Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and Republican megadon Or Harlan Crowe has
Speaker 1: an extensive collection of Nazi memorabilia. We have such a
Speaker 1: fun show today. Slates Dalia Lithwick will walk us through
Speaker 1: the unprecedented ruling out of Texas that seeks to stop
Speaker 1: abortion pills from being sold nationwide. Then Congressman Maxwell Frost
Speaker 1: talks to us about the movement to curtail gun violence
Speaker 1: and what he's seeing in the protests in Tennessee. But
Speaker 1: first we have former Senator Al Franken. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. Out Franco, thank you for having me back.
Speaker 1: I am delighted to have you back. I feel like
Speaker 1: you were a favorite guest of the podcast. Immedia h really, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll take it. I'll take it. I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you just about what's going on in the world.
Speaker 1: But I do think it is quite cool that you
Speaker 1: hosted the Daily Showed. It was a great being back
Speaker 1: in a regular television spot. Or would you prefer to
Speaker 1: be in the Senate? I prefer to be in the
Speaker 1: Senate frankly and regret resigning, and it tears me up
Speaker 1: all the time. You're not the only person who feels out. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I know, it's just funny because I have grandchildren in
Speaker 1: New York, so I have a place on the Upper
Speaker 1: West Side and I can't walk around the Upper West
Speaker 1: Side without anyone who knows the Upper West Side of
Speaker 1: manhad and knows why. That's kind of funny. It happens everywhere,
Speaker 1: but three or four people a block. Okay, anyway, so
Speaker 1: let's see what we're talking about the Daily Show, because
Speaker 1: I do think you're a versatile person who can be
Speaker 1: both abundon and a senator, which is not many people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just you and Ted Cruz just kidding. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: it's funny, is it. Ted considers himself funny and he
Speaker 1: is not. And every once in a while he would
Speaker 1: come up to me and say, I've a joke for
Speaker 1: my stump speech, and I think my crowd will love it.
Speaker 1: Can I run it by you? And I'd go like, okay,
Speaker 1: and sure, and he'd starts this joke. And this is
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, He's running for president. Hillary's on the other side,
Speaker 1: of course, and he starts this joke. I'm going long
Speaker 1: setup and I go, oh, okay, the punchline is gonna
Speaker 1: be Hillary's phone. I got then more more setup, more setup,
Speaker 1: finally Hillary's phone and I go, Okay, your crowd will
Speaker 1: laugh at that, But I have to tell you I
Speaker 1: knew what the punchline was about a third of the
Speaker 1: way through the setup. Okay, you tell me a joke.
Speaker 1: He'd get mad at me. I'm sorry, but I am
Speaker 1: without words because that is what I would assume hanging
Speaker 1: out what Ted Cruise would be like. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: He's so unlikable in so many ways that it's just
Speaker 1: kind of amazing. And he's very smart, but not smart
Speaker 1: enough to understand how he comes off and what's wrong
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah, it's true, very odd. It's very odd.
Speaker 1: So speaking of Republicans not understanding how they come off
Speaker 1: to the rest of the world, Tennessee State House, they
Speaker 1: expel the two black people, but not the white person,
Speaker 1: the white woman. Yes, so I think that puts a
Speaker 1: lie to the sexism thing. Well, I don't know what
Speaker 1: it does, but pretty incredible stuff, right, No, it was,
Speaker 1: it's such a lie. It was about They compared it
Speaker 1: to January sixth, of course. And this was just kind
Speaker 1: of a little protest about not taking up guns in schools,
Speaker 1: in schools while all these kids are there in the balconies.
Speaker 1: And after three kids died, three teachers died, and god,
Speaker 1: it was ugly. And that's the Republican Party. Now. If
Speaker 1: you look right now this past week in Wisconsin, they
Speaker 1: have an election. Aside the balance of finally of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, there are a lot of stakes there in
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of things, redistricting of course, abortion of course,
Speaker 1: and the Democrat or the Progressive wins very handily, like
Speaker 1: by a lot ten points. Yeah, and this is the
Speaker 1: definition of a purple state. But this is in big
Speaker 1: part about abortion, but also this is the most gerrymandered state.
Speaker 1: You remember that twenty ten was a census year, and
Speaker 1: so in twenty ten there was a big vote for
Speaker 1: Republicans because of all the lying about the Affordable Care Act.
Speaker 1: We had passed the Affordable Care Act in the Senate House,
Speaker 1: and they lied about it, death panels, etc. Etc. And
Speaker 1: also no one knew what was in the act, really
Speaker 1: didn't understand it, and it took four years really to
Speaker 1: get the thing up. We had four years of being
Speaker 1: battered on that thing, and especially that year, and they
Speaker 1: picked up all these seats and jerrymandered the crap out
Speaker 1: of the state right to the point where I think
Speaker 1: I have this right. Ben Wickler is the chairman of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party and a very good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: I think he said it's like, if the vote is
Speaker 1: fifty fifty, they have only a ten percent chance of
Speaker 1: getting the majority. That's done wrong. It's worth it. It's
Speaker 1: an amazingly gerrymandered state. And I should add that statistic
Speaker 1: right at my fingers, but I don't. But it was
Speaker 1: Jerrymanderden eleven and this court will be able to address that.
Speaker 1: And also abortion is on that. Yeah. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is just kind of incredible. And Republicans are talking about
Speaker 1: impeaching huh there, I think a couple. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it's as bad as is what's happening in Tennessee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's happened in ten Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting though,
Speaker 1: because you do see this collision between this base that
Speaker 1: is ready to just do crazy shit and the leadership,
Speaker 1: which is starting to be like, maybe people don't like
Speaker 1: our message. Yeah, but boy, doesn't leadership take a long time?
Speaker 1: To get that message. And sometimes the leadership are the
Speaker 1: problem too. Yeah. I mean, if you look now at
Speaker 1: the House in Washington, McCarthy, either he played that as
Speaker 1: stupidly as you could play at the vote to be speaker,
Speaker 1: or these awful, awful, awful people played it as brilliantly
Speaker 1: as you could play it, or it just accidentally happened
Speaker 1: this way. But he is beholden to every one of them.
Speaker 1: One person can bring it up right and new vote,
Speaker 1: and so he is. Brings me to the debt limit.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I'm most scared about. Yeah. I went
Speaker 1: through that in eleven, and we went to more than
Speaker 1: the eleventh hour and it hurt. We got our bonds downgraded.
Speaker 1: And the dollar is the fault currency of the world,
Speaker 1: and if we go over the cliff on this, it
Speaker 1: could cause a worldwide recession. Yeah, and we did. They
Speaker 1: downgraded the America and did yeah. Yeah, which is like
Speaker 1: kind of an incredible thing to think about, that that
Speaker 1: could happen. That's right. They downgraded it in eleven after that,
Speaker 1: and because we came so close to the edge, and
Speaker 1: these guys are crazier than the Republicans that were there
Speaker 1: in eleven. Yeah, Oh, definitely. I feel like these guys
Speaker 1: make the Tea Party look like just lovely gentlemen. But
Speaker 1: I am curious to know. I mean, if you think
Speaker 1: about all these Republicans that won in these swingy districts,
Speaker 1: do you think there's a world in which any of
Speaker 1: those guys go and make a deal or you think
Speaker 1: they're just too scared of primary challenges. I don't know
Speaker 1: you'd think so, because I think there's more than four
Speaker 1: or five of them, right, No, But I mean they
Speaker 1: have a five seat majority, I understand, but that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I think they're more than four or five
Speaker 1: of these moderates that are saying Republicans who they're saying
Speaker 1: they probably won in fairly purple districts, and so I
Speaker 1: think they'd be screwed if they don't save the country.
Speaker 1: So I don't know how that body works, especially that
Speaker 1: group there, but they sure hope they come together and
Speaker 1: that McCarthy works it out so that I couldn't help it.
Speaker 1: These guys, that's what they're doing, and we got to
Speaker 1: come up with a compromise. Yeah, it does certainly seem
Speaker 1: like Republicans have gotten themselves into a situation here that
Speaker 1: they can't. There doesn't seem like an easy way out
Speaker 1: for them. No, but this is why we have to
Speaker 1: change that, because in eleven we bargained with them, right,
Speaker 1: and we got the sequester, and right, this is eleven,
Speaker 1: we're still in the Great Recession, and the last thing
Speaker 1: you needed to do was to spend less money, and
Speaker 1: that's what happened. So this is all kind of part
Speaker 1: of Republicans plan was let's slow down at this recovery, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that we can win in twelve and McConnell and
Speaker 1: they all did that, so they backed us into a
Speaker 1: corner and we can't do that this time. We can say, nope,
Speaker 1: we're just not negotiating on this. If you want to
Speaker 1: negotiate on a package to bring things down, you've got
Speaker 1: to do it, but not tied to this. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I don't know what they'll do, so we'll see. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just seems really kind of epically bad.
Speaker 1: Biden has continually overperformed in all these elections. But this
Speaker 1: polling that came out yesterday not super great. I mean,
Speaker 1: does it even matter? What do you I didn't see
Speaker 1: the polling is the top line was and again this
Speaker 1: is a question. That is what you ask this question.
Speaker 1: Everyone always says no, they don't deserve it, but basically
Speaker 1: only sort of Americans. Again, I hate even saying this
Speaker 1: because I feel like poles are various sort of I
Speaker 1: don't even know what they are. At this point, about
Speaker 1: a third think that he deserves to be reelected. Well,
Speaker 1: he's going to be running against somebody, right, we see
Speaker 1: how many people believe they need another term if it's Trump,
Speaker 1: and that I think would be below that, but it
Speaker 1: could be somebody else, and we shall see, and we'll
Speaker 1: see how things are at that moment. But again, we
Speaker 1: outperform this last mid term better than he did anyway,
Speaker 1: or his side better than anybody except Bush after nine
Speaker 1: to eleven. So in the wake of nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: of course Bush did well and FDR in thirty four
Speaker 1: after saving the country, perceiving to have saved the country
Speaker 1: from the depression. Other than those two, our party performed
Speaker 1: the best it has historically. So everyone was predicting this
Speaker 1: red tiede and it didn't happen. So this is too
Speaker 1: far out, Yeah yeah, yeah, So what are you looking
Speaker 1: at right now? What are sort of your thoughts of
Speaker 1: where we are right now? My thoughts are that the
Speaker 1: Republican Party is becoming a party that does not believe
Speaker 1: in democracy. And you're seeing that in all these cases.
Speaker 1: In Wisconsin, attempt to recall someone elected yesterday, that's unusual,
Speaker 1: Tennessee voting out members for nothing. In Georgia, there's state
Speaker 1: legislators who want to pass something where legislature can get
Speaker 1: rid of DA's Yeah, and so Fannie willis being I
Speaker 1: guess the one they were. It seems very slanted, doesn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And in North Carolina there was just a flip of
Speaker 1: a Democrat who comes from pretty democratic area and has
Speaker 1: been a Democrat forever to give the North Carolina state
Speaker 1: legislative Republicans a Vito proof majority, and evidently she got
Speaker 1: a bigger office and some other committee chairmanship or something,
Speaker 1: has gotten an abortion herself, Yeah, and has pledged to
Speaker 1: protect abortion rights. So North Carolina now is the only
Speaker 1: Southeastern state that allows abortions. So that's a pretty important
Speaker 1: thing to keep an eye on. But I just it
Speaker 1: feels like the Republican Party just is way out of
Speaker 1: the ordinary in terms of respecting democracy and how they
Speaker 1: go about getting power. Yeah, I have to say, I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of shocking. I was hoping you could
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about this ProPublica reporting. I feel
Speaker 1: like this is not Son Thomas. Yeah, well, we kind
Speaker 1: of knew this stuff was happening. Sheldon Whitehouse has been
Speaker 1: talking about this forever. Didn't we know that they were
Speaker 1: paying for your hunting lodge? I mean, didn't Scalia die
Speaker 1: at a hunting loge? A book? Yes? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's like, so, oh, it doesn't matter whether a donor
Speaker 1: is a multi billionaire or just a simple billionaire. I mean,
Speaker 1: what does that make And does it matter that it
Speaker 1: was a free stay at Alige for ten days and
Speaker 1: they had flock law or it was only eight days
Speaker 1: and they just ate the pheasant that the help clean
Speaker 1: the simple man. I mean, I'm not quite sure what
Speaker 1: the differences other than they changed the rules so he
Speaker 1: had to come clean. He had to report this, so
Speaker 1: I know there's other reasons for him to resign, including
Speaker 1: being the only vote to try to block his wife's
Speaker 1: tweets seemed pretty bad. So I'm not sure about this one.
Speaker 1: I think we kind of this was going on. I
Speaker 1: don't know if we knew the price tag in the
Speaker 1: scope and yeah, how many and that he doesn't like
Speaker 1: to fly commercial and that he perhaps doesn't vacation does
Speaker 1: the fly commercial if they have a choice. It's just
Speaker 1: most people don't have a choice, and he seems like
Speaker 1: he does. He does. That's right, congratulations Squared Stamas. I
Speaker 1: don't know does she go hunting? I doubt if she
Speaker 1: was plotting something? Who is she talking to? Didn't she
Speaker 1: isn't there the latest tweet to meadows that has some
Speaker 1: nutcase shit in it. Yes, I have to say she
Speaker 1: is my favorite unhinged spouse. Like when we go through
Speaker 1: a history, I mean everything you go in there is
Speaker 1: just completely beyond the pale. But I think that Jenny
Speaker 1: Thomas will win the title of most unhinged Supreme Court spouse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know the other ones. Well, there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Robert's spouse em and only makes a lot
Speaker 1: of money recruiting lawyers or big firms to clerk or
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of ugly, isn't it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like they're beyond politics now, it doesn't seem right. Well,
Speaker 1: this is a feminist thing. Supreme Court wives should be
Speaker 1: able to have a business funneling lawyers to firms will
Speaker 1: because argue in front of her husband. Yeah, powerful people
Speaker 1: have powerful friends. Is that what she said or something
Speaker 1: like that? Are very accomplished people are very accomplished friends.
Speaker 1: Al Franken, just you're just as a light. I hope
Speaker 1: you will come back maybe. Darlia Lithwick is a senior
Speaker 1: editor at Slate and the author of Lady Justice, Women Law,
Speaker 1: and the Battle to Save America. Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: My personal hero and the person I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to most at this moment, Dahlia him Molly. I saw
Speaker 1: this ruling and I wrote to Jesse. I was in
Speaker 1: an AA meeting last night, and I wrote to Jesse
Speaker 1: right because it was nighttime, and I was like, what
Speaker 1: the fuck? And then I said, we have to talk
Speaker 1: to Dahlia. I was getting in an uber to go
Speaker 1: to wait for it, Depeche Mode with my two teenage
Speaker 1: sons of my husband, and I spent the entire concert
Speaker 1: reading the opinion and sobbing silently as my boys jumped
Speaker 1: up and down delightedly beside me. So they sure do
Speaker 1: know how to wreck a weekend down there in Amarilla.
Speaker 1: I mean, they really do. So, I mean, will you
Speaker 1: just remind our listeners a little bit about how the
Speaker 1: anti choice crew really strategically went to this judge and
Speaker 1: set this whole thing up. Yeah, I mean this is
Speaker 1: part of a new phenomenon. We always used to have
Speaker 1: sort of venue shopping, which is you'd file your lawsuit
Speaker 1: in a place where you were more likely than not
Speaker 1: to pull the kinds of judges you wanted. This is
Speaker 1: a brand new iteration of that, Molly, it's judge shopping.
Speaker 1: So in this particular jurisdiction in Amarillo, Texas, your chance
Speaker 1: of drawing this one judge as the thing. It's like
Speaker 1: a vending machine, like you put in your quarter, you
Speaker 1: get a Snicker's bar every time. And so this case,
Speaker 1: which has nothing to do whatsoever with Amarillo, Texas, gets
Speaker 1: filed there because the folks who are seeking to end
Speaker 1: medication abortion nationwide know that this is a lifelong person
Speaker 1: who's worked in the trenches alongside them. He's going to
Speaker 1: not just be the Snickers bar they want, He's also
Speaker 1: going to give them precisely what they want. And so
Speaker 1: that's it. This case has no connection to AMROLLA beyond that.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you a little more about this.
Speaker 1: So we knew this ruling was coming. He had made
Speaker 1: machinations to that effect, but he had said he was
Speaker 1: going to wait right wait for his order to be
Speaker 1: he you mean, which part do we ask? He was
Speaker 1: sort of waiting around to do it. We sort of
Speaker 1: knew this was coming. We had this long four hour
Speaker 1: hearing where he pretended to do all this chin stroking
Speaker 1: about how complicated this was, and it was just especially
Speaker 1: now if you read the opinion he wrote, which I
Speaker 1: suspect he wrote like in law school or when he
Speaker 1: was actually working for one of these groups, there was
Speaker 1: no thought put into this. In other words, he was
Speaker 1: not open to arguments on both sides, all of the
Speaker 1: kabuki around, Oh, this is really tricky, and I have
Speaker 1: serious issues with declaiming for the first time that I
Speaker 1: can withdraw FDA approval like that was just all a
Speaker 1: bunch of bunk, because this really is. I mean, one
Speaker 1: of the things that's depressing about the opinion, Molly, in
Speaker 1: addition to the fact that it's ridiculous, is that it's
Speaker 1: just not even original ridiculousness. It's cutting and pasting from radical,
Speaker 1: rapid religious pro life groups, pre existing ridiculous like be creative, dude,
Speaker 1: do one line in this that is, you know, interesting
Speaker 1: and novel, but it's just hackneed stuff about you know,
Speaker 1: all these debunked stuff about maternal suicide. Everything that he
Speaker 1: says is debunked. And I think maybe the other thing
Speaker 1: that's really striking about this and maybe hasn't gotten quite
Speaker 1: enough attention, is he goes way farther than Justice Alito
Speaker 1: would go even in Dabbs, to kind of lay the
Speaker 1: scenes for fetal personhood right to say, there's this astonishing
Speaker 1: footnote where he says jurists use the word quote fetus
Speaker 1: to inaccurately identify unborn humans. And he goes on to
Speaker 1: say throughout the thing that he's going to use unborn
Speaker 1: human or unborn child, which is all playing the groundwork
Speaker 1: for the kind of thing even Sam Alito wasn't brave
Speaker 1: enough to do in Dubs, which is to suggest that
Speaker 1: this is human life, it starts at conception, and that
Speaker 1: even states that allow abortion are participating in murder. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a question for you about saying I read
Speaker 1: yesterday and I can't remember where I read it, but
Speaker 1: the sort of thesis was there are federal judges and
Speaker 1: there are Trump judges. Do you think these Trump judges
Speaker 1: are just sort of operating, you know, that they're not
Speaker 1: bound by the same conventions that normal quote unquote politicians were,
Speaker 1: normal quote unquote jurists were. Yeah, I think that that's
Speaker 1: happening around the country that we're seeing Trump judges and
Speaker 1: judge Becausemark is by no means the only one who
Speaker 1: are really outside the bounds of the kinds of norms
Speaker 1: that say a Bush judge or you know, even a
Speaker 1: Reagan judge is at least somewhat bound by notions of
Speaker 1: you know, what the rule of law means, what precedent means,
Speaker 1: you know, caring at least somewhat that the integrity and
Speaker 1: the reputational interests of the courts are protected. And then
Speaker 1: you just get Trump judges who are not all of them,
Speaker 1: but many of them seemingly raised in like underground labs
Speaker 1: to break shit and that's just what we have. And
Speaker 1: so there's no regard for you know, in this case,
Speaker 1: this guy has no authority. There is absolutely no authority
Speaker 1: for one Loan District Court judge to counterman twenty three
Speaker 1: years of FDA approved. This is the same judge, by
Speaker 1: the way, who gave himself the authority to Micromani President
Speaker 1: Biden's policies in Mexico international law. So I think there
Speaker 1: is a difference, and part of it is, I guess
Speaker 1: I would just say a self reinforcing loop, because these
Speaker 1: guys are not just breaking things, they're also auditioning for
Speaker 1: higher courts. And what they know is if they wave
Speaker 1: their arms around in the air and say, no, I'm
Speaker 1: the craziest of them all, it's a sure rocket to
Speaker 1: be at a circuit court and someday, if they're lucky,
Speaker 1: to be on the Supreme Court. So this is entirely lawless,
Speaker 1: but it's also freakishly rewarded in the way that Fedsock
Speaker 1: promotes these people. Right, it's such an interesting phenomenon. It
Speaker 1: does strike me that it is a similar phenomenon of
Speaker 1: what you're seeing with the Marjorie Taylor grains, right, like
Speaker 1: these the zalad As Republicans who are being rewarded for
Speaker 1: being as crazy as possible. Right, that's George Santos, Right,
Speaker 1: you just you crime. It's not just failing up. You
Speaker 1: like crime up. Like, the more crime they find, the
Speaker 1: more they lavish, you know, plot it's on you, and
Speaker 1: it's so weird and it's also, you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of antithetical to the way even like I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: like Justice Scalia. In fact, this is like probably a
Speaker 1: good segue to Clarence Thomas. But even Justice Scalia was
Speaker 1: capable of shame. Right when antonin Scalia goes like duck
Speaker 1: hunting with Dick Cheney a party to a suit in
Speaker 1: front of him, at least Justice Scalia has the good
Speaker 1: grace to like try to defend himself and be sort
Speaker 1: of sheepish and say, like, dude, I know this looks bad,
Speaker 1: but let me explain why we weren't in the same
Speaker 1: duck blind. So it's okay, But Clarence Thomas is like
Speaker 1: this whole new flavor of like, oh hell yeah, I
Speaker 1: took a half a million dollars worth of like lavish
Speaker 1: vacations and yacht rides and plane rides to Indonesia, and
Speaker 1: I do it again. And that's what's different, is the
Speaker 1: utter lack of shame. That is what I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about. Because so we had this blockbuster
Speaker 1: reporting from pro publica leftist rag. Pro Publica iSight, Oh
Speaker 1: that was Byron York saying it's a leftist rag if
Speaker 1: the truth is leftist. Then Pro Publica is leftist with
Speaker 1: this reporting basically, I mean, I think, like the most
Speaker 1: evocative moment and the whole thing is they got the
Speaker 1: photos from Instagram, so it's not like people who were
Speaker 1: hiding this. Right, But Clarence Thomas has a billionaire friend.
Speaker 1: He vacations with him to the tune of half a
Speaker 1: million dollars a year. He hasn't been documenting any of this.
Speaker 1: But again, there aren't larger ethics rules for these justices. Right,
Speaker 1: There are ethics rules. There are canons of ethics and
Speaker 1: statutes that apply to every Article three federal judge. The
Speaker 1: problem is the Supreme Court doesn't by them to itself,
Speaker 1: that the nine justices on the Court have persuaded themselves
Speaker 1: in the country that their own excellent awesomeness is such
Speaker 1: that And I think the word that John Roberts used,
Speaker 1: I love this. We consult the rules, you know, like
Speaker 1: the way you consult a map or you know, YELP.
Speaker 1: So they consult them and then they apply them to themselves,
Speaker 1: and then they there's no way to enforce them. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that I think is so important, it's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I was like to talk to
Speaker 1: you about this story is there's a kind of everything
Speaker 1: all at once vibe here because that photograph of Harlan Crowe, right,
Speaker 1: sit sit with that awesome knives out name he and
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas, and what Leonard Leo right, the head of
Speaker 1: the Federal Society, right, you'll remember him from season one.
Speaker 1: You may remember him from I bought the Federal Judiciary
Speaker 1: and they got a billion dollars to do it again.
Speaker 1: And like Mark Poletta, right, who is working in the
Speaker 1: Trump ad registration but insists that he's reimbursed his travel.
Speaker 1: And these guys are sitting around and we're to believe
Speaker 1: a that they don't discuss. Kate says, I guess they're
Speaker 1: just discussing season one. But then more like unbelievably that
Speaker 1: this is all like totally fine, this is normal, and
Speaker 1: that we should just agree to this, because Clarence Thomas
Speaker 1: tells us it's fine. And also he tells us in
Speaker 1: a statement on Friday, which he never explained. So the
Speaker 1: fact that he tried to even justify this is so funny.
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh yeah, dude, when I came on
Speaker 1: the court, I asked some people and they said it
Speaker 1: was fine. Right. So here's a textualist who says you
Speaker 1: have to read every word of the statute so that
Speaker 1: it is plain meaning, is manifestly true. And he's like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I don't read the statutes. I just asked some people
Speaker 1: and they said I could fly around on jets. And
Speaker 1: it's just so snot out your nose funny that they
Speaker 1: have constructed this world in which Clarence Thomas, right, is
Speaker 1: sitting on the court when Citizens United opens this bigot
Speaker 1: for dark money, Right, that's dark money that goes to
Speaker 1: Jenny Thomas. He's sitting on the court when it decides
Speaker 1: Shelby County, right, that does away with the Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 1: that does away with you any check on partisan jerrymandering
Speaker 1: in the root showcase. So Clarence Thomas is literally being
Speaker 1: paid to construct the America we live in now. And
Speaker 1: that's the america that can throw legislators from Tennessee out
Speaker 1: of the House because it's a jerrymanderis supermajority, like he
Speaker 1: built this, he built this. Yeah, it's unfucking believable. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about this Washington d judge who issued
Speaker 1: a dueling injunction prohibiting the FDA from pulling metha preston
Speaker 1: off the market. I mean, I think what it does.
Speaker 1: My colleague Mark Joseph Stern put up an amazing piece
Speaker 1: Friday night. It essentially sets up a constitutional crisis because
Speaker 1: Judge because Mark's order right, says you have one week
Speaker 1: at which point we have to pull a drug from
Speaker 1: the market. It's done right, there's no methopristone left. And
Speaker 1: then you have a dueling injunction from this judge in
Speaker 1: Washington State who says, actually, I'm going to compel the
Speaker 1: FDA to keep allowing methopristone in the seventeen states and
Speaker 1: the districts. So with eighteen jurisdictions that had brought this
Speaker 1: separate suit in Washington, So now you have essentially got
Speaker 1: a situation where the FBDA is being ordered to do
Speaker 1: two things that cannot both be done right. They either
Speaker 1: need to suspend the drug nationwide or they need to
Speaker 1: preserve access to the drug in these eighteen jurisdictions that
Speaker 1: have prevailed in Washington State, and they can't do them.
Speaker 1: And so immediately you have a situation where we don't
Speaker 1: know what they're going to do. There's really good thinking
Speaker 1: on whether you even can compel the FDA to do anything.
Speaker 1: It's actually no authority for a judge. There's if the
Speaker 1: FDA is going to withdraw a drug, it has to
Speaker 1: go by its own regulations and processes. So it's not
Speaker 1: even clear that this could happen. But we really are
Speaker 1: in a situation now where say this rockets up to
Speaker 1: the Fifth Circuit, that's the jurisdiction that controls appeals from Texas,
Speaker 1: it rockets up to the Ninth Circuit, right, that's the
Speaker 1: jurisdiction that's going to have to look at a Washington
Speaker 1: State decision. And then what happens you have to conflicting
Speaker 1: appellate court opinions. So there's this other crazy problem which
Speaker 1: is in addition to the FDA not knowing what the
Speaker 1: hell it's meant to do. Next week, we have the
Speaker 1: problem of the Supreme Court is about to enter its
Speaker 1: last month of oral argument. The term's over it, So
Speaker 1: what are they going to do. Are they going to
Speaker 1: from vacation whatever? Are they going to list it for
Speaker 1: next fall? Are they going to do this on their
Speaker 1: like emergency chef ato docket the way they did SBA?
Speaker 1: You remember they did the Vigilante Bill they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's two in the morning. I guess we'll write some sentences. So, like,
Speaker 1: there's no good option for the Supreme Court to resolve this.
Speaker 1: And this is in some sense, like very seriously the
Speaker 1: kind of definition of a constitutional crisis where you have
Speaker 1: dueling entities that have authority over something and they're both
Speaker 1: pushing you to do different things. Could be right, Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So when you now, I want to add another wrinkle
Speaker 1: to this constitutional crisis, Senator Ron Widen, There's no way
Speaker 1: this decision has a basis and law. It is instead
Speaker 1: rooted in conservatives dangerous and undemocratic takeover of our country's institutions.
Speaker 1: So the FDA, doctors and pharmacies can and must go
Speaker 1: about their jobs like nothing has changed and keep methophist
Speaker 1: one available to the women across America. If they don't,
Speaker 1: the consequences of banning the most common method of abortion
Speaker 1: every single state will be devastating. And we're seeing this again,
Speaker 1: and we're also seeing democratic governors say that they're just
Speaker 1: gonna that these Republicans can go fuck themselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: does this add a wrinkle? It strikes me that this
Speaker 1: adds a wrinkle. Yeah, it's exactly the same problem. Governor
Speaker 1: Jay Insley and Washington State did the same thing earlier
Speaker 1: this week. He knew that judge because Mark's ruling was coming,
Speaker 1: so he just announced that Washington State had purchased thirty
Speaker 1: thousand doses of mithipress stone as an insurance policy. And
Speaker 1: he's just and then he stockpiled another ten thousand doses
Speaker 1: and they went through the Department of Corrections in their
Speaker 1: state and was like, stop me, come get me. And
Speaker 1: so this starts to feel right, This starts to feel
Speaker 1: like massive presistance. It starts to feel yeah. And the
Speaker 1: other thing, you know, AOC said this, I think on
Speaker 1: TV on Friday night. Again, you cannot force the FDA.
Speaker 1: There's no jurisdiction for one sitting district court judge in
Speaker 1: Amarilla to force the FDA to withdraw du There's just
Speaker 1: no mechanism to do it. And so I think that
Speaker 1: this kind of ignore ignore ignore strategy both signals what
Speaker 1: feels like lawlessness. That's what you're asking me, Molly, like,
Speaker 1: are people going to just nullify this? That's kind of scary.
Speaker 1: But there's a way in which if he actually doesn't
Speaker 1: have the jurisdiction or the authority to do this, then
Speaker 1: what the hell are you going to do to comply?
Speaker 1: And so it's another you're exactly right that it sort
Speaker 1: of sends us down this nihilist path of we all
Speaker 1: choose our own legal ending. Right, it does seem like
Speaker 1: a larger problem of like what are we going to
Speaker 1: live in fifty different countries? Right? And also, I know
Speaker 1: you and I talked about this after Dobs, but this
Speaker 1: other problem where the uncertainty is the point, right, Like
Speaker 1: the big winner post SBA, post Dobs. In so many
Speaker 1: of these contexts, the big winner is uncertainty. Because when
Speaker 1: you have doctors, for instance, we're hearing like fleeing Texas, right,
Speaker 1: I can't be a gynecologist in Texas. You're seeing hospitals
Speaker 1: closing around the country, clinics that don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: That's all just the fruit of I don't know what
Speaker 1: the law is and I can't take a chance then
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to jail or that I'm going
Speaker 1: to face hundreds and thousands of dollars of fines, and
Speaker 1: so part of the I don't want to say beauty
Speaker 1: because it's a horror show, but the elegance of what
Speaker 1: they are doing. Post abs is just sowing the seeds
Speaker 1: of nobody knows what the law is because everybody gets
Speaker 1: to do what they want, and the people who suffer
Speaker 1: in moments when uncertainty prevails and nobody knows how to
Speaker 1: protect themselves, and that caregivers don't know what the law is,
Speaker 1: and you know, uber drivers don't know, and kids don't
Speaker 1: know if they can drive someone across state lines. Right,
Speaker 1: what prevails is this total massive doubt, and that means
Speaker 1: the most vulnerable people are the ones who suffer most.
Speaker 1: And those are the stories we're seeing, right, And that's
Speaker 1: what they've always wanted. I just want to ask you
Speaker 1: one last question. I don't want to be hopeful, because
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court does truly suck, but they refuse to
Speaker 1: rule on the trans athlete band out of West Virginia
Speaker 1: and the three trumpy justices said they weren't going to
Speaker 1: way in I mean, and the descent was, of course,
Speaker 1: the two worst members of the court, Thomas and Alito.
Speaker 1: Did that make you a little bit hopeful that there
Speaker 1: they know they're over their skis. I spent Friday night
Speaker 1: in that with depeche Mode, admittedly bringing in my ears
Speaker 1: in that like liminal space. Hold me, Justice Kavanaugh, Hold me,
Speaker 1: Justice Barrett, like you keep telling me you're moderates, right.
Speaker 1: Justice Kavanaugh was so so so sanctimonious in his Dub's
Speaker 1: concurrence where he was like, oh, wow, you know this
Speaker 1: is really tricky, and I'm certainly not saying that people
Speaker 1: can't cross state lines, and far be it from me
Speaker 1: to say that, you know, we could criminalize. So I
Speaker 1: suppose now we're in this completely tragic moment where we
Speaker 1: are relying on the shame response of Amy Coney, Barrett
Speaker 1: and Brett Kavanaugh. And so what you're asking me is
Speaker 1: this unanswerable question about whether they're prepared to do now
Speaker 1: what they wouldn't do in Dobbs, which is say the
Speaker 1: quiet parts loud, which is say yes, we want to
Speaker 1: make abortion illegal from conception around the country, and if
Speaker 1: we have to use the eighteen seventy three Comstock Act,
Speaker 1: will do it. I don't know. I literally don't know
Speaker 1: what the answer is in a very creepy way, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to say something that's going to freak you out.
Speaker 1: What scares me about this moment we're in is that
Speaker 1: the more we anger. Clarence Thomas and the more we
Speaker 1: anger Brett Kavanaugh, the more we say things like wow,
Speaker 1: his concurrence in Dobbs was full crap, the more likely
Speaker 1: we are to get a bad outcome. Right, it's real
Speaker 1: abuser stuff, abuser exactly. And we're in this classic abuser
Speaker 1: moment where I guess my answer to your question has
Speaker 1: to be yes, Molly. I am certain that in the
Speaker 1: fullness of time and their infinite wisdom, Amy Cooney, Barrett
Speaker 1: and Brett Kavana are going to realize that they don't
Speaker 1: want people to die on tables of sepsis because of
Speaker 1: their ruling. But do I believe that? But how long
Speaker 1: does that take? Who knows? It's very weird. And this
Speaker 1: is the problem with like, you know, unchecked infinite power.
Speaker 1: To get back to Clarence Thomas, like, if we really
Speaker 1: really want a good result in these medication abortion cases,
Speaker 1: I think what we're supposed to do is say that
Speaker 1: they're awesome and turn a blind eye to their misconduct.
Speaker 1: All of this is a loser for Republicans, right, Like
Speaker 1: people hate it. People hate the idea that you can
Speaker 1: arrest a grandmother for taking her granddaughter to get an abortion,
Speaker 1: Like this is not popular, Like those swing steady voters
Speaker 1: don't like the handman's tail stuff. They may not be
Speaker 1: pro choice, but they don't like whatever this is. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think that these guys, these three trumpy justices
Speaker 1: have sort of been like, we don't want to completely
Speaker 1: screw over the Republican Party, or you think they just
Speaker 1: don't care. I mean, I think this is back to
Speaker 1: my slightly dispiriting everything everywhere, all at once answer, which is,
Speaker 1: I think if you look at what happened in Tennessee
Speaker 1: this week, which is, we don't care how people vote.
Speaker 1: This is not about vote suppression. This is about stripping
Speaker 1: power of duly elected people with authority to act right.
Speaker 1: And I think this is where Cheryl and Eiffel wrote
Speaker 1: this kind of chilling piece for us at Slate a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, saying, when they say we're going to
Speaker 1: make it impossible for the Wisconsin Supreme Court duly elected
Speaker 1: to rule on voting or abortion, When they say we
Speaker 1: and Georgia are going to make it impossible for Fannie
Speaker 1: Willis duly elected to bring this, what they're doing is
Speaker 1: saying this is way beyond vote suppression. This is way
Speaker 1: beyond jerrymandering. This is actually stripping democratically elected folks of
Speaker 1: their power. And the reason it's relevant to this conversation
Speaker 1: is that I deeply, deeply believe that even if sixty
Speaker 1: seventy eighty percent of voters hate these anti abortion moves
Speaker 1: and want, for instance, you know, rape exceptions, and want
Speaker 1: doctors to make the decisions and not hospital boards, it
Speaker 1: almost doesn't matter if you can suppress their votes. And
Speaker 1: what we are seeing, I think is a really existential
Speaker 1: and I don't use that word lightly, foot race between
Speaker 1: pro democracy right students who want gun control and people
Speaker 1: who hate dabs and people who are fighting for one person,
Speaker 1: one vote, fighting radical jerrymanders on the one hand, and
Speaker 1: then you're seeing this vote suppression that's happening on such
Speaker 1: a large scale that it's not even vote suppression anymore.
Speaker 1: It's democracy suppression. And what scares me is that I
Speaker 1: think the Supreme Court, because you know, I just rattled
Speaker 1: off those cases since United Shelby County rucho, they're in
Speaker 1: the vote suppression business, Molly, that's how they do it, right. No,
Speaker 1: it's true. Thank you so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: a weekend. I appreciate you. If I were a better
Speaker 1: person I'd sing us out with some grim voicing depeche Mode,
Speaker 1: but I'm not that person. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you, you're amazing. Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost represents Florida's
Speaker 1: tenth congressional district. Welcome back to Fast Politica, Congressman Maxwell Frost,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me on. We're delighted
Speaker 1: to have you back. I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about this movement of young legislators are just it's just
Speaker 1: exploding around you. Yeah, I mean, you know, young legislators,
Speaker 1: young activists, organizers, I mean, you know, you see what's
Speaker 1: going on in Tennessee, r Now, that's which is okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is both incredibly sad, but also when you see
Speaker 1: with the response to just the horrible things going on
Speaker 1: in terms of guns and violence, and then obviously these
Speaker 1: three lawmakers that may be expelled, I think they're the
Speaker 1: vote is this morning. I think it's happening right now.
Speaker 1: Most people know. But just can you explain how you
Speaker 1: got into politics because I feel like it dovetails so
Speaker 1: nicely with what's happening right now. Yeah. So I got
Speaker 1: involved in politics because of gun violence. It was the
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook shooting that really put me into action. It
Speaker 1: was my call to action. After seeing what had happened,
Speaker 1: I went to DC. I was fifteen years old. I
Speaker 1: went to the memorial that was going on. I had
Speaker 1: found someone online named Sarah Clements. She was a leader
Speaker 1: with the Junior Newtown Action Alliance and her mother was
Speaker 1: actually a teacher at Sandy Hook. Her mother survived the shooting,
Speaker 1: but her mom was a teacher there, and so I
Speaker 1: connected with Sarah and I just kind of set her
Speaker 1: message on Facebook and said, hey, you know, I'd love
Speaker 1: to be involved, and she sent me a Google form
Speaker 1: for the trip. I applied, my parents signed a waiver,
Speaker 1: and I went over a fifteen years old and really
Speaker 1: being there with the students and the families who had
Speaker 1: lost loved ones and lost their children in the shooting,
Speaker 1: it really changed everything. And the moment for me was
Speaker 1: I was sitting across from Matthew Soto, who lost his
Speaker 1: sister Vicky in the shooting, and just seeing as someone
Speaker 1: who's sixteen with the demeanor of someone who's sixty talking
Speaker 1: about his sister was murdered for just going to school
Speaker 1: that morning. I Juan straight to my Howatl room. I
Speaker 1: was crying and called my mom, my mom to teacher
Speaker 1: of thirty seven years and I, you know, said I
Speaker 1: want to fight for a world or no one has
Speaker 1: to feel that way. And you know you get him
Speaker 1: for want the reason you feel. You find up there's
Speaker 1: a lot of problems, but that's where I firstly dedicated
Speaker 1: myself being a part of this fight, ed And it
Speaker 1: grows and changes as you get into it because you
Speaker 1: find out about all the different issues and how they're connected.
Speaker 1: But gun violence is really the issue that put me
Speaker 1: to action. So right now here you are, are you
Speaker 1: the youngest man of Congress ever? Now? No, so, I
Speaker 1: mean in the eighteen hundreds and the book exactly, so
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds, you know, there's like twenty one
Speaker 1: year old members of Congress and stuff, so not ever,
Speaker 1: but I am the youngest right now. And I do
Speaker 1: believe one of your favorite people was actually maybe a
Speaker 1: month or two younger than me when he was elected.
Speaker 1: Who's that? Madison? Oh? Yes, thank you very nice. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you so mean, I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you here you are in Congress now, we had
Speaker 1: you on this podcast right after you got elected. You
Speaker 1: have probably had a pretty steep learning curve. Tell us
Speaker 1: what has really surprised you about Congress. Honestly, I would
Speaker 1: say there's two things. Number one is just how partisan
Speaker 1: the operation of Congresses, because I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of times we would attribute how partisan Congress is just
Speaker 1: like people, you know, the media and people you know
Speaker 1: the wild person from one side and the wild person
Speaker 1: on the other side, and put them on the TV,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's all part of it. But really,
Speaker 1: I mean when you go to Congress itself, for instance,
Speaker 1: you go to orientation, you're only with your people from
Speaker 1: the other side for the morning when you are in
Speaker 1: class that you're trying to listen and you know, figure
Speaker 1: out how to be a member of Congress, so you're
Speaker 1: not really talking much. And then after lunch you are
Speaker 1: completely separated by party for the rest of the day.
Speaker 1: And that's every day in orientation. And then once you
Speaker 1: get in the Congress, you're so busy and anytime you're
Speaker 1: with you know, other members, you're on the floor, you're
Speaker 1: sitting on separate sides of the aisle. You have different
Speaker 1: you know cloak rooms, which the cloakroom is like the
Speaker 1: kind of like a break room that's there for when
Speaker 1: we're voting, and you really have to go out of
Speaker 1: the way for that kind of bipartisanship. And so it's
Speaker 1: just interesting and it was a little surprising to me.
Speaker 1: The other thing, as I say, is I'm still getting
Speaker 1: used to the schedule and the pace. And what I
Speaker 1: mean that is I've always worked pretty long hours working
Speaker 1: on campaigns, and even as a candidate. Right Like, as
Speaker 1: a candidate, I was working twelve to sixteen hours a day.
Speaker 1: But the difference now is I'm just working the same hours,
Speaker 1: but it's like twenty minute increments of completely different subjects,
Speaker 1: and you're using a lot of a lot more brain
Speaker 1: power because on a campaign, you're just thinking about winning,
Speaker 1: knocking doors or raising money. In office, you're thinking about
Speaker 1: a million different priorities. And so I joke around that
Speaker 1: on the campaign, I'd come home and I'd be exhausted,
Speaker 1: and now I come home and I'm exhausted and my head.
Speaker 1: Do you have any hopes that there can be a
Speaker 1: sort of bipartisan I mean, you're gonna we're gonna hit
Speaker 1: the debt ceiling and there's gonna have to be something
Speaker 1: bipartisan happening. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's unfortunate that Republican
Speaker 1: leadership wants to use the debt ceiling to kind of
Speaker 1: negotiate on the budget, especially because I don't think people
Speaker 1: fully understand that, I mean, the US hitting the debt,
Speaker 1: stealing and defaulting on our debt. You know that that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound worse than the government shutdown, but it's actually
Speaker 1: much worse than a government shutdown. Right. But we're looking
Speaker 1: at way because we can help educate our constituents and
Speaker 1: kind of what's going on as we get close to this,
Speaker 1: because it will be serious, like people will see serious
Speaker 1: cuts to you know, things like Social Security, etc. To
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. So we'll see what happens. I mean,
Speaker 1: like you know, the Freedom concuss came out and said
Speaker 1: there will be no discussion less it involves major cuts.
Speaker 1: And obviously we're not. You know, we can't have like
Speaker 1: twenty percent cuts across the board. We can't have you know,
Speaker 1: the numbers of twenty twenty numbers for the budget. It's
Speaker 1: just like it won't work and people are gonna feel
Speaker 1: it at home, and so we'll have to see where
Speaker 1: it goes. But yeah, I mean, it's gonna have to
Speaker 1: be done a bipartisan way because we need to have
Speaker 1: the approval from the House of Representatives. Well, and also,
Speaker 1: I mean they're the worst bad faith actors going exactly
Speaker 1: number one. I mean, someone argue that we should the
Speaker 1: debt sealing shouldn't even exist. I'm one of those people.
Speaker 1: It's really just a political tool. So we have this
Speaker 1: kind of near explosion every year that causes unneeded anxiety
Speaker 1: and gives people an opportunity to kind of hold the
Speaker 1: whole country hostage to what what do you want to
Speaker 1: cut snap? You know, like, well they would like to
Speaker 1: cat snap. So yeah, yeah, why do you think I
Speaker 1: want to get into this idea for a second. So
Speaker 1: you have all these people who voted for Trump, non
Speaker 1: college educated whites who would actually benefit from and often
Speaker 1: are on SNAP or on Obamacare. And I mean I think,
Speaker 1: like my favorite discourse was that, you know, the people
Speaker 1: who after they elected Trump were like, well, I'm on ACA,
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm on I'm not on Obamacare. I'm
Speaker 1: on the other thing, which is Obamacare. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you I mean, why do you think Democrats have so
Speaker 1: much trouble appealing to those people when they are basically
Speaker 1: all they want to do is help those people I've
Speaker 1: been talking a lot about this difference between politics and policy,
Speaker 1: and I think a good case study for it is
Speaker 1: in Florida. Yeah, or if you look at Florida and
Speaker 1: look at our ballot initiatives, over seventy percent of our
Speaker 1: voters said yes to medical marijuana, voting rights for people's
Speaker 1: previous felonies, and a fifteen dollars minimum wage. And if
Speaker 1: you look at the polling, most Flurians want to cloddify
Speaker 1: the right to an abortion, are not for permit less carry,
Speaker 1: and what adult use of marijuana. So it's interesting because
Speaker 1: in terms of policy, you are actually a pretty progressive state.
Speaker 1: But then when you introduce politics, then things look a
Speaker 1: little different. And that's why someone like the Santas can
Speaker 1: win with the twenty point margin vast November. But you know,
Speaker 1: but we have a good chance of palling the passing
Speaker 1: these progressive ballot initiatives because his policy versus politics. You know.
Speaker 1: It's also why anytime rounda Santas speak, he's never talking
Speaker 1: about policy because he knows it's very his policy is unpopular.
Speaker 1: He's talking about woke and you know, whatever the hell
Speaker 1: that is, And that's kind of what he focuses because
Speaker 1: that's the bread and butter, the politics of all of it.
Speaker 1: So it's very interesting to kind of break it down
Speaker 1: like that, and I think you can break it down
Speaker 1: like that in the national scale. You know, our policies
Speaker 1: that we have as Democrats and progressives. It's the most
Speaker 1: popular thing. It is the most popular policy, but it
Speaker 1: seems like sometimes we have trouble connecting that policy at
Speaker 1: people's day to day life and telling the story of policy.
Speaker 1: The other thing is we oftentimes are obsessed with giving
Speaker 1: people something to vote against and not giving people something
Speaker 1: to vote for. I mean, if you look at what
Speaker 1: happened in Florida, Republicans would set up the trap where
Speaker 1: they're like, you're a socialist, communist, even from the police, whatever,
Speaker 1: and they say that about you. Whether you're a moderate
Speaker 1: or progressive, don't matter if you're a Democrat, they say
Speaker 1: it about you. And then Democrats in Florida spent, you know,
Speaker 1: would spend their media budget saying no, I'm not and
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure no I'm not is a winning message.
Speaker 1: And so I think we should just really focus in
Speaker 1: on what we're fighting for, what it means, how it
Speaker 1: can work for people and not be afraid of those
Speaker 1: kind of north star bold solutions that yeah, I might
Speaker 1: not pass next year, but it excites people to think
Speaker 1: about the future that's possible. We just got to be
Speaker 1: honest with Yeah. I mean that's the thing that I'm
Speaker 1: so struck by. And when you talk about these ballot initiatives,
Speaker 1: ballot initiatives do incredibly well. I mean, they do so
Speaker 1: well that conservatives want to make the bar for them
Speaker 1: sixty percent and not fifty percent because they know, you
Speaker 1: know that the people are much more liberal than politically
Speaker 1: than their ideas. I mean, yeah, that, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just such an interesting and important thing. And I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about the elections this week because
Speaker 1: there were too you know, in the minutes that we're
Speaker 1: not eating up by Trump getting indicted there the Republican
Speaker 1: Front ran are getting indicted. There were two huge wins
Speaker 1: for progressives. Talk to me about Chicago. I'm curious what
Speaker 1: your take on that is. Yeah, I mean, very very
Speaker 1: exciting what happened in Chicago. I think you have your
Speaker 1: classic progressive or The interesting thing is, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of times we want to boil the sound to
Speaker 1: progressive versus moderate, because that maybe that's what we're used
Speaker 1: to or whatever. But I think it's much more than that.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you haven't progressive and you have someone
Speaker 1: who's more who's more of a moderate in the race.
Speaker 1: But a lot of this, I'm just not convinced that
Speaker 1: most voters walk into a voting booth and go who's
Speaker 1: the progressive, who's the moderate. I mean, I think there's
Speaker 1: a group of people who do that, like you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the people who are very politically involved, but I
Speaker 1: think most working people go and think about who have
Speaker 1: I heard from, who said things that I believe in,
Speaker 1: Who's inspired me, Who's spoken to what I'm going through,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And I think what we saw
Speaker 1: as you know, someone like Mary, like Brandon Johnson, who
Speaker 1: comes from union, who comes from labor, who is progressive,
Speaker 1: and who was talking about a better Chicago for everyone,
Speaker 1: and it was building that vision with everyone along the
Speaker 1: campaign trail. And I think that type of campaign is
Speaker 1: so engaging, and that type of campaign brings people together
Speaker 1: from different walks of life that you want that to
Speaker 1: be the future of your city or of wherever you live.
Speaker 1: The campaign itself is like a canvas where you can
Speaker 1: paint the future of whatever place you're running for. And
Speaker 1: so if you have an exciting campaign that talks about
Speaker 1: a bold future, that talks about policies that people actually
Speaker 1: believe in, then people will will take that energy and
Speaker 1: bring it to the voting booth. I think you saw
Speaker 1: a Brandon Johnson, who you know I tweeted about this.
Speaker 1: A big topic of discussion in this in that race
Speaker 1: was crime. Nobody likes crime. You know, no one wants
Speaker 1: to crime. Let me just say that straight up. Everyone
Speaker 1: has different ideas on how we deal with it. But
Speaker 1: you know, our country has had a kind of tough
Speaker 1: on crime mentality for a long time, and nothing's really
Speaker 1: gotten better in terms of crime. And I think we
Speaker 1: have groups of people who are saying, well, look, we
Speaker 1: have being tough on crime, why don't we just be
Speaker 1: smart on crime? And that doesn't mean there's no accountability
Speaker 1: for crime. It means let's also look at the root
Speaker 1: causes that push people to commit a crime. How do
Speaker 1: we be how do we have preventative measures not reactionary ones.
Speaker 1: It's the same conversation with gun violence, because people want
Speaker 1: to talk about, you know, ending gun violence, and it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what we do after like a group
Speaker 1: of fricking school kids get mowed down by an AAR fifteen. Sure,
Speaker 1: but I'm more interested in talking about how we make
Speaker 1: sure that those kids are alive and that never happened.
Speaker 1: So I just don't know, And this is something within
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Two, why Democrats have a hard time
Speaker 1: using the same logic for all crime. And it's like,
Speaker 1: what are the preventative measures? That's gun control or gun
Speaker 1: violence prevention, universal background checks, those are preventative measures. So it's,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of a you know, a debate
Speaker 1: of I guess, ideology and policy. But like, let's apply
Speaker 1: that same line of thinking that most Democrats are for
Speaker 1: gun violence prevention measures, Let's do the same thing with
Speaker 1: crime and let's see if we can fix it. So
Speaker 1: either way, very interesting, but very exciting, very exciting fantasy.
Speaker 1: Judge Janet, Yeah, I want to ask you about Judge
Speaker 1: Janet too, But first I want to talk to you.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm looking at this bill that you did
Speaker 1: with Chris Murphy. Can you just give us like the
Speaker 1: TLDR on that. Yeah, So this is the first bill
Speaker 1: that I've introduced. It is called the Office of Gun
Speaker 1: Violence Prevention active twenty twenty three. It's quite a literal
Speaker 1: title for the bill because what it does is it
Speaker 1: creates a Federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. And did
Speaker 1: you know there is no one office in the federal
Speaker 1: government that works on the violence every single day. It's
Speaker 1: actually split between multiple different departments and agencies that have
Speaker 1: different functions on this issue. It's the leading cause of
Speaker 1: death for children and has the least amount of money
Speaker 1: dollars and effort in terms of research and data aggregations exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's why most of the data we see on
Speaker 1: gun violence that actually doesn't really come from the government.
Speaker 1: It comes from every town for so brave here these
Speaker 1: different organizations, which is great, but we need to put
Speaker 1: some sweat equity on the line here in getting this data.
Speaker 1: And then also you know, this office would provide recommendations
Speaker 1: on how they feel like we could stop gun violence
Speaker 1: and work with municipal governments, county wide governments, Congress, etc.
Speaker 1: And so I hope that this can get bipartisan support
Speaker 1: because it's not gun policy. It's not a policy on guns,
Speaker 1: it's an office to help us be informed on it. Now,
Speaker 1: I'll I understand that there probably will be some people
Speaker 1: who don't want the office because they understand that from
Speaker 1: an objective point of view, when you look at what's
Speaker 1: going on, the recommendations that might come out of it
Speaker 1: might not be in line with your politics. But I mean,
Speaker 1: we need, we need to save lives. And so that's
Speaker 1: the bill. We're really excited about it. We introduced it
Speaker 1: with Senator Chris Murphy, so it lives in both the
Speaker 1: House and the Senate. I saw you come up in
Speaker 1: the Washington Examiner, which is a gop APO dump shop basically,
Speaker 1: and it was like, I mean, Washington Examiner, Washington Free
Speaker 1: Beacon basically the same, you know, Okay in my mind anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'll get you know, but yes, basically, and
Speaker 1: it was like Republicans failed to appeal to Generation Z
Speaker 1: or whatever you guys are. Why do you think Republicans
Speaker 1: can't organically appeal to young people? I think it's because
Speaker 1: just young people, and I don't want to say every younger,
Speaker 1: but right, the vast majority of young people in this
Speaker 1: country are just not online with their politics at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, what was it six It was sixty or
Speaker 1: seventy percent of Gen Z voted for Democrats in this
Speaker 1: past mid term. That's a lot. And also studies are
Speaker 1: showing that as we're getting older, we're not getting more
Speaker 1: conservative like other generations have. And so I think it
Speaker 1: shows a like a generational shift in our politics. Even
Speaker 1: young conservatives hold more progressive ideology than their parents do.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting, I think, and I think we part
Speaker 1: of it is the fact that, you know, what separates
Speaker 1: Generation Z from millennials and any other generation is that
Speaker 1: we've been completely immersed in this advanced technology since birth.
Speaker 1: So for many millennials, kind of this technology we have
Speaker 1: now came along and maybe like later teen years or
Speaker 1: like you know, maybe when you're in middle school. For
Speaker 1: Gen Z, it's like since the day you were born,
Speaker 1: this has been around. And there's a lot of these people.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a phone until much later, but a
Speaker 1: lot of folks have phones like as soon as they
Speaker 1: are able to walk or talk, you know, And so
Speaker 1: it's wild. I'll be walking around and see you, like
Speaker 1: a little toddler with an iPhone better than mine. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: but either way. So but because of that, you know,
Speaker 1: we're open to all this information since a very young age,
Speaker 1: and that includes a lot of a trauma are. You
Speaker 1: go in a room with people from different generations and
Speaker 1: you ask, tell me moment defining moments for your generation,
Speaker 1: no matter what your ideology is. You'll hear the moon
Speaker 1: landing and postline eleven and the Country came together in etc.
Speaker 1: And you ask a member of Generation Z, and you're
Speaker 1: going to hear Parkland and George Floyd and Brianna Taylor
Speaker 1: like death, death and death. And I think that trauma,
Speaker 1: that pool of trauma builds up in someone and builds
Speaker 1: up in a generation, and they're kind of defined by it,
Speaker 1: and they demand a better world. They demand a world
Speaker 1: where black people aren't being you know, killed on the
Speaker 1: streets that are unarmed, and where you know, we aren't
Speaker 1: being shot in our schools, and where people have healthcare,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're just kind of like it's very basic,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think a lot of young people
Speaker 1: are just confused on why these things aren't already here.
Speaker 1: And obviously there's a lot of reasons, but we want
Speaker 1: to be part of the solution. And I think that's
Speaker 1: really exciting. That's why I'm actually even though things can
Speaker 1: seem pretty gloomy, even though yesterday or not yesa Tuesday
Speaker 1: was a good day for campaigns. You know, you're in
Speaker 1: a state like Florida, things can seem pretty down, but
Speaker 1: I think time is on our side. Yeah, what's happening
Speaker 1: in Florida right now with the Democratic Party. I mean,
Speaker 1: how much time do you have? You know? I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot, right, I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: you can't talk about what's going on in Florida without
Speaker 1: bringing up Governor round Santus because he really brings something
Speaker 1: to the table that I think just Florida has never
Speaker 1: seen before, and I think it's important. I mean, look
Speaker 1: at what's going on the Floorda state legislature. This is like,
Speaker 1: I think this is possibly the worst session that the
Speaker 1: Florida legislature has had in modern history. The bills that
Speaker 1: are coming out of them are all championed by the governor.
Speaker 1: We just passed a permitless carry bill, which allows people
Speaker 1: to carry any gun any place and any person anywhere,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to get a permit. There's a
Speaker 1: new bill that might pass that it makes it a
Speaker 1: felony to harbor a undocumented person, and that what they
Speaker 1: mean by that is you can't drive an undocumented person.
Speaker 1: You can't have them over at your house or it's
Speaker 1: a felony. I mean, it's some of the most disgusting,
Speaker 1: you know. And then not to mention all the attacks,
Speaker 1: there's a new one that just came up too, that
Speaker 1: makes a Pride parade illegal if anyone, if anyone there
Speaker 1: is dressed in drag. It's horrible. And I think with
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, I mean I kind of explained before,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a shift of kind of a
Speaker 1: different tactics and style of politics. And I think the
Speaker 1: GOP has moved quickly into this kind of aggressive style
Speaker 1: of politics. So I would argue they've always had that,
Speaker 1: but like even more aggressive. And I think Democrats are
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out, like are we still in
Speaker 1: this era of like back room by partisan deals or
Speaker 1: like going you know, being on TV and completely you know,
Speaker 1: lying about the other side, which is what we see
Speaker 1: Republicans do all the time. And I'm not saying we
Speaker 1: need to go on TV and lie, but we need
Speaker 1: to be aggressive truth tellers. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of Democrats who are hesitant to get into that
Speaker 1: type of politics. That's why when I started defining what
Speaker 1: Rond de Santis is as a fascist like I on
Speaker 1: a tongue. But I received some calls and text furn
Speaker 1: people were saying like, hey, Max, with that, and I
Speaker 1: don't think it's helpful to us and Florida and this
Speaker 1: and that, And I'm just like, what do you want
Speaker 1: to do? Do you want to lay down and let
Speaker 1: him step on us? Because then the next election cycle,
Speaker 1: people see the bootmark on your face, and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do that. And so either way, I think
Speaker 1: there's kind of a push and pull there. But we
Speaker 1: have a new party chair and Nicki Freed, and you know,
Speaker 1: she's been out there and being aggressive and but you know,
Speaker 1: beyond the party chair, it's also the elected and the organizers,
Speaker 1: and so we just have a lot of infrastructure work
Speaker 1: to do here in Florida, and it's gonna take time,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, we're not gonna flit Florida in
Speaker 1: one year or two years. But I think that the
Speaker 1: margin that we saw, that twenty point margin, I think
Speaker 1: that we can more than cut that in half this
Speaker 1: sex cycle, and I think we can be I think
Speaker 1: we can get back to being a real background state
Speaker 1: just here in the next couple of cycles. Maxwell Frost congressman.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you
Speaker 1: for having me on Molly Junk Fast Jesse Cannon, what
Speaker 1: would you like a presumptive Republican nominee to not be
Speaker 1: truthing about? My top of my list might be world
Speaker 1: War three. I think that when you are Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and the thing most people are worried about you doing
Speaker 1: is causing World War three, perhaps it might be better
Speaker 1: not to all caps tweet about world War three and
Speaker 1: just that too. Like you just wrote world War three,
Speaker 1: world War three. Case you're wondering, I mean civil War
Speaker 1: right up there with World War three. But like this
Speaker 1: is this is not good. What's interesting about this is
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump's truth no longer store the conversation and
Speaker 1: he says crazy stuff like this and it doesn't make
Speaker 1: a ripple, which is good. But it's also bad because
Speaker 1: he is the Republican front runner for president in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. And that is why world War three all
Speaker 1: apps is our moment of Fuckeray. That's it for this
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Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard.
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Speaker 1: And again thanks for listening.