Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and RFK Junior says the US COVID
Speaker 1: response was the worst in the world. Hm, we have
Speaker 1: such a great show for you today. MSNBC's own Stephanie
Speaker 1: Rule stops by to talk to us about the disappointing
Speaker 1: job numbers and what they could mean to the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to the Brennan Center's own Dan Weiner
Speaker 1: about the congressional stock band that everybody wants but we
Speaker 1: seem to not be able to get. But first the
Speaker 1: stories everyone is talking.
Speaker 2: About Somali As we know, the Trump got some bad
Speaker 2: job numbers. But I need to teach you about numbers.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to bring in a professor. His name
Speaker 2: is Rep. Randy Fine.
Speaker 1: Ah the best Randy Fine.
Speaker 2: He's doed for being such an awful human. Even Marjorie
Speaker 2: Taylor Greed lectures about death. What's listened to this fellow
Speaker 2: tell us about what's going on in the world coming out.
Speaker 3: The August jobs record and a little of our who
Speaker 3: knows what time it is anymore, it's a million o'clock
Speaker 3: on seeing at New Central. It will be coming out
Speaker 3: shortly and we will bring it to everyone when it does.
Speaker 3: Are you going to believe the numbers?
Speaker 4: I'm going to I'm going to look at the numbers.
Speaker 5: Look, the people who put these numbers together are human,
Speaker 5: and they're fallible, and they make mistakes. And if you
Speaker 5: go back and you look how these numbers always e
Speaker 5: was they make mistage?
Speaker 6: It wasn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it wasn't that they make mistakes. The reason that
Speaker 3: the President kicked out the commissioner of their of labor
Speaker 3: Stations was he said that they were they were faking it,
Speaker 3: they were cooking the books, which there's no evidence of that.
Speaker 5: So do you think when then, when the numbers, when
Speaker 5: the numbers are always wrong in one direction, you have
Speaker 5: reason to be suspect. And so here's my understand that
Speaker 5: what I can tell you is.
Speaker 3: When businesses respond and give the information and submit and
Speaker 3: respond to the ask from the Labor Department, then they
Speaker 3: can't adjust what they have. It's like I get more information,
Speaker 3: we can adjust the numbers. That's been happening from the
Speaker 3: beginning of time. Yes, there has been more variable that's
Speaker 3: for a lot of reasons which they say fewer businesses
Speaker 3: are actually responding to these surveys, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: they're cooking the books.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that when there's problems with methodology, sometimes
Speaker 5: it's intentional, sometimes it's not. But when the numbers are
Speaker 5: always do you think why the direction? There's a reason
Speaker 5: to have I think the methodologies were problematic, And we
Speaker 5: see this in all kinds of things, where numbers always
Speaker 5: tend to benefit the left, and when the facts come
Speaker 5: out they don't anymore.
Speaker 1: And so I think the president, yes, the facts have
Speaker 1: a liberal bias.
Speaker 6: Where have I heard that before? There's a reason for that.
Speaker 4: We have heard that before.
Speaker 1: And Randy fine, and ladies and gentlemen, Randy fine. All
Speaker 1: I'm going to say is that the unemployment rate for
Speaker 1: the youngs is ten point five percent, which is not great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a really really bad sign for breaking
Speaker 2: this social contract with our youth.
Speaker 1: Turns out you guys shouldn't have voted for Trump.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And well, if he thought they responded badly when they
Speaker 2: got taught by Andrew Tate, just imagine how badly they're
Speaker 2: going to respond when they were told to get a
Speaker 2: degree and it means nothing.
Speaker 6: Oh, I'm not going to blame education for this.
Speaker 4: I'm not blaming education.
Speaker 2: I'm blaming the breaking of the social contract by the
Speaker 2: corporations who aren't hiring them because they're now useless and
Speaker 2: we told them to get that degree and now it's worthless.
Speaker 4: It's not education's fault. It's a corporate America's.
Speaker 1: Fault either way. Chicken egg whatever not good. But you
Speaker 1: know what else is not good?
Speaker 2: Jesse Kennon, Well, I have to say a staffer at
Speaker 2: the DOJ saying that they're going to take out all
Speaker 2: the Republican names of the Epstein files brought to us
Speaker 2: by Conservative Little what do we even call him?
Speaker 4: James O'Keefe.
Speaker 1: Before we go to get to this story, I just
Speaker 1: want to point out there have just been a couple
Speaker 1: of times this week Thomas Massey mtg Ran Paul saying
Speaker 1: we shouldn't bomb ships if we don't know who's in them.
Speaker 1: Three different really truly horrendous humans, all of whom made
Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me this week, a lot.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say, before we get to
Speaker 1: this story, this is a person, James O'Keefe. He got
Speaker 1: fired from Project Veritas. He does now the James O'Keeffe
Speaker 1: project or whatever. This is not someone you want to
Speaker 1: be elevating and yet continue.
Speaker 2: So he basically did a honeypot, which for those who
Speaker 2: don't know that turbo, it's like he gave a attractive
Speaker 2: girl camera and she flirted with a guy who tried
Speaker 2: to impress her and said that they're gonna only leave
Speaker 2: the liberals of the Epstein files they release, which yes,
Speaker 2: pretty hilarious. Exactly what all of us could have predicted
Speaker 2: what happened months and months ago.
Speaker 1: Incredible. Basically, he says to her, we have a plan,
Speaker 1: and the plan is pretty much what all of us thought.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is not some yahoo what's
Speaker 1: his title.
Speaker 2: Acting Deputy Chief of the DOJ's Office of Enforcement Operations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this guy is in a position to do
Speaker 1: such a thing. And he says if they're released in
Speaker 1: any way, it's going to be very redacted, which that
Speaker 1: makes sense. They'll redact every Republican or conservative person in
Speaker 1: the files. That doesn't make sense, leave all the liberal
Speaker 1: democratic people in the files. Joseph Schnitt, acting director of
Speaker 1: the DOJ's Office of Enforcement Organization, says in a video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so look forward to that. Sorry, Bill Clinton anyway,
Speaker 2: So after Robert F. Kennedy's, I would put that the
Speaker 2: top five most disastrous testimonies I've ever seen Molley where
Speaker 2: you reckon.
Speaker 1: I think he could do worse, by the way, the
Speaker 1: times when Kennedy did the worst, or the times when
Speaker 1: members of Congress were careful and drew them out, like,
Speaker 1: for example, Republican Senator John Cassidy, who has clearly I mean, look,
Speaker 1: he was the needed vote for Kennedy, but he is
Speaker 1: a doctor. He's a gastroinrologist, so he knows that he
Speaker 1: fucked up big time. He starts with this questioning and
Speaker 1: he says, do you think that Donald Trump should win
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed? And let me
Speaker 1: tell you all Donald Trump wants is his fucking prize. Right,
Speaker 1: He's like the mango god dictator of our country. He
Speaker 1: has more prouder than any president ever, and all the
Speaker 1: man wants is a prize. This I could not relate
Speaker 1: to more. I mean, I am not a dictator, but
Speaker 1: I really want a prize. So here he says I
Speaker 1: want this prize. Senator Bill Cassidy gets him going, says,
Speaker 1: do you think he deserves a prize?
Speaker 6: Ourf cases.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, then Cassidy is like I thought vaccines were bad,
Speaker 1: you know, and RF cake can't get out of it.
Speaker 1: Those were the most effective question I thought the least
Speaker 1: effective questioning, and it made the rounds on the internet.
Speaker 1: But there was one a video of a Democratic senator
Speaker 1: just being like, you're a Charlottean Like. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's as effective as getting him to really talk himself
Speaker 1: into a corner. I think it makes more sense to
Speaker 1: do that than to just yell at him. Mark Warner
Speaker 1: got really mad at him and started yelling at him too,
Speaker 1: and Barrasso, who is number two Senate Whip said, and
Speaker 1: he's an orthopedic surgeon. I mean, this is the thing,
Speaker 1: like you have all these doctors who signed on to this.
Speaker 1: They did this to themselves and to us. I don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of knockus for this crew, but I
Speaker 1: still think it was pretty interesting watching them just take
Speaker 1: him apart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree to Maria Kentwell and Elizabeth Warren really
Speaker 2: did a great job with Yeah.
Speaker 1: See, I thought Warren did a better job than can't Well.
Speaker 1: Can't Well was just like.
Speaker 2: She got him on a few things that I thought
Speaker 2: were good. But yes, I agree that Warren was better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can't. Well, it's good, but like catch him in
Speaker 1: the lies, don't tell him he sucks.
Speaker 6: We know he sucks well.
Speaker 2: Regardless, his red faced performance of breathing weird and talking
Speaker 2: strangely has him on very thin ice, apparently with Republican centers.
Speaker 2: According to sources at the Hill, they're telling mister Trump
Speaker 2: that RFK juniors on thin ice.
Speaker 4: Buddy, you better watch it.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Donald Trump as he fires, I'm sure he's
Speaker 1: listening real hard to the people who gave away all
Speaker 1: their power.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But at the same time, Trump does have that
Speaker 2: preservationist instinct that if RFK does become a liability for him,
Speaker 2: I don't think he's a long for this world. It's
Speaker 2: just more right now he thinks he's a benefit. Come well,
Speaker 2: as I said, Donald Trump thinks. I don't believe he.
Speaker 6: Thinks that, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if he fires RFK, which he absolutely should,
Speaker 1: and by the way, Bernie was out there last week
Speaker 1: with it obed in the Times saying that he should
Speaker 1: be forced to resign, which I was so impressed that
Speaker 1: he did that, and that was what democratic leadership should
Speaker 1: be all over.
Speaker 6: We should have his doing that, we should have Schumer
Speaker 6: doing that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also to that point, he was everywhere doing that. He
Speaker 2: made every type of video. The YouTube did really well.
Speaker 2: He knew how to play that media ecosystem, unlike the
Speaker 2: leadership right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't understand what's happening with the leadership. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so till us everybody in the world. Everybody in the
Speaker 1: world freaking out about this.
Speaker 6: But I don't know. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Look, if Trump fires Kennedy, which he absolutely, one hundred percent,
Speaker 1: unequivocally should, he's going to have those angry Maha women
Speaker 1: making videos about him.
Speaker 6: We'll see.
Speaker 2: So, Malli, it's not looking good for that discharge petition
Speaker 2: over the Epstein files.
Speaker 4: What do you see in here?
Speaker 1: So basically there are two more positions that are going
Speaker 1: to be filled. The last time I talked to them,
Speaker 1: they still thought they had the votes. I don't know
Speaker 1: I can ask them again.
Speaker 4: Well, as of this taping, it's not looking so hot.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only one I see changing tactics there
Speaker 1: is Paulina Luna, but it's certainly possible that it won't
Speaker 1: get through. I mean, the good news is that the
Speaker 1: women can put together their own list. I mean they
Speaker 1: can and Marjorie Taylor Green can go to converse and
Speaker 1: read it. I mean, there's a lot of corruption happening here,
Speaker 1: and the fact that Trump doesn't want the Epstein stuff
Speaker 1: released seems in.
Speaker 6: My mind kind of like a big towel.
Speaker 1: Steph Rule is the host of MSNBC's The Eleventh Hour.
Speaker 1: Watch Steph Rule at the upcoming MSNBC Live twenty five
Speaker 1: This Is Who We Are event on October eleventh in
Speaker 1: New York City. Stephanie Rall, Welcome to Path Politics.
Speaker 8: I'm excited to be here. Majong. You are on my
Speaker 8: mind all summer as I learned majong this summer, and
Speaker 8: I'm like, just like Mollie, feel like like she wants
Speaker 8: to do like a Mazong thing that their name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, I would a like to learn how to
Speaker 1: play majong.
Speaker 8: And yes, so okay, I'm gonna tell you. This was
Speaker 8: the summer I turned old, I learned majong, I learned canasta,
Speaker 8: and I took my son to college. So like, I
Speaker 8: am like officially a golden girl and I'm here for it.
Speaker 8: I'm just saying that, all right.
Speaker 1: So besides those many skills. You have other skills, and
Speaker 1: I'm not very good at any of those yet just
Speaker 1: so good.
Speaker 8: And when you meet a woman who's really good at
Speaker 8: majong revere her because she's the smarty pants, I'm not
Speaker 8: one of them. Well, I go back to business excited
Speaker 8: to learn.
Speaker 1: So today Ken Donald Trump fire the head of Bureau
Speaker 1: and Labor Statistics.
Speaker 6: Again.
Speaker 8: No, what Donald Trump and how our Leutnik are doing
Speaker 8: now are basically saying, don't pay attention to these numbers.
Speaker 8: Six months from now, a year from now, as Donald
Speaker 8: Trump said, when the genius palaces are built, And like,
Speaker 8: I don't know what a genius palace is, but I'm
Speaker 8: definitely putting that sign above my bedroom door. From now on,
Speaker 8: you are now entering the genius palace. No, now, they're
Speaker 8: just moving the goalpost. Because remember Donald Trump was going
Speaker 8: to lower grocery prices day one. Everything was going to
Speaker 8: be booming. It was going to be an m and
Speaker 8: a bonanza. You were just going to see business and
Speaker 8: building investments coming, YadA, YadA, YadA. None of that's happened yet.
Speaker 8: One of the main reasons that hasn't happened is because
Speaker 8: Donald Trump has led his tower for Donald Trump is
Speaker 8: now involving himself in all sorts of private industries. And
Speaker 8: what happens that freezes up business because nobody knows what's
Speaker 8: coming next. Because as opposed to what Republicans swear that
Speaker 8: they are free market capitalists, you now have a president
Speaker 8: who's directly getting involved in all sorts of businesses here
Speaker 8: and abroad. So businesses don't know what to do or
Speaker 8: how to spend their money, and they're not investing. Okay,
Speaker 8: So here we are, nine months in, we're getting a
Speaker 8: jobs report that's not strong. We're revisions to previous months.
Speaker 8: They're lower and lower and lower, and core inflation is
Speaker 8: above three percent. So Donald Trump is going to get
Speaker 8: what he wants. Investors are going to get what they want,
Speaker 8: and they're going to get a rate cut. But they're
Speaker 8: not getting a ray cut because insallation's down. We're getting
Speaker 8: a rate cut because we have many, many signs that
Speaker 8: the economy is slowing. So here you have in America.
Speaker 8: Employers are not hiring, employers are not raising wages, and
Speaker 8: things are costing a lot of money below stagflation. This
Speaker 8: is America.
Speaker 1: So let's i So let's talk about that. The reason
Speaker 1: that they didn't want to cut the rates until now
Speaker 1: was because of the worry of inflation. Is that no
Speaker 1: longer a worry It sounds like it's not, or is
Speaker 1: it just so such a dire explain why they're doing it?
Speaker 8: Still a worry. But the Fed has a dual mandate
Speaker 8: to make sure the economy is growing and to keep
Speaker 8: inflation in check. It's not one or the other. And
Speaker 8: this is the thing about investors and Donald Trump. Investors
Speaker 8: want a rate cut, and they also want a stable economy, right,
Speaker 8: And I shouldn't say that they want a growing economy.
Speaker 8: They want a strong economy. And it's not that we
Speaker 8: have a bad economy.
Speaker 6: We don't.
Speaker 8: We have a good economy, but things are weakening because
Speaker 8: of Donald Trump's trade war, and you still have this
Speaker 8: pesky inflation situation. So we're going to get the rate cut,
Speaker 8: but not necessarily in the way that Donald Trump wants.
Speaker 8: And you know, just yesterday when Bill Poulti who runs
Speaker 8: the housing agency that tipped off Donald Trump claiming that
Speaker 8: Lisa Cooke, the FED governor, committed fraud. He's now sort
Speaker 8: of planting the seeds that will listen. Jay Powell hasn't
Speaker 8: fired Lisa Cook yet and that could end up being
Speaker 8: caused for him to get fired. It's like Donald Trump
Speaker 8: just did set at this point that he desperately wants
Speaker 8: to fire j Powell. And it's not for malpractice. It's
Speaker 8: about control. Since Donald Trump took off as this second term,
Speaker 8: it's how can I bend every cabinet member, every industry,
Speaker 8: every leader to the whims of what I want, every
Speaker 8: country to the whims of what I want? And Jay
Speaker 8: Powell hasn't done it, and he is dead set on
Speaker 8: firing him. It makes no sense because Jay Powell's term
Speaker 8: is done in nine months. He's going regardless. But it's
Speaker 8: like Donald Trump needs to win this one, and Scott
Speaker 8: Besant has warned the President, do not do this. It
Speaker 8: is not a good idea to fire on him because
Speaker 8: you know, one of the core tenants of American exceptionalism
Speaker 8: is our central bank being independent. Because Molly, every single
Speaker 8: politician who lives on short termism, which they all do
Speaker 8: because they all need to get elected every four years,
Speaker 8: would say, let's cut rates down to zero.
Speaker 9: Because rates are zero, we're gonna buy houses, We're gonna borrow, borrow, barrow,
Speaker 9: and spend, spend, spend, But politicians who just worry about
Speaker 9: the short term don't have to think about the big picture,
Speaker 9: long term impacts.
Speaker 8: That's what the FED has to do, and that's where
Speaker 8: the fed's independence is crucial. And this is the first
Speaker 8: time in our lifetimes we are now hearing FED governors
Speaker 8: talked about like this one's on my team, this one's
Speaker 8: on your team. That's not how the FED operates. It
Speaker 8: was never like the Supreme Court, right, and the Supreme
Speaker 8: Court was never supposed to be like this.
Speaker 1: Very correct, But explain to us if you lower interest rates,
Speaker 1: what is the danger.
Speaker 8: The things are gonna heat up too quickly right that
Speaker 8: everyone is gonna start spending and everyone's gonna start borrowing, like,
Speaker 8: oh my gosh, my credit card rates nothing, I'm gonna
Speaker 8: I'm gonna spend, I'm gonna spend. I'm gonna spend when
Speaker 8: the under when we're not when the underlying economy isn't
Speaker 8: strong enough, And the risk in doing that is bad
Speaker 8: for us across the board. And it's not how the
Speaker 8: markets view things, because if you were in a business,
Speaker 8: you want to borrow as cheaply as you can all
Speaker 8: the time.
Speaker 1: The tariffs are inflationary because things are more expensive, and
Speaker 1: they were.
Speaker 6: Like much much.
Speaker 1: I mean, our tariff rate is really really high. I
Speaker 1: mean it's the highest of any in the.
Speaker 8: De for no reason. Because let's remember, tariffs aren't a
Speaker 8: good or a bad thing. Tariffs are a tool. And
Speaker 8: it is totally fair and accurate to say that China
Speaker 8: has unfair trading practices, which is why the idea to
Speaker 8: put together a coalition of the United States and ally
Speaker 8: nations to work together to figure out a way to
Speaker 8: prevent or stop China from doing this, which is why
Speaker 8: they put together the Trans Specific Partnership towards the end
Speaker 8: of the Obama administration and Trump said, no way, HOSEI,
Speaker 8: We're not doing this. But instead of us working with
Speaker 8: other countries, Donald Trump went into office and one of
Speaker 8: the main reasons he likes tariffs is it's very powerful
Speaker 8: for him. Right, this is what gives him the chance
Speaker 8: to be a kingmaker where other countries come to him
Speaker 8: and say please or don't do this, like trade is
Speaker 8: so important to us. It's where CEO after CEO is
Speaker 8: going to the White House hat in hand looking for
Speaker 8: an exemption.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 8: I am sure you watched last night those tech leaders
Speaker 8: show up for that dinner at the White House, none
Speaker 8: of whom are being intellectually honest with the President, because
Speaker 8: I'm sure in their mind they can't be right if
Speaker 8: you're Tim Cook, and you could say, how could Tim
Speaker 8: Cook of Apple go to the White House give Donald
Speaker 8: Trump the gold phone tap dance form? Because he has
Speaker 8: a business to run, and in putting on his dog
Speaker 8: and pony show for the President, he avoided rippling tariffs
Speaker 8: on his company, and so one would say Tim Cook
Speaker 8: did the right thing for his company. But the question
Speaker 8: is are these business leaders doing the right thing for
Speaker 8: their companies and their country because they should be thought
Speaker 8: of as these leaders in society and culture. They're saying,
Speaker 8: hold on, is this going to help our economy as
Speaker 8: a whole? And they're watching the President and what he's
Speaker 8: doing with the FED, and they know that it's dangerous,
Speaker 8: and they're not saying anything because they're playing a game
Speaker 8: of survival. And I get it. They know the President
Speaker 8: will target you if you speak out against him in
Speaker 8: any way.
Speaker 1: It seems like we have a permission structure or we're
Speaker 1: going down road where nobody says the truth. So you
Speaker 1: don't have business leaders saying the truth, You don't have
Speaker 1: members of the FED saying the truth because the don't
Speaker 1: want to get fired.
Speaker 8: You don't have you just sort of So where's things
Speaker 8: like the Business Roundtable? Like the Business round Table's purpose, right,
Speaker 8: is to bring business leaders together, is to work with government,
Speaker 8: is to work with the administration and say this is
Speaker 8: what is happening in the business universe, this is what
Speaker 8: would help us, this is what would hurt us. This
Speaker 8: is a real economy, this is the real labor market.
Speaker 8: And they're not saying anything. And it's not that different
Speaker 8: from if you think about when the president first went
Speaker 8: after law firms. It was not after you know, DEI practices.
Speaker 8: He was going after law firms that worked with people
Speaker 8: that he perceived to be his enemies. Yeah, just like
Speaker 8: going after university. Not about fighting anti Semitism, right, it's
Speaker 8: about doing what Donald Trump wants and Donald Trump being
Speaker 8: in charge. I get that's what he wants. But by
Speaker 8: not just standing up, not not really fighting but standing
Speaker 8: up for what's right, everyone's hurting themselves. Right If all
Speaker 8: those law firms would have said, you can't take Paul
Speaker 8: Weiss down, We're going to stand lock arms and stand together.
Speaker 8: But instead, as soon as he went after Paul Weiss,
Speaker 8: all of Paul Weiss's competitors said great and called Paul
Speaker 8: Weiss's clients and said, hello, we'd like to be your
Speaker 8: We'd like to be your new law firm. In the
Speaker 8: same way Molly that that early in the Trump administration,
Speaker 8: when what was it he wanted to kick the AP
Speaker 8: out because they were unwilling to call it the Gulf
Speaker 8: of America. What could have happened. All the other news
Speaker 8: outlets could such a good point, all the other news
Speaker 8: outlets could have said, and you're going to do this
Speaker 8: to the AP, We're not going to show up for
Speaker 8: the next week. And this isn't my idea. A senior
Speaker 8: administration official from Trump's first term called me that week
Speaker 8: and said to me, can I tell you Donald Trump's
Speaker 8: favorite hour of the day. It's the hour that he's
Speaker 8: speaking to the press. And there was one week the
Speaker 8: press said we're not going to show up. He wouldn't
Speaker 8: like it. And I get the fear that if your
Speaker 8: seat is empty, then the White House is going to
Speaker 8: fill it with someone else. The White House is going
Speaker 8: to put another right wing influence in there. And they
Speaker 8: might they're doing that, but Donald Trump doesn't just want
Speaker 8: the influencer who's going to say, mister President, when did
Speaker 8: you get great at being great? You look more handsome
Speaker 8: today than you did yesterday. The president wants the back
Speaker 8: and forth. The president wants the friction because the friction
Speaker 8: is what gets the headlines, not the person saying when
Speaker 8: did you get great at being great? But in the
Speaker 8: world of survival and short termism that we all collectively
Speaker 8: live in, it's hard and it's scary.
Speaker 6: No, I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1: And the reality is the White House Press Association had
Speaker 1: a moment there where they could have done what they
Speaker 1: exist for and that didn't happen.
Speaker 8: And I don't listen. I don't begrudge them. This is
Speaker 8: really hard. It's hard for people to cover this White House.
Speaker 8: It's hard for people to work with this White House.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And while the President does consider himself to be
Speaker 8: pro business and pro growth, it's his way or the highway,
Speaker 8: and that's not something we've experienced in a modern America.
Speaker 1: So the markets seem to be not I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know what they're doing today, but I would love
Speaker 1: you to explain sort of what you think the market,
Speaker 1: the stock market, the bond market, if you're.
Speaker 8: Seeing any kind of check. I think, first of all,
Speaker 8: when people keep seeing the market booming, saying, oh, the
Speaker 8: market likes I mean first, Trump said this week if
Speaker 8: we got out, if we got rid of the tariffs,
Speaker 8: markets would fall apart. We'd be a third world country.
Speaker 6: That's one.
Speaker 8: Not the case. Not the case, it's twofold. It's when
Speaker 8: we talk about the markets, we're not talking about all
Speaker 8: the Fortune five hundred companies out there. We're not talking
Speaker 8: about all the public traded companies. At this point, you
Speaker 8: have seven giant mega companies that are really not affected
Speaker 8: by tariffs, they're not affected by immigration, that are so
Speaker 8: big and so valuable tech giants, and they're overweighted so
Speaker 8: much in the markets that that's what people look at
Speaker 8: right Like the power and the weight of Nvidia gets
Speaker 8: all of our attention, and we're ignoring the fact that
Speaker 8: John Deere is laying off people. Nike is telling us
Speaker 8: what the tariffs are going to cause us. Walmart is
Speaker 8: warning what's happening to consumers or what's happening to prices.
Speaker 8: So you have to think about the fact that we're
Speaker 8: in this AI boom, that investors are flooding cash into
Speaker 8: any company that has any association or connection to AI,
Speaker 8: which is why there are folks out there that worry
Speaker 8: that we could be approaching an AI bubble like we
Speaker 8: did a dot com bubble. I'm not saying that we are,
Speaker 8: but that theory is definitely out there. So you have
Speaker 8: that when it comes to the markets and the other
Speaker 8: side of the markets, they don't actually believe that Donald
Speaker 8: Trump will follow through with doing anything truly draconian.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 8: The tariffs that we actually have, though they're crippling, their painful,
Speaker 8: they're not the fifty to sixty percent tariff that Donald
Speaker 8: Trump was threatening on that first Liberation Day, and it
Speaker 8: was I can't remember who came up with the term
Speaker 8: taco Trump always checking it out with theft with the
Speaker 8: barons someone. Investors across the board really believe that they
Speaker 8: believe that Donald Trump's The only evidence we've seen of
Speaker 8: a guardrail on him in his second term has been
Speaker 8: market dropping. Has been the bond market knocking on his
Speaker 8: door and Scott Bessett running in and saying, mister President,
Speaker 8: I need to explain to you. When people lose faith
Speaker 8: in the US dollar and they lose faith in the
Speaker 8: fact that this isn't the safest, best place to invest,
Speaker 8: and that cracks. That's deficit. That's when Donald Trump backs
Speaker 8: off and says, oh, we're not gonna go with the tariffs,
Speaker 8: so we're gonna So there's a belief that he talks
Speaker 8: a big game and it's a huge headache, but at
Speaker 8: the end he's not going to go through it. Which
Speaker 8: is why if I talked to ce who run actual
Speaker 8: companies with thousands and thousands of employees who have to
Speaker 8: make things, navigating Donald Trump is significantly harder. Because business
Speaker 8: planning is very hard under Donald Trump. But if I
Speaker 8: talk to investors who can buy or sell an entire
Speaker 8: portfolio within the span of ten minutes they had to
Speaker 8: play with Donald Trump, they'd understand the volatility of the understanding,
Speaker 8: and they can make an entire They can make a
Speaker 8: huge amount of money. But if you are running a
Speaker 8: company where you're planning, hiring, firing, building factories, expanding, investing
Speaker 8: in other countries, it's damn near impossible to do that
Speaker 8: under Donald Trump, especially as it relates to the tariffs,
Speaker 8: because they're on today, they're off tomorrow, and three years
Speaker 8: from now, when he's not president anymore, they're most likely
Speaker 8: not on so were you really going to invest billions
Speaker 8: of dollars in a long term project that might make
Speaker 8: no sense just a few years from now exactly.
Speaker 1: And also the bond market, I'd love you to just
Speaker 1: talk about, like there still is some of dollar abandonment, right,
Speaker 1: there's not your So that may not be showing up
Speaker 1: in the markets yet in the data.
Speaker 8: Could and things could turn, but but it could and
Speaker 8: it could turn on a diame in a second. And
Speaker 8: we'll just try to make it as basic as possible.
Speaker 8: Right when we talk about the bottom market, we're talking
Speaker 8: about US treasuries and investors from around the world. That's
Speaker 8: where they park their money. Right, even when there's a
Speaker 8: stock market disaster here, even when there's a subprime crisis here,
Speaker 8: that US dollar remains the reserve currency in part because
Speaker 8: we have an independent federal reserve, Right, don't believe me.
Speaker 8: Look at countries like Turkey, look at Greece, Look at Argentina,
Speaker 8: where you didn't have independent central banks, or where you
Speaker 8: couldn't trust the government data, the economic data, because politicians
Speaker 8: were getting involved and they face dire consequences. But because
Speaker 8: for over one hundred years, we've had an independent federal
Speaker 8: reserve people say this is this, you know, the cleanest
Speaker 8: dirty shirt, you know, the safest place to put your money.
Speaker 8: But if suddenly those things are in question, it'll make
Speaker 8: it more difficult and less attractive to invest your dollars
Speaker 8: here in the United States.
Speaker 1: And that will mean it will be more expensive to
Speaker 1: service our debt one hundred percent, right.
Speaker 8: And and that's the thing that we have to remember
Speaker 8: about debt and deficits.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 8: We don't even pay down the debt, right. All we
Speaker 8: do is service the interest. So compare that. Imagine if
Speaker 8: you had huge, gigantic, crippling credit card debt, and every
Speaker 8: month when you were paying your bill, you were never
Speaker 8: even considering chipping away at the principle. All you are
Speaker 8: ever doing is servicing the interest, which is what we
Speaker 8: do as the United States government. And what blows my
Speaker 8: mind is that maybe six months before Donald Trump won
Speaker 8: this election, I watched Scott Bessant, who was you know,
Speaker 8: sort of in the in the like. Maybe he was
Speaker 8: an unofficial, maybe an official advice to the Trump campaign,
Speaker 8: I don't remember, but he was closely tied to the
Speaker 8: Trump campaign. I watched him speak at a conference and
Speaker 8: he was visibly angry and shaken at Joe Biden and
Speaker 8: the amount of government spending that went on during the
Speaker 8: Biden administration. And he basically said, I want to be
Speaker 8: part of this next administration. And he wasn't being boastful,
Speaker 8: but you know, because he wanted to save America, felt
Speaker 8: like he felt like the fiscal clip was coming, spending
Speaker 8: was out of control, and doom was on the horizon.
Speaker 8: Well I barely hear him ever speaking about this. Why
Speaker 8: because debt and deficits are ballooning under Donald Trump.
Speaker 6: What is the big beautiful.
Speaker 8: Bill if not super costly to this country. So this
Speaker 8: idea that like Doge, was going to come in and
Speaker 8: cut billions and billions of dollars of government spending to
Speaker 8: get us set right, Well, that didn't happen. And then
Speaker 8: we were going to pass a budget it was going
Speaker 8: to be far more fiscally responsible than anything Joe Biden
Speaker 8: never did. Well, that didn't happen. So now we have
Speaker 8: huge debt and deficit and we're potentially putting ourselves in
Speaker 8: a position we're servicing that debt is only going to
Speaker 8: get more expensive. No bueno. Across the board, we.
Speaker 1: Touched on Lisa Cook for a minute and how she
Speaker 1: might be the way that Trump world could try to
Speaker 1: fire J Powell.
Speaker 6: J Powell, but I want.
Speaker 1: You to just she's pushing back. This will go to litigation.
Speaker 1: What's your sort of vibe on this, Listen, none of
Speaker 1: us know any.
Speaker 8: Of the details yet of what Lisa Cook may or
Speaker 8: may not have done. Right, they're saying that she committed
Speaker 8: mortgage broad and saying that she had more than one
Speaker 8: property that she said was her primary right.
Speaker 1: There are members of Trump world who have also, there are.
Speaker 8: But we shouldn't. There's a caveat there because Pro Pabloca
Speaker 8: just reported last night that there's three members of the
Speaker 8: Trump administration who did the same thing. It's not the
Speaker 8: same thing in their case because just think about this
Speaker 8: for a moment. It's tricky. If you are, let's say,
Speaker 8: a new cabinet member, you might actually have a primary
Speaker 8: home in DC because that's where you're working, and in
Speaker 8: your home district because that's where you're from. So it
Speaker 8: is somewhat complicated. So these three examples that Republica has
Speaker 8: given is different. It's complicated.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 8: They claim that Ken Paxton, the Deputy Attorney General Attorney
Speaker 8: General Tax General sexes. They believe he did the same
Speaker 8: thing as Lisa Cook. If Lisa Cook even did it,
Speaker 8: we do run. But this again is about power and control.
Speaker 8: Donald Trump would like to remove Lisa Cook and put
Speaker 8: a friendly fed governor in there. And if j. Powell
Speaker 8: does not go through with firing her, then they will
Speaker 8: say we can fire J. Powell for cause for not
Speaker 8: doing his job. Where to me, this makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 8: Ja Powell is out of this job. Nine months from now,
Speaker 8: Donald Trump will be done with him. It will royal
Speaker 8: and rattle markets to do this. So what's the point.
Speaker 8: There isn't one. This is to me about control.
Speaker 1: Staff Roul. Fun to have you on my podcast.
Speaker 8: Goodbye friend, Thank bye Sison.
Speaker 1: Dan Weiner serves as director of the Brennan Center's Election
Speaker 1: and Government program.
Speaker 6: Welcome to Fast Politics, Dan, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: There's so much apping in Congress, but I want you
Speaker 1: to talk to us about this idea that is a
Speaker 1: passion project of mine.
Speaker 6: So there is a ton going on in Congress. You're right,
Speaker 6: but there is this sort of growing and actually, genuinely
Speaker 6: I think bipartisan momentum to restrict members of Congress from
Speaker 6: trading stocks. I want to pause for one second.
Speaker 1: And interrupt you as I will, in a very annoying way.
Speaker 1: It is so shocking that in a moment, which is
Speaker 1: probably if we do end up having history, which we
Speaker 1: may not, who knows, but like is one of the
Speaker 1: moments in my lifetime that the American government has been
Speaker 1: corrupt in a way that is flagrant and terrifying and
Speaker 1: yet continue.
Speaker 6: Well, here's the thing. Is that fascinating backdrop. It's a
Speaker 6: fascinating backdrop. And what I think we have to understand
Speaker 6: here is that not everything comes down. I'm going to
Speaker 6: say it to Donald Trump, right, it's a tendency that
Speaker 6: we all have to be like Trump Trump Trump. And
Speaker 6: it's true. A lot of the most flagrant corruption we
Speaker 6: can talk about that if you want, is coming from
Speaker 6: the executive branch. There is also this little body called Congress.
Speaker 6: You may have heard of them. They're not always doing much,
Speaker 6: but more often or often they are supposed to be
Speaker 6: the first branch of government.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: They're the people the founders thought would be running the show.
Speaker 6: Most of the time. They have their own corruption issues.
Speaker 6: And one of the things we've seen actually is that
Speaker 6: if Congress is going to be that first branch of government,
Speaker 6: is actually going to be the body that also polices
Speaker 6: the other branches. It's got to get its own house
Speaker 6: in order. And the issue that you know is on
Speaker 6: the table today, right is stock trading, which, on the
Speaker 6: one hand, is kind of not the that's front and
Speaker 6: center in everyone's mind, but it's outrageous, right, outrageous. They
Speaker 6: have access to non public information all the time. They
Speaker 6: are supposedly, you know, running our economy, but they also
Speaker 6: trade stocks. Many many members trade stocks. There's a lot
Speaker 6: going on there, and we can talk about it, including
Speaker 6: the fact, frankly they're not paid enough. So there's actually
Speaker 6: a dimension of this that I'm sort of sympathetic to them.
Speaker 6: But if you want the American people to have trust
Speaker 6: in their government, you need to start with some basic
Speaker 6: idea of public services, of public's trust, and stock trading
Speaker 6: kind of flies in the face of that.
Speaker 1: I would also add that you don't get to Donald
Speaker 1: Trump without many steps along the way that weaken your
Speaker 1: resolve against corruption.
Speaker 6: So true, Look, we have a situation where Donald Trump's predecessor,
Speaker 6: it is not at the same scale, also tolerated some
Speaker 6: pretty outrageous behavior on the part of his own kid, right,
Speaker 6: and particularly actually what we was vice president, So you
Speaker 6: do have this process.
Speaker 1: Where influence trading.
Speaker 6: Influence trading, you had the Clinton years, I hate to
Speaker 6: say it right where there was some So there's a
Speaker 6: process by which.
Speaker 1: I'm going to just interrupt you from yet again, I
Speaker 1: really believe that there is a straight line from There
Speaker 1: was a moment after Nixon where it looked like we
Speaker 1: were writing the ship and then go on.
Speaker 6: Well, this is maybe a boring way to put it,
Speaker 6: by I'm gonna try. So. One of the things is interesting,
Speaker 6: So we had this moment after Nixon where we passed
Speaker 6: all these rules. This is why if you're a federal employee,
Speaker 6: your friend can't take you out for a cup of coffee.
Speaker 6: It drives everyone nuts. But one of the things that
Speaker 6: we kind of missed then is that actually at the
Speaker 6: very top, it's all still sort of an honor system.
Speaker 6: And that's from a combination of a lot of gaps
Speaker 6: in the rules. But then also we like don't enforce
Speaker 6: the rules for people at the very top. So it's
Speaker 6: actually kind of crazy that for decades the people at
Speaker 6: the very top kind of just pretended that there were
Speaker 6: all these rules. Jimmy Carter his peanut farm, Ronald Reagan
Speaker 6: like asked DOJ for permission to keep getting his pension
Speaker 6: from California. But sooner or later, human nature maybe being
Speaker 6: what it is, that was going to start to break down.
Speaker 6: Donald Trump was not the only president to have had scandals,
Speaker 6: but he was something of a catalyst for this. Really
Speaker 6: in his first term kept all his businesses. But now
Speaker 6: we're seeing this massive escalation with the crypto businesses, the
Speaker 6: luxury jet from Qatar, all of that. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 6: we don't really have rules for folks at the very top.
Speaker 6: We just have tradition, and that's a problem, right.
Speaker 1: So influence trading. I think the sort of genesis of
Speaker 1: this is a donor sleeps in the Lincoln bedroom. Well,
Speaker 1: why are we not using the White House to do?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: a slippery slope that gets you to owning crypto companies
Speaker 1: obviously not on the same order of scale. And we are,
Speaker 1: I think in a real crisis moment for American democrats
Speaker 1: and also just for corruption with large in the government.
Speaker 1: So I want you to talk about this stop trading
Speaker 1: a little more, and that I want you to talk
Speaker 1: about sort of what this looks like and how you
Speaker 1: would do this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a great question. There are a lot of
Speaker 6: proposals that have been put out, There are a lot
Speaker 6: of folks working on it. I would say that the
Speaker 6: biggest thing is that you have to actually restrict the
Speaker 6: ability of seeing members of Congress to trade securities. Right now,
Speaker 6: what we have is this kind of they're supposed to
Speaker 6: disclose it, but they do happily later sometimes yeah, thirty
Speaker 6: days later, and if they don't, they get a two
Speaker 6: hundred dollars penalty, which you know, I know that's a
Speaker 6: very serious consequence. So it's really a two piece. You
Speaker 6: have to have a meaningful restriction and then it has
Speaker 6: to be enforced, and there have to be penalties, and
Speaker 6: there has to be someone who's going to enforce it.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the Congressional Ethics Committee. Will you
Speaker 1: talk to us about that particularly?
Speaker 7: Little Well, so there's both the House and Senate have
Speaker 7: ethics committee, and then the House has a sort of
Speaker 7: a body especially I think it's called the Office of
Speaker 7: Congressional Conduct Now it used to be the Office of
Speaker 7: Congressional Ethics.
Speaker 6: You know, it's supposed to conduct investigations. It can't actually
Speaker 6: force people to cooperate it with it. Really, it also
Speaker 6: doesn't even really exist in any permanent way. It's just
Speaker 6: a little body that's created by the rules of the House.
Speaker 6: Means it can be abolished at any time, and it's
Speaker 6: sort of a DC ritual that they flirt with just
Speaker 6: getting rid of it at the beginning of every Congress,
Speaker 6: and then they don't. Senate doesn't even have that. So
Speaker 6: there's very very weak enforcement of the rules that do exist.
Speaker 1: And isn't it true one of the committees had never
Speaker 1: found anyone to be there's some like incredibly disturbing fact
Speaker 1: about these committees.
Speaker 6: It is incredibly rare that they do anything to people.
Speaker 6: It is not a real body that people are scared of,
Speaker 6: is the sense that everyone has gotten. And then actually
Speaker 6: earlier there were there were sometimes allegations that also would
Speaker 6: just sort of politicized investigations of relatively trivial things. So
Speaker 6: the long history here of not being very effectual.
Speaker 1: So sort of like a McCarthy kind of thing.
Speaker 6: But not scary that way. So you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 6: but similar idea, you need real robust, even handed enforcement.
Speaker 6: That's actually a theme. You know, it's a lawyer theme,
Speaker 6: but it's it's this idea that the rules on the
Speaker 6: on paper just paper unless you have someone who's going
Speaker 6: to make them real. And of course right now we're
Speaker 6: thinking a lot about also that it can't just be
Speaker 6: the McCarthy, you know, approach of attacking one side and
Speaker 6: being weaponized. So it's it's it's that there's a it's
Speaker 6: a complicated sort of calculus.
Speaker 1: So there clearly is it's like one of the very
Speaker 1: few things pulls it like eighty percent. So on the
Speaker 1: left and the right, people don't want their government making
Speaker 1: money off of them, except if their last name is Trump.
Speaker 1: So what would that look like? And what are the bills?
Speaker 1: How would you pass it?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean there are actually a number of proposals
Speaker 6: out there. There was just a bipartisan bill introduced this week.
Speaker 6: There have been others as well. I think they all
Speaker 6: kind of have a couple different elements. They all have
Speaker 6: some sort of fairly strict prohibition. So it's either they're
Speaker 6: banned from trading stocks while they're in office, and sometimes
Speaker 6: even banned from holding stocks. Sometimes it says we use
Speaker 6: what's called a blind trust, which is that you can
Speaker 6: have someone else trade stocks for you, provided you don't
Speaker 6: know what they're trading, right, and it's in a satting account.
Speaker 6: So they all have this. And then the second component
Speaker 6: is they all have some sort of penalty, right, and
Speaker 6: it usually is a stiffer penalty than two hundred bucks
Speaker 6: per violation. It might be that you have to you know,
Speaker 6: discord is the legal term the asset plus ten percent,
Speaker 6: so you have a penalty. And that is the other
Speaker 6: really critical component. And then some proposals also beef up
Speaker 6: the Office of Congressional Conduct right so that it can
Speaker 6: actually issue subpoenas, it can actually act as an enforcer.
Speaker 6: And there are different combinations there, but this is the
Speaker 6: gist of all of these things is to get at
Speaker 6: that and to have a real enforceable constraint on members.
Speaker 1: How would this pass? Wasn't there a cutout in the
Speaker 1: BBB for this? And then Donald Trump didn't want it?
Speaker 1: And then it got Yeah, so talk us through that, because.
Speaker 6: That was that is the great question. Because you look
Speaker 6: at yourself, You're like, it's got eighty percent approval rating,
Speaker 6: You've got all these Democrats and Republicans who say they
Speaker 6: want to do it, and then it hasn't gotten done.
Speaker 6: Here's the reality, right, is that I think and this
Speaker 6: is true for anti corruption rules generally. Is there is
Speaker 6: a dearth of political will sometimes because even the people
Speaker 6: know this stuff is popular, they don't like it. Actually.
Speaker 6: So what I actually think needs to happen, right is
Speaker 6: there needs to be kind of overwhelming pressure. This is
Speaker 6: just that you have to save them from themselves to
Speaker 6: some extent, and that is going to I mean, that's
Speaker 6: really something on both sides of the aisle. Right. The
Speaker 6: Democrats have this huge challenge now, which is that they
Speaker 6: know that corruption is a weakness. And the Brennan Center's
Speaker 6: non partisan, but this I'm speaking just from the outside.
Speaker 6: They know Donald Trump is very weak. People don't like
Speaker 6: the corruption, but the catches. People don't really trust the Democrats,
Speaker 6: and in fact, their corruption ratings are as bad as
Speaker 6: his or worse in some polls. So they both sides
Speaker 6: need to figure out how to actually get the public
Speaker 6: to trust them beyond their core partisans. And the way
Speaker 6: I think that this happens partly, it could be the
Speaker 6: Democrats could be Republicans could be a bipartisan coalition.
Speaker 1: R is anti corruption legislation.
Speaker 6: And people realize they can't keep talking about this stuff
Speaker 6: and not doing anything. They actually have to act and
Speaker 6: that at a certain point the pressure becomes overwhelming. But
Speaker 6: you know, the Democrats, there was a story in the
Speaker 6: Post the Democrats are going to make this a big
Speaker 6: theme of their midterm campaign. But there is a kind
Speaker 6: of where's the beef moment? You actually have to be
Speaker 6: ready to do these things.
Speaker 1: Then, yeah, in the BBB they almost did pass it.
Speaker 1: It was just the Trump wanted to cut out. And
Speaker 1: then also they decided they just didn't need to write.
Speaker 1: I mean like they were just like, if we're just
Speaker 1: going to do unpopular legislation, why should we stop making money?
Speaker 6: Right? I mean, and different people could debate whether they
Speaker 6: really were almost going to do it, whether this was
Speaker 6: a bit of a bit of a show. There are
Speaker 6: certainly people in the Republican Caucus in the House and
Speaker 6: the Senator who really want to do it, but there's
Speaker 6: also some pretty open, transparent opposition. I think it was
Speaker 6: one senator I might have been Rick Scott who said, well,
Speaker 6: I like making money and so beautiful, and you probably
Speaker 6: have people in the Democratics I'd sayd that too, right,
Speaker 6: more quietly, more quietly. So this is it's a real
Speaker 6: challenge not just with this but frankly with all sort
Speaker 6: of anti corruption legislation.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I would love you to
Speaker 1: talk about for a minute is when we talk about
Speaker 1: anti coruption and legislation, is that there were a number
Speaker 1: of things that did not pass last Congress because of
Speaker 1: Kristen Cinema and Joe Manchin, two people who have gone
Speaker 1: on to do what exactly.
Speaker 6: You know, I haven't kept up with their careers as
Speaker 6: much as I should.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, it's okay, I have. So she's working on AI,
Speaker 1: she's working on mushrooms, she is, he is, you know,
Speaker 1: gone back to I Just my point here is that
Speaker 1: they both sort of their lobby adjacent or maybe lobbyists,
Speaker 1: and they were the reason that ROE is not codified,
Speaker 1: that voting rights is not modified, that any number of things.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could talk about anti lobbying, anti
Speaker 1: corruption and that kind of thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, look, what I would say about both
Speaker 6: of them is that people who wanted to preserve the
Speaker 6: way Washington was doing things. And I'm not going to
Speaker 6: get into why their careers and their lives speak for themselves,
Speaker 6: but it was a real problem. It also, I think,
Speaker 6: and you know, I'm a huge believer in voting rights,
Speaker 6: but and in the Brennan Center is where I work.
Speaker 6: But I think that critical anti corruption piece, for very
Speaker 6: understandable reasons, got a little lost actually in the political debate,
Speaker 6: so there was a sense of which a little bit
Speaker 6: was left on the table. Anti corruption is very popular
Speaker 6: in West Virginia, and Cinemon Mansion were differently situated. I mean,
Speaker 6: Mansion was representing one of the most republican states in
Speaker 6: the country, but that is actually very popular in West Virginia,
Speaker 6: and the debate, while it was incredibly important for us
Speaker 6: to be talking about voting rights, there is a sense
Speaker 6: of which that anti corruption piece got lost a little bit,
Speaker 6: and that made it easier, frankly, for the whole effort
Speaker 6: to be just painted as something that was not going
Speaker 6: to be of interest to Red state voters. I don't
Speaker 6: agree with that. I think the voting rights is important
Speaker 6: for everyone, but I think they were supposed to be combined,
Speaker 6: and I think, you know, one of the lessons, you
Speaker 6: really got to keep both of them in focus, because
Speaker 6: anti corruption has tremendous appeal across the country.
Speaker 1: Right exactly exactly when you think about sort of putting
Speaker 1: these anti corruption legislation in place. Do you think democrats
Speaker 1: should run? Like, what is your vision of this? Democrats
Speaker 1: run on it? Or sort of what does it look like?
Speaker 6: It is such a great question. I think anyone who
Speaker 6: wants to actually get beyond this sort of toxic fifty
Speaker 6: percent plus one dude or one person needs to Yes,
Speaker 6: run on those issues, but then actually make a commitment
Speaker 6: to doing them and then do it like. Actually, I
Speaker 6: think the most dangerous time in some ways isn't why
Speaker 6: you're running. It's oh, you won power, you promise to
Speaker 6: do this stuff. Are you going to do it? And
Speaker 6: I think for the thing that I worry the most about,
Speaker 6: So yes, I think it is a very very very
Speaker 6: potent political message. But I think it can also be
Speaker 6: one that is not without risk, because you really are
Speaker 6: creating an expectation you'll do something. If you don't, the
Speaker 6: public is going to remember. I look at the system
Speaker 6: as a whole, and I look at how are we
Speaker 6: going to actually put our democracy on some sort of
Speaker 6: stable footing. I know that sounds crazy right now. No
Speaker 6: people getting elected and then not doing the thing they
Speaker 6: promised to do on this is what actually keeps me
Speaker 6: up at night.
Speaker 1: No, for sure, and I also think that there's such
Speaker 1: hostility towards the federal government for any number of reasons.
Speaker 1: It's like, you don't get to the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that's in Project twenty twenty five without a lot of anger.
Speaker 6: At the federal government.
Speaker 1: So true, you know, as we're watching them, you know,
Speaker 1: huge swaths of the federal government have been fired.
Speaker 6: I wonder if you.
Speaker 1: Could talk about you know, a lot of those protections
Speaker 1: are not there anymore, A lot of those people are
Speaker 1: not you know, there are certain parts of.
Speaker 6: The government that are gone.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Part of the problem again is that these things
Speaker 6: are all a mix of rules and written down laws,
Speaker 6: but then traditions and you just don't do certain things.
Speaker 6: Big theme is we have given the president's enormous amounts
Speaker 6: of power, and now he's being embedded by a Supreme
Speaker 6: Court that has an agenda to have a sort of
Speaker 6: monarchical president. I don't look into their souls. I don't
Speaker 6: know why this is important to them, but it is
Speaker 6: a long term ideological project of the US Supreme Court.
Speaker 6: The only way and it is a huge challenge. But
Speaker 6: and here's where I really think is the hitch. We
Speaker 6: got to make it so that people actually believe government
Speaker 6: is a good thing. And you know, part of what
Speaker 6: drives people like me to distraction about Doge is it's
Speaker 6: not like there couldn't be a review of the federal
Speaker 6: government in an effort to make it work better. But
Speaker 6: you got to start from like government is important. So
Speaker 6: I think that the way to do this right for
Speaker 6: anyone is you've got to come to the people, acknowledging
Speaker 6: legitimate cynicism, and then have a plan to make it better.
Speaker 6: And this gets us back to stock trading. The reason
Speaker 6: you start there is because you acknowledge that this isn't
Speaker 6: just about your enemy, this is about you too, and
Speaker 6: you know, figuratively, and that's how they've got to do it,
Speaker 6: which is actually why I think the stock trading piece
Speaker 6: is a good place to start. Yeah, thank you, Dan,
Speaker 6: thank you for having me. This was so much fun.
Speaker 4: A moment.
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon, so Molly, wait for it. There's more election
Speaker 2: fuckery down in Texas. The Republican Party of Texas is
Speaker 2: suing the state saying open primaries violate its free speech.
Speaker 2: Texas logic is what I heard it called.
Speaker 1: All I can say is that they will cook up
Speaker 1: any reason to not do those things that's good for democracy.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this is even more that they are
Speaker 2: trying to get more radical candidates and what they don't
Speaker 2: want is Democrats and independence voting in the Republican primary
Speaker 2: because they want the more fervent, fever swamp people voting more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, open primaries mean that you have more normal candidates,
Speaker 1: just like rank choice voting in primaries is also good.
Speaker 1: But you know, the Republican Party is kind of nutty,
Speaker 1: and they use Texas as a place to do that nuttiness.
Speaker 4: It really is the lab for really really bad policy.
Speaker 6: Everything bad comes through Texas. That's it for.
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