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 Texas has passed a new aggressive
Speaker 1: voting bill that was suppressed Democratic votes. We have such
Speaker 1: an interesting show today. The intercepts Ken Klippenstein talk to
Speaker 1: us about the tensions with Iran that are keeping him
Speaker 1: up at night. Then we'll talk to move On's Rana
Speaker 1: Epting about the organization's plan to take back the.
Speaker 2: House for Democrats.
Speaker 1: But first we have legendary Republican operative, the Lincoln Project.
Speaker 2: Stuart Stevens.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics. Stuart Stevens, thanks for asking
Speaker 1: me to the party. Molly, thank you for being so great.
Speaker 1: I feel like this was the week the DeSantis dream
Speaker 1: and dreams in quotes, but it kind of died.
Speaker 3: People never have a sense of how difficult it is
Speaker 3: to run.
Speaker 4: For president, That's true.
Speaker 3: It's not even you know, it's something to say it's
Speaker 3: like going from high school or from college to the NFL,
Speaker 3: but it's really more like going from junior high to
Speaker 3: the NFL. They make a big deal out of Desantus
Speaker 3: winning by nineteen points. Well, you know, I worked for
Speaker 3: Charlie Chris to guy he beat and all of the
Speaker 3: races that he did when he ran as a Republican,
Speaker 3: which he won all those races a journey general governor.
Speaker 3: But as far as I know, I think it's an
Speaker 3: accurate statement that no party switcher has ever defeated an
Speaker 3: incumbent of the party. He switched to Bill Weld in
Speaker 3: Massachusetts when he was reelected. He was re elected in
Speaker 3: Massachusetts by thirty three points, So I mean Rick Perry
Speaker 3: was re elected by double digits.
Speaker 4: How do he do?
Speaker 3: I think it's a false sign of confidence or something.
Speaker 3: In my view, what's happening here is this is a
Speaker 3: campaign that's really being run by the Santus and his wife.
Speaker 3: He just has that feel of a vanity can pain.
Speaker 3: They're going to raise a bunch of money that's going
Speaker 3: to go to a lot of structure, but none of
Speaker 3: that matters as much as you think it does, and
Speaker 3: particularly in a presidential race where you're going to get
Speaker 3: attention otherwise, and I think it just becomes you're buying
Speaker 3: speakers to turn.
Speaker 4: Up the volume of noise.
Speaker 3: I mean, that'll make it music, and it just never
Speaker 3: works that way. I don't know if you've watched the
Speaker 3: guy out there.
Speaker 2: Molly, he just he's terrible.
Speaker 4: It seems miserable.
Speaker 3: You go to find some guy in an orange jumpsuit
Speaker 3: staring in the camera. To find anybody else as miserable,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, these are like hostage videos.
Speaker 1: But what I'm struck by is like so many of
Speaker 1: the National Review crowd. I mean, I got to see
Speaker 1: this firsthand when I wrote this piece about how DeSantis
Speaker 1: is more dangerous than Trump, because I do think he
Speaker 1: I actually believe he is. But all these National Review
Speaker 1: people came after me and they were like, how dare
Speaker 1: you you know? And I realized like he was their
Speaker 1: great white hope, and I thought, like, these people, they
Speaker 1: really believe that he's going to be their president. And
Speaker 1: I was like, how do you think a person with
Speaker 1: no charisma wins the contest which is just largely about charisma.
Speaker 3: I find it fascinating the whole National Review thing, because
Speaker 3: first that they think that, but secondly that they have
Speaker 3: invented this idea of who the Santus is. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's a National Review really supporting a guy that uses
Speaker 3: the power of the state to try to crush a
Speaker 3: free enterprise.
Speaker 4: Corporation that doesn't.
Speaker 2: Agree with like Disney.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's really what they agree in.
Speaker 3: Do they really want to get into the book banning business.
Speaker 2: I think we know the answer to this.
Speaker 4: And I don't think they do.
Speaker 3: I think that they just are so desperate to believe
Speaker 3: in something that you know, they're out there and there's
Speaker 3: a drought the volcano belchis so they start worshiping. It
Speaker 3: rains and they start worshiping volcanoes. So it's got to
Speaker 3: be a connection.
Speaker 4: Here, you know.
Speaker 3: I think it's just sort of sad they're not all
Speaker 3: like that. Jay Nordleyser, who's a Navy of yourways, actually
Speaker 3: lives on the side and he still kept the faith
Speaker 3: there and I love the stuff that he writes for
Speaker 3: the NRO. It's just illusionary and it all goes back
Speaker 3: to this idea that you could do something like support
Speaker 3: Donald Trump and then it would be like it never happened. Right, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're going to get the benefits of that. We're going
Speaker 3: to get these Supreme Court justices. We're gonna get this,
Speaker 3: We're gonna get But then it's we're just going to
Speaker 3: forget the fact that seventy percent of Repoling Party doesn't
Speaker 3: think that Joe Biden is a legally elected president.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you can't unring that bell.
Speaker 4: These things are linear.
Speaker 3: It's all in a process of how democracy side into autocracy.
Speaker 3: These step by step by step. It's not going to
Speaker 3: be like Chili any end day. They're not going to
Speaker 3: at the palace, but it'll be like Victor Orbin and Hungary.
Speaker 4: Who is their model.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, they love Orbon, which is really scary, I mean,
Speaker 1: just completely terrifying.
Speaker 3: You know, I think the problem we have is it's
Speaker 3: difficult to imagine the unimaginable, and it is so hard
Speaker 3: for those of us who have always known America in
Speaker 3: a certain way imagining America becoming something that is dramatically
Speaker 3: different than it is. But there's no reason that can happen.
Speaker 3: It is happening. I think the steps are in place.
Speaker 3: The other thing that really strikes me about the sentence.
Speaker 3: You know, there's this model of big state governors, Republicans
Speaker 3: who get elected President Reagan, Bush, Romney tried. We lost,
Speaker 3: if you haven't heard, but they were positive people. They
Speaker 3: were optimistic, they had an expansive view of the world.
Speaker 3: They were likable. You were drawn to him and you
Speaker 3: look at the Santus. He's just angry at the world
Speaker 3: and there's no policy. We used to say that, I mean,
Speaker 3: it was sort of bullshit, but we used to say
Speaker 3: it that. You know that governors were the laboratories of ideas.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you a question that I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about a lot, and this is goesee idea
Speaker 1: that there's no policy. There sort of is a policy, right,
Speaker 1: it's just wildly unpopular, right, Cutting social security and medicare,
Speaker 1: making more guns more available, that's popular with the base,
Speaker 1: but not popular with the middle. Taking away abortion, you know,
Speaker 1: not teaching sex at in schools. I wonder if you
Speaker 1: know some of what's happening is they know that a
Speaker 1: lot of their ideas are losers.
Speaker 3: There is an agenda, there's not a positive policy agenda.
Speaker 3: I think that it goes to the truth that you
Speaker 3: spoke that the scientist is more dangerous than trun At
Speaker 3: a certain point in politics, you know, Haley Barber used
Speaker 3: to say this, you got to be for something that
Speaker 3: people are for, right, And it's kind of obvious, but
Speaker 3: this stuff isn't popular except with a decreasing minority of
Speaker 3: the people. I don't understand why they aren't able to
Speaker 3: come up with some construct of an economic plan that
Speaker 3: people would find appealing. But the party it exists now
Speaker 3: Republicans and be Democrats. And that's really not what a
Speaker 3: typical political party does. That's sort of like a cartel.
Speaker 3: No one says, like, what does Opek really believe in?
Speaker 3: Like they still all, what is a narco cartel? What
Speaker 3: is their real theory of government?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: It's like, well they still dope, man. So it's really
Speaker 3: almost silly to ask these people this. I don't think
Speaker 3: that we've ever seen anything like this, of a kind
Speaker 3: of complete collapse of a party of any reason to
Speaker 3: exist other than to not be the other side. The
Speaker 3: last couple of days, there's been turn on Fox. You
Speaker 3: see people like Laura Ingram lecturing young people why they
Speaker 3: should be voting publican.
Speaker 1: Right, why they should vote Republican. It's just baffling, like
Speaker 1: does she.
Speaker 3: Not I you know, it's like, you know, we're still
Speaker 3: going out. You just don't know it.
Speaker 1: Trump is going to be the nominee. That seems pretty clear.
Speaker 1: There's nobody who's going to come in there and dislodge him.
Speaker 1: I mean, unless there's some world in which and I mean,
Speaker 1: we've seen that that one indictment just made him more popular.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe Jack Smith comes in there, but it
Speaker 1: just seems like he's on a collision course with the
Speaker 1: nomination at this point.
Speaker 4: I would agree with that.
Speaker 3: Look, you could look at a guy like the Tantas
Speaker 3: and you say, Okay, does he have the ability to change?
Speaker 2: No, clearly not.
Speaker 3: If he did, then what is happening now? I don't
Speaker 3: think is fatal, but I don't think he has either
Speaker 3: the ability or the desire to. And when you define
Speaker 3: yourself like, don't back never back down.
Speaker 1: Right, But it's a fundamental thing. You cannot elect. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: and I got in trouble for saying this, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of Ducaucus. But like and Carrie
Speaker 1: and even your beloved Mitt Romney, Like, those guys were
Speaker 1: not charismatic guys, I'm sorry to tell you.
Speaker 5: I mean, they just weren't the cut.
Speaker 2: They were smart, and they weren't decent.
Speaker 1: But American people aren't necessarily that's not what they're looking
Speaker 1: for in a presidential candidate.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, Look, I mean there's a reason People magazine sells
Speaker 3: more copy than Foreign Affairs, right, you know, we are
Speaker 3: still a personality driven culture. It's not a bad test
Speaker 3: in a campaign when you look at it and you go,
Speaker 3: who is enjoying the campaign the moment, and it's sort
Speaker 3: of like sports and political parties take on personality, and
Speaker 3: he's the way sports seems to and the personality of
Speaker 3: the Republican Party is very angry, aggrieved, embittered. They're giving
Speaker 3: a party. You just kind of don't want to go
Speaker 3: to that party. I mean, I can remember got so
Speaker 3: painfully in two thousand and New Hampshire. I was working
Speaker 3: in the Bushy campaign, right, So we had a sixty
Speaker 3: five point lead at one point in New Hampshire and
Speaker 3: we managed to lose by nineteen So I mean, really
Speaker 3: you really have to work at that, particularly when you're
Speaker 3: out spending the other guy like three to one.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's not something easy to do it really
Speaker 4: to do that.
Speaker 3: But we off to New Hampshire and there was John Became.
Speaker 4: This is when he was doing the.
Speaker 3: Straight Talk Express and he was having the time of
Speaker 3: his life. And then you would go to our rallies
Speaker 3: and it was like, oh god, it's like so much
Speaker 3: more fun over there.
Speaker 4: I can't we just stand there? No, No, we got
Speaker 4: killed a new hair.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the great White hope of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party.
Speaker 2: Chris Christie.
Speaker 1: I feel like he's Schrodenjers Christie because he both works
Speaker 1: for the administration or the Trump administration as it and
Speaker 1: is against the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: You know what is happening.
Speaker 3: Look, this is deeply personal to me. I worked in
Speaker 3: all of Chris's races.
Speaker 4: I love the guy.
Speaker 3: When he beats an incumbent Democrat. The way that he
Speaker 3: did it was really incredible, and that was a very
Speaker 3: joyful campaign. You know, Christy had a great time out
Speaker 3: there campaign and it breaks my heart to see what
Speaker 3: happened to him. It's a perfect example. Had he just
Speaker 3: stayed true, this would be his moment. He could come
Speaker 3: in and say, I told you so. It's difficult for
Speaker 3: me to go out here and say negative things about
Speaker 3: Chris Christy because I liked him so much.
Speaker 2: I think you've explained it exactly right, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the phenomenon that Rick Wilson talks about
Speaker 1: that everything Trump touches dies as sooner or later, you
Speaker 1: debase yourself for him and he ruins you.
Speaker 4: Same with Nikki Haley.
Speaker 3: Nicky Haley had stood the person, stayed the person she
Speaker 3: was when she stood next to Marco Rubio in the
Speaker 3: South Carolina primary and told the truth about Donald Trump
Speaker 3: that he acts like someone I would tell my kindergarteners
Speaker 3: never to be like like. Had she stayed that person,
Speaker 3: this could be her moment. The same with even take
Speaker 3: a guy like Glenn Youngkin. So had Glenn Youngkin not
Speaker 3: run on CRT, had he not run on playing the
Speaker 3: race card? Had he not once he got elected, gone
Speaker 3: out and endorged Kerry Lake?
Speaker 2: Yeah that was a miss.
Speaker 3: Well, then you could say, here's a guy, seems like
Speaker 3: a likable guy, and maybe, but you can't do that
Speaker 3: and then pretend.
Speaker 4: That it didn't happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Look at someone we never talked about him for reasons
Speaker 3: that I'm obvious. But the former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson.
Speaker 3: He was a client of mine and as of the
Speaker 3: candidate's running now, most people aren't aware of the fact
Speaker 3: that As is running, but he is running.
Speaker 1: But he's he's kept his powder dry the most of
Speaker 1: any of those guys.
Speaker 3: He is, he has kept the most true And to
Speaker 3: do that as an Arkansas governor, right, it's not the
Speaker 3: easiest thing.
Speaker 2: That's a seat now occupied by Sarah Sanders.
Speaker 1: Sarah Sanders, right, who is the main bona fides is
Speaker 1: that she worked in the Trump administration and is the
Speaker 1: daughter of the governor.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people in the Trump world who lied,
Speaker 3: like basically all of them.
Speaker 4: Sarah Hutchinson is one of the few.
Speaker 3: Who admitted she lied to the FBI and they got
Speaker 3: elected governor. You know, so, so, so where are there
Speaker 3: successful Republicans?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: So? I just I saw a poll yesterday that Phil Scott,
Speaker 3: the Republican governor Vermont, where I live now, is the
Speaker 3: most popular governor America.
Speaker 4: I mean, I work for Phil Scott. I know the guy.
Speaker 4: There's nothing magical about what he does. He's a guy.
Speaker 3: He gets up in the morning, he goes to work
Speaker 3: and tries to be a good governor. And he's not
Speaker 3: mad at the world. He's not trying to get on
Speaker 3: Fox News. He doesn't have some insane ambition about taking
Speaker 3: over the world. He actually likes being a public service
Speaker 3: and that's really all.
Speaker 4: I take.
Speaker 3: Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, I work for him. Charlie was
Speaker 3: wildly popular. Larry Hogan, I work for Larry Hogan. Help
Speaker 3: elect all these guys. But here's a really telling thing
Speaker 3: about them, Molly, that people don't and you got to
Speaker 3: kind of be it's a little insider. But as popular
Speaker 3: as they are, they cannot pick their own state party chairman,
Speaker 3: which a governor not being able to pick their own
Speaker 3: state party chairman is so un imaginable in politics. It's
Speaker 3: like Bill Bilichchek, you know, I have to call somebody
Speaker 3: before he can like put in a quarterback. That just
Speaker 3: shows how distant they have come from where the party is.
Speaker 3: But if the party had any sense, if we really
Speaker 3: believe this whull shit that we, you know, should run
Speaker 3: things like a business, you look.
Speaker 4: At these guys, you go, wait a second. If we
Speaker 4: could win.
Speaker 3: These states, Massachusetts from aunt Maryland and the general election,
Speaker 3: we own the world. So what can you guys teach us?
Speaker 3: You be our models, because what you're doing is work.
Speaker 2: Don't be fascist.
Speaker 1: But it's not even that people love Biden so much.
Speaker 1: It's just that they are terrified of what's on the
Speaker 1: other side as well.
Speaker 2: They should be.
Speaker 1: I mean, I actually think Biden's doing a very good job,
Speaker 1: and I think they are, you know, I mean, every
Speaker 1: administration has its void bobbles and problems. But it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: They're running against complete lunatics. I mean, you know, the
Speaker 1: other side is, you know, inspecting children's genitals. I mean
Speaker 1: this is not a hard decision. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: even the quarter quotes smart Guy is in a death
Speaker 1: spiral with Disney.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: To be a Republican now is exhausting. Yeah, because it
Speaker 3: requires you to be constantly angry, which is a horrible
Speaker 3: feeling in life. And it requires you to feel like
Speaker 3: a victim, which is a horrible feeling. And the whole benefit,
Speaker 3: the great beauty of living in a civil society is
Speaker 3: not having to think about government, not have to wake
Speaker 3: up in the morning and wonder, like, is the person
Speaker 3: who's running our country? What mood is that person in?
Speaker 3: And Biden frees you from that. Biden is a celebration
Speaker 3: of the virtues of boredom.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: And that's what Tony Ivers said in Wisconsin too. He said,
Speaker 1: I got first Democrat to get reelected in Wisconsin in
Speaker 1: a million years.
Speaker 2: I won by being boreding Stuart Stevens. I hope you
Speaker 2: will please come back.
Speaker 3: Of course, I'm like the crazy uncle at Thanksgiving dinner
Speaker 3: should be careful, inte.
Speaker 2: You have no idea.
Speaker 1: My uncles are much crazier than you could ever. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, I am men, but you are the greatest
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate you.
Speaker 4: Thank you all the best.
Speaker 1: Ken Clippenstein is an investigative reporter for The Intercept. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Ken clipp.
Speaker 2: And Stein going to be with you, guys.
Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you. What is the thing that
Speaker 1: is keeping you up at night right now?
Speaker 5: Just one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can do too, But I want to know, like,
Speaker 1: because I feel like, you know a lot of shit
Speaker 1: that should we should be worried about.
Speaker 2: So tell me what is really freaking you out.
Speaker 5: I would say that tensions with Iran are really escalating
Speaker 5: in ways that have gone sort of unnoticed because of
Speaker 5: understandably the terrible war in Ukraine that everyone is focusing on.
Speaker 5: But we have a you know, Israeli government that is
Speaker 5: very right wing, unprecedentedly right wing, and the US ambassador
Speaker 5: to Israel has publicly encouraged them to do what they
Speaker 5: think that they need to do with regard to the
Speaker 5: Iranian nuclear question, which you know could spell this app
Speaker 5: depending on how that's interpreted by Netanyahu.
Speaker 2: Wait, just say more.
Speaker 5: In the collapse of the Iran Deal, the diplomatic agreement
Speaker 5: wherein Iran agreed not to enrich nuclear technology for a
Speaker 5: weapon in exchange for being able to, you know, have
Speaker 5: sanctions relaxed on them so they can trade with the Europeans,
Speaker 5: with the West. Since Trump abrogated that deal and the
Speaker 5: Biden administration was unable to reinstate it, we're in a
Speaker 5: situation where the Uranians are enriching nuclear technology, not to
Speaker 5: the point of its being a weapon. The CI Director
Speaker 5: and our intelligence community in the Nuclear Posture Review made
Speaker 5: clear that they have not yet made that decision to
Speaker 5: go ahead with the weapon, but they are enriching so
Speaker 5: that if they do make that decision, then they can
Speaker 5: obtain a weapon much more quickly than if they hadn't enriched.
Speaker 5: What that does is it makes it so that the
Speaker 5: Israelis can say, you know, we have to do something
Speaker 5: about the enrichment, even though again they haven't yet decided
Speaker 5: if they're going to pursue a nuclear weapon. They have
Speaker 5: aircraft that could do a airstrike on these facilities. That
Speaker 5: I mean, they have all sorts of options. Israelize a
Speaker 5: powerful military and it's kind of a question mark as
Speaker 5: to you know, how far net Yahoo and not just him,
Speaker 5: but the far right elements within his ruling party would
Speaker 5: be willing to go and to what extent our country
Speaker 5: and in Washington would be willing to try to pressure
Speaker 5: them to not do it, or to stop that, or
Speaker 5: to reverse course. But really, I think a lot of
Speaker 5: this flows from the failure to reinstate that those diplomatic
Speaker 5: accords first put in place by President Obama. And now
Speaker 5: we're going to see how what the response to what
Speaker 5: Iran is doing is going to be, and that can
Speaker 5: be very scary depending on how that plays out.
Speaker 1: All Right, I'm pretty scared about that. Okay, that's because
Speaker 1: it keeps me up at night. You've written about the
Speaker 1: war and Yemen. I was hoping you could talk about
Speaker 1: that because it's related.
Speaker 5: Right, According to the UN, the biggest humanitarian crisis in
Speaker 5: the world. There's a Saudi led air coalition to try
Speaker 5: to oust what are called the Hoothy rebels, who themselves
Speaker 5: pushed out a government that was friendly to ri Odd
Speaker 5: friendly to the Saudis. And over the course of this war,
Speaker 5: which began under the person who's now de facto ruler
Speaker 5: of Saturday. Iba Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman at the
Speaker 5: time was the defense minister. I think this was in
Speaker 5: twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen. He began the war and
Speaker 5: ironically enough called it Operation Decisive Storm because he was
Speaker 5: so confident that it would be over in a couple
Speaker 5: of days. And of course it turns into this Vietnam
Speaker 5: style morass which is now and it's I think eighth year,
Speaker 5: no sign of it ending a devastating effect in the
Speaker 5: people of Yemen. Has killed thousands and thousands of children
Speaker 5: from hunger. The ones that survived are overwhelmingly malnourished. Has
Speaker 5: created the biggest cholera epidemic in modern history. And it's
Speaker 5: not just the air campaign led by the Saudis. It's
Speaker 5: a blockade, a naval blockade, and a ground blockade of
Speaker 5: them so that they can't get resources into the country,
Speaker 5: whether that's humanitarian assistance, food, medicine, things like that, which
Speaker 5: studies have shown the majority of Jumeni's have to depend
Speaker 5: depend on. So this is not a marginal issue that
Speaker 5: affects a fraction of the country. This is something that
Speaker 5: affects most Jumenis. And so that what I learned the
Speaker 5: course of researching that story, based on leaked Pentagon documents
Speaker 5: that have been circulating in the press, was that actually
Speaker 5: the Saudis were having secret negotiations with the Houthis prior
Speaker 5: to the normalization deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which
Speaker 5: I think was very positive and take some of the
Speaker 5: pressure off, take some of the incentive off of the
Speaker 5: Saudis to support this air war and blockade, because the
Speaker 5: fear was that the Huthis you know who you know,
Speaker 5: obviously are tribal, all sorts of problems. It's not a
Speaker 5: group that you want to endorse by any means. With
Speaker 5: this normalization agreement, there's less fear on the Saudist parts
Speaker 5: that the Hoothies are going to be doing things to
Speaker 5: them on the behalf of the Iranians, and so what
Speaker 5: these leak documents which highly classified and you can see why,
Speaker 5: because they want to keep secret that they're undertaking these
Speaker 5: negotiations with this group that they've you know, deemed terrorists.
Speaker 5: The Houthi's actually predated that normalization agreement, may have been
Speaker 5: related to it, but I think it is a cost
Speaker 5: for a lot of hope, I myself hope will be
Speaker 5: an impetus for people to try to push for further negotiations,
Speaker 5: not just around a ceasefire, because what's been celebrated is, oh,
Speaker 5: we have this great ceasefire. They're not having these cross
Speaker 5: border raids and attacks and air strikes, which is good.
Speaker 5: But the reality is the majority of people are dying
Speaker 5: not actually from the fighting, from the air strikes, from
Speaker 5: the cross border raids. They're dying from that blockade that's
Speaker 5: keeping the food in medicine and humanitarian supplies from getting in.
Speaker 5: So my great hope is that they're able to come
Speaker 5: to some sort of agreement where they will lift that
Speaker 5: blockade and allow those resources to reach the people of Yemen,
Speaker 5: and and this terrible famine is really what it is.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of the other reporting that
Speaker 1: you've done. One of the most interesting story non stories
Speaker 1: I feel like over the last couple of years has
Speaker 1: been Havana syndrome. Can you explain what is going on
Speaker 1: with Havana syndrome?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So, in twenty sixteen, a Vanison is named after US
Speaker 5: diplomats and spies who operating in the US embass in
Speaker 5: Cuba reported having these mysterious suite of symptoms A lot
Speaker 5: of them were sort of cognitive. They hearing loud and
Speaker 5: explicable noises, having headaches, suffering nausea whole list of things
Speaker 5: that are kind of hard to define and understand. They
Speaker 5: started reporting all these strange symptoms and it was clustered
Speaker 5: around this embassy in Havana, and initially this was blamed
Speaker 5: on what was suspected to be some kind of directed
Speaker 5: energy weapon, and so there's a whole debate around do
Speaker 5: these things even exist? Is this even possible? And so
Speaker 5: subsequent to those reports, US personnel and other embassies began
Speaker 5: reporting somewhat similar symptoms, and so the CIA led an
Speaker 5: investigation to try and find out what that was, and
Speaker 5: the results were released last year, and what they found
Speaker 5: was that in the majority of cases they were able
Speaker 5: to explain those by pre existing medical condition, untreated psychiatric
Speaker 5: problems to be clear, you know, in some of the
Speaker 5: cases remain and they're not able to understand what it is.
Speaker 5: And so subsequent to that interim report that was released
Speaker 5: last year, just in March last month, there was a
Speaker 5: much more detailed intelligence community assessment drawing on a bunch
Speaker 5: of different intelligence agencies trying to answer that question what
Speaker 5: most of them ended up concluding was essentially the same
Speaker 5: thing that most of these cases have environmental causes or
Speaker 5: you know, pre existing medical conditions.
Speaker 2: Or stress right right, or stress that kind of.
Speaker 1: Sorry to interrupt you, but things that pops up when
Speaker 1: you are really unwilling to deal with, you know, all
Speaker 1: of the stress you're under it. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: people who are working in high stress situations totally.
Speaker 5: And to be clear, yeah, I mean I know you
Speaker 5: know some former CIA officers and they don't seem to
Speaker 5: have a lot of trust in their medical system, and
Speaker 5: so there's there's some amount of fear that they're not
Speaker 5: going to be taken care of or that they're misunderstood.
Speaker 5: That sort of is the backdrop of all of this,
Speaker 5: and that the CI director in is announcement about the
Speaker 5: findings was like, look, I'm not saying that anyone is
Speaker 5: being dishonest or that they're lying to us. Like we
Speaker 5: believe that these that something real is going on, we
Speaker 5: just don't know what it is exactly. And I think
Speaker 5: the subtext is kind of we don't know if this
Speaker 5: is a psychiatric thing, which in itself does still need
Speaker 5: to be treated even if it's not in order, you know,
Speaker 5: even if it's not coming from these directed energy weapons.
Speaker 5: As the intelligence found that it's not, they said they
Speaker 5: have a high degree of confidence that it's not coming
Speaker 5: from a foreign adversary. It was initially blamed on Russia.
Speaker 5: And it's kind of a funny case because whenever I
Speaker 5: talk to people that work in the intelligence community for
Speaker 5: a while, I had asked them early on what they
Speaker 5: thought about this, and I realized it was like a
Speaker 5: roar shot test. Whatever the person's p folio was, whatever
Speaker 5: foreign country they're worried about, they tended to think that
Speaker 5: they were behind the Havana syndrome. So I knew, I
Speaker 5: knew an FBI kind of intelligence oppicer. I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: it's got to be the Chinese, and this person's portfolio
Speaker 5: was China, And you know, to be fair to them.
Speaker 1: It's a roar shack a little bit, right, It's what
Speaker 1: you wanted to be as opposed to maybe psychiatric stuff
Speaker 1: from being under a ton of stress, right.
Speaker 5: And I think, to be fair the folks in the community,
Speaker 5: they do see all sorts of horrible things that these
Speaker 5: foreign adversaries are doing. They're seeing all sorts of terrible
Speaker 5: things that the Chinese are doing. That the Russians are doing,
Speaker 5: that the Iranians are doing. You know, don't dispute any
Speaker 5: of that, but I think that tends to have the
Speaker 5: effect that you start seeing them around every corner where
Speaker 5: perhaps they're not because you know, they operate in a
Speaker 5: very secret environment. They can't talk to anybody about these
Speaker 5: things outside of their immediate colleagues. There's a needed, no
Speaker 5: basis for everything. So I think it creates this very
Speaker 5: unhealthy kind of like echo chamber. I guess where you know,
Speaker 5: they can't there's no and so I understand why they
Speaker 5: get so paranoid about a lot of it. But we're
Speaker 5: kind of seeing this play out in the form of
Speaker 5: this syndrome there trying to figure out what it is
Speaker 5: so that the US government calls it anomaloust health incidents.
Speaker 5: That's the term they've used for it, and what I
Speaker 5: found depending on just released its budget last month and
Speaker 5: it had a thirty six million dollar request for responding
Speaker 5: to the Havana syndrome. That includes not just medical treatment
Speaker 5: for the individuals, but like R and D like research
Speaker 5: to try to find out what the risks are associated
Speaker 5: with it, you know, what might be causing. So it's
Speaker 5: like part of a whole, and it's an interagency thing.
Speaker 5: I think that it's a lot of the money goes
Speaker 5: through the DoD because they have the medical facilities, you know,
Speaker 5: the most significant medical facilities to deal with these things.
Speaker 5: According to this budget, which is like a thousand pages long,
Speaker 5: but if you click through it, you can find quite
Speaker 5: a lot of detail in it because it's describing like
Speaker 5: what do we need money for? It talks about all
Speaker 5: these other agencies coordinating with them, and a lot of
Speaker 5: it is classified. There was an Inspector General report recently,
Speaker 5: I think just earlier this year that said that one
Speaker 5: of the chief problems in treating these cases is so
Speaker 5: much of the information is classified that the doctors can't
Speaker 5: figure out what the heck is going on and can't
Speaker 5: share information with each other. Yeah, so it's kind of
Speaker 5: like in some ways, I think the story's and indictment
Speaker 5: of the overclassification and oversecrecy of the intelligence community to
Speaker 5: a point that it's hurting there on personnel and something
Speaker 5: like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was there anything when you were looking through that
Speaker 1: budget that stuck out to you?
Speaker 2: I was actually wanted to ask you about that, just.
Speaker 5: Like how byzantine it was. I mean, as we know,
Speaker 5: the Pentagon budget is enormous. It's just sprawling us. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's just sprawling eight hundred and forty two billion dollar
Speaker 5: requests that they put forward, which, by the way, when
Speaker 5: the Republicans under House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in his debt
Speaker 5: limit bill, which includes you know, cuts to all kinds
Speaker 5: of domestic programs from clean energy subsidies, student loan forgiveness,
Speaker 5: food stamps, all of these things, does not touch the Pentagon.
Speaker 5: Like the single biggest expense that we that we have.
Speaker 1: Right, single biggest expense that we have while we are
Speaker 1: currently not at war and has never been shaved at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just a little bit.
Speaker 1: Curious since you've seen this document, did you see like,
Speaker 1: you know, ten million dollar toilets. Have they gotten better
Speaker 1: at not doing stuff like that?
Speaker 5: No? I mean what you've seen is like a huge
Speaker 5: shift towards contracting that on a scale that has never
Speaker 5: existed before. So a lot of this money is going
Speaker 5: to private contractors, which you know, if you talk to
Speaker 5: some of the older military brass, they're kind of bitter about.
Speaker 5: They're like, why are we having you know, mercenaries doing
Speaker 5: all these things? Like this should be a you know,
Speaker 5: there's a sense of honor in the military. I think
Speaker 5: that's a real thing, and people take pride in it,
Speaker 5: and I don't think they like the direction in which
Speaker 5: it's gone. But that's something I'm struck by, just how
Speaker 5: much is contracted out and how central the Pentagon system.
Speaker 5: I mean, you talk about why the GOP wants to
Speaker 5: cut from all of these popular programs but don't want
Speaker 5: to cut from this, I would imagine it just you know,
Speaker 5: the Pentagon seems very deft at distributing money out to
Speaker 5: companies in all of these different key districts that Congress
Speaker 5: people probably aren't going to want to lose access to
Speaker 5: those jobs in that money. So it's just like this
Speaker 5: huge leviathan that just keeps growing. And I thought that
Speaker 5: this case was kind of a illustration of that because
Speaker 5: what we saw is so in the Inspector General report,
Speaker 5: I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, they've doubled the staff,
Speaker 5: more than double the staff used to respond to its full
Speaker 5: time military personnel that have been detailed to Avana Centum,
Speaker 5: including a two star general, is being detailed to responded.
Speaker 5: So it's like it's just like everything else in the military.
Speaker 5: It's not unique to Avana Synium. It's like that part
Speaker 5: of the budget just keeps growing.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about this mad Gates war
Speaker 1: criminal story.
Speaker 2: What is happening.
Speaker 1: It's funny because all these you know, maga congress people
Speaker 1: can hire whoever they want, and they really do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in this case, they weren't ashamed of it at all.
Speaker 5: When I went to the spokesperson for Gates that were like, yep,
Speaker 5: we're proud of this, and we back our boys overseas.
Speaker 5: And the way that they've tried to frame it is
Speaker 5: like military service members are you know, treated unfairly. It's
Speaker 5: very much like the discourse around policing here. She's like, oh,
Speaker 5: police have a very difficult job and sometimes they have
Speaker 5: to make tough decisions that you don't understand. You're never
Speaker 5: gonna understand how hard that is. But when you delve
Speaker 5: into the details of this story, it really didn't seem
Speaker 5: that complicated to me.
Speaker 1: A hard decision did not kill someone. It's funny because
Speaker 1: it's like it does remind me. During the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of like pardoning war criminals, and
Speaker 1: you know, remember that that terrifying guy who had you know,
Speaker 1: killed all these people, and they gave him a pardon.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is just.
Speaker 1: This idea of normalizing war criminals and normalizing violence more generally.
Speaker 5: No, you're exactly right. There was specifically a caucus in
Speaker 5: the Congress that Gates was a part of. Louis Gohmert
Speaker 5: and several other conservative Republicans are part of. And the
Speaker 5: entire point of this caucus is commuting or lessening or
Speaker 5: reducing or pardoning sentences for service members that had been
Speaker 5: convicted of these crimes. I mean, you mentioned one case.
Speaker 5: So there's the case of Eddie Gallagher during the Trump administration.
Speaker 5: He's probably that.
Speaker 2: Was who I was thinking about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, gone, yeah, probably the highest profile case. He was
Speaker 5: a Navy seal who had a teenage prisoner of war.
Speaker 5: I think he was accused of stabbing him to death,
Speaker 5: and then, if I recall correctly, he sent pictures kind
Speaker 5: of like bragging about it to one of the other seals.
Speaker 5: And so that was one of the cases where I
Speaker 5: think he was pardoned or I can't remember exactly what.
Speaker 5: Trump intervened in some fashion a trial. And so this
Speaker 5: is part of the whole project that is taking place.
Speaker 5: And so in the case of Gates' aid, who had
Speaker 5: actually been working there for several months. And I was
Speaker 5: tipped off to this by a friend who's a congressional aid,
Speaker 5: who said, Hey, why has no one done a story
Speaker 5: on Matt Gates's aid being a war criminal. I was
Speaker 5: like what. I couldn't believe the words because it is
Speaker 5: so surreal because he'd been there for like, I think
Speaker 5: six months or something. So I look into the case.
Speaker 5: It turns out what the guy told me was exactly right.
Speaker 5: This this individual had been interrogating an Afghan civilian whom
Speaker 5: he suspected of working with the Tailban, and during the
Speaker 5: course of that interrogation shot him in the you know,
Speaker 5: straddled him and then shot him in the head, and
Speaker 5: then told some of other service members afterwards, Oh, I
Speaker 5: think I thought it was lying, so I killed him.
Speaker 5: And so he was sentenced to I think it was
Speaker 5: like a life Yeah, it was a life sentence. And
Speaker 5: then what ended up happening was after some of these
Speaker 5: Republicans intervened, the military board ended up reducing his sentence
Speaker 5: and letting him out after I think it was maybe
Speaker 5: a decade or so. And so right after that then
Speaker 5: Gates hired him, and now he's not just an aid
Speaker 5: to Gates, he's specifically an aid on defense issues. And
Speaker 5: so when I went to the Press secretary, they weren't
Speaker 5: embarrassed at all.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh because it's so upsetting and
Speaker 1: profoundly disturbing.
Speaker 2: And I mean, as someone.
Speaker 1: Who you know, my grandfather was a Communist who worked
Speaker 1: in the Voice of America and was, you know, very
Speaker 1: anti war, but committed to World War Two because of Nazis, obviously,
Speaker 1: and we were on the other side with the Nazis,
Speaker 1: so they like that. But the idea that we have
Speaker 1: in our government, you know, a group that is trying
Speaker 1: to make war crimes more socially acceptable, it just blows
Speaker 1: my fucking mind.
Speaker 2: Anyway, continue, Yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Came to this with an open mind because to some
Speaker 5: extent I think it's true. I mean, you have these
Speaker 5: kids that are like nineteen or overseas. I think about
Speaker 5: myself when I was nineteen, God where I have I mean,
Speaker 5: I probably wouldn't shoot someone in the head when I'm
Speaker 5: interrogating them, but you know, maybe I'd do something stupid.
Speaker 5: So I really wanted to give it a fair hearing.
Speaker 5: And look, into the details of the case, and unfortunately
Speaker 5: it was not the sort of you know, nuanced complex
Speaker 5: issue that I think Gates in that caucus I was
Speaker 5: talking about tried to make it out to be. It
Speaker 5: really seemed to be a lot more black and white
Speaker 5: to me, as do many of the other cases. Unfortunately,
Speaker 5: so I think it's sort of a misdirection because they're
Speaker 5: praying on people's good will and understanding that God, we
Speaker 5: send these kids out there, they probably aren't emotionally prepared
Speaker 5: for these things. I totally get that. I happen to
Speaker 5: agree with that, but you can't just have a blanket
Speaker 5: amnesty for every crime because of that, you know, you
Speaker 5: have to look at the specifics exactly.
Speaker 2: Ken clippen Stein, I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 5: My pleasure is really nice chatting with you guys.
Speaker 1: Rana Epting is the executive director of move On.
Speaker 2: Welcome Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 6: Rana, Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you. So first things first that
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about is move On
Speaker 1: is working on winning back the House by targeting. Tell
Speaker 1: us about your plan, because this is pretty interesting.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So there's eighteen Republicans that won their House elections
Speaker 7: this last cycle in twenty twenty two, but turns out
Speaker 7: in twenty twenty those districts went for Biden.
Speaker 6: So these guys are super vulnerable.
Speaker 7: They're in moderate districts, they won as moderate Republicans, but
Speaker 7: lo and behold, they're voting with the extremist wing of
Speaker 7: the party the vast majority of the time. In fact,
Speaker 7: we looked at all their e votes, they're voting with
Speaker 7: Marjorie Hilly Green one hundred percent of the time. I'm
Speaker 7: like thirty of the most consequential votes they've taken since
Speaker 7: they came into office.
Speaker 6: This year.
Speaker 7: We're on the case. We think they're beatable. We're going
Speaker 7: to keep hammering on them. We started a few months ago,
Speaker 7: and we're going to go all the way through the
Speaker 7: twenty four election cycle and get these guys out of
Speaker 7: office and take back the House.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us a little bit about certainly
Speaker 1: a bunch of those districts are in New York State, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a bunch in New York State.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the districts in New York State,
Speaker 1: because you know, as someone who lives in New York State,
Speaker 1: I feel like they really fucked up, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about it.
Speaker 7: I think that's a great description of what happened. They really,
Speaker 7: they really messed this one up. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 7: these districts should have gone to the Democrat. And I
Speaker 7: think the kerfuffle in New York State this last cycle was.
Speaker 1: Really redistricting and just like bad campaigning or no campaigning
Speaker 1: in the case of like Sean Patrick Maloney who was
Speaker 1: doing national television the Sunday before the election.
Speaker 6: Right, So you've.
Speaker 7: Got so here are the Republicans. You've got New York now,
Speaker 7: thanks to the fumble, you've got represented to La Looda right,
Speaker 7: New York one Lawler Molinaro. Oh, our favorite George Santos.
Speaker 1: Right, that's right, and that's Nasau County. That's a D
Speaker 1: plus two.
Speaker 6: And then we've got Williams in New York twenty two.
Speaker 2: Right. And then also we have at Desposita.
Speaker 1: Right, the Sean Patrick Maloney seat which he lost to
Speaker 1: a Republican. Yeah, so how do you flip these seats?
Speaker 7: We have to expose these Republican electeds for the extremist
Speaker 7: elected officials.
Speaker 6: That they are.
Speaker 7: I mean, they ran campaigns positioning themselves as moderates and
Speaker 7: so far they have not legislated accordingly, and so it's
Speaker 7: not you know, our job is to just make the
Speaker 7: facts plane to the voters in their districts that this
Speaker 7: is not what you signed up for. I think that's
Speaker 7: something we can do over the next two years. So
Speaker 7: we're gonna we're pouring through the SEC filings. We're going
Speaker 7: to be making sure we're researching all of their actions
Speaker 7: and their speeches and what they're doing. So there's like
Speaker 7: opposition research happening. But we've also got to like when
Speaker 7: they do the wrong thing, we got to call them
Speaker 7: out on it. So we've got organized cohorts of members
Speaker 7: in these districts ready to spin up actions in their
Speaker 7: district lobby meetings, bird.
Speaker 6: Dogging, what have you. And then you know, we drive
Speaker 6: paid media plays as well.
Speaker 7: But you know, it's kind of never letting your eye,
Speaker 7: never letting your focus go elsewhere, and really really giving
Speaker 7: these guys a hard time. And look, if they end
Speaker 7: up governing as the moderates they say they are great,
Speaker 7: I think that's, you know, probably what the voters wanted.
Speaker 6: But right now that's not what the facts they're telling us.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you about these other seats that
Speaker 1: you guys are targeting.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so we've got a lot in California. You mentioned
Speaker 7: that we've got Duarte in California thirteen. Mike Garcia is
Speaker 7: a famous name. I mean, here's the thing. I can
Speaker 7: go through the list, right, but honestly, these people aren't
Speaker 7: Besides George Santos, they're flying under.
Speaker 2: The radar right right, right right.
Speaker 6: And that's the problem is they're saying, elect me, I'm.
Speaker 7: A moderate, rebel headed Republican, and yet they're allowing the
Speaker 7: most extremist wing of the Republican Party all the shots,
Speaker 7: and they're voting with them. And so that's the problem.
Speaker 7: So a lot of these names most people may not
Speaker 7: have heard of. But if we're successful, which I believe
Speaker 7: we will be, these guys are going to be famous,
Speaker 7: you know, in a year.
Speaker 1: Right, because it is this idea that in the Republican
Speaker 1: Party now there are no moderates. Right, if you don't
Speaker 1: vote one hundred percent of the time with Marjorie Tayler Green,
Speaker 1: you are out.
Speaker 6: Yeah, imagine what it could have looked like.
Speaker 7: Remember when they were voting for a speaker McCarthy earlier
Speaker 7: this year, and what then the chaos that ensued, Like,
Speaker 7: imagine what it looked like if those eighteen supposed moderate
Speaker 7: Republicans had put their foot down and said, no, we're
Speaker 7: not conceding to Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates and
Speaker 7: Lauren Berber in these and we're putting our foot like
Speaker 7: they have more power, they're not exercising it. They're allowing
Speaker 7: the party to be this extremist.
Speaker 2: Party because they're scared of the base.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly, and they're scared of those that got elected
Speaker 7: in these base heavy districts.
Speaker 6: But these guys are beatable.
Speaker 7: I mean, you've got Representative David Schweiker in Arizona, he
Speaker 7: won by less than a percentage point, right, and then you've.
Speaker 6: Got like Rep.
Speaker 7: Duarte in California, who won by less than six hundred votes.
Speaker 6: Like, this is beatable stuff here.
Speaker 7: We just got to be focused and we've got to
Speaker 7: make plane to the voters what these guys.
Speaker 2: Are up to. So tell me what else you're working on.
Speaker 7: All the campaign we're doing is really focused on the
Speaker 7: eighteen Republicans in those Biden districts, but there is a
Speaker 7: lot of other stuff that's happening as well. I mean,
Speaker 7: you've got this Clarence Thomas business. Our members have been
Speaker 7: outraged around Clarence Thomas since the beginning of time, but
Speaker 7: most recently earlier this year, we had a petition over
Speaker 7: like one point three million members signed in a matter
Speaker 7: of a weekend to demand that he stepped down or
Speaker 7: be impeached. People have had I've had it, and then
Speaker 7: you have this news that he's taken at least six
Speaker 7: trips on Harlan Crowe's private jet places like Indonesia.
Speaker 1: I mean, what would the recourse be for something like that,
Speaker 1: for a Supreme Court justice that's pocketing millions of dollars
Speaker 1: from his owners?
Speaker 7: I mean, what can we actually do about it? So,
Speaker 7: first of all, I don't have to tell you. I mean,
Speaker 7: the threat is huge. The fact that this is all
Speaker 7: coming out and you're seeing Republicans, most of them shrug
Speaker 7: their shoulders.
Speaker 6: And say, what are you going to do about it?
Speaker 7: Is very, very detrimental to the people's faith in our
Speaker 7: democratic system period. And this is the highest court of
Speaker 7: the land. So if we want to I am not
Speaker 7: a believer in tearing down faith in democracy, like I
Speaker 7: think that is a very scary posture to be in.
Speaker 1: Right, But I mean, is there a impeachment proceedings. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's great to have a lot of people in a petition,
Speaker 1: but what could.
Speaker 7: Because there's a split conger Congress, it's tough, but Democrats
Speaker 7: could all be calling for impeachment of Clarence Thomas. They
Speaker 7: could be forward on this. They don't have the votes
Speaker 7: because we don't have all of this, we don't have
Speaker 7: the majority, but we could be calling for the Senate
Speaker 7: could be launching hearings and to Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 1: Right, So that makes sense, So that would be something
Speaker 1: to focus on, is Senate hearings.
Speaker 6: For That would be a good thing to focus on.
Speaker 7: Also, John Roberts has a responsibility to maintain the integrity
Speaker 7: of the court, so he could be having backdoor conversations
Speaker 7: or public conversations demanding that this is enough is enough, right,
Speaker 7: Like they have to protect the integrity of the highest.
Speaker 2: Cordab land right right right.
Speaker 6: Though.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's not an easy slam dunk in terms
Speaker 7: of what the answer is, but shrugging our shoulders is
Speaker 7: definitely not that.
Speaker 6: And there's a lot that Democrats can do.
Speaker 7: Even with their limited with their with being the minority
Speaker 7: in the House, but especially with the majority in the Senate.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this McCarthy death ceiling fight, which
Speaker 1: is on the horizon. I mean, what does this look
Speaker 1: like for your organization? I mean what this seems like
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that there certainly have to be
Speaker 1: five Republicans who could go along with Democrats.
Speaker 7: They might be, you know, five of those eighteen we're
Speaker 7: talking about. Shouldn't they be voting to support the full
Speaker 7: faith and credit of the United States?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 7: So I think this is one a winnable thing for
Speaker 7: the president. But Speaker McCarthy and the extremeist wing of
Speaker 7: this party, they're just going to keep playing football with
Speaker 7: the credit of the United States, and it's going to put.
Speaker 6: All of our economic well being at risk.
Speaker 7: So it's not just what's in it for the president
Speaker 7: or what's in it for our campaigning, it's like, what's
Speaker 7: in it for the country.
Speaker 6: This is insanity. I mean, we're in.
Speaker 7: This position in the first place because Donald Trump and
Speaker 7: Republicans when they were in office, made all these tax
Speaker 7: cuts for the wealthy, and so that's why we're talking
Speaker 7: about deficits and all of that. But increasing the debt
Speaker 7: limit is a normal thing every Congress does. There If
Speaker 7: you want a way to balance the budget, you do
Speaker 7: that in the budget process. But Republicans are tying these
Speaker 7: two things together and holding it hostage. And I think
Speaker 7: at the end of the day, McCarthy and the Republicans
Speaker 7: are going to lose this fight. Nobody wants to see
Speaker 7: the US default on its credit and they don't want
Speaker 7: to be seen as the people that pushed us into
Speaker 7: this nightmare.
Speaker 1: Yeah Jesus Nate, this did happen though, that Republicans did
Speaker 1: default and it ended up with it was a default
Speaker 1: on the American credit rating, and it ended up being
Speaker 1: very bad for the markets. So I do think there's
Speaker 1: really downgrade. There was a credit downgrade and it ended
Speaker 1: up being very bad for the market. So I'm just curious.
Speaker 1: I mean, why do you think they won't ultimately do it?
Speaker 7: Well, first of all, I'm not sure they have their
Speaker 7: ducks in a row right do anything, Because last I heard,
Speaker 7: last I read yes yesterday, is McCarthy put out this
Speaker 7: plan and then we're already hearing rumblings at behind closed
Speaker 7: doors Republicans were.
Speaker 6: Arguing about it, and they're not aligned.
Speaker 7: So I don't even know if this is going to
Speaker 7: get past the House, let alone be a fight. So
Speaker 7: it's taken them this long to even present this package,
Speaker 7: which is absurd, and the American public is not going
Speaker 7: to go for me.
Speaker 6: Just think about it.
Speaker 7: On the merits alone, the American public want to cut
Speaker 7: food stamps, hurt veterans' medical care, put meals on wheels.
Speaker 1: I mean, the American public doesn't want it, but the
Speaker 1: Republican Party does.
Speaker 7: Yeah, which is the ultimate problem we're in is the
Speaker 7: base is holding all of us hostage by their wildly
Speaker 7: unpopular views.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's quite interesting. So do you think I mean,
Speaker 1: here we are with this stat ceiling coming down, I mean,
Speaker 1: is there anything right now that people who are listening
Speaker 1: can do?
Speaker 2: Writing the representatives? What should they be doing?
Speaker 6: Well, I think a really.
Speaker 7: Cool thing people should be doing the calling leader of
Speaker 7: Speaker McCarthy's office and telling him to quit playing chicken
Speaker 7: with the full faith and credit of the United States.
Speaker 7: I mean, he's not everyone's representative, but he is the
Speaker 7: Speaker of the House and he should be hearing holy
Speaker 7: hell from voters across this country. That'd be one thing.
Speaker 7: And then I think, just like talking to folks about
Speaker 7: here is what the Republicans are asking for in exchange
Speaker 7: for a temporary one year increase of.
Speaker 6: The debt limit. People are going to be enraged by this.
Speaker 6: This is not good faith negotiation, right.
Speaker 1: No, that's definitely true. This has been so interesting. Thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 6: Oh, I would love to thank you.
Speaker 8: No, Jesse Cannon, Molly Jong Fast You know this Supreme
Speaker 8: Court ruling on mif Prostone was very sad for some
Speaker 8: of the Republicans Injustices Justice Alido.
Speaker 2: He did not get his own way and he is
Speaker 2: not pleased.
Speaker 1: There will be hours and hours of Fox News you
Speaker 1: will have to watch to make himself feel better. Jinny
Speaker 1: Thomas will be posting through it.
Speaker 8: If somebody could show me the Facebook group post she's
Speaker 8: making right now, I.
Speaker 1: Want to see Genny Thomas's Finsta.
Speaker 2: I'm switching by Twitter handle to that.
Speaker 1: Jenny Thomas's Finsta And for that, they are our moment
Speaker 1: of fuck Ray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
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