Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and new polling from YouGov econ miss
Speaker 1: shows a slow but steady decline in mail support for
Speaker 1: the president over the past three months, slipping to forty
Speaker 1: two percent approval fifty three percent disapproval. It's down eleven points.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today. The
Speaker 1: Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's
Speaker 1: increasingly unpopular agenda. Then we'll talk to The New York
Speaker 1: Times his own Adam Liptik that originalism and the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court and all the stuff they're doing to reshape our government.
Speaker 1: But first the news.
Speaker 2: Smile the tariffs. As we know, mister Trump loves to
Speaker 2: pretend it's other countries paying for them, but really they're
Speaker 2: going to cost companies one point two trillion this year
Speaker 2: and that will mostly hit the consumers and have them
Speaker 2: pay for it.
Speaker 1: Tariffs are going to cost one point two trillillion dollars
Speaker 1: this year. They're going to be paid by consumers. That's right,
Speaker 1: Mexico not building the wall nor paying for the tariffs.
Speaker 1: So here's the study published on Thursday, SMP Global found
Speaker 1: that companies are now expected to pay one point two
Speaker 1: trillion dollars more than twenty twenty five expenses. You know why,
Speaker 1: because Donald Trump put a tax on the consumers with tariffs.
Speaker 1: Here's what happened. What we told you would happen, Now
Speaker 1: it's happened. I am not surprised by this even a
Speaker 1: little bit. It is what we knew was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Tariffs and trade barriers act as taxes. That's right, Tariffs
Speaker 1: are taxes. There are corporate taxes paid by the consumer.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has done this to us, by the way,
Speaker 1: his deminimous rule has made everything even more expensive. That
Speaker 1: means that things valued at less than eight hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: which usually would not be taxed, are now being tariff
Speaker 1: to the hell out of them. So you want to
Speaker 1: buy a two hundred dollars vacuum cleaner, that's now a
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty dollars vacuum cleaner, a two hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty dollars vacuum cleaner. Everything from cooking oil to dish.
Speaker 1: So the Yale Budget Lab estimate in August that Trump's
Speaker 1: latest tariffs will cost US households about twenty four one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real good stuff there. It's really going to
Speaker 2: go great going into the holiday season for employment and
Speaker 2: growth in our country Somali. Trump is wetting the bed
Speaker 2: over Thomas Massey. He says he's got to go from Congress. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, why is it the sky Epstein that Trump
Speaker 2: was best friends with.
Speaker 1: I think that sounds like I said, yeah, no, listen,
Speaker 1: this is incredible stuff we have. Basically, Thomas Massey wants
Speaker 1: the Epstein files released. Donald Trump has some worries about
Speaker 1: the Epstein files, as one does when your name is
Speaker 1: in that file. I don't think the Epstein files are
Speaker 1: going away. And this week Virginia Dufrain's posthumous memoir will
Speaker 1: be published, and I think it's going to mean I mean,
Speaker 1: it already means that Prince Andrew he is no longer
Speaker 1: the Duke of York.
Speaker 2: Right, He's just like a snowmall, except except sex predator.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so look, Epstein's not going away. If Donald Trump
Speaker 1: could get rid of Thomas Massey, Ebstein still wouldn't be
Speaker 1: going away. Let's see how this goes. By the way,
Speaker 1: I think that Trump should continue attacking him. I don't
Speaker 1: think Thomas Massey understands government. I think he's a grandstander,
Speaker 1: says Donald Trump, the man who understands government really really well.
Speaker 1: He's known for his understandment of government. He's a high
Speaker 1: government understander.
Speaker 2: That sounds about right to me, government understander.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So a US federal judge has ordered Ice to wear
Speaker 2: body cameras in Chicago. I'm always shocked at when you
Speaker 2: see this footage, which ones you see wearing the body
Speaker 2: cameras and which ones you don't like. In New York,
Speaker 2: I feel like every time I see the footage, I
Speaker 2: see the body cameras on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's a reason that cops started wearing barso
Speaker 1: cameras because courts couldn't trust what they were saying. Now
Speaker 1: it looks like Ice might have to get into the
Speaker 1: body camera game. Two. I wonder if Peter Thiel makes
Speaker 1: body cameras.
Speaker 2: It seems like pell and teers type of business.
Speaker 1: But you know the reason they're doing this is because
Speaker 1: Ice is killing people. I mean, here's what happens. This
Speaker 1: is a country that has laws until Donald Trump stops
Speaker 1: having them, and so the body cameras are here we go.
Speaker 1: So they have Les Lisel's shotguns, ammunitions launchers, pepperballs, tear
Speaker 1: gas which they use pretty much indiscriminately. Well, now they're
Speaker 1: going to have to take videos of it. The irony
Speaker 1: here is that Ice loves to videotape themselves. Christy No
Speaker 1: basically exists for YouTube. So good luck boys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a feeling that's not going to go
Speaker 2: well for them. It's considering they're beating congressional candidates with
Speaker 2: the tons and throwing them on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: Yes, speak for yourself. I think it's going to go great.
Speaker 2: So my Jim Justice reportedly one of the laziest senators
Speaker 2: we've ever had. He doesn't want to show up to
Speaker 2: work for yourself.
Speaker 1: She flies to work sometimes on his jet. That is energy,
Speaker 1: my man, that is energy. And also he is very.
Speaker 2: Old, I know. And I have to tell you, like
Speaker 2: you know, it's like a funny thing. Is like we've
Speaker 2: often talked about prop dogs and politics over the years,
Speaker 2: and I love that baby dog does it for me.
Speaker 2: So like I hate to see that Mamana has a
Speaker 2: tax scene against him because he ate paid his taxes.
Speaker 2: Because there's no fucking laws in this country anymore.
Speaker 1: I think this probably predates Trump. My guess is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Justice and his wife Kathy have a total bounds of
Speaker 1: more than eight million dollars in unpaid assessments, money that
Speaker 1: he spends on his private jet travel. I don't know
Speaker 1: what to say. First of all, he's supposedly a billionaire
Speaker 1: many times over, so he should just pay his fucking taxes.
Speaker 1: And also he should try to, perhaps apps get a
Speaker 1: apartment in the district of Columbia where he works. That's
Speaker 1: just but though maybe the government will be shut down
Speaker 1: forever and he won't need to. But it's good to know.
Speaker 2: Let's hope not. My wife really needs a paycheck soon.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's a reliable ally for President Trump,
Speaker 1: so maybe President Trump will give him a preemptive pardon.
Speaker 2: We'll see, what's part of your tax payments.
Speaker 1: Let's pardon your tax payments after all Trump has done
Speaker 1: Morse Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Partisan
Speaker 1: and the host of the Enemy's List.
Speaker 3: Rick Wilson Molly John Fast, how are you, my friend?
Speaker 1: I want to read your statistic.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm here for your.
Speaker 1: It's always fun when i'd come in with things I
Speaker 1: want to read. Adding to our new data are estimated
Speaker 1: turnout for the No King's Day protest yesterday has risen
Speaker 1: to five point five million, with an upper bound of
Speaker 1: eight point seven million, taking at the largest single day
Speaker 1: political pro test in US history. This excludes the first
Speaker 1: Earth Day.
Speaker 4: I've been to two No Kings protests in my little
Speaker 4: town of Tallahassee, Florida. The first one had about five
Speaker 4: thousand people, and this one was much much, much larger
Speaker 4: in a town with three hundred thousand people, which is significant,
Speaker 4: and it was it was replicating across the country. And
Speaker 4: it's interesting because in every single one of these places
Speaker 4: you saw yesterday, everybody just absolutely just like they're doing
Speaker 4: in Portland now and in Chicago, they absolutely refused to
Speaker 4: play to the bullshit Maga narrative. They absolutely refused. They're like, Okay,
Speaker 4: we're gonna have fun, we're gonna bring American flags, we're
Speaker 4: gonna be cheerful and singing and happy, and then we're
Speaker 4: not gonna let them play the game of.
Speaker 3: The Communists are trying to take over with the pro
Speaker 3: humus you blah blah blah. They just wouldn't do it.
Speaker 4: It struck me yesterday when I was walking through all
Speaker 4: these people, this was a younger crowd than the first
Speaker 4: No Kings rally, a lot more young people.
Speaker 1: That's actually really important.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it struck me that the the edginess and
Speaker 4: the huge of this one was much more front and
Speaker 4: center than the first one. And the first one people
Speaker 4: seemed very scared.
Speaker 3: This one.
Speaker 4: They seemed there was also like an edge of like haha,
Speaker 4: fuck you. Like I was walking up and I see
Speaker 4: you know, the the the you know, derriguar inflatable frogs,
Speaker 4: and I saw a baby shark and it turned out
Speaker 4: a friend of mine who I had no clue about
Speaker 4: her politics, was in baby shark.
Speaker 3: Oh really, I had no clue about her politics at all,
Speaker 3: And I was like, wait, what is that?
Speaker 2: You what?
Speaker 4: I think It was a bad day for them, and
Speaker 4: they had to resort to Donald Trump posting really crap
Speaker 4: AI slop memes of him pooping on people.
Speaker 1: Yesterday was a high stakes day. If oh, yeah, there
Speaker 1: had been no turnouts, we would have been in a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble. Right, If there hadn't been millions of people,
Speaker 1: it would have meant talk us through that.
Speaker 4: I think I think if yesterday had been a flop,
Speaker 4: if yesterday had been a had been had been a wheeze,
Speaker 4: we would have the Maga media and Maga influencer space
Speaker 4: would be absolutely running rings around everybody today, jumping up
Speaker 4: in victory sing Donald Trump is the most beloved president ever.
Speaker 4: But instead you have Bright Bart leading with a story
Speaker 4: about Trump posting the poop video, and you have Fox
Speaker 4: talking about, oh, the Democrats shutdown all day today. So
Speaker 4: I think it's telling that they that they did not
Speaker 4: get what the Republicans did not get what they were
Speaker 4: hoping for out of this weekend, which was violence, anti Americans, images, arrests,
Speaker 4: et cetera. From my understanding, the only arra and I
Speaker 4: was actually looking in this rabbit hole earlier, the only
Speaker 4: arrest I could find was of a MAGA guy who
Speaker 4: showed up at a rally I think it was in Buffalo,
Speaker 4: don't quote me on that, with a gun. But he
Speaker 4: was a Maga guy because he'd been told that Hamas
Speaker 4: was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because we the boy host press secretary said
Speaker 1: that all Democrats were Hamas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Hamas pro terrorist, all violent radical lectice the usual
Speaker 4: gibber jabber out of her pie hole.
Speaker 3: So you know, Molly, I got I gonna say this.
Speaker 4: I think Carolyn Lovitt, you know, it is one thing
Speaker 4: for me to make your mom joke on Twitter, but
Speaker 4: at some point even the magas are like, is the
Speaker 4: White House reduced to being like a D grade trolling shop?
Speaker 1: And that's what jade Van says.
Speaker 3: Oh God, yeah.
Speaker 4: The reason jad Evans came out to defend the Young
Speaker 4: Nazi Youth League eg the YRS this weekend.
Speaker 1: So basically the Young Republican chat. This was a big
Speaker 1: piece in Politico. They said things like I love Hitler,
Speaker 1: can't wait to.
Speaker 3: Put so and so in the gas chamber, right, all that, And.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I'm struck by
Speaker 1: with Jada Vance is he will defend any bad behavior
Speaker 1: on the rights because.
Speaker 4: He's running for president in twenty twenty eight and he
Speaker 4: follows the Steve Bannon rule there are no enemies to
Speaker 4: my right flank, So he is willing to defend Nazis. Molly,
Speaker 4: I gotta tell you, the Republican Party I was a
Speaker 4: part of for a long time had many, many, many,
Speaker 4: many flaws. But any person in the party who was like,
Speaker 4: I love Hitler, Brown people are monkeys all that crap.
Speaker 4: They would have been fired, they would have been cast out.
Speaker 4: These people. And by the way, folks, for those of
Speaker 4: you listening, if you think that's the only racist group,
Speaker 4: chat among the yrs, I haven't reach brand. This is
Speaker 4: what they are now, the screeching. Don't call us Nazis,
Speaker 4: all right, Well, stop saying Nazi shit and believing Nazi
Speaker 4: things and thinking about Nazi outcomes for your political enemies.
Speaker 1: See you have these no King's day, you have millions
Speaker 1: of people, then you have this poor poll and you
Speaker 1: have Trump not polling well in all sorts of underwater
Speaker 1: on the economy and migration. That does Trump not see
Speaker 1: these polls? Do people not show them to him?
Speaker 4: Tony Fabrizio, who has been his polster now for a
Speaker 4: long time, Tony the pollster.
Speaker 3: Is not a stupid guy. He's not a stupid guy.
Speaker 5: He is.
Speaker 1: He's also known to be a pretty good pollster.
Speaker 4: Rights from getting too. He is incredible and qualified poles.
Speaker 4: He's not generating numbers that are just made up fantasy numbers.
Speaker 4: He's not mutant res Musen right right right, who just
Speaker 4: literally make up like how many we please the king?
Speaker 4: But I will say this, he's also not going to
Speaker 4: bring Donald bad news, because that's a quick way in
Speaker 4: Trump World to get sent out into the ether, to
Speaker 4: get fired, to get dismissed, to get ignored. They know
Speaker 4: how bad Trump's numbers are, but like so much of
Speaker 4: what goes on in Trump World. Now, the reason Trump
Speaker 4: says my approval rating is ninety seven percent is because
Speaker 4: they will now go out and say, well, mister President,
Speaker 4: our numbers have some issues here and there, but we
Speaker 4: found this poll from Red Eagle, Palin Polling or whatever
Speaker 4: that says you're so popular, and he will seize on
Speaker 4: the inaccurate bait and ignore the unpalatable truth. So yeah,
Speaker 4: but his polling is continued to slip, continue to drop,
Speaker 4: continue to get into into worse and worse and worse areas.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what happens now. We have Trump World
Speaker 1: bombing little ships in the Caribbean, patriating survivors, because why
Speaker 1: explain to what's happening here in American international diplomacy? Killing
Speaker 1: it right is the hash.
Speaker 3: Just well with the emphasis on the killing part.
Speaker 1: With emphasis killing.
Speaker 4: So so what they've done is declared a undeclared war
Speaker 4: on Venezuela. Now, folks, why because the Donald Trump is
Speaker 4: in the Epstein files. I kid you not, Donald Trump
Speaker 4: is in the Epstein files.
Speaker 1: And that's what I will give you another.
Speaker 4: Well, there's another art, there's another reason they're doing this.
Speaker 4: There is a philosophical construct among the modern authoritarians where
Speaker 4: the world should below Russia should own Europe, China should
Speaker 4: own Asia, and America should own American north and South.
Speaker 4: And that is sort of the the tripart height vision
Speaker 4: of the world that a lot of these maga populace
Speaker 4: really love.
Speaker 3: Maduro is sitting.
Speaker 4: On a gigantic amount of oil and natural gas off
Speaker 4: the coast of Venezuela. It is essentially Saudi Arabia with jungles. Now, look, Maduro.
Speaker 4: There are no Maduro fans or defenders in America. Nobody
Speaker 4: wakes up and goes man that Maduro is a great guy.
Speaker 4: But what Trump has done is under the disguise of saying, oh, well,
Speaker 4: these are drug smuggling boats, which we have never seen
Speaker 4: evidence of. By the way, this government has never produced
Speaker 4: a single shred of information or evidence or documents that
Speaker 4: say that these drug boats are drug boats. Their entire
Speaker 4: amount of evidence is trust me bro. So a lot
Speaker 4: of them seem to be fishing boats. We are not
Speaker 4: using the traditional targeting and intelligence process to identify these boats.
Speaker 4: We are not using standard intelligence vetting processes to identify
Speaker 4: these boats. And that is why the four star general
Speaker 4: who runs Southern Command, which is that's the area of
Speaker 4: operation that Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Falls under, just resigned.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he said, I can't do this. We're not this
Speaker 4: is not We're not being behaving legally or ethically. Is
Speaker 4: if you know how to read military code language. He
Speaker 4: was basically saying, I'm not going to be a part
Speaker 4: of a goddamn war crime. And that's what we're doing.
Speaker 4: We're probably shooting up a bunch of fishermen. A lot
Speaker 4: of these boats are are of a design that is
Speaker 4: not meant to cross almost one thousand miles of ocean
Speaker 4: between Venezuela and Florida.
Speaker 3: They're fishing boats.
Speaker 4: But Stephen Miller and p Heseth and Donald Trump have
Speaker 4: decided this is a great distraction. We're going to have
Speaker 4: a triumph when we depose Maduro and we install a
Speaker 4: pro Maga, pro Western government in Caracas. I will tell
Speaker 4: you that, you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: We've done really well.
Speaker 4: My Spanish isn't great, but I don't think we're going
Speaker 4: to be greeted as liberators speak.
Speaker 1: Of problems in the world and ethical lapses. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has freed the political an are known as George Santos.
Speaker 4: George Santos will soon be named as the Viceroy of
Speaker 4: the newly conquered American colony of Venezuela.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which we call Miami South.
Speaker 1: What are we doing here? Man?
Speaker 3: Listen? Santos is a great.
Speaker 1: He's not the restitution now, by the way, because he
Speaker 1: decided he didn't want it.
Speaker 3: He's commuted.
Speaker 4: Mago wants to hear and needs to hear one message.
Speaker 4: We're immune from consequence, We're immune from accountability. We can
Speaker 4: commit any crime we want and Trump will pardon us,
Speaker 4: get out of jail free. In a lot of ways.
Speaker 4: And somebody said this to media, and I thought it
Speaker 4: was really smart in a lot of ways. George Santos
Speaker 4: being freed was a lot was a message to a
Speaker 4: lot of these ice agents on the street. Interesting, you
Speaker 4: can commit crimes, He's going to take care of you.
Speaker 4: You can commit crime as long as you stay loyal,
Speaker 4: he'll take care of you.
Speaker 1: Or there's something else.
Speaker 4: I don't know what Santos would have on Trump. God
Speaker 4: got God, God.
Speaker 1: Knows, or somebody's doing someone a favor.
Speaker 4: Right, or it's Roger Stone like cashing a shit. I
Speaker 4: don't know, but look in terms of like the least
Speaker 4: sympathetic figures, and Trump has pardoned seven I think it's
Speaker 4: seven now ex Republican members of Congress who.
Speaker 3: All were in jail or going to jail for criming.
Speaker 4: Yes, not political questions, not like were they supporting jan
Speaker 4: Sis like stealing money or taking bribes. And that message
Speaker 4: is to say to people on Trump's side, we don't
Speaker 4: play by their rules.
Speaker 3: We don't have to be accountable.
Speaker 4: You know, you can cash in, you can abuse your power,
Speaker 4: do what you want to do, go buck wild.
Speaker 3: We're here for you.
Speaker 1: I feel like the Santo thing bites him in the
Speaker 1: ass because he's a guy who will not shut up.
Speaker 1: He's everywhere. You have all of these maga Republicans who
Speaker 1: voted so him out of Congress. Now they have to say.
Speaker 4: The New York delegation, the New York delegation, including a
Speaker 4: lot of very reliable Trump allies like Mike Lawler and
Speaker 4: at least the Phonic We're like, no, bro, this ain't it.
Speaker 3: This ain't the right.
Speaker 1: Way, and Stephanic is running for governor in her like
Speaker 1: Trump adjacent but a little trumpy, but not that trumpy,
Speaker 1: but sort of trumpy.
Speaker 3: I call it just the tip trump Ism, but nice.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you could get. You can always get the
Speaker 1: sort of most offensive way to you know, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: But sure the lack of gentility, yes, continue.
Speaker 4: Yes, but at least I'm not sending out videos of
Speaker 4: people pooping on of their people like Trump did.
Speaker 1: That's right. See, do you think.
Speaker 3: His staff is trolling him?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's the comp you want? No, I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding. I want you to get back to Stefanic
Speaker 1: because I want to talk about the New Jersey governor's
Speaker 1: race for a minute. So two twenty twenty five races
Speaker 1: happening in sixteen days. One is this Virginia race for
Speaker 1: where Spamburger is probably gonna win against win Sears.
Speaker 5: Sears.
Speaker 3: Wins Seers sounds like a cowboy name and she.
Speaker 1: But when she talks, she just sounds like a lunatic.
Speaker 4: She sounds like somebody who's wandering the streets talking about
Speaker 4: how that somebody put a chip in her head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, Winsome Sears wins seers.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like you hear it tell you, like,
Speaker 3: are the voices in the room rate with you right now?
Speaker 1: So I think Spamberger's got that locked up.
Speaker 3: Look, I won't say locked up.
Speaker 4: They had a little speed bump with this a G guy,
Speaker 4: which the Republicans tried to convert on, but I don't
Speaker 4: think it's gonna I don't think it's gonna change it.
Speaker 1: So the AG sent a text to someone in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, right that was like we should That was terrible,
Speaker 1: basically saying like you should kill a candidate because that's
Speaker 1: the only way they'll learn. Terrible, Also indefensible, indefensible and moronic.
Speaker 1: And also like when you read the text, it's worse
Speaker 1: because his way of explaining it is stupid too, Like
Speaker 1: it's all stupid and that. But they run on different tickets,
Speaker 1: like you know, don't vote for em okay.
Speaker 4: Yep, which and I think she's navigated that. Spanberger has
Speaker 4: navigated that pretty well. But that rate look in Virginia,
Speaker 4: I know from our polling in Virginia that has not
Speaker 4: really changed. The Spanberger equation. Sears is in the classic
Speaker 4: trap Trump's not on the ballot. The negative outcomes of
Speaker 4: Trump is in Virginia from DOJE and projects twenty twenty
Speaker 4: five cuts and everything else are on the ballot, and
Speaker 4: it's hard for Sears to say I'm going to bring
Speaker 4: back a great economic revival to Virginia when Donald Trump
Speaker 4: has taking one hundred and twenty thousand jobs out of Virginia.
Speaker 4: So you know that is a state where the externalities
Speaker 4: of Trump are hurting. I think it's also to go
Speaker 4: back to New Jersey for a second. I think Chittarelli
Speaker 4: now has to with Trump canceling a gigantic infrastructure project
Speaker 4: that would have directly benefited New Jersey, and it was
Speaker 4: responsible for a lot of high paying jobs in New
Speaker 4: Jersey and Trump just killed it because President Russell Vaught
Speaker 4: decided he was going to kill it.
Speaker 1: This is one of the interesting things about the shutdown.
Speaker 1: You talk to reporters who talked to this White House
Speaker 1: and they'll say, these guys are thrilled with the shutdown.
Speaker 1: This is what they'll say. They feel they're winning the shutdown,
Speaker 1: they feel emboldened, they feel powerful, And I say, to
Speaker 1: these people, shut the fuck up. I don't want to
Speaker 1: hear how they're spending you. Number One and also this
Speaker 1: shutdown is now becoming about russ vaught canceling programs that
Speaker 1: were already in you know, some of them are being built.
Speaker 4: Some of these things are already done or already i
Speaker 4: mean the contracts are done there way welt built. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and none of it, none of it when you get down.
Speaker 3: To it, Molly has the.
Speaker 4: The uplift of like, we're cutting corruption, we're cutting fraud
Speaker 4: wasted because none of that's about this. Trump is deliberately saying,
Speaker 4: I'm going out to cut democratic programs. I'm going to
Speaker 4: cut the things you like.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring it punish. I'm going to use
Speaker 1: the federal government to punish states that didn't vote for me.
Speaker 4: He's now and especially on on now that we're in
Speaker 4: the now that we're in Mike Johnson's new phase of bsing,
Speaker 4: why this why the shutdown is here. No, we would
Speaker 4: come back anytime as long as the Democrats agree to
Speaker 4: endorse everything we want above and beyond just the budget.
Speaker 1: So you have these pocket recisions, were going to do
Speaker 1: this anyway, signed off on a budget, and then the
Speaker 1: Trump administration werecinded five billion dollars in foreign aid because
Speaker 1: of vibes and even you have Republicans saying like why
Speaker 1: would they trust?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: The Republicans are hearing from their own pulse. Okay, not
Speaker 4: from the White House, not from you know, smoke up
Speaker 4: your ass, Rasmussen Poles or Trafowger Poles.
Speaker 3: They're hearing from their own polsters.
Speaker 4: You're taking the blame. You're the ones who won't come back.
Speaker 4: You're taking the blame. I don't think that the House
Speaker 4: candidates have a lot longer to run before the pressure
Speaker 4: on them politically reaches the point where one or two
Speaker 4: of them go to Mike Johnson. And if one or
Speaker 4: two of them go to Mike john say Boss, you're
Speaker 4: killing me, it will start a cascade. They understand that
Speaker 4: America the broad question across the country. We have now
Speaker 4: had ten surveys since the shutdown among likely voters where
Speaker 4: they blame the Republicans by somewhere between six and eighteen points.
Speaker 4: This is bad, bad, bad for the Republicans. And no
Speaker 4: matter how magga they are on paper, no candidate in
Speaker 4: the end is going to burn himself down over a shutdown.
Speaker 4: That is going to brand them as somebody who was
Speaker 4: willing to burn hit their own constituents it's not going
Speaker 4: to do it.
Speaker 3: In the end.
Speaker 1: You see Trump trying a redistrict that keeps going. There
Speaker 1: is a world where they hit themselves in the head
Speaker 1: with us.
Speaker 4: There is a world where the collapses in various national
Speaker 4: real estate markets, the terrible jobs outlook, the terrible economic picture,
Speaker 4: the continued damage of the tariffs, the shutdown. They've become
Speaker 4: the party causing the problem. They become the people causing
Speaker 4: the problem. And I think that's a bad place for
Speaker 4: them to be in the fall of the year before
Speaker 4: a big, consequential election where the picture is not going
Speaker 4: to get any prettier.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson Bolly Junk Fast Adam Leptik covers the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court for the New York Times and writes sidebar, a
Speaker 1: column on legal developments. Welcome to Fast Politics, Adam.
Speaker 5: It's good to be here.
Speaker 1: So you are one of the very smart people who
Speaker 1: write about the Supreme Court who I try to always read.
Speaker 1: You write about other stuff too. I mean I do
Speaker 1: write about courts, more generally.
Speaker 5: I write about the law. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a very interesting and a little bit
Speaker 1: probably disturbing time to be writing that law. But you
Speaker 1: wrote this piece that absolutely captured my imagination about originalism.
Speaker 1: So give us a sort of why originalism matters, who
Speaker 1: this guy is, who's sort of one of the fathers
Speaker 1: of originalism, and sort of why this is so important.
Speaker 6: So, originalism is a theory of how to interpret the
Speaker 6: Constitution that conservatives generally like. And it says the task
Speaker 6: of the judge is to unearth discover the original meaning
Speaker 6: of the constitutional text when it was drafted and ratified,
Speaker 6: and that is said to constrain judges. It doesn't allow
Speaker 6: them to make up rights like conservatives state that the
Speaker 6: Warrant Court did in the sixties. And it generally yields
Speaker 6: conservative results, generally, not always. And the Supreme Court's conservative
Speaker 6: majority generally claims that originalism is their touchdown, the guide,
Speaker 6: and when you look at it, it's not clear that
Speaker 6: they're always being faithful to their own interpretive methodology. This guy, yes, So,
Speaker 6: Caleb Nelson is one of a handful of really respected
Speaker 6: originalist scholars. A straight shooter teaches at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 6: Clerk for Clarence Thomas has been cited an extraordinary number
Speaker 6: of times at the Supreme Court. A single citation for
Speaker 6: a scholar is a great honor. He's been cited maybe
Speaker 6: more than a dozen times, and by every single one
Speaker 6: of the six members of the current Conservative supermajority. And
Speaker 6: the Court will soon answer a question that it's been
Speaker 6: ramping up over the years to answer. And it's particularly
Speaker 6: a salient now under Trump, who keeps firing the heads
Speaker 6: of supposedly independent agencies. And that question is does the
Speaker 6: president have an unfettered right to remove people in the
Speaker 6: executive branch even when Congress says no, you have to
Speaker 6: have a good reason. And the Court's going to hear
Speaker 6: arguments about this in December, and just as that argument
Speaker 6: is coming up, Caleb Nelson weighs in and says, you
Speaker 6: know what, I'm an originalist and I don't see the
Speaker 6: originalist argument for this. The Constitution says something about how
Speaker 6: officials are appointed, you know, President Jesus Senate confirms it
Speaker 6: says nothing about removal. In so many words, removal was
Speaker 6: never discussed at the Constitutional Convention.
Speaker 5: There's mixed evidence from the.
Speaker 6: Early years of Congress, and there's no good originalist reason
Speaker 6: to think that Congress, which is granted the constitutional authority
Speaker 6: to shape and manage the executive branch along many dimensions
Speaker 6: can't do this.
Speaker 5: Also, and another.
Speaker 6: Originalist scholar, William Bode, on social media, called this paper
Speaker 6: a bombshell, and when I happened to run into him
Speaker 6: not long ago, he.
Speaker 5: Said to me, Caleb Nelson is never wrong.
Speaker 6: And while I don't think this is going to change
Speaker 6: where the court is heading because it's been a long trajectory,
Speaker 6: it's certainly to complicate the case.
Speaker 1: So what I want you to explain is is this
Speaker 1: a real schism or not.
Speaker 6: There's an academic side to this, and I think some
Speaker 6: academics really do follow the evidence where it leads, and
Speaker 6: this will influence the scholarly debate. Does it, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of dynamite the judicial project? I don't think so.
Speaker 6: I think there's a good argument to be made that
Speaker 6: originalism is often a kind of thig leaf. It's available
Speaker 6: to you if it helps you reach the result you
Speaker 6: want to reach. It's a surprisingly malleable interpretive methodology because
Speaker 6: depending on what level of generality you approach the question at,
Speaker 6: you can get liberal or conservative results out of it.
Speaker 6: So I think it more illuminates that this supposedly neutral
Speaker 6: and constraining methodology is in fact nothing of the sort.
Speaker 6: And you see that in these cases on executive power,
Speaker 6: where the court doesn't really look to the historical materials,
Speaker 6: it looks to what it's a conception of what the
Speaker 6: president should be able to do or not. That was
Speaker 6: really most evident last year in the City granting Trump immunity.
Speaker 1: I always thought of a Roberts Court. It's really not
Speaker 1: the Roberts go anymore, really, but that the Roberts Court
Speaker 1: was always cared a lot about appearances, or at least
Speaker 1: wanted to make things look a certain way. It seems
Speaker 1: as if the last two cycles that has not been
Speaker 1: as important.
Speaker 6: We're so polarized that it's hard to see straight and
Speaker 6: it's hard for a court, even one that wants to
Speaker 6: appear measured and incremental and governed by law and institutionalist,
Speaker 6: to satisfy every constituency These days, from the perspective of
Speaker 6: the left, the Court has really given Trump the green
Speaker 6: light to do all kinds of really aggressive things to
Speaker 6: the government and not stood in his way at all. So,
Speaker 6: if the Chief Justices goal is to preserve the authority, integrity,
Speaker 6: legitimacy of the Court, he has some real challenges.
Speaker 1: Right, that's true. But the voting rights case on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: the oral arguments.
Speaker 5: Which is a good example of where we are right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk us through that.
Speaker 6: So in nineteen sixty five, the civil rights movement achieved
Speaker 6: one of its landmark victories with the enactment of the
Speaker 6: Voting Rights Act, for which people literally bled and died,
Speaker 6: and it was meant to protect minority, particularly black voting rights,
Speaker 6: and particularly in the South, whereas you know, the lawless
Speaker 6: Southern officials had stopped black people from voting pretty completely.
Speaker 6: The Supreme Court, in the Roberts era has gutted one
Speaker 6: main component of the Voting Rights Act, it's Section five,
Speaker 6: which requires federal approval of voting changes and jurisdictions with
Speaker 6: the history of discrimination.
Speaker 5: But it left standing another.
Speaker 6: Part of the law, which allows after the fact lawsuits,
Speaker 6: Section two. And in an argument this week, it sure
Speaker 6: seemed like the Court was either going to outright strike
Speaker 6: down Section two as unconstitutional or at least severely limited.
Speaker 6: And it's thinking is somewhat like it's thinking in the
Speaker 6: Affronative Action case from Harvard and UNC. The originalists on
Speaker 6: the Court claimed that the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment,
Speaker 6: which was adopted to protect black people, actually adopted a
Speaker 6: colorblind view of the Constitution, so that a congressionally enacted
Speaker 6: statute like the Voting Rights Act, which takes a counter
Speaker 6: of rays and tries to help historically disadvantaged people, runs
Speaker 6: a fell of the Constitution. And if it were to
Speaker 6: take that step, that would be a major blow to
Speaker 6: this landmark legislation, and it would have a practical effect
Speaker 6: also of helping Republicans in the midterms.
Speaker 1: I mean, were you surprised by those oral arguments?
Speaker 6: I guess a little bit the kind of signal that
Speaker 6: they were up to something because they had heard arguments
Speaker 6: about in this very case last term, and instead of
Speaker 6: deciding it, they set it down to consider larger issues.
Speaker 6: And whenever the Court does that, it did that in
Speaker 6: Citizens United. It turned a little case into a big case.
Speaker 6: How you have the sense that they're turning it into
Speaker 6: a big case. But the receptivity of the conservative justices
Speaker 6: to some of the broader arguments and did surprise me
Speaker 6: a big.
Speaker 1: Us in that case, the only people who would be
Speaker 1: able to save it would be Amy, Coney and Roberts Well.
Speaker 6: That's you identified the middle of the court. Sometimes Brett
Speaker 6: Kavanaugh is also in the middle of the court. But
Speaker 6: he was very He has this idea that he was
Speaker 6: pressing at the argument that the Voting Rights Act might
Speaker 6: have been well and good for a while, but it's
Speaker 6: reached its sell by date.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no more racism.
Speaker 6: Right, And it's not clear that statutes have a sell
Speaker 6: by date.
Speaker 1: It's not clear that America has ended racism right.
Speaker 6: And Section two requires courts to look at contemporary circumstances,
Speaker 6: So you have to prove that minority voters are being
Speaker 6: disadvantaged to win your case anyway. So I'm not sure
Speaker 6: that makes a ton of sense. That also has an
Speaker 6: echo with the affirmative action case, where in two thousand
Speaker 6: and two Justice Senrede O'Connor, you didn't expect we'd need
Speaker 6: affirmative action in twenty five years, and the Court got
Speaker 6: rid of it a couple of years early.
Speaker 1: So many of the things that we see them decide
Speaker 1: seem like they are very politically advantageous for the right.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the justices think that that's what's happening.
Speaker 6: So I'm prepared to believe that the justices, all the
Speaker 6: justices are operating in good faith, and if you gave
Speaker 6: them ali detector test, they believe that they were applying
Speaker 6: legal principles to achieve legal results. But they were picked
Speaker 6: for these jobs because people knew how they think, and
Speaker 6: they were picked for these jobs by sophisticated politicians the
Speaker 6: president of the Senate, in order to achieve certain goals.
Speaker 6: And they have quite consistently voted as their appointing presidents
Speaker 6: might like. So this question of you know, are they
Speaker 6: acting in bad faith is maybe not the most important question.
Speaker 5: The question is what are the votes and what are
Speaker 5: the results?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. It seems as if the
Speaker 1: only person who is as add to the court who
Speaker 1: has been at all surprising has been Justice Spared.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Justice Bart is an interesting figure.
Speaker 6: She does seem to have both common sense and intellectual rigor,
Speaker 6: but it's easy to overstate how much she has transgressed,
Speaker 6: how much she has stepped away from the usual conservative
Speaker 6: line in all the big cases, all the big cases abortion,
Speaker 6: affirmative action, guns, immunity. Whenever she might have had an
Speaker 6: opportunity to truly surprise, she did not and went along
Speaker 6: with the majority. In less important cases, she has been
Speaker 6: the justice most likely to vote with the liberals.
Speaker 1: This is true, right, But that's a good point. And
Speaker 1: what she says in oral arguments is irrelevant if she
Speaker 1: then votes with the majority.
Speaker 6: Yeah, agreed, and I mean I respect her she an
Speaker 6: oral argument. She is a very rigorous thinker, and unlike
Speaker 6: some justices who seem inclined to make speeches rather than
Speaker 6: and try to elicit information from the advocates, she's authentically
Speaker 6: trying to get to the bottom of things.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the Supreme Court? Since you've covered
Speaker 1: the courts for such a long time through different incarnations, I.
Speaker 5: Covered the Court for seventeen years.
Speaker 6: I'm actually stepping away from the daily beat coverage, but
Speaker 6: I have some history.
Speaker 2: With the court.
Speaker 1: Seventeen years a long time. Do you think the court
Speaker 1: is radically different than it was seventeen years ago.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and for one reason and one reason only.
Speaker 6: The Court for the first ten years that I covered
Speaker 6: it had Justice Kennedy on it, and he was at
Speaker 6: the middle of the court. Some people call him the
Speaker 6: swing justice. He was the fulcrum on which the court
Speaker 6: operated and he would mostly lean right, but in important
Speaker 6: cases on abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, and especially
Speaker 6: gay rights, he would lean left. And that five fourness
Speaker 6: of the court is very different. It's a very different
Speaker 6: flavor than the six' to three court cases these days
Speaker 6: kind of seemed pre cooked the moment they grant the.
Speaker 6: Case you know what's going to happen when justice can
Speaker 6: he was on the, court it did feel a little
Speaker 6: bit more like a court in which people had a
Speaker 6: fair shot winning their.
Speaker 1: Case when you think about THE lgbtq rights, stuff the
Speaker 1: conversion therapy, case all of the sort of cases around trans.
Speaker 1: Rights they have a bunch of those. Cases what is
Speaker 1: your sense of this courts like this is a court
Speaker 1: that overturned. Raw do you think that's where this precedent setting.
Speaker 6: Ends i'll draw distinction first of, all between gay rights
Speaker 6: and trans. Rights ten years, ago In Oberga, fell The
Speaker 6: court established the constitution right the same sex. MARRIAGE i
Speaker 6: don't think there's a serious threat to. That there are
Speaker 6: all kinds of ways in which religious groups can chip
Speaker 6: away at that, right dissent from it not, acknowledged and so,
Speaker 6: on but the basic right probably is. Sound and then
Speaker 6: only five years, ago in an opinion By Joseph, gorsage
Speaker 6: The court found that both gay and transgender workers are
Speaker 6: protected from employment discrimination by a. STATUTE i think that's
Speaker 6: the high water mark for gay and trans. WRITES i
Speaker 6: think they're going to move it in the other. Direction In,
Speaker 6: june as you, know in a case Called, scrimti they
Speaker 6: said That tennessee and other states could forbid gender transition.
Speaker 6: Care they just heard this case on conversion therapy that's
Speaker 6: going to go against the trends. Side they're going to
Speaker 6: hear a case on trans athletes that's going to go
Speaker 6: against the trans. Side so this was a court which
Speaker 6: seemed to be moving in one, direction and as with
Speaker 6: the political climate and to some extent the social, climate
Speaker 6: it's taken a different.
Speaker 2: Direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah so. Interesting does ultimately The Supreme court abandon legal
Speaker 1: academia as these two groups sort of go further and
Speaker 1: further away from each.
Speaker 6: Other it's too complicated to make that kind of sweeping,
Speaker 6: statement AND i don't think academics have ever been all that.
Speaker 6: INFLUENTIAL i heard a judge on The Second, Circuit Robert,
Speaker 6: sack once say that law review articles are like street
Speaker 6: lamps when you're, drunk used more for support than. Illumination that,
Speaker 6: is you, know you cite a lot of your article
Speaker 6: that agrees with you for window, dressing not because it's
Speaker 6: persuaded you to take a different position than the one
Speaker 6: you came in.
Speaker 1: With has a conservative legal movement been a huge? Success?
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah there's a bit of a pendulum to. This
Speaker 5: the warrant court was quite. Liberal we've now swung a
Speaker 5: completely different.
Speaker 6: Direction but the conservative legal movement was a concerted, effort you,
Speaker 6: know from The reagan years to establish in law schools
Speaker 6: which were and are quite, liberal a kind of counter
Speaker 6: group and well funded and very, strategic and you, know
Speaker 6: running conservative law clerks into conservative chambers and then finding
Speaker 6: them good jobs and putting them on the bench and
Speaker 6: coming up with easy to understand theories like. Originalism they've
Speaker 6: really outflanked the left in power on The Supreme court
Speaker 6: and in the lower.
Speaker 1: Courts thank, You, adam.
Speaker 5: Great to be. Here thanks for having.
Speaker 3: Me, No, rick Will Molly John?
Speaker 1: Fast are you tough enough for the? Army tough enough
Speaker 1: for the police? Force?
Speaker 4: No if the answer is, no why not join The
Speaker 4: department Of Homeland securities.
Speaker 1: On Some, oklazon welcome to ice.
Speaker 3: Baby those two women.
Speaker 4: Still got, it still got, It they still got it
Speaker 4: twenty years, in they still got that ringing the bell
Speaker 4: of Weirdo.
Speaker 1: Republicans what is your moment of?
Speaker 4: Fuckery you know my moment of fuckery is In, well
Speaker 4: most of our nation's government workers aren't getting. Paid Christy
Speaker 4: nome And corleywandowski have been given.
Speaker 1: Too New you spell it with AN e because that's
Speaker 1: how she thought it was. Spelled.
Speaker 4: Apparently, yes they've been given two new private jets to.
Speaker 4: Use The coastguard had to buy, them but they are
Speaker 4: exclusively for the use Of Christy nome and her.
Speaker 3: Courtesan do you know much they? Cost it was one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million for, both one.
Speaker 1: Hundred and seventy two million for.
Speaker 3: Both and by the, way, folks jack not to go
Speaker 3: into the weeds on these. Jets but they.
Speaker 5: FANCY i saw.
Speaker 2: Pictures these are nice private.
Speaker 1: Jets, yeah a Golf stream five fifty million to replace
Speaker 1: an aging one because she doesn't have a good. One
Speaker 1: and then, aw so ooh it's so. Fancy look at
Speaker 1: the white.
Speaker 2: Leather, oh, yeah there it.
Speaker 4: Is by the, way, folks a Golf stream, five even
Speaker 4: an older, one even a twenty year old Golf stream,
Speaker 4: five is an exceedingly nice.
Speaker 1: Aircraft well speak for, yourself.
Speaker 4: Baby these people are telling you That christinome and her Consort,
Speaker 4: corlewandowski and their film crew that travels with her at all,
Speaker 4: times her makeup and hair crew that travels with her
Speaker 4: at all.
Speaker 3: Times they need a private jet that's. New they can't
Speaker 3: use a jet that's five years. Old my, god that's
Speaker 3: a that's a. Travesty it reminds me of these people
Speaker 3: that are, LIKE i don't fly.
Speaker 4: Scheduled, yeah well Apparently christinem doesn't fly, scheduled nor does
Speaker 4: she fly anything that.
Speaker 3: Isn't still doesn't have that new private.
Speaker 4: Jet Smell Rick, wilson, tumbrels, Pitchforks they're.
Speaker 1: Coming that's it for this episode Of Fast. Poly tune
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