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 Supreme Court Justice Sonya so Demayer
Speaker 1: says that court decision stand whether one particular person chooses to.
Speaker 2: Abide by them or not.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today. MSNBC
Speaker 1: contributor Charlie Sykes comes by to talk about the state
Speaker 1: of our world. Then we'll talk to Congresswoman Becca balland
Speaker 1: about the Republican attempt to rewrite American culture.
Speaker 2: But first the news.
Speaker 3: Malli, this fella Donald Trump last night Friend of the Show,
Speaker 3: Lauren so'donald. I think he kind of like won the
Speaker 3: week of summing something up, and it's an image we're
Speaker 3: going to see at the top of articles for decades
Speaker 3: to come, calling it the most powerless image of a
Speaker 3: president ever.
Speaker 2: You'll be shocked to hear that Donald J.
Speaker 1: Trump is basically working for the richest man in the world.
Speaker 1: That video was a sort of incredible video of Elon,
Speaker 1: one of his many children and Donald Trump, and then
Speaker 1: Donald Trump sort of sat there whell Elon talked about
Speaker 1: how he's running the government. There was a really good
Speaker 1: picture of the little boy saying like you're sitting in
Speaker 1: my dad's chair to Donald Trump, which I think really
Speaker 1: sums the whole thing up. The best moment in the discourse,
Speaker 1: the truly cursed discourse, was when Elon admitted that he
Speaker 1: gets things wrong, which that was an incredible bit of sorcery.
Speaker 1: So the best moment of the whole cluster fuckery was
Speaker 1: Elon Musk said, so I think it's really important and representative.
Speaker 1: Caesar had this really good point, which was Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is looking in to these sixty five dollars a day
Speaker 1: that grandmothers get the sort of very low payments, and
Speaker 1: Elon Musk gets eight million dollars a day. But the
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to talk about was Elon Musk. So
Speaker 1: he was asked by a journalist, how can we make
Speaker 1: sure that all the statements that you said were correct
Speaker 1: so we can trust what you say? And he said,
Speaker 1: some of the things I say will be incorrect and
Speaker 1: should be corrected. Okay, I mean, please visit me in
Speaker 1: a pineapple.
Speaker 3: Under this, say, one would think the guy who does
Speaker 3: everything he had to get journalistic outlets the funded and
Speaker 3: make sure that voices that dissemboated against him get smushed.
Speaker 3: Really feels that way, so seriously, it came from the
Speaker 3: bottom of his heart.
Speaker 1: I think some things I say maybe incorrect, they may
Speaker 1: be wrong.
Speaker 3: But what you were really taken by, Molly was little
Speaker 3: Lex picking his nose next to Donald Trump and Donald
Speaker 3: Trump just looking so happy about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean he is known to love children and germiness,
Speaker 1: so that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: So Trump promised on day one that he would bring
Speaker 3: down prices, and so he got his first economics report
Speaker 3: a few weeks into office. Millian, I'm going to shock
Speaker 3: you here. He didn't do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to point out that I went to go
Speaker 1: get eggs today because I couldn't get eggs on Fresh
Speaker 1: Direct because they were sold out, something I have not
Speaker 1: experienced since the pandemic.
Speaker 2: And there was a little.
Speaker 1: Sign at the grocery store which said eggs are more expensive.
Speaker 1: Remember when Donald Trump said he was going to make
Speaker 1: eggs cheaper. Yeah, inflation has ticked up to three percent
Speaker 1: from two and a half. That is the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: He wanted to go down. In case you're wondering, up
Speaker 1: is bad and down is good when it comes to inflation. Trump,
Speaker 1: He's continuing on with tariffs, with the steel tariffs, he
Speaker 1: has some of these. You know, we'th ten percent extra
Speaker 1: on China tariffs. Look, the tariffs are going. You have
Speaker 1: Trump fundamentally misunderstanding the tariffs do not, in fact make
Speaker 1: money for the government. I don't know how many times
Speaker 1: people must have explained to him how tariffs work, but
Speaker 1: he seems still not to get it. I wonder what
Speaker 1: inflation will have to tick up too before he gets it.
Speaker 3: You'll be shocked to hear his response to all this
Speaker 3: is to tweet Biden inflation.
Speaker 1: Up, Yes, Biden inflation up.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump wants us to know that even though Biden
Speaker 1: is not president, he is still president.
Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously everything bad is Biden's president. Well, you know
Speaker 3: I have read the QAnon post two so as well.
Speaker 3: We last discussed on Sunday that Elon and JD were
Speaker 3: starting to talk about disobeying judges, and now Trump of
Speaker 3: course has to tick to the next level and he's
Speaker 3: threatening them.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked. I am shocked that Donald Trump is doing this.
Speaker 1: Who could have seen this coming? Certainly not me.
Speaker 4: This guy esc going things.
Speaker 1: Never so he openly threatens judges who block his orders,
Speaker 1: like we shouldn't be surprised. He openly threatened Congress people,
Speaker 1: He's openly threatened senators. He's openly threatened people we know
Speaker 1: and love. I mean, this is like the this is
Speaker 1: the way he does it. He's this is Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: thing is if you can't get people to do what
Speaker 1: you want, then you threatened them. He's openly threatened Mexico
Speaker 1: and Canada. And I mean, if you had a I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't there a list of all the people he's threatened?
Speaker 1: And you know this is his this is the way
Speaker 1: he works. So the question is, and I think this
Speaker 1: is a real question, is will these judges be brave?
Speaker 1: Will these judges be safe? Well, I mean remember Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has pardoned January sixth riders, So he's pardoned people
Speaker 1: who committed violence in his name. When you look at
Speaker 1: the way autocracies grow, it tends to be that the
Speaker 1: autocrat wants to have a sort of defact military, a
Speaker 1: militia that is oil only to him. So you could
Speaker 1: see where this. You know, these people could be heard
Speaker 1: and that's a real thing that could happen, and that
Speaker 1: historically has happened. So I'll be watching to hope that
Speaker 1: that does not happen, because you know, once you go
Speaker 1: down that road of disassembling the norms and institutions that
Speaker 1: have kept us safe for so many years, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you put the genie back in
Speaker 1: the bottle.
Speaker 3: That I do not know either, speaking of genies that
Speaker 3: are in a bottle for now to see, Gabbert has
Speaker 3: been confirmed in will Mitch McConnell the only Republican to
Speaker 3: vote against her.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Resistance, Mitch McConnell. He created the world
Speaker 1: in which Donald Trump was able to become president. Anytime
Speaker 1: you want to have any kind of pity for this
Speaker 1: man who is now in a terrible position that he
Speaker 1: put himself in, you can remind yourself that literally, none
Speaker 1: of this would be possible without Mitch mcconne, none of it.
Speaker 1: Charlie Sykes is the author of the Newsletter to the
Speaker 1: Contrary and the book How the Right Lost Its Mind.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Charlie Sykes.
Speaker 4: Molly, good to be back with you. Are you not
Speaker 4: entertained yet?
Speaker 1: We're having this discussion as the answer to the question
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 4: This is a hard question. You know, you don't want
Speaker 4: to say, Hey, I'm living the dream. Things are going great.
Speaker 4: It's like, Okay, my hair is actually not on fire.
Speaker 4: You know, I haven't had an aneurysm today reading the news,
Speaker 4: so I suppose that we're getting through it.
Speaker 1: But damn, damn exactly. I mean, I spent the last
Speaker 1: hour watching the Doge hearing on C on C Span three.
Speaker 1: Did you know that there's a C Span three? I
Speaker 1: did because you Span junkie, but.
Speaker 4: I usually watch C spent Ocho. Hey, that's a really
Speaker 4: inside joke that nobody remembers anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't remember it, but I laughed because I'm polite.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So for Lent, I'm going to give up watching
Speaker 4: Doge hearings and all of those things. Is it Lent yet?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 4: I just need to give it up.
Speaker 1: It will not be hard. Let me tell you what was.
Speaker 4: The highlight, because I actually am somewhat curious after that.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at the picture from the Oval Office yesterday
Speaker 4: that Laurence o'donald said, he's like the most humiliating, the
Speaker 4: most powerless image of a president of the United States
Speaker 4: ever created by camera, where there's a sulking Donald Trump
Speaker 4: sitting there with Elon Musk and one of his progeny.
Speaker 4: We live in Elon Musk's ketamine soaked world. Don't West,
Speaker 4: do you learn anything?
Speaker 1: I watched this hearing, I turned it on. You know
Speaker 1: what's so interesting about watching a full congressional hearing versus
Speaker 1: like seeing the clips, which we're also used to, is
Speaker 1: that they're quite boring. And even the most insane member
Speaker 1: of Congress has many minutes of saying things that are
Speaker 1: maybe not brilliant and maybe not what you agree with,
Speaker 1: but quite boring. So this is a Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 1: She leads this committee, if you can believe it. And
Speaker 1: so she gave the opening statement, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean ironic. Perhaps she complained about political theater.
Speaker 4: Can I give you the bad news, like right up front? Please,
Speaker 4: You're never gonna get those brain cells back, Molly thy god,
Speaker 4: you will never get the brain cells back. I would
Speaker 4: sit and watch a Marjorie Taylor Green hearing except that
Speaker 4: I have I don't know root canal surgery. I have
Speaker 4: an appointment to have all my fingernail pulled out. I'm
Speaker 4: thinking of some other things, but I don't know. I
Speaker 4: want fire iNTS to eat my scrotum.
Speaker 2: I mean anything.
Speaker 4: Can I tell you my favorite story. Can we just
Speaker 4: like change the money here because it's getting kind of
Speaker 4: getting cut, kind of dark.
Speaker 1: We'll stop talking about politics. It's too dark.
Speaker 4: Go on, Yes it's about politics. But I actually find
Speaker 4: one of the ways to stay saying is to go
Speaker 4: to the bottom story of the day. They actually like
Speaker 4: to you know, like it's not going to be the
Speaker 4: end of the world. We're not gonna have a nuclear
Speaker 4: holocaust about it. It doesn't involve ethnic cleansing or anything
Speaker 4: like that. So this one, I think is kind of
Speaker 4: beyond parody. You see the story that the White House
Speaker 4: barred the AP reporter from the Oval Office, the Associated
Speaker 4: Press reporter. Did you read the explanation? Why see? I
Speaker 4: saw the headline and I thought, you know, this is
Speaker 4: inside media baseball. Nobody cares, okay, so one reporter gets in,
Speaker 4: one reporter doesn't. And then you read the details. The
Speaker 4: White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event
Speaker 4: in the Oval Office after demanding the news acn see
Speaker 4: alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President
Speaker 4: Trump insists be renamed the Gulf of America. That's right, baby,
Speaker 4: So much free speech, so much free speech. So now
Speaker 4: we have the media required to use the government sanctioned language,
Speaker 4: and if you do not use the terms from Big Orange,
Speaker 4: you're out.
Speaker 1: So I mean, America, Golf of America. You can't, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta use it. You gotta use it,
Speaker 1: Gulf of America or else, big trouble.
Speaker 4: The reporter is n't have to stand around in a
Speaker 4: circle and somebody points to them and goes, what is
Speaker 4: it called? Gulf of America, sir? Gulf of America, man,
Speaker 4: Gulf of America. I mean, is this the new the
Speaker 4: new normal?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes it is. And also I have to tell
Speaker 1: you that is maybe not as disturbing as what I noticed.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, Golf of America. It's very stupid, but
Speaker 1: I think it's largely harmless. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's
Speaker 1: some manifest destiny.
Speaker 4: It's all relative, right.
Speaker 1: Right, relative, it's relatively harmless. But last afternoon in the
Speaker 1: Oval and his kid.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so funny. It's like, as a working mom.
Speaker 1: Do you know how many times working moms, you know,
Speaker 1: the babysitter doesn't show up and you have the kid
Speaker 1: and you have to bring it. And here's Elon, who
Speaker 1: has like the richest man in the World a staff
Speaker 1: of like, you know, I'm sure, I mean, maybe he doesn't, but.
Speaker 2: I would assume he has many child options.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can definitely for childcare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just dragging that kid around pretty amazing. But what
Speaker 1: actually got me really agitated last night was that Elon
Speaker 1: was talking about how this was important for democracy.
Speaker 4: Of course, at the risk of becoming a little serious,
Speaker 4: I think that one of the things that's really interesting
Speaker 4: is watching as this process goes on, how how language
Speaker 4: is drained of its meaning. And again, this is not
Speaker 4: something that was not predicted. I mean, George o'well wrote
Speaker 4: about this, but all of the language of democracy, the
Speaker 4: forms of democracy, the rituals of democracy used to underline
Speaker 4: and destroy democracy. And we're watching this in real time
Speaker 4: and it is it is almost like watching a like
Speaker 4: a fictional account of and how would the media report this,
Speaker 4: what would this look like? How would the news report
Speaker 4: this sort of thing? And we are seeing he had
Speaker 4: Elon must talking about democracy and transparency.
Speaker 1: He said, restoring democracy. That was what he said. He's
Speaker 1: restoring democracy. I guess from Trump's first term. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a continue Yes.
Speaker 4: How many votes did he get? By the way, I mean, yes,
Speaker 4: I mean, I know this is going to get old,
Speaker 4: but it's not going to get old for me. Who
Speaker 4: elected Elon Musk. I love listening to these guys talk
Speaker 4: about the unelected bureaucrats. And you know, the most powerful
Speaker 4: unelected bureaucrat in history, of course is Elon Musk, right.
Speaker 1: Made rich through government subsidies.
Speaker 4: Yes, and and by the way, apparently he's going to
Speaker 4: self police all of his conflicts of interest.
Speaker 1: I trust him.
Speaker 2: Why would he lie?
Speaker 4: Why would he lie? So my newsletter to the country
Speaker 4: newsletter today is you know, making America corrupt again. And
Speaker 4: it's like, you list all the things that Trump has
Speaker 4: done over the last I mean, nobody should be surprised
Speaker 4: by any of them, right, but but it is kind
Speaker 4: of amazing that you just run through the pardons of
Speaker 4: Eric Adams, the pardons of Rod Bogoyevitch, you know, firing
Speaker 4: the the head of the Office of Government Ethics, saying
Speaker 4: we're not going to enforce the law against you know, bribery,
Speaker 4: you know formula, all those things, and then there's Elon
Speaker 4: Musk standing there and it's like holding my beer, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, I am the biggest moocher in America right now.
Speaker 4: This is this is a conflict of interest that is
Speaker 4: like a biblical scale, and we're at the point now
Speaker 4: it's kind of shrugging about we're probably gonna get through
Speaker 4: this entire podcast without talking about the fact that apparently
Speaker 4: Cash Battel perjured himself the FBI, because that's like, so
Speaker 4: a member of Donald.
Speaker 1: Trump's yes, go on, go go go.
Speaker 4: I member, a member of Donald Trump's cabinet of future
Speaker 4: felons actually perjured himself because it was a day that
Speaker 4: ends and why I mean that that's where we're at
Speaker 4: here right Yes.
Speaker 1: I mean that was, by the way, an incredible, incredible scoop.
Speaker 1: I was on Nicole yesterday. We love Nicole, one of
Speaker 1: the greats. You and I are both big Nicole fans.
Speaker 1: And Dick Derbin was on in the middle and he
Speaker 1: was talking ashion faced right talking about how Cash Patel
Speaker 1: they had an FBI member go to the whistleblower to
Speaker 1: talk about how he had seen Cash Pattel perjer himself.
Speaker 4: And it won't matter the woke FBI, Yeah, it won't matter.
Speaker 4: This is where we're at right now. So did Dick
Speaker 4: Durbin provide any indication that Okay, now we Democrats are
Speaker 4: going to do something about this.
Speaker 1: No, in fact, he said there's something easy. But he did,
Speaker 1: in fact say there's really nothing we could do. I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, but we laugh to keep from crying.
Speaker 1: And also I would like to add, I do think
Speaker 1: it's good. I want to say something a little bit
Speaker 1: nice about Democrats. Please. I know that's not in vogue
Speaker 1: right now, but it is good that they set up
Speaker 1: a whistleblower line.
Speaker 4: Yes, no, I mean those are the kinds of things
Speaker 4: that you need to do, the problem is that all
Speaker 4: the mechanisms are collapsing. So I mean this this comes
Speaker 4: back to, you know, what everybody is talking about, because
Speaker 4: it is I think the biggest question what happens if
Speaker 4: the administration ignores the courts, because right now the only
Speaker 4: guardrail that is left that's going to stop this or
Speaker 4: hold him accountable is the federal judiciary and the US
Speaker 4: Supreme Court. But there's you know, and I am I'm
Speaker 4: not as cautiously optimistic as my friend David French is
Speaker 4: about the Supreme Court. But the larger question. You can
Speaker 4: see that MAGA is already gearing up to say that
Speaker 4: you know, you made your ruling. You enforce it. JD.
Speaker 4: Vance is out there. Hey, by the way, can I
Speaker 4: just mention that my Jada Advance?
Speaker 2: Wow, that fucking guy.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that fucking guy. What a shitty week, heesa,
Speaker 4: haven't it?
Speaker 2: Wait? Tell me why?
Speaker 4: Three things? I mean? Number one, during that Super Bowl interview,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump throws him under the bus, right, not go
Speaker 4: on yet, not my success. But then yesterday JD. Vans
Speaker 4: gets bitch slapped by are you ready for this? The
Speaker 4: Pope and the ABA, the American Bar Association, which is
Speaker 4: a long statement about you know, how we ought to
Speaker 4: respect the rule of love. But let's go back to
Speaker 4: the Pope, because JD. Vans was giving us the gospel
Speaker 4: according to JD. Vans, you know, the order of Love,
Speaker 4: which meant that we can basically fuck over the rest
Speaker 4: of the world and as long as we take care
Speaker 4: of our own family. And JD. Vans is like, mister Catholic,
Speaker 4: I am a Catholic, a Roman Catholic. The Pope himself
Speaker 4: issues a letter basically saying JD. You're full of shit
Speaker 4: and reminding him of the parable of the Good Samaritan,
Speaker 4: which means, of course that maga which is all about
Speaker 4: God and religion and Christianity is going to have to
Speaker 4: go to war with the Church. And I am personally
Speaker 4: sitting here waiting. I would love to hear with Cardinal
Speaker 4: Timothy Dolan, who's been sipping up to Donald Trump and
Speaker 4: actually is a longtime friend of mine. I would like
Speaker 4: to know, So, Cardinal Dolan, damn, we're going here. You're
Speaker 4: going going with your new buddy Donald or with the
Speaker 4: Pope who is saying that Donald and jd are full
Speaker 4: of shit? I just really want to know the answer
Speaker 4: to this.
Speaker 1: I really yeah, I'm not hard to imagine that. Is
Speaker 1: he allowed to say no to Trump?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know. Is he allowed to say no
Speaker 4: to the Pope? Is the Catholic See Molly, you hear
Speaker 4: the thing about the Catholic Church. They had this hierarchy
Speaker 4: thing and there's all kinds of like traditions and stuff. Now,
Speaker 4: I do understand that for a lot of Catholics that
Speaker 4: we of course will obey the pope as long as
Speaker 4: we agree with him. But if he breaks with say
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, you know that's a bridge too far. So
Speaker 4: you know, I don't expect that you'll see like a
Speaker 4: mass rethinking of Christian doctrine as a result of all
Speaker 4: of this, like, I'm still in favor of these mass
Speaker 4: deportations because of John twenty three of whatever. I just
Speaker 4: I really do would like to know. I wouldn't would
Speaker 4: kill my brain cells kill me. In the Gospel according
Speaker 4: to Luke, where Jesus talks about why mass deportations are
Speaker 4: a good thing because generally deportations are negatively portrayed. Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm getting on the Bible.
Speaker 1: Yeah they are getting a little biblical here, but yes, no,
Speaker 1: a really good point about you never want the pope
Speaker 1: to be subtweeting you. I mean that is a sign
Speaker 1: that things have gone horribly sideways.
Speaker 4: I think that's fair, mister Catholic. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean a lot of people wouldn't care at all
Speaker 4: about that. But given the fact that they've wrapped themselves,
Speaker 4: and what would Jesus do? And here you have the
Speaker 4: Pope going, excuse me, mister Frans, you asked what would
Speaker 4: Jesus do? Jesus would not do this. Yes, no, he wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Say yes, yes, no. Listen, I watched conclave, so I
Speaker 1: know all about Catholicism.
Speaker 4: Okay, good, I have to.
Speaker 1: Say, I really it was quite I thought it was
Speaker 1: very good. But I'm not a Catholic. But I do
Speaker 1: think what you're saying is really important that while this
Speaker 1: is going on and there's a lot of criticism, there's
Speaker 1: you know, people are really mad, mad at the Democrats,
Speaker 1: mad at the Republicans, mad about the sort of all
Speaker 1: of it. But and the Pope is mad with good reason.
Speaker 1: But I wonder as we're sort of looking at this,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say something that's that is actually keeping
Speaker 1: me up at night, which is Trump's polling is still
Speaker 1: not as bad as it should be.
Speaker 4: Discuss Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Isn't that upsetting you? Like?
Speaker 4: Did you see that? Agay?
Speaker 5: Like what?
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, let's see, he said, Molly, when you put
Speaker 4: this in the long train of things that have upset
Speaker 4: and depressed us, it's just like in case case you
Speaker 4: missed it, he won this election. So as a never Trumper,
Speaker 4: going back from at the time he came down the
Speaker 4: Golden escalator, I would say, Molly that I've I've had
Speaker 4: a lot of practice with disappointments. I have, I think.
Speaker 1: And again, we're not laughing because this is funny. We're
Speaker 1: laughing because this is so incredibly tragic.
Speaker 4: Continue, Yeah, because we have to find the humor in tragedy.
Speaker 4: So it is distressing. However, this is one where I think,
Speaker 4: take a deep breath and see how this all plays out.
Speaker 4: So what's the big story this morning inflation is we're
Speaker 4: ring back. He's talking about ethics, gaza and doing this,
Speaker 4: and I'm thinking, okay, right now, we have this kind
Speaker 4: of psycho sexual dopamine hit of breakage and strength and movement,
Speaker 4: and it is you know, the entertainment value is strong,
Speaker 4: as as anyone that ran the Colisseum and would would
Speaker 4: tell you about it. There's there's the moment where you go, shit,
Speaker 4: how many of those Christians written by lions don't bring
Speaker 4: on some more lions. But once we figured out all
Speaker 4: the things that are broken and what it means for
Speaker 4: them to be broken, it will return to normal. Now.
Speaker 4: The bad news is America is not going to wake
Speaker 4: up and go, you know, fuck this guy. Seventy percent
Speaker 4: of Americans disapproved, but I think he's going to go
Speaker 4: back down to his normal low forties, upper thirties in
Speaker 4: terms of popularity because a lot of things that he's
Speaker 4: doing right now, it's all happening too fast to process.
Speaker 4: I mean, you and I do this for a living.
Speaker 4: It's too fast for us to process. The average person
Speaker 4: who's living their life just is not doing it. However,
Speaker 4: sooner or later this is going to impact people's lives.
Speaker 4: And the thing about Elon.
Speaker 1: Musk, the richest man in the world, who.
Speaker 4: Does not know the damage he's doing, He doesn't know
Speaker 4: the downstream effects, and he doesn't give a shit.
Speaker 1: A good example of this is I tweeted this weekend,
Speaker 1: the richest man in the world is cutting funding for
Speaker 1: cancer research, and he wrote back because he knows he's
Speaker 1: the richest man in the world. By the way, can
Speaker 1: we pause for a minute. Here is he searching the
Speaker 1: richest man in the world on Twitter?
Speaker 4: Elon Musk knows who you are.
Speaker 1: Oh, no, I'm going to the camps. But the point is,
Speaker 1: he said, WT, I'm not doing that right, So, but
Speaker 1: it cuts to the nah are cuts to cancer research,
Speaker 1: are cuts to food allergy research, their cuts to environmental research,
Speaker 1: they're cuts to all autoimmune diseases, everything, Right, So do
Speaker 1: you think here's the twenty billion dollar question. Do you
Speaker 1: think that he doesn't is he lying or does he
Speaker 1: just is not clear to him that that's what's happening.
Speaker 4: See, these are all excellent questions, and let me go
Speaker 4: back to your tweet, because you were actually dead on
Speaker 4: this is happening. Cancer researchers all across America are saying
Speaker 4: that it's happening. One university after another is saying, you
Speaker 4: understand that this will be this effect. For some reason,
Speaker 4: this got under his skin and he felt the need
Speaker 4: to respond. I think with Elon Musk, and of course
Speaker 4: we always have to have a little bit of humility
Speaker 4: and trying to get inside the minds of these guys.
Speaker 4: And depends what the drug load is on any given day.
Speaker 4: I don't think number one, I don't think he has
Speaker 4: any idea the effect. This is what my point is.
Speaker 4: They're breaking things, but they don't know what they have
Speaker 4: broken yet, they don't know all of the effects. There's
Speaker 4: no way. He thinks of himself as the richest, most powerful,
Speaker 4: smartest man on earth, but he is not the smartest man.
Speaker 4: He doesn't know what he's doing. He's throwing gasoline around,
Speaker 4: he's burning shit, and then people come up and say,
Speaker 4: look look what you just burned down. He goes, oh, no, no,
Speaker 4: I didn't do that. Well, you may not have meant
Speaker 4: to do that, but you did do that. Now there's
Speaker 4: the other part of Elon MS that I think is
Speaker 4: a complete sociopath where he doesn't give a fuck, He
Speaker 4: does not he does not care. But look, the reality
Speaker 4: is that many of the people who are ultimately going
Speaker 4: to you know, I have to decide on the nation's priorities.
Speaker 4: They may you know, be deplorable, but they're also elected officials,
Speaker 4: and I think that there are certain things that even
Speaker 4: the congressmen and senators are gonna like win SAT. They
Speaker 4: may go along with cutting off aid to Africa foreign aid.
Speaker 4: That may be okay, but when it's their constituentatie.
Speaker 1: Bread in Alabama, if you're cutting a percentage of the
Speaker 1: largest employer in the entire state of Alabama. So much
Speaker 1: of history is filled with wealthy people making philanthropic donations
Speaker 1: in order to quell the peasant class. You and I
Speaker 1: are in the class here, so because we're not billionaires.
Speaker 4: So bread and circuses, right.
Speaker 1: You know, you think of the MEDICIESE to the Rockefellers
Speaker 1: to the you know, the Great University is museums, libraries,
Speaker 1: Carnegie is robber barons, all of them donating money to charity.
Speaker 1: Is this reverse philanthropy is this the opposite.
Speaker 4: That's a really interesting point that and what would we call.
Speaker 1: That reverse philanthropy. I wrote about it this week in
Speaker 1: my column.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, well I need to go back because that's
Speaker 4: exactly what's going on here. And I think that's one
Speaker 4: of the reasons why I think that this may have
Speaker 4: an expiration date. You mentioned the polls. The polls are
Speaker 4: suggesting that a lot of voters, including Republican voters, are
Speaker 4: already souring on Elon Musk and the influence that he has.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump obviously is still all in. But you know
Speaker 4: those pictures yesterday, And I'm sorry to trivialize this, I'm
Speaker 4: sorry to dumb this down.
Speaker 1: No, No, I think it's an important point.
Speaker 4: Yes, those are humiliating pictures. And the one thing that
Speaker 4: Donald Trump understands is humiliation. He cannot tolerate it. But
Speaker 4: as I've said before, and I think I've said this
Speaker 4: to you, but this is a big problem for Donald
Speaker 4: Trump getting rid of Elon Musk. How do you get
Speaker 4: rid of a problem like Elon Musk? How do you
Speaker 4: fire Elon Musk? He's too powerful, He's got his own
Speaker 4: cult of personality. He can do a lot of damage.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump does not want to feel that he's beholden
Speaker 4: to anybody. But you are right, and I think that
Speaker 4: this is the age of the you know, the billionaire broligarchs, oligarchs.
Speaker 4: But the average American is not seeing them doing wonderful
Speaker 4: humanitarian things. What they're seeing them I'm doing is cutting
Speaker 4: safety nets, cutting programs, you know, cutting programs for children
Speaker 4: and the poor and for medical researchers. And I don't know, Mollie,
Speaker 4: the rules of politics have changed almost beyond recognition. But
Speaker 4: my gut tells me that you know there will be
Speaker 4: a reckoning.
Speaker 1: Charlie Sikes.
Speaker 4: Please come back, Molly John Fast anytime.
Speaker 1: Becca Ballant represents Vermont's Soul Congressional district. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, congress Woman beck Up.
Speaker 5: Nice to be here, Mollie. Love talking with you.
Speaker 1: Before we started recording, you said I was at a
Speaker 1: crazy committee hearing, and I said, oh, I was just
Speaker 1: watching doge the Marjorie Taylor Green committee hearing on C
Speaker 1: Span three, which involved her saying that she did not
Speaker 1: believe in political theater.
Speaker 6: I was like, really, that is literally all she does,
Speaker 6: literally all she does, and so I nearly choked on
Speaker 6: my die Coke when she said that, So tell me
Speaker 6: what committee you were on.
Speaker 5: I was a judiciary committee, and that is headed up
Speaker 5: by Jim Jordan.
Speaker 1: It's known to be actually a serious committee as opposed
Speaker 1: to Doge.
Speaker 5: It is a serious committee. And yet were we dealing
Speaker 5: with serious issues that we could be dealing with around
Speaker 5: civil rights or anti trust.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guest, now, tell us what you were cracking
Speaker 1: down on.
Speaker 5: We were once again cracking down on the Biden Harris administration. Censorship.
Speaker 4: They're not in office anymore.
Speaker 2: Wait, what are they censoring?
Speaker 5: Literally, we have so many examples of what the Trump
Speaker 5: administration is doing right now to censor information and speech.
Speaker 5: And so you come out of these hearings sometimes you
Speaker 5: just feel like we are living in alternate realities when
Speaker 5: the folks are in charge. It's really disturbing, Molly, I mean,
Speaker 5: I laugh about it, but it's really disturbing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, I think what's important here. We laugh
Speaker 1: to keep from crying, but also we laugh because it's
Speaker 1: so depressing. But this is not just about weaponizing government.
Speaker 1: This is for fun and for free. You know, this
Speaker 1: is not just about saying Pithy's stuff on Fox News,
Speaker 1: though it doesn't even need to be pithy for these guys.
Speaker 1: This is actually about taking away Medicare, Medicaid, cutting government programs,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing that happen in real time.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and it's about gutting government programs that we all
Speaker 5: rely on. But it is also a textbook playbook for authoritarianism.
Speaker 5: Everything that they're doing, attacking education, right, attacking knowledge, the
Speaker 5: propaganda machines, the firing civil servants, getting civil servants to
Speaker 5: spy on each other. I mean, it is textbook. And
Speaker 5: you know, one of the things that I talked about
Speaker 5: in the last committee here was there are even banning
Speaker 5: words like women in federal research. You know, he just
Speaker 5: keeps telling people this is not about fighting Republicans on policy.
Speaker 5: This is about a whole hostile takeover of government. And
Speaker 5: it's so scary and I think people don't want to
Speaker 5: necessarily see it for what it is, but that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's talk about the inspector generals. The most
Speaker 1: important thing is yesterday we had Elon in the Oval
Speaker 1: office with his kid. Yes one does, by the way,
Speaker 1: bringing his kid to work, because obviously the richest man
Speaker 1: in the world could not find a babysitter for his
Speaker 1: three or four year old and instead decided to bring
Speaker 1: him to work.
Speaker 2: And then he talked about.
Speaker 1: How he wanted to restore democracy, which I thought was
Speaker 1: very Orwellian.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is.
Speaker 1: Right, And then he also mused and mused and mused
Speaker 1: about waste on the same day that Donald Trump had
Speaker 1: fired more inspector general. So explain to me how they're
Speaker 1: going to fight waste and fraud, right, and programs they
Speaker 1: don't like which they consider to be waste and fraud
Speaker 1: by firing the people who are supposed to monitor waste
Speaker 1: in fraud.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And as you said, you know it's it's Orwellian.
Speaker 5: And folks who don't know that reference, right, it is,
Speaker 5: you know, looking at essentially the real thought police. Right
Speaker 5: when people tell you in Manny of Orwell's novels that
Speaker 5: what you see is actually not the truth. We control
Speaker 5: the truth. And you know, it goes back to Trump
Speaker 5: naming his social media company truth Social. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: the same as the state news agency in Russia, right,
Speaker 5: as a similar name. Right. So, there were so many
Speaker 5: things that were fascinating about that press conference. One of
Speaker 5: the ones that I thought was just so revealing is
Speaker 5: that Musk said, oh, yeah, well, I'm going to say
Speaker 5: things that are inaccurate. It's like, that's that's I want
Speaker 5: to say things that are inaccurate. I'm going to spread
Speaker 5: them on my social media platform. Trump meanwhile, is sitting
Speaker 5: on the side sort of as an add on this
Speaker 5: seems pretty clear who was in charge of running that.
Speaker 5: And yeah, if you fire the inspector generals, if you
Speaker 5: tell entire agencies not to show up for work, which
Speaker 5: is what has been happening right whether it's the Consumer
Speaker 5: Financial Protection Bureau again a bureau set up to fight
Speaker 5: waste fraud and abuse, or if it is firing people
Speaker 5: who are or laying people off or telling them, you know,
Speaker 5: to stop work while we continue to pay them while
Speaker 5: they're not working, and you have billions of pounds of
Speaker 5: food aids sitting in warehouses and nobody is watching over
Speaker 5: those programs. That isn't going to fight waste fraud and abuse.
Speaker 5: It is saying one thing while doing something completely different.
Speaker 5: And let's not forget the man that we have looking
Speaker 5: supposedly at waste fraud and abuse is not a disinterested actor.
Speaker 5: He has billions of dollars in federal subsidies. And federal
Speaker 5: contracts from you know, this government, and people are like, no,
Speaker 5: he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart.
Speaker 5: No way, nothing that Musk has ever done has been
Speaker 5: out of the goodness obvious heart. He's a billionaire businessman.
Speaker 5: He's always looking at his bottom line. That is why
Speaker 5: he intervened in our last budget negotiations in the last Congress,
Speaker 5: because there was something in that bill that would impact
Speaker 5: his business in China. That's what that was all about.
Speaker 5: We have to keep following the money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I mean I'm struck by how much billionaires
Speaker 1: have really proven themselves to be very bad stewards. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at them in journalism, right. You know, we were
Speaker 1: told that if we sold all the newspapers to billionaires,
Speaker 1: that billionaires would be philanthropic with their desire to help journalists.
Speaker 1: But in fact, what they meant was that they were
Speaker 1: going to do whatever helped to their bottom line or
Speaker 1: in this case, spaceships. I mean, if you think about
Speaker 1: the situation with the spaceships, I mean, bezos biked an
Speaker 1: editorial and I would even pause for a minute and
Speaker 1: pull back for a second and say billionaires were super
Speaker 1: mad at the Biden administration for the work they did
Speaker 1: with the antitrust. I mean, there are other things that
Speaker 1: made them mad, but that was one of the big things.
Speaker 1: Biden administration was so ham handed and unable to explain
Speaker 1: what they were doing that most voters didn't know about it.
Speaker 1: But I would love you to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that sort of antitrust stuff and the consumer stuff
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration did do that made billionaires so mad.
Speaker 5: Right It's clear that these billionaires sitting right behind the
Speaker 5: president on an inauguration day in front of people that
Speaker 5: he even tapped to be in his cabinet, was a
Speaker 5: very public statement. It was meant to indicate who had
Speaker 5: the real power. Is meant to chill all of the
Speaker 5: work that we're trying to do in Congress. And look,
Speaker 5: we have gross economic inequality right now in this country.
Speaker 5: It's been building in earnest for the last four days.
Speaker 5: Any kind of action that would actually help working people
Speaker 5: right now is not the work that's being done in Congress.
Speaker 5: Right So, right now they have the House, the Senate,
Speaker 5: and the White House. Have they introduced anything around prescription
Speaker 5: drug pricing? Have they kepped the interest rates on credit cards?
Speaker 5: Have they built more housing. Nothing that they're doing is
Speaker 5: fundamentally going after the way in which big business is
Speaker 5: doing really, really well and the rest of us are
Speaker 5: getting squeezed. And so we should have had a hearing
Speaker 5: today on the fact that inflation is rising once again, right,
Speaker 5: that would have been an issue that we all could
Speaker 5: have gotten behind. But instead we're back to Hunter, Biden
Speaker 5: and the laptop over and over and over again. And
Speaker 5: it shows, in my opinion, it shows a deep contempt
Speaker 5: for the people who voted for Trump and all of
Speaker 5: these Republican members in the House who are supposedly standing
Speaker 5: up for them. It is just so disrespectful to the people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean no, obviously, And the reality is
Speaker 1: all of this is theater, right, they don't not care
Speaker 1: about I mean, you saw that the Trump administration cut
Speaker 1: something from negotiating Medicare prices.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean you know this. You've been following this
Speaker 5: as closely as I have, which is it is about
Speaker 5: the chaos, It is about flooding the zone, making it
Speaker 5: difficult for us to follow all the threads of what
Speaker 5: they're doing. But what it adds up to is they're
Speaker 5: absolutely not looking out for working people right now, because
Speaker 5: if they were, they would be trying to negotiate down
Speaker 5: the drug prices that so many seniors in this country
Speaker 5: right depend on. They would be standing up to all
Speaker 5: of the price gouging that happens within, you know, the
Speaker 5: grocery industry.
Speaker 2: And they're not.
Speaker 5: They're absolutely not, And they're starting at trade war with
Speaker 5: our closest friend and ally, Canada.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like when you cover the Trump admin.
Speaker 1: There are things that are stupid, but theatrics, like Golf
Speaker 1: of America. Then there are things that are direct threats
Speaker 1: to democracy, like the impoundment stuff with the OMB right
Speaker 1: where the Office of Management and Budget is holding money
Speaker 1: that's congrecially allocated that is now being held because Trump
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do it right. That's the sort of
Speaker 1: second basket. And then there's the third, which are the
Speaker 1: things that it's not clear or what is what? What
Speaker 1: do you think are the sort of things you're seeing
Speaker 1: right now that are the most kind of troubling.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say the overarching answer to that is
Speaker 5: it's incredibly troubling to me that my Republican colleagues are
Speaker 5: willing to give up all of the power that we
Speaker 5: have as members of Congress, as members of the legislative
Speaker 5: branch to be a check on the executive power right there,
Speaker 5: and that Speaker Johnson, who is Speaker of the entire House,
Speaker 5: that is his job, right is to protect our power
Speaker 5: and our authority are to be a check on the
Speaker 5: executive make sure that our bills and the money that
Speaker 5: we have appropriated goes to those programs that help our
Speaker 5: constituents back home. And the fact that there has been
Speaker 5: no pushback about the impounment issues, that there has been
Speaker 5: no pushback, that Johnson is giving up all of his power,
Speaker 5: and our Chair of Appropriation, Tom Cole, someone who in
Speaker 5: the past has been seen as kind of a reasonable,
Speaker 5: governing minded Republican, is falling right in line. That is
Speaker 5: the most terrifying thing, because democracy only works if there
Speaker 5: is a countervail enforce. If there isn't, then it's not
Speaker 5: a democracy.
Speaker 1: So clearly, some of these people think that they are
Speaker 1: able to manipulate Prompt Right, some of these people clearly
Speaker 1: think that they can go along with some stuff but
Speaker 1: not go along with other stuff, and that if they
Speaker 1: do that, eventually they'll get the better of him. Right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that does seem possible. I don't know that
Speaker 1: anyone has ever that that's ever worked, But that's clearly
Speaker 1: the play. And some of these people really do, just
Speaker 1: like MTG, have just given up and just want to
Speaker 1: help mister Trump. Is there still the thing where there
Speaker 1: was in Trump twenty sixteen where Republicans are like, this guy,
Speaker 1: we just have to manipulate him, We just have to
Speaker 1: get through it.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean there's a handful who are are clear
Speaker 5: rid about the fact that he's not really in charge here.
Speaker 5: They don't actually like that.
Speaker 2: They don't like that Elon's in charge exactly.
Speaker 5: They won't speak up, they won't push back. There are,
Speaker 5: as you said, there's the true believers. There's a lot
Speaker 5: of opportunists, Molly, a lot of opportunists.
Speaker 1: Well they are politicians, right, I hate hey, tell you
Speaker 1: no offense or anything.
Speaker 5: But they are amassing power for power's sake. I know
Speaker 5: from speaking to some of them, they think that they
Speaker 5: can outlast Trump and trump Ism. But what they've created
Speaker 5: a monster here that black is white, up is down.
Speaker 5: There is no truth, there are no facts. Nobody trusts
Speaker 5: government anymore. They created that, right, It's been a twenty
Speaker 5: five year drumbeat of this, and so do they not
Speaker 5: think at some point they will also turn on them
Speaker 5: because they're in charge. Now they're in charge, it falls
Speaker 5: to them to actually do better for their constituents. But
Speaker 5: I can't tell you how difficult it is to watch
Speaker 5: day in and day out these people be such horrible
Speaker 5: cowards when they know that what is happening is not
Speaker 5: good for our country and it's not good for their constituents.
Speaker 1: Yes, agreed. Now what do you think the play here
Speaker 1: is that they're just trying to sort of not have
Speaker 1: the mean tweets?
Speaker 5: I mean, what are they afraid of?
Speaker 1: Well, if you're a normal Republican, if you are someone
Speaker 1: who is not a celebrity, right, like a person who
Speaker 1: actually works. I don't want to say who, but just
Speaker 1: like someone like that.
Speaker 2: They are, you know, not Nancy Mays.
Speaker 1: And you are pretty sane and you're trying to represent
Speaker 1: your district.
Speaker 2: You don't want to get.
Speaker 1: The mean tweeds, and you don't want to end up
Speaker 1: in the crosshairs, and you don't want to primary challenge.
Speaker 1: But you're thinking is what You're gonna put your head
Speaker 1: down and survive for four years because this won't end
Speaker 1: in tears. I mean, doesn't everyone see where this is going.
Speaker 5: That is what is so shocking is they don't seem
Speaker 5: to see where this is going. But yeah, it's that
Speaker 5: sense of like I'm going to keep myself and my
Speaker 5: family and my staff out of the bullseye. And I
Speaker 5: just want to connect a dot here too, that the
Speaker 5: House and Republicans in the House are not seeing profiles
Speaker 5: and courage in the Senate. Okay, you just had Tulsea
Speaker 5: Gabbard confirmed as the Intelligence chief, and you know that
Speaker 5: there are senators who know full well that that is
Speaker 5: incredibly dangerous Republicans, and so if the House members are
Speaker 5: thinking in themselves, Look, those folks have six year protections
Speaker 5: on their and they're not sticking their necks out. And
Speaker 5: I've only got two years. Why the hell should I
Speaker 5: stick my neck out. It's sick, It's absolutely sick.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit contagious, right exactly.
Speaker 5: And this cowardice is contagious. Encourage is contagious, and we're
Speaker 5: not seeing a whole lot of courage right now. It's
Speaker 5: basic human dignity too, and I'll see a whole lot
Speaker 5: of that either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if you could sort of explain to
Speaker 1: me what people are very mad and they're mad at
Speaker 1: democrats too.
Speaker 2: I have to say, like, there was an article on Axios.
Speaker 1: Yesterday about how leadership was mad at all those organizations
Speaker 1: for being so on them. Who knows if it's true,
Speaker 1: it's Axios, whatever, But I wonder if you could talk
Speaker 1: about are your constituents mad and if so, do you
Speaker 1: feel that you're able to fight for them in the
Speaker 1: way that you want to? And do you feel that
Speaker 1: leadership is listening to you?
Speaker 5: Yeah? So I would say there are certainly some segments
Speaker 5: of my constituency that are feeling mad. I would say
Speaker 5: the overarching sentiment right now is fear and anxiety. And
Speaker 5: I hear a lot from constituents how deeply concerned they
Speaker 5: are that we are heading towards authoritarianism. Is an ex
Speaker 5: book case of taking this step by step. I have
Speaker 5: tried in earnest in the last few weeks to just
Speaker 5: be as open and as transparent and as direct as
Speaker 5: I can with constituents about what I'm doing, what's happening,
Speaker 5: communicating as much as I possibly can to help them
Speaker 5: feel less anxious and less scared. But look, we need
Speaker 5: the three prongs, right, We need legislation, but we don't
Speaker 5: have the we don't have control. Right, we can still
Speaker 5: introduce legislation, but we need three Republicans to join us.
Speaker 5: So we can try to do things legislatively to help
Speaker 5: this situation, but we also have to litigate. Individual members
Speaker 5: of Congress can't have standing to sue. So we are
Speaker 5: partnering with our outside partners, and yeah, we do need
Speaker 5: to agitate, which is why I've been out in front
Speaker 5: of the Treasury and the Consumer or Financial Protection Bureau
Speaker 5: and the Agency of Education. And I think it's really
Speaker 5: important that my constituents see me out there raising their
Speaker 5: voices for them because they're on little back roads of Vermont.
Speaker 5: They're not here in DC, and so I understand the
Speaker 5: frustration and anger that I've heard from from some of
Speaker 5: the groups. They want us to be in the fight,
Speaker 5: and so I have, like I said, I've been trying
Speaker 5: to do everything to indicate to my constituents that that's
Speaker 5: where we are. I haven't seen the Axios article that
Speaker 5: I certainly have heard the murmur ins on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 5: I know what can be hard sometimes is when people
Speaker 5: feel like we need three Republicans to join us, and
Speaker 5: yet our offices are getting flooded. But the Republicans aren't.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's true, though? I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: the Republicans are also going to be flooded.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can't speak to that, right, I think it
Speaker 5: is a perception. I will tell you one thing, though, Molly,
Speaker 5: which is to give you the level of like what
Speaker 5: can sometimes creep us out when people say we're not
Speaker 5: fighting hard enough. I just heard this yesterday. Please a
Speaker 5: dear friend of mine, she's in a frontline district, and
Speaker 5: she was on the phone with a constituent last night
Speaker 5: who was really angry and yelling at her, and she said,
Speaker 5: it's not enough for members of Congress to try to
Speaker 5: get into the Department of Education. You know, because I
Speaker 5: don't know if you saw that clip, a bunch of
Speaker 5: us were down there. This person literally said to her,
Speaker 5: you need to be breaking down the door and getting shot.
Speaker 5: That's the only thing that's going to grab the attention
Speaker 5: of the American people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not so good.
Speaker 4: That's not good.
Speaker 5: Right. So we got a channel. We got to channel
Speaker 5: that anxiety and that fear, that worry into action. And
Speaker 5: I think we do need to do a better job
Speaker 5: as Democrats telling people what are the actions that they
Speaker 5: can take while also educating, like what does it mean
Speaker 5: when you're not in charge of the House. You don't
Speaker 5: control the gabbles, you don't control the committee, right, all
Speaker 5: of those things. I had a constituency to me the
Speaker 5: other day, Well, why can't you just bring a bill
Speaker 5: to the floor of the House and make it a
Speaker 5: bipartisan bill and get people to vote with you. I said,
Speaker 5: I don't. I can't do that. That's just like not
Speaker 5: possible in the minority. And so, you know, I want
Speaker 5: us to be making the case really strongly, really forcefully
Speaker 5: about why it is that we are standing with working people.
Speaker 5: We've got to do a better job there, and I'm
Speaker 5: trying to do my part every single day.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Becca.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Always love talking with you.
Speaker 1: Molly, No moment, Jesse Cannon, Somali Young Fast.
Speaker 3: If you don't call the Golf of Mexico Golf of America,
Speaker 3: you're going to pay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really so stupid. It's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: something stupid are than this, but we have hit on
Speaker 1: it Donald Trump's Golf of America gate.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: The idea here is that language. You know, they hate
Speaker 1: the mainstream media. They're furious with writers, and yet they're
Speaker 1: obsessed with language, So go figure.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is one of the stupider things. He was mad
Speaker 1: that the AP would not put it put the Gulf
Speaker 1: of Mexico as the Gulf of America, and is to
Speaker 1: punish the associated pressure, he did not allow their journalists
Speaker 1: in to his press briefing. But again I'm reminded of
Speaker 1: Acosta in twenty seventeen. There's precedent for torturing journalists. It's
Speaker 1: like kind of his thing. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and
Speaker 1: Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense
Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
Speaker 1: send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.