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 Donald Trump has now overseen over
Speaker 1: a million corporate job losses, the worst since two thousand
Speaker 1: and three. We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: The think like an economist Justin Wolfers joins us to
Speaker 1: talk about Trump's economy and why it's so bad at
Speaker 1: giving numbers. Then we'll talk to former vice presidential candidate
Speaker 1: Governor Tim Walls about how the government shutdown is affecting
Speaker 1: his citizens. But first the news.
Speaker 2: Smy the Trump administration, they just love starving poor people.
Speaker 2: You know, we all know the cruelty is the point.
Speaker 2: We've gotten the memo. But my god, they're ordered to
Speaker 2: pay snap payments. They could just say, all right, we
Speaker 2: can see, will give the poor some things that they're
Speaker 2: like now, got to make sure they suffer. Got to
Speaker 2: make sure that there's as much harm inflicted on these
Speaker 2: people as possible.
Speaker 1: So this is the first time ever that a government
Speaker 1: has just decided not to pay snap benefits. The money
Speaker 1: is there, like the Trump administration is is old hat
Speaker 1: at like having money refusing to use it. It's not
Speaker 1: their money. I mean, the thing I love about Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is like he's like, you know, he's like the
Speaker 1: rich dad being like, no, it's not for you, but
Speaker 1: it's not yours, daddy. It's not your money, it's the
Speaker 1: taxpayer's money. His administration is now fighting with the courts
Speaker 1: about whether or not he has to pay SNAP benefit.
Speaker 1: Forty percent of SNAP recipients are children, twenty percent are
Speaker 1: the elderly, ten percent are disabled. They will go to
Speaker 1: the grocery store and their Snap cards will have no
Speaker 1: money on them. That is because of Donald J.
Speaker 3: Trump.
Speaker 1: If you have a clearer explanation of how Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is just fucking people overloved right by the way, Ice
Speaker 1: still having their student loan debt paid, Okay, riddle me this,
Speaker 1: like who is this for besides Elon Musk who will
Speaker 1: soon be a trillionaire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and let's remember all the air traffic controllers not
Speaker 2: getting paid right now, all the congressional employees not getting
Speaker 2: paid right now but still have to work.
Speaker 1: And members of Congress getting paid. Mike Johnson, my man,
Speaker 1: he's making his full paycheck.
Speaker 2: My wife is out literally helping people in the streets
Speaker 2: for free. That as mandated by her job, but not
Speaker 2: getting a paycheck as we speak. Yes, So by I
Speaker 2: don't normally recommend House Democrats imitating a guy who's on
Speaker 2: videotape abusing his wife, who then became a meme because
Speaker 2: he'd say change my mind and set college campuses where
Speaker 2: a grown man would fight with college students. But I
Speaker 2: have to say what Arizona repens Sorry did here by
Speaker 2: trolling Mike Johnson and making it realize Mike Johnson's choosing
Speaker 2: to keep the government shut down. I say more trolling
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 1: So she's a member of Congress. She sat down in
Speaker 1: front of Mike Johnson's office in a table with a
Speaker 1: placard on the front that had written on it Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson is starving families and gutting health care to cover
Speaker 1: up the Epstein files. Change my mind. It's a sort
Speaker 1: of a homage to evil Stephen Crowder, who used to
Speaker 1: do that in college campuses. But the point of it
Speaker 1: is that it actually really got people talking, and then
Speaker 1: it got Mike Johnson playing c span in front of
Speaker 1: his office as a way to try to dispel it,
Speaker 1: which ended up having more people coming to talk to her,
Speaker 1: which ended up creating more attention. And again, like you know,
Speaker 1: we talk so much about like how politicians can break through,
Speaker 1: how democrats can connect with voters, and like we see
Speaker 1: lots of different ways that politicians can do it, even
Speaker 1: like from Jared Moskowed's to Chris Murphy to Bernie Sanders,
Speaker 1: Like this is another way in which like if you think,
Speaker 1: if you're thinking in a creative way, then you can
Speaker 1: actually connect. And there are a lot of members of
Speaker 1: Congress and well, you know, Mike Johnson sent a lot
Speaker 1: of people home. There are still some people that are there.
Speaker 1: A lot of the Democrats are still there, and like
Speaker 1: this was an effective way I think to break through.
Speaker 1: So good for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So another thing, you know, there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about socialist rule in this country and how
Speaker 2: you know the socialists are getting in charge. And by
Speaker 2: that I mean Donald Trump saying that he wants a
Speaker 2: piece of neurodisc.
Speaker 1: So Donald Trump is amazing because whatever is happening in
Speaker 1: his brain, he has no filter and he just says
Speaker 1: whatever he thinks. So there was a pressor Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and his administration got them to cut the cost of
Speaker 1: these weight laws drugs, which is good. And then one
Speaker 1: of the people on the wave loss drugs, passed out
Speaker 1: and then RFK Junior ran out of the room. He
Speaker 1: chap aquidict died out of there, slid But it's so good.
Speaker 2: It's a really good joke.
Speaker 1: Damn yeah, we see saw someone those Kennedy's when there's
Speaker 1: a medical emergency, those are not your people. And then
Speaker 1: Donald Trump fell asleep at his desk. But between all
Speaker 1: of those things, that was one of the great meetings.
Speaker 2: Truly, many people are saying the greatest.
Speaker 1: One of the greatest. My favorite was when doctor Oz
Speaker 1: was like, obesity can lead to dementia and pan to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Literally slumped down in his seat like me during history
Speaker 2: class at eighth grade, just straight.
Speaker 1: There, very very tired. So anyway, he did make this
Speaker 1: is he made a threat. One of his favorite. He's
Speaker 1: very into socialism. He said to the CEO, maybe you
Speaker 1: should give us a PE's of the company, like I've
Speaker 1: been asking for, give the United States a nice big
Speaker 1: chunk of the company. By the way, in case you're wondering,
Speaker 1: he doesn't want it for the United States. He wants
Speaker 1: it for Donnie and Eric Somali.
Speaker 2: We have two big, big Democratic congressional retirements in two
Speaker 2: different ways. Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Nancy Pelosi will not seek re election to Congress
Speaker 1: after forty years in Washington. She's eighty five. She'd stepped
Speaker 1: down from leadership. She is now leaving the party. Probably
Speaker 1: the most effective speaker of the House we've ever had.
Speaker 1: Love her, hate her, feel very betrayed by her husband
Speaker 1: stock Trading.
Speaker 2: Can we pour one out for four h four Media's headlight,
Speaker 2: one of the greatest headlines of all time, one of
Speaker 2: the greatest Wall Street investors of all time, announces retirement.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, that was bad, but she also did
Speaker 1: some good stuff.
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree, but also we could laugh at that.
Speaker 1: We can like love our politicians and also know that
Speaker 1: they are often less than perfect.
Speaker 2: So as well, though, somebody you love to bring up
Speaker 2: on this podcast as a Congressman from main secred district,
Speaker 2: which is an R plus four district. Representative Jared Golden
Speaker 2: is retiring and many people are worried that this is
Speaker 2: a seat that Dems cannot win without him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who knows he's retiring. I don't know how happy
Speaker 1: he was. Ever, the times that I met him, he
Speaker 1: seems super unhappy. There's a lot of blaming going on
Speaker 1: of whether people pushed him to drop out or I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: Are you telling me people are unhappy being a congressperson.
Speaker 2: That's such a great job.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants it like such a good job. But we'll see.
Speaker 1: I mean again, he's dropping out. That's too bad. There
Speaker 1: is going to be an open govenmentorial. There's going to
Speaker 1: be you know, there's a lot of stuff to run
Speaker 1: for in Maine right now. Justin Wolfers is the host
Speaker 1: to be Thinking Like an Economist podcast and a professor
Speaker 1: at the University of Michigan. Welcome back to Fast Polity.
Speaker 1: It's Justin Wlfer's So the great news for the Trump
Speaker 1: administration is when the government is shut down, you don't
Speaker 1: get the numbers right.
Speaker 4: Just like how we solved COVID so exactly numbers, no problems.
Speaker 1: But it was he had already before shutting down. In
Speaker 1: Trump's defense, before shutting down the government, he had fired
Speaker 1: the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Speaker 4: He made his position on data very clear. He's against it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He also has very strong position on truth.
Speaker 1: That's right optional. He likes truthiness.
Speaker 4: Yep, in small doses and only occasionally yes.
Speaker 1: At this point, does the government give us public data.
Speaker 1: Still not really or yes or talk us through it.
Speaker 4: It's a very sad day. So I'm going to make
Speaker 4: this personal if I may. Molly is I've been a
Speaker 4: nerd for a very long time. When I left college,
Speaker 4: my first deviate job was at the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Speaker 4: And when you have a like the FED, and when
Speaker 4: you get a job as a baby economist, they give
Speaker 4: you one tiny sliver of the economy to look after.
Speaker 4: And my job was the job's report. And so even
Speaker 4: as a little baby economist, I would wake up.
Speaker 1: In a text say country in a very.
Speaker 4: In a magnificent and beautiful country with a functional democracy
Speaker 4: and a well functioning economy, you don't love it anymore,
Speaker 4: which I have family and think about during an anna
Speaker 4: able winter. The job was like it would be jobs Day,
Speaker 4: and I would wake up excited for jobs Day, even
Speaker 4: as a twenty two year old. And then I moved
Speaker 4: to America and I did my PhD, and you know,
Speaker 4: you forget about the real world for a little while.
Speaker 4: And then my better half, Betsy Stevenson, became the chief
Speaker 4: economist at the Department of Labor, and so it became
Speaker 4: this thing Friday, The first Friday of every month was
Speaker 4: Job's Day, and she had to get in early and
Speaker 4: brief the labor secretary and talk to the media and
Speaker 4: crunch the numbers for what was then the first a
Speaker 4: Bama administration, and so jobs. There was such a big
Speaker 4: day in our household. And then I was writing for
Speaker 4: New York Times, and I used to write about the
Speaker 4: jobs numbers, and it was all very exciting, and it stays.
Speaker 4: It's just a regular part of our monthly life ever since,
Speaker 4: to the point that I literally our nanny would walk
Speaker 4: in and say, Oh, it's a job's day today, how
Speaker 4: are you feeling about the economy? And today I woke
Speaker 4: up and it's the first Friday of the month, and
Speaker 4: there was an enormous void in my life, the sense
Speaker 4: of checking in on the workers and seeing how they're doing,
Speaker 4: of hoping that the economy is moving forward and producing
Speaker 4: more for more of us, of wondering what's next, of
Speaker 4: thinking about policies that could make a difference. I did
Speaker 4: none of that. I sat in the dark room, staring
Speaker 4: at the corner, rocking backward and forward, crying, just one
Speaker 4: solitary tear down my cheek, talk us through this.
Speaker 1: We don't have the government data, but we do have
Speaker 1: some private data. Does that fill the void or does not?
Speaker 4: It's sort of like, you know, when mum and dad
Speaker 4: get divorced and then mum starts dating a new guy,
Speaker 4: but she's not really sure that he's going to be
Speaker 4: around for very long, and maybe they've been dating two
Speaker 4: months and he takes you out to the zoo. That
Speaker 4: is the ADP Job Report. The ADGP job report is
Speaker 4: not something well loved, has no particular track record, is
Speaker 4: not particularly reliable, and when you need it, you don't
Speaker 4: know if it'll always be there for you.
Speaker 2: So no, we don't.
Speaker 4: There's going to be a lot of press attention around
Speaker 4: the ADP Job Report, and it came in yesterday, it
Speaker 4: was or the day before. It was not as bad
Speaker 4: as the past few have been, but still the important
Speaker 4: thing is not the comparison with are you as bad
Speaker 4: as last month? But are you good or bad? It
Speaker 4: was unequickly pointing to a weak economy, but I don't
Speaker 4: want anyone to place much stock in it. It is
Speaker 4: a very unreliable indicator. So the truth is we're all
Speaker 4: alone in the dock right now. I hope this doesn't
Speaker 4: sound like I'm talking about my childhood.
Speaker 1: So I want you to I need you to sort
Speaker 1: of pull back from the job support into what you
Speaker 1: think the economy. So we have a federal government that's
Speaker 1: pretty hostile, that's a the longest shutdown ever, be pretty
Speaker 1: hostile to facts, reason truth. So how do you figure
Speaker 1: out where the economy is? Knowing those two sayings?
Speaker 4: Okay, so the good news, then the bad news. The
Speaker 4: good news is the government data is not the only
Speaker 4: data that we have. I did warn you a moment
Speaker 4: ago that private sick the data about the state of
Speaker 4: the labor market is not as good as government data,
Speaker 4: and that's absolutely stunningly true. So we have lost some
Speaker 4: very important things. There do exist many other data sets.
Speaker 4: For instance, the Federal Reserve, which is not affected by
Speaker 4: the shutdown, collects industrial production, and so we know how
Speaker 4: much stuff is coming out of factories. We're not going
Speaker 4: to be getting GDP data, but we are going to
Speaker 4: continue to see surveys of companies telling us how they're doing.
Speaker 4: We have all sorts of things about our daily lives
Speaker 4: and measured in all sorts of ways. We know restaurant
Speaker 4: reservations through open table, and we've got a lot of
Speaker 4: practice of this during the pandemic, when a lot of
Speaker 4: our normal ways of thinking about the economy were broken.
Speaker 4: What are some creative ways. So the good news is
Speaker 4: we're not purely in the dark. The bad news is
Speaker 4: it's pretty damn foggy, which is it's going to be
Speaker 4: very hard to have any great sense of what's going
Speaker 4: on that really really matters right now. Why right now?
Speaker 4: Because it's possible, but by no means certain that we're
Speaker 4: at a turning point. It's possible that. Remember we've been
Speaker 4: talking about tariffs for eight months, and I know I've
Speaker 4: brought everyone on this, but actually Trump has only really
Speaker 4: truly imposed them a couple of months ago, and so
Speaker 4: if they're going to have an effect, it would be
Speaker 4: any day now. We are seeing some hints that the
Speaker 4: economy is slowed right off, not just because of tariff's
Speaker 4: by the way, but also we've had a huge to
Speaker 4: immigration and new people create new stuff, and so that's
Speaker 4: something that's really going to be missing as well. Those
Speaker 4: are two enormous shocks that are hitting the economy right now.
Speaker 4: And we do know enough to know that the economy
Speaker 4: was slowing, and the question is are we slowing into
Speaker 4: comfortable or are we slowing into a recession and we
Speaker 4: actually have no way of knowing that right now, which
Speaker 4: is a very very uncomfortable place to be in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that does not sound good. And then the other question,
Speaker 1: which you know, people will be listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: on Saturday morning and we will be in the middle
Speaker 1: of what Sean Duffy lovingly refers to as airplane armageddon,
Speaker 1: where they basically just slow down air traffic because vibes.
Speaker 1: So that seems like it could have larger consequences to
Speaker 1: the economy.
Speaker 4: Well, you usually bring me in for the stuff that
Speaker 4: you feel less confident on, and that's usually macroeconomics. You
Speaker 4: feel terrific on finance, and when it comes to fashion, wow,
Speaker 4: and politics for sure, and peace on gender. I thought
Speaker 4: the other in the New York Times. I love that
Speaker 4: l Thank you. So you want to talk about macroeconomics.
Speaker 4: And the truth is that the government shutdown is going
Speaker 4: to be a small impact in terms of its overall
Speaker 4: macro stuff, right, So the headlines aren't going to change
Speaker 4: a lot. That's position one. Position two that's also true
Speaker 4: is every single holiday that's destroyed, every snap beneficiary who
Speaker 4: went to bed, hungry and fearful last night.
Speaker 1: Right, and that's started now. SNAP. The Trump administration is
Speaker 1: not funding SNAP, even though federal judges have told them
Speaker 1: they have to.
Speaker 4: So then they should be. And I don't you know,
Speaker 4: none of us will believe it until the money's on
Speaker 4: the card, which means the most vulnerable people in our
Speaker 4: society who have no stockpile of cash, no.
Speaker 1: Waves, forty percent of which are children, elderly, and ten
Speaker 1: percent are disabled.
Speaker 2: Let's just pause on that for a moment.
Speaker 1: Mine, yeah, and FYI are white like even.
Speaker 4: That, we know that is and should be irrelevant. Let's
Speaker 4: pull on the very human thing you said. It's profoundly important.
Speaker 4: Many of our listeners, just like you and I Moly,
Speaker 4: are fortunate enough. We're doing okay economically, and so we
Speaker 4: don't think about how will I go to the grocery
Speaker 4: store next week? What can I afford to buy?
Speaker 3: What is in the covert?
Speaker 1: But we do notice, I mean, I certainly noticed that
Speaker 1: my grocery bells are humongous, like crazy high compared to
Speaker 1: what I mean, there are much more, and if we're
Speaker 1: noticing it, it means it's real. Everywhere.
Speaker 4: Food prices are up about three percent over the past year.
Speaker 4: I am profoundly disgusted by anyone who can take the
Speaker 4: most vulnerable and make them pawns in the political game.
Speaker 3: Why don't we just have a.
Speaker 4: Different kind of shutdown where tax cuts for millionaires get
Speaker 4: put off for a few weeks. I mean, it's only
Speaker 4: a weird accident, and well it's not even a weed accident.
Speaker 4: It's also the illegality and then the approach to the administration.
Speaker 4: But it's one of the most awful things I've seen
Speaker 4: the American government do to its own people. And it
Speaker 4: doesn't need to do it. There's money there, we know
Speaker 4: how to spend it. I also want to pan back
Speaker 4: because Molly, you're also you know, you're like, oh, what's
Speaker 4: the fifth of the chapter, and you think about next
Speaker 4: quarter's GDP When we go back to the things that
Speaker 4: you were talking about, things like we no longer have
Speaker 4: statistical agencies that are being told it's important to tell
Speaker 4: the truth. Now so far they are telling the truth,
Speaker 4: and they want to remind our listeners of that. But
Speaker 4: when you fire the head of the BLS for no reason,
Speaker 4: you're sending them a message. You can stop with that
Speaker 4: truth stuff. When you have CEOs of major corporations walk
Speaker 4: into the White House and walk out ten minutes later
Speaker 4: with ten percent less of their company. When you have
Speaker 4: the present.
Speaker 1: Telling them that it's called socialism.
Speaker 4: It's called something asm and you have the administration ignoring
Speaker 4: the courts when you have real questions, when you have
Speaker 4: ice on the streets. All of this stuff. None of
Speaker 4: it shows up in this quarter's GDP. But it's more
Speaker 4: important than anything that shows up in next quarter's GDP.
Speaker 4: That is not a political statement. That is an economic statement.
Speaker 4: That is a statement that, on average, the average populist
Speaker 4: leader over the last hundred years, when you elect them
Speaker 4: a decade later, has led GDP to be about fifteen
Speaker 4: percent lower. Let me say that more human terms. GDP's
Speaker 4: a fancy word for you elect Trump like characters, and
Speaker 4: history shows that a decade later, average income is fifteen
Speaker 4: percent lower, and he could be worse. When you look
Speaker 4: at these big questions, what makes the United States rich
Speaker 4: and the country of my birth, which was Papulnian Guinea poor,
Speaker 4: It's really about state capacity. It's about how we run
Speaker 4: our economy. It's our political and economic institutions, and they're
Speaker 4: all being burned down right now. None of that is
Speaker 4: going to be next quarter's GDP. But everything we know
Speaker 4: about how economies work tell us this is overwhelmingly the
Speaker 4: most important thing going on. You can't see it, but
Speaker 4: what we will know is that our kids are going
Speaker 4: to wake up in ten or twenty years time and
Speaker 4: the opportunities in front of them are going to simply
Speaker 4: not be there. And it's these unborn opportunities. It's the
Speaker 4: new ideas, the new industries that just simply never happened,
Speaker 4: and that's the real cost and.
Speaker 1: The problems in China.
Speaker 4: I am trying to figure out how you tell this story,
Speaker 4: so I need your help because it's not a story.
Speaker 4: It's economic research. This is findings from serious people studying
Speaker 4: hundreds of years of economic history among every country around
Speaker 4: the world. And it's not so obvious, but this is
Speaker 4: Folks like Emily do a great job telling it as
Speaker 4: a political story, but this is an economic story as well.
Speaker 4: And the American poor will be poorer as a result
Speaker 4: of our pie being smaller as a result of everything
Speaker 4: that's going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Elon mush. So let's talk about where
Speaker 1: we are right now. When it comes to we don't
Speaker 1: have the data, we have have these tariffs. We have
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court fight, this insane Supreme Court fight whether
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has the power to do everything he's ever
Speaker 1: wanted to do period paragraph. The questions with the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: this case, this tariff case, are so big because the
Speaker 1: courts could side that Trump doesn't have the economic power
Speaker 1: to do these things and it could not necessarily matter,
Speaker 1: right Like they could say he has time to pay back,
Speaker 1: or he has this, or is that. So I would
Speaker 1: love it if you could explain to us, don't predict
Speaker 1: the future, but just lay out what the possible lanes are.
Speaker 4: I think what you just says. Can you be an
Speaker 4: economics professor for about five.
Speaker 1: Minutes, but I'm the Supreme Court case.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay. So here's the critical things for people to understand.
Speaker 4: The Constitution. So the Constitution gives the power to tax
Speaker 4: to Congress. Congress has delegated some of those authorities to
Speaker 4: the White House because Congress understands that Congress is not
Speaker 4: very nimble, and so for things like national security and
Speaker 4: so on, you can live in new tariffs through the
Speaker 4: White House without Congress.
Speaker 3: There's a process. But that's it.
Speaker 4: Trump decided he granted himself a new set of powers
Speaker 4: that had never been used before. All of the tariffs
Speaker 4: that are on individual countries, on China, on Canada, and
Speaker 4: actually on every country around the world. Eighty percent of
Speaker 4: what he's done has been country by country tariffs. There's
Speaker 4: no legal authority for that. Trump claims he gets one
Speaker 4: through what's called the Emergency Powers Act. The Emergency Powers
Speaker 4: Act is two things are really important about it. One,
Speaker 4: no where does it mention the word tariff or tax.
Speaker 1: You're suit a stickler for these words. And wait.
Speaker 4: Second, well, good that you're thinking about that, because the
Speaker 4: second thing is stickler for words. It's called the Emergency
Speaker 4: Powers Act. Yeah, so I know he wants the powers.
Speaker 4: I think that means you got to have the emergency.
Speaker 1: As just as Amy brought up, what is the national
Speaker 1: security reason for now? You could say Tokyo, you know,
Speaker 1: you could say Japan, but then you can't also.
Speaker 4: Say tariff's'm bananas, right, you know?
Speaker 1: And me and Italy like it has it out?
Speaker 4: What about the aggression coming from north of the border
Speaker 4: as Canadians far out won the World lost the World
Speaker 4: Series even thank you, Yes, that's good. So those are
Speaker 4: the central issues I listened to the Supreme Court argument.
Speaker 4: They actually focused almost exclusively on the first days, which
Speaker 4: was does the Emergency Powers Act give the President the
Speaker 4: right over tariffs. The government's view was, Oh, if tariffs
Speaker 4: work properly, no one will ever buy anything from abroad,
Speaker 4: which means we'll collect no revenue. So therefore the revenue
Speaker 4: is merely incidental. This is about regulating other countries. The
Speaker 4: justices fought back and they said, if you want people
Speaker 4: to not buy from other countries, here's a simple thing,
Speaker 4: have an embargo. So it was the Boston tea Party,
Speaker 4: not the Boston embargo Party, was sort of the claim. So,
Speaker 4: in fact, the government made up a new word. It
Speaker 4: took me a long time to realize they made up
Speaker 4: a new word. They talked about revenue tariffs versus regulatory tariffs.
Speaker 4: One of these there's actually only tariffs a book behind me.
Speaker 4: On the bookshelf I might have written. It defines a
Speaker 4: tariff as attacks on imports. It is a tax. So
Speaker 4: the government wants to claim there's something called a regulation tariff.
Speaker 4: It's literally a word. They just invent it. Yeah, doesn't exist.
Speaker 4: So that's where most of the argument was. The justices
Speaker 4: were pretty hostile because when Congress wants to get rid
Speaker 4: of its taxing powers. It tends to be very very
Speaker 4: very clear, and it didn't even use the word here.
Speaker 4: But then you still get to the second problem, which is,
Speaker 4: even if it had the power, does Trump have a
Speaker 4: national emergency? This is where as an economist, the administration says,
Speaker 4: we have a national emergency because we have a trade
Speaker 4: unbalanced trade with specific countries. That's what it's called a
Speaker 4: bilateral trade deficit. No economist alive thinks they matter. Not
Speaker 4: even do we not think they're an emergency. We don't
Speaker 4: even think they're interesting.
Speaker 1: So even like a Kevin Hasset.
Speaker 4: Even Kevin Hasset, if you tied him down and injected
Speaker 4: him with honesty juice, yeah, Asset, it would take a
Speaker 4: lot of honesty Jews.
Speaker 1: What about Stephen Moore?
Speaker 4: So stupid that it hurts?
Speaker 1: I mean, I just want to know who is the
Speaker 1: dumbest MAGA economist.
Speaker 3: I am going to be really nice.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna say I'm glad that there are people
Speaker 4: now I can't even say nice things. I'm just going
Speaker 4: to stay out of that. But like serious point for
Speaker 4: the audience, what happens when a new administration comes to
Speaker 4: town is usually they recruit the best and the brightest
Speaker 4: every administration, not only in my lifetime, in the previous
Speaker 4: fifty years. You can look at who was the chair
Speaker 4: of the Council of Economic Advisors, Who were the nerds
Speaker 4: and the wonks around the president, and they were the
Speaker 4: best and brightest of their generation. Many a former Nobel
Speaker 4: Prize winners, for ins a Nobel Prize winners, for instance.
Speaker 4: What we have in the current White House is you
Speaker 4: can take any ranking of the horsepower of economists, and
Speaker 4: many exist. By the way, there is no one in
Speaker 4: the White House who is in America's ten thousand best economists.
Speaker 4: That's not a hint of exactly, that's a quantitative statement.
Speaker 4: They've gone dragging through the gutter. Stupid is jupid does?
Speaker 4: I don't want to be that guy. I hate being
Speaker 4: that guy. But it's not a well advised White House.
Speaker 4: Maybe in competence is part of the strategy.
Speaker 1: We're at a time. What are you going to watch
Speaker 1: for over the next couple of weeks, economic indicators, what's
Speaker 1: coming down the pike.
Speaker 4: I think the most interesting thing is going to be
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court tariff case. It's probably going to happen quickly,
Speaker 4: according to the legal nerds I talked to, not tomorrow quickly,
Speaker 4: but maybe you know even before Thanksgiving. That'd be amazing,
Speaker 4: wouldn't it. Have you Thanksgiving talk about tariffs around the Turkey. If,
Speaker 4: as I expect, the Trump tarift's areroyalt illegal, we're going
Speaker 4: to move from eight months of unconstitutional, illegal tariff turmoil
Speaker 4: that have created all sorts of headaches to a whole
Speaker 4: new set of tariff turmoil, some of which in the
Speaker 4: future may even be constitutional. But it'll be this crazy,
Speaker 4: crazy soap opera in which the president tries to run
Speaker 4: an economy by pretending he and he alone can move
Speaker 4: the pieces around the global economy chessboard. So if you
Speaker 4: think you've seen myhem strapping this plenty more ahead.
Speaker 1: I was told trade wars are good and easy to win.
Speaker 1: Thank you, justin.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Molly.
Speaker 1: Governor Tim Walls is a former vice presidential candidate and
Speaker 1: the governor of the great state of Minnesota. Welcome back
Speaker 1: too fast Politics, Governor Walls.
Speaker 3: It's good to be with you, Molly. It's been too long,
Speaker 3: but you had a whole row of great guests you've
Speaker 3: had on so glad to be back.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to talk to you. I just felt
Speaker 1: like we needed to catch up about how and there's
Speaker 1: something about this particular moment in American life after this,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking in the week of the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five cycle, which was a tiny, tiny cycle, but
Speaker 1: a huge repudiation of trump Ism.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And look it helps me process too, because I
Speaker 3: keep thinking, you know, year ago, we needed to see
Speaker 3: these numbers, but these candidates and the American people showed
Speaker 3: up in huge numbers. We were just talking. You know,
Speaker 3: we now have the most female governors we've ever had
Speaker 3: in American history, with Governor Alex Banberger and Cheryl and
Speaker 3: then of course, you know winning in New York City
Speaker 3: governor's race. The party is broad and we're proud of that.
Speaker 3: But I just think for me, it was just good
Speaker 3: to see what we all knew, that the American people
Speaker 3: at heart are kinder people, They care more, that this
Speaker 3: cruelty and this stuff isn't what they're looking for. So
Speaker 3: I agree this is it was therapeutic. We know that
Speaker 3: it was one moment in time, but it's encouraging and
Speaker 3: I'm just grateful to the folks that went out and
Speaker 3: voted and some of the massive swings we saw of
Speaker 3: young people coming back and Hispanic voters, and so good
Speaker 3: to be with you at this point.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because it's like, you know, the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four cycle for me, and I know for you too,
Speaker 1: was just there was something about it that was just
Speaker 1: devastating that I felt that, you know, it was in
Speaker 1: all different ways, you know, a referendum on sort of
Speaker 1: goodness and sandy and the American people said yet again
Speaker 1: for the second time, and so I just would love
Speaker 1: you know, we haven't talked since that election. You want
Speaker 1: to talk about like what it was like for you,
Speaker 1: because I know what it was like for me, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't my name on that ticket.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, you know, and I think Vice
Speaker 3: President Harris articulated so well that night when we found
Speaker 3: out we weren't going to win, my first thought went
Speaker 3: to what we knew would happened the most vulnerable. And
Speaker 3: here we sat with Donald Trump building a ballroom and
Speaker 3: going to court to deny food to children, not just
Speaker 3: trying to do it. He did it, tried it, lost court.
Speaker 3: Did you know, provide the food and that's not good enough.
Speaker 3: So my thought, you know, the sense of ownership I had,
Speaker 3: and that I knew there was going to be the
Speaker 3: most vulnerable We're going to feel this.
Speaker 1: This is the first shutdown ever, the longest shutdown ever,
Speaker 1: and the first one where the government has decided the
Speaker 1: Trump administration has decided not to fund snap.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's beyond the payout.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: It is a cruelty. But look if at this point
Speaker 3: in time, we don't understand that cruelty is not a bug,
Speaker 3: it's a feature revenge and pettiness. If if selfishness is it.
Speaker 3: It's all grounded in that. And and look, I Molly,
Speaker 3: you talked about this. I don't think this surprises you.
Speaker 3: It doesn't. It doesn't surprise me. But as a teacher
Speaker 3: and as an elected official, I you know, I needed
Speaker 3: to articulate that stronger. I think about that election and
Speaker 3: elections are always about change. And you know, and I
Speaker 3: think we got we were seen as status quo. I
Speaker 3: would I would say what you said, Molly, is I
Speaker 3: think we were status quo of decency and goodness and
Speaker 3: order and not chaos. But the public wanted to see
Speaker 3: something else. And you know, Trump promised these farmers they
Speaker 3: were going to be rich. Well, now they're going bankrupt,
Speaker 3: he crisis were going to come down. He didn't. So
Speaker 3: I think what happened is the American people And look,
Speaker 3: I think we saw what seven percent of Trump voters
Speaker 3: in some of these states switched back. He lied to them,
Speaker 3: and they're tired of it. And now we have an opportunity,
Speaker 3: which I think our candidates did tell them what we
Speaker 3: stand for. Yeah, you can scream all you want of
Speaker 3: them trying to make you know, Mayor elect Mondania face
Speaker 3: of the Democratic Party. He's talking about bringing housing costs deck,
Speaker 3: he's talking about making a city more liveable, if at
Speaker 3: all possible, you know, I think. And then you see
Speaker 3: that in Virginia, you see it in uh, you know,
Speaker 3: state house races across the country. So I think the
Speaker 3: Democrats now have a chance to say, look, you obviously
Speaker 3: are sick of Trump. Here's what we can offer you.
Speaker 3: And that's what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what was it? I just am curious, like
Speaker 1: for my own just because we're friends, Like, what was it? Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just basically wrote, you know, I wrote
Speaker 1: a bunch of pieces about the stuff I got wrong.
Speaker 1: I tried to sort of take stock I think of
Speaker 1: you as I don't know I feel like you you
Speaker 1: are sturdy midwestern governor who really did show the country
Speaker 1: that you're that you had a real national profile. You
Speaker 1: got a lot of the kind of criticism that you
Speaker 1: get when you have a national profile. But was it
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, what was it like to
Speaker 1: go from sturdy midwestern governor to like, you know, to
Speaker 1: everyone's did he you know, was was he the right pick?
Speaker 1: And then also just like was it like I mean,
Speaker 1: and has it changed you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, first of all was an honor and it
Speaker 3: was And I view all these jobs just like I
Speaker 3: viewed my teaching job, and you know, in Congress and
Speaker 3: thing it was public service. And I got asked by
Speaker 3: the Vice President of the United States to try and
Speaker 3: help her win. That was my job. I did it
Speaker 3: to the best of my ability. Certainly not flawless. We
Speaker 3: all have, you know, our things we can do better at.
Speaker 3: But I was very proud that we were articulating at decency.
Speaker 3: We are articulating a vision around whether it was healthcare, expansion,
Speaker 3: home ownership, we were going to tackle problems like climate change.
Speaker 3: So I was really proud. It was very short the
Speaker 3: times that we were there. Again, I think back and
Speaker 3: I think you have to do this reassessed. Could I
Speaker 3: have been more you know, effective doing this? And I
Speaker 3: don't think it's necessarily you know, rehashing something. But I
Speaker 3: think we as ingercress have to learn why didn't we win?
Speaker 3: Why did we win? What could we do better? Now?
Speaker 3: Obviously I said, it's really frustrating to me. Is we
Speaker 3: not only did we not win, we lost to that guy? Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the it is the worst part. And I feel,
Speaker 3: you know, personally, but like people said, you know, are
Speaker 3: you doing okay? Are you going to be okay? Look,
Speaker 3: older white guys who are governors, they tend to land
Speaker 3: pretty song you're okay. But I said where I wasn't
Speaker 3: okay was is knowing what I needed to do so
Speaker 3: for me. And this is where I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I've talked some but I haven't talked in depth of
Speaker 3: Vice President Harris. I think it was very both therapeutic
Speaker 3: and good. I just came right back home and got
Speaker 3: to work. And we had a horrific summer. My best
Speaker 3: friend was murdered, we had children shot in a church,
Speaker 3: you know, so it was a horrific summer. But I was.
Speaker 1: Talking about this the minute speaker Melissa Wortman murdered, political
Speaker 1: murder in her bed with her dog and her husband
Speaker 1: by a conservative right.
Speaker 3: And a president who used that as an opportunity to
Speaker 3: and senators from Utah to slander Minnesota.
Speaker 4: Me.
Speaker 3: So, look, I had something to do, and.
Speaker 1: Your name was on that list too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, all of us, all the Democrats were,
Speaker 3: you know. And then he would have killed more people
Speaker 3: had he and he had the chance. So all that's
Speaker 3: going on. Then we have children murdered on the first
Speaker 3: day of school. I'm trying to fight for gun violence.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get rid of assault weapons and high
Speaker 3: capacity magazines. So I had a place to go back
Speaker 3: to and to do the work. And I think for me,
Speaker 3: what was so encouraging about this is is that, look,
Speaker 3: this was a catastrophic loss last fall, catastrophic for the country,
Speaker 3: catastrophic for democracy. We have innocent people being swept up
Speaker 3: off the streets. We have moms being yanked out of
Speaker 3: their car and their babies driven away, you know, and things.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is so horrific. But I have the
Speaker 3: capacity to do something about it, at least in Minnesota,
Speaker 3: so I'm back at it. I do think there were
Speaker 3: lessons learned the affordability piece on this.
Speaker 1: Can I just ask one question? This is like a
Speaker 1: hobby horse of mine, as someone who's written so much
Speaker 1: about that CSYCHO, I felt that the consultant class would
Speaker 1: constantly get in there and be like, you know, like
Speaker 1: I think of you as a politician with very good instincts,
Speaker 1: and that every time something would take off, the consultant
Speaker 1: class would go in there and like smush it is
Speaker 1: that just my own fantasy? Did you see that happening?
Speaker 1: I mean, there was so much. There was such a
Speaker 1: group of very no i know, making a ton of
Speaker 1: you know, just you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, look, first, it is so big. You know,
Speaker 3: I've run statewide campaigns, but they pale in comparison. It
Speaker 3: was so big. There's so many moving pieces in plans
Speaker 3: that have to go. And look, I signed on very clearly.
Speaker 3: My job was to get Kamala Harris elected president and
Speaker 3: then to serve her in the role of her vice
Speaker 3: president whatever she needed, whatever that looked like. So I'm
Speaker 3: a team player, I have agency. You know. There were
Speaker 3: things like I can speak up and there were things
Speaker 3: that I did. But when I signed up and said
Speaker 3: I'm on board, I said I'll follow the plan, and
Speaker 3: I think retrospectively, you know, I've said this not critique.
Speaker 3: I think it's just reality. I think we were too
Speaker 3: cautious and played to not lose, play to win.
Speaker 1: That is the consultant class that did.
Speaker 3: That's their job. That's their job, and I have to
Speaker 3: trust them. So I mean, in retrospect on everything, you
Speaker 3: go back and say, maybe we should have done this differently.
Speaker 1: But certainly do you wish she hadn't trusted them a
Speaker 1: little bit? Though, Like because I see.
Speaker 3: So many I don't know if it's an option though.
Speaker 3: You know, when in this year on the ticket, my
Speaker 3: job was to not cause any grief. And you know
Speaker 3: I could give my put in and that there's great
Speaker 3: folks in there and lots of thousands of people working.
Speaker 3: They would take a look. I'll just give you one example.
Speaker 3: I had a few minutes one afternoon I know, some
Speaker 3: hotel somewhere and it's when I'm watching a football game
Speaker 3: on a Sunday afternoon before we get ready to go again,
Speaker 3: and the transgender at popped up. I very you know,
Speaker 3: instinctively felt this. I said, this ad is dangerous. It's
Speaker 3: dangerous if we don't respond because I think we have
Speaker 3: to to defend people who shouldn't be you know where
Speaker 3: my position is on transgender Yes, I'm only.
Speaker 1: There's no reason to throw the throw one under the
Speaker 1: bus in anyone, but there's no reason to respond.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's no reason after Tuesday to change that either,
Speaker 3: because we can do two things at once. Make affordability
Speaker 3: a prisent but support human rights. That's one where I
Speaker 3: think you get kind of paralyzed and decided that that
Speaker 3: one would just slide by. And it wasn't the old
Speaker 3: because it was a double killer because to not respond
Speaker 3: to it, I felt like allies felt like they being
Speaker 3: a band and that wasn't the case. Kamala Harris has
Speaker 3: stood with them. You always would. So you've got smart
Speaker 3: people making decisions and looking at polling and all that.
Speaker 3: And I think my biggest thing is is that I
Speaker 3: would loyal and I'm loyaled and will continue till the
Speaker 3: day I died to Kamala Harris and the team made decisions.
Speaker 3: Did we get them all right? Well, if we had,
Speaker 3: we probably would have won.
Speaker 1: And so I mean, I just I just think about
Speaker 1: it so much because I think about like the sort
Speaker 1: of successful Democrats who break through, right, the kind of
Speaker 1: Chris Murphy's yes, or the Bernie Sanders, so it's not ideological,
Speaker 1: or the even the governor Pritzker's right, the people. Pritzker
Speaker 1: obviously it's a little bit different because he's got ice
Speaker 1: attacking his city twenty seven. But like Tho, you know,
Speaker 1: those three they're not ideological, but they all have managed
Speaker 1: to sort of permeate the news bubble.
Speaker 3: Where they're authentic. They're authentic, and they're in the moment.
Speaker 3: You can feel them in the moment.
Speaker 1: Whereas you have, like democratic leadership, it's hard to think
Speaker 1: of a moment that Chuck Schumer has really nailed or
Speaker 1: Hakeem And so that's my question.
Speaker 3: The job is hard. No, you're right, and look, I
Speaker 3: think it's a healthy exercise to talk about it. But
Speaker 3: I also think we have seen this, that authenticity. You've
Speaker 3: got to be disciplined enough. You talked about this, Molly,
Speaker 3: and I told the Vice president this. I said, Look,
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I think you'll get good stuff
Speaker 3: out of me most of the time, and about ten
Speaker 3: percent of the time I think it'll be really good.
Speaker 3: And then there's going to be about ten percent that'll
Speaker 3: be problematic. I think, you know, you talk, and I
Speaker 3: think it's about managing risk. And I think there's a
Speaker 3: risk averseness in these campaigns that I don't even say
Speaker 3: that as a pejorative, but the route to take less risky,
Speaker 3: and I think in an extrasential race like we saw
Speaker 3: because I was convinced, I keep telling this story, Molly.
Speaker 3: I didn't know this, but we did an off the
Speaker 3: record stop in southern Georgia and I was on the
Speaker 3: bus with the Vice President. We're driving down small rural
Speaker 3: roads and there's little girls, little black girls out there
Speaker 3: with signs, unpaigned signs that said Kamala and it you know,
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh. And we stopped at a school. We're
Speaker 3: in a band room and it's a Friday afternoon in
Speaker 3: the fall. The band is playing the fight song, the
Speaker 3: cheerleaders are in there, the football team is in there.
Speaker 3: We're going to go in there and do a little
Speaker 3: off the record for the cameras type of thing whenever.
Speaker 3: And we walk in there and the first thing Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris says is, oh, I love this room. I was
Speaker 3: a band kid, and I'm like, you were a band kid.
Speaker 3: American needs to know you're a band. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. There's something quintessentially about being in band in
Speaker 3: a school, just like there is about being a football coach,
Speaker 3: a science teacher, whatever it might be. It was such
Speaker 3: a humanizing moment, It was so good, and I just thought, Man,
Speaker 3: we should run with this stuff. We should do more
Speaker 3: of this. I don't think America knew that, because you know,
Speaker 3: that's their goal, to make us unlikable. We can't possible
Speaker 3: this guy can't possibly be a football coach and a
Speaker 3: soldier who grew up on a farm and knows about
Speaker 3: agg economy. So we got to do whatever we can
Speaker 3: to make him just so alien to us. And I
Speaker 3: don't think the consultant class responds to that.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, and I covered the campaign and
Speaker 1: interviewed her a bunch. I think that kind of carefulness
Speaker 1: is sort of is ultimately the undoing of some of
Speaker 1: these of some of some democratic politicians.
Speaker 3: No, I think you're right, and I look, say what
Speaker 3: you will, and my wife Gwyn gets this ride or whatever,
Speaker 3: the horrificness of the character of Donald Trump, But that
Speaker 3: whole thing of there's something in that when people say
Speaker 3: I know it drives us all nuts if you're progressive, well,
Speaker 3: at least Donald Trump, you know, speaks how he's feeling
Speaker 3: or whatever. There is some truth in that he doesn't
Speaker 3: get penalized for the horrific things he says, like you know,
Speaker 3: you name it. There's countless ones that's viewed more as well.
Speaker 3: At least he's authentic, and I don't feel like I'm
Speaker 3: being sold to Bill of goods. You know. It's not
Speaker 3: an excuse to be sloppy, but it should be an
Speaker 3: excuse to if you get asked a question, try your
Speaker 3: best to answer it. Yeah, your best to answer it.
Speaker 3: Try and be there, you know. And I think we
Speaker 3: watched this and the Republicans obviously trying to make Mayor
Speaker 3: Elec Mandani the face of the party. But if you're
Speaker 3: a Democrat, why are you running from other Democrats? You know,
Speaker 3: you can disagree and say, look, I don't agree with
Speaker 3: all of his policies, this is not something I would do,
Speaker 3: but the people of New York should be able to vote.
Speaker 3: And look, if you're living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I
Speaker 3: don't think you should be probably overly concerned who the
Speaker 3: mayor of New York City is. And I think there's
Speaker 3: a cautiousness. You see people like go out of their
Speaker 3: way to like deny that these things happen.
Speaker 1: My favorite things that you did in the campaign were
Speaker 1: the stuff about fixing your car like this sort of no,
Speaker 1: but seriously, like the car talk. I don't know, did
Speaker 1: you ever listen to car talk?
Speaker 3: What did click and clack? Yeah? Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, my dad would drive me
Speaker 1: to stuff and we listened to car talk and it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, it was just an American thing.
Speaker 1: And that kind of stuff I felt like was some
Speaker 1: of the stuff and I don't, you know, I barely drive,
Speaker 1: but the kind of stuff that I felt was very
Speaker 1: relatable and just who you are.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think the same thing would be true
Speaker 3: of Kamala when she talked about like cooking and things.
Speaker 3: And I think there's lessons in this, and we saw
Speaker 3: it with these candidates. You know, to be real who
Speaker 3: you are, don't try and be something you're not, and
Speaker 3: then proudly stand on the things that we believe in
Speaker 3: and and then do it for people.
Speaker 1: And also more I mean like Donald Trump, you know
Speaker 1: he did fall asleep at his desk yesterday or the
Speaker 1: day before, or maybe both, but he did do like
Speaker 1: he does do five pool sprays. He he does do
Speaker 1: a ton of.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more. No, I couldn't agree more. And
Speaker 3: that's a lesson we learned. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: not seeing podcasters and you know, and influencers or wherever
Speaker 3: you're gonna go with it, not seeing them as like
Speaker 3: you know, this novelty thing on the side, but seeing
Speaker 3: part of your bigger plan. And you do this and
Speaker 3: then understand the simplicity of I gotta tell you, Molly again.
Speaker 3: I think it was either North care Liner Georgia. Final
Speaker 3: weeks of the campaign, I started seeing these little signs
Speaker 3: all over the place pop up Trump good, Kamala bad,
Speaker 3: Trump saved, Kamala crime, and it was They're good and
Speaker 3: they were just random that had been printed and they
Speaker 3: were all over and my first instinct would be, and
Speaker 3: this is where you can get kind of trapped in.
Speaker 3: This is like, h it's ridiculous. And then I started
Speaker 3: to realize, holy crap, those things are super effective. They
Speaker 3: are super one small piece. I don't know how much
Speaker 3: money they spent on them, combination of things and was
Speaker 3: there enough of us? And then you know, in no
Speaker 3: disrespect to the large legacy media, but preparing and prepping
Speaker 3: for an interview on CNN that probably had less viewers
Speaker 3: than I would get on this podcast. Yeah, no, for
Speaker 3: sure true and.
Speaker 1: So yeah no, I mean and also like I do
Speaker 1: think there should be more of like, especially people like you,
Speaker 1: going on stuff like Rogan, because Joe Rogan did not
Speaker 1: leave the Democratic Party, right, it's just that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: made his bat you know, try desperately to get on.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's going on there. I mean they you know.
Speaker 3: I agree, And look, it's not about being arrogant. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just know this stuff whatever I find this happened
Speaker 3: time and time again. When you're in a position like
Speaker 3: this and when you can't meet everybody, they will caricature.
Speaker 3: They make a caricature. Of course, their go to is
Speaker 3: if we're in the military, they swift boat us. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if it's true or not. They have this
Speaker 3: pattern and it sinks in enough to erode faith. And
Speaker 3: what I said is I feel very confident in this.
Speaker 3: If people like Rogan and other people, if I meet
Speaker 3: them and sit down and talk to them, I guarantee
Speaker 3: you they leave saying well, I didn't expect that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we expect that because they've been fed a line that's
Speaker 3: not true. Michaels is in public service and servant leadership
Speaker 3: is to find solutions going forward. And I have worked
Speaker 3: with Republicans and right now I know that there's some
Speaker 3: Democrats that, oh, that guy's willing to compromise. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm not with him. That's our problem inside our party.
Speaker 3: We'll figure that. But the vast majority of Americans just
Speaker 3: want effectiveness. And I think if you don't go on
Speaker 3: those shows, you don't show them, it's easy to demonize you.
Speaker 3: I watched, just not that long ago, Joe Rogan going
Speaker 3: off on an AI video of me. It's some guy
Speaker 3: wearing a you know, f Donald Trump shirt dancing down
Speaker 3: an escalator.
Speaker 1: Right, it's not true.
Speaker 3: Why the hell would I ever do anything like that,
Speaker 3: And it's pretty out of character.
Speaker 1: You're running for reelection, I am. This will be your
Speaker 1: third term.
Speaker 3: Yes, tell me, well, I think the moment is it again.
Speaker 3: I don't think that I'm the only one. I don't
Speaker 3: can do this. I don't think that you have a
Speaker 3: lock on these These are not your jobs. I think
Speaker 3: here in Minnesota we're a truly purple state that I
Speaker 3: think people don't recognize. Of all the swing states, thank goodness,
Speaker 3: Minnesota we won, and you know that was my job
Speaker 3: to help win the other ones. But I think right
Speaker 3: now we've moved Minnesota in a progressive way where we're
Speaker 3: consistently seeing now we ranked near the top of whether
Speaker 3: it's raising a child, starting a business. We're going to
Speaker 3: start and have the most aggressive paid family medical leave
Speaker 3: kicks in on the first. We are protecting reproductive rights,
Speaker 3: We're protecting our transgender children, we are innovating around healthcare,
Speaker 3: and lots of things are in absolute opposition to Trump.
Speaker 3: And right now, every single day, I spend my time
Speaker 3: thinking about how we can improve the lives of Minnesota
Speaker 3: and fighting a rearguard action about the nonsense that Trump
Speaker 3: is bringing. And I think I have twelve years of
Speaker 3: congressional experience, eight years as governor. I've been through everything
Speaker 3: from the pandemic to George Floyd to seeing the national stage.
Speaker 3: I think I'm best prepared and probably better qualified than
Speaker 3: anybody who's ever run for governor. And I think I
Speaker 3: can provide a bit of that firewall. But I don't
Speaker 3: take it for granted. The people of Minnesota will speak.
Speaker 3: I feel like right now I'm working harder than on
Speaker 3: any campaign I've ever worked, and I feel like last
Speaker 3: fall showed me this. If a Republican wins in Minnesota,
Speaker 3: we will get rid of reproductive rights and we are
Speaker 3: the beacon for the Midwest Usin Illinois, we will turn
Speaker 3: our backs on climate change, we will demonize the most
Speaker 3: vulnerable amongst US, and we will weaken what is America's
Speaker 3: most progressive taxation system. And so I really feel like
Speaker 3: protecting those things we did that I'm best positioned to
Speaker 3: do that. We've got an open Senate seat here, and
Speaker 3: I think you know how these things work in a
Speaker 3: state the size of Minnesota, having an open Senate and
Speaker 3: an open governor massively expensive.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, Governor Wall.
Speaker 3: We'll get back again. You're the best.
Speaker 1: You're the best. Thank you, Thank you, No no moment second.
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon, my Trumpism often has talked about us saying
Speaker 2: the quiet part out loud constantly. Steve Betta just going
Speaker 2: for new heights, like, you know, like the guy's not
Speaker 2: in the best shape, but he's jumping Olympic levels high
Speaker 2: of telling on themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, so when I saw this video. It
Speaker 1: was like, you know how it is now You're like,
Speaker 1: this is probably AI and then you're like, oh, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. This is a quote. I tell you right
Speaker 1: as God as my witness. If we lose the midterms
Speaker 1: and we lose twenty twenty, some in this room are
Speaker 1: going to prison, Bannon told the crowd at the awards
Speaker 1: event hosted by the Conservative Partnership Academy. I think he
Speaker 1: then added, didn't he add I am two or no?
Speaker 1: I guess he didn't.
Speaker 2: I think that that was implied by some in this
Speaker 2: room because if we remember, he did the build the
Speaker 2: wall thing, and he narrowly.
Speaker 1: Evaded he went to prison.
Speaker 2: He did go to prison. Actually that was for the
Speaker 2: contempt around the other thing as well. You know, there's
Speaker 2: still hell to pay with many of his deeds.
Speaker 1: Yes, no question.
Speaker 2: You know, for people like you and me, this is
Speaker 2: a real get out the vote operation. Bring Ben into jail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct, that is true. It is a get out
Speaker 1: of the vote. I also think, like the fact that
Speaker 1: they're saying this now shows there's just a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 1: I think they're going to do a lot of crazy
Speaker 1: stuff to try and make it hard for people to vote.
Speaker 1: I think that seems like it's clearly on the horizon,
Speaker 1: so certainly worrying, certainly something to keep watching out for,
Speaker 1: and certainly the Steve Bannon we know, delivering the hits
Speaker 1: as only he can.
Speaker 2: Oh, when you talk that many hours on air all day,
Speaker 2: you're gonna say some real dumb things.
Speaker 1: Thad for yourself. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear
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