Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie 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 Donald Trump has set himself up
Speaker 1: for Egene Carol to launch a third defamation case. We
Speaker 1: have such a great show for you today. Congresswoman Laurie
Speaker 1: Trahan tells us about how she's fighting Republicans war on IVF.
Speaker 1: Author Maxwell Stearns tells us how we could use a
Speaker 1: parliamentary system to fix our democracy. But first we have
Speaker 1: the host of the enemy's List, the Lincoln Project's owned
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Rick will Wali
Speaker 1: Jong Fast.
Speaker 2: I know I sound like leftover ass, because I for
Speaker 2: the last severallys felt Mike leftover ass. But I'm here
Speaker 2: with you as always to engage in our weekly festivities
Speaker 2: and frolics and youthful hijinks.
Speaker 1: And this is right youthful hygiens. Rick Wilson was a little.
Speaker 2: Bit I was. I got a little bit of a
Speaker 2: there are got a little bit of a flu or
Speaker 2: something I don't know.
Speaker 1: Hugely successful live show, which somehow I did not get
Speaker 1: whatever Rick Wilson had, despite the fact that I hugged him.
Speaker 1: The luck of the Jong continues. You know who did
Speaker 1: not have luck, Kitty Britt, Hey, you know who was
Speaker 1: So it's the curse of the Scotus rebuttal, right, and
Speaker 1: that's what it is. It is, Bobby Jindall continue.
Speaker 2: Marco Rubio, think about it. There are so few people
Speaker 2: who come out of Scotis rebuttal space, if you will,
Speaker 2: are the so too rebuttal space with their pride and
Speaker 2: dignity intact. Even the people when they go, oh that
Speaker 2: was really impressive. That really knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 2: That was a strong case against George W. Bush or
Speaker 2: against Barack Obama by up and coming young leader. It's
Speaker 2: not a partisan thing either. It's just that it's a
Speaker 2: bad gig to get and especially if you're Katie Britt
Speaker 2: from like the Yes, I'm a member of my local
Speaker 2: dinner theater troupe and I know how to engage in
Speaker 2: what they call acting, and oh my god, it was painful.
Speaker 2: And look, I was a little bit out of it.
Speaker 2: I was feverish. I legitimately I was laying on the
Speaker 2: couch with a fever, and I was like, what the
Speaker 2: hot fuck am I watching? What the fuck am I is?
Speaker 2: This just me, and I swear to you. I went
Speaker 2: to sleep that night, honestly, I was here by myself,
Speaker 2: and I honestly went to sleep down and I woke
Speaker 2: up in the morning thinking, man, I was like tripping
Speaker 2: on cold medicine, because was that as crazy as I remember?
Speaker 2: And so first thing I did I watched the clip.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, oh my god. And I
Speaker 2: wasn't an original thought. Everybody else obviously has seen it too,
Speaker 2: but everyone said, this is snl worthy. This is like
Speaker 2: she's parodied herself, and she really had.
Speaker 1: Just looking up old state of the Union rebottles on Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: So we had so Katie Britt this year. Last year,
Speaker 1: Sarah Sanders, we had Sarah Sanders, Kim Rens.
Speaker 2: Approaching from three hundred degrees of vision.
Speaker 1: Kim Reynolds. So I guess, Tim Scott, so I guess.
Speaker 2: It's got work out for you by the state.
Speaker 1: I guess a good state of the Union rebottal is
Speaker 1: one where no one remembers you.
Speaker 2: I think that's the best you can know.
Speaker 1: Bad one, Yeah, is what happened on Thursday.
Speaker 2: Let's just be really let's just be really blunt about it.
Speaker 2: Katie Britt is a former staffer, she's an inside player
Speaker 2: in Washington, all that stuff, and someone and I really
Speaker 2: tried to run down who did it, because they're only
Speaker 2: a limited number of Republicans speech and debate folks who
Speaker 2: prepare people for these things, and it's it's one of
Speaker 2: two or three people. And when I saw it, I
Speaker 2: was just so blown away by how obscenely over theatrical
Speaker 2: it was. What a farrago of lies and bullshit it was.
Speaker 2: And it didn't even again. And I say this, the
Speaker 2: first time I watched it, I was feverish and I
Speaker 2: thought I was hallucinating some of the things. And when
Speaker 2: I watched the video in the morning, I couldn't believe
Speaker 2: how much overacted over dramatic, lying liar, who lies to
Speaker 2: she was willing to engage in with for that.
Speaker 1: The top line of that speech was that after the speech,
Speaker 1: a guy called, hold on, I want to make sure
Speaker 1: Jonathan kat oh true. Yeah. He used to work at
Speaker 1: the Associated Press and he has a newsletter called The
Speaker 1: Racket News. He just did a very simple video where
Speaker 1: he found the person that Katie Britt was talking about
Speaker 1: in the speech. Googled where she had found her. Turns
Speaker 1: out she was sex trafficked this woman, But she was
Speaker 1: sex trafficked. This rape story actually happened in Mexico during
Speaker 1: the George W. Bush administration, So you're about as responsible
Speaker 1: for this woman's terrible tragedy as Joe Biden is.
Speaker 2: Right, listen to and look, once again, it was during
Speaker 2: the Bush administration, Nanai on twenty years ago, which makes
Speaker 2: me feel it is a cow then hell, and it
Speaker 2: was also happening in Mexico now. And the idea that
Speaker 2: even if you don't like George W. Bush, you thought
Speaker 2: that he had a personal knowledge of every sex trafficking
Speaker 2: case going on in Mexico and should deploy the entire
Speaker 2: federal government to fix is ludicrous. And this is a
Speaker 2: it's a horrible crime and it does happen. But once again,
Speaker 2: what did Katie Brittan not take responsibility for being one
Speaker 2: of the Republicans in the US Senate blocking the passage
Speaker 2: of a border bill that would actually do things to
Speaker 2: address sex trafficking in Mexico and address the security wrestle
Speaker 2: of the border. Yes, her very carefully crafted, overly dramatic
Speaker 2: moments in that rebuttal were very Regalan wrote a great
Speaker 2: piece about it on his substack this weekend. This was
Speaker 2: very much on brand for the modern Republican candidate who
Speaker 2: wants to stay in Trump's good graces. Lie Lie, Lie Lie,
Speaker 2: make it about some sort of thinly and extremely thinly
Speaker 2: veiled racial thing, and when you look at it, and
Speaker 2: when you look at it in total, it was so
Speaker 2: discredited by the time she got off the set that
Speaker 2: it just tells you they don't care. All she was
Speaker 2: doing was trying to punch a ticket on the Trump
Speaker 2: World thing. But again, let's also remember she is a
Speaker 2: Republican hack staffer. She's one of my people. Okay, she's
Speaker 2: She's the kind of person wid stuff like we do.
Speaker 2: She was Richard Shelby's chief of staff and became this
Speaker 2: DC operator type. And this wasn't someone he's act, just
Speaker 2: some mom from Alabama who just happened to somehow decide
Speaker 2: to run for office because I love America. No, she's
Speaker 2: a political hack of the first order. Nobody should be
Speaker 2: fooled by any of these shenanigans.
Speaker 1: And britt Her response was, I very clearly said I
Speaker 1: spoke to a woman who told me about when she
Speaker 1: was trafficked when she was twelve, So I didn't say
Speaker 1: a teenager, and I didn't say a young worm. It's
Speaker 1: just and she actually did say.
Speaker 2: The cats report seems to say that she didn't even
Speaker 2: actually encounter the woman.
Speaker 1: I think she met her, but she met her at
Speaker 1: the border with these two other senators when they went
Speaker 1: down too. But the point is, I think the more
Speaker 1: important point here is when she told the story, she said,
Speaker 1: this is something you wouldn't even see in a third
Speaker 1: world country, imply saying that it happened in the United States, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, besides the fact that we don't use
Speaker 1: the word, we haven't used the phrase third world country
Speaker 1: in many years, it is also just a completely it's
Speaker 1: just not It was implying something that was not true.
Speaker 2: The degree to which Katie Britt and any again, any
Speaker 2: Republican who wants to be in Trump's good stead is
Speaker 2: going to lie aggressively, particularly on the topic of immigration,
Speaker 2: cannot be underestimated. There is no limit. There's no upper
Speaker 2: boundary by which they say I'm going too far, I
Speaker 2: should turn the bullshit knob down twenty five percent. It
Speaker 2: doesn't exist. This is definitionally what they are now. And
Speaker 2: she's and look, she's raising money off of it. Already,
Speaker 2: and then the fundraise emails that she's putting out here,
Speaker 2: like now they're trying to cancel me. Well, yes, because
Speaker 2: you were. You came across as a lying psychopath. How
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 1: But I also think it shows the problem that women
Speaker 1: have in Trump world, right, the problem of defending a
Speaker 1: guy who overturned row. And the reason they picked Katie Brett, right,
Speaker 1: was because Katie Britt was the closest they have Republicans
Speaker 1: in the Senate to like normal looking. You couldn't have six.
Speaker 2: She's the youngest, she's the youngest member of the Senate.
Speaker 2: She's the youngest Republican ever elected to the Senate or
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 1: Right, and she looks, right, you can't have Cindy Hyde Smith.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if she talks right, or Marsha
Speaker 1: Blackburn half the you know, the Republican women largely are
Speaker 1: not necessarily the kind of people you want out there
Speaker 1: giving a speech. So you really do see how tough
Speaker 1: it is. And then this morning on Meet the Bread,
Speaker 1: not Meet the Press, on ABC, you had Stephanopoulos interviewing
Speaker 1: Nancy Mason. Nancy Mace is saying she can't help herself,
Speaker 1: She's trying she is stocked defending Trump despite the fact
Speaker 1: that she's presenting herself as a sexual as a rape survivor,
Speaker 1: which she's saying she's a rape survivor, and then somehow
Speaker 1: having to defend Donald Trump, which is the nightmare of
Speaker 1: this where this Republican Party is.
Speaker 2: Ask Egen Carroll, this is not a man. This is
Speaker 2: not a man that lends himself to close defense by
Speaker 2: any woman inter out of elected office. In my opinion,
Speaker 2: he is a guy with a at Look, we've now
Speaker 2: had adjudicated that he engaged in a sexual attack on
Speaker 2: Egene Smith, that our agen Carroll, that's just not even
Speaker 2: a question. And yet the defense of him must be
Speaker 2: brought that way because that's the culture of the Trump universe.
Speaker 2: You can't acknowledge his faults or his character flaws or
Speaker 2: his crimes. You must defend at all times. And the
Speaker 2: best way for them to defend in their minds is
Speaker 2: to devise this this lurid sort of this lurid sort
Speaker 2: of criminal underworld of illegal aliens and sex traffickers. And
Speaker 2: everything's very dramatic about these accusations, but a lot of
Speaker 2: them are just made up, and a lot of them
Speaker 2: are a way to take your eye off the ball.
Speaker 2: The other reason, by the way they picked Katie Britt,
Speaker 2: was that because Republican Party in total is in a
Speaker 2: state of raw screaming queen horror movies panic, like they're
Speaker 2: seeing the guy chase them through the house with the
Speaker 2: sharp knife about IVF, and they're screw up on IVF.
Speaker 2: Nancy Britt was on there, Nancy Brett, Katie Britt was
Speaker 2: on there specifically to say one line, but no, Alabama,
Speaker 2: now we're protecting IVF. Oh are you? Are you now?
Speaker 2: Because you weren't when your Supreme Court a few days
Speaker 2: ago took it apart.
Speaker 1: And the other saying about the Katie bred Alabama thing
Speaker 1: is that I know that nobody cares about this, But
Speaker 1: the actual language in the bill that was signed out
Speaker 1: into law by doesn't actually by Governor k Ivy, does
Speaker 1: not actually protect. It does not say a frozen five
Speaker 1: celled embryo isn't a person. It just merely says that
Speaker 1: if you kill a five celled blasticists, you're allowed to
Speaker 1: do it if you're doing it for IVF, but not
Speaker 1: for any other reason.
Speaker 2: I can murder a guy for taking my parking space,
Speaker 2: but not for other reasons.
Speaker 1: It's this standard ground of fertility, of fertility excuses you
Speaker 1: thought the guy was coming to your house to steal
Speaker 1: your stuff. But I do think it is. It shows
Speaker 1: just how Republicans haven't thought any of this legislation through,
Speaker 1: so they find themselves continually in these situations where that
Speaker 1: are unworkable, and you have women in parking lots waiting
Speaker 1: until their miscarriage is bad enough so that they are
Speaker 1: the doctor can say definitively that their life is in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: None of this needs to happen. Republicans did this to
Speaker 1: themselves by having no interest in crafting legislation that made
Speaker 1: any sense.
Speaker 2: Right, and you could easily and clearly draft legislation that specifically,
Speaker 2: even if you were trying to leave the entire Alabama
Speaker 2: the rest of their even if you were trying to
Speaker 2: leave the rest of their abortion law in place, which
Speaker 2: you ought not, but here we are, you could still
Speaker 2: draft a better piece of legislative language to address IBF.
Speaker 2: They chose not to, and that was a choice for
Speaker 2: them not to do so.
Speaker 1: I also think that fundamentally will find ourselves in a
Speaker 1: situation where a lot of these Republicans actually probably couldn't
Speaker 1: craft that legislation because they're not very smart.
Speaker 2: There's always bill drafting, there's always lawyers. They could if
Speaker 2: they wanted, they.
Speaker 1: Could find someone to do it. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that happened this week is that Joe Biden really killed
Speaker 1: it with the State of the Union. As I actually
Speaker 1: have been saying.
Speaker 2: All along, well, you're right, we buried the lead today.
Speaker 1: Yes, we really did.
Speaker 2: We buried the lead Joe Biden. Let's just be absolutely
Speaker 2: flat out about it. Joe Biden fucking crushed it, killed it.
Speaker 2: He And the most amazing part of it to me
Speaker 2: wasn't just that he did very well, which he did
Speaker 2: very well. The most amazing part to me with it.
Speaker 2: In the process of doing so well with this thing,
Speaker 2: he also lured the Republicans in for the second time
Speaker 2: on live television to saying or doing something stupid, and
Speaker 2: this time it was on and not raising or not
Speaker 2: cutting taxes for multi billionaires and the relic and the
Speaker 2: rebellion trap for a second time. And I'm thinking, oh wait,
Speaker 2: and this guy's the slow one. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah. My favorite moment was afterwards seeing Chris Kobac complaining
Speaker 1: about removing lad pipes, being like, we don't really need
Speaker 1: to remove led pipes. There were so many moments when
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson was like sitting there stone faced while Biden
Speaker 1: was talking about things that Republicans believed.
Speaker 2: In five minutes ago.
Speaker 1: Now, at one point the beginning of that speech, he
Speaker 1: talks about Reagan. He doesn't even you'll remember liberal hero
Speaker 1: Ronald Ray. Ronald Reagan, who's right, who said to mister Gorbachev,
Speaker 1: please tear down that wall. And then he says, sharp
Speaker 1: contrast to Trump, who said do whatever the hell you want.
Speaker 1: And again like it's you don't think Mike Johnson loves
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. It just he really put them in a spot.
Speaker 2: Look, this was beautifully crafted, beautifully engineered as a trap.
Speaker 2: And my son said the other night we were texting
Speaker 2: about this. He said, you know what it is in
Speaker 2: part the Republicans sorted they believed their own and they
Speaker 2: started to set the bar so low. It's like Joe
Speaker 2: Biden is a drooling, ancient, doddering old coat and he
Speaker 2: can barely change his own pants in the morning, and
Speaker 2: he's this and I guess what when when it comes
Speaker 2: out there and spanks them. The contrast isn't between the
Speaker 2: reality of Joe Biden in the performance. It's between their
Speaker 2: fantasy and what the performance is going to be. And
Speaker 2: even their own people even because when Fox were like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's it was energetic, and when when their critique of
Speaker 2: Biden in the speech is that he was too aggressive
Speaker 2: and he pushed too hard and he spoke too fast.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that you guys have nothing nothing, Yeah, that.
Speaker 1: Was really incredible. And he raised ten million dollars right
Speaker 1: after the speech, which is a pretty good sign. And
Speaker 1: none of that money will go to retainers.
Speaker 2: None of that money will go to paying legal fees
Speaker 2: for his ninety one criminal charges that are brought to
Speaker 2: him in four separate cases. And and although their triumph
Speaker 2: of taking over the RNC this weekend, they're still flushed
Speaker 2: with Laura Trump for running the interesting.
Speaker 1: You have a check, I have a check for one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you rob the bank with the bank's been closed
Speaker 2: for two days.
Speaker 1: That's like how many hours of legal work? Ten hours? No,
Speaker 1: not one hundred hours. How many hours of legal work
Speaker 1: is that for the team?
Speaker 2: Oh ship, there are so many teams now, it's it
Speaker 2: it's mathematicians and scientists to calculate.
Speaker 1: I don't even know anymore, honestly, but it's that's a
Speaker 1: retainer for different for our case.
Speaker 2: And no, nothing year with the takeover of the RNC
Speaker 2: is going to improve the life of any Republican candidates
Speaker 2: anywhere at all. It is going to It is not
Speaker 2: going to. No Republican woke up this morning and said, wow,
Speaker 2: this really this changes it. Now. The RNC is going
Speaker 2: to run like a well honed machine. It's gonna be
Speaker 2: the smoothest, best fundraising operation we've ever seen in our
Speaker 2: careers and nothing could go wrong.
Speaker 1: Thank you Rick Wilson for joining us.
Speaker 2: I'm happy, too, Sorry I sound so bad.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Laurie Trahan represents Massachusetts third District. Welcome too Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Laurie Trahan, thank you for having me. We're so excited
Speaker 1: to have you so talk to us about IVF.
Speaker 3: You can't talk about IVF without first talking about fertility.
Speaker 3: I mean, millions of women like me struggled or struggling
Speaker 3: with fertility, and the statistics are something like one in
Speaker 3: eight women receive fertility treatment of some kind to get
Speaker 3: pregnant or to sustain a pregnant day. This one is
Speaker 3: obviously personal to me. And you know, no woman ever
Speaker 3: really wants to talk wants to think about that happening
Speaker 3: to them. They don't want to talk about it. They
Speaker 3: sure as hell don't want politicians inserting themselves into those
Speaker 3: private conversations and decisions with their partner and their doctor.
Speaker 3: And that's really what this is about right now, Republican
Speaker 3: politicians who think they have some divine authority to make
Speaker 3: the intimate health and reproductive choices that only women can
Speaker 3: and should be making.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're a congresswoman. Talk to me a little
Speaker 1: bit about your trajectory and how you become a real
Speaker 1: advocate for IVF, and but I want you to first
Speaker 1: talk us through a little bit about your career in Congress.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was elected in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: So you were in that wave of anti Trump women.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean there were so many women who had
Speaker 3: the same thought bubble that I had after the twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen election that we needed more women walking the halls
Speaker 3: of Congress. And you know, at that infamous picture of
Speaker 3: so many men sitting around a table talking about healthcare
Speaker 3: and there was no representation, There are no women around
Speaker 3: that table, And so really, you know, got off the
Speaker 3: sidelines at that point and ran for office. And I've
Speaker 3: lived in the district that I represent. I represent Massachusetts
Speaker 3: Third District, which borders on New Hampshire. I grew up
Speaker 3: in Lowell and working class family. My grandparents came here
Speaker 3: from Brazil and Portugal. My dad was a union iron worker,
Speaker 3: and so really it was around we have to make
Speaker 3: sure that Congress doesn't get sattled with gridlock, because when
Speaker 3: that happens, families like the one I grew up in
Speaker 3: are disproportionately hurt. But then, like anything else, you know,
Speaker 3: you bring a whole lived experience with you to Congress
Speaker 3: and you speak out on them because you know better
Speaker 3: than most people who are making decisions or debating these policies.
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what IVF is for me. It's a
Speaker 3: very personal topic. It's something I never mentioned or talked
Speaker 3: about in terms of my path to motherhood. But you
Speaker 3: damn right, I'm going to talk about it right now
Speaker 3: because it's at risk.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because I had the same exact thought.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't have to talk about our IVF journeys, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's it's such an insane thing that that
Speaker 1: is this Alabama Supreme Court has brought us to a
Speaker 1: place where we have to explain publicly things that really
Speaker 1: are private things. The first thing I thought about was like,
Speaker 1: I would not have my twins if I had not
Speaker 1: had IVF. And you know, we had IVF because we
Speaker 1: carried a rare genetic disease, which the kind of testing
Speaker 1: that we would not have if we lived in this
Speaker 1: theocracy that Republicans want. So I do think it becomes
Speaker 1: a time when we have to really come out and
Speaker 1: talk about our left experiences.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, I mean, like you, like me, So
Speaker 3: many women who yes, right, they struggled for a long
Speaker 3: time to get pregnant or to have a healthy pregnancy,
Speaker 3: they turn routinely to IVF as our last hope. So yes,
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I underwent five years of treatment to
Speaker 3: have my two daughters. They were more difficult than I
Speaker 3: ever could have imagined. But like you, I wake up
Speaker 3: every day so grateful that IVF gave my husband and I.
Speaker 4: Two beautiful daughters. Who are you know, the joys of
Speaker 4: our lives.
Speaker 3: And I just we just want to make sure that
Speaker 3: other women who are struggling with their own fertility challenges
Speaker 3: have the same chance.
Speaker 1: So Republicans had an opportunity to codify IVF, brought on
Speaker 1: the floor by Tammy Duckworth, who is an incredible, incredible legislator,
Speaker 1: but also a woman who has shared her own personal,
Speaker 1: lived experience with IVF. Now we're in this world where
Speaker 1: they refused, you know, Republicans refused to take it to
Speaker 1: the floor. Cindy Hyde Smith. Now there are some like
Speaker 1: lame messaging bills coming out of the House on this,
Speaker 1: But will you explain to us this sort of weird
Speaker 1: way Republicans are trying to obfuscate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the level of hypocrisy that we're seeing
Speaker 3: from Republicans would be laughable if it wasn't so physically
Speaker 3: and emotionally devastating for women.
Speaker 4: Think about it.
Speaker 3: Republicans right laws designed to strip women of the right
Speaker 3: to make their own health care and reproductive decisions. They're
Speaker 3: told what the consequences could be, and they do it anyway.
Speaker 3: And then something with overwhelming support because you know, across
Speaker 3: the political spectrum like IVF gets caught up in their
Speaker 3: you know, dragnet of an abortion van, and what do
Speaker 3: they do. They introduce a toothless resolution that expresses the
Speaker 3: sense of Congress that they support IVF. No law, no
Speaker 3: actionable language in the bill. Nothing. I mean, it's the
Speaker 3: same kind of bill someone introduces when a Little League
Speaker 3: team in their district wins the championship. That's the level
Speaker 3: of experiencedness Republicans are applying to this mental attack on
Speaker 3: our freedom, and so I think women see through this.
Speaker 3: Right they had an opportunity to protect IVF in the Senate,
Speaker 3: and they blocked it there. Right now are one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty five Republicans who are co sponsoring legislation right
Speaker 3: now as we speak that it would effectively ban IVF
Speaker 3: treatment in every state without exceptions. This is the kind
Speaker 3: of thing people hate about politicians, and so we have
Speaker 3: to call them out on this because it's just a
Speaker 3: level of hypocrisy, and we can't let them get away
Speaker 3: with saying one thing while they're doing another.
Speaker 1: What I'm struck by is the legislative problems that Republicans
Speaker 1: keep having. So a lot of these bills, abortion bills,
Speaker 1: and even this IVF bill it was written to relate
Speaker 1: to this twenty seventeen fetal personhood statue, which in Alabama
Speaker 1: they've been sort of trying to get going and fetal
Speaker 1: personhood is this idea that a five cell frosen embryo
Speaker 1: is exactly the same as a child. It's a person,
Speaker 1: even though, oh, if you thaw it it dies, it
Speaker 1: is a person. You know, if you thought it's not
Speaker 1: it doesn't even die. If you though it is no
Speaker 1: longer viable, ergo, it is not a person. So but
Speaker 1: what I'm struck by is like, this is a leg
Speaker 1: this is a moral problem, be stupid legislation, but it
Speaker 1: really is a legislative problem. Like you really see how
Speaker 1: bad Republicans are legislating? Can you talk to us? You
Speaker 1: are in Congress so you get to see this firsthand.
Speaker 1: Are you just shocked at how bad their legislation is?
Speaker 1: And by bad, I mean you know, blunt and sort
Speaker 1: of badly written and not careful and not and they're
Speaker 1: sort of never playing out scenarios if this legislation ever
Speaker 1: gets enacted.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, you bring up a great point.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have this crazy approach to this job,
Speaker 3: and it's one that my colleagues in the Republican Party
Speaker 3: would benefit from. Where if I'm not an expert on
Speaker 3: an issue like say, fertility treatments and the development of
Speaker 3: babies in the womb. I ask the doctors who do
Speaker 3: this for a living what they think. And when you
Speaker 3: ask those folks, including reproductive doctors, I'm bringing a reproductive
Speaker 3: endochronologist with me to the State of the Union as
Speaker 3: my guests, what they think about life a conception and
Speaker 3: what that means for fertility treatments. They either laugh you
Speaker 3: out of the room or look like they want to rip.
Speaker 4: Their hair out.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's ridiculous that you have career politicians who
Speaker 3: think that their religion tells them that they get to
Speaker 3: override the expertise of doctors who have dedicated their entire
Speaker 3: careers decades to helping couples like my husband and me
Speaker 3: have the families of our dreams.
Speaker 4: So it's ludicrous to me. But it just goes to.
Speaker 3: Show the larger problem how subservient the vast majority of
Speaker 3: the Republican Party is that they feel like they have
Speaker 3: to take their marching orders from these folks with such
Speaker 3: extreme views to support legislation that imperils family creating treatments
Speaker 3: like IVF.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of the thing I often wonder about is like,
Speaker 1: did they never think that any of this legislation would
Speaker 1: be enacted.
Speaker 3: They can't square the I'm for IVF, and then you'll
Speaker 3: readily have members say, oh, but I do believe that
Speaker 3: a fertilized embryo is a person. It's like they can't
Speaker 3: square that right, and so they are stuck at the moment.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, we know that abortion bands have devastating
Speaker 3: consequences for women, and I think the past two years
Speaker 3: of Republican state abortions bands have proven that.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: We've seen across the spectrum, women experiencing severe or even
Speaker 3: life threatening complications have been denied care at hospitals, sometimes
Speaker 3: until they become septic, others even becoming forced to miscarry
Speaker 3: at home.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The stories about the women waiting in the parking lot.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's unimaginable. And in states where Republicans banded abortion altogether,
Speaker 3: including in cases of rape and incest, women have been
Speaker 3: forced to carry their attacker's child to term. Early data
Speaker 3: indicates and estimated sixty five thousand pregnancies from rape have
Speaker 3: occurred in those states.
Speaker 1: Those numbers seem cleansy to men.
Speaker 3: Oh, all be so alarmed about what's happening. So the
Speaker 3: fact that IVF treatment is now under threat is something
Speaker 3: we knew could happen.
Speaker 4: We warned it was.
Speaker 3: Going to happen with the way these laws were written,
Speaker 3: and I just refuse to believe that it's unintentional. Right,
Speaker 3: How could I give those lawmakers the benefit of the
Speaker 3: doubt when anti abortion activists have already replied to me
Speaker 3: and messaged me saying that IVF condones murder. That doesn't
Speaker 3: even make sense. But it's how some people on the
Speaker 3: fringes think about this issue, and they're exerting outsized influence
Speaker 3: over the Republican Party that is looking to make good
Speaker 3: on their demands to eliminate abortion nationwide and sweep up
Speaker 3: I VF in the process.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about your congressional race. First,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you one other thing, which is
Speaker 1: it's a bill. I guess what the kivy signed into
Speaker 1: quote unquote law. It doesn't, in fact say that a
Speaker 1: five sealved embryo isn't a person, which would be the
Speaker 1: sort of way to do that if you had a brain,
Speaker 1: and in fact says it just indemnifies people doing IVF,
Speaker 1: so it's okay to kill embryonic people. Right. This seems
Speaker 1: like it's going to open the door for even more problems.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're absolutely right, and imagine the shane that they're
Speaker 3: placing on couples who are just trying to start a
Speaker 3: family by framing the journey this way. Look great that
Speaker 3: Alabama legislators moved to reopen access to IVF treatment in
Speaker 3: the state, but we also have to acknowledge the damage
Speaker 3: that's already been done. I mean, first to the women
Speaker 3: who were in the middle of IVF and had their
Speaker 3: treatment delayed or stop. Second to the women who were
Speaker 3: about to begin their treatment, who now will be scrambling
Speaker 3: for a second time to figure out what's next for them.
Speaker 3: And we have to reconcile that with the fact that
Speaker 3: there is a significant portion of the Republican Party who
Speaker 3: don't actually support this move in Alabama. Right, people said
Speaker 3: the Alabama Supreme Court decision was exactly what the had
Speaker 3: in mind when the state wors band was passed. So
Speaker 3: that's not a viewpoint that has not been relegated to
Speaker 3: the fringes of the GOP anymore. It's very much front
Speaker 3: and center when you hear their judges, their candidates, their representatives,
Speaker 3: including many at the federal level, who support the so
Speaker 3: called life that conception bills and other fertility that would
Speaker 3: ban IVF and other fertility treatments nationwide. I mean, at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, the only thing that will
Speaker 3: really settle this issue is codifying ROW into federal law.
Speaker 4: We didn't have these issues when we had the protection
Speaker 4: of Roe.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about your race and also what
Speaker 1: it looks like and everything else.
Speaker 3: So I'm from Massachusetts, but you know, last year I
Speaker 3: was elected as co chair of the Democratic Policy and
Speaker 3: Communications Committee, and it's really designed to help the Democratic
Speaker 3: Caucus with our messaging right as we head into November.
Speaker 3: And you know this is central, right. I mean, we've
Speaker 3: obviously had a record of accomplishment to talk about from
Speaker 3: the last Congress and with the Biden and Harrison demistration.
Speaker 3: You know, you've heard them all, all the accomplishments before Mali.
Speaker 3: But it's the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the Chips and Science,
Speaker 3: the Inflation Reduction Act, which literally capped insolent prices at
Speaker 3: thirty five dollars, are lowering the cost of premiums for
Speaker 3: middle class families. All of those things are going to
Speaker 3: be incredibly important as we head into the election and
Speaker 3: talk about what kind of path forward we want for
Speaker 3: this country. More of that, more progress or rolling back
Speaker 3: the cloth and freedom is at the center of this
Speaker 3: campaign now.
Speaker 1: Right the stakes in this election couldn't be higher.
Speaker 3: We've got a Republican nominee for president who was bragging
Speaker 3: about appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Row, whilst
Speaker 3: you know, simultaneously working with dark money anti abortion groups
Speaker 3: to craft even more restrictions on women's reproductive rights.
Speaker 4: We have a Speaker of the House who's supported a
Speaker 4: ban on abortion.
Speaker 3: We have Senate Republicans who literally re kept our military
Speaker 3: in their fight to prevent women service members from being
Speaker 3: able to travel outside of Republican controlled states with abortion
Speaker 3: bands to seek the care that they needed elsewhere. And
Speaker 3: the bottom line is that the Republican Party is controlled
Speaker 3: by people who are not just content with overturning Row.
Speaker 3: They want to aband abortion myth of pristone and IVF
Speaker 3: in every state in the country. And we just can't
Speaker 3: let that happen. And I think that starts with re
Speaker 3: electing President Biden and Vice President Harris. Certainly means maintaining
Speaker 3: control of the Senate and taking back the House and
Speaker 3: making a King Jeffrey Speaker every time I'm in a
Speaker 3: room full of women, I just put it so clearly, like,
Speaker 3: we have to make sure that our daughters, our granddaughters,
Speaker 3: our sisters have more rights, not less than we grew
Speaker 3: up with.
Speaker 4: And that's exactly what such stake in the selections.
Speaker 3: I will be a messenger for that, you know, sharing
Speaker 3: my own story, elevating what's happening in these dates today
Speaker 3: as people look to just have the family of their
Speaker 3: dreams and are faced with this extreme movement of taking
Speaker 3: that away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's just such an insane thing. In
Speaker 1: the year twenty twenty four, we are in this very
Speaker 1: scary moment in American life where Donald Trump could in
Speaker 1: fact become president again, which is actually quite scary, I
Speaker 1: think to anyone who has lived through the first Trump presidency,
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could talk about how incredibly
Speaker 1: it is important it is that Democrats went back the house,
Speaker 1: because the really the only thing that can sort of
Speaker 1: stop Donald Trump, or at least maybe keep him from
Speaker 1: just completely destroying everything we hold dear, would be that
Speaker 1: having a house, the house is a bulwark.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all you have to do is go back
Speaker 3: not that far in history to remember that the Democrat
Speaker 3: majority in the House in twenty eighteen was the only
Speaker 3: backstop to a destructive administration, right, and you know, to
Speaker 3: think that, you know, we could be on a on
Speaker 3: a path where you know, he is the nominee. We
Speaker 3: are not far from retaking the majority, as you know,
Speaker 3: like the Republicans have a very slow majority in the
Speaker 3: House today, so we have to make sure that we're
Speaker 3: just making the case. Republicans are lining up behind Donald
Speaker 3: Trump right now as we speak, and the Senate is
Speaker 3: you know, they're in a tough map for November, but
Speaker 3: the House is so within reach and we have to
Speaker 3: win full stop.
Speaker 4: So what I don't take.
Speaker 3: For granted is the memory of what those four years
Speaker 3: were like, right, But I'm reminded today as we're walking
Speaker 3: into the State of the Union that four years ago,
Speaker 3: almost of the day, I mean, like our country was
Speaker 3: in the midst of shutting down because we were literally
Speaker 3: on the cusp of the COVID pandemic, and how functional
Speaker 3: and chaotic those years were, how traumatic they were for
Speaker 3: the one point two million families who lost a loved one,
Speaker 3: and how we have just recovered right with the Biden presidency,
Speaker 3: I mean, getting those shots in arms getting our economy
Speaker 3: back on its feet. We are now in the strongest
Speaker 3: economic recovery of any country in the world, and we
Speaker 3: are continuing to make strides to you know, help folks
Speaker 3: from the bottom up in the middle out. As the
Speaker 3: President likes to say, but I like to say, families
Speaker 3: like the one I grew up in, right, people who
Speaker 3: actually needed government to work on their behalf and to
Speaker 3: make sure that corporate reed wasn't having a detrimental effect
Speaker 3: on their pocketbooks with through price gouging and increased prices.
Speaker 3: That is the track that we must remain on if
Speaker 3: we're going to make sure everybody has equal opportunity in
Speaker 3: this country. And it is devastating to think what another
Speaker 3: four years of Trump would be because not only would
Speaker 3: we roll back the clock on our on our freedoms
Speaker 3: and our democracy, but you would also just stop so
Speaker 3: much of the progress that we've made in terms of
Speaker 3: bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States, you know,
Speaker 3: making sure that our seniors can afford their medication, making
Speaker 3: sure more people had access to high quality healthcare. So
Speaker 3: this really is I know we say it often, but
Speaker 3: this really is the election of our lives.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mollie.
Speaker 1: Maxwell Sterns is a professor of law at the University
Speaker 1: of Maryland and author of Parliamentary America, The Least Radical
Speaker 1: Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy. Welcome to Fast Politics, Maxwell.
Speaker 5: Sterns, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this really cool book that you've written,
Speaker 1: and this more more importantly really cool. Yeah, So, Parliamentary America,
Speaker 1: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing our Broken Democracy.
Speaker 1: Talk about how you got to the parliamentary system as
Speaker 1: an idea from being a law professor and sort of
Speaker 1: where you came up with us.
Speaker 5: I'm a bit of an unusual constitutional law professor because
Speaker 5: I use various tools a game theory, economic analysis to
Speaker 5: study law and lawmaking institutions. And I noticed that a
Speaker 5: lot of people were saying, we need to have a
Speaker 5: third party. Somebody should start a third party, we should
Speaker 5: have multi member districts to allow third parties. And I
Speaker 5: looked at these proposals and I realize that.
Speaker 2: They wouldn't work.
Speaker 5: We do in this country phase what I call the
Speaker 5: third party dilemma, which is that people really want to
Speaker 5: support a third party candidate, but realize that when they
Speaker 5: do that candidate, it's likely to operate against their interest.
Speaker 5: If you vote for a third party candidate to the
Speaker 5: left of the Democrat or right the Republican, it's a spoiler,
Speaker 5: or if it's a candidate pulls in from both sides,
Speaker 5: then you end up randomizing the outcome. But I realized
Speaker 5: in one of to actually have meaningful third parties, third
Speaker 5: parties have to play a role. They actually have to
Speaker 5: be affirmatively valuable to those who support them, and in
Speaker 5: order to do that, they have to give something back
Speaker 5: in return for the support. Coalition systems give them that role.
Speaker 5: So when a third party joins a governing coalition, even
Speaker 5: if it's not leading the coalition, the third party will say,
Speaker 5: you know, we'll join your coalition if you give us
Speaker 5: these policy concessions, if you give us these appointments to
Speaker 5: high offices, or even these appointments on the judiciary. And
Speaker 5: the question then became, how do we structure a system
Speaker 5: that worked with in our larger context that allows third
Speaker 5: parties to emerge and thrive. And that was one of
Speaker 5: the major motivations of writing this book, was to demonstrate
Speaker 5: how that works and how we could make that our own.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the countries that have this kind of
Speaker 1: coalition government.
Speaker 5: So one of the things that I convey in the
Speaker 5: book is that there are two threats to democracy. One
Speaker 5: is when you have too few parties. The other is
Speaker 5: when you have too many parties. So one of the
Speaker 5: reasons I take readers on a world tour in England, France, Germany, Israel, Taiwan,
Speaker 5: Brazil and Venezuela is to show what works and what
Speaker 5: doesn't work in terms of overcoming threats to democracy. So
Speaker 5: the problem that we have in the United States is
Speaker 5: that a small group of faction can take over one party,
Speaker 5: as Trump and Maggot did with the GOP, and then
Speaker 5: take over the government.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: But alternatively, if you've got too many parties, a small
Speaker 5: faction can get more seats than any other party and
Speaker 5: then roll over the parliament. Is that like Italy, Like
Speaker 5: Italy Right and the lead up to Nazi Germany Right,
Speaker 5: the story of how Adolph Hillery assume power in Brazil
Speaker 5: has way too many parties too. So what we want
Speaker 5: to do is hit that what I call Goldilocks principle, right,
Speaker 5: not too hot, not too cold, not too few parties,
Speaker 5: not too many that sweet spot in the middle, which
Speaker 5: political scientists typically think is between four and eight parties
Speaker 5: in the system. That is that it's actually designed to achieve.
Speaker 5: That is called mixed member proportionality, and it was created
Speaker 5: for Germany after World War Two. It's more complicated there
Speaker 5: than it needs to be. But we can make a
Speaker 5: version of that our own and actually hit that sweet
Speaker 5: spot and actually encourage third parties to emerge and thrive
Speaker 5: and reward people for supporting those parties.
Speaker 1: I think that Americans are too stupid to follow this,
Speaker 1: but prove me wrong, so I don't.
Speaker 5: But let me explain this in a way that I
Speaker 5: think will make a lot of sense. Imagine that you're
Speaker 5: going in every two years to vote for the House
Speaker 5: of Representatives. You cast one ballot for a district election,
Speaker 5: just like we do now. Nothing has changed. We have
Speaker 5: four hundred and thirty five members in the House of
Speaker 5: Representatives represented by district exactly like they do now. But
Speaker 5: we're going to add another group of equal size based
Speaker 5: on parties. So your second ballot is going to be
Speaker 5: for a party. So let's say that you are a
Speaker 5: Progressive Democrat for the district. Ways you're likely to have
Speaker 5: two major candidates, because what happens when you've got geographical
Speaker 5: districting and elections is each side realizes that to win,
Speaker 5: you have to fracture the other side and keep your
Speaker 5: side intact. That's on both sides. That's how we end
Speaker 5: up with two dominant parties, both in house races, Senate races,
Speaker 5: and even for the presidency, even including with the electoral
Speaker 5: college in the district race, you'll still have two parties
Speaker 5: that dominate. But then if you're a progressive Democrat, you'll say,
Speaker 5: I want the Democrats to form a coalition with the Progresses.
Speaker 5: I'm going to vote for the Progressive Party.
Speaker 2: Or if you're a traditional.
Speaker 5: Conservative, you'll vote for the GOP, but you might vote
Speaker 5: either for the GOP as the party but not the
Speaker 5: America First Party, which would maybe be the MAGA party,
Speaker 5: Or you might even vote for the regular Democratic Party
Speaker 5: but not wanted to form a coalition with the either
Speaker 5: MAGA or the Progressives. And so you could get a
Speaker 5: grand coalition between centrist Democrats and centrist Republicans. So what
Speaker 5: happens in my proposal is that every other election cycle,
Speaker 5: just like the calendar we have now, every four years,
Speaker 5: we have a presidential election cycle up to five parties.
Speaker 5: The leaders of up to five parties will negotiate on
Speaker 5: a scheduled calendar forming a majority coalition until a majority
Speaker 5: coalition forms, and then their predesignated slate for president and
Speaker 5: vice president assumes those offices. There's a backstop to make
Speaker 5: sure it happens, so we don't have endless voting like
Speaker 5: you see in some parliamentary systems. And what will happen
Speaker 5: in this and just think about this as a voter,
Speaker 5: Imagine the campaigns and how different did be Right now?
Speaker 5: We're so dysfunctional in our politics and society, driven by
Speaker 5: two camps that are growing wider further and further apart,
Speaker 5: that those campaigns suggest that the other side must lack
Speaker 5: basic intelligence or even be evil. We no longer credit
Speaker 5: the other side with looking at the same information that
Speaker 5: we do but coming to a different place. But in
Speaker 5: this system, the parties would have to campaign on a
Speaker 5: willingness and even enthusiasm to play well with others, to
Speaker 5: form coalitions with others, because the only way you could
Speaker 5: see exceed in this coalition system is to demonstrate that
Speaker 5: you don't have to agree with everything that another party
Speaker 5: embraces for you to actually form a government with that
Speaker 5: other party. And that's going to change fundamentally the way
Speaker 5: our campaigns are conducted, the way voters view parties and
Speaker 5: view campaigns, and it's just going to make for a
Speaker 5: more functional government. Like you go back to the Kevin
Speaker 5: McCarthy debucle and everybody thought, well, all we have to
Speaker 5: do is get the moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans together.
Speaker 5: But we have to remember the way our system is
Speaker 5: set up, the goal is always to divide the opposition
Speaker 5: and keep your side intact. We had no institutional mechanism
Speaker 5: for that to occur, and we can't just encourage people
Speaker 5: to plain isser. We need to create institutional structures that
Speaker 5: allow third parties to emerge and thrive. And that's why
Speaker 5: I wrote this book because I could see why other
Speaker 5: proposals would not do that, but I also saw how
Speaker 5: we could do that.
Speaker 1: Are there a few ways that would be easier? You know,
Speaker 1: it's a brilliant idea, right because coalition governments are ten
Speaker 1: times less crazy. But do you think that there are
Speaker 1: closed primaries or open primaries and rank choice voting? I mean,
Speaker 1: wouldn't those two things do a lot to curb extremism
Speaker 1: or not, and why.
Speaker 5: It would not for a couple reasons. First, we have
Speaker 5: to take rank choice voting. Rank choice voting does none
Speaker 5: of the things that advocates of rank choice voting believe
Speaker 5: that it does.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, tell us why.
Speaker 5: There's a profound misconception about rank choice voting. So rank
Speaker 5: choice voting operates on a premise, and the premises that
Speaker 5: we're looking at a standard distribution. If you were a statistician,
Speaker 5: you might call it a Guissian distribution, but people can
Speaker 5: picture it like a Bell curve. And so what we
Speaker 5: have is concentration in the center and then greater dispersion
Speaker 5: at the extremes of liberal or conservative. The idea of
Speaker 5: rank choice vot voting is to allow people to rank
Speaker 5: the extreme candidates, whether it's on the liberal side or
Speaker 5: conservative side, gradually towards the center end up with a
Speaker 5: centrist outcome. The problem is that that's precisely what we
Speaker 5: don't have, which is feeding our democratic crisis. We have
Speaker 5: a bimodal distribution, and if you look at the Pure
Speaker 5: Research data from nineteen ninety four to twenty seventeen, a
Speaker 5: of this graph that shows although our parties used to
Speaker 5: overlap considerably, they are growing further and further apart, and
Speaker 5: they're doing it as a result of hyperpartisan gerrymandering, issues
Speaker 5: with the way we receive news and news like information.
Speaker 5: But they are growing further and further apart. And if
Speaker 5: you look at the special congressional election from Alaska that
Speaker 5: used a rank choice voting system and produce the result
Speaker 5: of Peltola, this is not against Peltola. But here's the truth.
Speaker 5: Studies have been done that have demonstrated the centrist candidate
Speaker 5: was Nick baichic because the way people do the way
Speaker 5: we do rank choice voting is all also called instant
Speaker 5: elimination voting. And when you have a bi modal distribution,
Speaker 5: as happened in Alaska, nick Baichick got knocked out. It
Speaker 5: turns out that if a percentage of Sarah Palin conservatives
Speaker 5: had just stayed home, Palin would not have knocked out
Speaker 5: Baycheck and Baychick would have had a better chance of
Speaker 5: defeating Peltala. The point isn't a criticism of pel Tla.
Speaker 5: Nous voting advocates believe that they're getting a centrist result,
Speaker 5: but you're not, because in a bimodal distribution, all you're
Speaker 5: doing is speeding up getting to an extreme result. In fact,
Speaker 5: Peltola got ten percent or so of the original vote.
Speaker 5: The multi member district idea is a similar thing. Think
Speaker 5: about this problem. A lot of these proposed reforms are
Speaker 5: designed to replace sitting members of the House and Senate
Speaker 5: with moderates. But we have yet to have a constitutional convention.
Speaker 5: Every amendment to the Constitution has come through Congress thus far.
Speaker 5: And imagine trying to get on board members of Congress
Speaker 5: for a set of proposals the purpose of which is
Speaker 5: to displace them with somebody else. My proposal is the
Speaker 5: only proposal out there that leaves every sitting member of
Speaker 5: the House and Senate and incumbent in their district or
Speaker 5: state and actually gives them additional powers. And I think
Speaker 5: that's vitally important.
Speaker 1: Right, That's the only way you'll ever appeal to them,
Speaker 1: because they're so obsessed with keeping power too.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, but you know what, Molly, let them become the
Speaker 5: heroes of democracy. Imaginally, do have a constitutional convention, And
Speaker 5: imagine the convention proposes all of these things. Suddenly Congress
Speaker 5: can use these proposals as a pressure release valve and say, hey,
Speaker 5: we have a better way to fix our democracy. And
Speaker 5: you know, we may really dislike these members of Congress,
Speaker 5: but I'm perfectly happy to let them be the heroes
Speaker 5: of democracy if they produce a thriving multi party democracy
Speaker 5: that lets us in future generations actually live in America
Speaker 5: that truly finally embraces genu and democratic norms.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to the rank choice voting
Speaker 1: for a minute, because this is really interesting. Is there
Speaker 1: like a sort of come to Jesus' moment on ranked
Speaker 1: choice voting? Do people get that it is not functioning
Speaker 1: as intended? Or now?
Speaker 2: Dumb people but not most people.
Speaker 5: I mean, I would really love Andrew Yang to listen
Speaker 5: to one of my podcasts that talks about this.
Speaker 2: That would be great.
Speaker 5: I don't think he's going to have that moment because
Speaker 5: he's politically committed to rank choice voting. But there have
Speaker 5: been thoughtful scholars who initially advocated rank choice voting and
Speaker 5: then realize that it doesn't work, and who have abandoned
Speaker 5: it and have been pleased to see that evolution, because
Speaker 5: that's really important. The problem is that voters are getting
Speaker 5: misinformation about what some of these reforms can and cannot do.
Speaker 5: And the two central questions we have to ask ourselves,
Speaker 5: is will the reforms solve the constitutional crisis that we face?
Speaker 5: And are the reforms inactable? And ranked choice voting will
Speaker 5: do neither the same thing with open primaries, right, because
Speaker 5: the political parties are going to put the kobash on
Speaker 5: open primaries, because the purpose of open primaries is to
Speaker 5: rid them of their jobs and replace them with more moderates.
Speaker 5: And we have seen examples of the two parties that
Speaker 5: hate each other agreeing on one thing, which is keeping
Speaker 5: the two parties together in the right. But what we
Speaker 5: have to do is create a set of incentives that
Speaker 5: actually motivate voters to support the third parties and motivate
Speaker 5: groups within parties to splinter off where individuals can gain
Speaker 5: greater power than they do in an existing party structure,
Speaker 5: where it's either Trump's way or the highway.
Speaker 1: So I live in New York City, we have rank
Speaker 1: choice voting. We got this insane mayor that no one likes.
Speaker 1: What happenspened? I mean, so did he only get like
Speaker 1: three percent of the vote? Can you talk us through
Speaker 1: sort of the thinking there?
Speaker 5: I can't take you precisely through the New York mayoral election.
Speaker 2: I unfortunately don't have to doubt it.
Speaker 5: No, it's okay. I just don't have the data in
Speaker 5: front of me, and I don't want to speculate and
Speaker 5: run the mistake of making a mistake that somebody will
Speaker 5: point out that I've missed it. Rather, you know, I'm
Speaker 5: happy to talk about the Alaska when I actually talk
Speaker 5: about that one in my book. I do want to
Speaker 5: be clear about one thing. I don't want to suggest
Speaker 5: rank choice voting can never have a place, right.
Speaker 1: But it's not the solve we thought it was.
Speaker 5: But it's not solving our national politics, the very problem
Speaker 5: of which is that we don't have a standard distribution
Speaker 5: and that's tearing us apart because the modes for the
Speaker 5: two parties are pulling us further and further apart.
Speaker 1: So nuts, So how would you even start going along
Speaker 1: with this? Like, what would be the first move?
Speaker 5: Well, the first move is this, right, I mean literally,
Speaker 5: the book came out Today's Thursday, came out two days ago,
Speaker 5: and I'm doing, you know, quite a number of podcasts,
Speaker 5: public speaking events, talking to people, getting the word out there,
Speaker 5: getting people to read it. I want to get it
Speaker 5: in the hands of people who will read it, who
Speaker 5: will write about it who will think about it, Because
Speaker 5: the centerpiece of my book is a virtual world tour.
Speaker 5: I take people to seven democracies to shell them that
Speaker 5: this intuition that we grew up on in high school
Speaker 5: and middle school, this American exceptionalism, is really a myth.
Speaker 5: And what we need to recognize is that we can
Speaker 5: learn from the experience of other nations that have successfully
Speaker 5: or unsuccessfully face down their own threats to democracy. There
Speaker 5: are better ways to do democracy in some of those
Speaker 5: ways are ways that are quite adaptable to our system.
Speaker 5: So the first step is education to explain how it
Speaker 5: is that we can actually improve our system and how
Speaker 5: it is that we can do it while getting buy
Speaker 5: in as compared to other proposals with respect to the
Speaker 5: people that really have the authority to bring these reforms about.
Speaker 5: I don't know when it will happen, but we are
Speaker 5: going to hit an inflection point where we are really
Speaker 5: at the precipice of authoritarianism, which could be very close
Speaker 5: or collapse. And what's vitally important is for the American
Speaker 5: electorate to truly understand what the options are and what
Speaker 5: options can and cannot achieve particular goals. And that's really
Speaker 5: why I wrote this book, but the book is only
Speaker 5: the first step. The second step is getting out there
Speaker 5: and talking about it. And I'm going to spend as
Speaker 5: long as I can educating the public about these ideas
Speaker 5: and talking to people with influence like you. You've got
Speaker 5: a big audience. And if folks in your audience buy
Speaker 5: this book, read this book, talk about this book. That
Speaker 5: is a huge first step in the direction of reshaping
Speaker 5: the national conversation on what we must do to produce
Speaker 5: a thriving multi party democracy.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Max well Sterns.
Speaker 5: It was an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1: No moment, do you have a moment of fuckery or
Speaker 1: you want me to go first?
Speaker 2: You go first.
Speaker 1: So my moment of fuckery is going to be the
Speaker 1: Trump rn C table take up? Or can I do that?
Speaker 1: Or now Rona again, these are not nobody here, is
Speaker 1: everyone here. There are no victims, only volunteers. And you
Speaker 1: don't end up surviving as long in Trump world as
Speaker 1: Rona did without making a lot of compromises about your values.
Speaker 1: That said, she found herself having trouble fundraising because people
Speaker 1: didn't want to give money to Donald Trump's legal fees.
Speaker 1: To pay Donald Trump's legal fees. And now she's out
Speaker 1: replaced by Eric's wife, not even like the not even
Speaker 1: like the kid that's like's a AIRB parent, but Eric
Speaker 1: Eric's wife, And now she's got to raise money and
Speaker 1: all that, and she's already said that most of his
Speaker 1: money is going to go to legal fees. But the
Speaker 1: pageantry of standing up there with the check and then
Speaker 1: refusing to say where the check was from is really
Speaker 1: peak Donald Trump. And that moment is my moment.
Speaker 2: Fuckery goes to Kelly Ann Conway and everybody else around
Speaker 2: the Trumpet orbits because suddenly, I was told very clearly
Speaker 2: for the last five years that Crooked Joe CCCP communist
Speaker 2: Chinese chi coom Joe Biden wasn't blocking TikTok because he
Speaker 2: wanted the insidious Chinese to brainwash our kids and to
Speaker 2: turn them all into trans antifas. And now suddenly, because
Speaker 2: a mega donor in the Republican super pac space named
Speaker 2: jeff yass is a major investor in Byte Dance, the
Speaker 2: parent company of TikTok, gave Donald Trump a ton of money,
Speaker 2: Suddenly Kelly Ann is lobbying in favor of TikTok and saying, oh,
Speaker 2: this is this is an essential cornerstone of our democracy,
Speaker 2: or whatever line they're using this week, whatever line of
Speaker 2: bullshit they're using this week. But all these Republicans are
Speaker 2: out there now suddenly in love with TikTok, and as
Speaker 2: Mark or as Elon Mussin, Mark zuckerschmuck. Oh really, you're
Speaker 2: so subtle, Lelan, I can't get the message there. We'll
Speaker 2: do better if we don't have TikTok. This is an exact,
Speaker 2: perfect exemplar of the utter corruption of the Maga verse
Speaker 2: because these people, these people know exactly what TikTok is.
Speaker 2: Almost everyone understands there's a degree of social harm happening
Speaker 2: on TikTok and that something ought to be done about it.
Speaker 2: But the fact that the Republicans have done a complete
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty degreeturn on TikTok, that is my moment.
Speaker 1: It's almost like they don't believe it. Almost That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics
Speaker 1: make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what
Speaker 1: you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep
Speaker 1: the conversation going. And again thanks for listening