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. Media and editor in chief Aiden McLaughlin
Speaker 1: joins us to talk about what is happening with those
Speaker 1: Tucker cross and video leaks. Then we'll talk to Fair
Speaker 1: Votes David Daily about the latest and jerry mandering and
Speaker 1: voter suppression. But first we have the editor of The Bulwark.
Speaker 1: I will be appearing with and New York's Peter J.
Speaker 1: Sharp Theater on May eighteenth, along with the Charlie Sykes,
Speaker 1: Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell. You can buy tickets on
Speaker 1: the Bulwarks website. Ladies and gentlemen, The bullworks Jonathan Last.
Speaker 1: Welcome too, Fast Politics, Jonathan Last.
Speaker 2: Mollie, how are you?
Speaker 1: You know like you're one of my favorite editors in
Speaker 1: the entire world, So to get to talk to you,
Speaker 1: it's just a delight.
Speaker 2: That's down. I used to be your favorite editor in
Speaker 2: the whole world. So you have found people better than me,
Speaker 2: which is great.
Speaker 1: No, it's just a memory makes the heart grow more
Speaker 1: confused and.
Speaker 2: Out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about the very
Speaker 1: very unfair firing of one Tucker Carlson. Was he really
Speaker 1: fired for that one text? I love that text because
Speaker 1: it's like, it's still not as bad as what he
Speaker 1: said on the air every single night.
Speaker 2: I have no insight into this, but it does seem
Speaker 2: to me that these leaks are most probably coming from Fox.
Speaker 3: Right one Arena Baganti.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Fox seems to be on a campaign to make
Speaker 2: it look like this is the reason they fired him.
Speaker 2: The real reason is probably the reason which makes the
Speaker 2: Fox executives and ownership look the worst, which is that
Speaker 2: they didn't like in support nation. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: the story of capitalism throughout the ages, right the bosses.
Speaker 2: The bosses have a worker makes them a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and they're one to tolerate anything that that worker does
Speaker 2: that's bad except disrespecting the bosses. And that's when they
Speaker 2: suddenly say, Ah, don't they understand who we are? We
Speaker 2: own this thing right right.
Speaker 1: Now, it seems very clear to me that we're just
Speaker 1: not getting the whole story. Though even beyond that, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think he's expensive, and I think he's crazy, and
Speaker 1: I think they were sick of paying out lawsuits.
Speaker 3: I still don't think we're getting the whole story.
Speaker 2: Well, good news is, eventually we will. There are too
Speaker 2: many people with too many conflicting motives and incentives for
Speaker 2: this to actually stay buried. And also, Rupert's going to die.
Speaker 2: So I don't mean to be ghoulish, but God, you're
Speaker 2: so goulish. I know, I know, and I hope that
Speaker 2: he has a long, beautiful natural life and can marry
Speaker 2: six or seven more women before he's called home to
Speaker 2: the father.
Speaker 3: Just because he's nine thousand years old doesn't mean he's
Speaker 3: going to die.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, right, once he goes, it's going
Speaker 2: to be lord of the flies. Right, there will be
Speaker 2: all sorts of people who have lists of where bodies
Speaker 2: are buried, who are going to rush out to try
Speaker 2: to enhance their positions in what comes next, and so
Speaker 2: all of this will come out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment.
Speaker 2: We just have to wait until Rupert is called home.
Speaker 1: As uncomfortable as I am with the idea of death,
Speaker 1: it does seem to me that the center cannot hold
Speaker 1: on this.
Speaker 2: I think that's right. It's too big a story, you know.
Speaker 2: I guess Tucker's going to lunch his own media company
Speaker 2: or something, which is what it seemed.
Speaker 3: Like, but announced it seems like the obvious choice.
Speaker 2: But so well, I would say it wasn't the obvious choice.
Speaker 2: There are a bunch of things he could have done.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: He could have just written books. Right, you write a book,
Speaker 2: then you can cut all of the middlemen and just
Speaker 2: go right to your audience with whatever you want to say,
Speaker 2: and you can make a ton of money doing it.
Speaker 2: And he could have sold a lot of books. He
Speaker 2: could have taken some time off for self reflection. He
Speaker 2: could have go on to a monastery press saying I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, look, he's got enough money. He could have
Speaker 2: not worked. He could have done spend the rest of
Speaker 2: his time doing charity.
Speaker 1: Work, right, making Kelly dilemma, Right, you have millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: but you don't. But you didn't do this for the money.
Speaker 3: You did it for the fame I got.
Speaker 2: You know what I anybody wants to give me millions
Speaker 2: of dollars to go away, I'll just go away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2: If you would like to come and write me a
Speaker 2: go away check, then you'll never have to listen to
Speaker 2: me talk about anything else ever again.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: But I mean the drive that these people have is
Speaker 1: not related to their welse, it's related to their zealotry.
Speaker 2: It's about the love I think. I think. No, I'm
Speaker 2: serious though, I mean this in like the showbiz sense
Speaker 2: of the word.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: What's intoxicating is being loved.
Speaker 3: At scale, right exactly.
Speaker 2: And if the price of being loved at scale is
Speaker 2: being hated at scale as well, some people won't take that,
Speaker 2: you know, won't take that that deal because being hated
Speaker 2: at scale really hurts. But there's a certain type of
Speaker 2: personality that a certain type of personality who gets off
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 1: Right, As someone who's hated at scale, It's okay, It's
Speaker 1: not as bad as you think.
Speaker 3: There's an adjustment period, but it's not as bad as
Speaker 3: you think.
Speaker 2: This is something I've struggled with. I've only been hated
Speaker 2: at scale for like a couple moments in my life,
Speaker 2: you know, because my level of visibility is firmly in
Speaker 2: the middle.
Speaker 3: There's still time.
Speaker 2: And I have found it really disconcerting the caneful of
Speaker 2: times when I've you know, become hated at scale and
Speaker 2: I just I didn't like it. And I've like asked
Speaker 2: around to like famous friends to say, how do you
Speaker 2: deal with this. And what made me sort of a
Speaker 2: little weird about is that none of them had real advice.
Speaker 2: They were just like, it's fine, and so it led
Speaker 2: me to believe that this is just a genetic predisposition.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: There are people who can handle this, some people who can't.
Speaker 2: And I'm one of the people who can't.
Speaker 1: So no, you know, I also think you just get
Speaker 1: used to it, and then like for a while you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is so terrible.
Speaker 3: These people all hate me.
Speaker 1: And then you're like, all right, yeah, well you're like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, You're like they hate me, but you know
Speaker 1: they're listening to the podcast, you know.
Speaker 2: And then there are people who literally just get off
Speaker 2: on it, right, right, I mean, there are people for
Speaker 2: whom being hated at scale is like a kink for sure,
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh.
Speaker 3: Well, took Carlson.
Speaker 1: I mean took her Carlson, you know, as much as
Speaker 1: I mean, when you listen to those videos, you realize like,
Speaker 1: this is a person who actually I don't think he
Speaker 1: would pick like I think he is. He's quite comfortable
Speaker 1: being hated by a large quantity.
Speaker 2: I think that may be right. I don't know, so speaking.
Speaker 1: Of large quantities, you have so many Republican candidates and
Speaker 1: this field is really open. So when does Trump just
Speaker 1: be declared the nominee?
Speaker 2: You know, I wonder how far away we are from
Speaker 2: the move to short circuit the primary process itself.
Speaker 3: Oh god, it's going.
Speaker 2: To happen at some point, right, at some point, there
Speaker 2: will be a Look, President Trump is so far ahead
Speaker 2: that it is impossible that anybody could catch up with him,
Speaker 2: and so we should move to doing this via acclamation, right,
Speaker 2: or we'll have party. We'll have a party convention, and
Speaker 2: a party can be well, you know, at the state level,
Speaker 2: will hold a vote and that's help will decide our delegates.
Speaker 2: No need to go through an actual voting primary.
Speaker 1: Imagine how fucked up that is, you know, like that's
Speaker 1: the moment that the Republican Party has completely abandoned even
Speaker 1: the pretense of democracy.
Speaker 2: They did it in twenty twenty. They were afraid of
Speaker 2: like having Joe Walsh and mister you know, the South
Speaker 2: Carolina governor who went hiking with his mistress or something.
Speaker 2: I forget the fellow's name.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that guy, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, They would go Marshall. They didn't want him going
Speaker 2: to Shogho with those guys, even.
Speaker 1: If hiking with your mistress is wrong, he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be right.
Speaker 2: I think we're on the way to that. I don't
Speaker 2: think it'll happen. I think that the Republican Party will
Speaker 2: go ahead with having an actual process, and I think
Speaker 2: that it's an open question as to whether or not
Speaker 2: anybody can make a move on Trump. I don't think
Speaker 2: they can. I should put my cards on the table
Speaker 2: for people who don't read me. You love Trump, I
Speaker 2: just I love Trump and I need him from my business.
Speaker 2: And so that's why. So I I said that Trump
Speaker 2: was going to be the twenty twenty four nominee. I
Speaker 2: started writing this in October of twenty twenty, so before
Speaker 2: the elections, I was on the record saying, look, Trump
Speaker 2: is going to lose, and then he's going to declare
Speaker 2: immediately that he's running again, and then he's going to
Speaker 2: be the nominee in twenty twenty four. And everybody was like, oh,
Speaker 2: through Trump derangement, sent Trump And here's the problem, right,
Speaker 2: he won't go away. Well, there's a foundational problem for
Speaker 2: opposing him, which is that if you are going to
Speaker 2: be a Republican in good standing, you must stipulate that
Speaker 2: a Donald Trump was the greatest president in the history
Speaker 2: of presidents. B That everything Donald Trump did was great
Speaker 2: and you agree with it and you will do the
Speaker 2: same things. See that Donald Trump won the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: election and was unfairly cheated by the Democrats and the
Speaker 2: deep state and the big tech and the media, and
Speaker 2: so step d to that is, so vote for me, Like,
Speaker 2: how does that work?
Speaker 3: Right now?
Speaker 2: If he's standing right there saying I'm going to run
Speaker 2: and I'm the rightful I'm the rightful king, you know,
Speaker 2: and I you shall, you shall return me to the throne,
Speaker 2: and all the other guys are standing around and saying, no,
Speaker 2: he really is amazing, and he absolutely was cheated out
Speaker 2: of this. But you know, vote DeSantis. That doesn't work, right,
Speaker 2: And so nobody, even when Desants was rising on the polls,
Speaker 2: he didn't have a way of squaring that circle. And
Speaker 2: none of them have even tried to square that circle.
Speaker 2: And I just don't see again as a selling proposition
Speaker 2: to Republican voters. I don't see how that works for
Speaker 2: anybody else.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing about DeSantis is that he was Trump
Speaker 1: without the humor.
Speaker 2: Trump without the charisma.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, really, so it was like, we got
Speaker 3: this guy.
Speaker 1: He's not as famous, nor as charismatic, nor as successful,
Speaker 1: but the National Review crowd, which has barely a like
Speaker 1: to stand on in this Republican party, has decided he's
Speaker 1: the heir apparent.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's all about self interest, because the
Speaker 2: anti anti Trump guys are terrified that they're going to
Speaker 2: have to vote for Trump again, which they are, which
Speaker 2: they are, and which they will do right. And I
Speaker 2: can already tell you what's because this is my gift
Speaker 2: is can I come to you from the future, right,
Speaker 2: Just like in October twenty twenty, when I was running
Speaker 2: around telling everybody that Trump was going to run again,
Speaker 2: people told me it was Greaty, I'm coming from the future,
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you that actually the capitulation to Trump
Speaker 2: this time is going to be faster than it was
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen because this time they really think it's
Speaker 2: the last time they'll.
Speaker 3: Have to do it right.
Speaker 2: You know, in twenty sixteen they thought, oh, what if,
Speaker 2: you know, we really got to put up a fight
Speaker 2: here because we could do better, and what if what
Speaker 2: if he wins? And this time they'll be able to
Speaker 2: tell themselves there's no way he'll ever run again. There's
Speaker 2: no way he can win. We won't have to live.
Speaker 2: Let's just suck it up and do it. And what
Speaker 2: they will do when they win, these people, the anti Antis,
Speaker 2: go and capitulate to Trump. It's going to be your
Speaker 2: fault and my fault.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, no question, we.
Speaker 2: Made them to. They didn't want it, they were really
Speaker 2: but you know, we we're the ones who kept saying
Speaker 2: that Ron DeSantis was just as bad as Trump, and
Speaker 2: we kept pushing all of our woke socialism. And if
Speaker 2: we weren't out there putting kitty litterboxes in the every
Speaker 2: public school bathroom all across America.
Speaker 1: Right, they not exist in kitty letter my favorite. I
Speaker 1: mean that know it's true. I mean the whole idea,
Speaker 1: why did you make me hit you? Is this sort
Speaker 1: of thinking man's Republican. You know, if Dems hadn't gotten
Speaker 1: so left with that crazy socialist Joe Biden. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember it was on TV with someone and she said,
Speaker 1: you know that socialist Joe Biden And I said, really,
Speaker 1: you really think Joe Biden is a socialist And she said, well,
Speaker 1: he's not a socialist, but he's controlled by socialists.
Speaker 2: So why do the fucking socialists hate him so much?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he doesn't do any of the list.
Speaker 2: I don't know. So, you know, whenever I get into these,
Speaker 2: every once in a while, I'll get into a pissing
Speaker 2: match with somebody on the stuff like this, and we're
Speaker 2: and they always begin with that, right, he's a socialist,
Speaker 2: he's controlled by sentence? Well, why do the socialists hate
Speaker 2: him so much?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: Why are the progs always threatening to run off sides
Speaker 2: on them? Because he doesn't get them what they were?
Speaker 2: And they say, well, well, Joe Biden's only not a
Speaker 2: socialist because mansion and cinema made him not be a socialist. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: well in that case, so he's not being a socialist,
Speaker 2: but he's not being a socialist for a reason that
Speaker 2: you don't find convincing. That's how Okay? Great, good to know,
Speaker 2: thanks asshole.
Speaker 3: The old thing is just amazing.
Speaker 1: But I do think we find ourselves in a very
Speaker 1: interesting situation here with this Republican.
Speaker 3: Party we have.
Speaker 1: You know, we're in this run up now to the primary.
Speaker 1: Is the map for Republicans, the CENTEMAP is incredibly favorable
Speaker 1: and yet you can see from Carrie Lake you'll Remember
Speaker 1: she's the governor of Arizona.
Speaker 3: She has big news.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she's gonna run, right, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe the big news is that she is giving up
Speaker 1: the governorship.
Speaker 2: She's going to give up her fake governorship.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Here is a thing, which is a dirty secret that
Speaker 2: the normy Republicans are loath to admit because they are
Speaker 2: desperate to get away from Trump, and so they'll use
Speaker 2: any excuse they can find. And one of their excuses is, well,
Speaker 2: we gotta protect the rest of the party because Trump
Speaker 2: is so terrible. And the fact of the matter is
Speaker 2: that down ballot Republicans did much better than they should
Speaker 2: have done by the numbers in twenty sixteen, much better
Speaker 2: than they should have done by the numbers in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Where did they suffer twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: And what that says to me is that when Trump
Speaker 2: is on the ballot, you have all sorts of problems
Speaker 2: at the top of the ticket because he's so repellent
Speaker 2: to normy voters and independence, right, normally Republicans and independence,
Speaker 2: and so a lot of them will run away from him.
Speaker 2: But he does bring in what we will euphemistically call
Speaker 2: non traditional voters who won't show up when he's not there, right,
Speaker 2: And so the truth is that if you are a
Speaker 2: Republican who wants to do as well as possible in
Speaker 2: the Senate, you probably want Trump on the ticket in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four because he's going to bring out a
Speaker 2: bunch of voters who will pull the letter for your
Speaker 2: guy who won't be there otherwise. And the normies who
Speaker 2: will be repelled by Trump are still going to vote
Speaker 2: for your guy anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, right, right, And that's the calculus that's killing democracy.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, that's one part of the calculus that's
Speaker 2: killing them.
Speaker 3: I mean not to put too fine a point on it,
Speaker 3: but I mean.
Speaker 1: Basically, the Probalicans want to win. They know their guy sucks,
Speaker 1: but they can't stand up for what's right because they'll lose.
Speaker 2: That's part of it. I mean the electro college is
Speaker 2: part of it too. Electric college has like suddenly become
Speaker 2: a thing which is really hurting democracy. Our incentive structures
Speaker 2: are so fucked that I the only consolation I have
Speaker 2: is that it must have been this bad in all
Speaker 2: sorts of other points in our history too, and we
Speaker 2: muddled through somehow, so we'll probably muddle through somehow this time,
Speaker 2: but I don't know, maybe not right the asteroid only
Speaker 2: has to hit once.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the problem is I think so much
Speaker 1: about you know, you have one party. You may not
Speaker 1: like Democrats, but like, fundamentally Democrats stick to the rules law,
Speaker 1: They're you know, running primaries, running people, They're not doing
Speaker 1: crazy shit. And then you have this other party that
Speaker 1: has just completely lost its mind, right, like banning books,
Speaker 1: spanning drag queens. It's just a complete nightmare. And I
Speaker 1: just wonder how long democracy is allowed to stay.
Speaker 2: It's not great, it's not great. But whatever you want
Speaker 2: to say about the Democratic Party is fine. But the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party is also responsive to inputs in a way
Speaker 2: the Republican Party currently is right, right, right, And the
Speaker 2: reason for that is that Democrats have for the most part,
Speaker 2: not not always in everywhere, but they have concrete policy
Speaker 2: items which they would like to see enacted. In order
Speaker 2: to enact those things, they need power. In order to
Speaker 2: gain power, they need votes, right, So they they want
Speaker 2: to expand healthcare coverage, they want to bring back more manufacturing.
Speaker 3: You're a liberal, now, right, I mean it depends. Sorry,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: To I don't want to dance on the grave of
Speaker 1: your political beliefs. But I mean you came from the
Speaker 1: world of the Weekly Standard. I feel like we've shifted
Speaker 1: you over.
Speaker 2: Now, Like yeah, well, I mean that's the problem is
Speaker 2: I was always the commie over there because I bought
Speaker 2: all of the Catholic social justice stuff, right, So I
Speaker 2: was you know, I was always like, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: we got to take care of the poor here, and.
Speaker 3: They were like, shut up.
Speaker 1: Lib Basically, you're like, I think starting you still run
Speaker 1: the website.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, like, do democrats want to do things with government?
Speaker 2: In order to do things with government, you need power.
Speaker 2: If you can't get power through votes, then you've got
Speaker 2: to change the things you're offering voters. Right, Democrats are
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party is a fairly responsive organism. We have
Speaker 2: that CBS poll out this Did you see that? It
Speaker 2: was asking Republican voters, likely Republican voters, the qualities they
Speaker 2: most wanted in their represidential candidate. The things they wanted
Speaker 2: most were the one of four.
Speaker 1: Things, violence, stupid to day, racism, no go on, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: They wanted somebody who would be against woke stuff, somebody
Speaker 2: who would veto any gun legislation, somebody who would make
Speaker 2: liberals angry. And I forget what the fourth Poe was.
Speaker 2: But the point is the things they wanted can all
Speaker 2: be accomplished with Twitter.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: You look at the list of things they were offered
Speaker 2: to choose from, and it's like, you know, reforming entitlements,
Speaker 2: strong foreign policy, things that require governing power interest them not.
Speaker 3: At all, not at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so this makes the Republican Party as an
Speaker 2: organism very unresponsive to inputs, right. They just the voters
Speaker 2: want stuff that they do not need government power for.
Speaker 2: They can have government power, great, because then you can
Speaker 2: hurt some brown people more effectively, I guess. And they
Speaker 2: like that, boy, they like that. But the rest of
Speaker 2: the stuff on their little Maslow's pyramid, they just need
Speaker 2: somebody who's willing to go on Twitter and say shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is that This fundamental a what
Speaker 1: we've seen, John last, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Aiden McLaughlin is the editor in chief of Media eight.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 6: Aiden, Thanks for having me on, Molly.
Speaker 1: It is in very exciting time in the time of media.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 6: Indeed, I think last month I've been saying, at least
Speaker 6: on the cable news beat, might be the biggest month
Speaker 6: in cable news news that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Paint the picture for me of where we are right
Speaker 1: now in the cable news world, and where do you
Speaker 1: think we're going.
Speaker 6: I think we just went through a pretty significant upheaval.
Speaker 6: I don't want to overstate the consequences of what happened,
Speaker 6: but like, let me just give the broad overview. Fox
Speaker 6: News has this massive defamation case against it. In fact,
Speaker 6: it has two massive defamation cases against it. It just
Speaker 6: settled one of them with Dominion Voting Systems for seven
Speaker 6: hundred and eighty seven million dollars, which is a historic
Speaker 6: sum for a media outlet to pay out, and it
Speaker 6: did that to avoid a trial, where from what we
Speaker 6: can tell, Fox News was pretty scared that a lot
Speaker 6: of more bad information was going to come out about
Speaker 6: the network in the courtroom where I was there down
Speaker 6: in Delaware, and there were hundreds of reporters present in
Speaker 6: that courtroom, so like this was going to be a
Speaker 6: huge story and Fox News like could not. It wasn't
Speaker 6: something that was just going to blow over. If Tucker
Speaker 6: Carlson was on that stand, it would have been covered
Speaker 6: by every single media outlet in the country. So this
Speaker 6: was like going to be a big problem for Fox
Speaker 6: and they spent nearly a billion dollars to avoid that.
Speaker 6: And so you have that on the one hand, which
Speaker 6: is historic, and then a week later, I'm trying to
Speaker 6: breathe a little bit after all this has happened, and
Speaker 6: Fox newsfires the most watched cable news host in the country,
Speaker 6: Tucker Carlson without reason. They didn't even give Tucker a reason.
Speaker 6: And CNN fire is Don Lemon, one of the most
Speaker 6: well known cable news hosts in the country, and that
Speaker 6: reason was a little bit more clear. You know, he
Speaker 6: had some problems on the show on the morning show.
Speaker 6: He wasn't really as equipped for a morning show as
Speaker 6: he was for like his primetime show, which he was
Speaker 6: really good at. So it really marked a turn for
Speaker 6: these two major cable news networks away from sort of
Speaker 6: the more opinionated, brash punditry of the Trump era. And
Speaker 6: I think, obviously there are huge differences between Tucker Carlson
Speaker 6: and Don Lemon. I would never compare the.
Speaker 3: Two, right I was gonna say, yeah.
Speaker 6: But right now we're seeing a real shift in the
Speaker 6: way these cable news networks which remained highly profitable or
Speaker 6: approaching the news so they are profitable.
Speaker 3: Talk to us about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think this is something that a lot of
Speaker 6: people miss about cable news, Like cable news as an
Speaker 6: industry is, from all indications, heading towards something of a
Speaker 6: clip when people really finally cut the final cords and
Speaker 6: move more towards streaming, which is far less profitable. But
Speaker 6: right now, cable news is an extremely profitable business. Fox
Speaker 6: News every year makes more than a billion dollars profit CNN, which,
Speaker 6: you know, everyone talks about how bad CNN's ratings are,
Speaker 6: and let's be honest, they're not great. CNN still turns
Speaker 6: a profit of more than half a billion dollars every year.
Speaker 3: Because the cable carriage fees.
Speaker 6: It's the cable carriage fees. Everyone thinks it's the advertisers.
Speaker 6: It's not the advertisers. It's the fact that when CNN
Speaker 6: starts to negotiate with like DirecTV or any other cable
Speaker 6: box company, they say, you need us on your package,
Speaker 6: otherwise people are going to opt for one of your competitors,
Speaker 6: and so DirecTV will shell out an enormous amount of
Speaker 6: money yearly to be able to say we have CNN.
Speaker 6: Those numbers have not been negotiated down that much yet.
Speaker 6: So for now, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News turn an enormous
Speaker 6: annual profit. And that's why for now, like cable news
Speaker 6: is still the power house that it is. They have
Speaker 6: enough money to be able to spend to have these massive,
Speaker 6: you know, muscular newsrooms. But it's only telling how long
Speaker 6: that's going to last before these cable carriage companies look
Speaker 6: up and say, wait, there's just not enough people watching
Speaker 6: CNN for us to pay this much to have them
Speaker 6: on our service.
Speaker 1: And right now Fox is actually renegotiating it's cable carriage fees.
Speaker 3: Will you talk about that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so Fox is renegotiating them. And I do think
Speaker 6: that one of the considerations in Fox settling the dominion case,
Speaker 6: Fox also getting rid of Tucker Carlson was saying like, Okay,
Speaker 6: we we want to be a little bit more palatable
Speaker 6: to these cable companies and be a little bit more
Speaker 6: palatable to advertisers going into these negotiations. And certainly like
Speaker 6: Tucker Carlson, by the end of his show, he suffered
Speaker 6: ad boycott after ad boycott, and the only companies that
Speaker 6: were advertising on a show were my Pillow and some
Speaker 6: other you know, direct to consumer companies. His show was
Speaker 6: not that profitable despite being the most watch watched show
Speaker 6: on Fox News because of the ads. So that was
Speaker 6: a real thorn in the side of Fox News's bottom line.
Speaker 6: And I think, you know, Rupert Murdoch and the board,
Speaker 6: which the board includes Paul Ryan, who really really doesn't
Speaker 6: like Tucker Carlson, I think they made a strategic decision
Speaker 6: that like, this wasn't worth it anymore.
Speaker 3: But the damage is already done, right, oh.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think that's why everyone this week is
Speaker 6: looking at that text that The New York Times reported
Speaker 6: from Tucker Carlson, where he's you know, expresses this like
Speaker 6: racist murder fantasy and says, well, how in the world
Speaker 6: was that text different from anything he said on air
Speaker 6: for the last seven years. And that's a great point.
Speaker 6: But I will say that the Fox board, at least,
Speaker 6: which again includes people that do not like Tucker Carlson
Speaker 6: and were vocal about it even when he worked at Fox,
Speaker 6: I think that they saw that as a particularly acute
Speaker 6: threat to the brand coming out during this trial. And
Speaker 6: I think it was probably just a good excuse on
Speaker 6: top of the millions others that they had to fire
Speaker 6: this guy to finally let him go.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: speculating that Tucker is going to go on his own
Speaker 1: start a media company. I read a piece in the
Speaker 1: Washington Post today. I'm sure you read this where he's
Speaker 1: Tucker's trying to get the debates now the Republican debates,
Speaker 1: and well, I enjoy a good wish cast. Don't you
Speaker 1: think that Tucker has a contractual NDA that's going to
Speaker 1: prevent him from jumping back into the media circus because
Speaker 1: his contract runs till twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6: Right, So his contract runs till twenty twenty four. Fox
Speaker 6: News is going to desperately try to throw the remainder
Speaker 6: of his contract, the money at him, so that they
Speaker 6: can enforce the NDA. Yeah, and noncompete, right, so he
Speaker 6: doesn't go to any other network. Tucker Crossin doesn't need
Speaker 6: the money, right, That's the thing he was making, you know,
Speaker 6: twenty million dollars a year at Fox. And he's a
Speaker 6: very wealthy man to begin with.
Speaker 3: Yeh heartwarm mine and.
Speaker 6: Like you know, like every other cable news host, he
Speaker 6: craves people listening to him more than anything.
Speaker 3: Right, And he doesn't want to be Megan Kelly.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 6: And the idea that he's going to go away and
Speaker 6: you know, live on his property in Maine or his
Speaker 6: place down in Florida and shut up is crazy. I
Speaker 6: think it's way more likely. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 6: he's got Brian Friedman, who's this pit Bull Powerhouse LA
Speaker 6: Entertainment lawyer, right, who's fighting this contract fight with Fox.
Speaker 6: I suspect, just knowing Tucker Carlson and reading all the
Speaker 6: reporting on this as of late, that he's going to
Speaker 6: basically say no to the money and do everything he
Speaker 6: can to get out of this contract early so that
Speaker 6: he can actually you know, he's not going to sit
Speaker 6: out the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: I think anyone that assumes he is is delusional.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean that's a dream, right, people who like
Speaker 1: democracy and don't want to see a failed Not to.
Speaker 6: Give too much of my own opinion on this, but
Speaker 6: after that alleged assassination attempt on poos happened on the Kremlin,
Speaker 6: the first thing I thought was like, oh, thank god,
Speaker 6: Tucker Cross it's not on air tonight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he would be had been all over it.
Speaker 6: Airing a graphic of like Zelensky with like a suicide
Speaker 6: bomb vest or something like. I can only imagine what
Speaker 6: his coverage would have been.
Speaker 2: So we're going to.
Speaker 1: Really see now, and I think we're already seeing the
Speaker 1: beginnings of it with the leaky leaks.
Speaker 3: Leaks like remember Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone runs a piece last week eight sources Arena
Speaker 1: Braganti has an OPO file, she's not afraid to use it.
Speaker 1: This week we start seeing little videos and text message.
Speaker 1: Is nothing that seems worse than what we've seen before,
Speaker 1: but clearly this is a shot across the bow.
Speaker 6: So I'm of the camp of people and I've spoken
Speaker 6: to a lot of reporters about this who know how
Speaker 6: Fox News operates really well, and like I've covered them
Speaker 6: for you know, five years now, I have a pretty
Speaker 6: good understanding of how they work. I'm in the camp
Speaker 6: that's a little skeptical that this is coming from Fox
Speaker 6: News leadership right, Like the videos are clearly coming from
Speaker 6: Fox right because somebody had to go their internal videos.
Speaker 6: They're behind the scenes videos, but they could have very
Speaker 6: well come from any number of producers that were let go,
Speaker 6: or the lawsuit or the lawsuit. Here's why I don't
Speaker 6: think it's Fox News leadership or Arena. Bring on to
Speaker 6: who's the head of communications for Fox. The first video
Speaker 6: is Tucker mocking Fox News's FOXX Nation Yeah, which is
Speaker 6: their streaming platform that they're very eager to say is
Speaker 6: a success. The idea that they'd leak this video of
Speaker 6: Tucker saying that it's a crap website and that no
Speaker 6: one should go on it and they should just go
Speaker 6: on YouTube defies logic. Also, the videos are bad, They're
Speaker 6: not worse than what we know, certainly not the idea
Speaker 6: that Fox would leak these videos in an effort to
Speaker 6: prove what we already assume Tucker.
Speaker 3: Is like, right, doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 6: No, it doesn't make sense to me. I don't know.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, I think that's right. I think the
Speaker 1: question is one is where are they being leaked from?
Speaker 1: And I think the choice are really like lower level
Speaker 1: people or.
Speaker 3: But I don't. But I also think, like, clearly there's more.
Speaker 6: Right, It's hard to tell what the situation is, at
Speaker 6: least with the video leaks, like Media Matters is leaking
Speaker 6: them out daily, sort of trickling them out. I think
Speaker 6: they've probably got a big batch of them and are
Speaker 6: are spacing it out for you know, for reasons that
Speaker 6: digital media websites.
Speaker 3: Do that kind of thing, right and why not?
Speaker 6: And why not? You know, you might as well get
Speaker 6: the traffic people want to read about this stuff. The
Speaker 6: funny thing is here that it's is really hard to
Speaker 6: figure out why these are being leaked, because it's hard
Speaker 6: to tell, you know, if they were really, really bad,
Speaker 6: I'd be like, Okay, Fox is leaking it to have everyone, say,
Speaker 6: everyone validate their decision to let him go, you know,
Speaker 6: to have even his fans look at it and go, Okay,
Speaker 6: this was really bad, maybe they were right to fire him.
Speaker 6: But since they're not that bad, I've heard people theorize
Speaker 6: that they're being released by Tucker's people as like a
Speaker 6: way to say, look, this wasn't even that bad. This
Speaker 6: is what they fired him for. Isn't this ridiculous?
Speaker 3: That stinks to me, Like.
Speaker 6: I don't believe it for a second. Yeah, I'm saying
Speaker 6: the nature of the videos makes it to me impossible
Speaker 6: to conclude where they're coming from. I really just don't know.
Speaker 6: I think hopefully we'll get some reporting about it, you know,
Speaker 6: down the line, or Fox News fires someone. That's what happens.
Speaker 6: I still remember when we published a story at Mediaite
Speaker 6: about Laurence O'Donnell melting down behind the scenes at MSNBC
Speaker 6: and NBC found the leaker. They did an investigation and
Speaker 6: found that he was you you can find who accessed
Speaker 6: the internal video files. Like we didn't out him to NBC.
Speaker 6: NBC found him on his own and they ousted him.
Speaker 6: So you know, Fox moves might try and do that
Speaker 6: with this person. I'm sure if it's not coming from them,
Speaker 6: I'm sure they're doing an internal investigation.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what else we're seeing in the
Speaker 1: media right now. So there's that then, I mean, Don Lemon,
Speaker 1: do you think Don Lemon is done? Do you think
Speaker 1: he comes back? Do you think he goes to News Nation?
Speaker 1: I mean, where do you think that he lands.
Speaker 6: I don't think there's any chance he's done. He is
Speaker 6: an incredibly gifted broadcaster, despite the problems at CNN, He's
Speaker 6: also incredibly ambitious. He's also very young, right, he is
Speaker 6: very young, and so I think he's certainly going to
Speaker 6: come back. That the problem with all of these cable
Speaker 6: news hosts when they get ousted is Don Lemon was
Speaker 6: reportedly making seven million dollars at CNN. Finding someone to
Speaker 6: pay that in this climate gets a little trickier. So
Speaker 6: I think everyone has to take a pay cut. You know,
Speaker 6: certainly Chris Cuomo had to take a pay cut going
Speaker 6: from CNN to News Nation. I read that News Nation
Speaker 6: is interested in Don Lemon. It seems like a fit
Speaker 6: that would make sense for him. I've also you know,
Speaker 6: I've also heard that he's interested in doing something a
Speaker 6: little bit more talk showy, right, you know, he had
Speaker 6: that show for CNN Plus that was a little bit
Speaker 6: more of a talk show than what he was doing
Speaker 6: on CNN. I could picture him doing something in daytime.
Speaker 6: He's got a lot of options. He's certainly got more
Speaker 6: options in like mainstream media than Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson
Speaker 6: doesn't have any options at you know, CBS, NBC.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you imagine.
Speaker 6: No, It's like it's just not going to happen. And
Speaker 6: he got fired from all the cable news networks, so
Speaker 6: he can't go back to any of those.
Speaker 3: He has been fired from many cable news networks.
Speaker 6: From many He had the hat trick for getting fired
Speaker 6: from cable news networks. But then again, Don Lemon and
Speaker 6: other hosts like him, they don't really have the personal
Speaker 6: audience that someone like Tucker Carlson has. Like right wing
Speaker 6: media pundits have big personal audiences that will follow them
Speaker 6: if they do an independent media venture. I think mainstream
Speaker 6: media hosts like Don Lemon have a little more trouble
Speaker 6: if they wanted to do something independent. So I think
Speaker 6: both of them have their own lane that they could
Speaker 6: return to, but they're different lanes.
Speaker 3: That's really true.
Speaker 1: We have this cable news drama, the behind the scenes
Speaker 1: stuff that's happening right now. Are the debates right the
Speaker 1: Republican primary debate, whatever that looks like. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you think that I mean, Trump doesn't want a debate,
Speaker 1: because why should he?
Speaker 3: I mean, do you think we'll have debates?
Speaker 1: Do you see a world where this gets settled in
Speaker 1: the traditional way or do you think they just let
Speaker 1: Trump do whatever he wants?
Speaker 6: You know, it's hard to tell. Well, first of all,
Speaker 6: the RNC can't do anything about Trump, right, they have
Speaker 6: no control over Trump. Trump controls the artist, right, Like,
Speaker 6: watch Ron McDaniel on air any day of the week
Speaker 6: on Fox and you'll see exactly why Trump runs the RNC.
Speaker 6: The RNC doesn't want Trump, so if he doesn't want
Speaker 6: to do a debate, he's not going to do a debate.
Speaker 6: I would say the last time we had this issue,
Speaker 6: right twenty sixteen, he skipped the Fox News debate because
Speaker 6: he just didn't want to do it, and he eventually
Speaker 6: came around and did a bunch of other debates, and
Speaker 6: you know, the debates were part of the reason why
Speaker 6: he won the nomination, because he demolished every other Republican candidate.
Speaker 6: I think his calculus now is that he's just got
Speaker 6: too much name recognition. Obviously his numbers are too good.
Speaker 3: More to lose than gain, right, But you know.
Speaker 6: The thing is, he's going to do this the CNN
Speaker 6: town hall this month, and part of the pitch that
Speaker 6: his campaign is making two reporters is that the reason
Speaker 6: they're doing this town hall is because he wants to
Speaker 6: show that, unlike DeSantis, he's not afraid to go and
Speaker 6: do an interview with a network like CNN, whereas DeSantis,
Speaker 6: you know, pretty much stays in a bubble of conservative media.
Speaker 6: So that argument's going to get harder to make if
Speaker 6: over the summer, DeSantis declares his candidacy and Trump says, well,
Speaker 6: I'm not even going to debate you. Like DeSantis will
Speaker 6: be able to use that as a battering ram to say, well,
Speaker 6: Trump's scared to debate me, and he can't just waltz
Speaker 6: into the nomination again. He lost to Joe Biden the
Speaker 6: first time, So I think that'll be an interesting dynamic
Speaker 6: when it comes when the summer starts heating up a
Speaker 6: little bit.
Speaker 1: Elon owns Twitter. He has taken a hard right tact.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair to say, you can't get rid
Speaker 1: of your blue check. I have to change my name
Speaker 1: practically every day to get rid of that fucker.
Speaker 6: Were you one of the people that he just gave
Speaker 6: it to.
Speaker 1: He keeps giving it back just to fuck with me,
Speaker 1: and I keep taking it off.
Speaker 3: But anyway, the point is he.
Speaker 1: Basically he has just squandered all this money and is
Speaker 1: trying to fix it, right, I mean, what is happening?
Speaker 6: I mean his stewardship over Twitter is one of the
Speaker 6: most confounding things I've ever witnessed anyone. He bought a
Speaker 6: company for forty four billion dollars and is completely misunderstands
Speaker 6: its entire value proposition. I remember when he first bought Twitter,
Speaker 6: and he said, Okay, one of the first things I'm
Speaker 6: going to do is I'm going to make Twitter faster.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 6: I don't know anyone who's ever complained that the problem
Speaker 6: with Twitter is that, like it's not fast enough to load.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's an Internet website. It's fine, loads fine,
Speaker 6: right exactly, And then thinking one that anyone would pay
Speaker 6: for a blue check, and then tormenting the top users
Speaker 6: of your social media platform and sending them into exile
Speaker 6: all the way until he started doing it to the
Speaker 6: Twitter files, guys like Matt Tayibi. I mean, it's just
Speaker 6: it's baffling. It's kind of fun to watch. I actually
Speaker 6: kind of enjoy being on Twitter these day because it's
Speaker 6: such a shit show. His whole problem with Twitter from
Speaker 6: the beginning that he said it's not profitable. He's certainly
Speaker 6: not making it more.
Speaker 3: Profitable, right, making it truth social.
Speaker 6: Very very few people are going to pay for those
Speaker 6: blue checks. He's not going to turn a profit that way.
Speaker 6: He's trying to charge businesses an enormous amount of.
Speaker 3: Money thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 6: Right, But like media, he just gave us the goal check,
Speaker 6: so he's giving it to most places, and then he
Speaker 6: wants like basically the people that like him to fork
Speaker 6: over the money, right right, it's the business model is
Speaker 6: like the craziest thing I've ever seen. So it's not
Speaker 6: going to start making money. And I think it's only
Speaker 6: a matter of time before he loses enough money that
Speaker 6: he just gets rid of it. I don't know. I
Speaker 6: don't know what the fate of Twitter is. Someone smarter
Speaker 6: than me could make that judgment, but it's not going
Speaker 6: to make money, and it's just going to torment him
Speaker 6: for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, I think that's completely right.
Speaker 3: Aiden. I hope you will come back.
Speaker 2: This was so much fun.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Hi. It's Molly and I am wildly excited that for
Speaker 1: the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right.
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Speaker 1: for your support. David Daily is a senior fellow at
Speaker 1: Fair Vote and the author Rap Fucked Why your vote
Speaker 1: doesn't count? Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: David, Thanks for having me, Mollie.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about voting right. You have written two
Speaker 1: books on this subject. Explain to me sort of how
Speaker 1: you've sort of come to this decision, and talk to
Speaker 1: me about unrigged, how Americans are battling back to save democracy.
Speaker 4: You know, it was a decade ago, really that I
Speaker 4: started writing about this. I was editor in chief of
Speaker 4: Salon and running our politics team, and it seemed like
Speaker 4: every single day what was coming out of Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: Was crazier and nuttier than the days before.
Speaker 3: Those salad days.
Speaker 4: I missed them, right, I mean, it was fifty votes
Speaker 4: to repeal Obamacare, and we had just had our first child,
Speaker 4: and I grew up in Connecticut, and so when Sandy
Speaker 4: Hook happened, I wasn't naive about the politics of gun control,
Speaker 4: but boy, I thought maybe a massacre of kids at
Speaker 4: an elementary school could possibly move the needle on something.
Speaker 4: And of course it didn't. And I asked a really
Speaker 4: simple question, I said, why didn't the Democrats take back
Speaker 4: the House in twenty twelve, when Obama was reelected and
Speaker 4: Democrats grew their majority in the US Senate. And when
Speaker 4: I took a look at the numbers and said, oh,
Speaker 4: Democrats won one point four million more votes nationally but
Speaker 4: still didn't take the Chamber. I mean, of course, we
Speaker 4: don't do anything by a popular vote in this country. Gosh,
Speaker 4: let alone elect the House that way. But it's really
Speaker 4: rare for the popular vote in the House vote not
Speaker 4: to line up. And then I looked at the delegations
Speaker 4: and you see purple states like Ohio with a twelve
Speaker 4: to four delegation and a bluish purple state like Pennsylvania
Speaker 4: was thirteen five and North Carolina was ten to three.
Speaker 4: And it hit me that something had happened here. And
Speaker 4: I stumbled across a Republican strategy called red map, which
Speaker 4: was short for the Redistricting Majority Project, the goal of
Speaker 4: which was to flip state legislatures in all of these
Speaker 4: states in twenty ten Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida,
Speaker 4: and more, and to use redistricting and the wild computer,
Speaker 4: sophisticated map making software that had arrived on the scene
Speaker 4: to draw lines that could not be beaten, and that
Speaker 4: is in effect what they have done. We are living
Speaker 4: with the consequences of Redmap a decade later, and it's
Speaker 4: only been reinforced by a US Supreme Court and state
Speaker 4: courts that have effectively greenlit or cleared the runway for
Speaker 4: whatever these state lawmakers want to do on voting rights.
Speaker 4: And it's created so many uncompetitive districts that the only
Speaker 4: thing that matters are Republican primary So we end up
Speaker 4: with and none of your people.
Speaker 3: Slow down and walk me through this. You find a
Speaker 3: state like purple state like Pennsylvania. Let's talk about Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania really is now at this point of blue state,
Speaker 1: blue governor, blue Senate. Talk to us about how Republicans
Speaker 1: were able to sort of keep the advantage there.
Speaker 4: It's really wild in Pennsylvania. As the twenty ten elections
Speaker 4: approached in in Pennsylvania, Democrats had a one two one
Speaker 4: oh one advantage in the state House. Huge state House,
Speaker 4: really tiny majority. And what Republicans did is they identified
Speaker 4: a handful of state legislative seats, national Republican operatives in Washington,
Speaker 4: designing national strategies and executing them in these otherwise sleepy
Speaker 4: local races. This is not long after the Citizens United
Speaker 4: decision comes down. So they're loaded up with all sorts
Speaker 4: of dark money and untraceable funds, and they come into
Speaker 4: the state legislative races in the last six to seven weeks,
Speaker 4: having already focus grouped the issues that they were going
Speaker 4: to use to go negative on these incumbents, and they
Speaker 4: swamp them with hundreds of thousands of dollars of ads
Speaker 4: and mailers in the last days of the campaign, and
Speaker 4: they flip the Pennsylvania State House. This is the same
Speaker 4: strategy that they pull off in Wisconsin and in North Carolina,
Speaker 4: in Ohio and Michigan, all states that had been under
Speaker 4: Democratic control in state legislatures, and Democrats really have not
Speaker 4: been able to come within sniffing distance of state legislatures
Speaker 4: in most of those states since what they do afterwards
Speaker 4: after they take control of these members, they redraw all
Speaker 4: the lines after the census, right, And what you see
Speaker 4: in places like Pennsylvania is even though Democrats win the
Speaker 4: statewide vote count by a couple hundred thousand votes, they
Speaker 4: cannot win more seats.
Speaker 3: So explain to me how Democrats could change those Oh boy.
Speaker 4: Well, Democrats kind of fell asleep on the entire plan
Speaker 4: in the first place. Unfortunately, it's hard to fix it
Speaker 4: because it's really hard to defeat a gerrymander at the
Speaker 4: ballot box. So you can fix it any number of ways.
Speaker 4: You can try to get around the impact of redistricting
Speaker 4: with an independent commission in which citizens draw these lines,
Speaker 4: you know, states like Michigan and California do that. You
Speaker 4: can try to get around it by filing litigation, by
Speaker 4: suing under and citizens tried to do that in the
Speaker 4: federal courts for the last decade until John Roberts's voting
Speaker 4: rights wrecking crew in the Roucho Versus Common Cause decision
Speaker 4: out of North Carolina in twenty nineteen closed the federal courts.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's pause for a minute. If you had
Speaker 1: the presidency and the Senate, and you were pretending you
Speaker 1: were a Republican, how would you fix it. You could
Speaker 1: see how a Republican president might come in here and
Speaker 1: just do a bunch of executive orders. I mean, there
Speaker 1: certainly are non conventional ways to vex those.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: If I was a Democratic president and I had both
Speaker 4: houses of Congress from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: I would certainly have tried to do something to fix this,
Speaker 4: whether it was the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, whether
Speaker 4: it was for the People Act, whether it's working to
Speaker 4: expand right size the Supreme Court and bring ethics reform
Speaker 4: to this body which is so unaccountable. You know, I
Speaker 4: think that there are all kinds of more creative ways
Speaker 4: as well, if we want to talk about things like
Speaker 4: a more proportional system, something like the Fair Representation Act
Speaker 4: involving multi member districts and ranked choice voting for Congress
Speaker 4: that takes the sting out of these individual district lines
Speaker 4: in the first place. There are lots of things to do.
Speaker 1: Rank choice voting really seems like a big win for democracy.
Speaker 4: Oh. I think it absolutely would be, And it's especially
Speaker 4: important because of gerrymandering. Once you have as many uncompetitive
Speaker 4: districts as we do right now, the only race that
Speaker 4: matters are these sort of low turnout summer primaries in
Speaker 4: which the only folks that tend to turn out are
Speaker 4: the most extreme, and because it's the easiest way to
Speaker 4: a seat, you might have ten twelve people running in
Speaker 4: that seat, and the crazies only have to get twenty
Speaker 4: one twenty two percent of the vote sometimes to sneak
Speaker 4: into office. This is how Matt Gates first lands in office.
Speaker 4: He wins a gerrymandered seat in Florida with a percentage
Speaker 4: in the mid thirties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Florida's first district is a Ruby rad I mean, oh.
Speaker 4: It certainly is. I'm not suggesting that rad is going
Speaker 4: to win that seat. I'm just suggesting that if you
Speaker 4: had ranked choice voting and the winner of that had
Speaker 4: to get to fifty percent instead of win at thirty
Speaker 4: three percent, you might have a different kind of Republican
Speaker 4: who's not an election.
Speaker 3: A denier, right, And that's what we saw in Alaska.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right. When you use ranked choice voting in
Speaker 4: these elections, you get a candidate who most people actually want.
Speaker 4: And there are members of Congress right now who have
Speaker 4: won their primaries with about twenty percent of the vote,
Speaker 4: and then because the district is uncompetitive, they're able to
Speaker 4: just waltz right into a seat, even though maybe twenty
Speaker 4: five thousand people in a district of eight hundred thousand
Speaker 4: actually voted for them. And when you use ranked choice voting,
Speaker 4: you have an instant runoff, and you always have a
Speaker 4: winner with the widest and the deepest majority support. You
Speaker 4: have to talk to everybody.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what happened in Wisconsin. Democrats flipped
Speaker 1: the state court, the state Supreme Court. Explain what the
Speaker 1: consequences of that are and why it's good.
Speaker 4: This was the culmination really of what has been a
Speaker 4: twelve year plan in the state of Wisconsin to try
Speaker 4: and eke back levers of power after the Republican jerrymander
Speaker 4: in twenty ten. Wisconsin may well be ground zero for
Speaker 4: this kind of jerrymandering. It is a perhaps the ultimate
Speaker 4: fifty to fifty state, and Republicans have got sixty four
Speaker 4: of the ninety nine seats in the state Assembly and
Speaker 4: a supermajority of twenty two of the thirty three seats
Speaker 4: in the state Senate. They have gone on wild power
Speaker 4: grabs after the state elected a Democratic governor in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: The jerrymanders survived twenty eighteen, even when Democrats had a
Speaker 4: big night and voters replaced Scott Walker with Tony Evers.
Speaker 4: Re elected Jammy Baldwin gave Democrats all of the state
Speaker 4: wide offices two hundred three thousand more votes for the
Speaker 4: State Assembly, Republicans held on sixty three thirty six. Anyway,
Speaker 4: so Democrats have tried to find their way back in
Speaker 4: Wisconsin by winning back seats on the State Supreme Court,
Speaker 4: and they have finally, after many years, enough seats came
Speaker 4: up that they were able to build a four to
Speaker 4: three progressive majority on the Court. So next I imagine
Speaker 4: you will see litigation that tries to use Wisconsin's state
Speaker 4: constitution to overturn these gerrymandered maps that have really rendered
Speaker 4: a representative a democracy a thing of the past in
Speaker 4: the state of Wisconsin. I imagine what happens is that the
Speaker 4: State Supreme Court will in fact rule for three to
Speaker 4: overturn those maps, but then Republicans will sue to return
Speaker 4: this case to the US Supreme Court under the independent
Speaker 4: state legislative theory.
Speaker 3: And this Supreme Court is what Harlan Crowe pays for.
Speaker 4: Harlan guests, Harlan Crowe is getting what he paid for.
Speaker 4: I know, Charlie Brown in the Football is sort of
Speaker 4: a cliched metaphor to use, but it's you almost have
Speaker 4: to just kind of shake your head, right. I mean,
Speaker 4: Democrats go through a decade plus of trying to strategize
Speaker 4: and figure out a way back, and they finally win
Speaker 4: the last election to make that happen. And Republicans just
Speaker 4: make up a theory. They're just like, yeah, but there's
Speaker 4: the independent state legislative theory, and we're going to take
Speaker 4: it up to our blot and paid for federalist society
Speaker 4: court and we're going to wash that. So, you know, sorry,
Speaker 4: nice try.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think the fundamental problem here is
Speaker 1: that Democrats played by a completely different set of rules
Speaker 1: and Republicans do.
Speaker 4: I think that's exactly right. And you see it right,
Speaker 4: and you see it in North Carolina where the state
Speaker 4: Supreme Court just about two weeks ago decided that they
Speaker 4: would overturn the decision that the state Supreme Court made
Speaker 4: a year ago when they got rid of the old
Speaker 4: maps in North Carolina as on constitutional partis and gerrymanders.
Speaker 4: Republicans took over the state Supreme Court and then they said, well,
Speaker 4: we're going to take another look at that decision, and
Speaker 4: sure enough, they overturned it. And a lot of the
Speaker 4: coverage of this has been like, well, the Republican court
Speaker 4: overturned what a democratic court had done, right, but the
Speaker 4: democratic court didn't install a Democratic map. Right, the Democratic
Speaker 4: Court led to a seven to seven congressional map in
Speaker 4: the state of North Carolina, and Republicans still won majorities
Speaker 4: in the state legislature when they won more votes. Right,
Speaker 4: Republicans are going to lock in at eleven to three
Speaker 4: map in their favor and supermajorities in both houses of
Speaker 4: the state legislature. And they're already getting ready for this
Speaker 4: by advancing a twelve week abortion bill that would create
Speaker 4: all of these new bands on reproductive rights in a
Speaker 4: state where that's deeply, deeply unpopular. But they're going to
Speaker 4: do it anyway because they've built this self perpetuating loop
Speaker 4: that keeps them in power.
Speaker 1: So your sense is that the only way for Democrats
Speaker 1: to solve any of this is just to get out
Speaker 1: in enormous numbers and vote violently, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1: Not violently, obviously, but to vote an enormous quantity.
Speaker 4: I think so much of this begins and ends at
Speaker 4: the US Supreme Court, and that we have to be
Speaker 4: thinking really seriously about how we fix and reform an
Speaker 4: institution that is wildly unaccountable has become effectively a rubber
Speaker 4: stamp for conservative policies that can't be attained any other way.
Speaker 4: But of course this kind of big structural reform is
Speaker 4: really difficult given the realities of the US Senate and
Speaker 4: the filibuster and the demographics of the US Senate, which
Speaker 4: only get worse for the Democratic Party as time goes
Speaker 4: on and population shifts.
Speaker 3: Worse for the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: No, I would say worse for the Democrats. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you look at it right now, you have most
Speaker 4: of the population in the country in about fifteen states,
Speaker 4: and pretty soon that is going to be you know,
Speaker 4: seven or eight states. So these smaller, wider, more rural,
Speaker 4: more conservative states.
Speaker 3: Are going to have more power, are going to.
Speaker 4: Have a lot more power. And certainly there are big
Speaker 4: states like Texas that you know, have got a couple
Speaker 4: of Republicans, and there are small states like Connecticut that
Speaker 4: have a couple of Democrats. But if you look at
Speaker 4: it overall, the balance of power in the last Congress,
Speaker 4: when there were fifty Democrats and fifty Republicans in the
Speaker 4: US Senate, the fifty Democrats who represented about forty two
Speaker 4: point five million more people.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, David, This was great, my pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thank you anytime, no moment exactly, Jesse Cannon by jug Fast.
Speaker 3: It just gets word war hilarious.
Speaker 5: Each day when we find out these Clarence Thomas things,
Speaker 5: I always have to think pro public is like just
Speaker 5: save with the worst for last, and I wonder what's next.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: I think that the trip trip trip of Clarence Thomas
Speaker 1: is undisclosed, now seemingly being disclosed financial disclosure. The most
Speaker 1: recent financial disclosure was that the grand nephew of Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas had his private school paid for by everyone's favorite
Speaker 1: conservative money bags, Harlan Crowe. When not collecting Nazi artifacts,
Speaker 1: when not taking Clarence Thomas on his jet, Harlan Crowe
Speaker 1: is paying for Clarence Thomas's nephew's private school tuition.
Speaker 5: Don't forget buying his mother's house and renovating it. And
Speaker 5: you know, friend of of the show get Here had
Speaker 5: this really good thing. He dug up a quote where
Speaker 5: Clarence says about the supreme work, the job is not
Speaker 5: worth doing for what they.
Speaker 3: Pay, right.
Speaker 6: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Public service isn't for you, chief, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so for that Harlan Crowe and his Nazi artifacts
Speaker 1: and his many many many payments of various things, real
Speaker 1: and Sundry is our moment of fuck Gray. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.