Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Trump says to his supporters, even
Speaker 1: if you die voting from me, it'll be worth it.
Speaker 1: We have such an interesting show today. Democratic strategist Simon
Speaker 1: Rosenberg tells us what he's watching in order to predict
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four election. Then we'll talk to every
Speaker 1: Town usay is Jonathan fine Black about the downfall of
Speaker 1: the NRA and how every town is policing gun manufacturers.
Speaker 1: But first we have the host of the Katie Fang Show,
Speaker 1: the One, the Only Katie Fang. Welcome two Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: My actual friend, who I hang out with and who
Speaker 1: I love and who is on my Instagram all the time.
Speaker 1: Katie Fang. Hello, Hello, So Katie, you have a new
Speaker 1: show premiering on Saturday, which is The Katie Fang Show,
Speaker 1: New Time, New Place, but all Katie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's new Time, same Katie Fangs Show. I think
Speaker 2: I'll call it Kikanti, same spite that we can have.
Speaker 2: But I'd like to think, you know, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: venturing out on year three of the Katie Fang Show.
Speaker 2: So We're gonna try some different stuff. It's still going
Speaker 2: to be the same focus on law, politics, culture, etc.
Speaker 2: But you know, you may see some new stuff coming
Speaker 2: out this year. I think it makes sense for us
Speaker 2: to kind of branch out a little bit and see,
Speaker 2: you know, what else we can do. But I'm excited.
Speaker 2: Twelve o'clock Eastern means that my incredibly faithful and loyal
Speaker 2: followers on the West Coast can actually sleep in and
Speaker 2: watch at nine am Pacific, which would be great for them.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Trump Legal because that seems like
Speaker 1: an endless cavalcade of excitement and excitement. I mean, fuck great.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what the landscape looks like right now,
Speaker 1: sort of what's coming up, what's just happened? Give me
Speaker 1: the sort of four one one on this, Okay.
Speaker 2: So we are waiting to see what the d C.
Speaker 2: Circuit Court of Appeals does with the Donald Trump's appeal
Speaker 2: of Judge Tanya Chukin's decision to deny his emotion to
Speaker 2: dismiss on the basis of absolute presidential immunity and double.
Speaker 1: Jeffrey right, that's that he's a king.
Speaker 2: It's actually more than a king. I feel like sometimes
Speaker 2: maybe in the history of the world that were enlightened spots,
Speaker 2: and maybe they were, you know, kings and queens. I mean,
Speaker 2: what he's asking for is Corplank to do whatever he
Speaker 2: wants to do, whenever he wants to do it, under
Speaker 2: the guise of the Oval Office. And I think people
Speaker 2: don't appreciate the danger of it, and they probably should
Speaker 2: by now when you hear a ceteral appellate judge. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure this is the first time any of these
Speaker 2: incredibly brilliant jurists have ever asked a lawyer during oral
Speaker 2: arguments in their careers, right, you know, so you're saying,
Speaker 2: mister Sower, that your client or president could order the
Speaker 2: assassination of a political rival by dispatching Seal Team six
Speaker 2: and he would have immunity, to which Sours says, Oh,
Speaker 2: I'll give you a qualified yes. I mean, when you
Speaker 2: have that type of Q and A going on, you
Speaker 2: know that we've jumped the shark, but we've done it
Speaker 2: in away. Where Now those safeguards, those guardrails, stuff that
Speaker 2: you and I talk about a lot on my show, Molly,
Speaker 2: those have been destroyed. And I think that's the most
Speaker 2: disconcerting thing that the destruction of norms by Donald Trump
Speaker 2: has become just so okay by the GOP and others
Speaker 2: that we face a very real, very scary, terrifying, uphill
Speaker 2: battle to get us back to where we need to be.
Speaker 1: That Trump lawyer's argument that the president could do crimes
Speaker 1: and that you would just have to impeach and convict
Speaker 1: before you could prosecute, which is so interesting because remember,
Speaker 1: impeachment was created as a political mechanism, right, it is
Speaker 1: not a legal mechanism. And we saw this happen in
Speaker 1: other impeachments, right like Nixon's impeachment or even Bill Clinton's impeachment. Right,
Speaker 1: political mechanism, but also a way for a president to
Speaker 1: be held accountable when they did something really beyond the pale.
Speaker 1: One of the things I'm so impressed with with Trump world,
Speaker 1: and impressed by impressed, I mean, these guys are such hypocrites,
Speaker 1: is that they will do a thing where they'll say like, no,
Speaker 1: you have to try them and a court of law
Speaker 1: during the impeachment, and then during the trial they'll be like, no,
Speaker 1: this was something that should have been dealt with during impeachment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And one of the three appellate judges during the
Speaker 2: oral arguments this past week made that distinction and said,
Speaker 2: you know your client and you may not have been
Speaker 2: the lawyer at the time, mister Sewer, but your client
Speaker 2: explicitly stated that impeachment should be stayed. You know it
Speaker 2: occurs at all, there's recourse available, and that's when Trump
Speaker 2: is out of the office. And now mister Sowerry, you're claiming,
Speaker 2: oh no, no, no, you have to be impeaching pcted.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the reason why a lot of us,
Speaker 2: in terms of legal experts, we're waiting to see what
Speaker 2: happens because it is a foregone conclusion that this DC
Speaker 2: Circuit Court of Appeals is going to affirm the decision
Speaker 2: by Judge Chuck into deny these motions to dismiss, and
Speaker 2: so the Supreme Court in the United States then has
Speaker 2: to decide whether or not it wants to take this
Speaker 2: case or not. Now, it could just let that decision
Speaker 2: by the DC Circuit stand. But you know, I've had
Speaker 2: conversations with others, I mean, and this is an admission
Speaker 2: of how you know much of a loggeek I am
Speaker 2: that these conversations dominate my life outside of the Katie
Speaker 2: Fang Show. And when I do legal analysis on MS
Speaker 2: and we talk about how he's raised this defense and
Speaker 2: other jurisdictions, and so it kind of makes sense that
Speaker 2: Supreme Court will want to take it up to kind
Speaker 2: of put it to bed. The problem is, if you're
Speaker 2: a Supreme Court justice, do you necessarily want to touch
Speaker 2: this issue? I don't think you do. Well, this is
Speaker 2: the problem, right, you don't want to touch this issue?
Speaker 2: And so are you going to take this issue up?
Speaker 2: And that's really the one that we're This is really
Speaker 2: the case that we're waiting to see, you know, what happens,
Speaker 2: because it really drives the rest of the other criminal
Speaker 2: prosecutions that are you know, at issue for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: And I would say I think it's interesting there are
Speaker 1: a couple of things that Trump wants the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: to weigh in on the Supreme Court that he installed
Speaker 1: to weigh in on, right.
Speaker 2: Heah, he always wants these people. But I mean that's
Speaker 2: why Alina Habba is going on Fox News and saying
Speaker 2: that Charump fought for Brett Kavanaugh and Brett Kalan I
Speaker 2: was going to step up and do the right thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is egregious to see the quiet part
Speaker 2: out loud, and yet they don't give a shit, right, like,
Speaker 2: there's been no accountability for them saying quite part out
Speaker 2: loud for years. And so that's why she thinks it's
Speaker 2: okay as an attorney who's barred in the state of
Speaker 2: New Jersey and perhaps other the jurisdictions, she thinks it's
Speaker 2: okay to go on natural television and say, hey, Brett,
Speaker 2: are you're listening, Hey Brett, we fought to get you
Speaker 2: on the Supreme Court, and that it seats u OUs.
Speaker 2: It's time to cash in the chit, right, That's what
Speaker 2: she's saying.
Speaker 1: My guess is she's doing this because even though Brett
Speaker 1: may not watch Fox News, we know Justice Alito loves
Speaker 1: to watch Fox News and has Fox News brain. And
Speaker 1: also just Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginny is.
Speaker 3: A far right media act right, Yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 3: that's a whole other that's a whole other conversation for
Speaker 3: us to right about Clarence Thomas not or choosing himself
Speaker 3: when these cases come before him, especially considering this one
Speaker 3: deals with the heart of the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 2: I mean, what we're seeing as a collision that was
Speaker 2: bound to happen and it's a collision of interests, political
Speaker 2: legal interests, the public policy interest. I mean, it's all
Speaker 2: kind of coming to rust. And now you really want
Speaker 2: to know what your legacy is going to be. I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: if you're a federal court judge that has a lifetime appointment,
Speaker 2: especially through Supreme Court justice, many of you don't care
Speaker 2: what your legacy is. But I would hope that you
Speaker 2: would care about what your legacy is if you decide
Speaker 2: that somebody like Donald Trump can be not only king
Speaker 2: for a day, but you know, dictator or autocrat for life.
Speaker 2: But then, you know, I've been seeing these these things
Speaker 2: flying around a social media malli about Oh well, then
Speaker 2: if that's the case, then Joe Biden could take Donald
Speaker 2: Trump and stick him and GETMO and say it was
Speaker 2: okay for Nashally. I mean, listen, you and I both
Speaker 2: know that to tit for tat is not the way
Speaker 2: to do this.
Speaker 1: I mean, Trumpism only works for Trump. I mean not
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden would never do that. He's very much
Speaker 1: a traditionalist. But also even if he tried to do that,
Speaker 1: it would never work for Biden.
Speaker 2: On my last Sunday show that I did, I had
Speaker 2: this commentary where I said, look, you know it, maybe
Speaker 2: it may seem really dark, but we have to keep
Speaker 2: the faith. And that's kind of my manager going into
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. I am very big on reporting what's happening,
Speaker 2: and there's just so much going on legally and politically,
Speaker 2: but you know, we do have power and numbers. There
Speaker 2: is a collective power to us, and if we don't
Speaker 2: kind of take the bait, and if we don't kind
Speaker 2: of buy into that, we have to respond to it.
Speaker 2: For tat we preserve what's left of democracy in a
Speaker 2: way that should be preserved. I find it to be
Speaker 2: so disheartening and exhausting to always be having these conversations,
Speaker 2: and yet we have to. We have to have these conversations.
Speaker 2: We need to be very blunt about what there is
Speaker 2: in store for us if Trump wins in November, because
Speaker 2: in the meantime, I don't see these cases going to
Speaker 2: trial before November. I don't have a trial date from
Speaker 2: McAfee and Fulton County yet you don't. I both know
Speaker 2: Alen Cannon's going to plunt her trial beyond November, and
Speaker 2: then depending upon what happens with Skotis and the efficacy
Speaker 2: or the expediency of what happens. You may not get
Speaker 2: this chuck and trial before November. The Manhattan DA's office
Speaker 2: is supposed to go to trial in March, but Alva
Speaker 2: Bragas said he'll take a back seat to a federal prosecution.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much going on, and I feel
Speaker 2: like our judicial system. Joyce Vance wrote a piece recently
Speaker 2: about how they owe us expediency. I don't see them
Speaker 2: moving as fast as they should, but you know, I'm
Speaker 2: hoping that we have some type of resolution of at
Speaker 2: least one of these cases by November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you and I are both big Choice fans, fans.
Speaker 1: She has dealt with cases at this level before, But
Speaker 1: the case that seemed the most likely to go first
Speaker 1: was the document's.
Speaker 2: Case, right Yeah, but for the assignment to Aileen Cannon.
Speaker 1: Right, so she's going to keep punting and that is
Speaker 1: really ultimately the case that's the simplest, right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think it's not only the easiest to understand,
Speaker 2: but the guilt is in your face. You know. People
Speaker 2: have this big discussion about the Section three fourteenth memic
Speaker 2: cases that are working the way to the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: right now, Colorado is the only one that's made it there.
Speaker 2: And you know, when we look at it, and it's
Speaker 2: very clear to you and I, right when we have
Speaker 2: our conversations about what constitutes an insurrection, et cetera, what's inciting,
Speaker 2: what's engaging in an insurrection. I mean, it's pretty black
Speaker 2: and white to us. But you know, and from the
Speaker 2: mall Logo case standpoint, how much more clear does that
Speaker 2: have to be? The guy wasn't supposed to have the docs.
Speaker 2: He had them and he didn't return them. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's what you and I teach our kids, right, We've
Speaker 2: taught our kids you're not supposed to take it. If
Speaker 2: you take it, you're in trouble. I don't mean to
Speaker 2: make it too elementary, but that's how it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2: I mean, as a prosecutor, you want a case that
Speaker 2: is that straightforward. You want a case that doesn't require
Speaker 2: you having a conversation about the intent to foment an
Speaker 2: insurrection or rebellion, and so that case is the easiest
Speaker 2: to do. That case was p miss on a search warrant, Molly.
Speaker 2: And that's the other thing that people need to remember.
Speaker 2: You know, all of these were indictments that were returned
Speaker 2: against Trump and others. But in the mar Alago context,
Speaker 2: there's a search warrant that was executed on Mar A Lago.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was probable cause that was found over
Speaker 2: and over again that crimes have been committed and that
Speaker 2: the evidence of those crimes would be located in Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's Florida residence. And so I think these are the
Speaker 2: things that would make it so compelling as a prosecutor.
Speaker 2: But Alien Cannon is held bent on doing her version
Speaker 2: of justice. And you know, I take my job as
Speaker 2: I'm still a trial lawyer. I mean, I'm not actively
Speaker 2: practicing that. I take my job as a lawyer and
Speaker 2: my oath of you know, being a lawyer, seriously, Molly.
Speaker 2: And we're not supposed to criticize other lawyers, and we're
Speaker 2: not supposed to criticize judges. But when you see injustice happening,
Speaker 2: you have to see something. Unfortunately for me, I have
Speaker 2: a platform where I'm able to say what I think.
Speaker 2: I'm calling balls and strikes and if I see something wrong,
Speaker 2: that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And now I I want to ask you with
Speaker 1: the fake electors, there are all these other cases that
Speaker 1: might be sort of bubbling under the surface.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you.
Speaker 1: Think there will be more cases? We don't have a
Speaker 1: crystal ball as to what cases will go first or
Speaker 1: one they'll happen. Trump obviously wants everything to happen after
Speaker 1: the election because he's really running to stay out of
Speaker 1: jail anyway. But with the fake elector's stuff in Michigan
Speaker 1: and we saw that in other state, it's like, do
Speaker 1: you think that there will be more cases.
Speaker 4: With that stuff?
Speaker 2: The answer is yes, you're going to see more cases.
Speaker 2: That are several attorneys general in different states and mainly
Speaker 2: the states that we've talked about over the past few
Speaker 2: years about where there were active attempts to be able
Speaker 2: to manipulate the outcome of that twenty twenty election. One
Speaker 2: of the kind of people that we watched carefully to
Speaker 2: see if there's going to be where charges coming is
Speaker 2: Ken Chesbrow. So kay Chesbro had doing a little bit
Speaker 2: of what I call a retribution for I need you.
Speaker 1: To stop and explain to our listeners who Ken Cheesebrow is.
Speaker 1: And again his name is not Ken Cheesebro, but yes,
Speaker 1: continue Ken.
Speaker 2: Cheese bro, Ken chesbro, Ken Cheezbro, the architect of the
Speaker 2: fake electric scheme, fascinatingly, he's very independently wealthy from investments.
Speaker 2: I think he did big Cooin or something whatever.
Speaker 1: Right and cryptodoy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he lives in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: As well, so he doesn't have to pay federal taxes.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he has a very interesting personal life. But
Speaker 2: ken Chesbro, as we know, moved to sever his case
Speaker 2: file the speedy demand in Fulton County. He was the
Speaker 2: architect of the fake elector scheme. He's the guy who
Speaker 2: was writing the memos, him and Jeff Clark. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, these guys were hustle in right to be
Speaker 2: able to get a legal scheme in place so Donald
Speaker 2: Trump could install fake electors in specific states to make
Speaker 2: sure that Mike Pence did not certify the valid legal
Speaker 2: results for the twenty twenty election of Joe Biden be president.
Speaker 2: But the reason why I say we should watch ken
Speaker 2: Chesbro what he's doing is I call it his retribution toro,
Speaker 2: although it's two wills away. But as a condition of
Speaker 2: his plea of guilty down in Fulton County, Georgia, he's
Speaker 2: had to go and cooperate with other jurisdictions and that's
Speaker 2: what he's been doing. He has been going to different
Speaker 2: jurisdictions and cooperated with investigations there about fake electric schemes,
Speaker 2: and so I think if you want to know if
Speaker 2: there's other charges that are going to come beyond just Michigan,
Speaker 2: I think that you can look and see where's ken
Speaker 2: Chessbrow kind of like where's Walda, right, where's Ken Chessbrow today?
Speaker 2: What is he doing? Who is he talking to? But ultimately,
Speaker 2: what people need to remember is to prove a case
Speaker 2: beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, because
Speaker 2: that is the standard of proof and a criminal case,
Speaker 2: you need to make sure that each defendant, each criminal
Speaker 2: descendant Molly has their own independent liability ability. Right, So
Speaker 2: ken Chasbrow going to Arizona or going to another state
Speaker 2: and saying you know, this is what I did and
Speaker 2: doing a Maya kalpa in a full confession is one thing.
Speaker 2: How does that tie to Donald Trump?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Like, how does it tied to other major players? And
Speaker 2: Donald Trump? I think if there's one thing he's done
Speaker 2: really while his entire life is he has figured the
Speaker 2: art of not making money because we all know that
Speaker 2: all of that is bullshit, but figured out the art
Speaker 2: of making other people take the fall for him, right,
Speaker 2: He's figured out the art of making other people feel
Speaker 2: like they owe him something. Now, there could be because
Speaker 2: he has dirt on them. It could be because he
Speaker 2: has compromonts on them. Fine, but it still takes a
Speaker 2: skill to do that. And no matter how stupid I
Speaker 2: think he is, no matter some days I think he's
Speaker 2: crazy like a fox, Trump has figured out how to
Speaker 2: make even brilliant lawyers because by everybody's admission, Ken Chesbrow
Speaker 2: is a and was a brilliant.
Speaker 1: Right, and he is doing a plea deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the band's plead and guilty. People can take the
Speaker 2: fall for Trump. But is there the evidence to link?
Speaker 2: And that is what we're always kind of looking at,
Speaker 2: which is why getting to your point, mar Alogo, is
Speaker 2: the compelling case, the on six case that Chuck and
Speaker 2: has even though Chuck and has her, you know, pedal
Speaker 2: to the metal in terms of the gas to get
Speaker 2: this thing done that was not is clear cut for
Speaker 2: some people. I think it is, but you know, I
Speaker 2: obviously have a bias on this, so you know, we're
Speaker 2: just like the in Manhattan criminal case that one may
Speaker 2: not be as clear cut for others as well. So
Speaker 2: I feel like mar Longo is one of the tightest,
Speaker 2: strongest cases. But because of ailing Cannon may not get
Speaker 2: there anytime soon.
Speaker 1: Right, And that is so such a bomber. My god,
Speaker 1: just on that idea of people taking the fall for
Speaker 1: Trump one, Rudolph Juliani. The thing's going to end well
Speaker 1: for Rudolph Juliana.
Speaker 2: He looks like he's going to drop dead any day, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not amazing, I'm not wishing it. I'm
Speaker 2: just sade. Look that.
Speaker 1: I feel like you bet on those actual arial tables
Speaker 1: it never works out. But I'm curious. Legally, the guy's
Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'll stay in my legal lane, Molly, and
Speaker 2: I will you know, opine on dropping debt. So here's
Speaker 2: the deal. Giuliani finally for bankruptcy is not the save
Speaker 2: all for him. His continued defamation of Ruby Freeman, Shamas
Speaker 2: and others by the way, not just Rugy Freeman and Gamas,
Speaker 2: that is going to be a serial problem for him.
Speaker 2: The bankruptcy thing is fascinating, and people always think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you file for bankruptcy, it goes away. It doesn't. Alex
Speaker 2: Jones tried it and sailed miserably. Rudy Giuliani's going to
Speaker 2: try this, He's going to feel miserably as well. But
Speaker 2: people also need to know it's not just Seae Aus
Speaker 2: and Ruby Freeman that are now judgement. Creditors are going
Speaker 2: to come after Rudy Gielani. He owes a lot of
Speaker 2: money to his sex wife, He owes a lot of
Speaker 2: money to other creditors, and so Giuliani's luck will run
Speaker 2: out when the money runs out. But the money hasn't
Speaker 2: run out because Trump is still, you know, pushing people
Speaker 2: to spend fifteen hundred dollars a plate for ditters and
Speaker 2: support of Ruey Giuliani. But don't forget there's still leverage
Speaker 2: in Fulton County because Rudy still has a criminal case
Speaker 2: in county. And by the last media reports, Fulton County
Speaker 2: DA Fondi Willis is not going to be offering it
Speaker 2: plea offered to rud Gianni, Mark Meadows and Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: So Rudy is going to have to figure out whether
Speaker 2: he can survive I won't say literally getting financially to
Speaker 2: trial in Fulton County. Again, we don't have a trial date.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of stuff that's going on in fact,
Speaker 2: there's a hearing tomorrow on some of the stuff that
Speaker 2: he's filed. And so the latest for Rudy Giuliani is
Speaker 2: he wants to be able to interview Sidney Powa, Ken
Speaker 2: chesbro Scott Hall, and Jenna Ellis. Those are the four
Speaker 2: people that I've taken to police so far in Fulton County.
Speaker 2: He wants to be able to interview them because he
Speaker 2: says he has to get all this information out of them.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting because Giuliani still has massive exposure as
Speaker 2: well criminally and that has to always remain an incentive
Speaker 2: for him. But I don't know again. I mean, if
Speaker 2: there was anybody on that kind of you know, batting
Speaker 2: order of people of lawyers, specifically in Trump world, that
Speaker 2: had the greatest fall from grace, it's obviously Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 1: Yes, but he's not alone. Katie Fang, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Oh this is lovely. It's like when I'm just hanging
Speaker 2: out talking to Mollie John the.
Speaker 1: Next Simon Rosenberg as the founder of the New Democrat
Speaker 1: Network and the New Policy Institute. Welcome Too Fast Politics, Simon.
Speaker 6: Rosenberg, good to be here, Mollie.
Speaker 1: Explain to us a little bit about what you do
Speaker 1: and how you got there.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So I've been in democratic politics for more than
Speaker 6: thirty years. I ran a think tank, I've worked at campaigns.
Speaker 6: I've done it all. You know, raised money, do stads,
Speaker 6: the whole thing. And you know, a year and a
Speaker 6: half ago I started challenging the conventional wisdom that there
Speaker 6: was a red wave coming based on data that I
Speaker 6: was seeing, and I collaborated with a guy named Tom Bonier,
Speaker 6: and he and I were looking at things other than
Speaker 6: polling to assess and to gauge the election at twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two.
Speaker 1: Twenty four to seven, this is all I think about.
Speaker 1: What are the things other than polling that can show us?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, look, I think we learned in twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two that's centering your understanding of American politics around
Speaker 6: poling is very risky, right, I mean, there was it
Speaker 6: didn't work in twenty twenty two, and it didn't work
Speaker 6: because there was all these other things. And the other
Speaker 6: things were strong democratic performance and special elections all across
Speaker 6: the country. In twenty twenty two, after Dobbs, we saw
Speaker 6: voter registration numbers get far better for Democrats. We saw
Speaker 6: Democrats out raising Republicans by huge amounts three four, five
Speaker 6: to one. And then we saw in the early vote,
Speaker 6: you know, heightened democratic performance unexpectedly by the way, heidened
Speaker 6: democratic performance, and all of those indicators suggested that the
Speaker 6: intensity was with Democrats, not with Republicans, and that it
Speaker 6: was the opposite of a red wave. And that's actually
Speaker 6: what happened in the election. What happened in the election
Speaker 6: was that Democrats dramatically overperformed expectations and pulling. We gained
Speaker 6: ground over our twenty twenty results in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan,
Speaker 6: New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. We got all the way up
Speaker 6: to fifty nine percent in Colorado, fifty seven percent in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 6: fifty five percent of Michigan, which would be amazing results
Speaker 6: in a good year. And this was so called you know,
Speaker 6: red wave, bad year for us. And so, you know,
Speaker 6: part of what happened is that I think polling is
Speaker 6: really struggling capture the current dynamic of American politics because
Speaker 6: for one central reason, which is that response rates and
Speaker 6: polling have gone way down, and getting an accurate poll
Speaker 6: now has become much harder and expensive. And what's happening
Speaker 6: is shortcuts are being taken, and we're getting a lot
Speaker 6: more junkie polling in our system than we used to,
Speaker 6: even from very credible news organizations. I mean, the Washington
Speaker 6: Post deserves a lot of credit because they had a
Speaker 6: really bad poll a few months ago, and in the
Speaker 6: write up of the poll, they acknowledged that they thought
Speaker 6: the data was bad. It would be it would be
Speaker 6: good if more media organizations, independent media organizations, were a
Speaker 6: little bit more honest about the limitations of polling. And
Speaker 6: you know, because it's become such a huge part of
Speaker 6: our understanding of our politics. And I'll give you one
Speaker 6: other example, right, I mean, if everything was so bad
Speaker 6: for Democrats, and Biden's numbers were so terrible and his
Speaker 6: approval reading was so bad, why do we keep winning
Speaker 6: elections all over the I mean, twenty twenty three was
Speaker 6: an even better year for us politically than twenty twenty two.
Speaker 6: We gained ground in state legislative races five points. We
Speaker 6: had a five point higher number than we had in
Speaker 6: those same districts in twenty twenty a crazy result. We
Speaker 6: took away two in the largest Republican cities in America,
Speaker 6: Colorado Springs and Jacksonville. We took away it was constant
Speaker 6: Supreme Court seat. We took away the six week abortion
Speaker 6: ban in Ohio, we took away the state house in Virginia.
Speaker 6: It was a blue wave that washed all over the
Speaker 6: country this year, and in the political commentary that didn't
Speaker 6: even happen, right, It was absent from the discourse and
Speaker 6: the understanding. And so I think my basic lesson here
Speaker 6: is that there's a lot of other things we can
Speaker 6: look at to assess where we are in politics. Polling
Speaker 6: has its limitations, and I think the media industrial polling
Speaker 6: complex needs to be a little bit more honest about
Speaker 6: the limitations of what polling can really tell you.
Speaker 1: If we look at twenty sixteen, right, that was an
Speaker 1: entire year where we spent leaving that Hillary Clinton had
Speaker 1: a seventy eighty ninety percent chance of being elected and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump had a fifteen and you know, eleven percent chance.
Speaker 1: And some pollsters, if you complain to them, they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: you don't understand polls or just this or that. But
Speaker 1: I want to get back to this idea about results. Though,
Speaker 1: because I certainly believed the red wave narrative, I wondered,
Speaker 1: but I thought, you know, history is president the president's
Speaker 1: party always does poorly. I could see historically that there
Speaker 1: was some president for a red wave. But in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three we had had all of these special elections
Speaker 1: where basically every special election since Doobbs, Democrats have done
Speaker 1: ten fifteen, I mean, crazy numbers better than they should, right.
Speaker 1: And then there was that Ohio special which was in
Speaker 1: August where they had hidden it away and they got
Speaker 1: you know, Democrats won that by ten points or something crazy.
Speaker 1: But I know ballot initiatives tend to skew more liberal,
Speaker 1: so maybe I threw that out. But with twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: I really thought, and this is like the sort of
Speaker 1: pundent industrial complex. And me I thought, youngk and wear's
Speaker 1: a vast people like him. You know, he's got this
Speaker 1: number for abortion bands. It's fifteen weeks, it's polled very
Speaker 1: well again poland he's going to win the state houses
Speaker 1: in Virginia that did not happen.
Speaker 6: He praised so many different things, I'll check them off
Speaker 6: really quickly. In twenty sixteen, remember that election was over.
Speaker 6: Hillary was going to win. We had had the three
Speaker 6: debates and then the FBI intervened, and if the FBI
Speaker 6: had not intervened, she would have won the election by
Speaker 6: five or six points. I mean we know this from
Speaker 6: polling data.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So though James came and the FBI and their intervention
Speaker 6: is what handed Trump the presidency and made that fifteen
Speaker 6: percent chance happen. Right, And so the polling wasn't wrong
Speaker 6: in twenty sixteen. It was that there was a dramatic
Speaker 6: thing that happened that changed the election at the end.
Speaker 6: And that's what happens. I mean, elections changed. Things changed
Speaker 6: in this last year. As you pointed out, we won
Speaker 6: every type of race. It was a ballid initiative, a
Speaker 6: Supreme Court special election, we won state legislative special elections,
Speaker 6: we won mayoralties, right, we won everything. We won the
Speaker 6: state House in Virginia. And I think that this idea
Speaker 6: that the traditional fade of the party in power has
Speaker 6: not happened now in two elections in twenty twenty two
Speaker 6: and in twenty twenty three, is a very dramatic outcome
Speaker 6: in our politics. And it's the most important electoral data
Speaker 6: that we have, and it's basically not being discussed at all, right,
Speaker 6: I mean, it's barely part of our discourse, and it
Speaker 6: should be central to our understanding of our politics, far
Speaker 6: more than all this bouncing and junkie polling that we're
Speaker 6: seeing around. I mean, I've been in the business, right
Speaker 6: you win or lose. I've been a onnreal campaigns, winning
Speaker 6: an election, winning again and again and again, all across
Speaker 6: the country, in all sorts of different races. You'd so
Speaker 6: much rather be that party than the other party, right,
Speaker 6: and who keep underperforming. And keep in mind, in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 6: right once Trump kind of ripped his shirt open and
Speaker 6: became mad in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, which you know,
Speaker 6: there was some belief he might be kind of a
Speaker 6: country club Republican. You know, in twenty sixteen he ripped
Speaker 6: his shirt open, he became maga.
Speaker 1: He's lost ever since.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's been getting crushed. And in fact, if you
Speaker 6: watch what's happening inside the Republican Party right now, the
Speaker 6: criticism of Rona Romney McDaniel for continuing to lose election
Speaker 6: after election is a major part of their current discourse.
Speaker 6: And that discourse is not bleeding into the broader commentariat. Right.
Speaker 6: And so let me just say very quickly why I'm
Speaker 6: optimistic about twenty twenty four. First, Joe Biden has been
Speaker 6: a good president and the country's better off, and we're
Speaker 6: going to have a really strong case for reelection. Second,
Speaker 6: the Democratic Party is strong and we're winning elections all
Speaker 6: over the country, and it's been heightened since Dobbs in
Speaker 6: spring of twenty twenty two. Finally, they have Trump, and
Speaker 6: Trump is a far weaker candidate than he was in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty. He's more degraded, he's more extreme, he's more dangerous,
Speaker 6: he's further away from the electorate, and I think it's
Speaker 6: going to The Republicans are taking extraordinary historic risk by
Speaker 6: backing him. I think that what's happened in the commentary
Speaker 6: is that we have overly discounted two big factors. One
Speaker 6: is our strength, Our continued electoral strength is being sort
Speaker 6: of dismissed as being unimportant, and it's obviously hugely important.
Speaker 6: The second is that we're overly discounting Trump's historic negatives.
Speaker 6: I mean, I wrote it on Twitter today that there
Speaker 6: are at least nine potential disqualifiers in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 6: and I'm going to try to remember them all. But
Speaker 6: first is that a court has determined that he sexually
Speaker 6: assaulted a woman in a department store address. A court
Speaker 6: is determined that he committed one of the largest financial
Speaker 6: frauds in American history. A court has already determined that
Speaker 6: he led an insurrection against the United States. He is
Speaker 6: singularly responsible for ending ROW. We know that he stole
Speaker 6: hundreds of most top secret documents in the country and
Speaker 6: allowed other people to access them and lied to the
Speaker 6: FBI about it. His relationship with Epstein, I think, is
Speaker 6: going to become far more material and reinforce some of
Speaker 6: these other issues. And oh, he took more money as
Speaker 6: president from foreign governments than any president in American history,
Speaker 6: and his family took two billion dollars from the Saudi government.
Speaker 6: I mean, the level of corruption that we're talking about
Speaker 6: has no precedent in the history of the United States.
Speaker 6: I think that was eight I'm forgetting the ninth. But
Speaker 6: any one of those things are going to make it very,
Speaker 6: very difficult for people that have already not supported him,
Speaker 6: and I've already been voting against MAGA to turn around
Speaker 6: and now embrace him. And so I think as Democrats,
Speaker 6: we should be unbelievably optimistic about our chance to have
Speaker 6: the kind of election we want to have in twenty
Speaker 6: twenty four.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, a candidate named Mandela Barnes one
Speaker 1: a very hot Wisconsin Senate primary for the Democrats. He wanted.
Speaker 1: I interviewed him twice. He was really great, progressive and
Speaker 1: interesting and smart and some of the never Trump people
Speaker 1: in my life. I'm not going to say who said
Speaker 1: he's way to progress it for Wisconsin. He'll never win
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin direct quote. They're racist in Wisconsin. They won't
Speaker 1: vote for someone black. The polls all showed him getting
Speaker 1: creamed eight points, nine points, ten points, eleven points, like
Speaker 1: a bloodbath. He lost by half a point. This is
Speaker 1: the danger of polls.
Speaker 6: Yet what happened in twenty twenty two and the New
Speaker 6: York Times I bushed a peace on Christmas Day in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty two, they went through this. There was not
Speaker 6: only the traditional issues we have with polling, but there
Speaker 6: was actually manipulation of the polling. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 6: the Republicans launched and op that we still don't know
Speaker 6: who ran it, but they flooded the zone with hyper
Speaker 6: Republican polls and yeah recipient in the final three weeks
Speaker 6: that pushed the polling averages down and including in Wisconsin, right,
Speaker 6: And the impact that that had is that it caused
Speaker 6: the journalist community to re embrace the concept that we
Speaker 6: were witnessing a red wave when the independent media polling
Speaker 6: was not showing any of that happening, and nor was
Speaker 6: our own polling as Democrats, by the way, And so
Speaker 6: not only did Mendela Barnes probably lose because of this,
Speaker 6: but we probably lost the House because House Democrats will
Speaker 6: tell you that when the red wave narrative returned, there
Speaker 6: was money that had been committed to them by major
Speaker 6: donors that went away and went to other places, and
Speaker 6: we barely lost the House. And so yes, the polling
Speaker 6: game is now part of the information war, right, this
Speaker 6: is part of the daily scrum. And in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 6: the Republicans did what they do now and everything is
Speaker 6: they cheated, right. They invented fake polling. They put it
Speaker 6: through the polling averages. And you know, credit ABC News
Speaker 6: for having some accountability because they got rid of Nate
Speaker 6: Silver over this, right, and who laundered this false information
Speaker 6: that we all knew was false, by the way, I mean,
Speaker 6: I called out the first piece I wrote that there
Speaker 6: was an operation going on here was on October twenty
Speaker 6: third of the election in twenty twenty two. So Democrats
Speaker 6: have to get smarter, as we often do, And most
Speaker 6: things involving this daily information war is that this stuff
Speaker 6: is getting reponized against us, and we've got to be
Speaker 6: smarter about it. And you know, I've tried to do
Speaker 6: my part in presenting every day on Twitter and on
Speaker 6: my substack Opium chronicles. You know, the world that I see,
Speaker 6: having been in this now for over thirty years and
Speaker 6: been an awesome former TV producer and writer and former
Speaker 6: journalists than I was, is that I try to present
Speaker 6: to democrats the world that I see, which is often
Speaker 6: at odds with the media world that we live in
Speaker 6: that's been so influenced and shaped by the right wing
Speaker 6: noise machine and by the bullying of the media by
Speaker 6: the right that we have to start extricating ourselves in
Speaker 6: that and creating our own understandings of them. And that's
Speaker 6: part of what I try to do every day.
Speaker 1: Right. You know, I have a lot of pollsters on
Speaker 1: this podcast, and I have posters who I really love,
Speaker 1: who are really smart and who are partisan dems. So
Speaker 1: here's my question for you about the polling. What's happening
Speaker 1: here is that most of these polls are still calling
Speaker 1: cell phones.
Speaker 6: Right, Yes, there are still too many polls that are
Speaker 6: being done with antiquated methods. And what it means is
Speaker 6: that it's harder and harder for them to reach young
Speaker 6: people and Hispanic voters too.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: John Della Volpe from Harvard has a great piece today
Speaker 6: and his substack about the problems that we're starting to
Speaker 6: see or rise with young voters and Hispanic voters because
Speaker 6: there's there's just wild unprecedented periances coming about, you know,
Speaker 6: in the polling. But let me give you one other
Speaker 6: sort of advice. Right, the more interviews you have, the
Speaker 6: more accurate the pulling is. And so if you have
Speaker 6: an eight hundred person sample poll or a thousand person
Speaker 6: sample pool, you know, traditionally we would not then take
Speaker 6: the hundred interviews that somebody does with young people, which
Speaker 6: has a margin of era of ten percentage points, not
Speaker 6: two or three, and really treat that data seriously. You
Speaker 6: could treat the overall poll seriously just in traditional way
Speaker 6: the math works at polling, But you didn't then say,
Speaker 6: in this poll of one thousand people, the one hundred
Speaker 6: interviews we did with Young People's Show X and have
Speaker 6: that become meaningful. And so one of the things that's
Speaker 6: happening this psych which I think is unique to this
Speaker 6: cycle and was not happening as much in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 6: as you're starting to see, you know, mainstream news organizations
Speaker 6: USA Today last week, the New York Times a few
Speaker 6: weeks ago, starting to make judgments about demographic groups based
Speaker 6: on very small number of interviews. And it's not right.
Speaker 6: It's a violation of what is possible to extract from
Speaker 6: a poll. And the USA Today was deeply, deeply guilty
Speaker 6: of this last week, where they actually claimed over two
Speaker 6: full days front page stories USA Today two days in
Speaker 6: a row leading their website that Donald Trump was winning
Speaker 6: young voters and losing older voters. The chance of that
Speaker 6: being true is zero, right, there is zero chance, and
Speaker 6: they knew that and they ran with those stories anyway.
Speaker 6: And so what's happening is the media organizations, I think,
Speaker 6: are getting lots of clicks on these more exotic polls
Speaker 6: and polls with you know, particularly with pro Republican leans
Speaker 6: because the information the Twitter world, social media world, you know,
Speaker 6: you get a lot of clicks when you attack Biden, right,
Speaker 6: you get a lot of traffic when you go after
Speaker 6: by it. And so I would just say about polling
Speaker 6: is that I think what's happened is that the people
Speaker 6: that make their living off of interprening polls and doing
Speaker 6: polling are exaggerating a little bit about what you can
Speaker 6: actually read out of a poll. And I'll just give
Speaker 6: you two final bits of advice. One is, no poll
Speaker 6: can predict anything. All pole can do is tell you
Speaker 6: where things are today. They can't even tell you where
Speaker 6: they're going to be tomorrow, let alone eleven months from now.
Speaker 6: And so any concept that there is predictive capacity from
Speaker 6: a poll is just false, wrong, and it's irrelevant.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: And the second thing is this, you know, being more
Speaker 6: reliant on independent polling of large samples, and for the
Speaker 6: media organizations to be more honest, as the Washington Post
Speaker 6: was when the data comes back a little junkie and
Speaker 6: a little weird, which happens, right. And you know, if
Speaker 6: those poles were being presented to a candidate, a candidate
Speaker 6: would tell them, Hey, I know I've lived in this district.
Speaker 6: I know how this district's voted for the last twenty years.
Speaker 6: There's no way this data is right. You go fix
Speaker 6: it and go do it again and eat it. You
Speaker 6: got to go redo the poll instead. What's happening like
Speaker 6: with this USA Today's Suffolk poll is last week is
Speaker 6: they released a poll that they knew was wrong and
Speaker 6: they shouldn't have done that. In journal the media organizations
Speaker 6: have to take greater responsibility for making sure the information
Speaker 6: they present the voters isn't misinformation, and that's their job,
Speaker 6: and they are misinforming with polling.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 6: It's a serious problem. And it also means that all
Speaker 6: of us who know better, we have to create more
Speaker 6: consequence and also create more consequence for them for this right,
Speaker 6: there needs to be more calling out, naming, and shaming
Speaker 6: for this kind of behavior because this stuff not only
Speaker 6: can determine, as you pointed out, what happened in twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two, but House Republicans may be making judgments about
Speaker 6: how they played Biden based on this polling. Foreign governments
Speaker 6: maybe making decisions about whether to invade another county right
Speaker 6: based on Biden's approval rating. These are serious matters. The
Speaker 6: gun is loaded on this stuff. This isn't sort of
Speaker 6: just oh, we got a bunch of numbers. Let's dump
Speaker 6: it out and see what happens. This is big stuff
Speaker 6: and people got to take greater responsibility for getting it right.
Speaker 1: That's so important. Thank you, thank you, thank you everything
Speaker 1: I wanted to know you answered. I appreciate you well.
Speaker 6: Mollie, thank you, And I just went to in by saying, listen, folks,
Speaker 6: let's be optimistic. I mean, I really do think we're
Speaker 6: going to have a really good election. My view is
Speaker 6: that we're just as likely to win this election by five,
Speaker 6: six seven points as we are a couple points. Trump
Speaker 6: is in a lot of trouble. He's a weak historic candidate.
Speaker 6: We're going to kick his ass. Let's just go do
Speaker 6: the work and get this done together.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Simon. John fine Blatt is the president of
Speaker 1: every Town for Gun Safety. Welcome too fast politics, John.
Speaker 2: Oh, thanks very much.
Speaker 7: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I feel like so many things make me depressed, but
Speaker 1: your organization makes me a little bit hopeful. So talk
Speaker 1: to me about every Town and what you're working on
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, I think the interesting thing is when
Speaker 7: we started every Town ten years ago, we said we
Speaker 7: needed to build a counterweight to the NRA. We said
Speaker 7: that for a simple reason, which was, you know, the
Speaker 7: NRA really treated Congress and the White House like its
Speaker 7: clubhouse and outsize power. Many people say it was the
Speaker 7: second most powerful lobbing organization in the country. And the
Speaker 7: truth is that they at that time could block most
Speaker 7: common sense gun laws and interestingly block laws that the
Speaker 7: American public, at least according to polling, widely support it.
Speaker 7: And so we felt like you had to clear the
Speaker 7: brush and you had to really focus on what the
Speaker 7: obstacles to making progress were. And there's no question about it,
Speaker 7: the NRAs was one of the biggest obstacles.
Speaker 1: I feel like last week was a bad week for
Speaker 1: the NRA.
Speaker 7: No question about it. In fact, it's not just last week,
Speaker 7: it's really the last couple of years when the onions
Speaker 7: start to get peeled on the NRA and we started
Speaker 7: to see that they really treated to the NRA like
Speaker 7: a personal piggy bank. And we've all heard the story
Speaker 7: about the Brione suits and the yachts and the private plane.
Speaker 7: But I think what we don't hear enough about is
Speaker 7: the fact that when we've all forgotten about the extravagances,
Speaker 7: there are many families across this country who will never
Speaker 7: forget the fact that they lost their children and their
Speaker 7: loved ones, and in many way to tie that back
Speaker 7: to the NRA, which is blocked at every juncture the
Speaker 7: most reasonable gun safety legislation. And I really can't help
Speaker 7: but going back to the days after Sandygook, where everybody
Speaker 7: in the country thought, well, this is the moment that
Speaker 7: we're finally going to have common sense gun legislation. And
Speaker 7: it was a pretty modest bill that was in front
Speaker 7: of the Senate. It was a background check bill, and
Speaker 7: it was, as you might remember, was supported by Pat
Speaker 7: Toomey or Republicans from Pennsylvania and Joe Mansion from West Virginia.
Speaker 1: Had to me, who's retiring because you can't stand this?
Speaker 7: You thought this was the dream team you know of sponsors,
Speaker 7: and yet at the last minute, this very modest bill,
Speaker 7: witching fact, I'm almost embarrassed to admit, had some giveaways
Speaker 7: to the god lobby in it, with Republicans voting against it,
Speaker 7: but a handful of Democrats voting against it, which is
Speaker 7: just a good reminder of the fact that while Republicans
Speaker 7: were opposed to this, Democrats were too, and not because
Speaker 7: Democrats weren't sympathetic By and large, but because the NRA
Speaker 7: really had disproportionate power at that point. And those days
Speaker 7: are over. And in many ways those days are over
Speaker 7: because we've seen firsthand what the NRA is really about.
Speaker 7: But just to give you some sort of sense of it,
Speaker 7: in twenty twelve, seventy Democrats running for the House or
Speaker 7: Senate received a's from the NRA. You don't receive an
Speaker 7: A without filling out a questionnaire today zero. And so
Speaker 7: you can see how things have changed so dramatically. And
Speaker 7: as you might remember, a year ago or so, we
Speaker 7: finally passed a bipartisan bill in the Senate. It was
Speaker 7: the first really gun safety bill to be passed in
Speaker 7: twenty seven years, and it had every Democrat on it,
Speaker 7: unlike the days after Sandy Cook. And it had fifteen
Speaker 7: Republicans on it, including Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Ram and
Speaker 7: John Cornan, who was the actual lead Republican negotiator. So
Speaker 7: the political calculus has changed significantly on this issue. The
Speaker 7: NRA's letter grades, which used to be a king and
Speaker 7: queen maker, now are a little bit more like a
Speaker 7: scarlet letter. And the NRA itself is just a shadow
Speaker 7: of its former self.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 7: I think the New York Times last week called it
Speaker 7: a ghost ship, which I thought was very descriptive. But
Speaker 7: when you look at almost any measure, when you look
Speaker 7: at the money they spend on lobbying and politics, it's
Speaker 7: down like seventy five percent. If you look at their
Speaker 7: membership dues, I think they're down forty percent. Spending one
Speaker 7: and five dollars on legal fees to defend them in court.
Speaker 7: They're in very bad shape, there's no question about it.
Speaker 7: And interestingly, you have to ask the question, well, does
Speaker 7: that translate to a loss of political power? And I
Speaker 7: think the most recent interesting example is the elections in Virginia.
Speaker 7: It's November because that's their home, that's where their headquarters are,
Speaker 7: and from a reputational point of view, if nothing else,
Speaker 7: Virginia is very important to them. And every town outspent
Speaker 7: them ten to one. And it wasn't just that we
Speaker 7: outspent them. We actually denied them what they were looking for,
Speaker 7: which was control of both houses of the legislature so
Speaker 7: that they could actually roll back the gun safety legislation
Speaker 7: that had been passed there. And so they're broke and
Speaker 7: they're down on their influence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such an interesting and also well deserved position
Speaker 1: for them to be in. The thing that I'm surprise
Speaker 1: is the pulling on this issue, like people don't actually
Speaker 1: want to live this way, but we're stuck here. Tell
Speaker 1: me how we're not actually stuck here. Explain to me
Speaker 1: where we are.
Speaker 7: It's a good point you raised, because this was always
Speaker 7: the conundrum that we had to deal with ten years
Speaker 7: ago when we started, which is, you know, how can
Speaker 7: after Sandy Hook you lose on a background check bill
Speaker 7: when you pull it and you see that eighty five
Speaker 7: percent of Americans support background checks. I mean, I think
Speaker 7: that our lowest number, which was somewhere I think it
Speaker 7: was in Wyoming, was seventy two percent approval. And I
Speaker 7: think because the NRA in those days had a real
Speaker 7: stranglehold on elected officials, and it was an interesting example
Speaker 7: of the fact that and this isn't the only time
Speaker 7: we've ever seen this where elected officials really aren't representing
Speaker 7: their constituents. And so that's why we thought it was
Speaker 7: so important to really shine a very harsh spotlight on
Speaker 7: the NRA and as I say, really expose what they're about,
Speaker 7: which is actually not a gun rights organization. Certainly not
Speaker 7: a gun safety organization, which they proclaimed in many years
Speaker 7: past to be. But they are a personal piggyback, and
Speaker 7: that's what they are. And I think that in many
Speaker 7: ways that harsh spotlight has helped significantly to change how
Speaker 7: people see the issue of gun safety and most importantly,
Speaker 7: how politicians do. And so I gave you the example
Speaker 7: of Virginia, but I can give you lots more examples.
Speaker 7: In twenty sixteen, the NRA was probably Trump's largest outside donor.
Speaker 7: They put thirty million dollars into his race. By twenty twenty,
Speaker 7: they could only spend half of that on politics because
Speaker 7: they were harhaching money and they only made three bets.
Speaker 7: One was Trump and the other two were the two
Speaker 7: Georgia runoffs, and obviously they lost both. But so much
Speaker 7: has changed. Twenty one states now have universal background checks,
Speaker 7: twenty one states have red flag laws. I think thirty
Speaker 7: some states have laws barring domestic abusers for being able
Speaker 7: to buy guns. And so what we've seen is at
Speaker 7: the state level, we've made a significant amount of progress.
Speaker 7: And then just about a year ago that progress extended
Speaker 7: to the US Congress. And the truth is that the
Speaker 7: NRA opposed the bipartisan build that was passed a year
Speaker 7: plus ago. But Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and John
Speaker 7: Cornyan didn't care anymore.
Speaker 1: They don't have the power they used to, right, So
Speaker 1: there's the Raheemy case. This Supreme Court is pretty antagonistic
Speaker 1: to any kind of you know, they feel that if
Speaker 1: the Framers had muskets, then everyone else should have, and
Speaker 1: then everyone in the world should have AR fifteens.
Speaker 7: It's quite a leap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's quite a leap. But it's called but I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know this. It's called textualism. And
Speaker 1: so I'm curious where you are now. They seem to
Speaker 1: be backtracking a little bit, but again, we never know
Speaker 1: of this court.
Speaker 7: The decision that Judge Thomas wrote has basically just created
Speaker 7: so much chaos in the federal courts.
Speaker 1: That's the Bruin case we're talking about. The idea was
Speaker 1: that New York State was not allowed to make the
Speaker 1: kind of gun laws it wanted.
Speaker 7: Yeah, basically, what it required, as you said, was in
Speaker 7: historical underpinning or historical context for laws. And if a
Speaker 7: judge couldn't find some sort of historical precedent for the law,
Speaker 7: then the law actually violated the Second Amendment. But say
Speaker 7: it created just chaos. I mean, you've got judges basically saying,
Speaker 7: can I hire an historian. I'm a judge, not a historian.
Speaker 7: I don't know what the laws were in England before
Speaker 7: this country was founded. I don't know what the lalls were,
Speaker 7: you know, in the late sixteen hundreds or the early
Speaker 7: seventeen hundreds. And so you've got real chaos in the
Speaker 7: federal courts with judges, you know, in one part of
Speaker 7: the country deciding one way another part in the other way.
Speaker 7: And why that is so damaging is because, you know,
Speaker 7: courts are supposed to actually provide predictables. That's why precedent
Speaker 7: is so important from our courts. But in fact, what
Speaker 7: we've got is just unpredictability. But the case that you
Speaker 7: are actually referring to, this most recent case that the
Speaker 7: Supreme Court heard arguments, the Rahemi case, is one where
Speaker 7: you've sort of at the far outreaches where the challenge was,
Speaker 7: could you actually bar a domestic abuser from owning guns?
Speaker 7: And this was a Fifth Circuit case with a judges
Speaker 7: basically saying, well, there's no historical precedent for such a bar,
Speaker 7: which is crazy because you know, what's historical precedent that
Speaker 7: women were property, not even human beings, right, and so
Speaker 7: there was no question about it. When this case was
Speaker 7: argued before the court, you had I don't want to
Speaker 7: be somebody who's a prognosticator of Supreme Court decisions, but
Speaker 7: clearly there was a lot of sympathy across the bench
Speaker 7: for the idea that, of course you would bar a
Speaker 7: domestic abuser from owning gun. I mean, what could be
Speaker 7: more dangerous? And so my hope is that we'll start
Speaker 7: to resolve what the Brewin decision really meant, because right
Speaker 7: now nobody really in the judiciary knows what it means,
Speaker 7: and they're sort of grappling with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is such an incredibly crazy time right now.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this online hub dedicated to holding
Speaker 1: the gun industry accountable. This is one of the really
Speaker 1: interesting things. The NRA has worked really hard on protecting
Speaker 1: gun manufacturers, right. That's sort of which makes sense because
Speaker 1: corporations are people.
Speaker 7: It's really interesting to me because I think the RA
Speaker 7: and this was in their sort of height of their power.
Speaker 7: I think they learned some things, probably from other fights
Speaker 7: about industry, whether it be tobacco or auto. But what
Speaker 7: they did was they persuaded Congress to bar research. Can
Speaker 7: you imagine where we would be with tobacco if we
Speaker 7: didn't have medical research. They convinced Congress to give the
Speaker 7: industry blanket civil immunity. I mean, where would Ralph Nader
Speaker 7: be if the auto industry had blanket civil immunity, meaning
Speaker 7: that you couldn't actually sue them. And so what they
Speaker 7: did was they built sort of a fortress around the
Speaker 7: industry because in many ways, really what is the NRA.
Speaker 7: It's really it represents the industry, it's their protector. And
Speaker 7: so it used Congress to really build this sort of
Speaker 7: impenetrable fortress around the industry, and it sort of took
Speaker 7: away some of the tools that are normally used in
Speaker 7: fights against corporate malfeasans such as research very important, such
Speaker 7: as the ability to sue very important. Now we've been
Speaker 7: able to do some very creative workarounds around that blanket
Speaker 7: civil immunity and actually have been quite successful very recently
Speaker 7: in suing the industry, and there are a number of
Speaker 7: cases that have given substantial award to plaintiffs. But more importantly,
Speaker 7: many of the settlements that we've reached have actually changed
Speaker 7: the industry's practices, for instance, requiring online sellers of ammunition
Speaker 7: to embed an age verification system in their platform, or
Speaker 7: barring ghost gun sellers from selling in the state of California,
Speaker 7: or shutting down manufacturers and dealers who were responsible for
Speaker 7: disproportionate number of what we call crime guns, and those
Speaker 7: are guns that are recovered at crime scenes. But there's
Speaker 7: much more to be done in this area. But you've
Speaker 7: got to bring the industry to the table. And I
Speaker 7: think the only way you're going to bring the industry
Speaker 7: the table is by actually holding them accounta bill in court.
Speaker 7: But just think of some of the things that the
Speaker 7: industry could do. What if you had a palm print
Speaker 7: recognition gun that could only be fired by the rightful owner. Well,
Speaker 7: we wouldn't be waking up in the mor and reading about,
Speaker 7: you know, a four year old playing hide and go
Speaker 7: seek and finding their parents' gun in the sweater drawer
Speaker 7: and accidentally killing their sybil hurting themselves, or we wouldn't
Speaker 7: be reading about which sadly we are reading a lot
Speaker 7: about teenage suicide. Where did team you know get their guns?
Speaker 7: They usually get them from their parents or their relatives
Speaker 7: who have negligently stored them. Or here's something that most
Speaker 7: people don't realize. In fact, there was a point where
Speaker 7: I didn't realize this, which is when you ask, well,
Speaker 7: how do guns get into the black market? One of
Speaker 7: the most reliable ways is through home burglaries and car
Speaker 7: break ins. Well, those guns would have no economic currency
Speaker 7: in the black market if they could only be fired
Speaker 7: by their rightful owner. I mean there are other even
Speaker 7: simpler things like you do when you read, you know,
Speaker 7: these stories of a four year old, you know, firing
Speaker 7: a gun. You think like, well, how can a four
Speaker 7: year old actually pull back the trigger of a gun. Well,
Speaker 7: it's because of the way it's weighted. But you know,
Speaker 7: couldn't the gun in industry rewait the trigger?
Speaker 1: So it's harder to paul. Yeah, So this database that
Speaker 1: you guys are, that you guys have, right, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to sort of point to I mean, this is
Speaker 1: like a gun mocker institute a little bit, right that
Speaker 1: you give the evidence to people to see just what
Speaker 1: the numbers are. Right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that the gun industries, I hate to
Speaker 7: say it this way, but I'm going to the gun
Speaker 7: industry has gotten away with murder, and somehow, you know,
Speaker 7: nobody really puts the gun industry front in the center.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why not.
Speaker 7: I think it's because there have been so many protections
Speaker 7: built around them, truthfully, But you know, think about when
Speaker 7: a police department does a press conference, you know, and
Speaker 7: they lay out the guns that they recovered, and they
Speaker 7: talk about actually the perhaps the caliber of the gun,
Speaker 7: but they never talk about who made the gun. So
Speaker 7: it's a very simple thing about naming the gun that's
Speaker 7: so important and so truthfully, what we are trying to
Speaker 7: do is use some of the same tax we use
Speaker 7: with the NRA by shining a harsh spotlight, by feeding
Speaker 7: the facts to the public. We're trying to do that
Speaker 7: about the gun industry as well, because the truth is
Speaker 7: they are getting away with murder. It has been hard
Speaker 7: to hold them accountable. But times up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think we should end there. Thanks so much, John, Thank.
Speaker 7: You very much.
Speaker 1: A moment oct Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 5: Molly, John Fast. I have to tell you this story
Speaker 5: really sent me into a rage that my usual numbness
Speaker 5: does not allow. But I am pretty angry about this
Speaker 5: situation here at the border.
Speaker 1: Tony.
Speaker 5: What you're seeing here.
Speaker 1: So Greg Abbott, who is like the Henry Kissinger of Texas,
Speaker 1: has you know, really into trying to make it so
Speaker 1: he actually said something this weekend about how he does
Speaker 1: everything but shoot the migrants.
Speaker 4: We are using every tour that can be use, from
Speaker 4: building a border wall, to building these border barriers, to.
Speaker 8: Passing this law that I signed that led to another
Speaker 8: lawsuit by the Biden administration where I signed a law
Speaker 8: making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from another
Speaker 8: country and they're subject to arrest and.
Speaker 4: Subject to deportation. And so we are deploying every tool
Speaker 4: and strategy that we possibly can. The only thing that
Speaker 4: we're not doing is we're not shooting people who come
Speaker 4: across the border, because of course the Bide administration with
Speaker 4: charges with murder.
Speaker 1: So basically what happened here is that three migrants were drowning,
Speaker 1: and it looks like and again we don't totally know yet,
Speaker 1: but that the Texas military would not allow border agents
Speaker 1: to come in and try to save them. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's going to be a lot of investigation here.
Speaker 1: They have at many points, the people at the state
Speaker 1: level in Texas have done things to hurt these people
Speaker 1: but this might be the closest they've gotten to really
Speaker 1: actively being involved in killing people we don't know yet,
Speaker 1: but really just one of the worst things I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And for that Greg Abbott is yet again the creator
Speaker 1: of our terrible moment of buckery. That's it for this
Speaker 1: episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and
Speaker 1: Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense
Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.