Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly john Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and the Justice Department says Trump can
Speaker 1: be sued for the January sixth insurrection. We have an
Speaker 1: amazing show for you today. Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson,
Speaker 1: a member of the Tennessee three, stops by to talk
Speaker 1: to us about all the fuckory in her workplace. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to Cook Political Reports Amy Walter about the
Speaker 1: Senate and the congressional maps in twenty twenty three and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. But first we have the host of
Speaker 1: the Bulwark podcast, Charlie Sykes. Welcome to Fast Politics, Charlie Sykes.
Speaker 2: It is great to be back, Molly.
Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you. So. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like every week is slightly worse. But the thing I
Speaker 1: want to read you and start with because feels like
Speaker 1: a real line in the sand here April eighteenth, is
Speaker 1: a tweet from Lloyd Blankfine. You may remember Lloyd blankfind
Speaker 1: does this man have the temperament to be president? Disney
Speaker 1: is lucky they don't have the launch codes, hippie Lloyd Blankfine.
Speaker 3: That is a sick burn round Santis doubling down on Disney,
Speaker 3: threatening them I'm gonna put a prison next to you.
Speaker 3: It is one of these strange moves where, now I
Speaker 3: don't mean to be snarky here, but does anybody actually
Speaker 3: remember what.
Speaker 2: This fight is actually about.
Speaker 3: This is one of those things where it's vindicativeness for
Speaker 3: the sake of vindictiveness. The fight is about the fight.
Speaker 3: I don't know how many people, many voters would even
Speaker 3: remember that. This is because Disney criticized his don't say
Speaker 3: a Gay bill and this is his retaliation.
Speaker 2: But he keeps upping the anty. And here's the thing, Molly.
Speaker 3: All Disney has to do at this point is put
Speaker 3: out a press release saying, you know, we're just concerned
Speaker 3: about the business climate in Florida and we're thinking of
Speaker 3: moving some of our tens of thousands of jobs out
Speaker 3: of the state. And what DeSantis is toast, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just it is so self defeating. But this is
Speaker 3: this culture in the Republican Party where Donald Trump has
Speaker 3: steel balls, so Ron DeSantis has to say, no, I
Speaker 3: have titanium balls.
Speaker 2: There's no end to it.
Speaker 3: You see that Trump is now trolling DeSantis about this.
Speaker 3: I'm true social you know how bad it is when
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is trolling you saying you're getting killed by
Speaker 3: Disney and you know this is going to blow up
Speaker 3: in your face. And I have to tell you, I
Speaker 3: hate myself for saying this, but Trump is not completely
Speaker 3: wrong about how dumb a political move this is.
Speaker 1: You really know the machinations here better than I do.
Speaker 1: How did Ron DeSantis get here? You know, this was
Speaker 1: the great white hope of the Republican Party up until
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. I mean obviously not. There must
Speaker 1: have been decisions that led him to this point.
Speaker 3: See, this is an interesting question because you always think that, well,
Speaker 3: you had to have thought about this, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: you hadn't know what you were getting into. You had
Speaker 3: to kind of know that somehow you needed to navigate
Speaker 3: the MAGA base, You needed to be able to take
Speaker 3: on Trump without alienating the magabase. And yet it's more
Speaker 3: and more apparent that Ron DeSantis didn't really see this coming.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, it feels like a cliche to say
Speaker 3: that that, you know, political history is littered with all
Speaker 3: of these governors who think they could be president and
Speaker 3: then found that, hey, when the light came on. They
Speaker 3: were not ready for prime time. It's kind of hard
Speaker 3: to scale up. I mean there's you know, there's Governor
Speaker 3: Rick Perry, and you know, I mean there's President Rick Perry,
Speaker 3: and there's President Scott Walker, remember President really Rudy Giuliani
Speaker 3: and all of these guys. Well, Ronda Santis is now
Speaker 3: kind of like, hey, and I'm the next guy. He
Speaker 3: made the calculation that he had to go as far
Speaker 3: right as possible, that he had to out Trump Trump.
Speaker 3: But the thing is that he doesn't have Trump's reptilian instinct,
Speaker 3: and so he goes through the motions and he's now
Speaker 3: gotten himself in a fight with Disney, and as that
Speaker 3: is not going well, he is now escalating his fight
Speaker 3: against bud Light. Because of course, we can't let a
Speaker 3: culture war spat go unexploited.
Speaker 1: I want to point out that is the Bush family,
Speaker 1: the Anheuser Busch family, right.
Speaker 2: The Anheuser Busch family.
Speaker 1: Republican megadowners.
Speaker 3: And so there are some Republicans who are back well
Speaker 3: exactly there, and this is one of this is one
Speaker 3: of these strange moments where all of the Republican candidates
Speaker 3: are all in on the bud Light boycott. With the
Speaker 3: exception of Donald Trump, who once again is going like,
Speaker 3: I don't you know these guys give a lot money
Speaker 3: to Republicans. It's a he's purely transactional. But you know,
Speaker 3: this is the thing about Rhonda Santis is that roond
Speaker 3: De Santis is a guy who is trying to act
Speaker 3: like if I was a culture war zealot, what would
Speaker 3: I do? And there's always kind of doesn't get it right,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. It's a I think when
Speaker 3: Mitt Romney said I am severely conservative, let's put on
Speaker 3: a lizard mask and like I am lizard man. No
Speaker 3: one is more of a lizard than me. And you know,
Speaker 3: I can't get the tongue quaite right, right.
Speaker 1: That's what strikes me is that if you are completely pretending,
Speaker 1: then it's not going to be authentic, right.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of his problems. Yeah, exactly one
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 1: Things I wanted to ask you about, which is a
Speaker 1: thing that I constantly get drawn into discussions about and
Speaker 1: every time I'm like, what are you talking about? The
Speaker 1: whole supposition of DeSantis' shtick was that he was going
Speaker 1: to run to the right of Donald Trump on policy.
Speaker 1: But Donald Trump and policy. Do they really belong in
Speaker 1: the same sentence.
Speaker 3: That is an excellent question because I think that anyone
Speaker 3: who thinks that Republican politics is about ideas or policies
Speaker 3: has completely missed the transformation of the party because this
Speaker 3: is a post ideas party. There was a time when
Speaker 3: Daniel Patrick moyne head said, you know, Republicans are the
Speaker 3: party of ideas. Well, that was like way decades ago.
Speaker 3: Now the Republican Party is a party that did not
Speaker 3: even have a platform in twenty twenty. It is about posturing,
Speaker 3: It is about attitude, It is about vibes exactly who
Speaker 3: can inflict more pain on the people you hate? So yes,
Speaker 3: thinking that you can run on policy is just incredibly naive.
Speaker 3: But I think part of it is that DeSantis gets
Speaker 3: the part about I need to punch people in the
Speaker 3: nose harder than anybody else. So he has that, but
Speaker 3: he's not terribly skillful in picking who he's going to
Speaker 3: punch in the nose. It's worked for him so far
Speaker 3: what he's done. You know, you pick on Gaze, you know,
Speaker 3: you pick on CRT. But going after Disney feels and
Speaker 3: going after bud Light feels like you're about to turn
Speaker 3: yourself into a cartoon character.
Speaker 1: The thing that I sort of am sad that the
Speaker 1: Republican Party has completely abandoned is this sort of capital
Speaker 1: at all. Like I wish they were still into that.
Speaker 2: I wonder whether.
Speaker 3: They're ever into it actually in retrospect, you know, But
Speaker 3: you're right, or I would look at it slightly differently,
Speaker 3: at least into free markets. And this is one of
Speaker 3: the ironies of someone like a Ronda Santis or the
Speaker 3: Heritage Foundation is they will say we are for freedom,
Speaker 3: but you know, free markets not really working for us anymore.
Speaker 3: So what you have is this kind of this authoritarian
Speaker 3: desire to use the power of the state nakedly to
Speaker 3: punish people. And I think that you know, Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: you know, stands up and he says, I am your
Speaker 3: retribution and sitting down in tallahassee Rohnda Santis here's that
Speaker 3: and goes, well, I have to find somebody that I
Speaker 3: can be the retribution against them. What people really want
Speaker 3: is they want vindictamous. They want me to go and
Speaker 3: inflict pain on someone. That's how we got here. That's
Speaker 3: how we got Ronda Santis thinking that he can slingshot
Speaker 3: his way to the presidency by harassing the happiest place
Speaker 3: on Earth. I'm just works the optics are really bad.
Speaker 2: Boss.
Speaker 3: Let's go to war with Moana. Let's go to war
Speaker 3: with Frozen. Let's go to war with Mickey Mouse. Let's
Speaker 3: go to war with Sleeping Beauty.
Speaker 1: I mean what, he also got married at Disney World.
Speaker 2: In everyone I mean, I mean.
Speaker 1: I did not. I mean, I just feel like I
Speaker 1: mean he had some love for the place, the happiest
Speaker 1: place on Earth.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, just from the most transactional point of view,
Speaker 3: think about the number of employees, the tax base, the
Speaker 3: economic impact of this company. Now maybe he thinks, well,
Speaker 3: they're trapped, they can't go anywhere. They have too much
Speaker 3: invested here. But it is a very rare moment for
Speaker 3: the governor of a state to go after one of
Speaker 3: the states, you know, premier economic assets. Leaving aside the
Speaker 3: cultural issue or the fact that the vast majority of
Speaker 3: Americans love Disney World. They love it, they want to
Speaker 3: take their kids to Epcot, and so he's down there going, well,
Speaker 3: maybe we'll make it so that families who you know,
Speaker 3: pack up their their minivans and drive from Oklahoma to
Speaker 3: get to to get to Disney World will have nightmarish
Speaker 3: tolls and traffic problems, and you'll have to worry about,
Speaker 3: you know, the rapists in the state prison next door.
Speaker 1: Right, because who is he actually targeting.
Speaker 3: He's saying, I'm going to make it miserable for all
Speaker 3: these American families who are going to spend too much
Speaker 3: money at Disney World so their kids have an experience.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have to tell you, Molly, the political
Speaker 3: genius of this escapes me.
Speaker 1: I actually think this is indicative of a larger problem
Speaker 1: in the Republican Party. For example, So a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that these Republican candidates are excited about, and
Speaker 1: again I'm thinking about Tim Scott running to the right
Speaker 1: of Trump on abortion. A lot of these things are
Speaker 1: just not I mean, like we're seeing this polling about abortion.
Speaker 1: You know, it turns out that ending row has made
Speaker 1: this very popular. Right. Americans may have been on the
Speaker 1: fence before, but now they are not. They're just sort
Speaker 1: of getting into these cultural war issues that aren't necessarily winners.
Speaker 1: What do you think the.
Speaker 3: Play here is, Well, there may not be a play.
Speaker 3: It just may be that they're trapped. Is that this
Speaker 3: is a priorty that is held hostage by its own base.
Speaker 3: But now on abortion and guns, they're not just held
Speaker 3: hostage by the Republican base. They're held hostage by a
Speaker 3: very vocal section of the base. Republican voters are not
Speaker 3: totally down with banning the abortion pill. Republican voters are
Speaker 3: not necessarily in favor of constitutional carry, where you can
Speaker 3: carry concealed weapons without a permit. So what you have
Speaker 3: is these vocal minorities on the extremes who have a
Speaker 3: veto power over the rest of the party. So you ask,
Speaker 3: what is the play. The play is that people like
Speaker 3: Tim Scott and Rondasy and I just think they have
Speaker 3: to play to that faction within the faction and maybe
Speaker 3: they'll figure out, Well when I get to the general election,
Speaker 3: I'll worry about that later. Well, that's going to be
Speaker 3: a very difficult pivot for them to do if they
Speaker 3: spend the next year pandering to the crazies.
Speaker 1: This is a question I actually asked Martin McKinnon, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you it too, because I feel
Speaker 1: like you both are uniquely qualified into this. Your fantasy
Speaker 1: the Republican Party becomes normal again, How does that happen?
Speaker 2: Well, Mark so much smarter guy than than I am.
Speaker 3: I have to say that I am beyond fantasies because
Speaker 3: I'm beyond illusions. I don't know that in my lifetime
Speaker 3: I'm going to see the Republican Party return to anything
Speaker 3: like a normal rational party. I think the damage that's
Speaker 3: been done has been too profound, because you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's misleading to think that all of the problems of
Speaker 3: the party flow from Donald Trump. A lot of them do.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of them do. And I do
Speaker 3: think that Donald Trump is a unique existential threat. But
Speaker 3: the Republican Party has a base problem, and this is
Speaker 3: going to continue for a very long time, maybe even decades.
Speaker 3: Think of the number of people who have grown up
Speaker 3: in this environment who think that this is the way
Speaker 3: politics are, that this is the way you treat people,
Speaker 3: that you don't actually have to have policies, you don't
Speaker 3: actually have to get anything done. You have an entire
Speaker 3: generation that's growing up, you know, has grown up since
Speaker 3: Donald Trump came down that Golden escalator and talked about
Speaker 3: Mexican rapists. They're going to be around, mollly, They're going
Speaker 3: to be around for a very very long time. Think
Speaker 3: about the impact that the politics of nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 3: have had on politics afterwards, and the way that we're
Speaker 3: still kind of in that shadow, still kind of hungover
Speaker 3: from that.
Speaker 2: Well, that was how.
Speaker 3: Many years ago now, though thirty forty to fifty years
Speaker 3: from now, I think we're still going to have the
Speaker 3: hangover to the way this culture has been broken by
Speaker 3: what we're going through right now. So I don't have
Speaker 3: a fantasy, to tell you the truth. I guess my
Speaker 3: fantasy is any buddy but Trump, and then let's move
Speaker 3: on from there. You know, anybody other than this narcissistic, sociopathic,
Speaker 3: chronic liar, who in fact would toward the Constitution if
Speaker 3: you thought it was in his interest, virtually anybody else is,
Speaker 3: by our lowered standards, is more normal, not necessarily normal,
Speaker 3: but more normal. So let's break the fever of the
Speaker 3: absolute crazy. Let's get to a point where we actually
Speaker 3: don't have to care about what Mike Lindell says, or
Speaker 3: Steve Bannon or Marjorie Taylor Green or Paul Gosar, in
Speaker 3: which we don't necessarily have the Kevin McCarthy's of the
Speaker 3: world who have to empower, you know, the most irrational,
Speaker 3: erratic crazies in his caucus. Maybe that would be my fantasy,
Speaker 3: but that's not that's not much of a fantasy.
Speaker 2: I'm not hoping for unicorns.
Speaker 3: I'm just, you know, maybe hoping for a really shaggy,
Speaker 3: flea ridden donkey who is not Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Let's were you chopped at how stupid? But that McCarthy's
Speaker 1: speech on the floor was yesterday.
Speaker 3: I'm constantly being shocked about how stupid it all is.
Speaker 3: So no, it's like, Okay, this is Kevin McCarthy, who
Speaker 3: has told us who he is over and over again.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The scary part is that Kevin McCarthy is about to
Speaker 3: potentially tank the US economy with the dead crisis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not excited for that.
Speaker 3: That's concerning because I don't think that he's smart enough
Speaker 3: to know how to navigate this, and I don't think
Speaker 3: he has the political power, and so he's steering us
Speaker 3: right toward the iceberg and there are very very few
Speaker 3: responsible adults who are going to run in and you know,
Speaker 3: grab the helm before he crashes it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the nightmare fuel that keeps me up
Speaker 1: because the American economy is in very even though it's
Speaker 1: doing okay, it's still in a very precarious spot.
Speaker 2: Why have worse nightmare fuel for you?
Speaker 3: Oh go tell me my nightmare fuel is that we
Speaker 3: now live in a country where if I ring the
Speaker 3: wrong doorbell, or if I'm trying to make a U
Speaker 3: turn and I pull into the wrong driveway while I'm
Speaker 3: visiting my kids in southern Maryland, Somebody's gonna shoot me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what happened twice.
Speaker 3: We have four hundred million guns in this country. And
Speaker 3: you know, I am old enough to remember when even
Speaker 3: the NRA was concerned about gun safety and being responsible.
Speaker 3: And it's basically the NRA has said, fuck it, Let's
Speaker 3: just push as many guns out there as possible. Let's
Speaker 3: make them into the ultimate phallic symbols, and then let's
Speaker 3: encourage people to actively fear and hate one another and
Speaker 3: assume that anyone that approaches us who looks at is
Speaker 3: funny is dangerous. What could possibly happen? So, you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure you've had this conversation as well. You know,
Speaker 3: after every single mass shooting, after every single atrocity, you go, well,
Speaker 3: will this be the turning point? Will this wake us up?
Speaker 3: And you know the answer is no, And so nothing
Speaker 3: is going to happen to change that at least.
Speaker 2: For some time.
Speaker 3: So I have lots of night I have lots of
Speaker 3: nightmare fuel. But that's that's my nightmare fuel that I
Speaker 3: have on the bedside.
Speaker 1: These days, guns are a situation where they're Republicans don't
Speaker 1: want to come to the table, right because the base
Speaker 1: loves it, and they think of any kind of compromise, right.
Speaker 1: But they think of any kind of compromise as a failure.
Speaker 1: But if you think about it, the labor shortage in
Speaker 1: this country, I mean the visual of Sarah Sanders signing
Speaker 1: a child labor bill just to not have to have
Speaker 1: immigrants in this country. I mean, that's like stuff from
Speaker 1: another century.
Speaker 3: There is an element in which it's become not just
Speaker 3: from another century, but a cartoon of another century. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's like, I think we need to go back and
Speaker 3: read Dickens more because we're going to be living.
Speaker 2: In that world.
Speaker 3: This is an interesting point because they create because of
Speaker 3: their impulses, they create these virtually insoluble problems and then like, okay,
Speaker 3: you know, we demogogue the whole issue of you know,
Speaker 3: building the wall and everything and not having these immigrants.
Speaker 3: We're going to come in and rape your women and
Speaker 3: take your jobs, and like, wait, we have a terrible
Speaker 3: labor shortage, so of course we're going to put twelve
Speaker 3: year old white kids to work now.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, it's unbelievable. Well, I mean we are
Speaker 1: sort of Brexit on a smaller scale, right of stupid
Speaker 1: or larger.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think we are way past Brexit. I think
Speaker 2: Brexit eats our dust all of this.
Speaker 1: Charlie, thank you so much for joining us. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back.
Speaker 2: It's always fun. Thank you so much more.
Speaker 1: Gloria Johnson is a member of the Tennessee State House
Speaker 1: of Representatives. Welcome too Fast Politics, Representative Gloria.
Speaker 4: Johnson, Well, thank you and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you for a number of reasons,
Speaker 1: not just because you are now the most famous. You
Speaker 1: and the Justins are the three most famous state reps
Speaker 1: ever to come out of the state of Tennessee.
Speaker 5: I guess so. I don't know, it's hard to think
Speaker 5: about that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you a little bit about your
Speaker 1: experience now, just about the protest. When it started, did
Speaker 1: you have any sense that things would mushroom into what
Speaker 1: they are now?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 4: Absolutely not, because typically, you know, I got here, we
Speaker 4: started session. I think we started session. I can't remember
Speaker 4: what time we started it that day, nine o'clock. I
Speaker 4: got here well before eight because I knew that people
Speaker 4: were going to be gathering for the protest and I
Speaker 4: wanted to talk to folks who were here. And you know,
Speaker 4: I spent a lot of time that morning talking to
Speaker 4: moms who had dropped their kids off at school and were,
Speaker 4: you know, just tereary, telling me that it's terrifying to
Speaker 4: drop their kids off, wondering if they're going to be
Speaker 4: okay when they go to pick them up or when
Speaker 4: they you.
Speaker 5: Know, are they going to come home on the bus.
Speaker 4: And just talk to so many parents who are there
Speaker 4: for that very reason. You know, they want to do
Speaker 4: everything they can. So this is not something that the
Speaker 4: children have to worry about and parents have to worry about.
Speaker 4: My generation worried about school shootings was not a thing,
Speaker 4: but this generation has grown up with that potential and
Speaker 4: that possibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just insane. So you have been in
Speaker 1: the legislature longer than the two justins you were in
Speaker 1: the legislature, did you sort of sub out and then
Speaker 1: come back?
Speaker 4: I live in East Tennessee. Justin Pearson's from West Tennessee.
Speaker 4: Justin Jones is from met Old Nashville. They come from
Speaker 4: very blue districts. I am from red East Tennessee, and
Speaker 4: so I won in twenty twelve. So I served in
Speaker 4: twenty thirteen and fourteen. I was extremely vocal, as you
Speaker 4: can imagine, and they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 5: To beat me.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 5: And so I.
Speaker 4: Won that first time by a little under three hundred votes.
Speaker 4: In the next election in twenty fourteen, they beat me
Speaker 4: by about one hundred and eighty votes. And then in
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen they beat me by one hundred and fifty votes.
Speaker 4: And in twenty eighteen I came back and won by
Speaker 4: twenty five hundred votes.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that. So interesting. Let's just talk about
Speaker 1: the protests for a minute, because this is like the
Speaker 1: first time that anyone has ever been expelled from the
Speaker 1: Tennessee State House for decorum violations. Right.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: Previously it was things that were literal crime, right, except
Speaker 4: for back in eighteen sixty six, where there was expulsion
Speaker 4: because some people refused to show up to vote for
Speaker 4: the fourteenth Amendment. Right, but the last ones were robbery.
Speaker 1: Fraud, prostitution, right.
Speaker 4: Well, the last one was sexual harassment of twenty two women,
Speaker 4: right and also there were campaign finance violations that all
Speaker 4: came out, so there were all of that as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he sounds great, that guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the things that I was struck by
Speaker 1: with this protest, and the thing that I related to
Speaker 1: you about your story was that you have been an
Speaker 1: incredibly good allied to these two justins, And I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you could talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: the way in which you were able to I don't know,
Speaker 1: I see myself and you as like being able to
Speaker 1: be a good ally to younger people who will ultimately
Speaker 1: hopefully you know, you don't have the lived experience they do,
Speaker 1: but you are able to, you know, hold space for them.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I taught school. I taught teenagers for
Speaker 5: twenty seven years.
Speaker 4: I worked with emotionally disturbed teenagers, which is what I say,
Speaker 4: that's what prepared me to work in the Tennessee legislature.
Speaker 4: But I mean I've always and even after I retired,
Speaker 4: I did fellowships and internships training young organizers to fight
Speaker 4: for issues or to fight for, you know, candidates work
Speaker 4: on campaigns and how to organize. And I've been working
Speaker 4: with Justin Jones for probably ten years because when I
Speaker 4: was first here, he was coming here as a student
Speaker 4: from Fisk who was advokating for using student IDs for
Speaker 4: as voting IDs. And so then after that I got
Speaker 4: heavily involved in the expansion of Medicaid. Even when I
Speaker 4: was not in office, I was the state lead for OFA,
Speaker 4: and our function at that point was mainly to try
Speaker 4: to organize to expand medicaid in Tennessee. So that was
Speaker 4: something that Justin Jones and I worked on together. He
Speaker 4: was always there for all of those events. And then,
Speaker 4: of course back in twenty twenty twenty twenty one, when
Speaker 4: we were trying to have the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest,
Speaker 4: a guy who made millions off the slave trade, who
Speaker 4: slaughtered three hundred surrendering black soldiers at Fort Pillow, who
Speaker 4: became the first Grand Wizard of the KKK, he had
Speaker 4: a bust in the Place of Honor in our capital
Speaker 4: that our members had to walk past to get to
Speaker 4: the House and Senate floor. They had Justin Jones was
Speaker 4: one of the organizers for a sixty two day protest
Speaker 4: on Legislative Plaza, and I spend a lot of time
Speaker 4: there with them as well, so I've known him well.
Speaker 4: Justin Pearson, I have known for less time, but I
Speaker 4: know about his hard work on the pipeline in Memphis
Speaker 4: and what.
Speaker 5: They were able to do there.
Speaker 4: So as soon as I saw that he was running,
Speaker 4: you know, I got behind him, got to know him,
Speaker 4: and welcomed him here. And these these young people, they're
Speaker 4: so smart, they're so well informed. They're passionate about the
Speaker 4: issues and their district, and they're passionate about the people
Speaker 4: that they support. And I feel it's imperative that we
Speaker 4: lift these voices. They are so important in the Tennessee House,
Speaker 4: especially because those are voices that are not being heard.
Speaker 4: And I'm a sixty year old white woman, and you know,
Speaker 4: I still have a lot to say, but I'm going
Speaker 4: to do everything I can to bring in young people
Speaker 4: and to lift those voices, because it's just critically important
Speaker 4: that we're hearing every voice in this state and not
Speaker 4: just those at the top, the wealthy and well connected.
Speaker 1: What does the Tennessee State has look like now? Protests
Speaker 1: are still going on. I mean pete Us is sort
Speaker 1: of a scene of what's happening right now.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's a day they haven't been here.
Speaker 4: Yesterday Reverend Barber was here with hundreds of pastors and
Speaker 4: other folks. They marched from the Methodist Church all the
Speaker 4: way to the Capitol and were present all night last
Speaker 4: night while we were on the House floor. We will
Speaker 4: also had a group that have been here since last
Speaker 4: Thursday who are Republicans for Gun Safety. They say they'll
Speaker 4: be here every day, and we have had something going
Speaker 4: on today. I ran into in the hallway, Margot Price,
Speaker 4: Alison Russell, Cheryl Crow, some musicians are here, meeting with
Speaker 4: the head of the Senate, meeting with the governor, bringing
Speaker 4: a letter about gun violence. So it's and today we
Speaker 4: have a This afternoon at five, there's going to be
Speaker 4: a human chain from Vanderbilt Hospital to the Capital.
Speaker 1: You and the two Justins did not disappear the way
Speaker 1: the Republicans had perhaps hoped.
Speaker 5: Oh no, absolutely not. We are going to continue this. Certainly.
Speaker 4: We welcome talking to the media because it's a way
Speaker 4: to talk about this issue. And by talking about this issue,
Speaker 4: we brought so many people together. We have so much
Speaker 4: support from other states and their state houses and state senates.
Speaker 4: Those folks have been reaching out to us, and obviously
Speaker 4: the folks from Kentucky are reaching out because of the
Speaker 4: bank shooting that just happened, and they're like, we want
Speaker 4: to collaborate, we want to talk about this, and I
Speaker 4: think some of the state reps are coming down today
Speaker 4: for our human chain. So it started conversation between states
Speaker 4: at a federal level, like Gabby Gifford's organization has reached
Speaker 4: out to us. So we just want to continue to
Speaker 4: build partners and build the movement so we can do
Speaker 4: something about gun violence, which is now the number one
Speaker 4: killer of our children.
Speaker 1: How are those Republicans feeling well? Because I'm reading more
Speaker 1: and more we didn't want to do it, someone else
Speaker 1: pushed us to do it, anonymous members saying, well, we
Speaker 1: had we really, you know, we just wanted to teach
Speaker 1: them a lot. I mean, seems like a lot of
Speaker 1: Monday morning quarterbacking.
Speaker 5: Did you hear the leak's recording of their caucus?
Speaker 1: Though yes I did.
Speaker 4: That was not We're sorry. That was we didn't do
Speaker 4: it hard enough? And how dare these people be in
Speaker 4: our hallowed halls? And they were at war and we
Speaker 4: were the enemy. And I'm just thinking, how can you
Speaker 4: be doing the work of the people when all you're
Speaker 4: focused on is punishing us. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 4: had this horrible shooting in Nashville, and their first act
Speaker 4: is to expel members who were trying to speak up
Speaker 4: against gun violence. Their first action should have been doing
Speaker 4: something about gun violence, not expelling members who wanted to
Speaker 4: talk about it. And this is who they are. I mean,
Speaker 4: you heard on that Tate They're destroying our way of
Speaker 4: life and you know they are the enemy. And I
Speaker 4: came off of that thinking it sounded like a bunch
Speaker 4: of Confederates strategizing for the Civil War. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 4: why are they focusing on us? And why are they
Speaker 4: not focusing on policy that Tennessee families want and need?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I mean it's just amazing. Where are you
Speaker 1: now with sort of building your war chast and also
Speaker 1: kind of galvanizing Tennessee liberals to run against I mean,
Speaker 1: some of these people probably can be primary or not primary,
Speaker 1: but beaten in the general.
Speaker 4: I can tell you that I just spoke over the
Speaker 4: weekend I spoke to It was the statewide dinner for
Speaker 4: the Tennessee Federation of Democratic Women, And whenever I go,
Speaker 4: you know, I always make that ask to run for
Speaker 4: office because right now this House is only ten percent
Speaker 4: women and that's horrifying to me. And this day is
Speaker 4: fifty two percent women. We need to be fifty two
Speaker 4: percent of the House. The fact that women, you know,
Speaker 4: because the elections have been so hideous, especially against me,
Speaker 4: the attacks are just ugly. Now they'll have a picture
Speaker 4: of me covered in blood spatter saying that my friends
Speaker 4: are violent criminals. And you know, nobody wants those attacks,
Speaker 4: especially women and bringing it to their family, right So
Speaker 4: it's hard to get women to step up. But at
Speaker 4: that after that dinner, so many people came up to
Speaker 4: me and said, hey, I'm running against so and so
Speaker 4: Republican this year, and I mean more than way, more
Speaker 4: than I've ever heard before. And it was just wonderful
Speaker 4: to hear that. You know that they're already thinking about,
Speaker 4: they're already making plans, they're already you know, sort of
Speaker 4: tracking what they're what the person that they're going to
Speaker 4: run against is doing in the House. And it's a
Speaker 4: great thing to see. People are really really energized, and
Speaker 4: we're going to keep that energy up. We want good
Speaker 4: candidates to run and challenge to these folks because even
Speaker 4: their own members, like I said, Republicans for Gun Reform
Speaker 4: have been here since last week and they said they're
Speaker 4: staying as long as we stay. And in my district,
Speaker 4: I've run red flag laws and safe storage laws for
Speaker 4: the last couple of sessions and they've been killed in
Speaker 4: committee on a party line vote. But I polled red
Speaker 4: flag laws in my district in deep read East Tennessee,
Speaker 4: and even a majority of Republicans support red flag laws.
Speaker 4: So it's supported by a majority of Republicans, Independents and Democrats.
Speaker 4: They are missing the vote on this because they're listening
Speaker 4: to the NRA and the Tennessee Firearms Association and they
Speaker 4: are absolutely not listening to their own constituents and their
Speaker 4: own voters in many cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is kind of incredible. I mean, we're seeing
Speaker 1: this everywhere in this Republican party. Is that we're seeing
Speaker 1: Republicans who are completely way to the right of their constituents.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there all those people were here last night.
Speaker 4: They stayed for three and a half hours because we
Speaker 4: had a bill on the floor to arm teachers.
Speaker 1: Right, I remember, so stupid.
Speaker 4: So Reverend Barber was here, all those pastors were here,
Speaker 4: Lots of people were here. They went into session an
Speaker 4: hour early. We went in at four. We usually go
Speaker 4: in at five on Mondays and we usually go till
Speaker 4: about eight. We went in at four. It gets to
Speaker 4: seven twenty seven or something like that. We were right
Speaker 4: at the bill that everybody wanted to hear about arming teachers,
Speaker 4: that they had waited three and a half hours for
Speaker 4: and come from all over the country actually to hear
Speaker 4: that bill.
Speaker 5: They rolled it to the next.
Speaker 4: Calendar, which is tomorrow hour. Well, well, yeah, it's tomorrow.
Speaker 4: But everything's iffy because we've moved into a flow motion
Speaker 4: where the rules that are suspended.
Speaker 5: And we speed up. Everything could be anytime.
Speaker 1: Really, Jesse made me watch a video, a local news
Speaker 1: video about the Tennessee State House. Uh huh, our producer,
Speaker 1: because he's mean, there is a lot of really and
Speaker 1: we're not on cable television so I can say this
Speaker 1: fucked up stuff that's going on over there. Can you
Speaker 1: explain members can in fact do crazy stuff with bills? Right?
Speaker 4: Oh, they absolutely do crazy stuff. You probably watched the
Speaker 4: Phil Williams interview with me and Rep. Dixie Yes, And
Speaker 4: they do this all the time. We in the Senate
Speaker 4: they have roll call votes. In the House, we have
Speaker 4: voice votes. So many times we will take a voice
Speaker 4: vote and the and the ya's or the na's are
Speaker 4: clearly louder, and they'll call it the other way they'll
Speaker 4: call the chairman will call it the way they want
Speaker 4: to call it. Okay, And you know, there's nothing you
Speaker 4: can do because you can't request a roll call vote
Speaker 4: after the vote's been taken, right, And if we if
Speaker 4: you want to request a roll call vote, you have
Speaker 4: to have three people raise their hand in the committee.
Speaker 4: If someone in the committee wants to request a roll
Speaker 4: call vote, three people have to raise their hand. We
Speaker 4: only have two sometimes one Democrat in certain committees, so
Speaker 4: we can't even get to three to ask for a
Speaker 4: role call vote. And if you're a member, you and
Speaker 4: you're bringing your bill and you want a role call vote,
Speaker 4: you have to say it before you say anything else,
Speaker 4: because if you say anything else, they say no, you
Speaker 4: already started talking. You can't get a roll call vote. However,
Speaker 4: one of their members will walk up and it's a
Speaker 4: different story. Adding untimely filed amendments. If we have an
Speaker 4: untimely filed amendment, it's likely they will refuse to hear it. However,
Speaker 4: if they do they hear it, they are Speaker has
Speaker 4: instituted a new rule this session this year for the
Speaker 4: one hundred and thirteenth that we only have five minutes
Speaker 4: to debate a bill, like if when I have questions
Speaker 4: for the spot of a bill, I have five minutes
Speaker 4: and what that means. And this happened multiple times last night.
Speaker 4: I might ask a thirty second question and then the
Speaker 4: member will read the entire bill or something and eat
Speaker 4: up the other four and a half minutes, and then
Speaker 4: the discussion is over and they don't even answer the
Speaker 4: question part of it most of the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is not great.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And one year, a couple of years back, there was
Speaker 4: a particularly heinous I think it might have been the
Speaker 4: Heartbeat Bill, total of ban on abortion, and I stood
Speaker 4: on the House for for forty five minutes with my
Speaker 4: hand raised, and they never call them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And part of that is a function of them
Speaker 1: having the super majority.
Speaker 4: Right they can vote and pass anything if we're not there.
Speaker 4: You know, technically they don't have to let us talk.
Speaker 4: But I mean, it's what are they so afraid of
Speaker 4: by doing some in depth debate on their legislation, on
Speaker 4: their policies. You know, when I bring a bill, I'm
Speaker 4: proud of the policy and I'll stand up and talk
Speaker 4: about it for days if you want to. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm not afraid of hard questions. I will answer them.
Speaker 4: But they seem terrified to debate the issues they bring
Speaker 4: to the floor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just insane. Gloria, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. I hope you will come back.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I appreciate you having me on, and I just
Speaker 4: hope we can keep this issue of gun violence in
Speaker 4: the forefront because it is terrorizing children, is terrorizing communities,
Speaker 4: and we are the only nation in the world with
Speaker 4: this problem, and we can fix it if we have
Speaker 4: the will.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Gria. Amy Walter is the editor in chief
Speaker 1: of The Cook Political Report. Welcome to Ask Politics, Amy.
Speaker 6: Walter, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I am very excited. We were on a panel together
Speaker 1: on a TV show and I thought, oh, she's so smart,
Speaker 1: and I want to ask I want to get to
Speaker 1: ask her questions. So I was really excited to get
Speaker 1: you on here.
Speaker 6: You're very kind. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's true I wanted to start by talking to you
Speaker 1: about this interesting twenty twenty four contest. Let's just get
Speaker 1: right into it. Twenty four. We could talk about the
Speaker 1: Mississippi governor's race if you want, right that's twenty twenty three.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we could talk about Kentucky governor's race. That's actually interesting.
Speaker 6: But you're right, where most people are focusing on is.
Speaker 5: Twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6: Sure, I get it.
Speaker 1: But let's just for one second talk about that Mississippi
Speaker 1: governor's race. Because James Carvo was on our last episode
Speaker 1: and he was saying that there's a real dem pickup opportunity.
Speaker 1: There is that wishful thinking. What do you think?
Speaker 6: Look, I think this is a state that, not surprisingly
Speaker 6: has a pretty significant divide when it comes to race.
Speaker 6: And in this state, if you are able to mobilize
Speaker 6: African American voters as a Democrat and win over a
Speaker 6: smallish percent of white voters, there's a path, but it's
Speaker 6: a very very narrow path. And I would say, you know,
Speaker 6: you can see the pathway to getting to like forty
Speaker 6: seven percent, maybe even forty eight. Getting to fifty is
Speaker 6: a lot harder. I think what Democrats were hoping is
Speaker 6: that the current governor would have a serious primary, or
Speaker 6: maybe he would be dragged into a runoff. That's what
Speaker 6: happened in his first campaign. That's not happening now. But
Speaker 6: you know, look, having the last name Presley, living in
Speaker 6: a time we're in where things are so intense and
Speaker 6: so intensely polarized, motivating voters in a state that has
Speaker 6: been afflicted by a number of issues, especially along racial lines.
Speaker 1: If you think about.
Speaker 6: Jackson and the water crisis and medicare the refusal to
Speaker 6: expand medicare right, yep. But if I were to say
Speaker 6: what would be for Democrats, probably the more important and
Speaker 6: impressive race would be in Kentucky, where you have a
Speaker 6: Democratic governor, again in a state that nobody would call blue.
Speaker 6: Right now, he's favored for reelection, and looking at how
Speaker 6: Governor Basher is able to hold on to a red state,
Speaker 6: I think becomes an important playbook. Now, it's not going
Speaker 6: to work everywhere or for everyone. In the same way
Speaker 6: that Glenn Youngkin is trying to sell his experience of
Speaker 6: winning in a blue state like Virginia. The difference with Younkin, though,
Speaker 6: is well, he can't run for reelection, so you do
Speaker 6: it one time but you don't get to your proof
Speaker 6: of concept, right is hard. But for Basher, winning a
Speaker 6: reelection in this really red state with a Democrat in
Speaker 6: the white House, that's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 6: And if he does continue to lead and then ultimately
Speaker 6: win reelection, he's going to be talked about a lot.
Speaker 6: When we go to the who's in the next tier
Speaker 6: of potential Democratic candidates for president, he'll be right up there.
Speaker 1: He can have the experience of being heavily scrutinized and
Speaker 1: you know, I mean not perhaps not careful what you
Speaker 1: wish for. Let's get to the brass tags here of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, because they don't seem to do things
Speaker 1: that look like they are caring too much about getting elected, right, Like,
Speaker 1: they seem to go in on unpopular ideas, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense, without much care one way or the other.
Speaker 1: But this map is not a great map for Democrats.
Speaker 6: It's not a great map.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: It's a pretty terrible map actually for Democrats. And remember
Speaker 6: the twenty twenty two map was just great for Democrats.
Speaker 6: So I'm not taking anything away from the success that
Speaker 6: those incumbent Democrats had and holding on in a tough year,
Speaker 6: you know, certainly the headwinds of the economy and an
Speaker 6: unpopular president. But at least they were in bluish purplish states.
Speaker 6: You know, Shared Brown and John Tester and Joe Manchin
Speaker 6: have to run in red states and then pretty deep
Speaker 6: red states, and then we've got you know, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Speaker 6: and Wisconsin. Look all of those incumbents. Obviously there's not
Speaker 6: an incumbent in Michigan, but in the other two states,
Speaker 6: Casey and Baldwin pretty good track record of success. But Arizona,
Speaker 6: you tell me.
Speaker 1: Who even knows what's going to happen there too, because
Speaker 1: there's kind of a lawlessness with the Republican Party, I
Speaker 1: mean whatever that looks like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, who comes out of a primary on the Republican
Speaker 6: side and do Cinema run for reelection? Those will tell
Speaker 6: us we've got to sort of wait until we know
Speaker 6: those things before we can at all even slightly confident
Speaker 6: about predicting what's going to happen. But the map itself
Speaker 6: even just so take out Arizona. Just look at West
Speaker 6: Virginia and Ohio and Montane. Those are the three biggest
Speaker 6: challenges for Democrats right now, and those are three places
Speaker 6: where you could argue that having a candidate who wins
Speaker 6: the primary who's kind of outside the mainstream or seen
Speaker 6: as you know, maybe not the strongest candidate is not
Speaker 6: necessarily a recipe for losing. Jadie Vance still won by.
Speaker 1: About six points, right, but doctor Oz did not correct.
Speaker 6: So it matters in Arizona. I would say, it matters
Speaker 6: in Pennsylvania, it matters in Wisconsin. It matters and places
Speaker 6: that are really really evenly divided, in states that have
Speaker 6: a pretty strong tilt one way or the other. It's
Speaker 6: just getting harder to call out your opponent as being.
Speaker 1: Too extreme right, which is pretty scary stuff if you
Speaker 1: think about it. Ultimately, Can you just do another minute
Speaker 1: for me on In my mind, West Virginia looks like
Speaker 1: the worst of those states Democrats because it's so rad
Speaker 1: and also because it's so provincial and strange in certain ways,
Speaker 1: like their governor switch parties. It seems like the normal
Speaker 1: rules don't necessarily apply there. Do you agree, and what's
Speaker 1: your take on West Virginia.
Speaker 6: That's a good question. And you can look at this
Speaker 6: two ways. One you look and you say, well, Jill
Speaker 6: Mansion has gotten elected here, not once, not twice, but
Speaker 6: three times yea, and so he and he was the
Speaker 6: former governor. So to the provincial part he has there's
Speaker 6: evidence that he has a base there that is sort
Speaker 6: of impervious to national political trends and wins. At the
Speaker 6: same time, I think about somebody like high high Camp
Speaker 6: in the twenty eighteen midterm election, where she too was
Speaker 6: a statewide elected official. She too won in an overwhelmingly state,
Speaker 6: but at some point, even though she was well liked,
Speaker 6: the partisanship of the state catches up with you. And
Speaker 6: I think there were a lot of voters who voted
Speaker 6: for her Republican opponent who would tell pollsters, yeah, sure
Speaker 6: I would like Heidi high Camp. Yeah, I don't have
Speaker 6: a problem with her, but I do have a problem
Speaker 6: with Democrats or we need to support Trump. And that's
Speaker 6: where you get into some real challenges with Mansion, right, Like,
Speaker 6: it's not just he's got to outperform Biden in the
Speaker 6: state by six or seven points, he has to outperform
Speaker 6: him forty points. That is that is really really hard.
Speaker 6: Now he is getting some help, as you pointed out,
Speaker 6: from the fact that Republicans are fighting amongst themselves. We
Speaker 6: have a club for growth versus that whatever the other
Speaker 6: forces on the other side, whether it's Mitch McConnell's super
Speaker 6: pac or the established at Rhinos or whatever. But Justice
Speaker 6: I think will be the nominee. But in the case
Speaker 6: that he's not, well, that's a probably good news for Mansion, right.
Speaker 5: So that is just tough.
Speaker 6: And as I said, it's getting harder and harder to
Speaker 6: win in a presidential year if you are a candidate
Speaker 6: that is from a different the state is voting for
Speaker 6: a different party for president than your party. So Susan
Speaker 6: Collins was the only one, the only Senator to win
Speaker 6: in a state that the presidential nominee if your own
Speaker 6: party didn't carry since twenty sixteen. So in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 6: every state voted for the Senate the same way they
Speaker 6: voted for president twenty twenty, every state. But main is
Speaker 6: it going to be John Pester? Could it be Shared Brown?
Speaker 6: Could it be Joe Mansion? Sure, all three of them.
Speaker 6: That would be pretty remarkable. Not saying it can't happen,
Speaker 6: but it's that's going against some pretty low nods.
Speaker 1: Democrats have a real opportunity. What happened in New York
Speaker 1: and in California to a lesser extent was that the
Speaker 1: Democratic State Party really I want to say something mean,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to say underperformed. Perhaps because of the
Speaker 1: governor's foibles, perhaps because of the state party chairs incompetence,
Speaker 1: but whatever the reason. There are a number of seats
Speaker 1: in New York that are occupied by Republicans but were
Speaker 1: won by Joe Biden. Can we talk about that, one
Speaker 1: of which is now occupied by the one, the only
Speaker 1: George Santos.
Speaker 6: Yeah, didn't he just win an Academy award the other
Speaker 6: month for something?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, you know. The thing that strikes me about
Speaker 1: him is I can't forget the time when the reporting
Speaker 1: about him yelling at an aid about how he shouldn't
Speaker 1: get the cheap botox that anyway, so talk to us
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 6: To me, the biggest question is can he survive a primary?
Speaker 6: And as you know, there's already one. Well maybe I
Speaker 6: shouldn't assume this. I'm the dowork that knows these things.
Speaker 6: There's already one candidate who's announced on the Republican side
Speaker 6: that he'll challenge Santos. I guess the question is how
Speaker 6: many candidates ultimately jump in? But boy, I just don't
Speaker 6: know that there's a path for Santos even through a primary,
Speaker 6: but I can't remember. Is it still a late primary.
Speaker 1: It's a D plus two.
Speaker 6: Oh no, but the primary used to be in September,
Speaker 6: but I don't I don't know if that's the case.
Speaker 6: Whatever it is, it might be a while before we
Speaker 6: know who the nominee is going to be. So if
Speaker 6: you're a Democrat here, you have to be someone who
Speaker 6: is running not just as a oh look, I'm running
Speaker 6: against the serial fabulous George Santos, but can be a
Speaker 6: candidate that would win in a race that didn't feature
Speaker 6: Santo's right, because as you said, D plus two, that's
Speaker 6: that's officially a Biden seat, but that's not like a
Speaker 6: overwhelmingly Democratic seat as we saw with Trump in the past,
Speaker 6: Like Long Island is a pretty good it's pretty good
Speaker 6: Trump territory. So I when it put that one in
Speaker 6: the bag, especially if Santos is not the nominee. But
Speaker 6: you know, you've got those upstate districts that were also
Speaker 6: Biden districts, like the one that Sean Patrick Maloney, the
Speaker 6: former d triple seat chair, moved into lost that seat.
Speaker 6: So you've got that one and then the other Long
Speaker 6: Island seat that is even much more democratic.
Speaker 1: I think the Hampton's right.
Speaker 6: No, the one that is closer into the city, I
Speaker 6: think it's is it suffic Oh yeah. Part of the
Speaker 6: reasoning here for Democrats is, look, as you said, the
Speaker 6: governor was a big drag the local campaign, big drag
Speaker 6: on the entire party. In twenty twenty two, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 6: you're going to have presidential election. Turnout's going to be up,
Speaker 6: and especially in some of these districts that have significant
Speaker 6: black and Latino population, those voters are going to show
Speaker 6: up they didn't show up in the last midterm. That
Speaker 6: should help in some of those districts. But beating an
Speaker 6: incumbent is still not easy. Yeah, just in covering the House,
Speaker 6: I'm always amazed at party committees that say, oh, it's okay,
Speaker 6: we lost it this time, but you know we'll get
Speaker 6: it back next year. Well, maybe you will, And in
Speaker 6: some cases it's true, there are times where you know
Speaker 6: the district is just so partisan that yeah, in a fluke,
Speaker 6: you want it, but you probably can't hold on to it.
Speaker 6: But some of these people hold on, and they hold
Speaker 6: on year after year after year. You can't assume that
Speaker 6: all of those New York districts flip back. And then
Speaker 6: there's California, which has the other tranche of Biden Republicans,
Speaker 6: some of them who have been winning and winning and
Speaker 6: winning even though they were supposed to be just you know,
Speaker 6: a one or turmer when they first got the seat.
Speaker 1: What do you think about like Gillibrand in what way?
Speaker 1: What does that mean that A w.
Speaker 6: What you think about goldfish crackers? What is your opinion
Speaker 6: on them?
Speaker 1: Do you think that GILIBRANDT could theoretically be primary or now?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 6: Oh, okay, I guess so. It just doesn't seem as
Speaker 6: if there's that much energy there. This is what's really
Speaker 6: interesting when you look at the two parties and the
Speaker 6: ways in which they're furthest out from the center parts
Speaker 6: of their party deal with the incumbents. Many more Republicans
Speaker 6: went on to challenge incumbents who they saw a is,
Speaker 6: you know, not not strong enough, not loyal enough to
Speaker 6: Donald Trump, not loyal enough to conservatism. Remember, after the
Speaker 6: Tea Party took power in yeah, twenty and nine and ten,
Speaker 6: you had a lot of incumbents that got knocked off.
Speaker 6: It has been rarer on the Democratics side. And when
Speaker 6: it does happen. Trying to think about if there's been
Speaker 6: a state wide race in recent memory, I'm going through
Speaker 6: my database and I just can't find it.
Speaker 1: So now this short answer is no.
Speaker 6: No, And we had like a Senate came to that
Speaker 6: lose from the left, Senate incumbent versus a Republican losing
Speaker 6: from the right. And we can all go through a
Speaker 6: number and Dick Luger and whoever. I remember Bennett in Utah,
Speaker 6: Murkowski in Alaska.
Speaker 1: Yeah, though she ultimately had the last laugh.
Speaker 6: She ultimately won, but she had to she did. But
Speaker 6: you just don't have that, at least in a significant
Speaker 6: way on the Democratics for a statewide contest. And even
Speaker 6: at the house level. You look at the places where
Speaker 6: those on the left have been successful, and some of
Speaker 6: it has been as much about age versus ideology. Right,
Speaker 6: this person's been there too long, this person isn't sort
Speaker 6: of paying enough attention to the district versus this person
Speaker 6: is not sufficiently liberal.
Speaker 1: Right, But we've sort of never seen that, right.
Speaker 6: I just cannot think of that right now. I'm sure
Speaker 6: that I'm missing someone, but I'm old now. I don't
Speaker 6: remember anything.
Speaker 1: Harder and harder to please come back.
Speaker 6: Yes, I will try. I will try if I can
Speaker 6: remember it. This is what happens after fifty.
Speaker 1: Everything goes everything.
Speaker 6: Don't let anyone tell you that fifty is the new forty,
Speaker 6: because I've been forty and this is not forty. Just
Speaker 6: know that. Just know it.
Speaker 3: No mo, my junk fast Jesse Cannon is fron decetis
Speaker 3: though he hangs out with such nice people.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like one of these stories. It's
Speaker 1: it's like so upsetting because it's an underage girl, but
Speaker 1: it's also just unbelievably stupid. A major Desantist owner who
Speaker 1: Dessant is nominated to Florida's Board of Governors, the body
Speaker 1: which oversees the state's university system. A real shock to everyone.
Speaker 3: Right, that guy, a guy they say kind of made
Speaker 3: Dissentis that guy?
Speaker 1: You probably shouldn't have that guy in your children. What
Speaker 1: did he do? He's accused of having an inappropriate relationship
Speaker 1: with an underage teen. His name is Kent Discermon. He
Speaker 1: eventually killed himself after the girl's father turned down a
Speaker 1: five figure son in hush money deal and reported him
Speaker 1: to the police instead. He is a prominent Desander to
Speaker 1: ally and GOP donor based in Jacksonville, Florida, of course,
Speaker 1: and he was bribing this little girl with Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: concert tickets if she showed him anyway, The point is
Speaker 1: this is really these are the people who are supposedly
Speaker 1: protecting your children and stopping grooming, but in fact every
Speaker 1: Republican accusation is a confession. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Speaker 1: to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of
Speaker 1: all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please
Speaker 1: send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.