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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds and Representative Nancy Mays canceled the speech

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Speaker 1: after just eight people showed up. We have such a

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Speaker 1: great show for you today. The Lincoln Project Zone Rick

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Speaker 1: Wilson joins us to discuss why Democrats are failing to

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Speaker 1: register voters. Then we'll talk to Graham Platner about his

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Speaker 1: run for the Democratic nomination in the main Senate race

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Speaker 1: against Susan Collins. But first we have the most important

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Speaker 1: stories that aren't getting the attention they deserve.

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Speaker 2: Sobali, mister Trump, and Governor Wes Moore are going back

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Speaker 2: and forth. Governor Moore is talking about also doing a

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Speaker 2: redistricting in the great state of Maryland to retaliate against Texas.

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Speaker 3: What are you see in here?

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Speaker 1: If you're a governor and you're a Democrat, and if

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Speaker 1: you want anyone to ever respect you ever again, you

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Speaker 1: need to join this arms race. I don't like it.

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Speaker 1: I don't think anyone likes it. But as Obama said,

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Speaker 1: as Eric Calder, who is the man who pretty much

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Speaker 1: is the most interested in nonpartisan redistricting, there are no

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Speaker 1: choices at this moment. Democrats need to fight fire with fire.

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Speaker 1: They need to redistrict just the way Republicans are doing.

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Speaker 1: So Texas is going to do it, California needs to

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Speaker 1: do it, Maryland's got to do it. New York needs

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Speaker 1: to do it. Every state needs to fight back. Democratic

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Speaker 1: states need to fight back. And look, there is a shot,

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Speaker 1: there's a chance that if Democrats fight back, that the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court, which are huge cowards, will say that everyone

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Speaker 1: needs to stop doing this. But if Democrats don't fight back,

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Speaker 1: then the Supreme Court, which is delightfully trumpy, and by

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Speaker 1: delightfully I mean annoyingly that red Court will in fact

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Speaker 1: do what they're maying. Go God King wants. And so

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Speaker 1: it's really important to remember that. You know, Trump is

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Speaker 1: a bully and if you don't push back, you will

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Speaker 1: forever be in his grips. And so here we are

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Speaker 1: Wes Moore trades barbs with Trump over threat to send

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Speaker 1: troops to Maryland. You know, we are watching this federal

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Speaker 1: takedown of DC. There are armed guards on the street.

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Speaker 1: Let me tell you, restaurant reservations are down thirty percent.

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Speaker 1: People do not like having troops in their city. It

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Speaker 1: does not want to make them want to spend money

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Speaker 1: or do tourism. We're already hemorrhaging tourists because of Trump's

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Speaker 1: war against people who don't live in this country. We

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Speaker 1: need those tourists because consumer spending is a lot of

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Speaker 1: our GDP YEP.

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Speaker 2: So, speaking of things that are going to decrease tourism

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Speaker 2: all throughout America, which I should say, everyone I talk

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Speaker 2: to in New York who works in service all Greece

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Speaker 2: that it's unbelievably downb this year. The Pentagon has been

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Speaker 2: planning for a military takeover Chicago for weeks. At Chicago

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Speaker 2: is a very very popular tourist destination.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, not for long, I mean. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: this is I mean, this is Trump doing his trumpy

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Speaker 1: best to try to hurt all of us. You know,

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Speaker 1: Trump is at war with brettzgar who is the Illinois governor,

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Speaker 1: because he comes from a fancy family and is an

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Speaker 1: actual billionaire. He wants, you know, and is a liberal,

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Speaker 1: and so he's probably going to roll right into Chicago.

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Speaker 1: And look, the point of all of this is this

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Speaker 1: is not about crime. Right in the district of Columbia,

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Speaker 1: there is still a billion dollars that's meant to go

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Speaker 1: to cops and teachers and homeless services. That is being

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Speaker 1: held because Congress has not figured out how you know,

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Speaker 1: has not passed the legislation that is needed in order

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Speaker 1: for that money to be spent. So all of this

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Speaker 1: is happening not because of crime, but because Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: wants to show power, wants to scare people, wants to

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Speaker 1: do all of this stuff. So you know, he'll say

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Speaker 1: it's about crime. But just like with his war on

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Speaker 1: academic institutions, this was not about anti semitism. This is

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Speaker 1: about authoritarian takedown of academic institutions, and academic institutions create

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Speaker 1: thought that Donald Trump may or may not like, and

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Speaker 1: that's how we got here.

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Speaker 4: Yep.

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Speaker 2: So judges blocked Trump from cutting funding from thirty four

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Speaker 2: cities and counties over their sanctuary policies, another one of

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Speaker 2: his performantive, moronic authoritarian tactics.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so look, the judiciary, everything is going to eventually

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Speaker 1: go up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: is very trumpy, but you know, maybe at some point

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Speaker 1: they decide they want to have some legacy. I mean,

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Speaker 1: John Roberts, I just I don't understand how the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court won't be brave if they have security. They have

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Speaker 1: so many opportunities to do the right thing, and yet

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Speaker 1: they really you know, either Trump is the vessel for

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Speaker 1: what they want and they're using him for that, or

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Speaker 1: they're just scared of him. But either way, it's just

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Speaker 1: sort of shocking. So this is a preliminary injunction blocking

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Speaker 1: the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of

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Speaker 1: federal funds for so called sanctuary jurisdictions. This will run

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Speaker 1: up to the Supreme Court and we will see what happens.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So one of the characters we don't hear from all

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Speaker 2: the time, but I'm always disturbed by the presence of

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Speaker 2: in any upper rushelan is dn I Gabbert, and she's

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Speaker 2: slashing Intelligence Office workforce and cutting budgets by over seven

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Speaker 2: hundred million dollars, which feels ill advised even for a

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Speaker 2: woke liberal like me.

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Speaker 1: Well, what's funny about this Tulsa Gabbert stuff is that

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Speaker 1: Trump put her in the ADMIN. He's been really mad

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Speaker 1: at her because she hasn't been sufficiently sycophantic. Then she

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Speaker 1: went on television and was like, yes, Obama did everything.

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Speaker 1: Obama set this all up, which was clearly like just

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Speaker 1: a pathetic ploy to try to win Trump back. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that it's worked. My sense is that she's

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Speaker 1: still kind of on the out, so I'd be curious

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Speaker 1: to see reporting on that. But she's trying everything she can.

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Speaker 1: It's just sort of amazing to watch her try and

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Speaker 1: try and try to win him back. But you know,

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Speaker 1: the thing is this entire federal government, it's basically serves

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Speaker 1: at the pleasure of one guy who really cares about

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Speaker 1: ratings more than anything else, right, I mean, the mad

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Speaker 1: ratings King. It really is kind of amazing. He cares

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Speaker 1: about ratings, He cares about people seeing what he's doing.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't really care about you know, national I mean

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Speaker 1: even national intelligence, which in my mind, like I think

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Speaker 1: wars are bad, and so I don't think we should

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Speaker 1: be doing wars. And this is one of the very

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Speaker 1: few places where the Vinn diagram of what Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: wants to do and what Molly john Fast wants to

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Speaker 1: do aligne right, which is like, I don't think we

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Speaker 1: should be doing foreign wars. But even that, he's like

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Speaker 1: so disinterested in it that he's like, maybe we should

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Speaker 1: do form. You know, he's just It is really a

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Speaker 1: case of a person. And it's funny because as someone

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Speaker 1: who has really bad add you would think I would

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Speaker 1: relate to this more, but I really don't.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Molly, we got to get serious here. I'm going

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Speaker 2: to say my honest thoughts, which is that I think

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Speaker 2: every time quit not quit. Every time I hear Minority

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Speaker 2: Leader Hakeem Jeffries do an interview, it inspires no confidence

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Speaker 2: that he understands the feeling of the Democratic base and

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Speaker 2: the people on the ground, and that it feels like

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Speaker 2: the bad things that are happening to us, if they

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Speaker 2: can be stopped. I don't believe he is doing anything

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Speaker 2: to stop them, because he does not talk like he

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Speaker 2: is ever.

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Speaker 1: This is the real question, is like where is democratic

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Speaker 1: leadership and why are why are voters so mad? Voters

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Speaker 1: are really mad? We see this in the polling. We

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Speaker 1: see this and then the fundraising. We see this in

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Speaker 1: the definitely worth listening to Wreck today because he talks

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Speaker 1: about these bad voter registration numbers, which were written about

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Speaker 1: in the New York Times and you know, was a

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Speaker 1: big news cycle last week, and actually he debunks it

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Speaker 1: in a way that made me feel a lot better.

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Speaker 1: But there is still a problem with the brand, and

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Speaker 1: the real question is how do Democrats fix their brand? Now,

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Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer has done some good stuff, which is he's

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Speaker 1: recruited some very runnable candidates for some of these Senate seats.

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Speaker 1: Not so easy. But Keem goes on television. It's just

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Speaker 1: he cannot for whatever reason, he is unable to connect

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Speaker 1: with voters. Then we have the problem with Ken Martin,

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Speaker 1: who is unable to raise the money that needs to

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Speaker 1: be raised. And we have this voter register, these voter

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Speaker 1: registration numbers. I think that Democrats are going to have

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Speaker 1: to push harder. I think what people want from what

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Speaker 1: we're seeing with the polls and what we're seeing with

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Speaker 1: the numbers, is they want their electeds to fight for them,

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Speaker 1: to fight, fight, fight, to push back. I think that's

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Speaker 1: why now Gavin Newsom like him, don't like him. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter, right, What matters is that this guy is

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Speaker 1: pushing back. Gavin Newsom is breaking through now again. I

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Speaker 1: would like to go back to the chief of staff

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Speaker 1: for pritz Girl who said it's not left versus Center,

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Speaker 1: it's fight versus cave. And Newsom is fighting and that

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Speaker 1: is making Trump furious. And that is breaking through. Rick

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Speaker 1: Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Product in the

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Speaker 1: host of the Enemy's List. Welcome to Fast Politics, Rick Wilson.

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Speaker 4: Welly, John Fast. How are you doing today?

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Speaker 1: I am just great. Should we start with the arm

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Speaker 1: takeover of Washington, DC?

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Speaker 4: Or should as as one as one does when arms

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Speaker 4: troops are now patrolling the streets of DC, a city

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Speaker 4: which has a lower crime rate than where most of

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Speaker 4: the troops came from. These days, these Southern governors like

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Speaker 4: Tate Reeves and Mississippi Jackson. Mississippi literally is as dangerous

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Speaker 4: as Mogadishu Samo. It is one of the most violent,

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Speaker 4: dangerous cities in the whole country per capita. And yet

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Speaker 4: somehow Tate Reeves does not deployed his own state National

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Speaker 4: Guard there, but in order to kiss Trump's ass, has

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Speaker 4: sent them to DC.

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Speaker 1: So here's a question for you. This weekend, I was

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Speaker 1: somewhere listening to a member of Congress. This was like

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Speaker 1: off the record thing, so I'm not going to say

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Speaker 1: who it is, but somebody asked him a question which

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Speaker 1: is often asked members of Congress. Said basically, why do

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Speaker 1: they kiss up to Trump? Why do they do why

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Speaker 1: do they ruin themselves at the altar of Trump? Is

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Speaker 1: it because they are ambitious or is it because they're scared?

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Speaker 1: And he said that he thought it was absolutely because

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Speaker 1: they're scared.

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Speaker 4: They're scared. Look, I learned this as far back as

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Speaker 4: twenty seventeen when the former client of mine did a

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Speaker 4: town hall and was asked, are you going to support

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Speaker 4: mister Trump one hundred percent? And he gave the correct

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Speaker 4: answer at the time. He said, you know, I want

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Speaker 4: to work with Donald Trump on tax cuts and this

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Speaker 4: and that and this and that, but if it's wrong

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Speaker 4: for our district, no, I'm going to stand with you.

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Speaker 4: And by the time he got off stage, he was

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Speaker 4: getting death threats and his family was getting death threats.

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Speaker 4: And so the fear of the mob, the fear of

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Speaker 4: the horde, the fear of the of the monster, that

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Speaker 4: is the MAGA base, is what motivates them to stay

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Speaker 4: in line. They don't want to lose their primaries. They

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Speaker 4: also don't want to have crazy people come into their

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Speaker 4: house with guns. That is the not subtle promise that

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Speaker 4: Trump delivered on on January sixth is if you fuck

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Speaker 4: with me, I will have people come to your place

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Speaker 4: of business or your home with violence in their hearts

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Speaker 4: to hurt you. And most of these people, you look,

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Speaker 4: a lot of them are ambitious, but you can also

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Speaker 4: be afraid as well as being ambitious. Those ven diagrams

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Speaker 4: can sort of overload.

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Speaker 1: Right, exactly as much as everything feels really really bad,

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Speaker 1: and there are certainly a life lot of reasons to

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Speaker 1: feel bad. There is the arm takeover of the district.

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Speaker 1: There is Trump's plan to go roll into Chicago. We

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Speaker 1: just saw. There are a lot of things to feel

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Speaker 1: bad about. Democrats under raising Republicans. This democratic You know,

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Speaker 1: what I want you to talk to us about is first,

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Speaker 1: I want you to talk to us about these democratic

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Speaker 1: these numbers, these voter registration numbers, because last week this

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Speaker 1: came out that Democrats are basically getting creamed when it

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Speaker 1: comes to voter registration.

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Speaker 4: You know, I can tell you all about this.

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Speaker 1: I was surprised by that.

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Speaker 4: I'm not you know why?

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Speaker 1: Okay? Why?

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Speaker 4: Because Democrats think they can get volunteers to go do

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Speaker 4: voter registration. Republicans pay money.

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Speaker 3: To do it.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, that makes sense, do it.

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Speaker 4: So here's the deal. You got a lot of Democratic

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Speaker 4: groups sitting on a pile of money from last year,

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Speaker 4: you got a lot of Democratic groups have a lot

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Speaker 4: of money sitting around. Future Forward has two undred million

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Speaker 4: dollars sitting around, and they're all like, we've got to

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Speaker 4: fix the narrative, and No, what you have to do

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Speaker 4: first is go out and register fucking voters. When you

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Speaker 4: stop registering voters or you believe that you're going to

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Speaker 4: get allied groups to do it. And I've heard this

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Speaker 4: story from Democrats for ten years now of trying to

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Speaker 4: get them understand. The way Republicans do this is they

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Speaker 4: throw money at the problem. They're not sending volunteer like

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Speaker 4: young Conservatives out. They pay some fucking hobos to go

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Speaker 4: knock on doors and do voter registration. Democrats think that

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Speaker 4: they're going to get the union folks to do it,

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Speaker 4: or progressive groups to do it, or activist group. No,

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Speaker 4: stop it, pay the fucking money. Go out and pay

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Speaker 4: the money.

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Speaker 1: Is that really why? Because the Democrats are about behind

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Speaker 1: by about four million votes, Yes, in voter organization, pay

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Speaker 1: the money.

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Speaker 4: Evangelical churches are the one group of Republicans that do

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Speaker 4: voter reds sort of on the come. They otherwise spend

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Speaker 4: the money. The state parties spend the money. This is

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Speaker 4: an explicable, simple, understandable process. There are people who do

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Speaker 4: this for a living and they should be using them.

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Speaker 1: So I want you to talk us through this. Because

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Speaker 1: Shane Goldmacher had a piece in the New York Tims

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Speaker 1: say it said Democrats are just not as popular. But

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Speaker 1: that's not what this means.

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Speaker 4: It's not what this is. That's not what it is.

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Speaker 4: That's not what it is. A lot of the drop

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Speaker 4: off with Democratic voters has been because there are a

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Speaker 4: lot of people frustrated with the Democratic Party for a

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Speaker 4: for a million reasons. We could spend days on this subject,

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Speaker 4: but most of them don't. We probably will, We probably will. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: they don't flip to Republican, they drop off to non

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Speaker 4: party affiliated. It is a lot cheaper and simpler to

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Speaker 4: convert a non party affiliated voter either to Democratic for

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Speaker 4: the first time or to bring them home to the

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Speaker 4: Democratic Party because you kind of know who they are.

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Speaker 4: This is not none of this is rocket science. There

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Speaker 4: are very good people with data and lists and approaches

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Speaker 4: to these things. They know how to do it. But

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Speaker 4: the Democratic Party has always sort of like, oh, we'll

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Speaker 4: farm this part out to the unions in this city

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Speaker 4: or this state. We'll farm this part out to the

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Speaker 4: College of Democrats. No, stop it professionalize.

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Speaker 1: So who is in charge of this? Is this a

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Speaker 1: Ken Martin problem?

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Speaker 4: It's Ken Martin problem. So it's also a state party problem.

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Speaker 1: Right, but he is the Ken Martin is the chair

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Speaker 1: of the DNC and vis.

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Speaker 4: Look when Michael Steele took over the Republican Party back

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Speaker 4: in the mid two thousands, he put the money in

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Speaker 4: to registering people and to winning state election stuff, and

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Speaker 4: that took voter redge. We pushed money out into the

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Speaker 4: parties like the Georgia Republican Party, Florida Republican Party, North

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Speaker 4: Carolina Republican Party and said here's two million dollars. This

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Speaker 4: grant is explicitly for you to do voter registration.

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Speaker 1: So Ken Martin has also has these terrible fundraising numbers,

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Speaker 1: just horrendous. The DNC is getting their clock cleaned by

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Speaker 1: the RNC, despite the fact that Donald Trump is rolling

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Speaker 1: troops into states, despite the fact that they're.

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Speaker 4: Doing it because he's rolling troops into states. They are afraid,

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Speaker 4: just like a lot of these members of Congress are afraid.

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Speaker 4: They now understand, and Trump has delivered this message very

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Speaker 4: coldly and as people have delivered it. If you're not

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Speaker 4: with us, we will come after you and hurt you.

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Speaker 4: If you don't do what we want, sell us ten

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Speaker 4: percent of your company. They will. They're like, will hurt you.

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Speaker 4: We'll use regulation, will use the DOJ.

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Speaker 3: Whatever.

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Speaker 1: But so shouldn't. Ken Martin still try to raise money

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Speaker 1: for him crass money.

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Speaker 4: He's still try to raise money. But when the Democrats

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Speaker 4: take power again, if they what when they take power again,

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Speaker 4: nothing lasts forever. When they take power again, they need

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Speaker 4: to do exactly what the Republicans have been doing for

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Speaker 4: a generation. They're the ones who got out and they

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Speaker 4: call these companies and go because right now the Republican

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Speaker 4: Campaign Committee people call right big companies so stations ago. Hey,

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Speaker 4: by the way, if you got one guy or two

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Speaker 4: guys Democrats in your state, that's okay, but you're going

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Speaker 4: to give a one hundred to one ratio to us,

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Speaker 4: and if you don't, we're gonna fuck you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And look, this is this idea of Democrats playing hardball.

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Speaker 4: I know, like makes the hair stand up on the

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Speaker 4: back of a lot of these soft, softer minded people

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Speaker 4: who like policy shit. But the reason what California is

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Speaker 4: doing is meaningful in response to Texas is because it's

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Speaker 4: the real politics. It's the fight we're really in, not

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Speaker 4: the fight we want to be in. Well.

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Speaker 1: And also, if you can't win back the House, you're

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Speaker 1: going to be fucked.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, as I've said this. I think I said

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Speaker 4: this on the last show. If there's a Republican majority

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty eight and the Democrat wins the election,

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Speaker 4: they will not certify him.

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Speaker 1: No, I think they're already saying that in a hundred

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Speaker 1: different ways. So I think there's also an argument to

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Speaker 1: be made for soft federalism, this idea that you are

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Speaker 1: the fourth largest economy and if you don't want it,

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Speaker 1: if you you know, why are you putting in tax

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Speaker 1: dollars if you're not getting the female release release, there's.

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Speaker 4: A there's there's a piece of real talk here. California

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Speaker 4: is the fourth largest economy, not in the in the country,

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Speaker 4: but in the world. Yeah, and the economic power of

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Speaker 4: major states in this country is an underestimated political lever

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Speaker 4: and the red state donor the donor states, the blue

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Speaker 4: states giving to the red states. That is an equation

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Speaker 4: that has never been fully explored by any any Democratic

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Speaker 4: state leader. That I can think of off the top

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Speaker 4: of my head, and you know, we're starting to explore

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Speaker 4: these things now. I think in a way that reflects

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Speaker 4: on the precarious nature of the Republican's economic model. Part

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Speaker 4: of what they're relying on right now is that somehow

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Speaker 4: Powell is going to cut rates by some double digit

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Speaker 4: number and they're going to juice the economy and go

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Speaker 4: into twenty six with a glowing economy. Again, it's a

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Speaker 4: it's a big bet.

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Speaker 1: There's no evidence to support none whatsoever.

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Speaker 4: But if you're if you're a Republican right now, you

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Speaker 4: are worried. You're looking in the rearview about the economy.

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Speaker 4: You're looking at the rear view. But a lot of

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Speaker 4: Democrats are saying in these meetings that I that I

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Speaker 4: go to unless I go online. In these zooms, it's

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Speaker 4: like we're going to run on prescription drugs and medicare

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Speaker 4: once again. There are troops and tanks and armored vehicles

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Speaker 4: in the streets of our capital. We have a president

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Speaker 4: who is running a whorehouse at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue.

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Speaker 4: We have a president who's about to free a convicted

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Speaker 4: child sex trafficker. And do you think he's going to Oh. Absolutely,

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Speaker 4: you read those transcripts from Blanche. That's a set up

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Speaker 4: for days, so explain. You go through those transcripts and

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Speaker 4: she's like, I admire President Trump and all he's a compey.

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Speaker 4: This was all pregamed. I bet you good money. Blanche

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Speaker 4: went to his attorney, her attorney.

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Speaker 1: Who's a friend of her, who's a friend of.

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Speaker 4: Blanche's, right, yeah, and said, hey, she's got to go

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Speaker 4: in the room and say the following things at minimum,

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Speaker 4: and she did. I never saw Trump anywhere near Jeffrey what.

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Speaker 4: I never saw him in the massage setting, which come

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Speaker 4: imad was an interesting sort of of gap because it's like,

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Speaker 4: so you never saw him getting a massage, but you

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Speaker 4: might have seen him with a teenage girl. Didn't ask any.

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Speaker 1: Questions when he just volunteered.

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Speaker 4: This thing was a complete mess, and it's a pre game.

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Speaker 4: Nobody should be shocked, and it could happen as early

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Speaker 4: as this week, I think.

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Speaker 1: But here's a question for you about the Epstein stuff,

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Speaker 1: because the pulling on the Ebstein step. Actually, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to tell you something even stupider than that. So on

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Speaker 1: this episode, I interviewed a guy called Graham Planter, who

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Speaker 1: was running for who is running to be the nominee

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Speaker 1: in Maine to run against Susan Collin. Yeah, and he

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Speaker 1: has you know, he like Jared Gold, has a lot

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Speaker 1: of Congressman Jared Gold, who has an r post for

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Speaker 1: the most rural district, has a lot of Trump or

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Speaker 1: people in his life. And so I said, you know,

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Speaker 1: did they lose have they lost interest in Trump? Are

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Speaker 1: they you know? What does it look like? And he

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Speaker 1: said to me, a lot of them are mad about

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Speaker 1: the tariffs. But he also said, and he's like, you're

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Speaker 1: going to think this is crazy. It's worth listening to

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Speaker 1: the interview because I think it's interesting. He said, you

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Speaker 1: didn't think it's crazy, but a lot of people are

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Speaker 1: mad about Epstein.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, they are. Look this and we've talked about this.

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Speaker 4: We've written about both of us have written about this,

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Speaker 4: the Epstein storyline and the idea that there's a global

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Speaker 4: democratic pedophile network storyline from twenty sixteen on. When Pizza

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Speaker 4: Jack started to invent it and it became a part

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Speaker 4: of their personalities, it became so they believed in fundamentally,

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Speaker 4: and now they thought they were going to get this

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Speaker 4: revelation that was going to take all these Democrats down.

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Speaker 4: And it turns out that Donald Trump put a thousand

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Speaker 4: FBI agents on the story so he could cover it up,

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Speaker 4: so we could take his name out of those files.

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Speaker 4: It turns out there they want to release seventy pages

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Speaker 4: out of over one hundred and fifty thousand pages of

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Speaker 4: testimony and documents, And so even his own believers are like,

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Speaker 4: what the fuck is this? Boss? Right, where's the good stuff?

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Speaker 1: I think it's worth thinking about this for a second,

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Speaker 1: about what happens when like this comes back to this

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Speaker 1: fundamental question of twenty sixteen, when Bernie Sanders said this

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Speaker 1: system is rigged against you, right, he said, it's rigged.

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Speaker 1: There are these people who feel it's rigged. And I

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Speaker 1: feel like Trump again, somehow was able to make the

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Speaker 1: case that he was going to unrake the system. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how he made that case after having already

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Speaker 1: been reserved for four years, but he you know, I

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Speaker 1: think the fact that people weren't being offered anything, and

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Speaker 1: that he was at least offering them something was meaningful.

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Speaker 4: I think you're right. And look, there was a reason

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Speaker 4: why about a quarter of Bernie's voters in twenty sixteen

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Speaker 4: went to Trump.

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Speaker 1: That's crazy because.

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Speaker 4: There is a there is a non ideological element in

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Speaker 4: American society today that feels like the system is rigged.

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Speaker 4: And the reason they went with Trump was, even though

437
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 4: they knew he was corrupt and scummy, they thought, well,

438
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:20,479
Speaker 4: at least he's transgressive, at least he's gonna blow everything up.

439
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 4: At least he's gonna hurt people that I don't like,

440
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:29,680
Speaker 4: and that I think that still existed in a probably

441
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 4: larger number in some ways by the end of twenty

442
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:38,159
Speaker 4: twenty four then was president in twenty sixteen, there were

443
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 4: a lot of people who still looked at the choices

444
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,240
Speaker 4: and says, Okay, she's a standard issue politician, and he's

445
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 4: still a terrorist, he's still a crazy man. He's still

446
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:51,239
Speaker 4: the guy who's gonna blow shit up. And when you

447
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:54,760
Speaker 4: don't have these deep sophisticated understanding of what's really going

448
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:57,880
Speaker 4: on in the world, blowing shit up sometimes sounds awfully appealing.

449
00:23:58,040 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 3: Well.

450
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 1: And also the reason is in that they thought the

451
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: system was rigged against them is because it is.

452
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:08,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, and look, the system now under Trump is being rigged.

453
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 4: The transfer of wealth under Donald.

454
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 1: Trump largest in history, largest.

455
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 4: In history by an order of magnitude. You've shifted the

456
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:18,640
Speaker 4: largest amount of wealth in the history of this country

457
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 4: from like the the the S and P five hundred

458
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 4: to seven tech firms, all of whom support Trump. You've

459
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 4: shifted trillions of dollars of government funding from the middle

460
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 4: or lower end of the spectrum to tax cuts for

461
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:41,160
Speaker 4: about six hundred billionaires in this country. And this isn't

462
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:44,879
Speaker 4: free market stuff. This isn't the market functioning in a

463
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 4: way that hurts poor people. This is crony capitalism be

464
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 4: run from the White House. There's a reason why Republicans

465
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 4: are fine with this, because they're not the or MAGA

466
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 4: voters excuse me, are fine with this because they're not

467
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 4: conserved on anything anymore. They're radical and Trump is a

468
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 4: radical for them. And you know, mom, Dommy says, I

469
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 4: want six publicly owned grocery stores in New York and

470
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 4: people shit a brick. Donald Trump says, companies not to

471
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:18,200
Speaker 4: pay me vig that to pay me a percentage from

472
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:23,560
Speaker 4: now on, or we're going to hurt them. And I'm sorry.

473
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:27,479
Speaker 4: Trump's actually the one seizing the fucking means of production here, right.

474
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 1: If you are someone who is doesn't like this, yes, yes,

475
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think like we have. We've gotten

476
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: some polls, but nobody trusts polls we have certainly there

477
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: are some evidence that people are not happy with this.

478
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: I mean, like, what do you think you know? We

479
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: only know what we know, right we only see what's

480
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: what is in our silo. But what do you really

481
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 1: think is happening on the ground right now?

482
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 4: Look, I think the economic damage that Trump is doing,

483
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 4: and it's a combination of the tariffs, of the big

484
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 4: bad Bill, and of this of this shift in our

485
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,880
Speaker 4: overall economic model where it's where where fewer and fewer

486
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 4: companies are controlling more and more stuff, right where things

487
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 4: like home ownership have completely disappeared as a as a

488
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 4: goal for young people, where the trap of student loan

489
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 4: debt and the trap of low paying jobs have combined

490
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 4: to put a generation Gen Z and and you know

491
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 4: a lot of millennials into a into a into a

492
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 4: trap where they're never going to financially.

493
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 1: Escape unless they join Ice.

494
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 4: Right, Well, there is that d K man.

495
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 1: He can't Ice is offering The reason I made that

496
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: joke is that ICE is offering like a sixty thousand

497
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,640
Speaker 1: dollars student loan debt forgiveness, which is ironic because the

498
00:26:57,680 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 1: Supreme Court said that Biden's loan for you.

499
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 4: I was told that loan forgiveness was unconstitutional court, but yeah, yeah, yeah,

500
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 4: you know, the rules are different for the and me,

501
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 4: as they say.

502
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:16,119
Speaker 1: Thank you, Rick Wilson Graham Platner is running for the

503
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 1: Democratic Party nomination for Senate in the Great State of Maine.

504
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, Graham.

505
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me so.

506
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:31,439
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer has done extremely good job recruiting Democrats to

507
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: run for the Senate. We have Cooper in North Carolina.

508
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: We have basically the dream team. We got share of

509
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 1: back in Ohio everyone. But there's one state that I

510
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 1: was like, that fucking state. It's such a good state.

511
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: It's filled with so many smart people, academics. Interesting Purple state.

512
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: I mean, like Susan Collins is the white whale of

513
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,480
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Yes, she pretends to be a moderate

514
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: and then votes as a Trumper every fucking time. By

515
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,880
Speaker 1: the way, so when I heard that you were running,

516
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, thank god. So talk to me

517
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: about how you decided to run for the United States

518
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: Senate in the Great state of man.

519
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, for the records. I mean, I'm sure people know

520
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:21,360
Speaker 5: this already. I do not hold elected office, nor have

521
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 5: I run for elected office. I'm the harbor master of

522
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 5: my small town of Sullivan Bank, and I've been the

523
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 5: chair of the Sullivan Planning Board for about five years.

524
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 5: I'm very proud of that, but we have it with

525
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 5: the town of one thousand people.

526
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: Planning boards, though, are a little bit like being a

527
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: federal employee.

528
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 5: I mean there's a lot of reading through policy and ordinances.

529
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 5: Even small towns have lots and lots of ordinances. In

530
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 5: figuring it out, and then in many ways then you

531
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 5: see like the material outcomes of policy because you have

532
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 5: to kind of like make it happen. About a month ago,

533
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 5: some friends of mine from some community organizations, some friends

534
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 5: of mine from I do I am involved with with

535
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 5: some community organizing in eastern Hacott County, very small scale

536
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 5: stock They came to me and said, hey, listen, we're

537
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 5: afraid we think this Yeason Collegs is uniquely weak, which

538
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 5: I of course agree with.

539
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 3: We're also afraid.

540
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 5: That the Democratic Party is going to run kind of

541
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 5: the same kind of playbook. And this is what happened

542
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 5: back in twenty twenty, which is essentially fine candidate that

543
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 5: comes out of establishment politics and has a campaign that

544
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 5: has a lot of pressure from above to run kind

545
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 5: of your sort of all like at this point corporate, yeah,

546
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 5: corporate campaign. And they're like, we think that that might

547
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 5: be like, like, even though we think we've got a

548
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 5: real shot at finally getting the seat flipped, we're afraid

549
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 5: that it may not flip.

550
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 3: It may we may run into the exact same problems

551
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 3: that we've had in the past.

552
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 5: And they're like, and we think that you might be

553
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 5: a really good candidate to do this. And this was

554
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 5: weird for me because like, well, I agree with all

555
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 5: of these assessments, and I had held them myself that

556
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 5: had the same exact fears, and I never envisioned myself

557
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 5: doing it. It's I mean, I haven't aspired to be

558
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 5: a you of the I live a very very simple life.

559
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 5: I don't have a lot of money. My wife and

560
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 5: I have two dogs and a cat, and we work

561
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 5: really hard. It's kind of me now, we living a

562
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 5: little tiny town on the.

563
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 1: Coast of met What kind of dogs do you have?

564
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 3: They're both sleeping on the couch right now.

565
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 5: We have a year and nine month old black lab

566
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 5: and we have like a little mutt that looks like

567
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 5: a tiny Belgian malin law.

568
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: So okay, so I want to just pause and talk

569
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: about So in twenty twenty, Collins was up. She ran

570
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 1: against Sarah Gideon. Sarah Gideon raised millions upon millions of dollars.

571
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: She was a goodish candidate. Fine, you know, corporate, very

572
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: much like someone who could come and talk at an

573
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: Uber board meeting, right represented, you know, the kind of corporatist,

574
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: not a person who represents the working man. So now

575
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: Maine and I want to talk about There's a member

576
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: of Congress from Maine who I bet you know who

577
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: represents the most district that Democrats represent. And his name

578
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: is Jared Golden.

579
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 3: Golden and he's my I live in district too, so

580
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 3: he's my rut.

581
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: Okay, So Jared is a Democrat, but he's really like

582
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: a Diane Osborne Bernie Sanders. So talk us through sort

583
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: of your district, how he is able to run there

584
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: and how he keeps speeding the Republicans.

585
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 5: We're very rural district, it's very spread out. There are

586
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 5: a lot of people that work very hard, view themselves

587
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 5: as kind of hard scrabble, blue collar working class, and

588
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 5: Jared has done a great job of like being a Democrat.

589
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 5: It's still appealing to that kind of in many ways,

590
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 5: it's cultural, it's it's an esthetic in some ways, people

591
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 5: see themselves in him, and he's been able to hold

592
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 5: onto that seat which is which is no small feet.

593
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 1: It's an R plus ten or fifteen or something.

594
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can't remember the exact number, but it's a

595
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 5: lot that being said, like you know, for me, like

596
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 5: that's on the electability side. I think that was what

597
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 5: really was hard for the Gideon campaign in District two,

598
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 5: where you'd have a lot of kind of dispersed rural

599
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 5: conservative voters. You need to have somebody who can talk

600
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 5: to them. You need to have somebody who can like

601
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 5: interact with them. And like for myself, who lives in

602
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 5: District two and many of my friends are Trump letters,

603
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 5: many of my neighbors are Republicans.

604
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 3: I don't have to like do.

605
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 5: Some kind of like mental math on how to have

606
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 5: these conversations because I have these conversations. I mean they're

607
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 5: like it's just part of my daily life is talking

608
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 5: to people who are technically on the other side of

609
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 5: the of the political divide. But you know, like the

610
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 5: big thing, the thing that I think my candidacy brings

611
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 5: to the table that I'm just not really seeing in

612
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 5: other kind of campaigns, both for this race and elsewhere

613
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 5: in the state, is that there is a deep anti

614
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 5: establishment angst going on. People really do feel like the

615
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 5: system has left them behind, and you need to be

616
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 5: able to speak to that. But you need to be

617
00:32:58,480 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 5: able to speak to in a way that's not kind

618
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 5: under sending, it's not patronizing.

619
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 3: It's more just like being able to talk about.

620
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 5: The material realities that we're all currently living in, with

621
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 5: like a collapsing rural healthcare system, with a housing crisis

622
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 5: that is I mean utterly insane around here, although I

623
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 5: can't it's insane everywhere, but I mean it's bad, it's

624
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 5: real bad here, and a general affordability crisis. And if

625
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 5: you can't, if you if you can't be approachable, and

626
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 5: if you're not interested in approaching those voters, it will

627
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 5: just continue to lose them. And well they'll can and

628
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 5: then we have the whole element of there's a lot

629
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 5: of people in the state who are like Maine is

630
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 5: like a third Democrat, a third Republican and a third

631
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 5: independent or unenrolled.

632
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: And that's what I wanted to ask you about. The

633
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: governor of Maine is an independent or was an independent,

634
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: and you have Angus King, who is maybe an independent

635
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 1: but caucuses with the dams right, he.

636
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 5: Was the independent governor and then he be our independent senator.

637
00:33:56,360 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: So there absolutely is for sure independent streak in your state.

638
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 5: Very manors very much see themselves as as not being

639
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 5: easily put into these sort of political buckets that we've

640
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 5: all created, myself included. I mean, I feel like I'm

641
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 5: very It's the life that I live. I don't think

642
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 5: people would look at it and be like, yeh, guys,

643
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 5: obviously a Democrat even though I am. There are a

644
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 5: lot of folks in the state, and there have been

645
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 5: because of this. It has been very easy for a

646
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 5: lot of voters in the state to just walk away,

647
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,319
Speaker 5: to just look at everything that's happening and just kind

648
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 5: of be like, this whole thing is not built for me,

649
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 5: and I Am not going to engage in it anymore.

650
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 5: And my fear is that that can happen again. What

651
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 5: gives me hope, though, is that I have lots of

652
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 5: friends are who are of that who. When I talk

653
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 5: about the policies that I want to push and I

654
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 5: talk about the kind of systemic problems as they truly exist,

655
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 5: those people always respond positively. They always think like, yeah,

656
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 5: I mean the system is in many ways broken. It

657
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 5: isn't representing me, and I want to see something in

658
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 5: it that does represent me.

659
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 3: I mean, we need to have people of like.

660
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:11,800
Speaker 5: The working class of Maine, representing the working class of Maine.

661
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 3: It's just people can connect with that.

662
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 5: It's hard to connect with somebody who you just see

663
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 5: is like a political animal.

664
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that, because the thing I've been

665
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: struck by is like one party wants to give you healthcare,

666
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 1: one party wants to take it away. One party wants

667
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: to give you child tax credit. One party wants to

668
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:31,839
Speaker 1: pretends it wants to give you that. One party wants

669
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: to raise taxes on the wealthy. One party pretends it

670
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: wants to raise taxes. Like this seems pretty honous to me,

671
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 1: But part of the situation is it strikes me your

672
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: job is to break through, right, to get on the

673
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: media outlets that Harris couldn't not her fault. She had

674
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 1: one hundred days and she did an incredible job, and

675
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: a lot of those places were not open to her

676
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: for any number of structural reasons that nothing to do

677
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: with her talent. But I wonder, You've got to get

678
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,760
Speaker 1: in the right spaces, You've got to talk to everyone,

679
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: and then you also have to talk to people in

680
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: the state. But I do feel like because you really

681
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 1: are a manor doing things that are actual main jobs,

682
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like a harbor master. Like

683
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: that's not a New York City job.

684
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 5: I mean, there is the New York City harbor master,

685
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 5: but I think probably a bit bigger than mine.

686
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: Right exactly. That's a good point. Sorry, it's not a

687
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: McKinsey job. It's a job job.

688
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, anyway, and like it to be fair, Like I

689
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 5: work in a small harbor. So my real job, I'm

690
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 5: an oyster farmer. I mean that's what I do. And

691
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 5: I have a small I have a small like diving business.

692
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 5: And yeah, I mean I think again, I mean, like

693
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 5: just much easier for me to connect with normal working

694
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 5: maners because I'm obviously a normal working mainer. I also

695
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 5: haven't been like picked, you know, like this whole thing,

696
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:53,320
Speaker 5: we've built this from the floor up. If we've built

697
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,240
Speaker 5: this on our own. We've built this kind of in house.

698
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 5: I'm lucky enough to have gotten support from people who

699
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 5: are very effective. I mean, obviously the roll out on

700
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 5: Tuesday just extremely competently done, and I can take absolutely

701
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 5: no credit for it. But truthfully it's a Yeah, it's

702
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 5: a because we're building it from the ground.

703
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 3: Up, and because that's pretty obvious at this point.

704
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:14,799
Speaker 5: I think it's being it's fairly clear that people can

705
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 5: tell that this isn't just coming out of the standard

706
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:21,399
Speaker 5: like political machine. That's just a lot more approachable and

707
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 5: it's and and it's and it keeps people I think,

708
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 5: a lot more open minded than they might be, even

709
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 5: though like the policies I'm pushing for like pretty you know,

710
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 5: like democratic policies. I'd want people to get healthcare. I

711
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 5: want to protect social security, I want it. Like those

712
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 5: are all the things that I believe in. We didn't

713
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 5: do them, but like there is an aesthetic element to

714
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 5: our politics that I think is unhealthy, but it is

715
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 5: a reality. I can really appeal across the electorate and

716
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 5: main in many ways that I just think for for

717
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 5: reasons that have nothing to do with like frankly me

718
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,279
Speaker 5: or anybody's personal capacity.

719
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 3: They're just there. They're structural reasons, but they but they're real.

720
00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 1: We're watching in a solitarian takeover of our country. We

721
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 1: got guys getting their cars wrapped, the ice. Guys that

722
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: would say protect the homeland. Okay, the homeland. That's not

723
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: you know, that is not what we call Amerca.

724
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 3: Right, this is language that we've all heard before in history.

725
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: So right, So you have an opportunity in a state

726
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: that is very purple. So what does that look like

727
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,240
Speaker 1: for you? How do you win in Maine?

728
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 3: What we do is that first we're building a ground game.

729
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 5: And I'm just going to use this moment to plug

730
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 5: grahamfirsenate dot com. We need help to do this both

731
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 5: with donations because we're not taking corporate pac money. We're

732
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 5: not taking it's all small dollar stuff. But we also

733
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 5: need people. We're not going to be able to outraise anybody,

734
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 5: and we know that. But we do have a theory

735
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 5: of change that is mostly built around building out old

736
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 5: school campaigning, shoe leather campaigning, knocking on doors, building out

737
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 5: like volunteer capacity, building out offices, and doing like a

738
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 5: fully statewide coordinated campaign to get as many people in

739
00:38:57,520 --> 00:38:59,240
Speaker 5: Because if we can't beat them with money.

740
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 3: We have to beat them with people, and we can

741
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 3: beat them with people. I'll just say this.

742
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 5: If you don't live in the state of Maine and

743
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 5: this sounds like something you want to get involved in,

744
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 5: you can donate and we need that, but you can

745
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 5: also phone back. You can also sign up as a volunteer.

746
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 5: We've got volunteer opportunities that are not just main based.

747
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 3: So this in many ways.

748
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 5: Like because of the visibility, because I mean, this is

749
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 5: our best shot to get rid of Sustan Collins finally

750
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 5: and forever. This is been doing this for a long time,

751
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 5: and we can we can do this. I mean we

752
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 5: we really do have I think a very clear path

753
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 5: to victory. But I can't do it by myself. Is

754
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:38,800
Speaker 5: mostly what it comes.

755
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:42,959
Speaker 1: Down when you talk to Jared, what does he say,

756
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 1: sort of this secret He is in an R plus

757
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: four district, but it's the most rural. He's the Democrat

758
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: that represents the most rural district. One of the problems

759
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: that Democrats have had is speaking a rural voter, speaking

760
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: a working class voters, speaking a non college educative voters.

761
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: Main part of the state is very liberal, a very

762
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 1: college educated, lots of universities. Part of the state is

763
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: much more like a rural state. So talk us through

764
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: how you meet people there.

765
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 5: I mean, this is going to suck, kind of goofy,

766
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 5: but I'm forty. I run an immense amount of energy.

767
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 5: I'm a former bartender who likes talking to people. And

768
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 5: They've run a Toyota tundra that's got at least four

769
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:23,320
Speaker 5: hundred thousand miles left on it.

770
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 3: If I do the oil changes right.

771
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 5: So the way that I do it is that I

772
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 5: go out and talk to people and I can. These

773
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:32,479
Speaker 5: are conversations that for me are not difficult to have

774
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 5: because I, in many ways just have them all the

775
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 5: time with my neighbors, with my friends. I have a

776
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 5: lot of friends who are not remotely aligned with me politically,

777
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 5: but when we talk, they all feel like the system

778
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 5: is shrewing them. They all feel like the billionaires in

779
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 5: the oligart class is stealing everything from them. They feel

780
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 5: like there's a political establishment that serves those interests and

781
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 5: they're mad about it, and they're right. I'm like, yeah,

782
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 5: we're right there. And when you talk about things like

783
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,720
Speaker 5: Medicare for all, when you talk about things like ending

784
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 5: the foreign wars that I thought in that costs so

785
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 5: much money and did nothing, nothing for the American working class.

786
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,879
Speaker 5: When we talk about that stuff in language that kind

787
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:19,280
Speaker 5: of divorces it from politics. In some ways, everybody agrees,

788
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 5: everybody understands. And so for me, I'm just going to

789
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 5: go out and have those conversations. I'm going to go

790
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 5: out and drive everywhere and talk to everybody, and I think,

791
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 5: you know, just I'm not. There are going to be conversations,

792
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 5: there are going to be topics that we are not

793
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 5: going to align on. But my opinion is that until

794
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 5: we've built a healthcare system that takes care of people,

795
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 5: until we've come up with housing solutions that put people

796
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 5: in homes and don't bankrupt folks, then we come up

797
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 5: with a solution to the wages versus the rising cost

798
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 5: of goods problem. Everything else is down the road in

799
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 5: the better world that we have to build.

800
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 3: We're going to have.

801
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 5: Those conversations and at that point we can all argue

802
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,360
Speaker 5: about it. But right now, right now, we got to

803
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 5: focus on the big stuff, and the big stuff is

804
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 5: what counts, and it's also what win. That's my plan,

805
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 5: and I want to do it with as many other

806
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 5: maners as I can, who want to come out and

807
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 5: take part in this.

808
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: What is it like on the ground in Maine? Are

809
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,879
Speaker 1: people are they still maga? Are they like, let's give

810
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,280
Speaker 1: my man a chance? I mean, like, we see the polls,

811
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:20,359
Speaker 1: but who even knows if the polls are right. We

812
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: see Donald Trump's anxiety, but who knows.

813
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:26,320
Speaker 5: I will just say this anecdotally, most of my friends

814
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 5: who voted for Trump are.

815
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,239
Speaker 1: Disgusted really already.

816
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 3: Alrighty, So a lot of them are builders, a lot

817
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 3: of them are.

818
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: Are get fucked by the terrorf That's right.

819
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 5: And luckily, like the people they buy goods from are

820
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 5: telling them, hey, this is up thirty percent because this

821
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 5: tariff shit is driving me insand like we don't know

822
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:44,799
Speaker 5: that's why the prices are up. And like they take

823
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 5: that and they go home. They're like, well, this is

824
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:47,280
Speaker 5: fucking bullshit.

825
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:47,879
Speaker 3: And it is.

826
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 5: And there's also an element this isn't as much, but

827
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 5: there is also an element in this where you know,

828
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:54,800
Speaker 5: a lot of these folks they voted for.

829
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 3: The thing I hear the most is the Epstein thing.

830
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 3: I hear this all the time, unbelievable all they talk about.

831
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 3: They're like they told us.

832
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 5: He told us blah blah blah, and then they went

833
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:07,359
Speaker 5: up there and now they're up there and suddenly, oh,

834
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 5: it's nothing other and like this is on everybody's lips.

835
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 3: It's all that. I mean, it's not all the gets

836
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 3: talked about.

837
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: But I mean we Joe Rogan, right, I mean, they're

838
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 1: clearly mad about Epstein, which is in my mind so insane, right,

839
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,800
Speaker 1: Like the guy is screwing you six ways to Sunday

840
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 1: and you're like, I just need to know about this

841
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 1: dead billionaire.

842
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 5: But I will just say, for me, that's just indicative

843
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 5: of this like deeper skepticism of the of the structure itself.

844
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 5: I mean, in some ways, I think it has less

845
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,959
Speaker 5: to do with like the details of it, but more

846
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:44,839
Speaker 5: it's just like the perfect thing to encapsulate this sort

847
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 5: of mistrust of our system. And they thought that they

848
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:50,919
Speaker 5: were gonna get answers, and I think in many ways,

849
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:52,359
Speaker 5: I mean, that's why they voted for Trump.

850
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 4: Trump.

851
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 3: Trump told them one thing, one thing that they knew

852
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 3: was true. He told them that the system was screwing them,

853
00:43:58,800 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 3: and that was it.

854
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 1: That was a that was the ballgame, because nobody ever

855
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: offered them anything. I mean, now something in twenty sixteen

856
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: I saw again and again was he was like, I'm

857
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 1: gonna make things cheaper. The system is rigged, you got screwed.

858
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, you know, do this, do that. And it

859
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: wasn't possible. That's why other politicians didn't offer it.

860
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 5: But that's the thing, though, is I think you need

861
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,280
Speaker 5: to offer guess why I got to offer big stuff

862
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 5: and they're gonna be honest about it, Like I want

863
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 5: Medicare for all, and I'm gonna go to Washington. I'm

864
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 5: gonna fight for Medicare for all. I'm also gonna tell

865
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 5: people that it's going to be a swog and my

866
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 5: vote is not gonna get us Medicare for all. But

867
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 5: we're not gonna get Medicare for all if nobody goes

868
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 5: up there to fight for it. Politics is about compromise,

869
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 5: but it's also about being uncompromising for a while, Like

870
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 5: you gotta fight for a while, you gotta hold out,

871
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,800
Speaker 5: you gotta believe that the thing you're pushing for matters,

872
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 5: and you got to go to the match, like you

873
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 5: gotta fight for it. And I firmly believe that for

874
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,239
Speaker 5: my community in rural Maine, that is one of the

875
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 5: huge that's one of those big structural projects we need

876
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 5: to undertake to fix the crisis we have in this country.

877
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 5: And it's one of the only mechanisms we have right

878
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,720
Speaker 5: now to like fix our broken rural healthcare system, because

879
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 5: clearly the system we have it's not doing it. And

880
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:17,239
Speaker 5: so you can message on that stuff as long as

881
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 5: you're honest, I think people believe. I mean, look, there's

882
00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:20,919
Speaker 5: a people just want to know that you're not full

883
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:22,759
Speaker 5: of shit. I think that's what it comes down to.

884
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 5: There's sick and tired of being lied to. They're sick

885
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 5: and tired of getting just like this kind of like

886
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 5: your standard politician that's focus grouping everything. And I'm not

887
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,359
Speaker 5: gonna do that because I have no in I mean,

888
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:35,799
Speaker 5: I'm not trying to be a politician, so I can

889
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 5: go be a politician. I want to go to the

890
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 5: US Senate so I can fight for the stuff that

891
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 5: I think is necessary to keep my community alive.

892
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 3: So I'm just gonna keep fighting for that stuff.

893
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:47,800
Speaker 1: Graham, thank you for coming on. I hope you'll come.

894
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 3: Back Molly anytime. Also, the fact that they get to

895
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 3: swear here just makes me very happy. So thanks for that.

896
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 3: No moment.

897
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, Molly Johns asked, is that moment? It's that

898
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,760
Speaker 1: moment from when we used to have a podcast together.

899
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: Do you miss having a podcast together?

900
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 4: I do.

901
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:09,479
Speaker 1: I do really fun.

902
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 4: Let us know people, should we because I don't have

903
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 4: enough podcasts right now?

904
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:15,320
Speaker 1: Yeah? And Rick needs more podcasts. How many podcasts do

905
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:19,880
Speaker 1: you have? For? Not enough? All right? Rick Wilson, what

906
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 1: is your moment of fuck ray?

907
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 4: My moment of fuckery is that no matter how you

908
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 4: feel about John Bolton, who is a very hard man

909
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 4: to love, a hardman to love the bullshit that's going

910
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:34,319
Speaker 4: on right now with Cash MATEL and Danny Bingbong and

911
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 4: Pam Bondi and Donald Trump.

912
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:37,959
Speaker 1: No man is above the law.

913
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 3: The law.

914
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 4: Donald Trump. But this is a preview of bad stuff

915
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,800
Speaker 4: to come. This is an overt signal that the Department

916
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 4: of Justice is Trump's personal revenge machine. It's an overt

917
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 4: signal that anybody who's criticized him, who's gone after him,

918
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 4: who has who has confronted him, who presented evidence of

919
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 4: his corruption or of anything regarding Russia or the classified

920
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 4: documents or the fraud case, They're going to go after

921
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 4: everybody who touched those things, and it's criticized them publicly.

922
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 4: I will not be surprised to see Jim Comey or

923
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 4: Michael Hayden, or Jim Clapper or Brennan or Miles Taylor

924
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 4: or Olivia Troy or god knows up or down the

925
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:23,280
Speaker 4: food chain further raids like this to intimidate Trump's political enemies.

926
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:27,480
Speaker 1: And it's much easier to do these raydown people who

927
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 1: worked in Trump's administration. Can you explain why that is?

928
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 4: Well, Look, most of these people signed an NDA with

929
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 4: Trump foolishly, which you know indias don't hold up in

930
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 4: court these days, but most of them did, so they

931
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 4: use that as part of their excuse set. The second

932
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 4: part of it is they are trying to rely on

933
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 4: a belief that a guy like John Bolton would be

934
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 4: like Trump and try to save valuable secret documents. I've

935
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:55,319
Speaker 4: known John for thirty plus years. I can tell you

936
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 4: again you don't have to love John, but he was

937
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,759
Speaker 4: a national security professional who is not going to go

938
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:03,760
Speaker 4: steal classified docs. At the end of his term wherever

939
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,279
Speaker 4: he was, he would know that that leads to a

940
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:08,439
Speaker 4: lifetime in prison. And I got to tell you John

941
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:09,759
Speaker 4: didn't want to go to prison.

942
00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: Right I mean, I really dislike profoundly John Bolton.

943
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 4: I get you, John, and I disagree on a lot

944
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 4: of shit. But I got to tell you they picked

945
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 4: him in part because he's a disagreeable hard man. They

946
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 4: picked him in part so that they could say, well,

947
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:24,919
Speaker 4: nobody likes this guy well.

948
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: And they picked him in part because he was criticizing

949
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: Trump about Russia, and Trump was watching it on television

950
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: and complaining to his people. And there's reporting in the

951
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: Washington Post that says exactly that that he didn't like

952
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,360
Speaker 1: seeing on television criticizing him, so he said, let's go

953
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 1: after him. And again, that is not how any of

954
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 1: this is supposed to work.

955
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 4: Well, let's keep John in our thoughts here, because he's

956
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 4: not the last one. They're going to be more. Rick

957
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 4: Wilson by John Fast A pleasure as always.

958
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:58,280
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

959
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:03,960
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best

960
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

961
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:11,400
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

962
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.