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.
Speaker 2: And Donald Trump says he's much better looking than Vice
Speaker 2: President Harris. The dementia is real, my friends, with such
Speaker 2: an amazing show for you today, White House Communications Director
Speaker 2: Ben la Bolt stopped by to talk to us about
Speaker 2: the Biden Administration's continued wins for the American people. That
Speaker 2: will be joined by MSNBC Steve Bennett to talk his
Speaker 2: new book Mystery of Truth, Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans
Speaker 2: War on the recent past. But first we have the
Speaker 2: host of the Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: Hello, Rick Wilson, welcome back to.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 3: Sound like you are very good WiFi.
Speaker 4: Molly. I'm in a place that Hillbilly Elgy was meant
Speaker 4: to truly capture the steerdous and at the moment that
Speaker 4: would be a.
Speaker 1: Perfect So you are in jd Vanceland known as sag Harbor.
Speaker 1: Let us talk about what it is that is going on.
Speaker 1: This week was another week of Democrats delighted by their nominees,
Speaker 1: their presumptive nominees vice presidential candidate, and Republicans.
Speaker 3: Not so much.
Speaker 4: All the swipboat bullshit on Tim Walls is falling short,
Speaker 4: and by falling short, I mean completely ineffective. They threw
Speaker 4: everything they had at the guy in an attempt to
Speaker 4: swip boat off. It didn't work. And I'll tell you,
Speaker 4: I think it's really indicative of where the two parties
Speaker 4: are at right now. That Tim Wallas is touring with
Speaker 4: the Vice President, they are getting record crowds. He's out
Speaker 4: on his own doing some touring now too, is hitting
Speaker 4: record crowds. The problem for the other team is twofold.
Speaker 4: They're trying to attack him on stolen valor, which is
Speaker 4: a lie. And secondly, they forgot that they work for.
Speaker 4: You know, as I like to call him, Colonel Pussy
Speaker 4: von bones Purs. You know, Donald Trump is a cheating
Speaker 4: line draft dodger. When it's ay, eight thousand men were
Speaker 4: dying in Vietnam, Donald Trump was chasing straight plus see
Speaker 4: the New York City. They should have known from the
Speaker 4: jump this was going to bite them on the ass.
Speaker 4: And it has. The second thing that is I think
Speaker 4: very telling and very important in this equation is that JD.
Speaker 4: Vance continues to say he's underperforming. Would put it like,
Speaker 4: so far beyond the realm of exaggeration. This guy is
Speaker 4: a hot mess. He is unpopular, His numbers are terrible.
Speaker 4: He's getting less popular as people get to know him better.
Speaker 4: Every day some new weird podcast or some new weird
Speaker 4: drip comes out. I mean, and the fact that this
Speaker 4: is the guy who first went to war with women
Speaker 4: who own cats, and now is it war with postmenopausal women.
Speaker 4: I mean, what could go with a campaign based on
Speaker 4: that brilliant strategy? He's given deep pole and he's not
Speaker 4: getting out of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Democrats have learned from Trump
Speaker 1: is that you can give voters a permission structure to
Speaker 1: vote for someone who wouldn't necessarily be your candidate. And
Speaker 1: the person who gave evangelicals the permission to do that
Speaker 1: was one so very interesting in my mind. Right now,
Speaker 1: Billy Graham's granddaughter is joining evangelicals for Harris quotes Isaiah
Speaker 1: to black Trump supporters.
Speaker 3: Does this work? So? Explain to us?
Speaker 4: Well, I think what you're seeing with evangelicals is there
Speaker 4: has been a faction of the evangelical movement that has
Speaker 4: always had a hesitation about Trump. They made that compromise
Speaker 4: by and large because their leadership told them to. Because
Speaker 4: their leadership are absolutely unethical and moral, irreligious idolaters. And
Speaker 4: there's always been a concern that Donald Trump was too much,
Speaker 4: that he was a rapist, an adulterer, a reprobate, a degenerate,
Speaker 4: a criminal, all those things, and they never loved it,
Speaker 4: but they thought, oh, we must have our Cyrus and
Speaker 4: God will direct him. Well, it does not seem much
Speaker 4: like God is directing Donald Trump lately. Now. I don't
Speaker 4: believe that Donald Trump will lose more than five or
Speaker 4: ten percent of the evangelical vote this time form where
Speaker 4: he was last time. But even that is an uake.
Speaker 4: Even that is a tidal weight, That is a tsunami
Speaker 4: that is going to come down and absolulutely smack him
Speaker 4: in the face. As Vice President, Harris has solidified the
Speaker 4: Democratic base, even the drifting elements of that. African American
Speaker 4: men in spanning are you to come back? Younger voters
Speaker 4: are were past whatever the young voter hesitation over Gaza
Speaker 4: attached to Joe Biden was, it's not displaying in the
Speaker 4: same way with her. They're still out there, but it's
Speaker 4: not at the same scale. So we've seen baby boomers
Speaker 4: start to drift towards Harris. Now, Trump will not lose
Speaker 4: baby boomers. He will not lose them by a majordia
Speaker 4: or even a polorality. But she is going to pick
Speaker 4: off more and more of these subgroups that are going
Speaker 4: to allow her to, I think, put together a winning coalition.
Speaker 4: What does Trump have right now? He is trying desperately
Speaker 4: to put his campaign back together. If it's fallen apart,
Speaker 4: it is in chaos. You brought back Corey fucking Leewood
Speaker 4: and Dowski. If that's the solution, I don't want to
Speaker 4: know what the problem is.
Speaker 1: What Corey is like an emotional supporter staffer right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 4: And look he can't get Hope picks back. She won't
Speaker 4: come back. But so Corey's the next best thing. What
Speaker 4: it means, though, is he now supplanted christ Losivita and
Speaker 4: Susie Wiles. He is now the campaign chairman. They now
Speaker 4: report to him. Antonio the pollster, they've now work for
Speaker 4: him in this organization. And as you recall, Coreylewood Newsie's
Speaker 4: beautifully smooth corporate management style is so accommodating and so
Speaker 4: open to different voices and opinions that he shouldn't be
Speaker 4: screaming much at all during the day. I mean it
Speaker 4: surely send to twelve hours a day of livid, throat throbbing,
Speaker 4: eyes bulging, screeching at people. And of course the HR
Speaker 4: Department's firing up for Corey's return to They'll keep that
Speaker 4: very busy.
Speaker 3: How do you think this goes? Where does this go next?
Speaker 4: Trump trying a new strategy this week with these three
Speaker 4: media availabilities, and to the media's credit, a lot of
Speaker 4: them did write the right headlines and say Trump lied
Speaker 4: about this light, about that light, about this light, about that,
Speaker 4: but a lot of them still had it on their
Speaker 4: air for the duration of these press conferences, which were
Speaker 4: very similar and all full of lives, and as you
Speaker 4: pointed out the other day, that they were nothing for
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen. Just the spectacle of Trump doing an event
Speaker 4: is not necessarily the definition of an event that deserves
Speaker 4: to have live, uninterrupted, unedited, unfact checked coverage. Now I
Speaker 4: don't think he has many more of those. And then
Speaker 4: he's been told by his avenue, you must focus on policy.
Speaker 4: You must go out and talk about inflation, policy and policy.
Speaker 4: You know, you and I both know that Donald Trump
Speaker 4: has no million there, sus stay that shit for your
Speaker 4: like by more minutes. So he's going to continue to
Speaker 4: act badly. He's trying to now concern troll the media
Speaker 4: by saying, why won't she do interviews? Is she too scared?
Speaker 4: And look, the Harris campaign has no fucking necessity to
Speaker 4: do interviews right now. They should keep winning. They should
Speaker 4: go out and keep racing along and doing the big things.
Speaker 4: Do what's working right now, which is going out and
Speaker 4: holding massive enthusiastic rallies that are bringing people into the
Speaker 4: Democratic bold again, that are exciting voters and for right now.
Speaker 4: You know, look, what's the worst thing they're going to do?
Speaker 4: Give Donald Trump free at her time. They're going to
Speaker 4: do that any I think she's got a really good
Speaker 4: argument right now to just do what she's doing.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I'm struck by is it
Speaker 1: feels like Trump keeps having the same fights with everyone.
Speaker 1: Why won't Joe Biden do a press conference? Why won't
Speaker 1: Joe Biden do this? And now he's using these same
Speaker 1: attacks on Harris.
Speaker 4: It fits the one big broad thing about Trump right now.
Speaker 4: He's so fucking boring. Okay, he's boring. It's the same.
Speaker 4: You see press conferences, I have his seeing complaints. I
Speaker 4: went by the it's all the same bullshit over and
Speaker 4: over again.
Speaker 2: And all of.
Speaker 4: This is like, to my mind, why he's fallen off
Speaker 4: the cliff. He's not exciting right now, he's not interesting
Speaker 4: right now. He has become dull. He's become this cumbersome,
Speaker 4: dull character. At this point, it's really large for me
Speaker 4: to see how he convinces the media to cover things
Speaker 4: as he once did, and he once was extremely effective
Speaker 4: at it. You and I both know he was once
Speaker 4: extremely good at that. He's not that good at this anymore.
Speaker 4: He's really fallen off the cliff well.
Speaker 1: And I also think the novelty of him was people
Speaker 1: didn't know how to cover him eight years ago.
Speaker 3: But now he can't drive a news cycle the way
Speaker 3: he used to.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right, Molly. He doesn't have the same juice
Speaker 4: that he had too. I'm going to give somebody a
Speaker 4: nickname and then they'll write stories for four days that
Speaker 4: I they have JEBB low energy Jeb. He's twenties of
Speaker 4: a different versions like combulla combula, and none of it's sticking.
Speaker 4: Even the right wing media weirdos aren't sticking with it,
Speaker 4: even the right wing like cress Art following law and
Speaker 4: there's no BURGI of what's Brandon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem like that's right, but it's also
Speaker 1: like part of Trump and trump Asm.
Speaker 3: Was its newness and now it's.
Speaker 1: Just the same recycled material again and again, and I
Speaker 1: think voters are bored with it.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you what should Harris do now?
Speaker 4: She should go and have a absolutely bang up convention
Speaker 4: and treat that convention like a coordination. Treat that convention
Speaker 4: as something that continues to be happy but be unifying.
Speaker 4: The case against Trump is the case against Trump, and
Speaker 4: she's going to make it adequately and passionately. The thing
Speaker 4: she should do is work off of the strengths that
Speaker 4: she has now established, work off of the impressions she
Speaker 4: has now built, work off of the elevation she's now
Speaker 4: gained in the campaign, to come out of this race,
Speaker 4: to come out of this moment at the convention with
Speaker 4: a sganic momentousm and a sense that Democrats understand. Republicans
Speaker 4: do not ownism. They don't own the American flag, they
Speaker 4: don't own love of country, they don't own the ideas
Speaker 4: of freedom or liberty. She should be able passionate advocate
Speaker 4: for the things that the authoritarian right hates so much,
Speaker 4: and a lot of the things they hate are the
Speaker 4: principles they used to hold before Trump. That's how she
Speaker 4: can come out of this individual with a big win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right, and I think that's a
Speaker 3: really good point.
Speaker 1: Republicans jumping on Tim Walls for saying that he doesn't
Speaker 1: like spices in his tacos.
Speaker 4: Listen, if you want a definition of flailing, the party
Speaker 4: that thinks that mayonnaise is the peak of all condiments
Speaker 4: could just fuck off. This is a desperate critique by
Speaker 4: weird people to take a normal Midwestern guy and try
Speaker 4: to other and alienate him from ordinary Americans. It's just
Speaker 4: sad at this point. I mean, it's so desperate, it's
Speaker 4: such a flail. It's such a like horrible, endless grind
Speaker 4: of we got him, now, we're gonna get Tim Walls now.
Speaker 4: You know it just doesn't work. Again, there's nothing weirder
Speaker 4: than JD. Vanks. If they think not eating spices in
Speaker 4: your tacos is weird, how about having a secret drag history.
Speaker 4: We forgot to teach it. You know, especially if you're
Speaker 4: in a party of Christian notionalists, to pay people who
Speaker 4: do drag. I think that the structure of the Trump
Speaker 4: campaign in these like trolling attempts that he doesn't need
Speaker 4: spicy food, the dumbness of it is going to get
Speaker 4: exaggerated because remember Coryly when Dowsi came back to the campaign,
Speaker 4: but he also brought back like five of these weirdo
Speaker 4: internet troll in cellt goons who honestly think like I
Speaker 4: got an article on Breitbart and a meme with Keepy
Speaker 4: of the Frog about Joe Biden Win. They're fucking morons
Speaker 4: and they're going to continue to be fucking morons. But
Speaker 4: they will continue to say the stupidest shit. And it's like,
Speaker 4: have you met Donald Trump? Have you met JD. Vance?
Speaker 4: If you think you're that you're going to be able
Speaker 4: to other and turn them into the aliens versus Donald
Speaker 4: Trump and JD. Fucking Vance, get out of here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm me And I think that's right, And I
Speaker 1: think that's a really good point.
Speaker 3: Rick Wilson, we are going on tour.
Speaker 4: We are going on tour, people, and it is going
Speaker 4: to be exciting. I want you to know I work blue.
Speaker 4: So if you guys want to see Molly and I
Speaker 4: get on stage talk about the craziness of this world
Speaker 4: right now, the insanity of this campaign, the bizarre future
Speaker 4: that is ahead of us if we don't win this thing,
Speaker 4: you should come out and visit us. We're going to
Speaker 4: be on the West coast, we're going to be on
Speaker 4: the East coast, and we're going to be in the
Speaker 4: beautiful American Midwest. Hold of s food that's not too spicy.
Speaker 4: I'm excited about it, Mollie. I'm just I'm so jazzed.
Speaker 4: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yes, everywhere, here, there, nowhere, we will be there.
Speaker 4: It's like Surpacilea for smart people.
Speaker 3: That's right, except without the costumes.
Speaker 4: I'm wearing a costume and I'm doing more work and gymnastics.
Speaker 3: See, he's always like this.
Speaker 4: I am who I am.
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson, thank you. We have even more tour dates
Speaker 2: for you. Did you know the Lincoln Projects. Rick Wilson,
Speaker 2: the Fast Politics, Mali jug Faster heading out on tour
Speaker 2: to bring you night of laughs for our dark political landscape.
Speaker 2: Join us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at
Speaker 2: the Swedish American Hall or in la on August twenty
Speaker 2: seventh at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the
Speaker 2: Midwest and we'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on
Speaker 2: the twenty first of September, and on the twenty second,
Speaker 2: we'll be in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going
Speaker 2: to hit the East coast. On September thirtieth, we'll be
Speaker 2: in Boston at Arts at the Armory. On the first
Speaker 2: of October, we'll be Infilliate City Winery, and then DC
Speaker 2: on the second at the Miracle Theater. And today we
Speaker 2: just announced that we'll be in New York on the
Speaker 2: fourteenth of October at City Winery. If you need to
Speaker 2: laugh as we get through this election and hopefully never
Speaker 2: hear from a guy who lives in a golf club again,
Speaker 2: we got you covered. Join us in our surprise guests
Speaker 2: to help you laugh instead of cry your way through
Speaker 2: this election season and give you the inside analysis of
Speaker 2: what's really going on right now. Buy your tickets now
Speaker 2: by heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics
Speaker 2: as Unusual dot bio. Ben ler Bolt is White House
Speaker 2: Communications Director.
Speaker 3: Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics Band, The Ball.
Speaker 5: Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Molly.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about Joe Biden and what he
Speaker 1: is up to in his senior spring curing cancer. Let's
Speaker 1: start with the cancer moonshot. I listened to his remarks,
Speaker 1: super interesting, big grants.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, remember, look, the President has had a fifty year
Speaker 5: career in public service, and he knows that when we
Speaker 5: set our mind to big things as Americans and use
Speaker 5: the tools of government, that anything is possible. And so
Speaker 5: the cancer moonshot is something he came up with when
Speaker 5: he was Vice presidents near and dear to his and
Speaker 5: the First Lady's hearts. Their famili has been touched by cancers,
Speaker 5: as many American families across the country. So this is
Speaker 5: part of his unity agenda. Thinks that all Americans should
Speaker 5: be able to get behind, which is figuring out how
Speaker 5: we cut in half answer rate in the United States
Speaker 5: over the next couple of decades. And so he went
Speaker 5: down to New Orleans this week with the First Lady
Speaker 5: and talked about new tools for precision medicine and surgery
Speaker 5: where you can actually create a three D rendering of
Speaker 5: a person's body and figure out exactly where and how
Speaker 5: to surgically remove cancer, which could have a big impact
Speaker 5: on people's lives because even if you get some of
Speaker 5: these things just a millimeter off, you could significantly impact
Speaker 5: the patient and their mobility and a bunch of other things.
Speaker 5: So that's just one big thing that the PRICES has
Speaker 5: focused on running through the take here over the next
Speaker 5: five months and making as big of an impact as possible.
Speaker 1: So it's a couple grants to different hospitals, but it's
Speaker 1: also getting better at how cancer is removed.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 5: This is specific to the Precision Surgical Intervention Program. There
Speaker 5: are eight awardies university hospital systems that will find better
Speaker 5: ways to prevent, detect, and treat cancer. And this is
Speaker 5: very specific to surgery since in most cancer cases you
Speaker 5: actually have to go in and physically remove by the cancer.
Speaker 5: So it's going to help doctors to determine exactly where
Speaker 5: it is, exactly, how to visualize it within the body
Speaker 5: and allow more precise treatment.
Speaker 1: The thing I so have been really struck by is
Speaker 1: how seamlessly the Biden campaign has become the Harris campaign.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that, because I don't know she's
Speaker 1: had this meteoric rollout. But some of that has been
Speaker 1: because of this continuity and if we look at history,
Speaker 1: like Lyndon Johnson, Biden really has set the table for
Speaker 1: her in a white Can you talk about that absolutely?
Speaker 5: Look, I mean, first and most importantly, the Vice president
Speaker 5: has been an incredible governing partner to the President throughout
Speaker 5: the administration, and so all the major challenges that we've overcome,
Speaker 5: from getting out of a once in a century pandemic
Speaker 5: to overcoming an economic crisis where the economy was flat
Speaker 5: on its back. Now it's the strongest in the world,
Speaker 5: defending democracy after January sixth, all these big things that
Speaker 5: the administration has done that the President and the Vice
Speaker 5: president have done together. She's the last person in the
Speaker 5: room when he makes big decisions. And so the campaign
Speaker 5: was built in the same way it was built over
Speaker 5: the course of the past year and a half. It's
Speaker 5: a diverse, multi generational, talented team. It's literally the best
Speaker 5: people across the Democratic Party, a great grassroots organization, and
Speaker 5: all the key battleground states across the country. And when
Speaker 5: the President made a courageous decision to step aside in
Speaker 5: order to unite the party and endorse the Vice President.
Speaker 5: There's been this incredible response across the country, and the
Speaker 5: campaign acted very quickly to merge teams, to create compelling content,
Speaker 5: to use the organizing capacity that had been built on
Speaker 5: the ground to build these incredible rallies, and so in
Speaker 5: some ways it doesn't have a lot of historic precedent,
Speaker 5: but I think it's a testament to the talent of
Speaker 5: the team that the President the Vice president built together
Speaker 5: and just the collegial relationship that exists within the White
Speaker 5: House teams and the campaign. I think we'll look back
Speaker 5: on that campaigns need to be built for challenges and
Speaker 5: to be nimble.
Speaker 4: This one certainly was.
Speaker 1: But also they have really good memes. I know this
Speaker 1: is an annoying question, but did they sort of cool
Speaker 1: meme crowd to get to like take over when Hars
Speaker 1: became the nominee.
Speaker 5: I think, Look, I think the cool meme crowd has
Speaker 5: always been a part of the campaign, and communicating on
Speaker 5: digital in a way that resonated with the culture I
Speaker 5: think has been something they were always focused on. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think these are the same people who came up
Speaker 5: with dark branded and all the sorts of fun with
Speaker 5: the President's online personality. But I think, Look, I think
Speaker 5: there's been incredible energy. I think people woke up and
Speaker 5: tuned into the election over the past few months. If
Speaker 5: the pieces that the team weighed in place had any impact,
Speaker 5: that's it. And so everybody was tuned in for these
Speaker 5: big dramatic moments in the campaign, and when the president
Speaker 5: endris the vice president, there was this moment that didn't
Speaker 5: have a ton of historic precedent. There's just been an
Speaker 5: online explosion and Trump had been dominating parts of that
Speaker 5: conversation and some of the conversation across the platforms, and
Speaker 5: I think that's really shifted back into our column at
Speaker 5: this point. So it's been incredible to see it's been
Speaker 5: enabled and all this energy has been captured by a
Speaker 5: team that is way younger and cooler and more in
Speaker 5: touch with the culture than I am. But I think
Speaker 5: they've been really strategic about how they've deployed it. And
Speaker 5: now the share of voice online it's just so much
Speaker 5: more about the vice President's overwhelmingly positive, and the conversation
Speaker 5: about Trump is really turning negative online as people tune in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me what his plan is for Monday, and
Speaker 1: a little bit about what he's hoping to sort of
Speaker 1: get out there.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, First of all, on Monday, there will be a
Speaker 5: significant portion of the programming that is dedicated to just
Speaker 5: lifting up the President and the administration's accomplishments and looking
Speaker 5: back over the course of the past four years. So
Speaker 5: you know, miillers such as the President the Vice President,
Speaker 5: instead of just accepting trickle down economics like a lot
Speaker 5: of administrations, have built the economy from the bottom up,
Speaker 5: in the middle out, empowered the middle class, and now
Speaker 5: their policies have led to the smallest racial wealth gap,
Speaker 5: we've ever seen, the lowest average unemployment of any administration
Speaker 5: in fifty years. Sixteen million jobs created, nineteen million new
Speaker 5: businesses started. I mean, we could go on and on
Speaker 5: with the statistics all day, but I think it really
Speaker 5: laid the groundwork for the future because the jobs, the
Speaker 5: construction jobs that are happening, the manufacturing jobs that are happening,
Speaker 5: with manufacturing coming back to the US. Now, the President
Speaker 5: planted the seeds that are beginning to sprout. But we'll
Speaker 5: create this incredible, roaring economy over the decades to come.
Speaker 5: And so I think that will be a piece of
Speaker 5: the programming. He's going to make a forceful case to
Speaker 5: elect the vice president and Governor Walls. The president defended democracy.
Speaker 5: That's really been the signature piece of his administration over
Speaker 5: the past several years and why he ran the last
Speaker 5: time around. Donald Trump is saying he would be a
Speaker 5: dictator on day one and that he terminate the constitution.
Speaker 5: And the President is going to ask the country to
Speaker 5: stand up and defend democracy again in November, and you know,
Speaker 5: so we'll run across the gamut. But there are all
Speaker 5: sorts of issues, whether it's the economy we just talked about,
Speaker 5: whether it's protecting social security and medicare, whether it's standing
Speaker 5: up for a democratic Europe against Putin. There are all
Speaker 5: sorts of issues to be discover. So I think he'll
Speaker 5: both summarize everything that's happened, all the progress that we've
Speaker 5: been made since we came out of that once in
Speaker 5: a century pandemic, but at the same time look forward
Speaker 5: on how we need to continue our progress by electing
Speaker 5: Vice President Harrons.
Speaker 1: One of the things that the mainstream media has been
Speaker 1: super pissy about has been feeling.
Speaker 3: Like the campaign has kind of gone around them. We've
Speaker 3: seen that with.
Speaker 1: Videos, We've seen that with you know, just a certain
Speaker 1: amount of Like social media makes it so that people
Speaker 1: can just talk to other people without there's no limit
Speaker 1: to what people can do, but we do know that,
Speaker 1: like the free press is important a democracy.
Speaker 5: How do you thread that needle? I think the Vice
Speaker 5: president is threading it. The most important perative in a campaign,
Speaker 5: especially a campaign where you have limited time like this
Speaker 5: campaign does, is getting out and talking to voters in
Speaker 5: battlegrat states, and she's been doing that, and rally setting
Speaker 5: she's been doing that, or retail settings. Winning their votes
Speaker 5: is the most important thing and frankly the only objective
Speaker 5: of a campaign. The communications strategy should be in service
Speaker 5: of that goal. And she's done all sorts of communications
Speaker 5: over the past year. She's traveled with anchors from the
Speaker 5: network news, She's talked to digital influencers and creators. She's
Speaker 5: answered questions from the White House Press Corps. She takes
Speaker 5: questions most weeks from the press on the road. She
Speaker 5: said she'll do an interview with a classic news outlet
Speaker 5: sometime this month. She's going to debate Donald Trump on
Speaker 5: ABC News next month. They'd said that they'll do another debate.
Speaker 5: So this notion that she won't answer questions just isn't true.
Speaker 5: She's been doing it all year. I think people use
Speaker 5: the fracturing of the media and the fact that a
Speaker 5: lot of people just because there's so much going on,
Speaker 5: so many outlets, so much information. You know, the average
Speaker 5: person doesn't see everything you're doing. So we got a
Speaker 5: little bit of this about the president, but he did
Speaker 5: fifty interviews this year, and you may not know it
Speaker 5: unless I shared that statistic. But it's just harder to
Speaker 5: break through these days. I think the Trunk campaign is
Speaker 5: trying to say she needs to hold a press conference
Speaker 5: and sit down with the journalist every day because they're
Speaker 5: losing right now, and so they're trying to disrupt the
Speaker 5: narrative somehow, and so they're trying to determine the Harris
Speaker 5: Walls for present campaign for them. But that's not what
Speaker 5: the campaign should focus on. The campaign should focus on
Speaker 5: reaching voters and battleground states with their vision, and that's
Speaker 5: absolute what she's been doing every day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: One of the things, like always when I would write
Speaker 1: about this administration, or like when I would interview people
Speaker 1: about it, the thing that everyone would always say was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're doing all this good policy, but nobody knows because
Speaker 1: nobody's paying attention, or it's hard for them to get
Speaker 1: credit for it. How frustrating is it for you? There's
Speaker 1: so much good policy, right, We've had this economic soft
Speaker 1: landing so far, which is kind of amazing, better than
Speaker 1: any other of these wealthy countries. It must be strange
Speaker 1: to watch now are being criticized for getting credit.
Speaker 3: I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, for you know, the criticism is she doesn't
Speaker 1: have enough policy. But everything that God is here is policy.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: She's giving a major economic address focused on lower and
Speaker 5: costs and creating jobs and all sorts of other things.
Speaker 5: She talks about policy to some extent nearly every day. Look,
Speaker 5: I think people around the world went through a tough
Speaker 5: period coming out of the pandemic. You've seen that here
Speaker 5: in this country, and you've seen that in terms of
Speaker 5: perceptions of leaders and economies around the world, and now
Speaker 5: perceptions of the economy are improving. Wages of outpaced inflation
Speaker 5: for about two years, an incredible amount of jobs have
Speaker 5: been created, and businesses have been started, and factories are
Speaker 5: getting off the ground, and everything from semiconductors to clean energy,
Speaker 5: and given the fractured media ecosystem, given that people tend
Speaker 5: to get their information and silos and the more partisan
Speaker 5: perceptions of things nowadays, in addition to the fact that
Speaker 5: we went through this major global crisis that does have
Speaker 5: an impact on perceptions, and so we just need to
Speaker 5: do the work both at high profile moments like the convention,
Speaker 5: but also over the course of the next five or
Speaker 5: six months, as the Presence closing out his term of
Speaker 5: getting out there and continuing to talk to people about
Speaker 5: the factories that are being built in their towns after
Speaker 5: years of jobs being shipped overseas, like the big prescription
Speaker 5: drug announcement this week that Medicare can finally negotiate down
Speaker 5: the cost of prescription drugs, the clean energy revolution that's
Speaker 5: going to happen in this country. We're in the beginning
Speaker 5: stages of all of these things, and so we're going
Speaker 5: to need to keep communicating about them every place we
Speaker 5: can get to and on every platform.
Speaker 3: What would you say?
Speaker 1: The message has been from Biden to his campaign staff
Speaker 1: about Harris.
Speaker 5: That she's been an incredible governing partner, that he has
Speaker 5: full confidence in her. He believes she's smart, he believes
Speaker 5: she's tough, he believes that she will play a critical
Speaker 5: role in defending our democracy and making sure the legacy
Speaker 5: is secure in terms of an economy that protects middle
Speaker 5: class families, in terms of a society in which individual
Speaker 5: liberties and freedoms are protected. If your women should be
Speaker 5: entitled to reproductive rights, gay people should be free from discrimination,
Speaker 5: you can go down the lists. Parents should be able
Speaker 5: to help inform what books their children read instead of
Speaker 5: ideological governors. I mean, go down the list. The Republican
Speaker 5: Party is certainly no longer the party of freedom, so
Speaker 5: there's big issues at stake. The President is ready to
Speaker 5: hit the trail and keep going out to battleground states
Speaker 5: and campaign for the ticket. But the most effective thing
Speaker 5: he can do is also to just do his job
Speaker 5: and deliver big things like he did in terms of
Speaker 5: getting detained Americans home, getting the cost of prescription drugs down,
Speaker 5: getting more factories and roads and bridges built. You know
Speaker 5: he wants to do. He's very eager to do as
Speaker 5: much as he can do over the next five months
Speaker 5: to finish the job.
Speaker 4: Strong.
Speaker 1: When I think about the reporting about that hostage deal
Speaker 1: that was so complicated, involved so many different countries, was
Speaker 1: kept completely under wraps do you ever think about how
Speaker 1: he got that done and he learned he was getting
Speaker 1: it done after he decided to drop out. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you you know there's certain level of selflessness.
Speaker 3: Here that seems like very unusual in American politics.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Look, I think this president is the only president who
Speaker 5: could have gotten a deal that complex and done. He
Speaker 5: did it because he had these international relationships with leaders
Speaker 5: that he developed over the course of five decades. He
Speaker 5: believes that all politics, domestic and globals personal. So he's
Speaker 5: developed a personal relationship with all these people in that
Speaker 5: relationship with German chancer Schultz, for example, was very important
Speaker 5: to get this done. He was on the phone with the
Speaker 5: Slovenian Prime minister getting this deal done an hour before
Speaker 5: he dropped out of the race and endorsed the vice president.
Speaker 5: So his ability to multitask and to do all these
Speaker 5: things behind the scenes. By the way, as Republicans are said,
Speaker 5: they are all over online asking where's shoe Biden. In fact,
Speaker 5: they were doing it the day that an hour later
Speaker 5: he walked out and announced this.
Speaker 3: So that is who he is.
Speaker 5: He's constantly leading and managing complex situations, and he's done
Speaker 5: so domestically he's done so globally, I think history will
Speaker 5: look very very kindly on this president and this presidency
Speaker 5: and everything he's been able to get done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a really good point. Thank you, Ben Lebalt.
Speaker 5: Thanks Wally talks in.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 1: episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly john
Speaker 1: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
Speaker 1: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 1: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now.
Speaker 3: We need to educate.
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
Speaker 1: to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 2: Steve Bettt is an MSMBC contributor and the producer of
Speaker 2: The Rachel Maddow Show, the author of Ministry of Truth, Democracy, Reality,
Speaker 2: and the Republicans were on the recent past.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Fast Politics, Steve.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Belli.
Speaker 3: It's good to be here, delighted to have you.
Speaker 1: So I want you to give us two minutes on
Speaker 1: your kind of character arc, where you came from, what
Speaker 1: you do now, and how you got Well.
Speaker 6: That's a good question. I started in journalism shortly after
Speaker 6: going to grad school and GW I worked at a
Speaker 6: small trade publication studied the religious right for many years.
Speaker 6: From there, I started my own independent bloc called the
Speaker 6: Carver Bager Report in two thousand and three, which seems
Speaker 6: like yesterday but was actually more than two decades ago.
Speaker 6: From there, I got picked up with the Washington Monthly
Speaker 6: and kind of cultivated a larger online audience, and in
Speaker 6: time I got picked up by a certain someone at
Speaker 6: the MSNBC by the name of Rachel Meta. I've been
Speaker 6: with her now for twelve twelve and a half years,
Speaker 6: and I'm not planning to go anywhere anytime soon.
Speaker 1: So you were, I don't want to say, one of
Speaker 1: the first, because they were people doing this in the nineties,
Speaker 1: but there weren't that many, so you.
Speaker 3: Were sort of an early blog I was.
Speaker 6: There were a handful of us that were early adopters
Speaker 6: in terms of developing online audiences. Josh Marshall, Kevin drum
Speaker 6: marcos me A Trios. There were a handful of us
Speaker 6: who kind of pioneers is probably an overstatement, but we
Speaker 6: were the first ones into the pool, and we were thrilled.
Speaker 6: Of course, when the industry grew and became a powerful force,
Speaker 6: I think, and politics for a good long while, and
Speaker 6: then of course social media came along and the whole
Speaker 6: blog enterprise evolved with it. So yeah, I've been here.
Speaker 6: I've been around long enough to see all these evolutions
Speaker 6: and all these permutations, and it's been a out of fun.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if you could just for a minute explain
Speaker 1: to us sort of how we got here. You know,
Speaker 1: this week we had Musk interview in Trump on X.
Speaker 1: I come from magazines in the nineties, so for me,
Speaker 1: it's fair. I'm very conflicted because I love that we
Speaker 1: don't have gatekeepers, and I think gatekeepers are bad and
Speaker 1: there's much less of a barrier to entry, which makes
Speaker 1: me excited. But in the same sense, I see our industry,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to local news like decimated, and
Speaker 1: my anxiety has always been the tech companies got rich
Speaker 1: off our free content. So if you can make me
Speaker 1: feel better about this, since every podcast is now therapy for.
Speaker 3: Me, I would love it.
Speaker 6: I wish I could make you feel better about this.
Speaker 6: In all candor, I share your concerns. I think that
Speaker 6: there is a systemic problem that we're all dealing with
Speaker 6: right now. It is industrywide. It is affecting a great
Speaker 6: too many outlets. One of the biggest fears about democracy, frankly,
Speaker 6: is that disappearance of local newspapers and local daily and
Speaker 6: how they are just being deestimated every year. It seems
Speaker 6: to be getting worse because it is getting worse. It's
Speaker 6: not affecting the tech bros. It's affecting local news organizations
Speaker 6: and more importantly, those who rely on local news organizations.
Speaker 6: And so you know, I don't want to make you
Speaker 6: feel worse, Yes, please don't, But at the same time,
Speaker 6: might think that your concerns are well grounded because they're
Speaker 6: reality based. This is something that this is a problem
Speaker 6: that is affecting everyone, and the solution has not yet
Speaker 6: come into focus.
Speaker 1: I want to get to this book, The Ministry of Truth, Democracy, Reality,
Speaker 1: and the Republicans War on the recent past. But I
Speaker 1: just am curious you blogged since two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: right or before that? Again, I think nu Gingrid. I
Speaker 1: mean there are a couple of like touch points where
Speaker 1: a Republicans started to just change the rules, nuke gingrich
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon.
Speaker 3: But can you sort of in the very recent past?
Speaker 1: And the very recent past is like an obsession of
Speaker 1: mine because I come from the world of Gorbidal, so
Speaker 1: I do consider us to be the United States of Amnesia.
Speaker 1: And often you'll be on a panel and you'll say, like,
Speaker 1: what happened in the last election, and never it'll be like, oh, right,
Speaker 1: the last election, Like we just don't even think two
Speaker 1: years ago? So is this new? Have we always thought
Speaker 1: like this?
Speaker 6: I do think that there has always been an American tradition,
Speaker 6: a short attention span where people in positions of authority,
Speaker 6: and frankly for the audiences in general public rank and
Speaker 6: file audiences. I think that it is easy to be
Speaker 6: forward thinking, and that temptation, that attitude lends itself to
Speaker 6: forgetting about the recent past, forget the passage of generations past,
Speaker 6: which is a whole other problem. People don't necessarily know
Speaker 6: their history in terms of things that happened before their lifetime.
Speaker 6: But you're right, it is frustrating to see people who
Speaker 6: have blank stares when we reference things from the Bush
Speaker 6: Cheney era as it's a bygone era from our parents.
Speaker 6: It's not. It's twenty first century, and yet those events
Speaker 6: of that era have been largely forgotten and the lessons
Speaker 6: along with them. It is frustrating. But my book specifically
Speaker 6: focuses on Trump era. But you're right, this is not
Speaker 6: unique to our era.
Speaker 1: Right, What is this staunch refusal to learn from the past.
Speaker 6: I wish I had a better sense of that. I
Speaker 6: wish I knew why. You know, it's easy to diagnose
Speaker 6: the ailment, and it's harder to necessarily come to terms
Speaker 6: with what caused the ailment. I think that in general,
Speaker 6: there has been a in the American tradition, there has
Speaker 6: been a detachment from politics. I think that it was
Speaker 6: in some respects that designed to be that way. In
Speaker 6: a republican lower case, our republican from of government.
Speaker 4: You know that the.
Speaker 6: Electorate hires people to do the job of governing and
Speaker 6: then they go about their business. And so I think
Speaker 6: that model lends itself to having people say, well, others
Speaker 6: are taking care of these things. I don't necessarily have
Speaker 6: to focus on them all. Allan said, focus my energies
Speaker 6: on family and community and churches and so forth. And
Speaker 6: while I understand that temptation and people have busy lives
Speaker 6: and they have responsibilities at work at home, I would
Speaker 6: encourage more people, however, to realize that democracies in their hands,
Speaker 6: and that the more they are engaged in current events
Speaker 6: and the more they keep up on current events in
Speaker 6: the recent past, the better off they'll be, the better
Speaker 6: off the country will be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you talk to us about what you think
Speaker 1: sort of the moment was when you realized that, because
Speaker 1: I think we all have a moment where we realized
Speaker 1: that what Trump was going to do was going to
Speaker 1: fray American democracy in profound and serious ways.
Speaker 6: For me personally, it came during the twenty sixteen election
Speaker 6: when he appealed to Russia to find Hillary Clinton's emails.
Speaker 6: I mean, obviously to the twenty sixteen race had a
Speaker 6: series of touchdowns that were of incredible importance that let
Speaker 6: the public know what was going to happen. But that
Speaker 6: to me stands out as unique because this was the
Speaker 6: first time in American history we had a major party
Speaker 6: presidential nominee reaching out to a foreign adversary and encouraging
Speaker 6: them to get engaged in our effective process, but to
Speaker 6: specifically engage in an espionage campaign against the rival major
Speaker 6: party nominee, which is unprecedented, It is radical, it was dangerous,
Speaker 6: and it suggested that when it came to the basics
Speaker 6: of American governance, in American politics, this guy was operating
Speaker 6: outside the norm, outside the rules. He was writing new
Speaker 6: rules which are completely itnoledge with the American tradition. And
Speaker 6: so obviously that's one of many times. But you know,
Speaker 6: in terms of your question, what stands out that to
Speaker 6: me was a turning point, That was the signal that
Speaker 6: was unmistakable that this was something new.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm curious if you could talk about Fox News,
Speaker 1: because in twenty sixteen, Fox News and also right wing
Speaker 1: radio more generally, we're huge turnout drivers. It seems their
Speaker 1: influences diminished. But I am basing that only on vibes,
Speaker 1: So tell me what you think and anything else about
Speaker 1: that right wing media ecosystem.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, in my book, one of the things
Speaker 6: I talk about is that no one person can rewrite
Speaker 6: history by himself or herself. It's impossible. I think that
Speaker 6: anyone in position of authority will need to rely on
Speaker 6: partners in order to fully and successfully con the public.
Speaker 6: And I think that when it comes to Trump and
Speaker 6: the Republican contemporary Republican Party, those partners are found at Fox,
Speaker 6: They're found in conservative media, they're can founded in conservative radio,
Speaker 6: and they are working hand in glove. They have forged
Speaker 6: a partnership. I take your point about the vibe suggesting
Speaker 6: that maybe they're not quite as influential as they once were,
Speaker 6: but I think that speaks to the fact the lines
Speaker 6: between the party and these outlets has been largely blurred
Speaker 6: to the point of non existence. They are effectively one
Speaker 6: and the same. And with that in mind, I think
Speaker 6: that the Republican apparatus and the conservative media apparatus are
Speaker 6: really the same thing. We're talking about one entity, and
Speaker 6: as those lines get blurry, they're able to succeed with
Speaker 6: greater cohesion because they're all on the same page. Because
Speaker 6: they are all in the same page.
Speaker 1: So you talk about this frantic gaslighting campaign, we write
Speaker 1: the stories that they've uncovered the last several years. One
Speaker 1: of the ones that makes me think of is like Russia,
Speaker 1: gay right, Trump calls it Russia, Russia, Russia, right, and
Speaker 1: you know the steel Valassier helped muddy the waters and
Speaker 1: make this story.
Speaker 3: But talk to me about that.
Speaker 6: I'm glad you brought this up because it's actually my
Speaker 6: favorite chapter in the book because for me, when we
Speaker 6: talk about the success of the war in the recent past,
Speaker 6: the success that every op begins have had, this to
Speaker 6: me stands out is unique because they've had more success
Speaker 6: on this than anything else. I think at this point
Speaker 6: in American politics in twenty twenty four, the Rink and
Speaker 6: fowlery Oorgan base considers the Russia scandal not only to
Speaker 6: be wrong, but to be ridiculous as far as they're
Speaker 6: They considered to be completely discredited to the point of comedy.
Speaker 6: And yet if we look at the Mola report, we
Speaker 6: look at the Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee report, we
Speaker 6: know a handful of certain things to be true. We
Speaker 6: know that the Trump campaign sought Russian assistance. We know
Speaker 6: that the Trump campaign received Russian assistance, the Trump campaign
Speaker 6: benefited from Russian assistance. We know that the Trump campaign
Speaker 6: lied about Russian assistants. And we also know that the
Speaker 6: Trump political operation obstructed the investigation once investigators are pursuing
Speaker 6: these lines of inquiry. Whether or not that constitutes collusion
Speaker 6: is almost irrelevant, because collusion is a political term, not
Speaker 6: a legal term. But what we know for certain is
Speaker 6: that those five facts that I just pointed to, they
Speaker 6: have been uncontested, They are the truth. They have been
Speaker 6: documented extensively, not only by Robert Mueller, who was a Republican,
Speaker 6: but also by the Senate Intelligence Committee while I was
Speaker 6: chaired by Republican leadership. And so with that in mind,
Speaker 6: it is frustrating it has so many people be utterly
Speaker 6: convinced that the Russian scandal isn't real because we know better,
Speaker 6: as I document in the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if you can sort of talk about
Speaker 1: Bill Barr's part in this scandal, because I think he
Speaker 1: ran an incredible cover campaign.
Speaker 6: He did indeed, in fact, he was frustratingly successful at it.
Speaker 6: When the Muller report first came out, which is to say,
Speaker 6: and they first arrived on Bill Barr's desk, we didn't
Speaker 6: necessarily see the document. What we saw was a four
Speaker 6: page summary from Bill are telling us what Robert Muller
Speaker 6: had to say. And then he had a press conference
Speaker 6: in which Bill Barr presented Mueller's findings as if serving
Speaker 6: as a role as a gatekeeper. And for quite a while,
Speaker 6: all we had to go on, and I say we
Speaker 6: meaning people in the United States, people of the public,
Speaker 6: all we had to go on was Bill Barr's word
Speaker 6: about what Robert Mueller found, and that established certain narratives.
Speaker 6: Now those narratives were wrong and they were misleading. In fact,
Speaker 6: a federal judge later chastised from ourtorney jail Bill Barr
Speaker 6: for having misled the public so dramatically on these things,
Speaker 6: on these facts. But nevertheless, I think that Barr's role
Speaker 6: in this had an incredible impact on laying the groundwork
Speaker 6: for this larger deception.
Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly it worked really well. If nothing else, like
Speaker 1: he was able to get it to work. Do you
Speaker 1: think that there is a way out of Trump is?
Speaker 6: I do, But it's not easy. I think that in general,
Speaker 6: political science history tells us that parties change when voters
Speaker 6: tell them that they have to change. Let's say hypothetically
Speaker 6: that Kamala Harris is elected in the fall, Well, that'd
Speaker 6: be enough. Probably not, but it'll start the process. I
Speaker 6: think that the more Republicans lose, the more they realize
Speaker 6: that their quests for power will tell them they'll have
Speaker 6: no choice to start adapting.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 6: More that trump Ism is a losing proposition for GOP leaders,
Speaker 6: the more eager they'll be to abandon it. And you know,
Speaker 6: I've seen many joke about the fact that Republican Party
Speaker 6: will rise from the ashes. But first we need some ashes,
Speaker 6: and that won't happen until they lose a lot. Twenty
Speaker 6: twenty four would be important, but so would be twenty
Speaker 6: twenty six, equally important, twenty twenty eight, and so on.
Speaker 6: There has to be a series of defeats for them
Speaker 6: to realize, no weight, they're on the wrong track here,
Speaker 6: and so to me, I think that ultimately all of
Speaker 6: this power is back where it belongs, which is in voters' hands,
Speaker 6: and if they act accordingly, the Republican Party will change
Speaker 6: and trumpsm will die.
Speaker 1: David from once told me that you have to lose
Speaker 1: three elections in order for a party to just completely
Speaker 1: rethink things.
Speaker 3: It's been more than three.
Speaker 6: Well, in a way, yes, I mean we have twenty
Speaker 6: sixteen when Trump is successful. One parence, the twenty eighteen
Speaker 6: midterms went pretty well for Democrats. Twenty twenty went pretty
Speaker 6: well for Democrats, although down ballot less, so twenty twenty
Speaker 6: two was a largely mixed bag, but pretty good for Democrats,
Speaker 6: better than expected. They lost the House, but they gain
Speaker 6: seats in the Senate and did well in state legislative races.
Speaker 6: So these are the larger point I'm making is and
Speaker 6: I think David Frum's three elections in this rule is sound.
Speaker 6: My point is that we would need three definitive election
Speaker 6: cycles center u that there are murky results from say
Speaker 6: the midterms of twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two that
Speaker 6: kind of make the picture a little more muddled. I'd
Speaker 6: expect to see Democrats winning three landslide victories in a
Speaker 6: row that would rattle and shake republic and politics to
Speaker 6: a degree where they couldn't necessarily put a positive spin
Speaker 6: on them.
Speaker 1: Does that mean that Trump will still be running for
Speaker 1: president in twenty twenty eight It.
Speaker 6: Would not surprise me in the least if he believed
Speaker 6: that he was simply entitled to run until the day
Speaker 6: he'd die. I think that he is of the opinion
Speaker 6: that he is a unique figure and that he has
Speaker 6: a cult following, which is true, and he playing the
Speaker 6: role of cult leader couldn't possibly to step aside because
Speaker 6: the cult wouldn't allow it. And so I think that
Speaker 6: we're Trump to lose in twenty twenty four. I would
Speaker 6: not be the least bit surprised if he ran again.
Speaker 6: But what is less clear is whether or not there
Speaker 6: will come a point in which Republicans start to say,
Speaker 6: let's consider some other options here. You know, it would
Speaker 6: be a unique situation to see the Republican nomin knee
Speaker 6: lose a popular book, for example, and three consecutive elections,
Speaker 6: the same human being losing in the three consecutive elections,
Speaker 6: And so with that in mind, I'd be curious. I'll
Speaker 6: be curious to see in this hypothetical scenario. I say
Speaker 6: hypothetical because he might yet win. It's not as if
Speaker 6: Harris's success is a foregone conclusion. On the contrary, I
Speaker 6: think the race is still going to be extremely competitive.
Speaker 6: But so long as you and I are having exploring
Speaker 6: this in our conversation here, if Trump were to lose,
Speaker 6: it would not surprise me at all if he runs again,
Speaker 6: But I would be more circumspected about whether or not
Speaker 6: the Republican Party at large would be equally eager to
Speaker 6: see him remain in a position of power.
Speaker 1: Can I just say that, from your mouth to God's ear,
Speaker 1: I'd love to see him run in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: I think there's not a single Democrat who would not
Speaker 1: be delighted by that.
Speaker 4: I think you're right, and quite.
Speaker 1: Frankly, Dieu, as my people say, you've been in different
Speaker 1: forms of media, read different forms of media, been on
Speaker 1: different forms of media.
Speaker 3: How are we.
Speaker 6: Failing well, Mollie. That is a big picture question, and
Speaker 6: I'm not sure if I have an equally big picture answer.
Speaker 6: I think that we're at a point of transition. I
Speaker 6: think that the corporate role and in terms of its
Speaker 6: control over the media. I think that public consumption and
Speaker 6: how people are going about consuming their day to day news,
Speaker 6: all of that is very much and flux. And it's
Speaker 6: concerning because, as we talked about earlier, the fact that
Speaker 6: there's so many local newspapers that are disappearing. But at
Speaker 6: the same time there are these new opportunities for people
Speaker 6: like you and people like me who are pursuing new
Speaker 6: and creative lines of media. It is difficult to know
Speaker 6: how to feel about these transition periods because there's so
Speaker 6: much uncertainty, you know, there's still a small part of
Speaker 6: me that likes to think that in the end things
Speaker 6: are maybe things will work out. Okay, let's hope for
Speaker 6: the best.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Steve. That was great, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6: It's great to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Molly.
Speaker 1: No moment, Rick Wilson, Yes, Molly, what is your moment
Speaker 1: of fuckery?
Speaker 4: I would tell you my moment of fuckery is something political,
Speaker 4: But it is my daughter in law who is due
Speaker 4: to deliver my first grandchild any minute now, and I'm
Speaker 4: waiting for that baby. Where's that baby. I want to
Speaker 4: see the baby. I want to see that baby. No,
Speaker 4: my actual moment of fuckery beyond wanting to see some baby,
Speaker 4: is everyone in America knew Donald Trump would eventually tire
Speaker 4: of being held in a cage and being told to
Speaker 4: be responsible, and being told to be a grown up
Speaker 4: and being told to be an adult. That is why
Speaker 4: Horley Woodolski is back in the campaign. And though it
Speaker 4: has been greeted by the media as a sort of
Speaker 4: beta complete, and I'm going to tell you this is
Speaker 4: a guy with a terrible record of violence, of being
Speaker 4: a abusive to women, of being a creep, an adulterer,
Speaker 4: a guy who is just a scummy person. He is
Speaker 4: not a good guy, and the media seems to be
Speaker 4: a yogged like Lewardowski, a vetteran of Trump's previous campaign,
Speaker 4: without putting in the things like Lewandowski fired by Trump
Speaker 4: super pac for sexual harassment, Lewandowski grabbing reporters and bruising
Speaker 4: their arms by man handling reporters, Lewandowski having an extramural
Speaker 4: affair with Christino. And this is a guy with a
Speaker 4: very bad reputation over time, a very ugly personal life,
Speaker 4: and no one seems to care. But listen, Molly, the
Speaker 4: fuckery of it is, if your campaign is really in
Speaker 4: trouble with women and is losing women voters across the board,
Speaker 4: the solution is never corfit.
Speaker 2: What doests me?
Speaker 5: Thank you, Rick Welson, thanks for having me.
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