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 speaker Mike Johnson will blur the
Speaker 1: faces of the January sixth rioters before releasing the footage
Speaker 1: the Party of Law and Order. Ladies and gentlemen, we
Speaker 1: have such a great show today. Congressman Rocanna goes over
Speaker 1: the landscape now that the Republican majority is one George
Speaker 1: Santos slimmer. Then we will talk to Mark Ciusano about
Speaker 1: his new book, The Fabulous, The Lying, hustling, grifting, stealing
Speaker 1: and very American legend of George Santos. But first we
Speaker 1: have the Mary Trump Shows, the One, the Only Mary Trump.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics. Mary Trump.
Speaker 2: Hey, Molly, it is great to be here. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to ask you how you are.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about you before we did this interview,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking, I'm going to tell her that
Speaker 1: I love her even if her uncle destroys democracy.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean this is the most American story ever, right,
Speaker 1: like reality television host is underestimated, becomes president, is able
Speaker 1: to fuck everything up, loses presidency, and now is the
Speaker 1: Republican front Runner again.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a deeply modern American story. It would rise
Speaker 2: to the level of Greek tragedy if it weren't for
Speaker 2: the obscene absurdity of it all.
Speaker 1: I feel like because we've been living in it for
Speaker 1: the last decade, by the way, decade, because we're at
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, so we're like two years away from
Speaker 1: a decade of our lives being spent on this nonsense.
Speaker 1: But because we've been in it for so long, I
Speaker 1: think sometimes we forget the absurdity of it. And the
Speaker 1: truth is, it's like we got here because it was
Speaker 1: so absurd that people could not take it.
Speaker 2: Yerious slagh. Yeah, it's a stealth weapon in a way.
Speaker 2: I remember that well in twenty fifteen, in early twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: when I was still talking to my aunt, and part
Speaker 2: of it was because we knew him so well, and
Speaker 2: part of it was because we'd been in New York forever.
Speaker 2: We just thought, this guy's such a clown. There's no
Speaker 2: way this plays anywhere. But of course, I think neither
Speaker 2: one of us had watched The Apprentice either, so we
Speaker 2: didn't quite have our figures on the police of what
Speaker 2: was happening in the rest of the country. But I
Speaker 2: think we've gotten to a point where we're almost full circle.
Speaker 2: We need to deploy that as a weapon as well.
Speaker 2: Our strategy for the next eleven months has to be
Speaker 2: going after the higher brow issues, you know, talking about
Speaker 2: democracy and what it means to lose a democracy and
Speaker 2: calling out the fascism, but we also have to hit
Speaker 2: really hard on the other end of the spectrum to
Speaker 2: point out just how absurd and ridiculous he is, and
Speaker 2: that not that that doesn't make him dangerous, but that
Speaker 2: to cast a vote for him would be an act
Speaker 2: of just shame, and we need to mock him because
Speaker 2: that is something that he can't handle. And I think honestly,
Speaker 2: for Donald as an individual person, it's not about battling
Speaker 2: with him on policy. It's about reminding him every second
Speaker 2: of every day what a fucking loser he is.
Speaker 1: Yes, I would say the reason you do that, I
Speaker 1: mean it's because it's destabilizing to Trump, and Trump needs
Speaker 1: to be destabilized in order to be defeated. Was something
Speaker 1: that de Santis could not do.
Speaker 2: Continue sorry, exactly, desanctimonious could not do the same thing
Speaker 2: because apparently nobody allegedly running for the Republican nomination wants
Speaker 2: anybody other than Donald to be the nominee. He lacks
Speaker 2: de talent, continue the talent and the charisma or whatever.
Speaker 4: But listen, Molly, I have to be honest.
Speaker 2: I am so sick of having to fight in that
Speaker 2: particular trench. You know, sometimes I feel like this is
Speaker 2: really not how I want to be spending my time,
Speaker 2: not how I want to be spending my time.
Speaker 1: It's not how any of us too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, But we do need to realize that it's
Speaker 2: a weapon. It's not sinking to his level, it's using
Speaker 2: his own weapons against him, because otherwise exactly has happened
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, the field is clear for him to
Speaker 2: reduce everybody else to becoming the kinds of people we're
Speaker 2: seeing in the Republican nominating contest right now, who just
Speaker 2: cannot figure out a way to surpass him because they
Speaker 2: are not doing the one thing that needs to be done.
Speaker 2: And hopefully the Democrats won't have such compunction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, what I think is amazing about their
Speaker 1: problem when it comes to Trump is that Republicans are
Speaker 1: completely unable to stand up to him, maybe because they're
Speaker 1: afraid of death threats, maybe because they're cowards, maybe because
Speaker 1: they just want to keep power. And somehow that dynamic
Speaker 1: has continued despite the fact that he had like you know,
Speaker 1: like I think so much about that. You know, all
Speaker 1: the times when Republicans are like, well, we're just not
Speaker 1: going to stand up to him now, they never found
Speaker 1: a good moment to grow a spine, and so they
Speaker 1: never did no.
Speaker 2: And then they sort of realized that they didn't have to.
Speaker 2: It's easier to go along to get along, or whatever
Speaker 2: that expression is that I haven't said since eighteen thirty two.
Speaker 2: It's about positioning for the future. But I think in
Speaker 2: the shorter, more dangerous term, it's their recognition, their sort
Speaker 2: of lizard brain reptilian recognition, that he is the best
Speaker 2: instrument for them to regain and maintain illegitimate power in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, think about that for a minute. So basically it's
Speaker 1: the end of democracy, but Republicans don't mind because their
Speaker 1: sign wan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it'll be if the worst case scenario happens
Speaker 2: that Donald cheats, lies and steals his way into the
Speaker 2: White House, because let's be clear, he kind of win legitimately.
Speaker 1: Which is why he says democrats can't win legitimately exactly exactly, which.
Speaker 2: Is why the Republicans are impeaching Biden. So you know,
Speaker 2: they're trying to take our weapons away by deploying them
Speaker 2: against us and making them irrelevant.
Speaker 4: So if he gets.
Speaker 2: In in twenty twenty eight, he'll just pick a successor.
Speaker 1: Right, You think he'll pick a successor.
Speaker 4: It depends on what kind of shape he's in.
Speaker 2: But either he will or somebody else will, right, or
Speaker 2: he'll just keep going until you know, his mummified corpse
Speaker 2: will be president.
Speaker 1: We have great rentals, but Don Junior will never be president.
Speaker 4: No, does that disappointment?
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: The one thing that I'm not surprised by is that
Speaker 1: I pride myself on my front relationship with my parents.
Speaker 1: But what's happening over there is pretty incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's textbook family dysfunction on an exponential level. You know,
Speaker 2: It's it's sort of the platonic ideal of family dysfunction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of spectacular stuff. So Trump really still
Speaker 1: has ninety one federal indictments, right, So while he is
Speaker 1: the Republican front runner, he's also in quite a bit
Speaker 1: of trouble if this works out, If this new York
Speaker 1: case happens the way it's meant to happen. And again,
Speaker 1: I still think there could be he could get a
Speaker 1: hail Mary from a higher court. But if it does,
Speaker 1: he will lose that business, your family business, the one
Speaker 1: that he stole from your relatives. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: what you think the psychological implication of.
Speaker 2: That is, we cannot overestimate the importance of this case
Speaker 2: to him. The other cases bolster his credibility among his base.
Speaker 4: Being a criminal.
Speaker 2: Who's willing to steal classified documents because he has all
Speaker 2: the power, etc.
Speaker 6: Etc.
Speaker 4: Order to incite an insurrection, what have you.
Speaker 2: This gets to the very heart of who he thinks
Speaker 2: he is, which he also knows on some very deep level,
Speaker 2: is a myth.
Speaker 4: It's a myth that.
Speaker 2: Was created by my grandfather to serve my grandfather's own ends.
Speaker 2: It was a myth that was perpetuated by the New
Speaker 2: York media in the late seventies and eighties, and then
Speaker 2: the banks, and then Mark Burnett and then the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: The longer the myth has been allowed to stand unchallenged,
Speaker 2: and the stronger it's gotten. I mean, actually, I cannot
Speaker 2: tell you how much I hate saying this. He's an
Speaker 2: extraordinarily powerful person and at one time he was the
Speaker 2: most powerful person on the planet, which this country will
Speaker 2: never recover from that egregiousness. But the point being, he
Speaker 2: has so much more to lose, and all of that,
Speaker 2: or at the center of all of that, I should say,
Speaker 2: is his almost unshakable belief that he is this brilliant
Speaker 2: businessman who's self made. And the cracks have been showing.
Speaker 2: But that's why he's been in the courtroom, like he
Speaker 2: hasn't been in any other courtroom unless he's been ordered
Speaker 2: to be. As far as I know, he voluntarily went there.
Speaker 2: I could think of a billion other things I'd rather
Speaker 2: do than send a court room for no reason all
Speaker 2: day long. But part of that was to feel like
Speaker 2: he had some kind of control over the situation, which
Speaker 2: obviously he didn't. But part of it was to send
Speaker 2: a signal about how important this is. This will destroy
Speaker 2: to the extent that it's possible, because he's so defended
Speaker 2: everything he's ever believed about himself or wanted everybody else.
Speaker 6: To believe about it him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. The punishment
Speaker 1: for it is humongous, Like he will lose the business.
Speaker 1: He will be forced to sell the assets, The entire
Speaker 1: myths of Trump will go, All of the things that
Speaker 1: he considers himself will be stripped away.
Speaker 2: I'm not familiar enough with how this kind of civil
Speaker 2: trial works to know how.
Speaker 4: It's going to play out.
Speaker 2: If the ruling is as it should be and he
Speaker 2: gets fined appropriately and everything remains in receivership, it will
Speaker 2: be appealed immediately.
Speaker 4: I don't know what that means. I don't know if
Speaker 4: they can immediately take the.
Speaker 2: Name off of Trump Tower and start selling stuff, or
Speaker 2: if everything is just put on hold as the appeals
Speaker 2: wind their way through the higher courts. But I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure it means that he has no access and gets
Speaker 2: no benefits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think there's a sort of self destructive
Speaker 1: aspect to him? I'm thinking about we're watching him. Obviously
Speaker 1: there is a self destructive aspect him, But like you know,
Speaker 1: he went after Obamacare the other day, which is like
Speaker 1: such a loser for him, and I just wondered if, like,
Speaker 1: perhaps his self destructive aspect is getting a little bit worse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for a long time now, there's there has been
Speaker 2: that drive towards self destructive behavior again, because he's just
Speaker 2: this terrified little boy who is in way over his
Speaker 2: head and knows it. The irony, I suppose, is that
Speaker 2: other people keep trying to protect him from himself, not
Speaker 2: because they give a shit about him, because they need him.
Speaker 2: One of the great conundrums in mordern American politics is
Speaker 2: that Donald who is incompetent and capable, unfit and all
Speaker 2: those other adjectives, has always been useful to smarter, more
Speaker 2: powerful men.
Speaker 4: So he remains useful to.
Speaker 2: Smarter and more powerful man exactly. And they don't want
Speaker 2: him falling apart. But he's really giving them a run
Speaker 2: for their money, because, let's face it, it's not just Obamacare,
Speaker 2: it's also what he's doing in terms of his position
Speaker 2: on abortion and I well, those might be the only
Speaker 2: two policy but the way he keeps miss speaking, which
Speaker 2: you could also say or Freudian slips, like he said
Speaker 2: that the Republican Party is out to destroy American democracy,
Speaker 2: right yeah, and he you know, he keeps doing things
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Luckily for those smart and more powerful people, the base
Speaker 2: doesn't care.
Speaker 4: The base will.
Speaker 2: Laugh and cheer if he's calling for the execution of
Speaker 2: a general who's done nothing but serve his country admirably.
Speaker 1: For Dick, I mean, that stuff is amazing, and.
Speaker 4: That's what we need to be paying attention to.
Speaker 2: Let's keep going after Donald and destabilizing him before he
Speaker 2: gets more power than he has now. But let's pay
Speaker 2: attention to how our fellow citizens are responding to jokes
Speaker 2: about Paul Pelosi, who are responding to calls for executions,
Speaker 2: who were responding to his attacks on law clerks for
Speaker 2: God's sakes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's listen to them.
Speaker 2: Let's pay attention to them, because they're the ones who
Speaker 2: are driving all of this quite honestly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the vermin comment, let's talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 1: We have heard him do a lot of that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, very dark. I mean, I remember his inauguration
Speaker 1: speech that w considered some weird shit. Do you think
Speaker 1: your uncle is capable of genocide? I mean, because that
Speaker 1: is genocidal language.
Speaker 2: If nothing else, Donald Trump will do anything that needs
Speaker 2: to be done in order to protect himself, in order
Speaker 2: to continue to receive ill gotten gains, and in order
Speaker 2: to remain empower period.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not what I was hoping for. This was
Speaker 1: not the answer. Not to make light of a question
Speaker 1: like that, but I was hoping for you know, while
Speaker 1: I think even.
Speaker 2: He there's no bottom, there are no limits, and the
Speaker 2: people around him know that, and they don't care either.
Speaker 1: I plan to not sleep tonight.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Thank you. We have to talk about this because the
Speaker 1: stakes are incredibly high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if language like that is allowed to be normalized,
Speaker 2: which the corporate media is doing their damnedest to do,
Speaker 2: the rest of us, if all goes badly, are going
Speaker 2: to be at the mercy of those crowds who cheer
Speaker 2: Donald on and laugh at his desire to see his
Speaker 2: enemies destroyed.
Speaker 1: Mary Trump, thank you. Congressman Rocanna represents California's seventeenth district.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, too fast politics. Congressman Rocanna, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me.
Speaker 3: Great see you the other day.
Speaker 1: Who was great seeing you the other day. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the House of Representatives. Republicans have a one
Speaker 1: last seat majority that George Santos thing the House has
Speaker 1: not expelled to member since two thousand and two with
Speaker 1: James traffickant discuss.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's like the Republicans finally woke up
Speaker 3: and realized how obnoxious and damaging it is to their
Speaker 3: brand to have someone who basically used public office for
Speaker 3: a personal profit. I mean, he was running for office
Speaker 3: so he could make money and use people's money for
Speaker 3: personal use. The amazing thing is it took them almost
Speaker 3: a year to come to that recognition and to expel him,
Speaker 3: even though it's not in their narrow interests. And the
Speaker 3: question is, you know, how long is it going to
Speaker 3: take them to realize all the other outlandish, terrible things
Speaker 3: in their party and break the fever. Obviously that it
Speaker 3: took a year just to get Santos out and it's
Speaker 3: not and it doesn't give you much hope.
Speaker 1: We heard Mike Johnson say vote your conscience, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: this guy, I don't know where he's coming from. When
Speaker 1: the vote happens, he just changes his mind. In all
Speaker 1: of the Republican leadership vote against expelling Santos. I mean,
Speaker 1: doesn't that completely negate any of the good optics of
Speaker 1: getting rid of Santos?
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean the fact that half of their party
Speaker 3: still was split, it shows you that they're just gonna
Speaker 3: They have such a tribal mentality their team and don't
Speaker 3: look at any ethics on the flip side, you know,
Speaker 3: the Democrats, you sneeze the wrong way and will be
Speaker 3: the first puts to say, let's have an equery against you.
Speaker 3: You know, has happened with Al Frank getting a number
Speaker 3: of members on our side. So there's a huge double
Speaker 3: standard in terms of ethics in this Congress and among
Speaker 3: the parties. The reality is that some of the New
Speaker 3: York members voted to expel them to save themselves in
Speaker 3: their race. But certainly the Republican brand is party and
Speaker 3: their tribe above anything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you did see these Republicans, these people like Mike Lawler,
Speaker 1: and so we saw Laloda and also Milli stock Tips.
Speaker 1: Also those are you know, Republicans from New York who
Speaker 1: kind of won on a sort of a fluke. Now
Speaker 1: Santos is out, he is busy on cameo, but also
Speaker 1: trying to go after those swing district Republicans who are
Speaker 1: desperate to keep their seats. Kind of an interesting dynamic.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you know, he's just trying to maximize
Speaker 3: I imagine his exposure until he goes to jail. I
Speaker 3: think anyone who's in a swing district took the right
Speaker 3: vote by expelling him. I mean, there was a huge
Speaker 3: report all of the enormous crimes that he had committed
Speaker 3: and that ethics committed to a full investigation. He had
Speaker 3: his new process, and you know, I know, we kind
Speaker 3: of find it amusing in there. It's Santos has become
Speaker 3: the most famous member of Congress and Late Night talks
Speaker 3: about him, but at a fun a better level. It
Speaker 3: should just be sad that we have so commoditized politics
Speaker 3: that you get people like Santo's right, thinking that it's
Speaker 3: to make money and to become famous as opposed to
Speaker 3: serving the community.
Speaker 1: So House Republicans have moved on from spelling Santos and
Speaker 1: now they are ready to focus on basically what Donald
Speaker 1: Trump wants them to do, which is impeached Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: For vibes. Explain to me what's happening now. Do you
Speaker 1: think they're going to have a vote? They sort of
Speaker 1: want it to look like they have a real vote.
Speaker 1: And also I'm shocked at how often they admit that
Speaker 1: they are impeaching Biden to sort of Trump, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I mean, their last impeachment hearings were hugely disappointing
Speaker 3: for the I mean, they had Republican witnesses. I'm on
Speaker 3: the overside committee, and they had Republican witnesses and we'd
Speaker 3: ask them, do you think that the evidence rises to
Speaker 3: the level of having an impeachment? And they'd say no.
Speaker 3: And we said, do you think they should first have
Speaker 3: a vote before they do this equery They'd say yes.
Speaker 3: So it was a total failure. They embarrass themselves. What
Speaker 3: the American people want is folks, folks to their pocketbook issues,
Speaker 3: and I think the House demopment Republicans are trying their
Speaker 3: artists to have the Republicans lose. If you're Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: you're probably, on the one hand, these people have total
Speaker 3: fealty to you. On the other hand, they're totally competent.
Speaker 3: You're probably wondering if they're going to cost you the reelection.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it does seem like. I'm shocked whenever
Speaker 1: I see Comer on television just how bad at this
Speaker 1: he is. He almost makes Jim Jordan look like a savant.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're just the results. They haven't been able
Speaker 3: to do anything. And I've suggested to the Biden team
Speaker 3: they ought to run against the do nothing Congress. Even
Speaker 3: though I'm a part of it, I'm not in leadership
Speaker 3: like Harry Truman did at forty eight for re election,
Speaker 3: and Biden should just say, look, these people are crazy.
Speaker 3: They can't get the government to function, they can't pass
Speaker 3: some budget. They want to cut everything. They're voting every
Speaker 3: day on making the salaries of the National Student of
Speaker 3: Health Director one dollar, the person who helps give student
Speaker 3: loads what dollar. The person who keeps our air clean
Speaker 3: one dollar? Air traffic controllers what dollar. Literally, these are
Speaker 3: their abdmits. It's a circus and they are the weakest
Speaker 3: leak right now in the attire Republican political system. Weaker
Speaker 3: than Trump, by the way. I mean, that's where I
Speaker 3: think that their biggest vulnerability.
Speaker 1: Is one of the things that Republicans are sort of
Speaker 1: trying to do before the holiday, even though they have
Speaker 1: passed this tiered CR, which is just kind of a scam, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a CR. But they're trying to
Speaker 1: perhaps right do a supplemental with funding for Ukraine Israel.
Speaker 1: But the pound of flash they want is to make
Speaker 1: it even harder for people to come to this country.
Speaker 1: Explain to me what the thinking here is you think
Speaker 1: and what is going on?
Speaker 3: Well, it's hijacking important for an aid that's needed for Ukraine,
Speaker 3: for defensive equipment for Israel to a ideological ejecta. What
Speaker 3: they want to do is get rid of the president's
Speaker 3: parole power. Well, the parole power is what allowed the
Speaker 3: president to have Ukrainians leeing Ukraine come to the United
Speaker 3: States for two years. It's what allowed the president to
Speaker 3: have Afrighanis who fought with us, will help be translators
Speaker 3: for America troops come here after we withdrew for two years,
Speaker 3: and no one thinks that we should be taking the
Speaker 3: parole power away from the president who is thoughtful about
Speaker 3: foreign affairs. That's what they want to do, and I
Speaker 3: don't think the Democrats of the Senate are going to
Speaker 3: go for it. So what's the result. The result is
Speaker 3: our money for Ukraine is running out. Ukraine has valiantly
Speaker 3: fought off who valiantly made sure he doesn't get to Kiev,
Speaker 3: and now all of that is at risk because we
Speaker 3: can't get our act together.
Speaker 1: So do you think that as we are watching this,
Speaker 1: I think that there's a news cycle that's finally focused
Speaker 1: on the incredible danger of a second Trump president. Say,
Speaker 1: one of the things that Trump has been musing about
Speaker 1: from the side lines is using the insurrection act to
Speaker 1: immediately if God forbid he wins, shut down any protests,
Speaker 1: put everybody in jail. Is there a moment where Congress
Speaker 1: and the Senate could temper presidential power when it comes
Speaker 1: to that, or is that just beyond possible.
Speaker 3: That's what we should be doing. But you've got the
Speaker 3: Speaker Johnson who was the personal attorney or file lawsuits
Speaker 3: for Donald Trump to try to overturn the election. So
Speaker 3: you know, it's probably not a.
Speaker 6: Very realistic scenario.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, here's the law that considers me a
Speaker 3: twenty eleven Obama signed the law. He said his administration
Speaker 3: wasn't going to enforce it, but he was forced to
Speaker 3: sign this terrible law to just get our troops funded.
Speaker 3: And it says that any American citizen could be detained
Speaker 3: by the military. Military could cut to your door, detain
Speaker 3: you without a trial, without a ward if they think
Speaker 3: that you're connected to terrorism or a national security threat. Well,
Speaker 3: most presidents fire, they're not going to abuse that, but
Speaker 3: you could see how a stat like that gets abused
Speaker 3: by Donald Trump. Same with the insurrection statue. And we
Speaker 3: need to narrow some of those presidential powers which we
Speaker 3: have relied on norms to chat, but I know Jamie
Speaker 3: Raskin several of us are working on it, but it's
Speaker 3: going to be an uphill battle with Johnson as speaker.
Speaker 1: Is Johnson just so new? Remember they put the person
Speaker 1: who is number four in the caucus in power. Is
Speaker 1: he just so new that he doesn't know how to
Speaker 1: do a lot of this stuff? Or is he so
Speaker 1: ideologically burn it down and you know, small government that
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to do a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 3: I think he's very ideological. You may be willing to
Speaker 3: have government funded, but he's beholden to a ideological caucus
Speaker 3: that wants grass stick twenty thirty percent huts and food
Speaker 3: assistants and housing assistants and educational assistants and agencies that
Speaker 3: keep are air, clean water, cleay. That's who he's beholden to.
Speaker 3: That's how he's gotten elected. And with Trump, he's got
Speaker 3: total fealty. I mean, he's the person who led the
Speaker 3: lawsuits to overturn the election results. So the idea that
Speaker 3: he's going to work to limit a future candidate Trump
Speaker 3: becoming president's power is just unrealistic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have like eight days until the vacation or
Speaker 1: it's not vacation, but it's sort of vacation. You have
Speaker 1: eight days until then. Do you think you're going to
Speaker 1: be able to sort of get anything done with this
Speaker 1: supplemental or you think it's just they're just going to
Speaker 1: hold it up.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I think they're going to hold it up. I mean,
Speaker 3: I hope we would see movement, but the Senate hasn't
Speaker 3: been able to move. But forget the House, the Senate.
Speaker 3: It's so extreme what they're demanding that the Democratic senators
Speaker 3: have concerned. So you know, the only shot is that
Speaker 3: the Senate sends us something and that jams up Johnson
Speaker 3: and forces his hand and we vote on it. But
Speaker 3: so far it doesn't look like the Senate's going to
Speaker 3: send us anything.
Speaker 1: What does that mean for like the Ukrainians?
Speaker 3: Well, why does this end?
Speaker 6: The fun runs out soon?
Speaker 3: I mean they're not going to specify the exact number
Speaker 3: of days, but we're talking about days and a few months,
Speaker 3: not you know, a half a year. And if we
Speaker 3: don't have the funding it, they don't have the weapons.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's basically handing Putin away.
Speaker 3: And I mean, obviously the Ukrainians have great resolve, but
Speaker 3: they have great bravery and there's going to skill keep
Speaker 3: up the fight, but they're going to be fighting then
Speaker 3: with a huge disadvantage.
Speaker 1: There's no escape hatch for this.
Speaker 6: There is it.
Speaker 3: Congress has the power at the fun thing. The administration
Speaker 3: can't fund things without Congress, and that was the Iran
Speaker 3: contrast scandal with Reagan. The president can't do it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Tom, just now, I'm just thinking about the
Speaker 1: idea of finding doing that. So let's just talk brass tacks.
Speaker 1: New Year is going to be a complete nightmare in
Speaker 1: your head? Does this chaos, I mean, besides hurting the
Speaker 1: American people and the Ukrainians and likely a bunch of
Speaker 1: other unforced errors, do you think this helps Democrats win
Speaker 1: back the House?
Speaker 3: I do. I think that the fact that they've it's chaotic,
Speaker 3: that they can't keep government open, that they can't get
Speaker 3: a Speaker of the House, that they deposed the Speaker
Speaker 3: of the House, that they've got to be spelling members.
Speaker 3: I think lost Americas look at this and say we
Speaker 3: can't have two more years of this cloud show and
Speaker 3: this chaos. So I do think that they helped the
Speaker 3: Democrats get back the House. The only challenge we have
Speaker 3: is redistricting. You know, some of the lions drawn in
Speaker 3: states like North Carolina have been very, very unfair, and
Speaker 3: if we don't win back the House, it's because of
Speaker 3: the redistricting issues.
Speaker 1: At this point, there's going to be a special election
Speaker 1: for the Santos seat that will change the balance more.
Speaker 1: I mean, and again this is like my West wing brain,
Speaker 1: but is there a world in which somehow you flip
Speaker 1: a vulnerable Republican.
Speaker 6: Or there's a chance.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I mean they're you know, McCarthy made
Speaker 3: out right, they made moves out or House members. I
Speaker 3: definitely think there is a chant that McCarthy, I mean,
Speaker 3: that keep Jeffries emerge as a speaker. Their majority is
Speaker 3: very narrow. But you know, anyone who votes against Johnson
Speaker 3: is basically saying they're going to lose a primary. So
Speaker 3: you read my guest is you probably need them to
Speaker 3: flip to becoming a Democrat and then supporting them as
Speaker 3: a Democrat. It's not out of the realm of possibility.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked to hear that and delighted. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us through OCANNA.
Speaker 3: Thank you always enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Mark Ciasano is the author of the Fabulous Line Hustling grifting,
Speaker 1: stealing and very American legend of George Santos. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics.
Speaker 6: Mark, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: So he's fresh.
Speaker 4: He likes to look fresh, he does.
Speaker 1: We're talking about New York Congressman George Santos. Tell me
Speaker 1: how you got going on this book and how you
Speaker 1: got such good timing.
Speaker 6: I've been following Santas for a long time.
Speaker 5: I was reporting on him back at Newsday in twenty
Speaker 5: nineteen eight. It was, you know, my editor comes up
Speaker 5: to my desk one day in November and says, there's
Speaker 5: this new guy running against Tom Swazi, who's the incumbent
Speaker 5: Democrat in C.
Speaker 6: Three.
Speaker 5: And she was like, give him a call, check it out,
Speaker 5: you know, just write a quick little update.
Speaker 6: I was writing for this newsletter at the time, and
Speaker 6: so I did.
Speaker 5: I gave him a call, and the strange thing was
Speaker 5: that right away he said, you know, oh, I'm launching
Speaker 5: my campaign today. So I thought, great, okay, I'll come
Speaker 5: meet you. You know, I'm in the neighborhood. Just let
Speaker 5: me know where it is and I'll come over. But
Speaker 5: he said no, Actually he was in Florida at the
Speaker 5: time for a work conference. So that was like this
Speaker 5: first strangeness, It's like, why are you launching your campaign
Speaker 5: for a New York district from Florida? And you know,
Speaker 5: things just got weird from there.
Speaker 1: Why was he launching his campaign from Florida?
Speaker 5: He's claimed he was at a work conference down there,
Speaker 5: and there were indeed, like social media that he posted
Speaker 5: from there, so it was, you know, one of his
Speaker 5: sort of vaguely financial jobs. But yeah, it made no sense.
Speaker 5: You know, why wouldn't you just wait another day? You know,
Speaker 5: in retrospect, I kind of think what happened is he
Speaker 5: did that kind of like typical new candidate thing of
Speaker 5: just wanting to get as much press as possible, and
Speaker 5: he thought, oh, you know, Newsday is calling me today,
Speaker 5: so today is the launch.
Speaker 6: But you know, it was weird.
Speaker 5: It was like, why are you Why are you telling
Speaker 5: me that you're launching your campaign today? If you maybe are,
Speaker 5: but maybe aren't.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go out on a limb here and
Speaker 1: say something crazy and controversial. Politicians lie, that's kind of
Speaker 1: not unused ale, but he has hit such a sort
Speaker 1: of other level of lying. I was wondering if you
Speaker 1: could talk to us a little bit about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, there's one moment in the book that
Speaker 5: I like a lot that kind of you know, gets
Speaker 5: at this. It's Santos is talking to this other queen's
Speaker 5: political candidate who was a little bit younger than him,
Speaker 5: and I guess Santos kind of sees himself as a
Speaker 5: mentor figures thing. And the guy tells Santos how old
Speaker 5: he is, because Santos asked him, and then Santos says, ah, yes,
Speaker 5: I remember, you know at that age, something like I
Speaker 5: made my first million already.
Speaker 6: And what was weird.
Speaker 5: About this to the other candidate was that it seemed
Speaker 5: to him that Santos really believed this, Like it wasn't
Speaker 5: like just a thing that he made up, but he
Speaker 5: literally legitimately believed that he'd made a million dollars before
Speaker 5: he turns thirty, you know, which is totally not true.
Speaker 5: And so I think that's a little bit what sets
Speaker 5: him apart from a candidate who maybe misspeaks or sort
Speaker 5: of exaggerates or goes a little too far on something
Speaker 5: or literally just lies, you know, right, Because like you said,
Speaker 5: lots of politicians totally lie, but usually they lie for
Speaker 5: a reason. They lie on a specific subject. There's limits
Speaker 5: to it, and with Santos there have basically been few limits.
Speaker 1: So some of the lying about his backstory, it was
Speaker 1: so unnecessary and got him into so much trouble.
Speaker 6: Could you talk about that?
Speaker 5: Yes, And I think this is sort of where he
Speaker 5: just didn't need to lie sometimes. I guess he does
Speaker 5: two things. There are some times where he doesn't need
Speaker 5: to lie, and he lies anyway, right, and then there's
Speaker 5: other moments where he seems to be lying for some purpose,
Speaker 5: like to connect with his audience or to kind of
Speaker 5: continue the conversation going or something. So I think that's
Speaker 5: a little bit what happened with, for example, that famous
Speaker 5: volleyball line, which I go into like how that happened.
Speaker 5: In the book, he basically claims that he not only
Speaker 5: went to Beroke College, which he did not, it's a
Speaker 5: college in New York. He also claims that he was
Speaker 5: a championship volleyball player for the team, which he was not.
Speaker 5: He's on a radio show. This is kind of like
Speaker 5: the big lie about volleyball. He's on a radio show
Speaker 5: and basically the two hosts are sort of chatting with him,
Speaker 5: and somehow it comes up that one of the children
Speaker 5: of the hosts you know, was a I think a
Speaker 5: volleyball player and a tennis player, maybe an athlete, and
Speaker 5: Santo says, oh, you know, so am I I'm an athlete,
Speaker 5: And then he goes into this whole volleyballs thing, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of connecting with the host on this level, both
Speaker 5: that the host, I think one of the host's kids
Speaker 5: was an athlete and the other host kid was a Barugrad.
Speaker 5: So he's just kind of grasping at these connections and
Speaker 5: launches into this crazy story claiming that the team, you know,
Speaker 5: beat some ivy League schools that didn't even have volleyball
Speaker 5: teams at the time. Just kind of kind of zany stuff.
Speaker 5: The other funny thing is that though he seems to
Speaker 5: kind of take stories from other people sometimes. So he
Speaker 5: had a former boss at a vaguely financially related company
Speaker 5: who actually was a volleyball star at group, and is
Speaker 5: it possibly he took the story right from him. It
Speaker 5: seems like it. It seems too sort of coincidental. And
Speaker 5: that's a pattern that I sort of go into in
Speaker 5: the book as well.
Speaker 1: When does it start to come crashing down this because
Speaker 1: he's getting away with it for a while totally.
Speaker 6: He has lots of crashing down moments.
Speaker 5: You know, his life is kind of gone in this
Speaker 5: funny cyclical maybe like or parabolic wave kind of thing
Speaker 5: where he's doing great, he's making money, you know, the
Speaker 5: lying is working, and then it'll sort of hit an obstacle. So,
Speaker 5: you know, one of them was with this check fraud
Speaker 5: case in Brazil. Basically he's using checks that were owned
Speaker 5: by a dead guy and he tries to pass off
Speaker 5: these old checks and he gets caught right in Brazil
Speaker 5: when he's you know, not even twenty, and that was tough, right.
Speaker 5: He's charged for this in Brazil, but he kind of
Speaker 5: gets away, he leaves, they can't find him.
Speaker 6: He sort of escapes. You know.
Speaker 5: Another kind of moment of crisis came when he's running
Speaker 5: for office and his own campaign staff does this vulnerability
Speaker 5: study on him and they find all this crazy stuff,
Speaker 5: a lot of the stuff we know now that he
Speaker 5: didn't go to the colleges. He said he wanted to,
Speaker 5: you know, he had all these wild things that he's
Speaker 5: claims to have done in his background, which he hadn't,
Speaker 5: and they said to him, look, George, you got to
Speaker 5: not run like this is crazy. This is going to
Speaker 5: come out and he tried to make excuses. He said, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: it's fine, you know, I'm gonna explain, and he never
Speaker 5: did explain, and those you know, campaign staff left and
Speaker 5: he kind of got through. So there's there's these moments
Speaker 5: of him kind of overcoming and overcoming and overcoming and
Speaker 5: you know until finally he couldn't overcome anymore. Get us
Speaker 5: to the indictment, right, So the indictment comes after the
Speaker 5: great New York Times story from December of last year, right,
Speaker 5: which you know, showed it kind of pulled all the
Speaker 5: threads together and showed, you know, all this crazy stuff
Speaker 5: that he was claiming that was totally not true. And
Speaker 5: so that kind of started as free for all of people,
Speaker 5: you know, poking into his background and not only finding lies,
Speaker 5: but finding these schemes that Santos was running, and a
Speaker 5: lot of them were published and so some of that
Speaker 5: is what the Feds indicted him for, was this kind
Speaker 5: of different schemes. What was interesting about Santa's now been indicted.
Speaker 5: He is twenty three it's a twenty three count federal indictment.
Speaker 5: He was in he there were two separate indictments. In
Speaker 5: the first one, it was really very narrow and kind
Speaker 5: of what people call like a paper case. It was
Speaker 5: pretty straightforward, just things that basically Santos lied about in documents.
Speaker 5: You know, lawyers I talked to said this is pretty
Speaker 5: open at shut you know, he doesn't have much of
Speaker 5: a chance. He obviously he's pleading not guilty and says
Speaker 5: he didn't do the things.
Speaker 6: But it's an uphill battle.
Speaker 5: So in some ways, like what's in the book or
Speaker 5: what a lot of people know about Santos is kind
Speaker 5: of way more lurid and wild than what he was
Speaker 5: actually indicted for. That's not to say he can't be
Speaker 5: indicted again. There can be another superseding indictment for Santos.
Speaker 5: So he's in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of the lies he did, lying
Speaker 1: about your past or lying about your mother, none of
Speaker 1: those things are illegal. Where he gets into legal trouble
Speaker 1: is when it comes to the campaign finance stuff, right totally.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's one big balloon of illegality with him.
Speaker 5: It's like there's a lot of allegedly illegal behavior that
Speaker 5: he has committed. But yeah, the campaign finance stuff is
Speaker 5: big and kind of fun actually, so we know even
Speaker 5: more about this because of the House Ethics Committee report
Speaker 5: from a little bit ago now, But he basically was,
Speaker 5: you know, using campaign funds in all these different, totally
Speaker 5: inappropriate ways.
Speaker 6: I'll give you one example.
Speaker 5: He was just straight up using campaign funds for what
Speaker 5: he logged as botox. Right, you're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 6: He was supposed to.
Speaker 1: Use like but he wanted to look fresh.
Speaker 5: He wanted to look fresh, and you know, this was
Speaker 5: this is how I started the book, is with this
Speaker 5: kind of deep dive into Santos's head about like what
Speaker 5: he sees when he looks in the mirror, because I
Speaker 5: think that is kind of how you understand Santos, that
Speaker 5: he wanted to look different, he wanted to look fresh,
Speaker 5: you know, and.
Speaker 6: There's so much of it.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's botox, He's talked about lipossumption, lap band surgery,
Speaker 5: using ozempic. He even claims that he was a stockholder
Speaker 5: in Ozempic, which doesn't seem to be true at least
Speaker 5: not as according to his filings. This is a big
Speaker 5: part of his life is him wanting to look different
Speaker 5: and in his mind better, And I do think that
Speaker 5: that kind of explained some of where the line comes from.
Speaker 1: What I was struck by what the Ethics investigation was
Speaker 1: that it's unusual for an ethics investigation usually they provide cover,
Speaker 1: and that didn't happen here, right, Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what was so kind of extraordinary and wild
Speaker 5: about this Ethics Committee investigation is that they had the
Speaker 5: bank statements right. They actually knew what he spent money on,
Speaker 5: where the money came in, and that's what's been missing before.
Speaker 5: So we actually saw not just what he said he
Speaker 5: was spending money on, but what he actually, like where
Speaker 5: the money actually went. So I think that that is
Speaker 5: partially why it's so different than other Ethics Committee reports
Speaker 5: in the past, because there's just so much like well
Speaker 5: documented stuff in there.
Speaker 6: And yeah, like you said.
Speaker 5: It's uncommon for a member of Congress to be expelled, right,
Speaker 5: So this is this is just like one of the
Speaker 5: more extraordinary things about Santos.
Speaker 1: Do you think there are lessons to be taken from
Speaker 1: the Santos experience? I mean, he didn't win like a
Speaker 1: ruby red seed. He won a very competitive seed, so
Speaker 1: it must have been fuck up, you know, among fuck
Speaker 1: up among fuck up to get here right for Democrats?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean so I call it a kind of
Speaker 5: perfect storm election. All everything broke this guy's way this year,
Speaker 5: and I mean, it's it's what's funny about this is
Speaker 5: that so much of it is kind of not even
Speaker 5: that interesting. You know, the district was redistricted, there were
Speaker 5: you know, there was this like big red wave year
Speaker 5: in this very specific area, even if Democrats at large
Speaker 5: did very well in.
Speaker 6: The midterms of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5: So it's it's just funny that this bungling guy sort
Speaker 5: of stumbled his way into a congressional seat. Lying all
Speaker 5: the way that being said, he also was very good
Speaker 5: at harnessing these currents that were you know, that were
Speaker 5: happening in the district, like a sentiment of like anger
Speaker 5: at COVID mitigations. You know, people were sort of tired
Speaker 5: in New York of COVID and so criminal justice reforms.
Speaker 6: He worked with that.
Speaker 5: And I think what separated him from other politicians is,
Speaker 5: you know, other people can exaggerate, or they sort of
Speaker 5: try to rally up.
Speaker 6: A crowd or something. He just doesn't care.
Speaker 5: You know, He'll just tell tell a group of people
Speaker 5: what they want to hear, and that makes it a
Speaker 5: lot easier to kind of get that political current so interesting.
Speaker 1: Why do you think like Republicans have been really careful
Speaker 1: about not condemning corruption, and I'm thinking about with Senator Menendez,
Speaker 1: Republicans were careful not to touch him, right. The thinking
Speaker 1: had to have been, if we condemn Senator Menendez, we're
Speaker 1: going to have to condemn Trump, and nobody wants to
Speaker 1: do that because he's the leader of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious when you look at Santos, that is
Speaker 1: not what happened with Santos. Republicans are delighted to condemn him,
Speaker 1: and in fact, it looks like they could do much
Speaker 1: more than that. I'm curious what you think the difference
Speaker 1: between the two are, the difference between a sort of
Speaker 1: okay with corruption. I mean, I just am curious in
Speaker 1: you're yeah, totally.
Speaker 5: This is one of my favorite pieces of the book
Speaker 5: is going into doing kind of deep dive into the
Speaker 5: Nasau County political world that Santos comes up in. So
Speaker 5: basically Nasa County, the GOP there are wildly powerful, like
Speaker 5: dating back to the last century. It's like, you know,
Speaker 5: Ron Reagan said, when when a Republican dies and goes
Speaker 5: to have and it looks like Nasa County, you know,
Speaker 5: like this, it's a GOP place, you know, at least
Speaker 5: in the in the twentieth century. And that changed and
Speaker 5: it shifted and the party had lots of corruption scandals
Speaker 5: and got weaker. But you know, it's still there and
Speaker 5: it's still kind of working hard. And Santos is not
Speaker 5: a party guy. He is like he comes from the
Speaker 5: outside as the current GOP chair like loves to say,
Speaker 5: you know, oh, he's not my guy, you know, like
Speaker 5: everyone's kind of pointing away, but he's really not. It's
Speaker 5: like most of a lot of the candidates historically have
Speaker 5: been you know, Irish Italian, Santos is like an outsider.
Speaker 1: He's Jewishish, yeah right.
Speaker 5: I mean the Jewish thing is a super fun thing
Speaker 5: to jump into because you know, he claims he is
Speaker 5: actually Jewish, right, and that also he sometimes joked about
Speaker 5: being Jewish.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: This is the fun thing about this book was I
Speaker 5: tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and say, Okay,
Speaker 5: here's what he's saying. If he's doubling down on something,
Speaker 5: let me see if it's true or not. So I
Speaker 5: really tried to find whether he could have been Jewish,
Speaker 5: and the moral of the story is, you know, his
Speaker 5: family has this tradition of maybe generations back having some
Speaker 5: Jewish roots. So the answer is now, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 5: But it's like, it's crazy that what you have to
Speaker 5: do to kind of prove it negative, right.
Speaker 1: And that is such a good point. Thank you so much, Mark,
Speaker 1: great to have you.
Speaker 5: Thanks Molly, No moment exactly, Jesse Cannon, Oh.
Speaker 1: No, Molly Cash, Patel and Steve ben and they're going
Speaker 1: to put us in jail. They're going to be in Gato.
Speaker 1: I feel like you have like a little sense of
Speaker 1: humor about this, but as someone who will be in
Speaker 1: Guintanamo Bay Gitmo as it's called.
Speaker 6: For sure, yea.
Speaker 1: I comforted my loving partner by saga.
Speaker 7: I'm probably not important enough for them to do this too,
Speaker 7: so that that's probably likely why I'm back toglect this bring.
Speaker 1: You to tell me that, Jesse Cannon, I've always longed
Speaker 1: to see Cooba, but this is not how I want
Speaker 1: to see it.
Speaker 7: Highly confident that when you go back and as a
Speaker 7: senior member of this administration, President Trump's administration, starting in
Speaker 7: the afternoon of the twentieth of January of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 7: Do you feel confident that you will be able to
Speaker 7: deliver the goods? That we can have serious prosecutions and accountability?
Speaker 7: And I want the Morning Joe producers that watch us,
Speaker 7: and all the producers to watch us. This is just
Speaker 7: not rhetoric. We're absolutely dead serious. You cannot have a
Speaker 7: constitutional republic and allow what these deep staters have done
Speaker 7: to the country. The deep state, the administration state, the
Speaker 7: fourth branch of government never mentioned in the Constitution, is
Speaker 7: going to be taken apart brick by brick, and the
Speaker 7: people that did these evil deeds will be held accountable
Speaker 7: and prosecuted criminal prosecutions. Cash, I know you're probably going
Speaker 7: to be of the CIA, but do you believe that
Speaker 7: you can deliver the goods on this and pretty short
Speaker 7: in a pretty short order of the first couple of months,
Speaker 7: so we can get rolling on prosecutions.
Speaker 1: Yes, really incredibly scary stuff. That said, Cash, Battel is
Speaker 1: wearing a hoodie. He's definitely not all there. We have,
Speaker 1: luckily for us, gotten on the radar of one Steve Bannon,
Speaker 1: who uh he calls me Molly Jong, except perhaps he
Speaker 1: is not a huge reader, so he calls me Molly Young,
Speaker 1: which I had to listen to, but I think he's
Speaker 1: saying young. But anyway, for those out there who know,
Speaker 1: it's Jong like Kim Jong and for that, all of that,
Speaker 1: the mispronunciation, the trip to Gitmo, you Cash Battel and
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon are our moment of fuck right. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday and fri to hear the best minds in politics
Speaker 1: makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what
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Speaker 1: the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.