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 Congress is taking up a bill
Speaker 1: to avert the rail strike. We have a wild show today.
Speaker 1: First we'll talk to Inside Elections Jacob Rubaskan about Senator
Speaker 1: warnox runoff race in Georgia against herschall Walker. Then we'll
Speaker 1: talk to Washington Post democracy reporter Avan Winged Sanchez about
Speaker 1: all the fuckory with the votes in Arizona. But first
Speaker 1: we have the host of the focus group podcast, The Bulwarks,
Speaker 1: Sarah Longwell. Welcome too, Fast Politics. Sarah Longwell, Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Great to be here, Thank you. I
Speaker 1: feel like we're weeding through all of these Republican responses
Speaker 1: to Trump's Nick fuent As dinner, and I was like,
Speaker 1: we need someone who can explain what the hell is
Speaker 1: happening with this Republican party. And I was like, the
Speaker 1: bolt works, Sarah Longwhile I'm happy to be your serfa
Speaker 1: through this insanity, let's just I'm gonna set the scene
Speaker 1: for you. Trump has dinner with a white supremacist and
Speaker 1: Kanye West, who is in the middle of some kind
Speaker 1: of epic anti semitted meltdown Tuesday night, right before Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: the Sleepy Slow newsweek, and now the response is slightly
Speaker 1: different than what it might have been in two thousands seventeen,
Speaker 1: but also oddly the same discuss. Well, boy, where to start? Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's start with the fact that Kanye, first of all,
Speaker 1: was kind of setting Trump up here, Like the ostensible
Speaker 1: reason for Kanye to go to this dinner with Trump,
Speaker 1: uh and bring Nick flent As was like to ask
Speaker 1: Trump to be his vice presidential like on his ticket.
Speaker 1: So like that, the whole thing is insane from from
Speaker 1: start to finish. But to your point, you're asking a
Speaker 1: bigger question with like, is the response the same or different?
Speaker 1: The response is kind of different in the sense that
Speaker 1: right now we're in a new moment. We are in
Speaker 1: a genuinely new moment that is different from after when
Speaker 1: Trump was elected and he was you know, and he
Speaker 1: was elected with majorities in both the House and Senate,
Speaker 1: and basically Republicans decided to get on board, unless you're
Speaker 1: Paul Ryan, who like tapped out. They basically all got
Speaker 1: on board with Trump and then he was going to
Speaker 1: be the nominee. I was trying to recruit people to
Speaker 1: primary him. Nobody wanted to do it. Everybody just decided
Speaker 1: they were going to go all in on this guy again.
Speaker 1: Most people had made their peace with him. But now
Speaker 1: after losing in and then you know, dragging through primaries
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of election deniers basically made in his image,
Speaker 1: and having all of them in swing states go down
Speaker 1: in flames, there is a renewed sense among the people
Speaker 1: who never really liked Trump to begin with but have
Speaker 1: been carrying his water now for uh seven years, that like,
Speaker 1: we gotta get rid of this guy. And the big
Speaker 1: differences is that now facing an open Republican primary, like
Speaker 1: there are other places to go. Not only are there
Speaker 1: other places to go, like Rhonda Santis or Christy Nome
Speaker 1: or Glenionka or whatever, there's like other people that they
Speaker 1: can before and still beyond the team. They can also
Speaker 1: criticize Trump and still beyond the team, because the criticism
Speaker 1: is not hey, this guy did a coup, or hey,
Speaker 1: this guy is repugnant in every aspect of both his
Speaker 1: person and his policy, but it's that he's a loser, right,
Speaker 1: He's causing the team to lose, And so you can
Speaker 1: stay on team on side and criticize Trump now with
Speaker 1: more impunity than they've been able to do in a
Speaker 1: very long time. But what's weird about this flent As
Speaker 1: thing is that you are seeing sort of rumblings of
Speaker 1: people condemning it on the Republican side, but for the
Speaker 1: most part, the way that it's still the same as
Speaker 1: like they think that even in this moment, that's different.
Speaker 1: They don't need to go on offense against Trump, right,
Speaker 1: Like what you would expect in this moment, just like
Speaker 1: you would expect in the moment just after January six
Speaker 1: where they could have impeached him, is for them to
Speaker 1: be like, let's put the nail in the coffin on
Speaker 1: this guy's political career. He is destroying us. And like
Speaker 1: they always sort of take a pass on that opportunity
Speaker 1: because they want Trump gone, but they've never felt like
Speaker 1: it can be by their hands. This is the very
Speaker 1: important role You have to understand that never Trumper's play
Speaker 1: is like they want to be able to criticize us
Speaker 1: so that they can stay on side, but they expect
Speaker 1: us to be the ones to get rid of Trump
Speaker 1: for them because they can't do it themselves. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is a really interesting thing that I actually was thinking about.
Speaker 1: It's like they think that somehow they can will him away.
Speaker 1: But if they don't do this, now Trump will be
Speaker 1: the nominee again. Maybe. I mean, I struggle between the
Speaker 1: idea of knowing that we've kind of seen this movie
Speaker 1: before and that we have sort of counted Trump out.
Speaker 1: I had so many people after January sixth day. Man,
Speaker 1: you know, I slept really good last night because as
Speaker 1: terrible as that was, I know he's done. And of course,
Speaker 1: like Trump's never done, Like there will be the nuclear
Speaker 1: a you know, apocalypse, and there will be Trump and
Speaker 1: cockroaches and that's it. And so I think, on one hand,
Speaker 1: you have to you have to always take seriously the
Speaker 1: idea that he's he's not done. He will find ways
Speaker 1: to come back. They appear on the Republican side, like
Speaker 1: he's just weak enough right now that it seems like
Speaker 1: there's a number of people gearing up to run against him,
Speaker 1: in which case you do end up in a sixteen
Speaker 1: environment where you know, you have people split in the
Speaker 1: field and Trump's over there with his plurality and his
Speaker 1: burn it all down lane. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: also things are different in the sense that people have
Speaker 1: learned a bunch of lessons, right, Like I just I
Speaker 1: have a hard time seeing The reason I say maybe
Speaker 1: is I have a hard time seeing Chris Christie and
Speaker 1: Glenn junk In and Nikki Haley and a bunch of
Speaker 1: them staying intil the bitter end against Trump as opposed
Speaker 1: to dropping out and consolidating against him behind whoever was
Speaker 1: the most seemed the most viable. After Republican primary, and
Speaker 1: even the fact that I do think there will be
Speaker 1: a Republican primary, um like there is a bunch of
Speaker 1: shaking up that's going on. Things are very unsettled internally,
Speaker 1: whether it's with the leadership of the r n C
Speaker 1: McCarthy as speaker. You know, there's just like a lot
Speaker 1: of of infighting, like internescent Republican warfare that we don't
Speaker 1: know how it's going to turn out. But like I think,
Speaker 1: I think it's recently as a month ago, you would
Speaker 1: have heard some of us be concerned that there would
Speaker 1: be no primary, like there would be no Trump would
Speaker 1: just darncy, would just make it so it was him,
Speaker 1: And I don't think any of us feel that way. Now,
Speaker 1: is the my pillow guy going to be the head
Speaker 1: of the r n C. You're well, you know it's
Speaker 1: it's just from your lips to God's ears. Um, he
Speaker 1: doesn't trust computers. You know that. You know I have
Speaker 1: not followed his trajectory super closely. I think I can
Speaker 1: say with relative confidence that he will not be the
Speaker 1: RNC chairman. I do think you know how many how
Speaker 1: many votes are there actually for RNC chairman. I think
Speaker 1: it's like a hundred and sixty eight, very difficult to
Speaker 1: claim that, like a roll call vote of a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty eight people is rigged. The real challenge coming
Speaker 1: from Lee Zelden, who was who just lost the governor's
Speaker 1: race in New York, became much closer than people expected.
Speaker 1: And so the idea though you're hearing the sort of
Speaker 1: chorus rise up in the party where so you can't
Speaker 1: lose this many times and keep your job. And so
Speaker 1: the knives there are knives. I don't know whether enough
Speaker 1: of them are out for Rana. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: enough of them are out for McCarthy. But there are
Speaker 1: challenges that are bubbling up that and the and the
Speaker 1: charge is really like we lost on your watch, like
Speaker 1: we need new blood, we need something different, and It's
Speaker 1: weird because it's not a it's not like we need
Speaker 1: Normi's back or we need to even be more trumpy.
Speaker 1: It's more just like, you guys are the ones who
Speaker 1: lost this for us, and so now we need new
Speaker 1: people right now it seems like it. But it feels
Speaker 1: like there's more of that towards And again, I'm no
Speaker 1: fan of anyone of any of the people were talking
Speaker 1: about here, but it seems like there's more knives out
Speaker 1: for Rana than there is for Trump. And Trump is
Speaker 1: actually like caused the party to lose all of these elections. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean institutionally among like elected Republicans, it's easier for them.
Speaker 1: People still aren't Here's the thing. Here's the here's the
Speaker 1: most fundamental thing. No one is sure yet where the
Speaker 1: voters stand on Trump. So Trump's power emanates from his
Speaker 1: hardcore base that is never going to leave him, right Like,
Speaker 1: his leverage over the party is that he could take
Speaker 1: his hardcore base and walk with them. They will follow
Speaker 1: him anywhere, and he could cripple the Republican Party and
Speaker 1: until like, I don't know that. Just let's talk about
Speaker 1: Republicans in general think that Trump is actually weak with
Speaker 1: voters that he no longer commands them with the cult
Speaker 1: like sort of grip that he has. They're going to
Speaker 1: be careful about turning on him, but they are going
Speaker 1: to turn on a lot of his proxies. And that's
Speaker 1: what we're seeing right now. But I do think Trump
Speaker 1: is as weak as we've seen him. Like that is
Speaker 1: the we should take solace in that. That being said,
Speaker 1: anybody who thinks that it's just going to take care
Speaker 1: of itself, he's weak and so we don't have to
Speaker 1: do anything. We can just pretend like everything is normal
Speaker 1: again and just be for somebody else and not have
Speaker 1: to actively take him down is wrong, and that it
Speaker 1: means that they have learned no lessons from the last
Speaker 1: seven years, right, And I feel like that is true.
Speaker 1: Like we are seeing the people who are criticizing Trump
Speaker 1: here are like people who are running against him in
Speaker 1: four Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, you know, former Vice president pants.
Speaker 1: And then there is like the crew that always criticizes him,
Speaker 1: and well they should, you know, the sort of Susan
Speaker 1: Collins is the few kind of moral Republicans left in
Speaker 1: the party. But then there's this sort of like the
Speaker 1: people who are like the tastemakers, right, the kind of
Speaker 1: Ted Cruises and Marco Rubios. I mean, hard to consider
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio anything at this point, but you know those
Speaker 1: people are still kind of silent. Yeah, right, everyone's waiting
Speaker 1: to see which way the wind blows. And and this
Speaker 1: is where going back to the January sixth moment, because
Speaker 1: this is how I've been thinking about this. I keep looking.
Speaker 1: I remember the January six sort of pocket before McCarthy
Speaker 1: went down and resurrected Trump. I just remember that time
Speaker 1: really well, and I think that's instructive, and I keep wondering,
Speaker 1: are we at that kind of time? And the thing
Speaker 1: that happened in that moment that I think is sort
Speaker 1: of not happening right now is if you recall when
Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham, basically a disavowed Trump after January six, he
Speaker 1: went to the airport and a bunch of people mobbed
Speaker 1: him at the airport, screamed at him, and they were
Speaker 1: they were doing this, they were tracking down Republican elected
Speaker 1: officials who were condemning Trump and they were just menacing them.
Speaker 1: And like, that doesn't seem to be happening right now.
Speaker 1: Like the normal thing of the way that the voters
Speaker 1: and the local state parties and the Trump faithful all
Speaker 1: work really hard to kind of keep regular elected Republicans
Speaker 1: in line, Like some of the air is out of
Speaker 1: their balloon with this last lost in no small part
Speaker 1: because so many of their mouthpieces who have just been
Speaker 1: running elections all just lost, many of them catastrophically, and
Speaker 1: so like they don't have the same pep in their step,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't have the same sense of bravado.
Speaker 1: They don't have the sense that they're in charge necessarily anymore.
Speaker 1: And so the Trump went as Kanye dinner is both
Speaker 1: a sign that Trump is both relegating himself and being
Speaker 1: relegated to like the absolute fringes of the right, like
Speaker 1: that that is his base. He's trying to hold on
Speaker 1: because that's why is he doing this, right. Trump knows
Speaker 1: he's got to hold on to a very hardcore base
Speaker 1: of voters. That's what gives him his leverage, and so
Speaker 1: he's going to play to them. He's not thinking about
Speaker 1: any kind of general election right now. He's thinking, how
Speaker 1: do I hold on to a hardcore base of voters,
Speaker 1: preferably the ones that are kind of dangerous and will
Speaker 1: scare these other Republicans back in line, and he hopes
Speaker 1: that he can play sort of like a bit of
Speaker 1: a long game on that where then he gets indicted
Speaker 1: by d J. He's got, you know, all these Republicans
Speaker 1: are forced to kind of take his side against the FBI,
Speaker 1: against the Department of Justice, and that he slowly kind
Speaker 1: of works himself back into a dominant position. That's what
Speaker 1: he trying to do while the other guys and they're
Speaker 1: saying this right like off the record, on background, deep cover,
Speaker 1: secret note, will never put our names on it. There
Speaker 1: spokespeople are all saying things like yeah, de Santa Cianka,
Speaker 1: they can wait for six months while Trump punches himself out.
Speaker 1: And I just think we don't know will Trump pumped
Speaker 1: himself out or will he regain a dominant position, Like
Speaker 1: that's the question. I mean, it seems like we've seen
Speaker 1: this movie before and he regains the dominant position. Yeah again.
Speaker 1: I do think that the one difference now is that
Speaker 1: Trump was able to come in as the new guy
Speaker 1: and the exciting, dangerous, the guy who says all the
Speaker 1: crazy ship that's right against a bunch of establishment normies
Speaker 1: that people were really sick of. And the alternatives now
Speaker 1: are all kind of made in Trump's image, Like when
Speaker 1: I do the focuser, so I dose focus groups all
Speaker 1: the time. Coming off the election, I've been mostly doing
Speaker 1: independent swing voters, but prior to that did a lot
Speaker 1: of Damn's, a lot of Republicans, a lot of Trump voters.
Speaker 1: And the thing is is that when we always ask
Speaker 1: do you want Trump to run again in two and
Speaker 1: the number of people saying yes to that was really
Speaker 1: high and early two, but has been like steadily dropping.
Speaker 1: And what we're hearing is that they like Rhonda Santist.
Speaker 1: It's always the number one name that comes up, like
Speaker 1: with a bullet, not even close. And then people like
Speaker 1: Christy Nome or Greg Abbott. Basically, anybody who's willing to
Speaker 1: put migrants on a plane as a political stunt is
Speaker 1: somebody that they feel like. You know, people liked Carry Lake, um,
Speaker 1: we're talking about her. They like people from the Trump
Speaker 1: cinematic universe, and that doesn't Pence is not from that universe, right,
Speaker 1: Pence was a stop to the old way, And they
Speaker 1: look at Marco Rubio or Nicky Haley or Mike Pence
Speaker 1: and they think they're boring old guard. And so my
Speaker 1: point is that the new people that they have as
Speaker 1: alternatives are embody some of the things that they loved
Speaker 1: about Trump, right, they are, they are mean, They are fighters. Fighters,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put quotation marks are because that's the big
Speaker 1: thing everybody says. They want someone who's going to fight.
Speaker 1: They're not seen as establishment. They have all the right enemies,
Speaker 1: hate the right people, the right people hate them, and
Speaker 1: so there is emerging like a trumpy type of alternative
Speaker 1: that I do think people having somewhere to go so
Speaker 1: that they can still be on the team but not
Speaker 1: be for Trump is an important new dynamic that is
Speaker 1: making things somewhat different. But these people, they're playing by
Speaker 1: Trump's rules. So the idea is your the thing they like.
Speaker 1: It's almost as like they like the cruelty, right, as
Speaker 1: Adam Server said, the cruelty is the point. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other things besides cruelty that's kind of
Speaker 1: like embodied in their right. They want somebody who's going
Speaker 1: to own the lips. They want somebody who's gonna fight
Speaker 1: the media, which, by the way they see wouldee those
Speaker 1: two things as synonymous or like a redundancy. They want
Speaker 1: somebody who's gonna take on their culture war fights. You know,
Speaker 1: this is Russian expression, the appetite increases while you're eating.
Speaker 1: And I think that what you have to understand about
Speaker 1: Republican voters is Trump changed them in terms of what
Speaker 1: they expect from elected officials, and so they want the
Speaker 1: bar uncle brawling, they want the casual cruelty. Those things
Speaker 1: are features. They are not bugs. And that's why even
Speaker 1: somebody like a Glenn Yuncan, I'm not sure. You know,
Speaker 1: he he went around and campaigned with Carrie Lake and
Speaker 1: the election deniers, but like, I'm not sure that even
Speaker 1: he has what it takes to get Republican base voters
Speaker 1: off their couches to vote for him. I do think
Speaker 1: it has to be somebody like to Santis or Abbott.
Speaker 1: But but here's the thing. I'll just so I believe
Speaker 1: that to be true. But I'll also just say these
Speaker 1: new candidates are pretty untested. Like everyone's talking about Rhonda Santis,
Speaker 1: but like I watched him in his debate with Charlie Chris,
Speaker 1: who is not a particularly good candidate or politician, and
Speaker 1: to Santis like which just wasn't very good. You know,
Speaker 1: he like looks awkward, he smiles awkward his suits too big.
Speaker 1: When he doesn't want to answer something, he just starts,
Speaker 1: he kind of freezes and so and he's like he
Speaker 1: has a notorious glass jaw as reporters down in Florida. No,
Speaker 1: not good with donors. And so I just think things
Speaker 1: are as wide open as we've ever seen them. And
Speaker 1: yet you have to be really clear eyed about the
Speaker 1: forces that Trump unleashed on the party and how he
Speaker 1: changed everything. So people just want different stuff now, and
Speaker 1: people like Mike Pence are like delusional to think that
Speaker 1: this version like Mike Pence can't go to a Trump
Speaker 1: rally without real security, Like they don't. They don't dislike him,
Speaker 1: like they want to murder him. And so I just
Speaker 1: I think that the the the idea that we're dealing
Speaker 1: with like that that there's a big lane for Mike
Speaker 1: Pence is sort of insane, but there is a lane
Speaker 1: for alternatives. Well, this is very interesting. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you coming on and just talking about this. It is
Speaker 1: honestly like it's just strange time and Republican politics, and
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you came on and just explain this
Speaker 1: test a little bit. Yeah, you bet, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Jacob Rubashian is an analyst at inside Election and welcome
Speaker 1: too fast politics. Jacob, how's it going? You know, it's
Speaker 1: just always an election, right. I feel like we're just
Speaker 1: in a state of constant election. It never ends. And
Speaker 1: once we're done with this one, uh, it's it's already
Speaker 1: on scary as it may. See. So Georgia run off,
Speaker 1: we got herschel Walker, father of many children, and the
Speaker 1: Reverend Warnock talk to me about what the landscape looks like. Right,
Speaker 1: So we've got this runoff in Georgia. Neither candidate got
Speaker 1: to in November in the general election, and so Georgia says, well,
Speaker 1: you've got to go to overtime in order to decide
Speaker 1: who the actual winner is. Of course, Raphael Warnock ended
Speaker 1: up with about forty nine point four percent, herschell Walker
Speaker 1: forty eight point four percent, so heading into this both
Speaker 1: candidates under fifty percent. Look, this is a really tight race.
Speaker 1: Georgia is still a republican state, even as it's gotten
Speaker 1: better for Democrats. We saw every single other Democrat on
Speaker 1: the statewide ticket this year in Georgia lose by anywhere
Speaker 1: from you know, really six to nine points. Raphael Warnock
Speaker 1: was the only Democrat in Georgia actually to get more
Speaker 1: votes than his opponents, So this is still a Republican state.
Speaker 1: It is an uphill climb for any Democrat, but there
Speaker 1: are reasons for Warnock and his allies to feel a
Speaker 1: little optimistic about how things are. With about a week
Speaker 1: to go before the last day of voting in the
Speaker 1: runoff election, let's talk about what the early voting looks like.
Speaker 1: What does the early voting look like? So early voting
Speaker 1: has been robust in Georgia thus far, but I think
Speaker 1: it's important to remember that with this new election law
Speaker 1: that was passed last year in Georgia, one of the
Speaker 1: things that they did was they changed the runoff from
Speaker 1: a two month period. Right in te we had an
Speaker 1: election in November and then it was two months before
Speaker 1: voters returned to the polls on January five to cast
Speaker 1: their votes in the runoff, and this time around, they
Speaker 1: shortened that runoff period by a month. So what that
Speaker 1: meant is that they also shortened the period available for
Speaker 1: early voting. So whereas early voting used to be much
Speaker 1: longer for Georgia voters, now it's literally just this one week.
Speaker 1: This week plus after some litigation the Saturday and Sunday
Speaker 1: of last weekend before Thanksgiving, so yes, on on Monday,
Speaker 1: the States set kind of the single day record for
Speaker 1: early voting, with just over three hundred thousand people casting
Speaker 1: early ballots on Monday. But that's a little deceptive just
Speaker 1: because the early voting period has been so condensed. I
Speaker 1: think the Democrats have a lot to be happy about here.
Speaker 1: They have seen the black share of the vote in
Speaker 1: early voting above, which is a good sign for Democrats.
Speaker 1: They are seeing heavy turnout in kind of the democratic
Speaker 1: areas of the state, and particularly in that Saturday voting question.
Speaker 1: The county has had an option of whether to allow
Speaker 1: voters to cast ballots on Saturday, and what we ended
Speaker 1: up seeing happened was that it was mostly the Democratic
Speaker 1: leaning counties in the state that gave those voters the
Speaker 1: option to vote, and a lot of the Republican leaning
Speaker 1: counties decided not to do Saturday voting at all. So
Speaker 1: Democrats had kind of a free head start on the
Speaker 1: early voting period that has contributed to the positive numbers.
Speaker 1: But you know, as we've seen in races across the
Speaker 1: country over the last two years, early vote is just
Speaker 1: one component of the overall picture, and with voting methods
Speaker 1: so polarized these days, with Democrats so clearly favoring early vote,
Speaker 1: with Republicans so clearly favoring election day vote, there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of information we don't have, and it it
Speaker 1: means that Republicans still can make up the gap if
Speaker 1: they get massive election day turnout. I'm going to push
Speaker 1: back on that because and I think you're right. I mean,
Speaker 1: everything you're saying is right, But it does seem to
Speaker 1: me that Republicans have really been sort of hurting themselves
Speaker 1: by I mean, here's a great example. These are Republican districts.
Speaker 1: They're making it so they can't vote on Saturday, right,
Speaker 1: and they're saying like, don't vote early, vote the day up.
Speaker 1: And so yes, theoretically they should make up the ground.
Speaker 1: But like I'm hearing a lot, Like I've done a
Speaker 1: lot of interviews with people where they've said, you know,
Speaker 1: we were able to bank votes for you know, such
Speaker 1: and such a number of days, so we had this
Speaker 1: huge advantage when it came to do you see what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. No, absolutely, I think you're absolutely right that
Speaker 1: it is. It is. It is an incredible advantage for
Speaker 1: Democrats that they have this operation, that they have the
Speaker 1: motivation among their voters to bank those votes early. It
Speaker 1: means not only are you having votes that you can
Speaker 1: count on, but it means you can direct your resources
Speaker 1: in the final weeks of the race, in this case,
Speaker 1: the final week of the race to voters that you know,
Speaker 1: haven't cast their ballots yet. Right, You can be much
Speaker 1: more precise about who you're getting to show up on
Speaker 1: election Day. So I don't mean to say that this
Speaker 1: is this is a net neutral environment for Republicans when
Speaker 1: it comes to the early vote. I think that I
Speaker 1: talked to Republics all the time who say, why don't
Speaker 1: our voters, you know, why don't our voters vote early?
Speaker 1: Why don't they understand? Why why don't the campaigns understand?
Speaker 1: You know, I was talking to a Florida Republican today
Speaker 1: and they were saying, you know, in Florida, Republicans vote early,
Speaker 1: and that's how we do things and we win all
Speaker 1: the time. And why don't Republicans in the rest of
Speaker 1: the country understand that this is actually a good thing?
Speaker 1: And of course we know why. It's because Donald Trump
Speaker 1: decided that early voting was was his enemy and so
Speaker 1: he effective behavior in that way, but certainly it places
Speaker 1: an immense amount of pressure on Georgia Republicans to show
Speaker 1: up on election day. My point is just that it
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't lock it in for Democrats, right right, right,
Speaker 1: right exactly? Is Georgia a state where they count the
Speaker 1: early vote later. That's a good question. I don't know
Speaker 1: off the top of my head where the Georgia rules
Speaker 1: are now, because then you have those dumps, right, what
Speaker 1: Trump calls the dumps. Trump has decided he is not
Speaker 1: going to go on the campaign trip with the candidate
Speaker 1: that he picked, which I think is interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: clearly the thinking is that he is poison right. Yeah, Look,
Speaker 1: this has not been a good stretch for Trump by
Speaker 1: any definition of the word. You know, starting out with
Speaker 1: the results of the mid term elections disappointing for Republicans,
Speaker 1: and we saw a lot of these Trump backed candidates
Speaker 1: lose close and competitive races. So Republicans were always sour
Speaker 1: on him in general. Coming out of the mid terms.
Speaker 1: You add in this insane breaking of bread with white
Speaker 1: supremacists with Kanye that has only further I think some
Speaker 1: of the Republican hesitation, especially at kind of the the
Speaker 1: elite levels, right, the people who can actually pick up
Speaker 1: the phone and say please come to Georgia or please
Speaker 1: stay away from Georgia. Those are people who are looking
Speaker 1: more askance at the former president. And then the final
Speaker 1: thing you have to remember is that Georgia is somewhat
Speaker 1: unique among states, and particularly Georgia Republicans seem to be
Speaker 1: a little unique among Republican voters and how much they
Speaker 1: don't care about Trump, right herschel Walker was really the
Speaker 1: exception in the primaries earlier this year, where he was
Speaker 1: the Trump backed candidate who didn't really face any major opposition.
Speaker 1: That Trump went into a lot of these primaries, endorsed
Speaker 1: candidates all up and down the statewide ticket and in
Speaker 1: several congressional districts, and by and large almost all them lost.
Speaker 1: Right George, Georgia voters seemed to really have moved on Georgia.
Speaker 1: Republican voters seemed to have really moved on from Trump
Speaker 1: in a way that Republican voters in other states haven't. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's kind of the macro concerns
Speaker 1: about Trump as a weight on the Republican party, and
Speaker 1: then there's the more Georgia specific question of just like
Speaker 1: voters here don't seem to care about him all that much.
Speaker 1: You know, I think they care a lot more about
Speaker 1: Brian Kemp. They like Brian Kemp a lot more than
Speaker 1: they like Trump. And so when the Walker campaign is
Speaker 1: trying to do that calculus, they'd rather you know, they'll
Speaker 1: trade a rally with Kemp instead of a rally for
Speaker 1: with Trump any any day of the week. So you
Speaker 1: have Kemp, who never really wanted Walker to be the candidate,
Speaker 1: out on the stump with Walker, and you have Trump,
Speaker 1: who picked Walker, hiding at Mara Lago exactly. It is
Speaker 1: a reflection of the former presidents diminished status in the state,
Speaker 1: and it's a reflection of the ascendency of Brian Kemp.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that we sometimes forget right that
Speaker 1: Brian Kemp won a very very narrow race in eighteen
Speaker 1: and for much of this cycle it looked like he
Speaker 1: was in a very tight race against Stacy Abrahams in
Speaker 1: that rematch, and ultimately, you know, he wins by over
Speaker 1: seven points. He has one of the largest victories. He
Speaker 1: and Brad Raefensberger end up kind of at the running
Speaker 1: at the top of the ticket for Republicans in Georgia.
Speaker 1: They he is really popular in this state. He has
Speaker 1: triangulated really well, even though politically speaking he's quite conservative, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, one of those things he may be being
Speaker 1: rewarded for is that he and Brad both refused to
Speaker 1: find the votes that Trump wanted them to find. Right. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: he did the right thing in the wake of the
Speaker 1: election and refused to overturn the results or fraudulently, you know,
Speaker 1: find those eleven thousand, however, many votes that Trump wanted
Speaker 1: them to find in order to secure him the win
Speaker 1: in Georgia. And for that, for that one very important action,
Speaker 1: but but again kind of limited politically to to this
Speaker 1: one question of election integrity. Brian Kemp has won the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt from a wide swath of Georgia
Speaker 1: voters who otherwise might not align with him politically. Do
Speaker 1: you think there are split ticket Kemp war Knock voters?
Speaker 1: There have to be right, Absolutely, there are quite a
Speaker 1: few split ticket Kemp Warnock voters. And if you look
Speaker 1: at them, they are concentrated in the Atlanta metro area,
Speaker 1: and they are concentrated among white voters, college education aided voters,
Speaker 1: and independence Raphael Warnock won Independence by sixteen points in Stacy.
Speaker 1: Abrams lost them by I believe one point. That's a
Speaker 1: really interesting statistic. Yeah, yeah, and actually sorry about that.
Speaker 1: It's it's Rafael Warnock one Independence by eleven points and
Speaker 1: Abrams lost them by one point, but still a major gap.
Speaker 1: If you look at the places where Warnock overperformed Abrams,
Speaker 1: independent voters, moderate voters, Atlanta media market, and white voters
Speaker 1: with college degrees, Yes, super interesting. You know, they did
Speaker 1: pretty equally Warnock and Abrams among black voters. Among voters
Speaker 1: who had never attended college, it was these kind of
Speaker 1: more educated suburbanites who decided to go with Kemp but
Speaker 1: also went with Warnock. We will know on December seventh
Speaker 1: who has won, and it's possible we will have Democrats
Speaker 1: having fifty one Steeds Republicans having forty. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think we we will know relatively quickly. Looking back at
Speaker 1: the one runoff, that January five runoff was more Knock
Speaker 1: one his race against Kelly Leffler by about two points.
Speaker 1: That race was called around noon of the next day.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, something else happened January six that
Speaker 1: prevented significant media coverage of that race call, but that
Speaker 1: that's about when it happened. And so I would anticipate that,
Speaker 1: barring any really unforeseen circumstances, we will know fairly quickly,
Speaker 1: either late on the night of December six, or or
Speaker 1: sometime in the morning or mid morning December seven, who
Speaker 1: has won this race. And and yeah, that will determine
Speaker 1: whether Democrats, you know, maintain this fifty fifty power sharing
Speaker 1: arrangement that they've had for the last two years, or
Speaker 1: if they have a true majority with nine And now
Speaker 1: what are you looking at after that? I mean, are
Speaker 1: there any specials that will flip the House? So this
Speaker 1: is this is this kind of crazy question, right we
Speaker 1: we've we've had such a narrow majory already in the
Speaker 1: House for the last two years, theoretically a four seat majority,
Speaker 1: but at times it's been down to as narrow as
Speaker 1: a two seat majority for Democrats. Republicans are now in
Speaker 1: this position where they have a four seat majority kind
Speaker 1: of split. But of course we've already seen unfortunately, one
Speaker 1: member of Congress has already passed away. Last night, Donald
Speaker 1: mckeachen from the state of Virginia died of coal erector cancer.
Speaker 1: Now that's a safe Democratic district and so his seat
Speaker 1: will be filled by a Democrat whenever that special election
Speaker 1: takes place. But it does mean Democrats are already operating
Speaker 1: with one fewer vote. You know, when the House comes
Speaker 1: into session, it will be four hundred and thirty four members,
Speaker 1: not four thirty five. So it will be interesting to
Speaker 1: see who leaves, right. There always members who leave halfway
Speaker 1: through their term. Generally they come from the minority party
Speaker 1: because when faced with the option of being in the
Speaker 1: minority or taking a seven figure job on K Street,
Speaker 1: people make the decision that they want to make. But
Speaker 1: you know, Death's job offers that are too good to
Speaker 1: pass up. All of these things contribute to a significant
Speaker 1: amount of churn in every Congress, and when the majority
Speaker 1: is so narrow, yeah, there's always the possibility for absolute chaos,
Speaker 1: or even more possibility for chaos than there already is
Speaker 1: with such an evenly divided chamber. So interesting, Jacob, this
Speaker 1: is really, really, really interesting. I hope you will come
Speaker 1: back when we begin another season of madness. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: what're be happy to Yeah, we got to talk about
Speaker 1: the primaries and the new DNC cities and the oh God,
Speaker 1: and emotionally exhausting. Von Winget Sanchez is a democracy reporter
Speaker 1: at the Washington Post. Welcome to Fast Politics. You are
Speaker 1: in Arizona, which is like another planet right now where
Speaker 1: you work for the Washington Post. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: what is happening there. Well, we are through the election,
Speaker 1: but we have one county out of fifteen that has
Speaker 1: decided not to certify its election results. They have delayed
Speaker 1: repeatedly their vote to certify. They blew past the deadline
Speaker 1: of November and they have set up another meeting for
Speaker 1: later in the week. They're being taken to court by
Speaker 1: the Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is trying to
Speaker 1: force them through a court order to certify these elections
Speaker 1: election results or risk you know, getting sixty thousand plus
Speaker 1: votes thrown out and not included in the states tally,
Speaker 1: which could affect the results of some of these really
Speaker 1: tight statewide races. Explained to me what this district is like. Sure,
Speaker 1: it is in southeast Arizona. A lot of people might
Speaker 1: be familiar with the town of Bisbee. It's a quaint
Speaker 1: little town southeast of Metro Phoenix. It's near the border.
Speaker 1: Beautiful area, very very read, very Republican. There are three
Speaker 1: members of the Board of Supervisors down there to our Republicans,
Speaker 1: one is a Democrat and English. She's not on board
Speaker 1: with delaying this thing. She wants the board to follow
Speaker 1: its ministerial legal duty of certifying these election results, and
Speaker 1: she very clearly has been met with quite a bit
Speaker 1: of resistance, despite being advised by the county attorney down
Speaker 1: there and various other people that you know, they need
Speaker 1: to do their jobs. You tweeted out a video yesterday.
Speaker 1: Explained to me, so this's a very red county in Arizona.
Speaker 1: They had a kind of meeting yesterday. Explained this meeting.
Speaker 1: So this was up in Metro Phoenix. This was the
Speaker 1: Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. So this is a different
Speaker 1: board of supervisors. But there are people who sort of
Speaker 1: believe kind of the same thing. Right in Maricopa County,
Speaker 1: which is the county home to Metro Phoenix and most
Speaker 1: of the state's voters, they were under a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure to not certify, as a lot of these more
Speaker 1: rural counties have been under. It's unclear if it's a
Speaker 1: coordinated attempt and who behind the scenes is really pushing
Speaker 1: for these guys to not certify very publicly. Though Republican candidates,
Speaker 1: including Carry Lake, who was projected to lose her race
Speaker 1: for governor very narrowly by about seventeen thousand votes, they've
Speaker 1: been on board with this thing and been, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially saying that because of problems that took place in
Speaker 1: Maricopa County on election day, which were very real and
Speaker 1: which affected about a third of polling locations, that you know,
Speaker 1: Arizona needed to have a revote and it needed to
Speaker 1: do its elections all over again, and that these results
Speaker 1: couldn't be trusted because lots of people around Metro Phoenix
Speaker 1: heard about these problems, either on the radio or on
Speaker 1: social media, or when they pulled up to polling sites
Speaker 1: there were lines, and therefore their supporters were suppressed, that
Speaker 1: their voters were somehow disenfranchised and not allowed to vote,
Speaker 1: and so they're calling for a revote. The Maricopa County
Speaker 1: Board of Supervisors has noted repeatedly that no one was
Speaker 1: denied the right to vote, that there were various options
Speaker 1: that people could have used to vote, including sliding their
Speaker 1: ballots into what's called drawer three. And it's a little
Speaker 1: slot and it's been used for decades, and if the
Speaker 1: tabulator couldn't read your ballot after you had it printed out,
Speaker 1: then you would put it in an envelope and you
Speaker 1: would just deposit it into essentially what is like a dropbox,
Speaker 1: or you could go to another polling location, and so
Speaker 1: there were a lot of a lot of different options.
Speaker 1: The election wasn't per effect, they acknowledge, but no one
Speaker 1: was denied the right to vote, so they went ahead.
Speaker 1: Will you just explain what the sort of thing that
Speaker 1: happened was with the machines. So what happened on election
Speaker 1: day about twenty minutes into voting, So around six twenty am,
Speaker 1: the first call comes in from a polling location. They're
Speaker 1: having problems with their tabulators. These tabulators are set on
Speaker 1: top of essentially what is a blue plastic box. It
Speaker 1: looks like a drop box. And what was happening and
Speaker 1: what continued to happen throughout the day at about seventy
Speaker 1: polling locations, was the printers that print out ballots for voters.
Speaker 1: After you check in, you give them your I D.
Speaker 1: The machines are able to recognize what area you're coming
Speaker 1: from and therefore are able to print the races relevant
Speaker 1: to your area. These printers that are responsible for you
Speaker 1: see in your ballots did not print ink dark enough
Speaker 1: to be read by the tabulators, and so the printer
Speaker 1: settings had to be adjusted at all of these polling
Speaker 1: locations in order for the tabulators to properly work. That
Speaker 1: caused lines backups at several voting locations. And you have
Speaker 1: to keep in mind that, especially in a place like Arizona,
Speaker 1: Republican activists Republican candidates for two years, led by former
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump, have stoked mistrust in the early voting system,
Speaker 1: have told people not to vote by mail and have
Speaker 1: told people to show up and vote in person. That
Speaker 1: caused about two hundred and ninety thousand people to show
Speaker 1: up at polling locations on election day to vote in person.
Speaker 1: That is the largest number of voters in person on
Speaker 1: election day that we have ever seen. And so in
Speaker 1: some ways this was a problem exacerbated by the messaging
Speaker 1: around voting and the instructions of these Republican candidates and
Speaker 1: activists for giving their own voters, which was don't mail
Speaker 1: your ballots back, show up on election day, drop them off,
Speaker 1: or vote in person and get your ballot printed out.
Speaker 1: And that was a big gamble, and it relied on
Speaker 1: everything working completely properly, everything going on smoothly, and we
Speaker 1: all know that that just didn't happen. So in a way,
Speaker 1: Republicans created this, messed themselves by encouraging their people not
Speaker 1: to early vote. I mean, obviously they didn't create it,
Speaker 1: but they made it worse, right, Yeah, they made it worse.
Speaker 1: And then once the problems became really clear, so about
Speaker 1: an hour into voting, when you started to have a
Speaker 1: lot of these printers go down, and the lines were
Speaker 1: getting longer, videos were starting to be posted on so
Speaker 1: social media. You had a lot of people instructing voters,
Speaker 1: Republicans instructing voters to not put their ballots in drawer three,
Speaker 1: that somehow drawer three, this little slot in the draw box,
Speaker 1: couldn't be trusted. And so then you've got a lot
Speaker 1: of voters who just already don't trust the system. They're
Speaker 1: being told not to use the method that has been
Speaker 1: used for a long time, this backup method, they're telling
Speaker 1: them not to use it. They exacerbated the problem. The
Speaker 1: problems did exist, but they exacerbated them. So interesting, So
Speaker 1: now what happens Now you have most of the county's right,
Speaker 1: you have fourteen counties willing to certify, and this is
Speaker 1: not so what happens now? So Secretary of State Katie Hobbs,
Speaker 1: she's a Democrat and she beat Carrie Lake in the
Speaker 1: governor's race. She filed a lawsuit late Monday in Coaches
Speaker 1: Can me. She's asking a judge to force the county
Speaker 1: to certify its elections. The state was set to certify
Speaker 1: all of the election results on December five. It's unclear
Speaker 1: if they're going to be able to make that deadline.
Speaker 1: December eight is the last drop dead deadline that the
Speaker 1: state has to certify all of its election results were
Speaker 1: sort of an uncharted territories and the scenario sort of
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario that could happen, especially for Republicans,
Speaker 1: is that Governor Doocey, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Attorney
Speaker 1: General Mark Bernovich, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: Robert Brunell, all gather and they certify the results, but
Speaker 1: only a fourteen of the fifteen counties, throwing out all
Speaker 1: of Coaches County's votes because they haven't been certified. And
Speaker 1: a lot of attorneys that I've talked to expect to
Speaker 1: happen if we enter into that scenario is someone in
Speaker 1: Coaches County will file a lawsuit claiming that they have
Speaker 1: been disenfranchised, that their vote has been disenfranchised, and we'll
Speaker 1: see what the courts say then. I mean, at some point,
Speaker 1: perhaps a court does decide to um force the board
Speaker 1: or act for the board to certify those votes down
Speaker 1: in Coaches County. And the problem for Republicans down there,
Speaker 1: remember this is a very Republican district and a lot
Speaker 1: of wins for Republicans rested and came in part because
Speaker 1: of those votes in Coaches County. We've got an attorney
Speaker 1: General's race that is going to a recount. Only five
Speaker 1: and ten votes separate the Republican and the Democrat. So
Speaker 1: you can see that margin probably getting even bigger in
Speaker 1: favor of the Democrat. We have a us HOW race
Speaker 1: that includes voters from that area, a very close race
Speaker 1: in which a Republican flipped a seat. That race could
Speaker 1: be affected. We have the statewide school superintendent race where
Speaker 1: Tom Horne had narrowly won and ousted the incumbent Democrat.
Speaker 1: That race could be affected. So again, it would not
Speaker 1: be in Republican's best interests to to not certify these votes.
Speaker 1: The other thing that could happen is that these members,
Speaker 1: these two members of the Bord of Supervisors who refused
Speaker 1: to certify the results down there, could be held personally
Speaker 1: liable for legal bills that could arise as a part
Speaker 1: of this. You know, we had a supervisor up in
Speaker 1: north west Arizona in Mohave County. They kept delaye certification
Speaker 1: and finally they decided to go ahead and move move
Speaker 1: forward on Monday to meet their deadline. And what one
Speaker 1: of the Republican supervisors said up there was, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead and vote for this, but
Speaker 1: I'm voting for it under dressed because I've been told
Speaker 1: that I could be arrested if I don't do my duty.
Speaker 1: That's a real possibility for these supervisors down in Cochise County.
Speaker 1: There is uh state statute that essentially says that if
Speaker 1: elected officials fail or refuse to perform duties, that they
Speaker 1: could be found guilty of a class ree misdemeanor. And
Speaker 1: that's what they're facing. Basically, Republicans are again creating problems
Speaker 1: for themselves. They seem to be yes, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just sort of amazing, right, like they could end up
Speaker 1: having themselves thrown in jail because they refused to participate
Speaker 1: in something that's their job, right, right, And remember what
Speaker 1: happened after Trump lost Arizona again very very narrowly by
Speaker 1: ten thousand, four d fifty seven votes. We had to
Speaker 1: litigate that for a year through the Cyberninches audit, and
Speaker 1: that didn't help Republicans. It exacerbated the election to nihilism issue.
Speaker 1: It divided the party at a time that they really
Speaker 1: needed to be united. And ultimately this issue cost them
Speaker 1: so many statewide seats and they have only maintained very
Speaker 1: narrow control of the state legislature. It's not a good issue.
Speaker 1: They know it. Off the record and on background conversations.
Speaker 1: They all know that their messaging on this issue is
Speaker 1: a problem and they need to pivot. They need to
Speaker 1: pivot quickly, and we'll see what that pivot looks like.
Speaker 1: But they need to get ahead of game on early voting.
Speaker 1: Republicans in Arizona created early voting many decades ago. We've
Speaker 1: been a pioneer in early voting for a long time,
Speaker 1: you know, John McCain, John Kyle, Jeff fly a dog
Speaker 1: do see Jan Brewer. I mean all of these candidates
Speaker 1: used the system and advocated for that system and one
Speaker 1: by that system. And it wasn't until eighteen when Donald
Speaker 1: Trump didn't understand how votes were counted in Arizona that
Speaker 1: he started to really sort of stoke this distrust in
Speaker 1: the state's voting systems. And that's the same cycle that
Speaker 1: South Heirston Cinema beat Republican Martha McSally And ever since then,
Speaker 1: the election denialism here has gotten only worse. As we
Speaker 1: can see, telling your voters to not vote early, to
Speaker 1: not trust the mail system, and to not trust a protracted,
Speaker 1: prolonged vote counting process that is accurate has worked against them.
Speaker 1: This is like incredible stuff. It's just like Trump is
Speaker 1: um in action. It's amazing. Do you think that Carrie
Speaker 1: Lake will go quietly now? She's not going to go quietly.
Speaker 1: There will be more lawsuits. The war room over in
Speaker 1: the Scottsdale Resort has been disbanded. Well, she had a
Speaker 1: war room in the Scottsdale Resort. Yes, all the Republicans
Speaker 1: were working out of a war room for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks and a lot of stuff went down in
Speaker 1: that war room. What hotel was it in Scottsdale McCormick.
Speaker 1: Ratify if I recall correctly, and the infrastructure has gone.
Speaker 1: The people who for weeks thought that there was you know,
Speaker 1: with the next drop of ballots they would favor her
Speaker 1: that you know, the next legal argument would somehow favor Republicans.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of these people are gone and
Speaker 1: they're they're not working on these cases. The funding for
Speaker 1: some of these legal lawsuits has disappeared. It's I think
Speaker 1: you have a situation where you have some candidates who
Speaker 1: are growing increasingly angry, and there's a lot of second
Speaker 1: guessing about their strategies, and we will see a lot
Speaker 1: of what we saw from from Donald Trump post really
Speaker 1: start to grip the state on a on a very
Speaker 1: local level for a long time. So interesting. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Molly John Fast, Jesse Cannon. You know, I don't like
Speaker 1: seeing anyone say anything anti Semitic, but I do love
Speaker 1: do you know there can't be a but it has
Speaker 1: to me just period. I don't, but go on continue.
Speaker 1: It's the squirre big It's so good. I think you're
Speaker 1: referring to House Minority leader, the man who dreams of speakership.
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy defending Donald Trump's meeting with a white supremacist,
Speaker 1: saying that could have happened to anyone, you know, could
Speaker 1: have happened to anyone who among us has not hung
Speaker 1: out with a white supremacist. Not me, But the list
Speaker 1: just goes on and on. There's so many of them
Speaker 1: that are just trying to cover this up. Marshall Blackburn's
Speaker 1: ducking questions on it. Yeah, in fact, I happened to
Speaker 1: have a handy list right here of some of the
Speaker 1: Republicans who have been too cowardly to say anything bad
Speaker 1: about Trump meeting with a neo Nazi. They did not
Speaker 1: see it coming. Florida Governor Ron de Santa's silent Senator
Speaker 1: Marcia Blackburn, silent, Ted Cruz Or as Trump likes to say,
Speaker 1: Lion ted silent, Lindsey Graham, Ron and On, Mike Lee
Speaker 1: and Rand, Paul, Alice Stafadix, Steve Scalise, all of those
Speaker 1: silent members of the Republican Party are our moment of funckery.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics. Makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.