Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast, and this is Fast Politics. Well,
Speaker 1: we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's
Speaker 1: best minds, and Tulci Gabbard is auditioning for Fox News.
Speaker 1: What a great show we have today. First, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be joined by Congressman Eric Swalwell and he's gonna tell
Speaker 1: us all about how the Democrats win the mid terms
Speaker 1: as well as if Donald Trump will go to jail.
Speaker 1: Then we're gonna talk to Hillsborough County, Florida's state Attorney
Speaker 1: Andrew Warren about his recent dust up that got him
Speaker 1: suspended during one of the Governor de Santiss culture wars.
Speaker 1: But first we have the host of m K T
Speaker 1: Call on the tape podcast Okay computer podcast and it
Speaker 1: contributed to CNBC Fast Money, Dan Nathan. Welcome to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Dan Nathan, Molly John Fast. I mean, come on, murderous,
Speaker 1: murderous row of guests over the last couple of weeks
Speaker 1: in your new podcast here and I make the cut.
Speaker 1: I really feel very very special in here. Well, I
Speaker 1: was saying we have to have Dan Nathan on because
Speaker 1: I was like, what the hell is going on? It
Speaker 1: was like every day when I was watched the public
Speaker 1: markets creator and also there's so many stories about the
Speaker 1: economy going on right now, and many of them conflict
Speaker 1: with each other. Can you start by giving us like
Speaker 1: a quick top line of what you're seeing. Yeah, no
Speaker 1: doubt about it. And I think you and I've talked
Speaker 1: about this in the past before. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that kind of think about as it
Speaker 1: relates to the economy and as it relates to their
Speaker 1: investments in the stock market are two very different things,
Speaker 1: and they're obviously very tied to each other, right, But
Speaker 1: I think over the last couple of years, I think
Speaker 1: all of us got very familiar with economic sort of issues,
Speaker 1: right as it related to the pandemic and all the
Speaker 1: stimulus that kept the economy afloat. And what did that
Speaker 1: do It It kind of inflated the price of assets,
Speaker 1: right because interest rates went really low and money was
Speaker 1: really easy, and you know, anything that wasn't bolted down
Speaker 1: as far as that was investable went up. Well, here
Speaker 1: we are, we're the other side of that right now.
Speaker 1: And you know, inflation is something that the FED was
Speaker 1: really trying to get higher pre pandemic. They wanted to
Speaker 1: get it above two percent they're really worried about the
Speaker 1: idea that technology is this massive deflationary force. Right. And
Speaker 1: then after the pandemic, after trillions of dollars of monetary
Speaker 1: and fiscal stimulus, I mean, just things went haywire, and
Speaker 1: prices and all sorts of goods and services just went
Speaker 1: a lot higher. And then when we had the war
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, when when Russia invaded Ukraine, it caused tremendous
Speaker 1: dislocation as far as energy supplies. And then on top
Speaker 1: of all these kind of broken supply chain issues that
Speaker 1: we had from the pandemic. And then obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: two and a half years into the pandemic, you know,
Speaker 1: China is still locking down. So inflation, inflation, inflation, this
Speaker 1: is the thing that our central bank about a year
Speaker 1: ago decided they have to combat because it got to
Speaker 1: high single digit percentages and those are levels we have
Speaker 1: not seen since the early eighties. Now tying it into
Speaker 1: the stock market, well, the stock market a huge run.
Speaker 1: I want to stop you for one second, uh, inflation.
Speaker 1: So we're seeing inflation going up, and that's caused by
Speaker 1: the money from the stimulus, the increase in gas prices
Speaker 1: and the increase in wheat prices from the Russia invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. Yeah, but more importantly here in the US,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the issues that we had when
Speaker 1: we started thinking as energy as a point of national
Speaker 1: security or supply chains as a point of natural security.
Speaker 1: The whole idea of deglobalization is going to put upward
Speaker 1: pressure on wages here in the US as we reach
Speaker 1: shore a lot of jobs. So that's also part of it.
Speaker 1: And when you think about you know, we we, you
Speaker 1: and I have talked about this this huge gap right
Speaker 1: between you know, those who have and those you know
Speaker 1: on the bottom side of the spectrum. This this income
Speaker 1: inequality gap has just been widening and widening. It does
Speaker 1: it in periods of um, you know, easy money or
Speaker 1: so and so all of a a sudden though, we have
Speaker 1: low end workers, okay, who are getting increases in wages
Speaker 1: and they're really not keeping up with inflation right now.
Speaker 1: But that is actually a real pressure point for a
Speaker 1: lot of US corporations right now because they've actually had
Speaker 1: the benefit of really cheap overseas labor or overseas or
Speaker 1: labor here in the US that's been really benefited by immigration.
Speaker 1: And we also have a huge immigration problems so what
Speaker 1: you're saying there, I just want to like slow it down,
Speaker 1: and and for our for listeners is that actually this
Speaker 1: inflation ended up pushing up the wages of the sort
Speaker 1: of the kind of like working people wages, and so
Speaker 1: that actually was good, but it also made inflation worse.
Speaker 1: It made inflation words, and it also doesn't really do
Speaker 1: a lot for those low end workers who are now
Speaker 1: dealing with gas at the pump that's near four dollars. Right.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to get a two dollar or a
Speaker 1: three dollar an hour raise, but if on average, to
Speaker 1: cost to get to your job has increased ramatically, the
Speaker 1: cost of food has increased dramatically. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: sorts of things they're just kind of maybe balancing themselves out.
Speaker 1: So you know, again, I think when you think about
Speaker 1: what the Federal Reserve is trying to do by raising
Speaker 1: interest rates as fast as they have over the last
Speaker 1: six months or so, which is just, you know, the
Speaker 1: fastest in which they've raised three percentage points on the
Speaker 1: Fed funds since the early eighties, Okay, they're trying to
Speaker 1: kind of tamp down these prices and get them back
Speaker 1: into the mid single digits. As far as inflationary readings
Speaker 1: right now. And but they also need to do really sadly,
Speaker 1: one of the big I guess goals of this whole
Speaker 1: process is to actually have that unemployment rate go up
Speaker 1: a bit, because the only way to kind of tamp
Speaker 1: down demand is actually have higher unemployment. So this is
Speaker 1: actually the real conundrum with this whole situation, right because
Speaker 1: that makes labor cheaper if you have more unemployed people. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and so I mean basically employers have more leverage,
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons why you know, we
Speaker 1: we know that we've had so many issues as far
Speaker 1: as low income wage earners over the last couple of
Speaker 1: decades because they just have had actually no leverage. So
Speaker 1: now what happens, well, I think there is a scenario,
Speaker 1: I mean, right now if you think about what's happened.
Speaker 1: You know, the FED his rays interest rates. We've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of these inflationary inputs. They've come down over
Speaker 1: the last few months. You know, while gas at the
Speaker 1: pump is still for that dollars, it's still down from
Speaker 1: where it was the national average I think was about five.
Speaker 1: You know, we're seeing lumber, we're seeing some food prices,
Speaker 1: we're seeing shipping costs, all these things are coming down.
Speaker 1: So now the real question is is this tight monetary
Speaker 1: policy gonna put the US economy in a recession? And
Speaker 1: that's really one of the biggest kind of issues of
Speaker 1: debate right now, and it's one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: the stock market is down about on the year because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of investors are worried. Yes, while
Speaker 1: they're anxious, because inflation for some businesses is good, for
Speaker 1: others it's not. And if we just reach kind of
Speaker 1: a peak margin period where company were making the highest
Speaker 1: amount of money on the revenue that they were taking in,
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden that some of these areas
Speaker 1: of inflation are going to be sticky, like wages and
Speaker 1: some of these other things, you know, they're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to make the profits that they did.
Speaker 1: And if profits are less, okay, stock valuations should be lower.
Speaker 1: And that's what's happened in the stock market this year.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what businesses do well in
Speaker 1: an inflation, Well, it's kind of interesting. I mean, when
Speaker 1: you think about companies that for the most part, who
Speaker 1: have pricing power, right, so when you think about, um,
Speaker 1: you know a company who has the ability to push
Speaker 1: through the cost of higher inflation to their customers, whether
Speaker 1: they be consumers or whether they be enterprises. And there's
Speaker 1: no shortages, but for the most part, most companies don't
Speaker 1: don't do well in them. If you think of like
Speaker 1: the auto industry. Remember we heard coming out of the
Speaker 1: pandemic that there was just such short supply of new cars,
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons why use part prices
Speaker 1: were going through the roof, and some instances you saw
Speaker 1: use cars prices more than new cars because he didn't
Speaker 1: have um At says to new cars, they didn't have
Speaker 1: the parts, they didn't have the supply to right. That
Speaker 1: was the chips, right, right, because the chips and everything
Speaker 1: like that. Now we've gone to a situation where there's
Speaker 1: big inventories of a lot of these things that a
Speaker 1: lot of consumers were pining away for. But now that
Speaker 1: we have, you know, a weaker economy, you know, there's
Speaker 1: probably less demand for some of these products. And so
Speaker 1: I guess the point I would just make is that
Speaker 1: the stock markets rolled over. The housing market was something
Speaker 1: that the FED was also targeting. That's much softer right
Speaker 1: now because of the raised interest rates, because money is
Speaker 1: more expensive. Exactly. We see the thirty year mortgage above
Speaker 1: seven percent for the first time in a very long time.
Speaker 1: If you just do the math, that's more than double
Speaker 1: from over a year ago. And if you think about
Speaker 1: if you're gonna like think about buying a new home
Speaker 1: right now, think about what the differential is year over
Speaker 1: year and the cost to do that, it's much higher.
Speaker 1: Even though the cost of homes are down. And that's
Speaker 1: also happening at time, it's causing it's causing rents to
Speaker 1: go higher. Right. So a large part of America's they
Speaker 1: rent their homes, right, and so because this scarcity of
Speaker 1: rental properties, So that's also you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: byproduct of this inflation too. Just back to home prices
Speaker 1: for a minute. Lower home prices may actually ultimately be good,
Speaker 1: right because there were so many people who were priced
Speaker 1: out of these housing markets. Yeah, there will be. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's been this big demographic shift and we saw it
Speaker 1: really take hold during the pandemic, where younger people were
Speaker 1: interested in moving out of big cities and moving into
Speaker 1: suburban areas and buying homes. And the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is, we just don't have enough supply for them,
Speaker 1: so net net, even as the prices come in, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be this weird supplied demand dynamic that's kind of
Speaker 1: kind of linger for a while. And that is actually
Speaker 1: one of the kind of knock on effects from the
Speaker 1: financial crisis, which was rooted in the housing market. We
Speaker 1: just don't have enough homes for the sort of demand
Speaker 1: that we're gonna see outside the major cities. So there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of things right here, you know, Molly,
Speaker 1: I've been looking at the markets for twenty five years,
Speaker 1: and I will tell you that the sort of cross
Speaker 1: currents or the headwinds economic growth have never been higher
Speaker 1: right now. That being said, you know, we are coming
Speaker 1: off all time highs in the stock market, all time
Speaker 1: highs in the housing market, all time highs in certain
Speaker 1: wages as you kind of read them. So you know,
Speaker 1: consumer balance sheets for now are in pretty good shape,
Speaker 1: you know, coming out of the pandemic. So it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like we're about to go into a major crisis
Speaker 1: like we had an oh eight or oh nine or
Speaker 1: something even back to you know, O one oh two.
Speaker 1: But I think the writings on the wall where it
Speaker 1: could happen, we just don't kind of know right now.
Speaker 1: But you also don't know you're in a recession until
Speaker 1: we're already in it. Yeah, And I guess there's a
Speaker 1: couple of ways to think about what a recession looks like.
Speaker 1: The technical definition was two consecutive negative quarters of gross
Speaker 1: domestic product, And so to most people listening to that,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean anything, right, it just means kind of
Speaker 1: like two consecutive chords of slower growth. What really happens
Speaker 1: most people, most consumers feel like they're in a recession
Speaker 1: when they lose their jobs or there's downward pressure on
Speaker 1: their wages. And then when the cost of doing things
Speaker 1: like we just talked about, whether it be buying a home,
Speaker 1: running a home, filling your your your car with a
Speaker 1: tang of gas, you know, when when that becomes difficult
Speaker 1: putting food on your table, that's when people feel like
Speaker 1: they're in a recession. Now, I look at this through
Speaker 1: the lens of the stock market, and most of the
Speaker 1: time the stock market will discount a recession coming. And
Speaker 1: so that's what it's starting to do right now. And really,
Speaker 1: once you have all of these people are just perma bullish,
Speaker 1: whether it be on the economy or the markets. When
Speaker 1: they kind of throw in the towel and say I
Speaker 1: was wrong and we're going to have a recession, and
Speaker 1: they get really negative. That's usually when stock markets bottom, right,
Speaker 1: So you think the stock market is sometimes an indicator.
Speaker 1: Stock market is this kind of discounting mechanism right now,
Speaker 1: So if I think back to the last two times,
Speaker 1: not including the early recession and bear market that we
Speaker 1: had during the pandemic, because again let's just exclude that
Speaker 1: because all the unusual activity and when you think about
Speaker 1: how much stimulus both monetary and fiscal stowing aut But
Speaker 1: back to the financial crisis, the SMP five hundred, which
Speaker 1: is the major you know, measure of stocks here in
Speaker 1: the US, that declined fifty seven percent from its highs
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven November to its lows in
Speaker 1: early March two thousand and nine. And then if you
Speaker 1: go back to the post dot com crisis that we
Speaker 1: had there and it wasn't really a crisis, it was
Speaker 1: a recession, and there's a whole host of other things
Speaker 1: with nine eleven, and there's a lot of corporate mouthfeasans
Speaker 1: the SMP five hold hundreds sold off fifty percent. So
Speaker 1: here we are right now, we're down twenty five percent.
Speaker 1: It seems very likely that the US will be a
Speaker 1: recession at some point in the next out of six
Speaker 1: to nine to twelve months or so. Europe is probably
Speaker 1: already in a recession. China has been in a recession.
Speaker 1: So I guess the point is is like, if the
Speaker 1: average stock market declined during recession has been about thirty
Speaker 1: five percent over the last call it fifty years or so,
Speaker 1: and the last two major ones we've been down more
Speaker 1: than fifty percent, I'd say down twenty percent with a
Speaker 1: very high likelihood of a recession in the next year. Okay,
Speaker 1: the stock markets not done going down. This is the
Speaker 1: point that you see inflation in Europe, in England it
Speaker 1: seems like it's probably the worst of anywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: Political people on the right are very mad at Biden.
Speaker 1: A bad inflation. Say Biden wasn't he just had one
Speaker 1: focus was which was inflation. What could he do that
Speaker 1: he's not doing well? Let's just say this. I mean,
Speaker 1: they actually have been very proactive. So going back to November,
Speaker 1: you know when oil prices started to go up precipitously,
Speaker 1: and again this is before Russia invaded Ukraine. They tapped
Speaker 1: what they called the spr on the the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,
Speaker 1: and that's a reserve that the US has um for
Speaker 1: a whole host of reasons, of of gas oil that
Speaker 1: they stockpiled. They did that in an effort to kind
Speaker 1: of put some downward pressure on gas prices. You know,
Speaker 1: he did something very controversial earlier this year. I guess
Speaker 1: in the summer he went over to see MBS and
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. What did he do that He fist bumped
Speaker 1: and he got kind of spit in the eye afterwards,
Speaker 1: and I think they recognized that was a huge mistake
Speaker 1: for a whole host of reasons. Um And then obviously
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act, that's something that they worked very
Speaker 1: hard to do. Very debatable whether it actually anytime soon
Speaker 1: will actually reduce inflation. But I guess the point is
Speaker 1: they're being very proactive when I think about what the
Speaker 1: messaging might be into the midterms. Okay, obviously he's not
Speaker 1: on the ballot, but this is a huge issue. All
Speaker 1: the polling that I've seen of late, you know, months
Speaker 1: ago there was row and right now it's clearly inflation, right,
Speaker 1: and so can they thread the needle by saying hey, listen,
Speaker 1: we are battling inflation. This is not our fault, and
Speaker 1: it really isn't. You can say that they know the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve was basically a little too overzealous for too
Speaker 1: long on their easy money policy. But if you think
Speaker 1: about the geopolitical issues that have actually been a huge
Speaker 1: input to inflation, if they are able to say, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: we're getting this under control. Look here, here, and here,
Speaker 1: and the other thing it's really good is that we've
Speaker 1: actually avoided seeing unemployment rate go up meaningfully anything. It's
Speaker 1: gone down. It's back at three point five percent, which
Speaker 1: was a forty year low, which is what we hit
Speaker 1: right before the pandemic, before it went up to high
Speaker 1: single digits or so. So that might be a really
Speaker 1: good message for them to articulate. Um, and it's an
Speaker 1: honest message, to be very frank, it's not one that
Speaker 1: needs to be spun. So what do you do about
Speaker 1: MBS right, because we're seeing opec is gonna cut production,
Speaker 1: that's gonna raise oil prices again. I mean, there's clearly
Speaker 1: a relationship between the Saudis and Jared. I mean, clearly
Speaker 1: MBS is as much as a person can be uh,
Speaker 1: you know, as much as the leader of Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: can be a Republican, he sounds like he is. I mean,
Speaker 1: what should the Biden administration do here? Well, I think
Speaker 1: they should take a much harder stance. I mean, I
Speaker 1: personally know and cares what I have to think about
Speaker 1: geo politics. But I thought it was you're here now.
Speaker 1: But I thought it was a huge mistake that he
Speaker 1: went over there, especially given you know, what we know
Speaker 1: of what he did to just kind of his own people,
Speaker 1: what he does to his own people, and um, you
Speaker 1: know just kind of the human humanitarian is used that
Speaker 1: they have over there. But you know, again, I mean
Speaker 1: that that was just a d percent leverage. I mean,
Speaker 1: you we might look back and say that was a
Speaker 1: bad of of a kind of mishap, as you know,
Speaker 1: Trump going over and meeting Kim john In in the
Speaker 1: d m Z. You know, I mean, I really do
Speaker 1: think if you think of the balance of power and
Speaker 1: how important energy has become as a matter of national security,
Speaker 1: I mean, what happened in the last few months might
Speaker 1: be something we you know, we look back for a
Speaker 1: very long time and just say very clearly, these are
Speaker 1: not our friends, right American government still gives Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: money and yet it relies on OPAK. There are things
Speaker 1: that this government could do well, and they're starting to
Speaker 1: do it. I mean, when you think about you know
Speaker 1: that this administration started with the idea that they were
Speaker 1: going to be cutting you know, fossil fuel production here
Speaker 1: um in a massive, massive way, and they basically changed
Speaker 1: their tune and I think the idea again going back
Speaker 1: to energy as a means of national security. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a theme that you know, Molly and our
Speaker 1: adult lives, going back to what work kid. You know,
Speaker 1: this is something that's gone on and on and on,
Speaker 1: and so I guess at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know, you keep hearing this term E s G.
Speaker 1: That was just a kind of really popular way for
Speaker 1: people to kind of look at what we were doing
Speaker 1: as relates to fossil fuels and say we're not going
Speaker 1: to invest in those sorts of strategies and just became
Speaker 1: something a very easy political sort of flagged to wave.
Speaker 1: And I think what this administration has clearly done so
Speaker 1: far is at least you know, taking that flag, you know,
Speaker 1: out of the ground here and thought about different ways
Speaker 1: where we can produce um, you know, energy in a
Speaker 1: way where we're less relying on the sound and open
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that that's in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. I mean I think that you know, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I think what the situation
Speaker 1: that Europe is in right now. I mean, the fact
Speaker 1: that they were so reliant for natural gas on the Russians,
Speaker 1: given everything that we know of Putin's strategy as it
Speaker 1: relates to, you know, kind of reassembling or cobbling back
Speaker 1: together um, the Soviet Union. It's just very interesting that Germany,
Speaker 1: when the largest economies in the world, was so dependent
Speaker 1: on them, and we're gonna be we could be in
Speaker 1: a global recession because of that dependence. And you know,
Speaker 1: we have the ability here in the US to kind
Speaker 1: of pull a lot of gas out of the ground here.
Speaker 1: And again I don't know a whole heck of a
Speaker 1: lot about this, and then the politics are very complicated here,
Speaker 1: but I mean there's probably a much more measured approach
Speaker 1: to this. And then again you're hearing people from all
Speaker 1: sides talk about nuclear energy as also a source going forward.
Speaker 1: So again I think we're going to get out of
Speaker 1: this situation here. Maybe without a war, a broader war
Speaker 1: than which just exists with Russia and Ukraine, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna caused the rest of the world to kind of rethink,
Speaker 1: you know, our energy needs. Thank you so much, Dan,
Speaker 1: this was super interesting, all right, Molly, thanks a lot,
Speaker 1: and grats on Fast Politics than Eric Swallwell represents California's
Speaker 1: fifteenth congressional district. Welcome too, Fast Politics, Eric Swawell, Guys,
Speaker 1: nice to see all game. Very excited to have you
Speaker 1: on the new podcast. Talk to me about these mid terms.
Speaker 1: What is your anxiety, what are you seeing? What does
Speaker 1: the landscape look like from out there in California? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh thirty jump balls all over the country, right,
Speaker 1: that's basically where we're at. We've got to win about
Speaker 1: eighty six percent of them to keep the House. That's doable.
Speaker 1: It's doable because we've got terrific candidates defending our seats,
Speaker 1: and we've got candidates who are going after you know,
Speaker 1: some of the most vulnerable and just frankly awful Republican
Speaker 1: colleagues of mine. So I actually, you know, if you
Speaker 1: would have told me a year ago, this is a
Speaker 1: position we would have been in. You know, most people
Speaker 1: wouldn't have believed it, and I would have been a
Speaker 1: little skeptical. But that's where we're got, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: ish days out jump ball scenario, we can keep both houses.
Speaker 1: What would our listeners need to I mean, where should
Speaker 1: they focus? I have been getting lots of emails from
Speaker 1: people like what should I do? How can I help
Speaker 1: to tell them? Yeah, well, my organization is called Remedy
Speaker 1: and so remedy pack dot com. We've got about ten
Speaker 1: seats to senators that were helping to Senate candidates were
Speaker 1: helping Mandella Barnes and Valve Demming's and then a bunch
Speaker 1: of House candidates. A race I really really enjoy droid
Speaker 1: watching it develop is in Palm Springs. It's a new
Speaker 1: seat where a thirty year Republican incumbent Ken Calvert has
Speaker 1: moved to hasn't represented much of it. As you know,
Speaker 1: it's got the largest LGBT concentrated voting base in the country.
Speaker 1: And even when it had Republicans, they had someone who
Speaker 1: would vote with their interests. And now we have Will
Speaker 1: Rawlins as our candidate. A federal prosecutor Boscuy to January
Speaker 1: six cases from the community. He's gay, he knows those issues,
Speaker 1: and he's running against Ken Calvert, who you know his
Speaker 1: voted against allowing days to serve in the military. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a co sponsor of the Defensive Marriage Act
Speaker 1: back in the nineties and has made millions of dollars
Speaker 1: since he went into office. You know, Will, I think
Speaker 1: has done a good job of highlighting what he's been called.
Speaker 1: Calvertsman called the most corrupt member of Congress. So that
Speaker 1: is a Trump plus one district, meaning as constituted, Trump
Speaker 1: would have won it by one point, and that is
Speaker 1: one that we absolutely can win and put in our call.
Speaker 1: How is he corrupt? So I will lay this out
Speaker 1: for you, but he has made nearly twenty plus million
Speaker 1: dollars while in office while voting on projects that affected
Speaker 1: his financial interests. Some of Will's ads I think so
Speaker 1: effectively laid us out. But also I think if you
Speaker 1: look at his record of the amount of money he
Speaker 1: has taken in his campaign from oil and gas industry,
Speaker 1: from pharmaceutical industry, and then votes against price gouging. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know when it comes to gas prices, votes against
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act, which would lower the costs of
Speaker 1: prescription drugs. Will really make a great case of whether
Speaker 1: you know it's to benefit his campaign or to benefit
Speaker 1: his pocketbook. Calvert is doing a lot better. His constituents
Speaker 1: are doing a lot worse. And in about thirty days
Speaker 1: there's going to be a choice for the people in
Speaker 1: that part of California. You've hit on a subject that
Speaker 1: is near and dear to my heart. Huge percentage of
Speaker 1: American people believe that members of Congress should not trade
Speaker 1: stocks or their spouses. Can you talk to me. I
Speaker 1: know they were like several bills in the works and
Speaker 1: a lot of controversy. Can you catch us up to
Speaker 1: where we are on that. Yeah, we should have a
Speaker 1: stock fan for members of Congress, for our spouses, for
Speaker 1: our any dependent you know, family members. I don't own
Speaker 1: any individual stocks, and I don't believe my colleagues should.
Speaker 1: Some of the arguments against having this legislation would be that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's already illegal to insider trade, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, why does Congress need you know, a law
Speaker 1: that would prevent them from doing something that the law
Speaker 1: already says you can't do. I just happen to believe
Speaker 1: if the perception among the public is that you know,
Speaker 1: we are using inside info to improve our own financial standing,
Speaker 1: then we should go above and beyond to show the
Speaker 1: public that we're not doing that. And and even if
Speaker 1: it is illegal, why not just make it a little
Speaker 1: more difficult for a member of Congress to do that?
Speaker 1: As I said in the In the Calvert Rawlins race,
Speaker 1: Rawlins has made a compelling case about projects that Calvert
Speaker 1: has voted on that he has had a direct financial
Speaker 1: interest in. And Calvert, despite making the same amount of
Speaker 1: money for the last you know, fifteen years, as far
Speaker 1: as his public sorry, has seen his overall wealth go up.
Speaker 1: And and that diminishes the public's trust in its nations leaders.
Speaker 1: And if we can do something about that, I think
Speaker 1: we should. Yeah, me too, man, I get that. It's
Speaker 1: it's easy to look at the handful of Democrats that
Speaker 1: you know have opposed this and stay like, why can't
Speaker 1: you all pass this? I know there's nuances in the bills.
Speaker 1: You know it's not the nuances, I mean, there's always nuances.
Speaker 1: But the Republicans are delivering zero votes for us something
Speaker 1: like It's it's not as Kevin McCarthy is saying, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I've got votes for you on this. Just passet No
Speaker 1: that's not the case at all that they will deliver
Speaker 1: you know, a goose egg as far as like what
Speaker 1: you know we're going to get from them. So and
Speaker 1: that's the same in the Senate. So we with a
Speaker 1: plus four majority in the House, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to get to eighteen pretty point and then it would
Speaker 1: be nice if some Republicans are vote for us. But
Speaker 1: we don't have any Republicans saying, hey, just put this
Speaker 1: vote up and you know, I'll give you what you
Speaker 1: need to get it across the goal line. Certainly not.
Speaker 1: But here's a question. I mean, the Republicans have gone
Speaker 1: like anti everything. Why do you think as a Democrat
Speaker 1: we're not seeing more Democrats campaigning on this idea that
Speaker 1: like we have. I mean, I was just writing about
Speaker 1: this a minute ago, so I can pull this up.
Speaker 1: But we have, you know, election deniers running in forty
Speaker 1: eight out of fifties states. We have a central tenant
Speaker 1: of the Republican platform now, is that you know, if
Speaker 1: our guy doesn't win, the election wasn't fair. I mean,
Speaker 1: why do you think Democrats aren't running on that More
Speaker 1: of state and federal candidates on the Republican side are
Speaker 1: election deniers and um, I have said from the beginning
Speaker 1: of the cycle, you know, since January six, that you know,
Speaker 1: this could be the last renfair election we see and
Speaker 1: our democracies like that, like that that that's what's at
Speaker 1: stake when you look at the candidates up and down
Speaker 1: the ballot. The secretaries of state of Nevada and Arizona,
Speaker 1: the candidates inside. One of them over the weekend said
Speaker 1: if I'm elected, I'm going to work with other secretaries
Speaker 1: of state to make sure that we need yeah and
Speaker 1: that yeah, and that Donald Trumps president. They're they're telling
Speaker 1: us what they're going to do. And and so I
Speaker 1: think candidates getting this catch twenty two position where they think, well,
Speaker 1: you know, voters aren't talking about this, so let's talk
Speaker 1: to voters about what they're talking about. But then when
Speaker 1: it happens, we'll go back and say, why didn't we
Speaker 1: talk about it enough. I think voters care about what
Speaker 1: we as leaders tell them. They need, you know, to
Speaker 1: care about like that. That's what leadership is is to
Speaker 1: show voters, you know, what the issues are that connect
Speaker 1: all of us and what the solutions are, you know,
Speaker 1: to to fix them. It's not to just um, you know,
Speaker 1: take a straw pole and then whatever the issue of
Speaker 1: the day is, it's popular in the straw pole. You know,
Speaker 1: we orient your campaign towards that. So I do believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, we have seen an increase in the number
Speaker 1: of people who rank democracy as one of their top issues.
Speaker 1: It's it's hanging around you know, ten to twelve and
Speaker 1: most poles, which puts it at like the third issue.
Speaker 1: By the way, so you have economy, abortion rights, and
Speaker 1: democracy is the top three issues. And so I think
Speaker 1: that's because many of us have tried to escalate that,
Speaker 1: you know, as an issue, and and so um we
Speaker 1: have to lean into that. And and to see people
Speaker 1: say with Mandela Barnes, oh, you know, he needs to
Speaker 1: stop talking about Ron Johnson's role in January six, like
Speaker 1: that's so maddening. Are people really saying that? Because that
Speaker 1: is yeah, oh yeah, that that say, that's a hot
Speaker 1: take out there is that Barnes is you know, focusing
Speaker 1: too much on Johnson. Uh. And I think if you
Speaker 1: if you look at the Barnes campaign, it's very clinical.
Speaker 1: He's focusing on issues of corruption relating to Johnson, similar
Speaker 1: to Colbert taking votes that benefits his own financial issuers.
Speaker 1: But also on his role you know, pre and post
Speaker 1: January six, because that goes to the core issue that
Speaker 1: we all care about, which is being able to vote
Speaker 1: and have that vote counted. Right. I think some of
Speaker 1: it is because when Biden gave that pro democracy speech,
Speaker 1: Republicans lost their minds and they compared him to Hitler.
Speaker 1: Do you think that was one of the reasons, like
Speaker 1: they sort of were able to get Democrats to tamp down.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's why Democrats are tamping down,
Speaker 1: but the public is camping up right since that speech.
Speaker 1: Democracy as an issue, as I said, stays in you know,
Speaker 1: low double digits as far as what people rank as
Speaker 1: what concerns them the most. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: just think it's so comical that they say, you know,
Speaker 1: on Monday, stop calling us fascists, and then on Friday, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they stand in front of Hitler's car and
Speaker 1: ask people for money, like, stop calling us fascists. But
Speaker 1: I'm just I want to like dig into this idea
Speaker 1: for a second. It does seem like Republicans are better
Speaker 1: at getting Democrats on the defensive. Right, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Biden is defending a speech he gave where Trump is saying,
Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't want to do democracy anymore. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think that Democrats should sort of be on
Speaker 1: the offensive more? Do you think, I mean, is this
Speaker 1: fundamentally a messaging problem? You know, this is something I
Speaker 1: think about all the time. Yes, we need to play
Speaker 1: on their side of the field more. And also they
Speaker 1: are brilliant at inventing issues, right we joke now it's
Speaker 1: kind of a phrase. You know, they'll the caravan an
Speaker 1: issue and then we're we find ourselves on you know, defense.
Speaker 1: But I actually think, you know, there is a way
Speaker 1: to intercept you know, their plays, use it against them.
Speaker 1: And last week, Ilhan Omar and I did just that,
Speaker 1: you know. We Ilhan texted me a story about Bakersfield
Speaker 1: that it's the fifth highest per capita like murder capital
Speaker 1: in the United States, which also happens to be the
Speaker 1: largest city in Kevin McCarthy's district. And this is bullshit, Like,
Speaker 1: we take all these hits from this guy. He represents
Speaker 1: fifth largest murder capital in America and votes against you know,
Speaker 1: every funding bill that we put up for the police.
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, that is bullshit. And so
Speaker 1: the two of us put together an ad, you know,
Speaker 1: hitting McCarthy and and kind of concluded the ad that
Speaker 1: you know you're not pro cop you're pro coup, and
Speaker 1: that you know, immediately within forty eight hours had over
Speaker 1: a million views just on Twitter. And so I think
Speaker 1: that's where you can you know, intercept as I said,
Speaker 1: intercept the past, you know, and uh, you know, do
Speaker 1: a political pick six like and that's what we did,
Speaker 1: and that's what we need to do more. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: that does seem to me, is like and I mean,
Speaker 1: for example, like the thing that I'm so struck by
Speaker 1: is just how good Republicans are at repeating a lie
Speaker 1: again and again again. Yes, going back to the football analogy.
Speaker 1: They do not want to have us on their end
Speaker 1: of the field. On abortion rights, I mean, they're they're
Speaker 1: terrified of that as an issue. They're doing anything they can,
Speaker 1: you know, to distract from us, you know, running that
Speaker 1: issue against them, because they know just how devastating it is.
Speaker 1: And and I've heard in the plural of anecdote is
Speaker 1: not data, but the number of Republican women all over
Speaker 1: the country who I have heard from from either directly
Speaker 1: or family members of their saying that they are voting
Speaker 1: for a Democrat this election because of that issue, Like
Speaker 1: they know it's devastating and there's they have no good
Speaker 1: answer for it. And and I think what's so telling
Speaker 1: to me on that issue, which is why they're so
Speaker 1: desperate to invent issues and then put us on defense,
Speaker 1: is all of these rallies that Donald Trump has had.
Speaker 1: The guy loves, loves, loves to take credit for everything.
Speaker 1: The one thing he does not take credit for is
Speaker 1: putting three justices on the court to take away a
Speaker 1: woman's right to have an abortion. He doesn't said about
Speaker 1: that issue at all because he knows it's unpopular. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the guy. He's not He's not stupid when it
Speaker 1: comes to, you know, public opinion. He knows how to
Speaker 1: exploit grievances, and he knows that this is a major,
Speaker 1: major issue for women. And he has for the first
Speaker 1: time in his life, not taking credit for something that
Speaker 1: he's responsible for. Yeah, all this stuff about the impeachment
Speaker 1: coming out most recently, there was another piece. There's a
Speaker 1: book on the impeachment that just came out from Rachel Bad.
Speaker 1: Do you think that if it had been done differently, uh,
Speaker 1: it might have worked. I mean, do you have regrets
Speaker 1: about the impeachment. Do you wish that they had called
Speaker 1: witnesses for the second impeachment? What the January six Commission
Speaker 1: has done, I think reaffirms the attacked we were trying
Speaker 1: to take his managers, which was to get in front
Speaker 1: of witnesses. I get the pressures of the Senate to
Speaker 1: pass the rescue plan to confirm the president's appointees. What
Speaker 1: the Bade piece exposes is that we were ready to
Speaker 1: go as managers. We had, you know, witnesses who we
Speaker 1: wanted to call, and you know that the Senate, you know,
Speaker 1: is the jury. They ultimately we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to decide what direction the trial went in, and they
Speaker 1: didn't go the direction we wanted. Thank god the January
Speaker 1: six Commission was created because that information has come out.
Speaker 1: Do I believe that we would have been able to get,
Speaker 1: you know, the ten more votes that we would have needed.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd stand by our decision at that
Speaker 1: point to want to proceed with witnesses, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was frustrating to the Senate, you know, wanted to
Speaker 1: go in a different direction. But I think we've ended
Speaker 1: up at the same point as far as what we've
Speaker 1: learned because of the good work of the Commission, and
Speaker 1: I hope that weighs on people in the next As
Speaker 1: I said, thirty ish days when I think about what
Speaker 1: kind of country they want to live in. Eric swallwell,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Donald Trump goes to jail, yes
Speaker 1: or now, oh yeah, come on, yes, We're gonna say okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll hold you to it. Andrew Warren is
Speaker 1: a state attorney for Hillsborough County, Florida. Welcome to Fast Politics, Andrew,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. You'll find yourself in
Speaker 1: an interesting situation that I can't imagine you would have
Speaker 1: thought you would be in. Can you explain to us
Speaker 1: what happened to you in August four? Yeah, that's definitely
Speaker 1: a situation I never thought i'd find myself in. I
Speaker 1: was at work doing my job. I was actually in
Speaker 1: the grand jury presiding over the indictment of two thirty
Speaker 1: nine year old cold cases that we had solved with
Speaker 1: the help of local law enforcement, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden I got an email, tell us what your job
Speaker 1: is because not all of our listeners now, of course, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm the state attorney in Hillsboro County. Florida, which is
Speaker 1: where Tampa is. And that's basically that's the district attorney
Speaker 1: as it's called in a lot of other places. So
Speaker 1: I'm the local elected prosecutor for a jurisdiction of one
Speaker 1: point five million people. We have an office of three
Speaker 1: hundred staff, a hundred thirty prosecutors, and we handled about
Speaker 1: sixty to seventy thousand cases a year. Okay, so go on,
Speaker 1: so tell me about this email. So I get this
Speaker 1: email that mentioned suspension. I don't really know what it is.
Speaker 1: I step outside of the Grand Jury and I walk
Speaker 1: up to my office and within two minutes there was
Speaker 1: an armed deputy from the sheriff's office and someone from
Speaker 1: the Governor's office. They knocked on the door. They handed
Speaker 1: me what they said was an order of suspension, and
Speaker 1: I was told I needed to leave the office right away.
Speaker 1: Did you even know what this was about? I had
Speaker 1: no idea what it was about. I was completely blindsided.
Speaker 1: They didn't give me time to read it. I asked
Speaker 1: if I could have a moment to look at it,
Speaker 1: if I could understand. They said, nope, you there's an
Speaker 1: order that you need to evacuate the building immediately. You're
Speaker 1: no longer serving the state attorney. You're hereby suspended. You
Speaker 1: need to go. And so, you know, I've worked through
Speaker 1: law enforcement throughout my career. I have tremendous respect for them.
Speaker 1: I know that's not the time to argue when a
Speaker 1: deputy is telling you you need to do something. I
Speaker 1: just said, okay, I didn't even have time to grab
Speaker 1: my keys. I just sort of grabbed my bag and
Speaker 1: was escorted out of the building. Okay. And then what happened, Well,
Speaker 1: the deputy was nice enough to ask me if I
Speaker 1: needed a ride home because they took my car keys away,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, I'm not going home. Wait, why
Speaker 1: did they take your car keys away? I have a
Speaker 1: state car that I drive to work, and so they
Speaker 1: told me how I'm not allowed to have the car anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean they my house key was on it. Like
Speaker 1: I didn't even have time to get my house key.
Speaker 1: That's how That's how fast this was. And no time
Speaker 1: to talk with my staff, no time to understand. Again,
Speaker 1: they didn't even give me time to read the order.
Speaker 1: I just had to take their word for it that
Speaker 1: I had been suspended. So I ended up. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone asked like, well, what did you do right away.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, the first thing I did is I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that this grand jury was still proceeding,
Speaker 1: because I had promised the family members the two victims
Speaker 1: who had been murdered back in the early eighties that
Speaker 1: I would be there to make sure everything went smoothly
Speaker 1: and to deliver the news to them that their loved
Speaker 1: one's killers had finally been indicted and we're being held accountable. Jesus. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what happened next, Well, I spent the day doing that. UM.
Speaker 1: I ended up making a phone call to my wife.
Speaker 1: I think it's like my third or fourth call. I said,
Speaker 1: I've been suspended. I've been kicked out of the office.
Speaker 1: She said, you're kidding. I said, I'm not kidding. I
Speaker 1: gotta go. And you still didn't know why. I still
Speaker 1: don't know why. I had not seen the order. They
Speaker 1: turns out they gave me an incomplete copy of the
Speaker 1: executive orders suspending me. I didn't end up looking at
Speaker 1: it until much later that day. But this happened at
Speaker 1: maybe ten thirty eleven in the morning, and for the
Speaker 1: next few hours I was making sure that the grand
Speaker 1: jury process was going forward and Ultimately the indictment was returned.
Speaker 1: I had a chance to meet in person with those
Speaker 1: victims families, as I'd promised to do, and to deliver
Speaker 1: the good news to him, and then we had a
Speaker 1: press conference scheduled to announce that we had charged these
Speaker 1: two people, and we went forward with the press conference.
Speaker 1: But you were suspended at this point, still I was suspended.
Speaker 1: I still didn't even know what the basis of the
Speaker 1: suspension was. I mean, I really knew nothing. Did you
Speaker 1: suspect that it had something to do with politics or now?
Speaker 1: It wasn't until that afternoon where I really had a
Speaker 1: chance to look at the suspension the executive order. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I was suspended was because I had
Speaker 1: spoken up on abortion rights and for transgender rights. And
Speaker 1: those are two issues that Rhonda Santis, you know, those
Speaker 1: are his two of his favorite cultural ward divisive issues,
Speaker 1: and he and I don't see idea eye on those,
Speaker 1: and so that's the reason why I was suspended. Here's
Speaker 1: a question for you. You aren't elected. You were put
Speaker 1: in your job by voters. That's right. I was elected twice.
Speaker 1: I was elected in twenty six and again in so
Speaker 1: it's really strange and frankly dangerous. The idea that the
Speaker 1: governor can remove someone from office or you know, suspend
Speaker 1: and then hope to remove permanently someone from office who
Speaker 1: has been elected by the voters. This is the crazy thing, right.
Speaker 1: I have two young children, Like my eight year old
Speaker 1: is saying, but but you've been elected, right. That's how
Speaker 1: democracy works, or at least that's how it's supposed to work.
Speaker 1: So explain to me in your district, the state attorney
Speaker 1: is elected, right, that's right. And has this ever happened
Speaker 1: where governor has removed a state attorney for not you know,
Speaker 1: going along with his culture war stuff. No, I think
Speaker 1: you have to go back like fifty sixty eighty years
Speaker 1: or something, desegregating schools or something. Yeah, it was something
Speaker 1: about like a state attorney refused to wasn't enforcing like
Speaker 1: gambling laws during prohibition or something. I don't know the
Speaker 1: full history of it. What I do know is that
Speaker 1: the state constitution gives very limited power to the government
Speaker 1: to suspend an elected official, and it's really used when
Speaker 1: someone's committed a crime or when someone's been incapacitated, like
Speaker 1: if you know, God forbid, someone had a stroke and
Speaker 1: they they're just not mentally capable of doing the job anymore.
Speaker 1: So you would say this is really crossing a room
Speaker 1: upon Oh absolutely. I mean I'm a Democrat, I'm elected
Speaker 1: as a Democrat and a partisan race the run to
Speaker 1: centsus is obviously a Republican But regardless of what party
Speaker 1: you belong to or who you vote for, I mean,
Speaker 1: the sacred trust of our democracy is that your vote matters,
Speaker 1: and no elected official has the right to throw your vote.
Speaker 1: So for an elected official of either party to throw
Speaker 1: out someone because they disagree with how they're doing their
Speaker 1: job or they disagree with their political philosophy, that's just
Speaker 1: this full frontal attack on our democracy that should outrage everybody.
Speaker 1: So now explain to me what you're doing now, I
Speaker 1: mean what, there probably aren't that many paths for you.
Speaker 1: They're not. So the way it's supposed to work is
Speaker 1: if it was a lawful suspension, that is, if the
Speaker 1: governor was within his power to suspend me, it would
Speaker 1: go to the Florida Senate and they would decide whether
Speaker 1: you know, to remove me from office based on the
Speaker 1: facts alleged. But here the problem is that the governor
Speaker 1: doesn't have the power to do this. So we filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit in federal court and that case is now
Speaker 1: set for trial at the end of November. Basically, we
Speaker 1: have alleged that the governor violated my First Amendment rights
Speaker 1: by retaliating against me for speaking out, and more importantly,
Speaker 1: for violating the rights of the voters to have the
Speaker 1: elected official that they chose, that they elected in a
Speaker 1: free and fair election. The governor tried to have the
Speaker 1: suit thrown out, saying that you know I work for
Speaker 1: him and that he can remove me, and the judge said,
Speaker 1: not so fast. My friend andrews an elected official. He
Speaker 1: works of the voters, and now let's go to trial
Speaker 1: because we want to make sure that the governor's motivation
Speaker 1: was not political. But we know it was political. Well,
Speaker 1: it certainly looks political. Our position is that it's political.
Speaker 1: The judge is doing what judges do. He's waiting to
Speaker 1: eather all the facts. We had an initial argument in
Speaker 1: the court a few weeks ago. We had asked to
Speaker 1: be I had asked to be reinstated before the end
Speaker 1: of the trial like an expedited relief, saying hey, judge,
Speaker 1: we're gonna win on this. And so there's a real
Speaker 1: harm to me and my constituents. So let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and put me back until the case gets finished. And
Speaker 1: the judge said, well, we want to make sure we
Speaker 1: get this right once and for all. So, you know,
Speaker 1: as much as I would have liked to have have been
Speaker 1: reinstated at that at that preliminary stage, the reality is
Speaker 1: that going to trial as a victory for the truth.
Speaker 1: Because now a federal judge has ruled that De Santis
Speaker 1: has to come into court to explain under oath how
Speaker 1: my suspension didn't break the law. He has to come
Speaker 1: in under penalty of perjury and show it wasn't political,
Speaker 1: it didn't violate my First Amendment rights, and it didn't
Speaker 1: violate the voters rights to have the state attorney that
Speaker 1: they elected. A lot of Republicans have shopped to Santras
Speaker 1: as Trump for people who can't stomach Trump. It's adds
Speaker 1: to me from your experience that he's almost more dangerous
Speaker 1: than Trump. Well, he's certainly done some things that have
Speaker 1: raised eyebrows, and you know, raised questions and met the
Speaker 1: legality of them. Sure. So, Well, first of all, the
Speaker 1: most recent stunt, you know, with sending migrants to Martha's
Speaker 1: vineyards outside observers have pointed out that those flights may
Speaker 1: have been illegal, that the migrants were duped into it.
Speaker 1: There was a question of whether he used the state
Speaker 1: funds that had been authorized legally. Yeah, he put aside
Speaker 1: twelve million dollars, right, that's right. Yeah, I mean keep
Speaker 1: in mind, this is twelve million dollars that could have
Speaker 1: been spent improving schools, or investing in small businesses, or
Speaker 1: fixing the broken insurance market with Florida. I mean, we
Speaker 1: did recently have a devastating hurricane here. Uh, but instead
Speaker 1: the governor chose to spend that money on a you know,
Speaker 1: a political stunt. And the governor's championed the other laws
Speaker 1: that have been held unconstitutional, from cracking down on social
Speaker 1: media because you know, he felt like they're biased, which
Speaker 1: was held to be a violation of First Amendment rights too,
Speaker 1: you know, us ban on teaching you know, true history
Speaker 1: in American schools and instead having to teach certain propaganda.
Speaker 1: There have been these laws that he's passed which have
Speaker 1: come under scrutinies, several of which have been held to
Speaker 1: be unconstitutional. So this is just one of the more
Speaker 1: recent actions that the governor has taken, which certainly looks
Speaker 1: and smells like a political stunt so that he can
Speaker 1: go on the stump in other states, which is exactly
Speaker 1: what he's done, you know, brag about how he he
Speaker 1: threw out this, you know, crazy radical prosecutor. Though anyone
Speaker 1: in my county, which is a very purple county, will
Speaker 1: tell you that I'm a pragmatist, that I've been a moderate,
Speaker 1: that we've done a great job here and actually reducing crime.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, in the world in which the Santis operates,
Speaker 1: you know, truth doesn't matter very much. You just go
Speaker 1: out and say what you want to say because you're
Speaker 1: on Fox News or at a campaign rally where you
Speaker 1: know you're not beholding to the truth. You're in Florida
Speaker 1: right now, and you have that as a sort of
Speaker 1: you know something that the rest of us in the
Speaker 1: national media don't have. I mean, so you're watching this
Speaker 1: in real time clearly with the Santa's he like Trump,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know anything, right, I mean, but just Santa's like,
Speaker 1: he certainly knows that you can't. I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff, Like he's pretty smart. What's happening in Florida?
Speaker 1: Do you think that this is sort of he thinks
Speaker 1: will get caught eventually or now. It's a great question.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's so much whether he thinks. I
Speaker 1: don't think he cares. Right, he champions a law, it
Speaker 1: gets thrown out by the court is unconstitutional, and he's
Speaker 1: still he still goes and brags about it. Look at
Speaker 1: what we did, right, They passed a law about cracking
Speaker 1: down on riots that you know, even law enforcement here
Speaker 1: said the thing doesn't this law doesn't do anything. It's
Speaker 1: just empty rhetoric. And there was a legal challenge filed,
Speaker 1: and the governor's attorneys and go into court and say, judge,
Speaker 1: this law doesn't really do anything. We admit it doesn't
Speaker 1: change the law very much. But the but de Santis
Speaker 1: goes and talks about it like it's the greatest law
Speaker 1: in the history of the world. Right, So does he
Speaker 1: care that laws he champions gets held to be unconstitutional. No,
Speaker 1: because he just goes and brags about passing them anyway.
Speaker 1: I mean, but it leads to a bigger question, which is,
Speaker 1: do you think most of this is performantive? It is,
Speaker 1: it's it's performance art. I mean, so much of our
Speaker 1: politics now has become this ridiculous and dangerous political theater.
Speaker 1: And and de Santis has made one thing very clear.
Speaker 1: I mean it don't disagree with him, or he'll use
Speaker 1: his office to punish you. Keep in money. He went
Speaker 1: after Disney, then he went after the Special Olympics, Then
Speaker 1: he went after teachers based on what they're teaching in
Speaker 1: the classroom. Now he's going after a public servant. He's
Speaker 1: even targeted law enforcement with regards to the moral lago.
Speaker 1: I mean, so he talks so much about the frue
Speaker 1: state of Florida, but the reality is it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: very free unless you agree with everything he says. How
Speaker 1: much accountability can there be for a rogue governor like this, Well,
Speaker 1: it depends what he's doing. Right. There's accountability in the
Speaker 1: fact that you can challenge laws that have been passed
Speaker 1: as unconstitutional, and that's been done in some of those laws,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, have been thrown out. There's accountability when
Speaker 1: we sue him for this. I mean, we are holding
Speaker 1: him accountable for violating the constitutional rights of one point
Speaker 1: five million Floridians, and we're confident that we're gonna win
Speaker 1: in court. We have to go through the process, of course,
Speaker 1: but this is how you hold someone accountable. You don't
Speaker 1: let them just get away with trampling on people's rights
Speaker 1: and talk about how they're defending rights. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: something out of it. It's so Orwellian where he's standing
Speaker 1: up and saying freedom, freedom, freedom, we're protecting people's freedom,
Speaker 1: while he's taking away people's freedom of speech, their freedom
Speaker 1: to vote, their freedom to learn. I mean he's attacking
Speaker 1: the freedom of businesses to do what those businesses think
Speaker 1: it's best for their consumers. That there are a lot
Speaker 1: of freedoms that he's talks about, but the words, the
Speaker 1: actions don't live up to the words. Florida is a
Speaker 1: fascinating adventure for Democrats. I'm old enough to remember when
Speaker 1: Florida really was a swing state. What the fund is
Speaker 1: happening over there? Excuse my language, Well, I do think
Speaker 1: Florida still a swing state, and the Republicans have held
Speaker 1: power in the statewide elections, you know, in the state
Speaker 1: government here for you know, a while, and they end
Speaker 1: up strengthening their grip on it through redistricting and campaign
Speaker 1: finance laws or lack of them don't really help, and
Speaker 1: they make matters worse. You know, Florida like the rest
Speaker 1: of our country has become more polarized, and so you
Speaker 1: have uh, you know, candidates from both sides moving to
Speaker 1: the extremes and primaries. But the reality is that even
Speaker 1: though Republicans keep winning in the state of Florida, the
Speaker 1: recent elections have been close. You know, just sentis one
Speaker 1: in eight by like half a percent, and Rick Scott
Speaker 1: defeated Bill Nelson for the Senator race by even less
Speaker 1: than that, and so the races have been close. I
Speaker 1: think it's important for you know, Democrats and frankly, any
Speaker 1: candidate to give voters a vision of how they're going
Speaker 1: to improve their lives. What what are we going to
Speaker 1: do to actually help people, to improve the economy, to
Speaker 1: improve our schools, to keep our neighborhood safe, to help
Speaker 1: address healthcare issues. I mean, this are what voters want
Speaker 1: to know about. That they don't care about the culture
Speaker 1: war fights and you know, the politicking and partisanship you
Speaker 1: see on cable news. The problem is the parties have
Speaker 1: just focused so much on these fights, and the Republicans
Speaker 1: have become so good at it that they get people
Speaker 1: to ignore the kitchen table issues that really matter and
Speaker 1: instead focus on you know, the shiny object in the room.
Speaker 1: The we're owning the Libs by sending migrants to Martha's vineyard.
Speaker 1: We suspended the prosecute. I mean, these the things that
Speaker 1: don't help anyone in our state. They undermine democracy, they
Speaker 1: violate fundamental American values, but yet they appeal to a
Speaker 1: plurality of people who are voting and determining the course
Speaker 1: of elections. Do you think that there's problems that Democrats
Speaker 1: are having at the party level? Well, I think that
Speaker 1: the party. Yeah, in Florida, the local I mean, can
Speaker 1: you speak to that for a minute, yes, I mean,
Speaker 1: the party infrastructure here is in need of improvement. I've
Speaker 1: heard that from a lot of people, and I would
Speaker 1: love you just to talk because our listeners are quite
Speaker 1: interested in that kind of thing. Well, it's no secret here.
Speaker 1: You know, the Republicans have done a really good job
Speaker 1: of organizing, motivating, raising money. And that's what the core
Speaker 1: of local politics is about, right, I mean, you you
Speaker 1: show a vision for people, you organize, you get people
Speaker 1: to turn out to vote. And look, Republicans have been
Speaker 1: very good about that in the state of Florida. Democrats
Speaker 1: haven't done it as well. Now they've brought in a
Speaker 1: new party CHA in recent years, they're raising money, they're
Speaker 1: really focused on uh core issues. Obviously, women's rights, healthcare,
Speaker 1: reproductive rights has become a huge issue over the past year.
Speaker 1: It's something that's turning out voters, and you know, we
Speaker 1: hope to see that it turns out people who are
Speaker 1: you know, really care about the attack on those freedoms.
Speaker 1: But as I said a moment ago, you know, candidates
Speaker 1: and parties have to show a vision for the future,
Speaker 1: and Democrats have to continue to show that they are
Speaker 1: the party of the people or even the party of democracy, right,
Speaker 1: the Party of democracy absolutely. But you know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: that a minimum wage constitutional amendment passed in the state
Speaker 1: of Florida. In raising the minimum wage has been a
Speaker 1: staple of Democratic policy for a generation, and that had
Speaker 1: to pass by I believe sixty percent of the vote
Speaker 1: in Florida, and it did. But so while two thirds
Speaker 1: of the state are voting for a core Democratic policy issue,
Speaker 1: they voted Republican, you know, Donald Trump on the state
Speaker 1: by a couple of points. So there's a disconnect between
Speaker 1: the policies that people support and the parties that they're
Speaker 1: voting for, which just shows that Democrats have to do
Speaker 1: a better job of showing that they're the one they're
Speaker 1: the party that has supported these policies for years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is very, very true. And it's funny because I
Speaker 1: think about that all the time. Whatever. I was sitting
Speaker 1: next to someone on the airplane and he was complaining
Speaker 1: about wokeism, and I said, do you think it's fair
Speaker 1: that if you get cancer you could end up in
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars of dad? And he was like, no,
Speaker 1: of course that's not fair. And I was like, uh,
Speaker 1: And so I mean, it certainly is a problem that
Speaker 1: Democrats find themselves in where they're not able to, you know,
Speaker 1: let these voters know that that's what they're trying to
Speaker 1: fight for. Um, thank you so much, Andrew. This was
Speaker 1: totally interesting, Molly, Thanks so much for having me on,
Speaker 1: Molly John Fast. Yes, he can in. You know, the
Speaker 1: Internet is always confusing, but I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: little more confusing today. So this is an interesting case.
Speaker 1: And they've done this before. So the Daily Mail, you
Speaker 1: may know it as it's a sort of it's not
Speaker 1: owned by Rupert Murdoch, but it feels like it could be.
Speaker 1: They released a comment can I tell you why I
Speaker 1: think that that that that's not accurate. The Daily Mail
Speaker 1: works hard like all others other properties, no one puts
Speaker 1: out more content than them. The Daily Mail certainly does
Speaker 1: put out a lot of content. So they have recently
Speaker 1: released a two thousand eighteen voicemail. Now, by the way,
Speaker 1: I just want to point out this is would not
Speaker 1: be the first time that a British newspaper has gotten
Speaker 1: in trouble for phone hacking. Right, well, you're listening to
Speaker 1: this voicemail, perhaps you would like to think about the
Speaker 1: other times in which, for example, Rupert Murdoch got in
Speaker 1: trouble for hacking. I'm not saying this is hacked. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that Joe Biden just sent them a voicemail of
Speaker 1: something he left to his son Hunter. But I'm just saying, like,
Speaker 1: this is not the first time the Brits have had
Speaker 1: trouble with this. I'm going to read you the text
Speaker 1: of it. It's Dad, I called to tell you I
Speaker 1: love you. I love you more than the whole world. Pal,
Speaker 1: you gotta get some help. I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I know you don't either. So this is meant to
Speaker 1: be a dunk on Joe Biden for loving his son.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean again, like okay, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: that's terrible. No, I don't want a president who loves
Speaker 1: his son. You know, you know what they've accused us
Speaker 1: of having Trump to rage. Would you think this is
Speaker 1: something to attack? You're really showing your whole ass. It's
Speaker 1: so interesting because it's like the Republicans are so good
Speaker 1: at messaging, right. They have a whole group of people
Speaker 1: who think that their Republicans are going to do great
Speaker 1: things for them despite all evidence of the contrary. And
Speaker 1: yet somehow they don't understand that loving your drug addicted
Speaker 1: child is not something that people consider to be a
Speaker 1: bad quality and presidential candidate anyway. So they get a
Speaker 1: hearty fuck you fucking fuccory of funck is um and
Speaker 1: I hope that they all get in trouble for this
Speaker 1: because if they're hacking voicemail, which again we don't know
Speaker 1: what they're doing here. I'm not even gonna we don't know,
Speaker 1: but whatever it is, like, however they got this, you know,
Speaker 1: not great. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the
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Speaker 1: for listening.