was hired, it's hard to see how this has any
Speaker 6: impact on the case at all. If next Friday, in
Speaker 6: the hearing before Judge McAfee, he asks Ashley Merchant, the
Speaker 6: lawyer from Michael Roman who brought the motion to disqualify
Speaker 6: Fannie Willis, over this, tell me how the relationship between
Speaker 6: Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade prejudiced your client. She's going
Speaker 6: to be stumped because there's absolutely zero evidence that it did.
Speaker 6: There was no constitutional rights of Michael Roman that were violated,
Speaker 6: no evidence of prejudice in the case or prosecutorial misconduct.
Speaker 6: So I mean, look, taking a step back, what are
Speaker 6: we talking about here and interoffice romance between two middle
Speaker 6: aged professionals who are single at the time. I mean,
Speaker 6: I know a thing or two about sex scandals, and
Speaker 6: this is about as lame as you get, Like, where's
Speaker 6: the here?
Speaker 5: And by the way, just one more beat on this, Molly,
Speaker 5: because in the motion they make a lot about the
Speaker 5: kind of financial entanglements between the two of them, that
Speaker 5: Fannie Willis was authorizing these payments to the way and
Speaker 5: then Nathan Wade was using that same money. Money, of course,
Speaker 5: is fungible, so it's hard to say it's that same money.
Speaker 5: But that's allege to take her on lavish vacation's and
Speaker 5: Caribbean cruises. What Nathan Wade filed in the response was
Speaker 5: that they alternated a spending. They were, you know, middle
Speaker 5: aged lawyers with good salaries, and they essentially went Dutch,
Speaker 5: so she paid for vacations as well. So I said,
Speaker 5: that really undercuts that part of the argument.
Speaker 6: Yeah, look, I'll put a small caveat in in here,
Speaker 6: which is that, you know, Ashley Mershen, you know, quickly
Speaker 6: filed the response saying she's got evidence or witnesses who
Speaker 6: can contradict what was said in that affidavit. It's hard
Speaker 6: to imagine what she's talking about. She didn't put any
Speaker 6: affidavids in contradicting Nathan Wade's but you know, assuming she's
Speaker 6: got a photograph of the two of them making out
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty one before he was hired, you know,
Speaker 6: I would be you know, that was seriously a cut.
Speaker 6: But I seriously doubt she does.
Speaker 4: I think we would have seen it if she had
Speaker 4: fact at it. And so at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: it's hard.
Speaker 6: To imagine the judge is going to want to have
Speaker 6: a full blown evidentiator hearing about the DA's sex life.
Speaker 6: It just absence some compelling evidence that something wrong was
Speaker 6: done here, and so far I haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: The one thing I would say is that, you know,
Speaker 1: I think Trump lawyers tend to be a fairly sketchy crew,
Speaker 1: and obviously this is a right wing tactic to smear her,
Speaker 1: but it also is unnecessarily giving Trump world a little,
Speaker 1: you know, something to push back on, which is quite annoying.
Speaker 2: And worth thinking about.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're going after Trump world, you have
Speaker 1: to be so incredibly careful about everything you do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no doubt about that.
Speaker 5: You have to get your house in order before you
Speaker 5: take one lawyer who are going to certainly use kind
Speaker 5: of scorched earth tactics. And remember, you know, Michael Roby,
Speaker 5: this is people have not commented all that much about this,
Speaker 5: but Michael Roman himself, the defendant whose lawyer filed the motion,
Speaker 5: This is a guy who you know, this is an
Speaker 5: OPO research person.
Speaker 4: This is a guy who really.
Speaker 5: Ran the intelligence unit for the Koch brothers and did
Speaker 5: OPO research for the Trump campaign.
Speaker 4: And so you know, you sort of need to know
Speaker 4: who you're dealing.
Speaker 5: With, you know, when you go into a case like this,
Speaker 5: and you know, we spend a lot of time with
Speaker 5: Fannie Willis interviewed her, you know, six times over many
Speaker 5: hours over the two and a half years that we
Speaker 5: reported this book, and so you know, we thought a
Speaker 5: lot about like, how did this happen? How did she
Speaker 5: allow herself to put herself in this situation? And you know,
Speaker 5: she is a very complicated woman, She's very human. This
Speaker 5: obviously isn't the first time that people have been surprised
Speaker 5: by office relationships.
Speaker 4: She is a kind of a force of nature.
Speaker 5: She's a trial lawyer, and trial lawyers sometimes carry themselves
Speaker 5: with a certain amount of rabato and certitude, and she's
Speaker 5: got a touch of arrogance. Sometimes your virtues can also
Speaker 5: be your vices, and she is an extraordinarily talented trial
Speaker 5: lawyer and a kind of, again, a force of nature
Speaker 5: in the courtroom.
Speaker 4: But you know, that.
Speaker 5: Little bit of cockiness can also lead to blind spots,
Speaker 5: and perhaps that's what happened here.
Speaker 1: Will you talk about her early time in the DIA's
Speaker 1: office and sort of how she cut her teeth, because
Speaker 1: that's really interesting.
Speaker 6: She has an interesting background. Her father was a civil
Speaker 6: rights activist who became for a while a black panther.
Speaker 6: It's actually founded the Black Panther Party of Los Angeles.
Speaker 6: Talk about sexual relationships. He was living for a while
Speaker 6: with a fellow member of his Central Committee, Angela Datas,
Speaker 6: who went on to fame and notoriety.
Speaker 2: She may have heard of her.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 6: He sheds his radical beliefs, becomes an administrative law judge,
Speaker 6: and Washington raises Fani on his own. She goes to
Speaker 6: Howard Emery law school, wins the National Moot Court Championship contest,
Speaker 6: goes to the DA's office, and in a very short
Speaker 6: order she becomes the star litigator of the Fulton County
Speaker 6: Djay's office. She is, as many of them described our
Speaker 6: friends and foes, the force of nature in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 6: I used to say to young DA's who got hired
Speaker 6: in Fulton County, if you want to know how to
Speaker 6: do a homicide case, sit in and watch Fannie Willis do.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 6: She was the master of homicide prosecutions. And then she
Speaker 6: goes on to be the star litigator, as I said,
Speaker 6: And handle's the most sweeping controversial RICO case in the
Speaker 6: history of Georgia, which was the Atlanta Public Schools teacher's case,
Speaker 6: something that actually did not go down well in the
Speaker 6: African American community because all the defendants were people of color.
Speaker 2: But Fannie Willis.
Speaker 6: Won the case using RICO, the Georgia racketeering conspiracy law,
Speaker 6: and was widely acknowledged as the master of RICO in Georgia.
Speaker 6: It's interesting, you know, she's not the prosecutor that a
Speaker 6: lot of liberals would like her to be. She when
Speaker 6: she runs for DA, she runs on a tough on
Speaker 6: crime platform. She's endorsed by the police Union in the
Speaker 6: summer of George Floyd twenty twenty, and is endorsed by
Speaker 6: a Republican activist in Buckett who was worried about crime,
Speaker 6: Mary Norwood. In fact, this was so offensive to many
Speaker 6: in the black community that Ti, the Grammy Award winning
Speaker 6: rapper who had become something of a political power broker
Speaker 6: in Atlanta, goes to Fannie Willis during our campaign and.
Speaker 4: Offers her a deal.
Speaker 6: Renounce the support of the police union, renounced Mary norwich support,
Speaker 6: give up their campaign contributions, and I'll make you whole.
Speaker 6: I'll make up for all of it and funeral money
Speaker 6: to your campaign. And Fannie Willis says, no way. They're
Speaker 6: a part of my community just as you are, and
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna renounce their support. It tells you a
Speaker 6: lot about who she is, and it's not She is
Speaker 6: not one of those progressive prosecutors backed by George Soros
Speaker 6: who Donald Trump likes to rail against.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll say one of the things she says that
Speaker 1: she keeps saying, like, I don't understand why people are
Speaker 1: interested in my personal life. She's the daughter of a
Speaker 1: black panther Angela Davis was like her quase stepmom.
Speaker 2: Does she really not understand why people are interested in it?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: Angela Davis was long before.
Speaker 4: Boddy Willis was born, so.
Speaker 1: Right, but her father dated Angela Davis. Does she not.
Speaker 2: Understand why that would be interesting to people?
Speaker 4: You know, it's interesting Molly.
Speaker 5: I had this very conversation with one of her closest
Speaker 5: advisors because she said that to over and over again.
Speaker 4: Why are people interested in me?
Speaker 5: You know, I understand why you might be interested in
Speaker 5: the case, and I can't really talk that much about
Speaker 5: the case, but why are you interested in me? And
Speaker 5: the person I spoke to sort of thought that, really
Speaker 5: it is a touch of naivete. Now, she has not
Speaker 5: been in the public eye in the way that she
Speaker 5: is now. She had never really run for office before. Yes,
Speaker 5: she'd been a well known trial lawyer, but really in
Speaker 5: the legal community in Fulton County and in Atlanta. And
Speaker 5: I don't think it's a post I think she genuinely
Speaker 5: does not really understand why people would be interested in
Speaker 5: her as a person as opposed to her as a lawyer.
Speaker 5: I can't get inside her head. I can't fully understand
Speaker 5: why she thinks that, but I do think it's genuine.
Speaker 5: I think it's authentic. It may also be part of
Speaker 5: the reason that she ended up in this awkward situation,
Speaker 5: because if you don't understand at then you know, you're
Speaker 5: not going to understand why anybody would be interested in
Speaker 5: your personal life in the way that obviously the country
Speaker 5: has become.
Speaker 1: Right, it's such a strange thing to like to not
Speaker 1: think like, this is one of the highest profile prosecutions
Speaker 1: of one of the highest profile people, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just sort of amazing, you know.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say she's terribly insulated.
Speaker 5: I mean, she gave us a bunch of interviews, She's
Speaker 5: given other interviews, She gets out into the community.
Speaker 4: She talks to people. It is a little perplexing.
Speaker 5: But again, as I say, there's no indication that I've
Speaker 5: discerned that it's some kind of a pose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's just a really interesting bit. Can
Speaker 1: you explain why it's taken so long? And then also
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the Lindsay Graham stuff.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Listen, We've unearthed a lot of nuggets in this
Speaker 6: book that was previously unknown about both Trump's pressure campaign
Speaker 6: and the investigation. But the one you're referring to which
Speaker 6: has gotten some notice is the Special grand Jury. Calls,
Speaker 6: you know, scores of witnesses. One of them was Lindsey Graham,
Speaker 6: who got to subpoena from Fannie Willis. He fights it
Speaker 6: up and down, saying, you know, speech in debate clause.
Speaker 6: You know they're coming out, there's no justification for me
Speaker 6: having to testify, and I will fight this all the way.
Speaker 6: He loses and then gets called before the Special Grand Jury.
Speaker 6: According to our sources, he throws Trump under the bus,
Speaker 6: makes comments about how, you know, if Martians told him
Speaker 6: that the election was stolen, he'd probably believe them. Even
Speaker 6: suggests that Donald Trump cheats at golf.
Speaker 1: Not the first person to suggest Donald Trump cheats at golf, but.
Speaker 4: Maybe the first person to do so.
Speaker 6: Under kids of this, and then after his grand jury apparents,
Speaker 6: he walks out, he spots Bonnie Willis. She comes up
Speaker 6: to thank him for testifying, and he like unloads himself, says,
Speaker 6: thank you for that. It was so cathartic, and then
Speaker 6: he hugs her. Oh my god, he's so the center
Speaker 6: hugs bonding. Willis the prosecutor pursuing Donald Trump, and then
Speaker 6: our redyaction. According to resources who watch it, is whatever, dude.
Speaker 5: This anecdote, this nugget, among all the of the scoops
Speaker 5: we had in this book, seems to have like really
Speaker 5: resonated the most in some ways. It's such a you know,
Speaker 5: sort of sign of the times politically. Here is a
Speaker 5: guy in Lindsey Graham, who's hero and mentor was John McCain,
Speaker 5: famously the maverick who bucked his own party, you know,
Speaker 5: based on his own convictions. And then Donald Trump comes
Speaker 5: along and Lindsey Graham, you know, swears total allegiance to
Speaker 5: him and defends him at every turn, and people are
Speaker 5: kind of wondering, well, you know, what happened to this guy,
Speaker 5: And of course that is symbolic of what happened to
Speaker 5: the Republican Party more generally. But there is a sense
Speaker 5: in which Lizzie Graham might be a little bit tortured,
Speaker 5: that there's an internal struggle going on inside him. And
Speaker 5: so then when he has the opportunity and really has
Speaker 5: no choice but to tell the truth in front of
Speaker 5: the grand jury, he unburdens himself and he calls it
Speaker 5: cathartic and he hugs, And I do think this is
Speaker 5: something that this sort of split screen of what people
Speaker 5: say publicly and what they actually believe is something that
Speaker 5: you know that you would find in a lot of
Speaker 5: other Republicans if they were put before the grand jury
Speaker 5: and sworn to tell the truth.
Speaker 2: Thank you both so much, Thank you, all right, thank you.
Speaker 2: Emily Atkin is the editor of He Did. Welcome back
Speaker 2: to Fast Politics. Emily.
Speaker 4: Always happy to be here.
Speaker 2: Molly, We're so happy to have you.
Speaker 1: So there have been so many tiny climb not even tiny,
Speaker 1: enormous climate victories that nobody ever talks about, because why
Speaker 1: would we ever talk about anything. I originally booked you
Speaker 1: because I wanted to talk about this incredible move from
Speaker 1: the Biden administration, which you know is smart because Republicans
Speaker 1: went crazy about it, But it was like a little
Speaker 1: too complicated for them to like make into a Fox
Speaker 1: News talking point, so it didn't become the cultural war
Speaker 1: that I think they wanted it to be. But I'm
Speaker 1: hoping you could walk us through the Biden administrations plan
Speaker 1: to pause natural gas exports, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Actually, I think it's like so complicated that a
Speaker 4: lot of people don't matter where they're at on the
Speaker 4: political spectrum 're having a hard time understanding it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so talk us through it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, actually, it's interesting what you said is the
Speaker 4: Biden's decision to pause natural gas exports. That's not really
Speaker 4: what happened. What the Biden administration did is they announced
Speaker 4: the decision to pause new hermit or proposed or died
Speaker 4: natural gas.
Speaker 1: Right, so even less than what I said, even more
Speaker 1: sort of tentative, if you will.
Speaker 4: This is why I think it's important to be careful
Speaker 4: about how you say it, because here are to really
Speaker 4: I think salient points about the decision. So pausing new permits,
Speaker 4: it's a big deal, and I'll get to that in
Speaker 4: a second. But here's what it's not. It means that
Speaker 4: no existing LNG that's liquified natural gas is the type
Speaker 4: of gas talking about. It's like frack gas that's been liquefied.
Speaker 4: No existing LNG export facility is affected. So there are
Speaker 4: eight existing export terminals around the country and they will
Speaker 4: continue to operate. The flow of fossil fuels overseas will continue.
Speaker 4: And not only will that flow of LNG overseas continue,
Speaker 4: it will massively expand. There are ten at least ten
Speaker 4: new LNG exports facilities that have already gotten the approvals
Speaker 4: that Biden paused. They haven't been finished building yet. Some
Speaker 4: of them aren't even under construction. They will get built,
Speaker 4: and they will cause the amount of gas we export
Speaker 4: overseas to double. Now, why this is still a big
Speaker 4: deal putting a temporary pause on new approvals is that
Speaker 4: there are at least six major proposed LERG export terminals
Speaker 4: that are affected. And if they just went through the
Speaker 4: normal process, if they just got rubber stamp approved the
Speaker 4: way that all the previous ones had, it would have
Speaker 4: ensured a massive amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
Speaker 4: There's one estimate that I've been using. It's life cycle
Speaker 4: emission total of three hundred and seventeen coal plants. That's
Speaker 4: how much would have gotten into the atmosphere from the extraction,
Speaker 4: the fracking of the gas, the transporting of that gas
Speaker 4: to the facility, the liquefication of the gas, the chilling
Speaker 4: of the gas, the exporting of the gas, which has
Speaker 4: a lot of the leaks, and then the burning of
Speaker 4: the gas just you know, all of that. So that's
Speaker 4: that's a good reason to celebrate. I think it's also
Speaker 4: like a it's a signal. I think the most thing
Speaker 4: to know about this decision is that it is a
Speaker 4: signal to other countries all over the world and fossil
Speaker 4: fuel producers that the United States is starting to take
Speaker 4: climate change into consideration of its decision making on whether
Speaker 4: or not to approve fossil fuel projects, which is, you
Speaker 4: would think, considering the climate situation that we're in, that
Speaker 4: we would like already be doing that.
Speaker 1: Let's just talk a little bit about what that means
Speaker 1: sort of in the grander scheme of things.
Speaker 2: So what does that mean.
Speaker 1: It means that that sort of other countries will take
Speaker 1: sort of the Paris Climate Accord more seriously.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, here's the thing. Right now, it means very
Speaker 4: little about what their countries are going to do. None
Speaker 4: of the facilities that we're going to be built or
Speaker 4: that still might be built. I feel like we got
Speaker 4: back up for a second and say, like, right.
Speaker 1: Just because they're not being approved right now doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they won't be approved eventually.
Speaker 4: This is a temporary pause, and the temporary pause is
Speaker 4: so the Biden administration can think up a new approval
Speaker 4: process that adequately considers the effects of climate change.
Speaker 1: Right, which is actually what we want our federal government doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe too slowly, but at least they're doing
Speaker 1: it right. I mean, I don't think the Trump administration
Speaker 1: would be pausing to consider that.
Speaker 4: No, But if your job, which is the doe's job,
Speaker 4: is to decide whether a project is in the public interest,
Speaker 4: that's what the abermit is, right, is this American public interest?
Speaker 4: You would think it would just be a prudent thing
Speaker 4: to accurately consider the effect of these facilities on climate change.
Speaker 2: Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1: Now go on and explain to us about this sort
Speaker 1: of incredible thing that I read about in Politico, about
Speaker 1: how renewables are actually really taking off in America and
Speaker 1: they're actually the second largest.
Speaker 2: Can you talk to us about that, Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is something that's so frustrating I think
Speaker 4: as so my job generally, and what I do is
Speaker 4: I try to distill and debunk a lot of fossil
Speaker 4: fuel misinformation because so much of our collective understanding about
Speaker 4: climate change has been subliminally and subconsciously shaped by the
Speaker 4: fossil fuel industry. Is messaging designed to delay our transition
Speaker 4: to renewable energy.
Speaker 1: And that's true in Saudi Arabia too, Right, Like America
Speaker 1: and Saudi Arabia are the two countries where they're most
Speaker 1: affected by the advertising of the fossil fuels.
Speaker 4: Right yeah, But also like I mean, if you go
Speaker 4: to the UK, you'll see the UK is like starting
Speaker 4: to crack down on it. Europe in general is starting
Speaker 4: to crack down it a little.
Speaker 2: But like, but they're better off than we are, like
Speaker 2: they have had real science.
Speaker 4: So but this idea that we are not ready to
Speaker 4: transition to renewables, that we need a quote unquote bridge
Speaker 4: with the gas is decades old, and it's a delay
Speaker 4: tactic to delay or transition to renewables so that the
Speaker 4: fospiel companies can continue to profit. What you're seeing now
Speaker 4: is that renewable energy is already the cheapest source of
Speaker 4: electricity in many parts of the world. Really, more and more,
Speaker 4: we're just seeing evidence that gas. The argument that gas
Speaker 4: is this bridge that we need and then it's completely
Speaker 4: unrealistic to transition to renewables in places that are dependent
Speaker 4: on coal is just very contrary to the fact that.
Speaker 1: What you're saying is it's bullshit. Gas does not help
Speaker 1: renewables work.
Speaker 4: You know, doesn't help how would that be true. I
Speaker 4: always think itself funny when it's like gas helps renewables
Speaker 4: get work in what way?
Speaker 1: Well, it helps Exxon make money. So talk to me
Speaker 1: about what the renewables are, and then I would love
Speaker 1: you to talk about this Johnson Act because part of
Speaker 1: the problem having with offshore wind is a regulation from
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Oh, we haven't had offshore wind in the United States
Speaker 4: at all.
Speaker 1: Right because of this regulation from the nineteen twenties called
Speaker 1: the Johnson Act. This is a country where we don't
Speaker 1: regulate anything that we need to regulate, but we regulate
Speaker 1: everything that we don't need to regulate.
Speaker 4: I think that's so I'm gonna be honest with you here,
Speaker 4: Like the Johnson Act itself is not something that I've
Speaker 4: done a ton of reporting on.
Speaker 2: Well, nor has anyone else, so they're in good shape.
Speaker 4: But what I have done a lot of reporting on
Speaker 4: is just the I mean, probably for the last decade
Speaker 4: I have been reporting on various attempts to get offshore
Speaker 4: wind off the ground. And literally, I think it was
Speaker 4: just earlier in January the first we had the first
Speaker 4: wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts produce some energy finally.
Speaker 4: But yeah, we've had a lot of fossil fuel funded
Speaker 4: opposition to renewable power development in the United States. You're
Speaker 4: seeing that pop up all over the now, particularly with
Speaker 4: the IRA the Inflation Reduction Act getting passed, and there's
Speaker 4: all this incentive for communities to build wind and solar
Speaker 4: and battery facilities, and so you'll see these fossil fuel
Speaker 4: funded front groups come into communities under the name of
Speaker 4: like Concerned Citizens of Ohio. Right, They're riling up communities
Speaker 4: by spreading this information about what these renewable energy facilities
Speaker 4: will do to them. The worst part about it is that,
Speaker 4: like some of it is based in real concerns, you know.
Speaker 4: For instance, I think with offshore wind is a huge one.
Speaker 4: There's a massive movement funded by the fossil fuel industry
Speaker 4: to rile people up about the potential harmful impact on Wales.
Speaker 1: These are people to not give a fuck about Wales.
Speaker 1: I think it's really important. Like this is like Donald
Speaker 1: Trump being like, you know, it's a real danger to
Speaker 1: the oil and gas companies. When Donald Trump is like
Speaker 1: it kills the birds.
Speaker 4: And you're like, I when have you ever cared for birds?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And well, never mind that also the fossil fuel
Speaker 4: funded think tanks that are behind a lot of these movements,
Speaker 4: they are also at the same time pushing policies that
Speaker 4: would kill whales.
Speaker 2: Now and fuk about the whales.
Speaker 4: Right, Most whales are killed and injured by boat strikes
Speaker 4: and the fishing boats. And you don't see any concern
Speaker 4: about fishing boats. And that's not to say there aren't
Speaker 4: people who aren't fossil fuel funded actors, just like regular
Speaker 4: people who are concerned about whales.
Speaker 1: Right, But Exxon is not concerned about whales. They do
Speaker 1: not give a fuck.
Speaker 4: Their concern is getting inflamed by this moneyed operation to
Speaker 4: stop offshore wind development and essentially take a small concern
Speaker 4: and blow it up to this level that becomes essentially misinformation,
Speaker 4: solely to destroy the competition of fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what renewables are sort of the future,
Speaker 1: and what the Biden administration is doing right and what
Speaker 1: the bid administration is doing wrong.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think a really good example about renewables
Speaker 4: being the future is looking at Texas and vulnerability of
Speaker 4: their electric grid to very extreme increasing climate change fueled
Speaker 4: weather right in Texas just recently, battery storage, solar power,
Speaker 4: and wind energy were the reason that they were able
Speaker 4: to have AC during a one to oh three degree
Speaker 4: heat weight because the heat was causing some of the
Speaker 4: gas facilities to fail. So these giant batteries that generated
Speaker 4: power to stable the grid when large gas and coal
Speaker 4: plants had these power outages, that was the reason. I
Speaker 4: think one was it. It was like back in June
Speaker 4: of last year, there was an instance where like over
Speaker 4: a two week period, two times a nuclear power plant
Speaker 4: dropped offline and the two coal plants sufvered separate outages
Speaker 4: because of a heat wave, and then giant batteries for
Speaker 4: the only reason that they were able to stabilize the grid.
Speaker 4: So we're seeing this not only in the US but
Speaker 4: all over the world that we're seeing renewables, batteries, wind
Speaker 4: solar as lifelines. They're actually making up for some of
Speaker 4: this small.
Speaker 1: They're bridging the gap for the dirty electricity right correct.
Speaker 4: But in terms of what Biden is doing right and
Speaker 4: what Biden is doing wrong, I think, to make it
Speaker 4: really simple, it's that what Biden is doing right is
Speaker 4: making it possible and taking out barriers to be able
Speaker 4: to build renewable energy and expand clean energy capacity throughout
Speaker 4: the country, most significantly through the passage of the Inflation
Speaker 4: Reduction Act. What Biden is doing wrong in terms of
Speaker 4: policies that will effectively slow climate change is continuing to
Speaker 4: green light through his bureaucratic agencies massive fossil fuel development.
Speaker 4: I think what you'll see with the LNG decision is
Speaker 4: that you'll see environmental groups say stuff like this is
Speaker 4: the biggest statement of president has ever made to stand
Speaker 4: up to the fossil fuel industry.
Speaker 2: It's not quite enough.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true, but that's because no one's ever done
Speaker 4: to do that. So it's like the real love, right,
Speaker 4: So like just ish temporary pause that realistically he could
Speaker 4: reverse the moment he gets re elected. There's nothing stopping
Speaker 4: him from doing that. Is still the biggest thing that
Speaker 4: has ever done to stand up to the fossil feel industry.
Speaker 4: Just saying hold up for a couple months, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, for sure, and I agree, but it's worth pausing
Speaker 1: for a minute and just talking about Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: running on basically a drill baby drill kind of ethos,
Speaker 1: but actually America drills now maybe too much too from
Speaker 1: an environmental standpoint, apps about too much. Yes, Because now
Speaker 1: aren't we the net exporter of natural gas?
Speaker 4: We are the largest exporter by far in the world
Speaker 4: of gas. The next one behind us is Australia, and
Speaker 4: they export half as much as we do. And that's
Speaker 4: only happened within the last ten years, so a massive
Speaker 4: amount of that has been under Biden's watch.
Speaker 1: Because I want to get back to this Trump say
Speaker 1: he was going to be dictator for a day because
Speaker 1: he was going to drill, drill, drill. At some point,
Speaker 1: you have so much gas that you start to make
Speaker 1: gas not even valuable, right, I mean just from the
Speaker 1: economic standpoint here, not from the climate catastrophe standpoint, which
Speaker 1: we're already well on our way.
Speaker 4: Perhaps, Except here's the thing. We are shipping most of
Speaker 4: that gas to other countries, right right, right. The really
Speaker 4: weird double edged sword here is that not only are
Speaker 4: we producing a lot of gas, you would think that maybe, like, oh,
Speaker 4: that would make gas prices really low.
Speaker 2: Here right now, But it doesn't necessarily.
Speaker 4: No, because we actually don't have that much gas because
Speaker 4: we keep sending it overseas, and that makes a lot
Speaker 4: more money for the fossil fuel companies, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: lower the price of gas at home. So it's like
Speaker 4: the thing that you would think Republicans are really going
Speaker 4: to be excited. Yeah, you know, we're producing so much
Speaker 4: that price is so low. It's like, no, you're producing
Speaker 4: so much and you're making a lot of money for
Speaker 4: the gas companies, but you're still keeping prices high for Americans.
Speaker 4: You can talk about like energy security all you want,
Speaker 4: but that is a very abstract concept to most people.
Speaker 4: Most people just care about how much money they're paying
Speaker 4: to fuel up their car. The reality is that at
Speaker 4: this point, it would cost you less money to charge
Speaker 4: your car exactly.
Speaker 1: The oil and gas and coal, especially coal is way
Speaker 1: more expensive than renewables.
Speaker 4: It is cheaper to have a reliable and sustainable source
Speaker 4: of energy that is not subject to geopolitical whims, right, So, like,
Speaker 4: even just taking the conversation we're having out of the picture,
Speaker 4: it's like, I don't understand why. From a pragmatic perspective
Speaker 4: of conservative politics, if you want to keep energy costs low,
Speaker 4: if you want to keep it not subject to geopolitical wins,
Speaker 4: then it's better to immediately transition to renewable sources, to
Speaker 4: sources produced by the actual Earth than these global conglomerate
Speaker 4: boil and gas companies right now.
Speaker 2: It's incredible staff. Emily.
Speaker 1: The site is called Heated. You cover a lot of
Speaker 1: really important staff. We really appreciate you.
Speaker 2: I hope you'll come back absolutely.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: No moment.
Speaker 7: Jesse Cannon Maley Jung Fast this week public hearing to
Speaker 7: here at the Supreme Court the Fourteenth Amendment case against
Speaker 7: Donald Trump being allowed to be on the ballot. What
Speaker 7: are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: Fourteenth Amendment section through Donald Trump is not allowed on
Speaker 1: the ballot, is the supposition here? As an officer of
Speaker 1: the American government, look love to see Clarence Thomas, for
Speaker 1: whom conflict of interest has never been an issue, is
Speaker 1: going to refuse to recuse himself. You may remember his
Speaker 1: wife has had some experience with trying to stop the
Speaker 1: steal and justice.
Speaker 2: Thomas is complete. Refusal to ever recuse himself is our
Speaker 2: moment of fucker.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going, and again thanks for listening.