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.
Speaker 2: And gay couples.
Speaker 1: Rush to get married and have children before the Trump inauguration,
Speaker 1: always a great sign. We have such a good show
Speaker 1: for you today the Lincoln Projects Rick Wilson stops by
Speaker 1: to talk about what Cash Bettel's appointment to the FBI
Speaker 1: directorship means.
Speaker 2: Then we will talk.
Speaker 1: To the Washington Posts Carolyn Kitchener about the latest horrors
Speaker 1: in the post row world.
Speaker 2: But first the.
Speaker 3: News Somalie, it was a quiet weekend. Well, everyone ate
Speaker 3: Turkey and slept through trip to Fenn, but I think
Speaker 3: there were some interesting stories. So the first one we
Speaker 3: have is I'm going to shock you here. The Trump
Speaker 3: administration is laughing at the Democrats decorum.
Speaker 1: This is one of the problems with trying to cover
Speaker 1: an autocrat right. So Republicans are delighted that Biden took
Speaker 1: pictures with Trump and did a peaceful transfer of power,
Speaker 1: or at least did that first meeting. And they think
Speaker 1: of it as an own because this is.
Speaker 2: All about owning the Libs.
Speaker 1: So Trump campaign people told Rolling Stone some of us
Speaker 1: have been laughing about it. Democrats spent all this time
Speaker 1: calling Donald Trump and Nazi and Hitler, and now it's
Speaker 1: just smile for the cameras. Again, like, this is this
Speaker 1: fundamental problem we were just talking about with Rick Wilson,
Speaker 1: and you'll hear us get all cranky with each other.
Speaker 1: But like, an autocrat as a candidate is different than
Speaker 1: an autocrat as a president, right, Democrats have this problem,
Speaker 1: which is they don't want it. They didn't want to
Speaker 1: normalize the auto, the autocracy and the candidate. But now
Speaker 1: that he has won, he has.
Speaker 2: To be covered. He has to be covered, period.
Speaker 1: Paragraph So I do think this is very hard to cover.
Speaker 1: And again this is the fundamental disconnect between covering an
Speaker 1: autocrat and a democracy and trying to cover what is
Speaker 1: that normal while still being clear eyed about what is normal.
Speaker 1: But Democrats had no choice. They had to protect norms
Speaker 1: and institutions. Do I think it was great that they
Speaker 1: took photos? Not especially, but do I think that we
Speaker 1: at least need one party that stands up for the
Speaker 1: rule of law and the way we do things in
Speaker 1: this country. And if we had two, just think of
Speaker 1: what we could do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it could all feel so normal, like twenty fifteen Somali.
Speaker 3: We now know the makeup of the House and how
Speaker 3: this Congress is shaken out, and we're starting to understand
Speaker 3: how Republicans kept their majority in Congress.
Speaker 4: What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: So this is a really interesting moment because if you
Speaker 1: look back at the twenty sixteen Congress, I was actually
Speaker 1: went back and looked at the twenty sixteen Congress. In
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen Congress, Democrats had I had only really
Speaker 1: got shellacked at the House. So Democrats at one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety four seats and Republicans had had forty one seats,
Speaker 1: so they could pretty much do anything in Congress. And
Speaker 1: in fact, what they did the House Republicans was they
Speaker 1: shut down the budget. They shut down they shut down
Speaker 1: the government. That was one of the first things they did.
Speaker 1: They controlled the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and they
Speaker 1: shut down the government. So they had two forty one
Speaker 1: Democrats had one ninety four. Now Republicans have two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty seats and Democrats have two fourteen seats. And
Speaker 1: by the way, that is actually not you know, the
Speaker 1: final result will be two twenty to two fifteen. That's
Speaker 1: the GOP majority. That is one of the smallest margins. Ever,
Speaker 1: It's even smaller than it was last Congress. The Congress
Speaker 1: when Republicans had tenth Congress was was a bigger margin
Speaker 1: than this, and they could barely pass anything. So but
Speaker 1: I think it's important to realize that there's one reason
Speaker 1: why Republicans won the House as cycle, and it's North
Speaker 1: Carolina jerrymandering. So they Republican supermajority in North Carolina redrew
Speaker 1: the districts to favor the GOP North Carolina. This is
Speaker 1: Wiley Nicol who was a Democratic member of Congress. North
Speaker 1: Carolina is one of the most jerrymandered states in the country.
Speaker 1: We have to spend more on litigation than anyone else
Speaker 1: in the country.
Speaker 2: One of the.
Speaker 1: Poster children for extreme partisan jerrymandering. This again is a
Speaker 1: little bit of Republicans winning by cheating.
Speaker 3: One of the more disturbing pieces of news that dropped
Speaker 3: over this holiday weekend was email that Pete Hegseith, who's
Speaker 3: nominated for Secretary of Defense, mother wrote about him disrespecting women.
Speaker 3: What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Pete Hegsa's mother wrote a email to her son,
Speaker 1: who is hoping to become director of the Department of Defense,
Speaker 1: and she sent it on April thirtieth, twenty eighteen, when
Speaker 1: he was in the middle of a divorce from his
Speaker 1: second wife, and she said, you are an abuser of women.
Speaker 2: That is the ugly truth. And I have no respect
Speaker 2: for any man.
Speaker 1: Who belittles that belittles, lies, she sleeps around, and uses
Speaker 1: women for his own power and ego. Penelope Road, you
Speaker 1: are the man you have been for years, and as
Speaker 1: your mother, it pains and embarrasses me to say this,
Speaker 1: but as a sad, sad truth, your abuse over the
Speaker 1: years to women, dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, and belittling
Speaker 1: needs to be called out. So this was after his
Speaker 1: second wife had filed for a divorce, after hegseeth head
Speaker 1: coworker in the email, Penelope Road, Sam is a good
Speaker 1: mother and a good person under the circumstances you created.
Speaker 1: And I know deep down that you know. For you
Speaker 1: to label her as unstable for your own advantages, despicable
Speaker 1: and abusive. Anyway, there's a lot to this storm and
Speaker 1: it's really quite upsetting.
Speaker 2: And you know then the mother did, in fact.
Speaker 1: Say she had written back and sent another email, but
Speaker 1: she did not share it with the New York Times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is coupled with many of the remarks he's
Speaker 3: made about women do not paint a good picture for
Speaker 3: the fellow We should give a little primer. So President
Speaker 3: Trump truth this weekend that he might give one hundred
Speaker 3: percent tariffs against bricks. I noticed a lot of people
Speaker 3: don't know what bricks is, which is Brazil, Russia, India,
Speaker 3: China and South Africa.
Speaker 4: What do you think about this?
Speaker 1: So this is Trump threatening something, threatening to do something
Speaker 1: that probably isn't going to happen anyway. Trump is very
Speaker 1: good at solving problems that aren't real problems. So bricks
Speaker 1: had been musing about going off the dollar and maybe
Speaker 1: using the Chinese currency or some other currency, but they're
Speaker 1: not going to do this. And so Trump threatening tariffs
Speaker 1: to people for something they won't do is his kind
Speaker 1: of problem solving and none of us should be surprised
Speaker 1: by it. He is using tariffs as a way to
Speaker 1: try to get people to do what he want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I look forward to the riots in the
Speaker 3: streets when all our Chinese products have that big of
Speaker 3: tariff on them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I also just think this is like one
Speaker 1: of these great threats for him because it's never gonna happen,
Speaker 1: so he doesn't have to worry about it, so he'll
Speaker 1: threaten it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this will be lost in the dustbin of other
Speaker 3: truths that never happened.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project in
Speaker 1: the host of the Enemy's List, Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson.
Speaker 4: Hey, Mally Johns Fast. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2: Yes the best. I saw you deep fried a turkey.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I did deep fry a turkey as a man.
Speaker 4: Does you at RFK? Listen, I'm deep fried. I've deep
Speaker 4: fried about I don't know twenty five turkeys in my life.
Speaker 4: I'm writing of other things too, But RFK does not.
Speaker 4: He does not represent the whole frying turkey brand everybody.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm just I'm just telling you. RFK is
Speaker 4: the definitional turkey frying guy.
Speaker 1: So here's a question besides turkey, which is the subject
Speaker 1: I want to delve deeper into because it's such a
Speaker 1: disgusting animal that I don't like to eat and it's
Speaker 1: quite gross. But more important, there really is a possibility
Speaker 1: to burn oneself quite badly.
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, many people do and you know, and I
Speaker 4: really thought about doing this. I actually had written the
Speaker 4: tweet and everything, and the tweet was only libtard shill cut.
Speaker 4: Don't fry their turkeys in the garage. It's only those
Speaker 4: liberal frogs who cook them outside.
Speaker 1: So we are it is Thanksgiving weekend, which means Donald
Speaker 1: Trump must make more announcements, because what is a weekend
Speaker 1: for if not making more appointment announcements.
Speaker 4: To shock and horrify the American people.
Speaker 1: This is one that he had been playing back and
Speaker 1: forth with. We knew it was possible. We thought perhaps
Speaker 1: he would Cash Betel go.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know, here's the thing. The entire purpose of
Speaker 4: all things Trump is to verify and to dismay the
Speaker 4: American people. We get it, we do. We get it.
Speaker 4: We get it. Cash Battel is a guy who is
Speaker 4: deeply unqualified, of course that goes without saying, to be
Speaker 4: the FBI director. But he's also a guy who's promised
Speaker 4: many many times now that he will be the artificer
Speaker 4: of Trump's revenge strategies against everyone who has ever offended him,
Speaker 4: and so on and so on.
Speaker 2: And so on, so a lot of people, by the way,
Speaker 2: you and.
Speaker 4: I are on the list. I'm afraid to say, but
Speaker 4: you know what, I think we are right now at
Speaker 4: a moment where where Donald Trump has had a loss
Speaker 4: with Matt Gates being taken out of contention for Attorney General,
Speaker 4: and he wants and has been sold this vision by
Speaker 4: Bannon and others that the purpose of the FBI and
Speaker 4: the Department of Justice is to punish Trump's enemies. You know,
Speaker 4: he's he's if cash Betel is confirmed, and I think
Speaker 4: he probably will be because don't expect miracles from the Senate. Kids,
Speaker 4: just don't, just do not.
Speaker 1: I want to pause for a second because this is
Speaker 1: something near and dear to my heart, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about why we should have hope and why
Speaker 1: we should not be cynical. And this is going to
Speaker 1: be very annoying to you and probably listeners. But the
Speaker 1: reason why I want I want to have this conversation
Speaker 1: is because this is the more cynical we are, the
Speaker 1: more things are baked in, right, the less cynical we are,
Speaker 1: the less things are baked in. So, for example, they
Speaker 1: can lose three to four senators, Trump does not necessarily
Speaker 1: give a shit about whether or not these people get through. Right,
Speaker 1: He puts them up. But like Matt Gates isn't through
Speaker 1: now it's Pambondy. That was like a two second news cycle.
Speaker 1: So I think that Republican senators have more power than.
Speaker 2: They think here.
Speaker 1: And we know with Matt Gates, the reporting at the
Speaker 1: NBC reporting was that a senator told them you have
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty senator Republican senators voting against this nomination.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like, I don't think we should ever
Speaker 1: think of any of this as as baked in. We
Speaker 1: should always try to open the door to people doing
Speaker 1: the right thing, even though history has shown us that
Speaker 1: they haven't. This is a time though, that is much
Speaker 1: scarier than the last trumpad.
Speaker 4: I think. I think, look, the great news, the good news,
Speaker 4: I won't say greatness. The good news is that Donald
Speaker 4: Trump's people are by and large fucking morons. Right actually,
Speaker 4: in the traditional political sense of they are actually stupid people.
Speaker 4: Many of them are really dumb.
Speaker 1: I was actually reading about some of the people and thinking, God,
Speaker 1: these people sound really really dumb there.
Speaker 4: Many of them are. Many of them could be easily
Speaker 4: overcome by inanimate objects right there. They are not smart guys.
Speaker 4: Now are they going to be in positions of tremendous power. Yes,
Speaker 4: they are. That should that concern all of us, absolutely,
Speaker 4: it should. However, I believe right now that you've got
Speaker 4: got a very narrow window for Donald Trump to to
Speaker 4: execute the on the worst of the crazy that he
Speaker 4: wants to execute on that window. That window is again,
Speaker 4: it is a narrow window, not a wide window. And
Speaker 4: I think it's going to be hard for him to
Speaker 4: pull off some of the bullshit he wants to pull
Speaker 4: off with these people as the Senate ends up moving
Speaker 4: from just talking about these things to having to actually
Speaker 4: take votes on the nominations of these people, as the
Speaker 4: Senate moves on to actually having to live up to
Speaker 4: actually having their names on saying oh, yeah, I was
Speaker 4: one of the guys who voted for cash Patel, right,
Speaker 4: I was one of the people who voted to put
Speaker 4: cash fricking Patel into the head of the FBI. I
Speaker 4: spoke to three separate FBI officials FORBI officials over the weekend,
Speaker 4: and none of the ones that you people think, by
Speaker 4: the way.
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, not ones on cable news, not ones on.
Speaker 4: Cable news, all of whom said to me, Yes, the
Speaker 4: FBI is much more conservative than a lot of people think,
Speaker 4: but this is crazy, and this guy is this guy
Speaker 4: is it will be? As it was pointed out to me,
Speaker 4: he said, do you Somebody said to me, do you
Speaker 4: want Devin Noon as this guy? He wrote, demo, Yeah,
Speaker 4: in charge of all counter intelligence, domestic counter intelligence in
Speaker 4: this country? Is that the guy you want in that job?
Speaker 4: And the answer is obviously not only no, but fuck no.
Speaker 4: But you know, you've got a very You've got a
Speaker 4: very narrow, narrow window. While the compliance in the Senate
Speaker 4: is still high because right now the Senate guys they're
Speaker 4: not trying to negotiate for They're not trying to negotiate
Speaker 4: for what they're going to do about you know this
Speaker 4: or that budget item. They're all sort of like, ah, fuck,
Speaker 4: we got to just deal with Trump. We'll get the
Speaker 4: inauguration done, we'll get the we'll get the non controversial
Speaker 4: appointments done and move on from there. That is not
Speaker 4: going to be easy. The longer it goes, the harder
Speaker 4: it's going to get. And look, I think this weekend
Speaker 4: putting Charles Kushner up there as our ambassador to France
Speaker 4: was an insult both to the French.
Speaker 1: Can you push back can I push back here for sure,
Speaker 1: And I hate to be the person to say this,
Speaker 1: but ambassadors are fucking that's a pay for play gig, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: But here's the thing. We're also in the middle of
Speaker 4: a European conflict right now. It's going to require serious people,
Speaker 4: and France is one of the most important players in
Speaker 4: the in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And so
Speaker 4: I'm concerned that Trump did that very deliberately to fuck
Speaker 4: to mess with the entire.
Speaker 1: I mean, except Trump put Newt Gingrich's wife as ambassador
Speaker 1: at to Holy See, his third wife, right, a Catholic.
Speaker 4: I mean, like, yeah, here's the thing we're not really
Speaker 4: worried about. We're not really worried about the Vatican right
Speaker 4: now in terms of a war fighting posture, right.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying, like, ambassadorships are known to be
Speaker 1: nonpartisan grift.
Speaker 2: You know, you pay, you get an ambassadorships.
Speaker 4: But here's the thing. I mean, the Court of Saint
Speaker 4: James is the a position ambassadorship. That's that's the top
Speaker 4: of the pile. There's none better than that. You don't
Speaker 4: get a better you don't get a better diplomatic opportunity
Speaker 4: than that. Francis the second.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's putting he's putting Johnson in the or
Speaker 1: at least last time you put Johnson in the you know,
Speaker 1: big Republican donor.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't.
Speaker 1: I think putting unqualified people in ambassadorships is not is nonpartisan.
Speaker 4: I think it's insulting though to our allies. And I
Speaker 4: think it I think it shows you once again this
Speaker 4: is an unseerious person and in a serious time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but except we know he's an un serious person.
Speaker 1: We know he's a fucking moron. But what's important is
Speaker 1: like Cash Battel should be an eleven.
Speaker 2: Charles Kushner should be a two.
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't dispute. Well, I think like a four.
Speaker 4: But okay, I don't dispute that Cash Battel is is
Speaker 4: legitimately problematic and dangerous. Right, Well, let's not let's not
Speaker 4: pretend anything otherwise. He's a bad guy, and he's a
Speaker 4: guy who who is going to publicly try to be
Speaker 4: the face of Trump's revenge play.
Speaker 2: And that is you know what, No, I gotta tell
Speaker 2: you really bad.
Speaker 4: That's pretty bad. And and as Charlie Sykes wrote, you
Speaker 4: know the purpose of Cash battels to terrify people. That's
Speaker 4: why he's there. And you know, Tim Snyder has that
Speaker 4: phrase sato populism, where like the purpose of this kind
Speaker 4: of populist decision, you know, we're going to put a
Speaker 4: guy who's gonna tear it up because it's all corrupt,
Speaker 4: is to scare the fuck out of people. It's a
Speaker 4: dangerous position for the country, but it's also kind of inevitable.
Speaker 4: You know. We have to we have to we have
Speaker 4: to sort of adjust our reality to the inevitability of
Speaker 4: the of the shit.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: I also think that when we talk about Cash Battel,
Speaker 1: he's really scary. We have had really scary FBI director
Speaker 1: Herbert Hoover put my grandfather in jail.
Speaker 4: Herbert Herbert Hoover was a president, right, Jed Houverer, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: Jed Gruber. I mean, and we have had nothing comparable
Speaker 4: to Hoover in our lifetimes.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: No, No, thankfully, you know, thankfully. But I do think
Speaker 4: it's important that we not we don't take our eye
Speaker 4: off the ball. This is potentially an extraordinarily bad set
Speaker 4: of outcomes.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, which is why I think it's so
Speaker 1: important that people like Mike Ground who was on ABC
Speaker 1: today talking about how how good Christopher Ray is. There's
Speaker 1: no reason Ray has three more years on his term, right, this.
Speaker 4: Is there's no way Trump let's Ray stay in that office.
Speaker 4: They will die on that hill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I also think, like there's RFK, there's Ray Talsy,
Speaker 1: and then there's Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I think I think Pete Hegseth is now
Speaker 4: edging toward being disqualified in this job. But even in
Speaker 4: the minds of some of Trump's allies, they're not like
Speaker 4: this email from his own mother about his character and
Speaker 4: the way he treats women. I am not easily. You
Speaker 4: and I are both, you know, were fairly jaundice about
Speaker 4: this kind of thing. That was pretty horrifying. I think
Speaker 4: we have to just admit it. That was pretty pretty
Speaker 4: damn horrifying. That was not if you're a person with
Speaker 4: any judgment about character, and you think character matters at all,
Speaker 4: you can't have this guy as the secretary of Defense.
Speaker 4: You just can't.
Speaker 1: Right, Adultery is against the rules in the army.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, yes it is. It is very much against
Speaker 4: the rules. And by the way, not simply because there's
Speaker 4: some moral thing there. It's because it compromises you in
Speaker 4: your in your national security position. It makes you vulnerable
Speaker 4: to blackmail, it makes you vulnerable to manipulation, it makes
Speaker 4: your decisions questioned by your own people as well. But
Speaker 4: I do think it's important that we look at all
Speaker 4: of these sort of moments we're in right now and
Speaker 4: ask the question, like, you know, is there a solution
Speaker 4: to the Cash Betel problem? Is this a guy you
Speaker 4: can you could find a way to ensure that he
Speaker 4: doesn't get the nomination. I think there are still there's
Speaker 4: still a possibility he doesn't get it. But right now
Speaker 4: Trump is he's going to start acting more and more
Speaker 4: childish and judgmental and angry as things are denied.
Speaker 1: To him, except that he also doesn't really care if
Speaker 1: these people get through. So you know, certainly not RFK Junior.
Speaker 4: Right, here's the thing, Okay, I generally agree with that,
Speaker 4: that he doesn't really care much about these people. I
Speaker 4: generally agree with that, but I'm always curious, and lately
Speaker 4: particularly curious. I'm always curious. Like Trump wants certain things,
Speaker 4: he wants certain outcomes. One of those outcomes is revenge
Speaker 4: on his enemies, right, and a guy like Cash mattel
Speaker 4: is offering him that, mister President, I will, I will.
Speaker 4: I will crush your enemies before you. I will humiliate them,
Speaker 4: I will hurt them. I will, I will bankrupt them.
Speaker 4: I will. I will use the power of the state
Speaker 4: to go after people that don't like you and that
Speaker 4: have and that have hurt you, sir, so so badly.
Speaker 4: But I look, I find this. I find the entire
Speaker 4: idea that Trump is going to let this go and
Speaker 4: is not going to respond to opposition in the Senate. Now,
Speaker 4: there will be a point where he says that he's
Speaker 4: going to start, you know, acting, asking his people to
Speaker 4: revenge him from these these people in the Senate who
Speaker 4: aren't giving him what he wants. I mean, I'm you
Speaker 4: know that Mike Davis guy. The other day, right after
Speaker 4: Patel was named, Mike Davis came out and said something
Speaker 4: to the effect of of, yeah, I dare you not
Speaker 4: to vote for him, We'll make your lives a living hell.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: But they didn't even have to not vote for Matt Gates.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just you know, like Ma Gates, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. Just for a minute to pause
Speaker 1: and think about It's December first, right. So Trump doesn't
Speaker 1: even get into office until January twenty first, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of time, just like we saw with Matt Gates,
Speaker 1: Like Matt Gates pulled himself out of this thing because
Speaker 1: he knew there was a lot more coming, right, Sure,
Speaker 1: So the question is, like, you know, does that happen
Speaker 1: to Pete Hegsaths Does that happen to I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I.
Speaker 4: Would put Pete heggsth higher on the list of potential
Speaker 4: you blowout? Can people? They just go, yeah, I can't
Speaker 4: I President, I love you, I can't do it. I
Speaker 4: can't deal with this guy right right right, because he
Speaker 4: really is egregious. I mean he really is is a
Speaker 4: he combines being unqualified with also being horrifying.
Speaker 1: One other thing I think about Pete Hegseth and I
Speaker 1: think when I think about these candidates is like a
Speaker 1: lot of them want to make money and don't necessarily
Speaker 1: want to surmman service soon. Oh sure, so to fight
Speaker 1: and fight and fight to get a job you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that look that I think that's a legitimate observation
Speaker 4: about Like there are a lot of reasons why why
Speaker 4: you would not go to the mattresses for Pete Hegseth,
Speaker 4: and Pete Hegseth probably has a good number of reasons
Speaker 4: now that he's starting to consider what's going to happen,
Speaker 4: He's probably got a good number of reasons why he
Speaker 4: doesn't want to go to the mattresses because right now
Speaker 4: today he can go back to Fox, right, you know,
Speaker 4: he could go back to Fox. He could be whatever
Speaker 4: again at Fox. That's all find and good. But I
Speaker 4: don't know. I don't know if you got it with
Speaker 4: Pete Hegseth, if you get like a second chance at
Speaker 4: political life after this, given the stuff we're hearing about it,
Speaker 4: I think the stuff we're hearing about Hexth is a
Speaker 4: different level than a lot of these other guys. It's
Speaker 4: it's a more it's an uglier, nastier kind of story
Speaker 4: about this guy's character.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens. But I do want to talk
Speaker 1: about what you what you think is sort of next coming.
Speaker 4: Fire, death, screaming, running in the darkness, you know, the.
Speaker 2: Usual No is bright and Florida.
Speaker 4: No. Look, I think I think we are in a
Speaker 4: very I think we're in a very dangerous moment because
Speaker 4: there is that that sort of Bannen Nunez weirdo wing
Speaker 4: of the party that really wants even if Trump isn't
Speaker 4: that interested in all these in punishing all these people,
Speaker 4: I think there's a there's a a wing of the
Speaker 4: of the Trump apparatus that is very interested in punishing people,
Speaker 4: and very interested in hurting people, and very interested in
Speaker 4: causing You know that, as as Tim Sider says, sato
Speaker 4: populism to become a big part of the of the story,
Speaker 4: I think I can't ignore that there are people like
Speaker 4: that around him. There are a lot of people like
Speaker 4: that around him who really really really really really hate
Speaker 4: people like us. And I'm not just saying it's just
Speaker 4: about us, but it ain't not just about us either.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson my moment of zen and calm, the.
Speaker 4: Service as always, all right, I'll talk to you sin,
Speaker 4: all right, all right, talk to you Sin. Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Carolyn Kitchener is a national reporter covering abortion at the
Speaker 1: Washington Post.
Speaker 5: Welcome back, Caroline, Thank you so much, Molly, thanks for
Speaker 5: having me.
Speaker 1: You do this beat, which is abortion, we productive hows
Speaker 1: more broadly by abortion is likely going to be the
Speaker 1: first opening salvo in disassembling our rights.
Speaker 2: How long have you been on this beat, and what
Speaker 2: does it feel like right now.
Speaker 5: I've been writing about this issue for almost six years.
Speaker 5: It wasn't my full time job at the beginning. It's
Speaker 5: been my full time thing for three of those years.
Speaker 5: I'm still surprised, like I'm still surprised at things that
Speaker 5: happen on the speed. It's still so fast evolving. I mean,
Speaker 5: we are now more than two years, about two and
Speaker 5: a half years out from the fall of Ruby Wade,
Speaker 5: and the dynamics keep changing. And I think it is
Speaker 5: hard to predict what a Trump administration could bring for
Speaker 5: this issue.
Speaker 2: But it's not going to be good. I'm going to
Speaker 2: put my hand on a rock right now and say
Speaker 2: it's not going to be good.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the election for a minute,
Speaker 1: because a lot of places voters did this thing where
Speaker 1: they voted to enshrine abortion rights in their constitution, but
Speaker 1: then voted for Trump or Republicans or seem to not
Speaker 1: quite make the leap to realize that the people they
Speaker 1: were voting for now have to enact a lot of
Speaker 1: these ballot initiatives, and as we've seen from Florida, a
Speaker 1: lot of times Republicans just don't do what the people
Speaker 1: vote for.
Speaker 5: I spent a lot of time ahead of the election
Speaker 5: talk to people who really care about abortion rights, who
Speaker 5: are per choice, but who are also more Republican leaning
Speaker 5: or independent. I really wanted to figure out, like how
Speaker 5: when people were faced, you know, not just with the
Speaker 5: direct question of do you want to enshrine abortion rights
Speaker 5: in the constitution, but who do you want for president?
Speaker 5: I wanted to know how much their views on abortion
Speaker 5: would factor into that decision. And before the election, I mean,
Speaker 5: I just I really struggled to find people that were
Speaker 5: wrestling with that. Like almost everybody that I found to
Speaker 5: talk to was like, oh, yeah, I support abortion rights,
Speaker 5: I care a lot about this issue, but I'm voting
Speaker 5: for Trump.
Speaker 1: Wow, And were you like, were you guys like he
Speaker 1: did overturn revyweight or they just didn't put it together.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean I would always ask that question, and it
Speaker 5: was interesting. I mean, I think you had some people
Speaker 5: for whom abortion is just you know, fairly far down
Speaker 5: on the list, like of the issues that they care about,
Speaker 5: they care about, you know, the economy, immigration, more. But
Speaker 5: then here are other women that I spoke to, and
Speaker 5: this was like these interviews were mostly with women They said,
Speaker 5: I just don't think he's going to do anything else
Speaker 5: on this because.
Speaker 2: We've lost so many rights. What's another one.
Speaker 5: He wants it to go back to the States. That
Speaker 5: was a line that really resonated with people. They really
Speaker 5: believe that, you know, he wants me to go back
Speaker 5: to the States, and they just weren't concerned. Which was
Speaker 5: interesting because what you saw as you got further and
Speaker 5: further into the campaign was Trump and Vance doing everything
Speaker 5: that they could to move away from this issue and
Speaker 5: to convince people of exactly this that they were not
Speaker 5: going to do more that they would veto a national
Speaker 5: abortion ban, all of those things. And what I found
Speaker 5: from my reporting is that those messages really resonated with
Speaker 5: the group of people that Harris and Trump were fighting for,
Speaker 5: these Republican leaning independent women.
Speaker 1: So explain, yeah, I mean, I need.
Speaker 2: More on this.
Speaker 5: What you heard a lot in the campaign when it
Speaker 5: came to abortion policies was national abortion ban. You heard
Speaker 5: a lot about that concept, and I do think it's very,
Speaker 5: very unlikely that a national abortion ban would pass, just
Speaker 5: because of the reality of what Congress looks like. But
Speaker 5: what is also true is that there's a lot of
Speaker 5: things that the Trump administration could do without Congress com stack. Yeah,
Speaker 5: the constack through the agencies, Like, there are a lot
Speaker 5: of things that they could do, but all of those
Speaker 5: things that they could do are like they're much more nuanced.
Speaker 5: They are sort of hard to explain. They're a little
Speaker 5: bit more in the weeds. People didn't know about those things.
Speaker 5: You know, Harris didn't really make those things part of
Speaker 5: the conversation. I would say, she really just kept talking
Speaker 5: about the National Abortion Band. So the women that I
Speaker 5: spoke to were kind of sharp enough to realize that,
Speaker 5: like that was very unlikely. And you know, which is
Speaker 5: something that I agree with. It wasn't on their radar
Speaker 5: that there were other things that a Trump administration could
Speaker 5: do on this issue.
Speaker 1: Let's talk for a minute about what is going on
Speaker 1: right now. There are all of these balid initiatives. Do
Speaker 1: you think that they will get enacted?
Speaker 5: I do. I mean the ones that pass Every time
Speaker 5: I talk about this. It's the results of the ballot
Speaker 5: initiatives were complicated because while the abortion rights side, you know,
Speaker 5: succeeded in seven of the ten states where abortion was
Speaker 5: on the ballot, they failed in Florida. And that's not
Speaker 5: because it wasn't popular in Florida. It's because in Florida
Speaker 5: you needed sixty percent, which is really hard for anything.
Speaker 5: But Florida was just far and away the most important
Speaker 5: state for this, just because of like how big this
Speaker 5: state is and it's the third most populous state. Just
Speaker 5: a ton of abortions, especially before the six week ban
Speaker 5: took effect, just a ton of abortions happened there. It
Speaker 5: was for a long time this like oasis of abortion
Speaker 5: access in the South, which now we have, you know,
Speaker 5: strict bands blanketing the whole region. So it was really,
Speaker 5: really really important for abortion rights advocates, Like that state
Speaker 5: was sort of the like the crown jewel of the
Speaker 5: ballot initiatives, and it didn't pass there. So I think
Speaker 5: it is really hard to know where to go from here.
Speaker 5: I mean, for abortion rights advocates, these ballot measures, they're
Speaker 5: very excited about the prospect of the battle measures, but
Speaker 5: they don't solve the issue in every state because in
Speaker 5: different states it's harder to get it on or even
Speaker 5: impossible to get it on. I mean Texas, Like it's
Speaker 5: just that it would never happen in Texas, and it's
Speaker 5: not this sort of cure al that abortion rights advocates
Speaker 5: are really hoping for, right, Like.
Speaker 2: What does the abortion landscape look like now?
Speaker 1: If you are a woman who gets pregnant in one
Speaker 1: of these states, say South Carolina, where can you go?
Speaker 1: Where are the few sort of free states still?
Speaker 5: Well? I think what the reality for women in these
Speaker 5: states with strict bands is that this landscape looks like
Speaker 5: the internet more than traveling to well, I don't know
Speaker 5: that I can say more than traveling to other states,
Speaker 5: but what so many people are doing now is going
Speaker 5: online and ordering pills. And that is a thing that
Speaker 5: the Trump administration could get in the way of. It's
Speaker 5: unclear whether they're going to make a move to do that,
Speaker 5: but they could. But in terms of like where there
Speaker 5: is access, I mean, for somebody in Florida, the nearest
Speaker 5: clinic is going to be North Carolina, which is you know,
Speaker 5: if you're in Miami. I don't know off the top
Speaker 5: of my head, but that is a really, really, really
Speaker 5: long drive. When I visited, I went to a Florida
Speaker 5: clinic right after the band took a fact in the spring,
Speaker 5: and they weren't talking about driving. They were talking about flying,
Speaker 5: like they just it's not a realistic drive for people
Speaker 5: to make and but for a lot of the women
Speaker 5: that I was speaking to, it just you know, many
Speaker 5: of them had never been on a plane. Like the
Speaker 5: idea that they would just you know, get on a
Speaker 5: plane and somehow leave their families and get childcare and
Speaker 5: all the things that you have to do to go
Speaker 5: on a trip was just you know, even the money aside,
Speaker 5: it just wasn't realistic.
Speaker 1: These women will be okay with the abortion pills until
Speaker 1: they're not.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean the anti abortion side has identified pills
Speaker 5: as the target, right. You know, they know that this
Speaker 5: is happening. They know that many pills are getting to
Speaker 5: people in vand states through websites. You Know what I
Speaker 5: heard consistently for you know, a year plus before the
Speaker 5: election was then this is from the anti abortion side,
Speaker 5: we're not going to see anything until the election. They
Speaker 5: didn't want to really crack down before the election because
Speaker 5: they knew that this issue was very popular. But now,
Speaker 5: you know, I just had a piece out last week
Speaker 5: that was about you know what all of the anti
Speaker 5: abortion groups are planning, particularly like the statewide once there's
Speaker 5: there's a very active group in Texas called Texas Right
Speaker 5: to Life that's the biggest anti abortion group there. They
Speaker 5: have really a reputation for you know, trying like particularly
Speaker 5: aggressive and creative ways to like crack down on things
Speaker 5: and really you know, set the bar for the rest
Speaker 5: of the country, you know, when it comes to anti
Speaker 5: abortion crackdown measures, and they are ready are they are
Speaker 5: planning you know, several new lawsuits that we're going to
Speaker 5: see early in the new year. They are trying to
Speaker 5: find plaintiffs. They're looking specifically for like male partners of
Speaker 5: women who had abortions that are upset. So I do
Speaker 5: think you're going to see a wave of like attempts
Speaker 5: to crack down on pills getting into band states.
Speaker 1: Your body, my choice, right, I mean, ultimately that's what
Speaker 1: we're talking about, right.
Speaker 5: I think that they recognize that these men are their
Speaker 5: best option for pursuing some of these lawsuits, and they
Speaker 5: are recruiting them. They are going to like anti abortion
Speaker 5: crisis pregnancy centers, and they are looking for, you know,
Speaker 5: people that are close to a woman who had an
Speaker 5: abortion and who are angry about it.
Speaker 1: Ask about the women who can't get pre natal care,
Speaker 1: Like what's happening to women not getting dncs?
Speaker 2: Because I know you wrote about that, and that is
Speaker 2: just horrifying.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that everybody should be watching the maternal
Speaker 5: mortality committees. So every state has a committee mostly medical experts.
Speaker 5: Usually it's about twenty and they get together and they
Speaker 5: review cases of maternal deaths and they are looking to
Speaker 5: really dig in and see what went wrong and was
Speaker 5: this preventable? And these committees they, for various reasons, they
Speaker 5: operate on about a two year lag And so we
Speaker 5: are just now at the point when these committees are
Speaker 5: starting to review cases that may have been affected by
Speaker 5: the fall of Row and all of these new bands.
Speaker 5: And so what I am watching for now is, you know,
Speaker 5: obviously there have been some incredible reporting from Pro Publica
Speaker 5: on you know, individual cases of women who have died.
Speaker 5: The question though, that I think everyone is wondering, is like,
Speaker 5: how much is that happening? How often is that happening?
Speaker 5: What is the big picture there? And these maternal mortality
Speaker 5: committees they are where we will get that big picture.
Speaker 5: That is something to watch for, I think in the
Speaker 5: coming months.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're seeing more and more of that. So talk
Speaker 1: to us for a minute about how we're seeing Republicans
Speaker 1: kind of mess with that, right isn't there some way
Speaker 1: in which Republicans are trying to make it so they're
Speaker 1: not reviewing the data as quickly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I just had a story yesterday about in Texas,
Speaker 5: which is the biggest state with a strict abortion man.
Speaker 5: It was the first state to enact as strict abortion man.
Speaker 5: So it's really important for getting a big picture of
Speaker 5: what's happening, like just state by state.
Speaker 2: Because their ban also started a year before.
Speaker 5: Exactly nine months before, and so it just gives us
Speaker 5: like more perspective than really any other state. And so
Speaker 5: that's the one that I've been watching most closely. And
Speaker 5: the committee was told recently that this is what I
Speaker 5: recorded yesterday. They were told recent that they would be
Speaker 5: skipping over the years twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
Speaker 5: which you know, the first two years that the abortion
Speaker 5: van was in effect. You know, they said that they
Speaker 5: were doing this to be more contemporaneous, is what they said. Basically,
Speaker 5: they see their charge, as you know, examining cases in
Speaker 5: a timely manner so that it can inform the recommendations
Speaker 5: that they give to policymakers. And they were saying, you know,
Speaker 5: we just feel we're on too much of a delay,
Speaker 5: so it doesn't allow us to provide timely recommendations, and
Speaker 5: that is why we are changing this. I spoke with
Speaker 5: several members of the committee who you know, all spoke
Speaker 5: anonymously that we're really concerned about this because, you know,
Speaker 5: they they see as we all do, that those years
Speaker 5: are really important to examine because they're the first two
Speaker 5: full years that this like new policy, this huge new
Speaker 5: policy that affects maternal health is taking effect. And by
Speaker 5: skipping them, like you're you know, they they were very
Speaker 5: concerned that they were going to miss deaths and the
Speaker 5: deaths you know that resulted from abortion bands, and that
Speaker 5: was very concerning to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: So what are you watching now?
Speaker 5: I will definitely be watching these maternal mortality committees, but
Speaker 5: I also think that it's important to watch a couple
Speaker 5: of key agencies and then the Trump administration, particularly the
Speaker 5: Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services
Speaker 5: HHS was actually the one, it really is the agency
Speaker 5: that the anti abortion groups were most you know, have
Speaker 5: been most focused on. Was Trump has done all of
Speaker 5: these gymnastics to back away from abortion. They have been
Speaker 5: later focused on who he appoints to lead HHS and
Speaker 5: what's so they've been really you know, fighting hard. They
Speaker 5: were fighting hard to get him to pick somebody who
Speaker 5: was anti abortion and also have anti abortion under secretaries
Speaker 5: as well. That's not how that played out. RFK is
Speaker 5: you know, obviously a very complicated figure. But you know,
Speaker 5: he has expressed support for abortion rights, like he is
Speaker 5: pro choice, and so that is not the person, right, well,
Speaker 5: theorectly right.
Speaker 2: He's also pro raw milk, but yes, continue.
Speaker 5: But when it comes to this issue, he has you know,
Speaker 5: publicly expressed that he is very in supportive abortion rights.
Speaker 5: So that obviously wasn't the person that they wanted. And
Speaker 5: then to add on to that, we had, you know,
Speaker 5: Roger Severino, who wrote the HHS and abortion related chapter
Speaker 5: of Project twenty twenty five. A lot of there was
Speaker 5: a big campaign, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 5: expected that he would be appointed as an under secretary
Speaker 5: in HHS, and it just came out that he is
Speaker 5: not being selected for that. So that was another blow
Speaker 5: to the anti abortion movement. So I sort of watching
Speaker 5: that with interest play out because I do think that
Speaker 5: that is you know, potentially the Trump administratortion saying, like,
Speaker 5: we recognize that people are very upset about this issue,
Speaker 5: not going to do anything about it right now at least,
Speaker 5: but I think it's just important. I think it's an
Speaker 5: important thing to keep an eye on. Is who he
Speaker 5: has leading those agencies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll say, and I think that we are in
Speaker 1: this bizarre, bizarre moment in American history.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you will
Speaker 2: come back.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: No moment full so, Molly, my moment of fuckery here
Speaker 4: is that Cash Bttel is already saying that as the
Speaker 4: director of the FBI, of the nation's pre eminent law
Speaker 4: enforcement organization, that he is going to use the power
Speaker 4: of the FBI to punish people that he doesn't like
Speaker 4: and that Donald Trump doesn't like, and that have that
Speaker 4: we're quote unquote very mean to Donald Trump. And so
Speaker 4: the odd thing about our country right now, in my mind,
Speaker 4: is that this is being taken as a sort of
Speaker 4: normal activity. This is being seen as kind of like,
Speaker 4: this is what they get to do because Trump won
Speaker 4: the election. I find that more than a little bit
Speaker 4: disturbing and were a little bit troubling, and I find
Speaker 4: it fascinating that a lot of our media friends are
Speaker 4: pretty much normalizing this one too. There's a sense of like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: you know that's Trump. Trump won. I guess, so here
Speaker 4: we are. I think Patel is a is a separate
Speaker 4: level of shit that's worse than, worse than in consequence
Speaker 4: than a lot of these other possible appointments that Trump's
Speaker 4: talking about.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to for my moment of fuck Graham,
Speaker 1: going to disagree with you.
Speaker 4: Wow, Okay, see how it is.
Speaker 1: I think that for sure, Trump is an autocrat, ran
Speaker 1: as an autocrat, probably would say he was an autocrat
Speaker 1: and a candidate, we couldn't normalize him for sure because
Speaker 1: he was running on a completely non democratic platform. But
Speaker 1: now that he is president, we have to cover him,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't mean.
Speaker 4: Normal I'm what he's saying, we don't cover him.
Speaker 1: Right, But I'm just saying, like the idea, I feel
Speaker 1: like the millions of people voted for him, and that
Speaker 1: is in itself a kind of normalization, like it or not.
Speaker 1: And so I do think like that is why when
Speaker 1: we cover him, we have to be so focused on
Speaker 1: norms and institutions and the real damage as opposed to
Speaker 1: the astatic damage.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I get that, I get that, But I
Speaker 4: do think you can't ignore the potential presence of a
Speaker 4: administration that is overtly dedicated to punishing its enemies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, I think.
Speaker 4: You got You've got to keep that, You've got to
Speaker 4: keep that sort of top of mind about what the
Speaker 4: what the consequences are of the consequences of ignoring that,
Speaker 4: I think are are high order bad as I like
Speaker 4: to say I have.
Speaker 2: I feel like we're not going to be able to
Speaker 2: ignore it.
Speaker 1: Rick, personally and professionally, we are now, No, we are not.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson, Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.