WEBVTT - Election Day with Molly Jong-Fast 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.200 This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:11.080 Thing from iHeart Radio. After a long political season full 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:16.439 of fundraising texts, constant campaign ads, and seemingly bottomless breaking news, 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.040 the moment we've all been waiting for is finally hear 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:24.000 it's election Day. I wanted to mark the occasion by 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.120 speaking with someone who was also deeply invested in the outcome. 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.839 Author and political pundit Malijiang Fast. As a member of 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:37.120 the press, a profession that's often found itself attacked by 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.120 Donald Trump, Chang Fast has been ringing the alarm bells 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:47.480 loudly about the forty fifth presidents escalating extremism and authoritarian bent. 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:53.159 She is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, political analyst 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:58.000 for MSNBC, and host of the podcast Fast Politics with 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.760 Malijang Fasts. She's also the author of the books Girl 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:07.720 Maladjusted and The Social Climber's Handbook. This is my second 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.440 opportunity to interview Mollie. I spoke with her and her mother, 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.479 novelist Erika Jong, in twenty twelve on one of our 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:20.520 very first podcasts. Her father is author Jonathan Fast. Growing 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.480 up in a literary household meant that Jong Fast started 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.280 in the family business at a young age. Her first novel, 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.480 Normal Girl, was published when she was just twenty one 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.120 years old, a fact made even more impressive when you 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.959 learn she did not graduate from college. 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.520 So my education is I went to high school, which 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.319 was a win for may. I was never a student. 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.240 I was dyslexic. I was like the first person in 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.640 my family to not go to college, right, right. So 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.080 I went and wrote a book, and then I got 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:56.400 an MFA from Bennington. 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.400 So because I'm igner written, meaning that you can get 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:00.760 an MFA without having. 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.639 A BA theoretically, yes, I mean. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.840 They made an exception for year, not a common pract 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:07.040 I've never done this before. 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.800 I think there are other people who've done it. I 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:11.840 had written some books, so I was able to make 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.320 a case that I add an equivalent to a college degree, 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:16.000 which I did not. 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.320 In fact, that's what happened to me with acting, where 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.600 they said to me, we want you to come back 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:23.880 and get your degree, and they said, we'll have you 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.799 write a paper and we'll wave write a sixty five 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:32.040 page thesis or whatever, but and will waive your studio 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:36.160 acting class requirements in light of your experience professionally over 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:37.280 the last like fifteen years. 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.160 So I went back and we did that. 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:39.960 That's what that's like. 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:44.120 We were commenting about how some people work as journalists. 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.720 I mean one shining example, like a says Woodward, where 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:51.280 he evolves into a author and wat's books after years 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:52.680 of journalism, and you're. 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:53.520 Kind of the opposite. 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:55.440 Yes, I very much said. 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:56.640 Right, And how what do you attribute that to? 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.680 Honestly, it's ignorance. I thought you had to be an like. 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.680 I didn't understand how anything worked. I have these teenage 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:05.600 kids now, and I'm always like, well, so you should 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:07.360 do this, or you should do that, or you should 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.880 talk to people who'll have the job that you want. 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.440 Nobody ever explained to me that there were options. I 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.400 thought you wrote novels and then you died. 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:15.800 You know. 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.560 I didn't realize that there were others, some awards, right, 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.680 maybe maybe I had a bestseller, maybe didn't. But you know, 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:23.880 I didn't know that you could like be a banker, 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.520 go to law school. I mean, these things just didn't 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.400 seem like things that people did or if. 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.000 You had to do over again, is it something else 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:30.359 you do? 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.560 I don't know. I mean, being a dentist is really hard, right, 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:36.480 I have to say, like, there are certain things where 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.200 I just don't have the brain for them, like being 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.640 a waiter, Like when people start giving their orders, I 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:45.120 couldn't tell you what they had said. 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:47.560 The thing for me, though, was that when I think 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.680 about you, I think about somebody who writing this is 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:51.960 rather a solitary thing. 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.600 Yeah, I hate it because you're there sitting around and 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.640 basically you're just getting crazier and crazier. Oh, I'll go 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.800 have a snack, yeah, maybe a nap. I don't come back, 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.080 you know, and three days later. I mean, it's just no, 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:05.640 it's so bad. It's a bad business. 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.960 All the great writers' children, yeah, many of the great 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.960 writer's children told me there was like a cheever or 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.440 something like that. Yeah, like Ben Shever or Ben Yeah, 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.000 or Susan. They'd say, you know, dad just goes out 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.880 to that cabin in the backyard and don't you ever 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.080 knock on that door ever, Yeah, you never knock on 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:24.599 that doorsturb him. 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.480 That's the difference between male writers and female writers. For example, 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.480 my mom too, actually, but that was because she was 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.200 a little bit different. But like there are stories of 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:36.520 I can't remember who it was a sort of famous 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.120 female writer driving to the edge of her property, locking 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.159 herself in the car so she could write. Well, the 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:45.599 children were banging on the outside of the car, like 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.920 that's the female writer experience, the male writer experience. And 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.560 my mother dad, if that door, if you open that door, 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.359 forget it. Yeah. My grandfather was the same way. Howard Fast. 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.080 You'd wake up at five o'clock in the morning, you'd 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:57.880 be out there on the type. He had a typewriter, 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.240 and you'd hear it and you just knew. 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.239 You know, the Howard Fast is your grandfather. 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:03.520 Yea. 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.240 Now, when did you decide, and I'm assuming this is 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.440 obviously a decision you made with other people. What was 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.800 the genesis of your on camera career? When do you 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:14.359 decide you were ready to go on cast? 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.159 So, I, you know, with everything it was like they 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.680 asked me to do. So I started with the networks 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.000 that are no longer in existence. So there was this 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.240 network called chatter. You could never see it anywhere except 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.919 in gas stations on the po the pump yes, and 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:35.800 the pump chadder. So I would do chattering right vacation. Yeah, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:40.440 Maria Mduno's right exactly. She is, By the way, the 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.120 sort of, I want to say, the Walter Cronkite of 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.120 this genre. So I started by doing chatter you know 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:49.800 when you do at four am for the four to 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.640 six window, we might need you twice for you know. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.440 And also another network that I just recently stopped going on, 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.120 but I loved going on it because it was so insane. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.200 Was and I had to stop when I went down SNBC. 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.760 But Great Britain News gb News is the worst. It 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.520 is the dregs of society. So it's a cable network 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:16.120 started to sell brexit. Okay, it's biggest star is a 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.200 man called Nigel Farage, right right, who is just going 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:25.240 right without any positive qualities at all. And you go 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.320 on that show and they say to you, wow, you know, 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.159 they do like that Foxy thing. But even worse, you know, 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.200 well your many people are saying that that Joe Biden 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.919 is a demented old man who doesn't know where he died, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.919 right exactly, and that the shadow Cabinet is now presidenting. 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.960 Tell us is that correct? And why is it correct? 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:49.040 And what can you shed on that? Right? 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.360 There was a lot of that, like Pierce Morgan style 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:52.479 stupid oh god. 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:54.480 But to get back to something which is so your 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.640 camera ready. When you decide your camera ready, you're you're 0:06:57.680 --> 0:06:58.440 guesting on show. 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.239 Around twenty fifteen, I started writing political stuff and getting 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:03.040 into that. 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.800 Kind of a shift to political Yeah why. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.680 Because my career as a novelist died and it was 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:14.240 actually yes or just having something for some purpose to 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:19.040 my life. So I had written this historical novel. I 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.360 can't it was Nazis or maybe it was something, and 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.720 I this Nazias and everything. I had given it to 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.080 this very fancy agent and he had said, oh my god, 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.720 this is unbelievable, and they got one person was like 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.320 this is incredible, and then crickets and then it didn't sell. 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.000 And at some point I was like, oh, this is 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.960 over for me, Like I cannot write novels like this, 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.080 and also I don't even know that I want to. 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.800 I went back to a place that I had written 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.520 for when I was like thirteen and the forward. I 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:53.360 started writing these pieces about politics every week. I got 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.080 better and better at doing it, and then I sort 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.040 of went to better places. So I went from there 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.880 to Glamour, and then I went to The Bulwark, and 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.440 then I went to Vogue, and then I went to 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:07.920 the Atlantic. They hired me at the Atlantic. That was 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:08.600 not a match. 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.280 Then I'll tell me why, because I subscribe to the 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:13.080 Atlantic online. 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:14.720 Yeah, a lot of great writers, a lot. 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:16.680 Of great writers. It was not a good place for me. 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.640 They felt I was too left, which is, if you 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.840 think about it, kind of hilarious because I'm actually not that, 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.920 you know, I mean a pro democracy for sure, but 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.040 ultimately a lot of people on the left don't think 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:34.679 on and yeah, I would like us all not to die, 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.280 you know, with the country getting hotter and hotter. So 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.000 it just was not a match. And so I went 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:42.640 to Unty Fair and that's where I've been for a 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:44.640 couple of years. But I had to sort of work 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.800 my way back into the career that I had wanted. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.160 And it was pretty interesting and it was a lot 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.720 of humility, which was great, and a lot of just 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.360 chopping wood and carrying water and like, there is a lot, 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.200 I mean, what's cool about American life, And and this is 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.440 obviously not as true as it should be. And you'll 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:06.040 see people like who've been incarcerated, who aren't able to 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:10.120 have these kind of revivals in their lives, which is 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.720 why we have to work on you know, making the 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.040 world better for people who have been incarcerated or people 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.200 who have had I had a very lucky opportunity to 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:21.960 sort of start over in the middle of my life. 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.120 And a lot of people are able to do that 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:26.960 in American life. And we're lucky, and that's why we 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:28.760 have to make it so that other people can do 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:29.120 like it. 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.760 It's interesting you say that, because that's certainly something that 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.920 is not a condition of life in other countries, even 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:36.400 in the Western European country. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:37.920 Oh yeah, for you to start. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.960 Again, right, And that's another question, and it's really important. 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.839 And like I mean, I have these three teenage children 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:45.840 and my husband I always talking about like in France, 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.480 if you don't get into the good schools, you're fucked, right, 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:50.839 you know, there's a certain track and you're on it 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.280 and that's it. And that's not how it is in 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:54.000 American life. 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.400 So you were guesting on shows, yes, and then you when. 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:59.360 Did you decide or did somebody else decide to someone 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.440 tap you on the show say let's go, or did 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:02.199 you pitch to somebody. 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.000 I don't have my own show. I'm still just a guest, 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.640 but I'm a podcast. Yes, I have the podcast. I 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.040 have the podcast at iHeart, and you know, I just 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:11.640 am a contributor at MSNBC. 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.120 You still are, Yeah, you're still a Vanity Fair and 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:16.000 you're still at MSMB. 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.600 Yeah, and I also do iHeart. I am a part 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.960 of the gig economy, so I have these many jobs, 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.280 but I got better at it. It was funny. I 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:28.000 was actually talking to a TV executive who is now 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.160 retired on the phone the other day and I was like, 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:31.839 how do you get a show if you wanted to 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.400 get a show theoretically, And he was talking to me 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.959 about someone who has a very big show now and 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.560 he said, you know, he just came for Christmas. He 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.880 worked on Christmas and Thanksgiving at four o'clock in the morning, 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.520 and you know, and that's sort of what I've been 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.080 trying to do, is just you know, working. 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.520 The only one who I really watch with any REGULARIA 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:53.080 is O'Donnell. 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:53.920 He's so smart. 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.040 O'donnald brings a sensibility to that that's really it's not 0:10:58.120 --> 0:10:59.160 about me white men. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.280 And I actually text him all the time. But you know, 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.240 Lawrence has worked in the Senate, you know, he worked 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.080 in the House. I mean, he just is really a 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.480 lot of history. So you can talk to him and 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.680 you can say you know what about 'LBJ and he'll 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:17.160 be like, wow, da da da. And I think all 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.760 any of us have is historical president, right, because especially 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.480 when it comes to polling, we don't have great data. 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.679 I mean, that's the big lie now, if you're gonna 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.880 talk about like them, this moment in American politics is 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.360 right now. In this moment, we have polls which are 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:38.600 highly speculative, a lot of voodoo math going on, and 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.560 then we have early voting and that's it. So whenever 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.680 you're listening to someone, always sort of think to yourself, like, 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:49.160 what information is this person going on? And historical information 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.959 is in itself at least it actually happened. Yeah. 0:11:53.000 --> 0:12:01.120 Now, which would you say is your favorite or preferred medium? Writing? Radio, podcast, television. 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.080 So writing is the worst because you want to die 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:10.439 and writing a memoir, right, writing a memoir effectiveness, effectiveness, 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.760 I mean it's just different muscles. Writing is you get 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.600 a great sentence, but you know, writing is hard because 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.160 you are fighting, you're swimming upstream and this is like 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.880 even saying this, I feel very depressed because it's something 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.720 my grandfather used to say. But you know, it's hard 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.520 to get people to read. Like, it's not it's not 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.560 issues you right, it's not any lot of books out there, right, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.440 it's not anyone's preferred method of community, you know, like, oh, 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.000 let me sit down and read a book. I mean, 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.200 my husband reads like ten books a day, but I 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:43.240 don't think that's the norm. 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:43.800 That's yeah. 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.240 Yeah, well he's literally You're like, why are you staring 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.079 at your phone and he's just reading? 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:49.600 Yeah? 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.240 Yeah, I mean they you know, you write what you 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.400 say on television to a certain extent, and if you 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:57.400 you know, and if you're doing a monologue on a 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:58.400 show you write it. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:12:59.959 You actually looks like a movie in terms of you 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:01.400 to predict that people are going to want to read 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:02.480 that eighteen months from now. 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:03.760 Yeah, and nobody knows. 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:03.960 No. 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.200 I mean, this is the answer. It's funny because I 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.640 wrote this piece. I have a great editor of Vannie Fair. 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.760 I'm obsessed with him. He's so wonderful. He really respects me, 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:13.360 lets me write what I want to write. So I said, 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.280 I'm going to write a piece about how no one 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.120 knows anything. And he was like, yes, but you could 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.360 tell he was just like, Oh, why are you gonna 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:23.120 write a piece about how no one knows anything. And 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.640 I wrote this piece which was basically nobody knows how 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:27.920 it's going to play out, which is true, and we 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:29.800 were all like, oh, this might be a little and 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.959 then like, you know, a few days later, someone wrote 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.960 in another magazine that I am not as fond of that, 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.440 the same piece, you know that nobody knows anything, and 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.640 I was like, yes, I was right, you know, so nobody. 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:44.600 I mean, we know some things, but we don't know 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.360 nearly as much as we need you to think in 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.160 order for you to turn on the television. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.920 Well where I think that MSNBC. What bothered me when 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:54.719 I was there was I was like, man, if you 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.280 just had one writer on your staff could write because 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.040 each segment I saw some of these people, even the 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.959 highest rated people, that they say the same thing seven times, 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:03.840 they cover the same ground seven. 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:07.040 Times, and sometimes things like for example, there was this 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.520 study published by Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:16.240 Hopkins about SB eight, which is this Texas abortion bell. 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.600 So a year before the Supreme Court overturned Row, the 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:24.080 Texas state legislature, which, by the way, in case you 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:28.200 want to find a state where everything sucks in the legislature. 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.880 It's Texas, I mean, followed by Oklahoma. Oklahoma with the 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.040 legislation is just the things they're passing is just brainworms. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.120 I mean, trust me, in New York State looks like 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.400 you know, Paris, France compared to this. So SBA comes 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.280 out of Texas and it is no abortions after six weeks. 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.240 So the state of Texas really had overturned ROW a 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.760 year before the Supreme Court. And what this study found 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.280 was that these women are walking coffins. That they were 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.200 about two hundred and forty eight excess deaths of infants. 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.840 You had babies born that were going to die. So 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.360 women would carry these babies and then they would die 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.840 or they would die within the first ninety days of life. 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.240 And so and we're going to see much more of this, 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:16.560 but this is like the first sort of. 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.680 Because we're fantasy people to go through those. 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.200 Three years out. Yes, and you see people on the 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:25.560 right defending this, well, we've saved all of these embryos, right, 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:27.920 all these women were forced to carry. You know, these 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.640 fetuses survived, but these women were forced to carry these 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.320 babies that were going to inevitably die. And that that 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.000 is the legacy of Donald Trump. 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:46.720 Author and correspondent Mali Jang Fast. If you enjoy conversations 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.960 with dogged political writers, check out my episode with Jane Mayer. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.240 Just even the opening of it, where it's got the 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.000 Money Money Song and him coming in on a helicopter 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.040 and a limousine is meeting him and some beautiful girl 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.640 gets out of it with a clipboard for him. It's 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.400 like a fantasy of what being rich is. One of 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.160 the stories I loved the most was interviewing Tony Schwartz, 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.920 who wrote the Art of the Deal, and he said 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.760 people think there's more to Trump and that there's another Trump, 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.240 and when he gets elected, he's going to be different. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:19.640 He said, there is. 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:20.720 No one Trump. 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.440 It's all like, you know, a centimeter deep. 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.800 To hear more of my conversation with Jane Mayer, go 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:33.280 to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Malli 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.240 Joan Fast shares her perspective on the people that currently 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:51.520 have Trump's confidences. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:56.440 Here's the Thing. Mally jan Fasts novels and memoirs like 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.960 Normal Girl and the Sex Doctors in the Basement, True 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.240 stories from a semi celebrity childhood were inspired by her 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.439 wild years as a young adult coming of age in 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.240 New York City. I wanted to know if she was 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:12.800 willing to share with me a little bit about the 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.240 years since spent in sobriety. 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.600 I'm always talking about it. I won't shut up about it. 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:20.560 Like someone DM me the other day and was like, 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.479 you know, we have this anonymity at Press Radio, but 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.080 I break my anonymity. I'm sober since I was nineteen 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.800 years old. The only reason I went to rehab was 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:33.080 because I had seen a movie with that actress from 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.879 the bus s. Yes, she's a coke iad no. She 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.920 was in a movie about a rehab, right, And I 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.240 was like, okay, I'll go to rehab. That was it. 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.320 That's how you got Yeah. I thought, this looks okay. 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.680 It's like a spa. I had a drug dealer called Felix. 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.520 His He had an apartment on the Upper West Side 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.560 and I would sit with his girlfriend and watch Baywatch. 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:00.439 They had a pitfall, because you have to have people 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:05.040 and you know, do cocaine and watch by Watch. That's 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:06.560 how you know what EURO was. 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.200 I had a woman who was a drug dealer whose 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.960 husband was a dug dealer and he gets arrested. So 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.520 the drug dealers come to her and they say, your husband, 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.840 he owes us a lot of money, and you're. 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.080 Going to pay us. Right, you're going to sell the coke. 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:21.879 Now you're a coke dealer. 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.639 Now you're gonna If you don't sell the coke and 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:25.960 pay us back, we're not going to tell you to 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:27.720 pay us. You sell the coke and pay us back, 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:29.680 and if you don't, your husband's going to be killed 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:30.040 in prison. 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:30.760 We're going to murder him. 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:32.439 And probably that's nice, but she was like, got it. 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:34.320 God, I don't need to write anything down. No, I 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:35.320 don't need a pen. I'm good. 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:38.280 That's like the Donald Trump thing, though, don't ever write 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.280 anything down. He doesn't write anything down, he doesn't send emails, 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.399 and that is how he's managed to get away with us. 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.560 Speaking of Donald Trump, yeah, I mean many of these people, 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:52.000 particularly from a certain political stripe where they're relatively incurious people, 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.080 so someone else is getting all the work done, George 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.040 Bush Junior, and they're like a hood ornament, and then 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:02.200 other people With Trump, I was always mystified, saddened, crushed 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:04.760 by how many bad guys there were out there that 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:06.600 were going to come and take over the government yea, 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.080 and run everything for him. More now and even more now, 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:14.080 I'm mortified. But who do you think has Trump's ear now? 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.679 In a previous election in twenty sixteen, it was Bannon. 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:21.400 So certainly there's some dynamic where Don Junior has really 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:23.440 got a you know, because it used to be a 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:27.239 Vanka And now I think because remember Don Junior, at 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.040 least he claims to have been really instrumental in the 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.360 Jadie Vance pick, right, which was I think if we 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.639 go back and look at this election, and again no 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.720 one knows what's going to happen, but if he loses, 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.080 I think that picking jd Vance will certainly have been 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.760 one of the reasons why, because it's just he's not 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.639