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 a majority of Americans have a
Speaker 1: negative view of billionaires spending more money to buy elections,
Speaker 1: according to a Washington Post IPSOS poll. We have such
Speaker 1: a great show for you today. Author of Evil Geniuses
Speaker 1: Kurt Anderson stops by to talk about Trump, saying the
Speaker 1: Democrats should be hung. Then we'll talk to Aten ben
Speaker 1: about her run for Congress in a swing district in Tennessee.
Speaker 2: But first the news, Milly. Let's remember the Heritage Foundation
Speaker 2: are not known for being very woke. They wrote Project
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five and particularly they really really really do
Speaker 2: not like immigration. Guess what. They're not happy with mister Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are not happy with mister Trump. This is
Speaker 1: a really interesting phenomenon because we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: the Trump administration being bad at what they do. We
Speaker 1: don't talk a lot about the Trump administration being so
Speaker 1: bad at what they do that it being the only
Speaker 1: thing standing between us and complete disaster. This is extremely important.
Speaker 1: The Trump administration is being blasted by the Heritage Foundation
Speaker 1: for how little they're deporting people and we see this
Speaker 1: with Christy Gnome, is that they're very interested in the
Speaker 1: optics of deportation, but they're not so interested in the
Speaker 1: actual deportation. And so we find ourselves in a moment
Speaker 1: where the only thing that is helping us, the poor,
Speaker 1: sad American people who are being pretty much we're sort
Speaker 1: of victims of this Republican admin is the fact that
Speaker 1: this crew is really bad at what they do. And
Speaker 1: in fact, it's like an amazing thing, what Heritage says.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I am in no way endorsing Heritage, really,
Speaker 1: you me certainly not says. I mean, this is like
Speaker 1: some good writing. I respect good writing. The American people
Speaker 1: voted for mass deportations, they're getting mass communications instead, ha ha.
Speaker 1: Mike cow the Poet Laureate of the Heritage Foundation, Samali.
Speaker 2: One of the things I think is funniest about the
Speaker 2: Trump administration is basically, since like let's call it day two,
Speaker 2: they've been like, we need a little patience with this economy.
Speaker 2: Yesterday we had JD. Van saying the thing that I
Speaker 2: had asked for the American people is a little bit
Speaker 2: of patience. Why do we need patients? Because Crypto, which
Speaker 2: apparently our whole economy is built.
Speaker 1: On now pretty much.
Speaker 2: It wiped out four hundred billion dollars in wealth this week.
Speaker 1: I am just completely shocked that crypto is so unstable.
Speaker 1: You know how many people we've had on this podcast
Speaker 1: where they've been like, you know, crypto's just a scam.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I say this to my husband,
Speaker 1: who's very smart, I said, crypto is basically a scam, right,
Speaker 1: and he goes, well, so is the dollar. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess you could go back and say that.
Speaker 2: You're not doing well in your argument with it's what about.
Speaker 1: ISA, Yeah, exactly, though we like it. It's not just
Speaker 1: Bitcoin though, virtually all coins. All of these fake currencies
Speaker 1: are crashing at the same time. So it turns out
Speaker 1: I wonder how trump coin is doing. I'm sure trump
Speaker 1: coin is much much more stable because it's backed by
Speaker 1: the United States of Trome our King.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, for as long as the
Speaker 2: Saudias are making money on oil, I feel like it's
Speaker 2: a little more stable than many others.
Speaker 1: Now, all of these coins are crashing because they're and
Speaker 1: and by the way, let's just add in someone who
Speaker 1: knows what they're talking about. This unlimited fun. CEO Bob
Speaker 1: Elliott notes Friday morning, the selloff and bitcoin is mirroring
Speaker 1: recent weakness and stocks with much more extreme action because
Speaker 1: it's so unstable. But in fact, this is possibly the
Speaker 1: beginning of more of a bear and less of a ball. Mark.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I can't imagine when you withhold jobs reports, why
Speaker 2: people lose faith in the economy and want to hold
Speaker 2: their money from silly things. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: The September jobs came in better than expected. Nobody knows
Speaker 1: about October or November, but September good for September. That
Speaker 1: was months ago.
Speaker 2: Smike. When we last left Speaker of the House Mike Johnson,
Speaker 2: he seemed a little shook. I may have made some
Speaker 2: disparaging comments about his demeanor. Well, it seems that I
Speaker 2: was picking up a cent of lack of confidence because
Speaker 2: he's going to make it harder for discharge petitions to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is like he's so spiteful. I like
Speaker 1: his pettiness. First of all, I think let's just remember
Speaker 1: that discharge petitions are extremely hard to get past. In fact,
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green during their press conference, said that there
Speaker 1: is a four percent chance of getting a discharge petition
Speaker 1: which succeeds.
Speaker 2: Look at you quoting your best ee.
Speaker 1: Oh shut the fuck anyway. But the point is they're
Speaker 1: very hard to get to succeed because basically you have
Speaker 1: to go around the leadership and they're set up in
Speaker 1: a way to have trouble succeeding. Now, Mike Johnson is
Speaker 1: pretty mad because he got God right, like Thomas Massey
Speaker 1: and Rocan were able to get him. They were able
Speaker 1: to get this piece of legislation around him, and now
Speaker 1: he's he's salty, he's bitter, he's mad. And again it's
Speaker 1: worth realizing, like Mike Johnson is not good at this.
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson got this job because Donald Trump needed someone
Speaker 1: who would just sign off on all his bullshit, right,
Speaker 1: because there were other people who were in line for
Speaker 1: this job who were insufficiently sycophantic, and those guys did
Speaker 1: not get this job. And so we find ourselves in
Speaker 1: this situation. I think that it is very stupid that
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson wants to go after discharge petitions. Now, Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson is also doing this because he he's the writing
Speaker 1: on the wall Hall. This is like such a function
Speaker 1: of him being a bad leader. There's another discharge petition
Speaker 1: that just hit the two hundred and eighteen signature threshold.
Speaker 1: You have to like basically a veto provement. It's not
Speaker 1: quite a mutail proof for Jori, but you need to
Speaker 1: have two hundred and eighteen. You have to have quite
Speaker 1: a lot of Congressmen sign on to this in order
Speaker 1: to work. And now there's another one. A discharge petition
Speaker 1: is two hundred and eighteen and it's led by Jared Golden.
Speaker 1: Jared Golden is this rural Democrat who's not running again.
Speaker 1: He is very concerned with working people, and so it
Speaker 1: would restore union rights for thousands of federal workers. It
Speaker 1: has only and again this is important to realize and
Speaker 1: also a function of Mike Johnson. Only seven discharge petitions
Speaker 1: have successfully signed into law since nineteen thirty five, but
Speaker 1: three of them have come in just last two years.
Speaker 2: Wild So you might remember Trump's loyalty question for federal workers.
Speaker 2: Federal workers are now asking a judge to block them
Speaker 2: on their application questions. Because you'll be shocked here, this
Speaker 2: is pretty fucking silly.
Speaker 1: This is like not what we do in this country.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the problems that Trump World
Speaker 1: has is that they're constantly trying to figure out a
Speaker 1: way to do like these like low key authoritarian things
Speaker 1: in an American democracy. And this is a great example
Speaker 1: of how it doesn't work for them, Like there is
Speaker 1: no world in which judges are going to be like, yes,
Speaker 1: you can do loyalty oaths and again like this is
Speaker 1: a problem with Trump World, is that they constantly are
Speaker 1: trying to do things that are like not within the
Speaker 1: norms and institutions. Kurt Anderson is the author of Evil
Speaker 1: Geniuses and Fantasyland. At Kurt Anderson him Molly, I'm going
Speaker 1: to read you a quote about hanging democrats. Let's start
Speaker 1: with this Reuters. This is a tweet from Ed o'keith
Speaker 1: at CBS per Reuters all caps. Trump does not want
Speaker 1: to execute members of Congress, Comma white House says, discuss.
Speaker 3: Well and in their in their walk backs, such as
Speaker 3: they were from miss Levitt on it's it's always been no.
Speaker 3: But which is to say, you know they were, Yes,
Speaker 3: they were basically traders and horrible is as awful.
Speaker 1: First of all, so this comes from Donald Trump saying
Speaker 1: retweeting tweets that said he wanted to x write it
Speaker 1: is this from a retweet or is this from well
Speaker 1: he said.
Speaker 3: He said they were seditious and treasonous. These senators and
Speaker 3: congress people got together who who were military veterans, some
Speaker 3: of them veterans, saying, you know, we're just reminding everybody
Speaker 3: in the service and they are all trained on this
Speaker 3: from you know, not just officers, but enlisted people that
Speaker 3: you know, there are such a thing as illegal orders
Speaker 3: and you are obliged not to follow them. Now, So
Speaker 3: that's how they were doing, and you know, you know, good,
Speaker 3: all right, and and he wasn't saying, you know the
Speaker 3: thing And then the thing is about that McCallum on
Speaker 3: Fox which you're interviewing Jason Crow said, well, there were
Speaker 3: any specifics, what were your specifics that they should disobey,
Speaker 3: Which is just a stupid question on so many levels,
Speaker 3: because of course they're not going to say and here
Speaker 3: are the specific things that Trump may do that you
Speaker 3: should disobey the words so and if it said well
Speaker 3: the specifics of like maybe you should rethink, maybe you're
Speaker 3: going to be in trouble for blowing up these random
Speaker 3: votes in the Caribbean, that would be worse, much worse,
Speaker 3: and interfer you with an ongoing military operation. So anyway,
Speaker 3: it's ridiculous, it won't happen. It's just it's just more dangerous,
Speaker 3: extreme crazy bullshit that it could indeed inspire.
Speaker 1: Someone someone to do something really bad, to.
Speaker 3: Do something terrible. It is one more thing that we
Speaker 3: are supposed to jump at and go, oh, my god.
Speaker 3: And of course, in this case, because it is in
Speaker 3: the realm of to me, his most horrific and frightening instincts,
Speaker 3: which you know, we must take literally as well curiously,
Speaker 3: which is this militarization of American life and American politics,
Speaker 3: an American governance, and American everything else. He is serious
Speaker 3: about that, obviously. And so this particular thing isn't going
Speaker 3: to happen anytime soon. But it shouldn't it by itself,
Speaker 3: as seeing I should not have a long life as
Speaker 3: a thing we talk about.
Speaker 1: I want to direct you though, to the idea here,
Speaker 1: which is that members of Congress who served in the
Speaker 1: military did this video saying don't do a legal stuff
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to, which seems like an obvious kind
Speaker 1: of thing, but is very necessary when Trump is operating
Speaker 1: the federal government and Donald Trump says it's edition the
Speaker 1: answer to sedition would be not now. But it used
Speaker 1: to be that that was a crime punished by punishable
Speaker 1: by some kind of military execution. And Trump is saying
Speaker 1: this because he's angry. Now. I wonder if you could
Speaker 1: talk about the world in which a person like this
Speaker 1: comes from, because you have covered this world nauseum, especially
Speaker 1: during the time that Donald Trump was becoming Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: It feels like something from someone who has studied at
Speaker 1: the foot of a guy called roy Cone.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I was thinking of somebody else connected or
Speaker 3: at loose to contemporary roy Cones when I was thinking
Speaker 3: about Trump and this stuff today, which is who that
Speaker 3: will get into our other conversation.
Speaker 4: That I think, you know, wait on Moley, but be
Speaker 4: scary was really effectively part of the roy Cone advice,
Speaker 4: along with deny and attack, attack and all those things.
Speaker 3: But be as scary as you can. And so I
Speaker 3: mean he has said before. I mean, this is really
Speaker 3: not the first time he's gone to these places like
Speaker 3: General Millie that you know, Charmer and the Joint Chiefs.
Speaker 3: Under Trump in his first term he has said should
Speaker 3: be hung as a trader. And this the other thing
Speaker 3: about this, it's not new that he does this. What's new,
Speaker 3: of course, is the last ten months where he's sending
Speaker 3: ice certainly and also uniform military people into cities to
Speaker 3: hang around, to scare, to show he's a strong man.
Speaker 3: So I barely want to get into the political ramifications
Speaker 3: of him doing this, which is to say, well, well,
Speaker 3: it won't this drive some people that think like he
Speaker 3: is not we've got to get rid of him. Maybe,
Speaker 3: but we'll see. I don't know, but it is. It is,
Speaker 3: as you say, it's purely his angry thing. He saw
Speaker 3: this video. It's a well made, serious ad short and
Speaker 3: to the point, doesn't mention him, doesn't mention this administration,
Speaker 3: doesn't mention any specific things that this administration has done
Speaker 3: in terms of sending military in the cities or blowing
Speaker 3: up random boats that are ostensibly drug traffickers boats. But
Speaker 3: it goes without saying so, and that he knew, he
Speaker 3: understood where it was coming from, and I'm sure he
Speaker 3: understood how potent it is, how affective, how these National
Speaker 3: Security CIA veteran people from Lysislock into Mark Kelly and
Speaker 3: Jason Crow and all the rest are really effective, you know,
Speaker 3: non weak, non left wing democratic lunatics in any sense speakers,
Speaker 3: so he felt it and good. I'm glad he did,
Speaker 3: because it's it's a good thing. And again it was
Speaker 3: whoever came up with this idea to me, among those Democrats,
Speaker 3: it was brilliant, brilliantly conceived and brilliantly done.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the origin story of trump Ism
Speaker 1: for a minute, because we find our man in, you know,
Speaker 1: obsessed with cats, obsessed with Phantom of the Opera, obsessed
Speaker 1: with the world, and which he comes oh.
Speaker 3: Interesting, interesting choices, which is you know, and I don't
Speaker 3: want to get into any kind of homophobia on this,
Speaker 3: but it is, it is these theory is important. And
Speaker 3: indeed this kind of strong man view of I am King,
Speaker 3: which you know, back in the day it's my magazine,
Speaker 3: we used to make fun of him for imagining a
Speaker 3: kind of kingly superhero, among other things, you know. And
Speaker 3: I think of his origins and coming of age in
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventy sixties and seventy eighties, and I think
Speaker 3: of the dictators of the time, the people who actually
Speaker 3: did do these you know, send in and execute people
Speaker 3: who shoot down protesters and all those things. I think
Speaker 3: of their esthetic because of what he's done in these
Speaker 3: last weeks and months of tearing down the East wing
Speaker 3: and putting up this, and putting up these gold do
Speaker 3: dads all over the Oval office, and now putting up
Speaker 3: gold dude ads in his new residential Hall of Fame
Speaker 3: on the west Wind Colonnade, which is insane on many levels.
Speaker 3: But it's in addition to itsself moarification. You know this,
Speaker 3: this shiny golden metal sign and the shiny golden do
Speaker 3: dads around the portraits of presidents. And by the way,
Speaker 3: why do you a need it b need to call
Speaker 3: it a hall of fame? Well, presidents are all famous.
Speaker 3: I could go on, but it is so typical of
Speaker 3: these kinds of Middle Eastern Southwest Asian worldwide, the dictators
Speaker 3: who build giant palaces to themselves, right, and you know
Speaker 3: the esthetic of the super gold rococo shiny golden thing
Speaker 3: is his esthetic. You know. Look, from the beginning eighties
Speaker 3: is when we started spy magacine. Right, apologies for ranting,
Speaker 3: but it's it's you're treating me into my into recovered memories.
Speaker 3: But you know he finishes Trump Tower eighty four, moves
Speaker 3: into his incredibly lavishly golden, cheesy vulgar triplex which is
Speaker 3: one of the one of the main sources of what
Speaker 3: we started calling him again and again and again and
Speaker 3: again back in spy Magacine, which is short fingered Bulgarian
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. Right, it is this eighties rich guy of
Speaker 3: a certain kind, of a certain old you know, it's
Speaker 3: not just Long Island, but you know Long Island Queen's kind.
Speaker 3: And you know he buys mar A lago In at
Speaker 3: eighty five and starts, you know, tarting it up more
Speaker 3: he becomes. And this is the thing I always have
Speaker 3: thought about him. In connection to this gets back to
Speaker 3: the Roy Kohane connection is Liberaci. You may be too young,
Speaker 3: Molly to remember Rocchi, but he was this extraordinary Las
Speaker 3: Vegas pianist singer who had been famous for decades, really
Speaker 3: famous at a really big Vegas star and incredibly campy,
Speaker 3: and of course was not an out gay man, but
Speaker 3: was a high league gay man, you know, big hair,
Speaker 3: new and fancy clothes and gold and everything. Played a
Speaker 3: golden piano on stage. I encourage any listeners who don't
Speaker 3: know who he is to get images of him and
Speaker 3: his surroundings and ooling and interiors. It's very Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: It is extremely Donald Trump. He died in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 3: right shortly before he died as as by the way,
Speaker 3: as Roy con was also dying, Trump went out of
Speaker 3: his way to become friends with him, gave him a
Speaker 3: condo at Trump Tower, went shopping with him. I mean
Speaker 3: they were buddies, shopping buddies, and you know, and again
Speaker 3: not just to say, oh he's vulgar, Well he is,
Speaker 3: but it also has struck me all along and in
Speaker 3: the Trump presidency, says part of his authentic seeming connection
Speaker 3: to a large part of his builder base is this.
Speaker 3: I know it's elite of me.
Speaker 1: But rich. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3: It's one bit of popular authentic populism. Yeah, cheesy taste.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: So anyway back to strong men, and they're aesthetic, you know,
Speaker 3: I think of the the Golden Palace dictators who are
Speaker 3: what happens to them? Then oh they're deposed and they're
Speaker 3: good regime.
Speaker 1: Right. But I'm gonna I'm gonna prevent you from going there,
Speaker 1: and just we're going to just talk about for a
Speaker 1: minute what the sort of mentality is. So we have
Speaker 1: a seventy nineyear old Donald Trump. He comes from Roy Cohen,
Speaker 1: he comes from a world of when they attack you,
Speaker 1: you punch back twice as hard because you're a gangster, right,
Speaker 1: because you're a gangster. So I wonder, you know, clearly
Speaker 1: this is not working on a broader scale. We see
Speaker 1: this in America, right, they just got creamed in the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five cycle. We'd see you know, people like
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green going like, maybe this is not what
Speaker 1: I signed up for. Like this strikes me as the
Speaker 1: sort of third act of this play. So I wonder
Speaker 1: if you could inform us with some of the things
Speaker 1: that happened in the first act that you think might
Speaker 1: in some way shed a light on how this goes.
Speaker 1: I mean, my man is seventy nine, it's been along,
Speaker 1: you know, the last forty plus years have been rough
Speaker 1: for all of us.
Speaker 3: Well, in the first act, I mean he again he
Speaker 3: was who he is then in terms of the bully,
Speaker 3: the lies, the gaudiness, the exaggerations beyond anything imaginable. All
Speaker 3: that in his first act ended with his bankruptcies and
Speaker 3: being close to personal bankruptcy. But certainly, you know, bankrupting
Speaker 3: several of his casino businesses. So it ended with that,
Speaker 3: and he was caned out of the picture. Except as
Speaker 3: a guy who would attach his name to, you know,
Speaker 3: apartment complexes around the country until he got his TV show,
Speaker 3: which was of course, his The Apprentice, which was his
Speaker 3: second act. So he went down and he was real,
Speaker 3: He really went down. And you know, in a more
Speaker 3: you know, an easily alter timeline, he would have disappeared
Speaker 3: in the nineties and oughts, and you know, he was
Speaker 3: Whatever happened to Donald Trump would be a thing said
Speaker 3: in this century. It worked out differently because of reality TV,
Speaker 3: which is, you know, in a larger sense, one of
Speaker 3: the horrors of our age.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think the original sin of
Speaker 1: trump Ism is reality television?
Speaker 3: I think reality television was doing bad things to American culture.
Speaker 3: That was part of the softening up the ground for
Speaker 3: Donald Trump too, finally, after flirting with and saying he
Speaker 3: was gonna run for president in nineteen eighty eight, in
Speaker 3: ninety two, and ninety six, in two thousand, like he
Speaker 3: was part of the softening up the ground to allow
Speaker 3: that to happen and take place. Sure, the blurring of
Speaker 3: reality and fiction into an indistinguishable mess was and and
Speaker 3: was part of it, as was the ultimate American thing
Speaker 3: which had started decades before which is being famous for
Speaker 3: being famous. He became famous for being famous. He never Yeah,
Speaker 3: he built a couple of buildings in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 3: you know, as New York was coming out of his bankruptcy.
Speaker 3: Well good for him, but that's what he did. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, you know at starting with any who, you know,
Speaker 3: he did it for nothing, well virtually nothing, four hundred
Speaker 3: million dollars back then, which was a lot of money.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But reality TV is you know, made him what he
Speaker 3: used today and even beyond that terrible piece of collateral
Speaker 3: damage of reality television was from from when it started
Speaker 3: at the very turn of the century through this century,
Speaker 3: but especially those first ten to fifteen years of this century,
Speaker 3: you know, of net very bad thing for America. I
Speaker 3: had no problems with, say The Bachelorette, but right, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know reality TV is no good.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's true.
Speaker 3: But before you let me go, I have I have
Speaker 3: to give you my my again my or my full
Speaker 3: reverie on the strong Man and what happens to them
Speaker 3: and if so, if this is the third act, and
Speaker 3: and and what I hope will happen, what I believe
Speaker 3: will happen, is he will leave office and be more
Speaker 3: of an angry lame duck as the three years gone.
Speaker 3: God knows what he will do in the meantime as
Speaker 3: he acts out and slips into whatever mental neurological abyss
Speaker 3: he's He has always been on the precipice up, but
Speaker 3: he will be out. However, there are many worst case
Speaker 3: scenarios about how this might and could all end. And
Speaker 3: again I don't hope that it ends in any any
Speaker 3: way but the normal, constitutional, lawful way. But I think
Speaker 3: just in terms of a I don't know, almost fictional, novelistic,
Speaker 3: poetic parallel about these other strong men with their palaces
Speaker 3: in Saddan, who's saying when you know fell and we
Speaker 3: had weeks of looking at these golden palaces and Kada
Speaker 3: after him and Assad a year ago. Almost now we're
Speaker 3: almost at the anniversary of Asad being driven from what
Speaker 3: his palace is by his army failing to protect him
Speaker 3: in his government regime.
Speaker 1: Colepsic, Kurt Anderson, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Jin Ben represents the fifty first district of Tennessee's House
Speaker 1: of Representatives since twenty twenty three and is running in
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty five special election for Tennessee's fourths congressional district.
Speaker 1: So welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 6: Thank you. It's excited to be here.
Speaker 1: We're excited to have you. So talk to me about
Speaker 1: your race, what you're running for.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So this is for a special congressional election in Tennessee,
Speaker 5: the Tennessee seventh. It is the last flippable red to
Speaker 5: blue district in the entire country. For your listeners and
Speaker 5: your audience, Nashville was a consolidated Democratic district and following
Speaker 5: redistricting efforts in twenty twenty, they cut it up into
Speaker 5: three Republican.
Speaker 6: Districts and this is one of those.
Speaker 5: And so the opportunity is in front of us in
Speaker 5: that this is an R plus twenty district and we
Speaker 5: have been able to close the margin, shrink the margins
Speaker 5: by six points, which was last month, and our early
Speaker 5: vote data is coming back and it shows us within
Speaker 5: four points.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, that's crazy. So how did you do that?
Speaker 5: It's an amalgamation of things. One, the momentum, right, So,
Speaker 5: two weeks ago we saw Democrats running on affordability be
Speaker 5: successful across the country, talking about issues that relate to
Speaker 5: the cost of living. In the chaos of Washington, and
Speaker 5: on that momentum we've seen just so much interest in
Speaker 5: a state like Tennessee. Too, is that I'm a community organizer,
Speaker 5: and so I spent the last decade building the ecosystem
Speaker 5: and infrastructure we need to leverage to actually win elections
Speaker 5: in this state. And so I was the indivisible organizer
Speaker 5: for three years in Tennessee and built all these indivisible
Speaker 5: groups that are now knocking do orders and contacting voters
Speaker 5: to get us cross the finish line. And then three
Speaker 5: is the Republican agenda. Economic agenda has not delivered for
Speaker 5: working people in Tennessee. And there's a lot of fragmentation
Speaker 5: and fracturing we're seeing right now with the Republican Party.
Speaker 5: And I think people are very sick of the chaos
Speaker 5: of Washington and the cost of living, and they're giving
Speaker 5: a candidate like me a.
Speaker 1: Chance unbelievably cool, like I'm even without words. So you
Speaker 1: started these invisible groups, so you people know you in
Speaker 1: Tennessee and activists know you, and just explain to us
Speaker 1: how it works, because I think people don't quite understand
Speaker 1: how you can do something like this.
Speaker 5: When Trump was elected the first time, I decided to
Speaker 5: move back to my home state of Tennessee, and I
Speaker 5: got a community organizing job.
Speaker 1: Wow. I want to pause for a second because like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, did you ever know like the Arena
Speaker 1: that group the Arena, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. They
Speaker 1: used to always say like go back to where you're from.
Speaker 1: And around Trump's election the first time, I too had
Speaker 1: that same kind of thing where I was like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: my whole life, like how did I let this happen?
Speaker 1: So anyway, so talk us to what happened then.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I was actually working at the un when Trump
Speaker 5: was elected or just come off a contract in Europe
Speaker 5: and decided to move back to Tennessee, and my parents
Speaker 5: were super upset, and I was like, mom, dad, I
Speaker 5: want to get involved in Tennessee politics. And my mom
Speaker 5: so upset she had to be escorted out of the restaurant.
Speaker 5: And the job I got was for a nonprofit law
Speaker 5: firm that just got money to hire an organizer because
Speaker 5: of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid cuts the twenty
Speaker 5: seventh Medicaid fight, so I was out in the hollers
Speaker 5: of the seventh District raising awareness about Medicaid cuts to
Speaker 5: rural hospitals, talking to public healthcare officials about what would
Speaker 5: happen if subsidies for the Affordable Care Act or cut
Speaker 5: lo and behold, it feels like groundhog Day because now
Speaker 5: those cuts are actualized through the passage of the Big
Speaker 5: Ugly Bill, which is why I decided to jump into
Speaker 5: this race. But the important I think art here, especially
Speaker 5: in the South, is we've experienced historic disinvestment because oftentimes
Speaker 5: funding at the national level is tethered to progressive electoral outcomes, right,
Speaker 5: but in a stately we're oppressively jerrymanderd there's anti and
Speaker 5: we live in under an anti democratic regime.
Speaker 6: It's hard to have those types of wins.
Speaker 5: But this election, in my campaign, is a testament to
Speaker 5: all of that base building that we've been doing the
Speaker 5: past decade to get to a place where we are
Speaker 5: out organizing our opposition. And it is incredible to watch.
Speaker 5: And now this is a twenty point race, now a
Speaker 5: four point race.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense because if you think about like
Speaker 1: those numbers in New Jersey and in Virginia, we saw
Speaker 1: shifts that were that big.
Speaker 5: Yeah, even more and I and and in Tennessee there
Speaker 5: hasn't been competitive races, right, So like everything is going
Speaker 5: our way, and I would not be going across the
Speaker 5: state losing sleep to tell folks that we are ten
Speaker 5: points behind because.
Speaker 6: We are so close, like we are so close to
Speaker 6: quitting this.
Speaker 5: And it would send a message to Washington that people
Speaker 5: are done, they're fed up, We've had enough, We're tired
Speaker 5: of begging for crumbs, and it's time to send a
Speaker 5: message to the federal administration as we is, our Republican
Speaker 5: super majority that y'all have y'all not delivered for working
Speaker 5: families in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: When is this special election? Special elections are weird? Who
Speaker 1: is it for?
Speaker 5: I'm gonna ask you to do your own research about
Speaker 5: Representative Mark Green. But the representative there was some nefarious
Speaker 5: activity and then he decided to take a corporate job
Speaker 5: and left Congress after.
Speaker 6: Voting for the Big Ugly bill.
Speaker 5: So he left in August or July August, and it
Speaker 5: thus catalyzed a special election in Tennessee.
Speaker 6: And it's the last red blue district in the entire country.
Speaker 1: So that is amazing. And who is your challenger and
Speaker 1: what does the race look like?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm a pissed off social worker. I'm a
Speaker 5: social worker turned community organizer and now a state legislator.
Speaker 5: I represent Nashville, which is some of my district is
Speaker 5: overlaps with the congressional district. And my opponent has basically
Speaker 5: been groomed for this moment. He is a West Point grad.
Speaker 5: He served a few terms in Iraq. You know, he's
Speaker 5: not the issue, it's the people behind him. He's a
Speaker 5: puppet to the puppet masters of the universe. And I
Speaker 5: think what's become increasingly clear in this race is one
Speaker 5: the impact of dark interest special interest money bolstering his
Speaker 5: name ID to get him across the finish line in
Speaker 5: the Republican primary, and then right now the Republicans have
Speaker 5: spent almost a million dollars or over a million dollars
Speaker 5: in our race when they didn't want to be pulled
Speaker 5: down to this fight. So it just shows you how
Speaker 5: much we're outworking them, out organizing them, and they only
Speaker 5: can respond with, you know, the commercials about me, which
Speaker 5: you'll see them eventually, but that's all they have. And
Speaker 5: while we're knocking doors, you know, they're sending texts comparing
Speaker 5: me to Nancy Pelosi, and it just doesn't hit in
Speaker 5: the same way that it used to.
Speaker 1: And ten years ago that is wild, but also it
Speaker 1: sounds like the district is actually like pretty urban.
Speaker 6: It's tricky.
Speaker 5: I mean, these districts were designed to be uncompetitive, right to.
Speaker 6: Be districts, but their overreach.
Speaker 5: The district includes the highest turnout precincts in Davidson County,
Speaker 5: which is Nashville, and then it goes all the way
Speaker 5: up to the Kentucky border and includes our purple County Montgomery,
Speaker 5: which is where Fort Campbell is there's a lot of
Speaker 5: veteran families, and then all the way down to the
Speaker 5: Alabama border. But there it includes a few counties where
Speaker 5: there are large concentrations of Democrats. So this is just
Speaker 5: a mobilization race. It's who can get their people out
Speaker 5: to vote. And there was reporting showing following the Republican
Speaker 5: primary the Republican turnout is down eighty percent.
Speaker 1: Wow, I've seen other statistics that say that. And also
Speaker 1: because it's as special and it's at a weird time,
Speaker 1: you're not going to have the same low frequency voters. Right.
Speaker 5: Our polling shows that for the most motivated voters in
Speaker 5: this race were virtually tied.
Speaker 6: It's fifty to fifty.
Speaker 5: So the people who say ten out of time, I'm
Speaker 5: going to vote, it's fifty to fifty. It's the ones
Speaker 5: that are the sporadic voters that need more information, that
Speaker 5: need an extra boost to get to the polls.
Speaker 6: But because this has become a.
Speaker 5: Nationalized race, a lot of voters are receiving postcards, they're
Speaker 5: getting phone bangs from across the country, and I knew
Speaker 5: this is exactly what would happen, and it is. It
Speaker 5: is materializing in a big way, and it's getting our
Speaker 5: people to the polls, which is what's going to win
Speaker 5: this race.
Speaker 1: If you win, what would that make the numbers in
Speaker 1: this Congress.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the margin's very close.
Speaker 5: I don't know the exact number, but obviously I think
Speaker 5: Speaker Johnson's margin is within three or four. And there's
Speaker 5: analyzes that I've read that said that it would It
Speaker 5: would just totally. I mean, it would undermine whatever power
Speaker 5: he has right now, just because another addition to the
Speaker 5: to the minority is not helpful for him. So more importantly,
Speaker 5: I mean, winning in a Trump twenty.
Speaker 1: District would be the message that.
Speaker 6: It's over, Like it is over.
Speaker 5: This political project that you've been working on for forty
Speaker 5: fifty years is culminating right now. It's not delivering in
Speaker 5: the way it's supposed to be delivering unbelievable.
Speaker 1: If you go to Congress now, you'd be in the minority,
Speaker 1: which is of course the worst, as everyone says, But
Speaker 1: there are opportunities. And like, I'm not just saying this
Speaker 1: because I like Robert Garcia, but I think Robert Garcia
Speaker 1: on oversight has done a really good job. And like,
Speaker 1: because everything is so crazy right now, there are actually
Speaker 1: opportunities to do things. I'd love you to sort of
Speaker 1: talk about what you feel like you could do in Congress.
Speaker 5: Steve in the minority, Well, I have experienced because I'm
Speaker 5: a state legislator and a Republican TRIFECTUS super minority and
Speaker 5: a ninety nine per body there are twenty two of us.
Speaker 5: In fact, we could leave the state and they could
Speaker 5: go on legislating without us. That's how little power you have.
Speaker 5: All I'm used to that, and I have actually been able.
Speaker 5: I've been very successful. Actually passed a bill of a
Speaker 5: partisan bill my first year as a freshman lawmaker, and
Speaker 5: two organizing so I use my legislative seats to file
Speaker 5: legislation that may not be passed the first time. It
Speaker 5: creates a vehicle for me to organize. And so in Tennessee,
Speaker 5: we have one of the highest grocery tax rates in
Speaker 5: the country, plationary cost of groceries in the country, and I,
Speaker 5: with my colleague in the state Senate, ran a bill
Speaker 5: to end the grocery tax by closing corporate tax loopholes.
Speaker 5: And for the past three years, that is all I've
Speaker 5: been doing is organizing around it, and it has really
Speaker 5: shifted the paradigm one towards economic justice and a conversation
Speaker 5: about corporate power. And that's what I would do in Congress,
Speaker 5: is I would file legislation that obviously resonates with my district,
Speaker 5: but then use it to organize and build the constituency
Speaker 5: and the coalition I need to then maintain a rplus
Speaker 5: twenty seat in next November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a moment where those numbers don't mean
Speaker 1: what they used to mean, especially after that twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five cycle, like things could be very different, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and especially once again in a state like Tennessee
Speaker 5: that has is not a battleground state, so there's not
Speaker 5: a lot of money spent it is we've been kind
Speaker 5: of left behind, and I think this race speaks to that,
Speaker 5: in which you have this political project of the Republican
Speaker 5: trifacta at all levels, and once again they are not
Speaker 5: They're not fulfilling the commitments they made to Tennessee. And
Speaker 5: so I think what we have tried to do on
Speaker 5: this campaign is to build a coalition of the disenchanted,
Speaker 5: build a coalition of.
Speaker 6: The pissed off.
Speaker 5: If you are upset about the chaos and Washington and
Speaker 5: the cost of living, I am your candidate, and I
Speaker 5: will never fight for the puppet masters. I will always
Speaker 5: fight for the people in my district. And that message
Speaker 5: is absolutely resonating. The other thing I'll say is, I mean,
Speaker 5: as a lot of other states are in an affordability crisis.
Speaker 5: We can't afford rent, we can't afford utilities, we can't
Speaker 5: afford groceries and healthcare. And so as a healthcare organizer,
Speaker 5: as someone who's always fought to make healthcare more affordable
Speaker 5: in the state, the paradigm is shifting for I think,
Speaker 5: especially Republican and maybe independent leaning voters to say, you
Speaker 5: know what, like you all have been advocating and lobbing
Speaker 5: against the Affordable Care Acts for a decade, and like,
Speaker 5: what do you have to show for it? You don't
Speaker 5: have any solutions, and that's what my opponent is offering
Speaker 5: is a whole pile of nothing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's something really cool about people moving back
Speaker 1: to where they're from. Can you talk for a minute
Speaker 1: about the experience of moving back to where you're from.
Speaker 5: I was someone who always wanted to get out of
Speaker 5: East Tennessee, and I think I had a reckoning like
Speaker 5: a lot of people November of twenty sixteen, not recognizing
Speaker 5: the place I came from. I mean, I had a
Speaker 5: wonderful childhood. I loved growing up in East Tennessee. I
Speaker 5: love Appalachia, and I didn't understand why this state had
Speaker 5: become so hostile and what happened to my community in
Speaker 5: which they looked at President Trump as the antidote. And
Speaker 5: I think organizing across Tennessee and Kentucky in the South
Speaker 5: for the past ten years, it's provided a glimpse into that,
Speaker 5: into an answer, which is people feel like the status
Speaker 5: quo is not working. It is not working for that
Speaker 5: and I think, you know, last election was one about
Speaker 5: those that believe the institutions we have are working for
Speaker 5: them and those that aren't. And I'm a candidate who
Speaker 5: has always checked power. I have someone that is always
Speaker 5: I'm not the chosen candidate by any party, and I'm
Speaker 5: someone that has always just used the golden rule and
Speaker 5: always centered the most impacted in my policymaking and my organizing.
Speaker 6: And I think that's coming across, which is why my
Speaker 6: Republican opposition.
Speaker 5: Right now is having such a hard time kind of
Speaker 5: pinning me to a wall and navigating this race.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure that's true, and it has got to
Speaker 1: be really interesting running for this race. When is your
Speaker 1: election and just give us a little more about what
Speaker 1: people can do for you.
Speaker 5: Early votings started last Wednesday and it goes until the
Speaker 5: twenty sixth, and then the election is December second, So
Speaker 5: we've got less than two weeks and the election is
Speaker 5: December second, And like I said, it would be one
Speaker 5: of the most profound upsets in the political upsets in
Speaker 5: recent history. And I'm just deeply honored to be the
Speaker 5: Democratic nominee at this moment in time and see at
Speaker 5: the national level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so cool. Well, congratulations, looking forward to seeing
Speaker 1: you in Congress.
Speaker 5: Bears Cross's Yeah, it's been a wild ride, but I
Speaker 5: never thought I'd be running for Congress in the year
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five. But I think this moment demands a
Speaker 5: contagious courage and with the skill set to organize through
Speaker 5: this crisis, these compounded crises that we're going through, And
Speaker 5: I think inspiring thing, is inspiring the next generation to
Speaker 5: lead and hopefully will come up behind me and take
Speaker 5: back our country.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, well, thank you, thank you, great to
Speaker 1: have you. Hopeful to see you soon.
Speaker 5: Pleasure well hopefully well once again, big fan, thanks for
Speaker 5: all you do. It's been wonderful watching your ascendants. So
Speaker 5: just really honored and thanks for covering this moment in time.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: No mo.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon smiling.
Speaker 2: You know, nothing says Keystone Cops and just total outright
Speaker 2: disregard for the law, like Ice losing Kia evidence one
Speaker 2: day after being sued.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean again, is it Keystone Cops or is
Speaker 1: it just dis I mean again, Are they incompetent or
Speaker 1: are they corrupt? This is like the game we need
Speaker 1: to play in Trump world. Are they incompetent or are
Speaker 1: they corrupt? And so four of four media reports said
Speaker 1: after ICE's broad View detention center outside of Chicago was
Speaker 1: sued October thirtieth for allegedly abusing detainees. The agency said
Speaker 1: that two weeks of video footage could not be shown,
Speaker 1: could not be found. They wasn't found in the system.
Speaker 1: And that's of course where we have it. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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