Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds.
Speaker 2: And Donald Trump is melting down claiming Vice President Harris's
Speaker 2: real crowd sizes are AI and fake. Really keeping it
Speaker 2: together over there at bar Lago, we have such a
Speaker 2: great show for you today. The New Republic's Edith Olmstead
Speaker 2: stops by to tell us how Elon Musk Super Pac
Speaker 2: is fucking with voter registration. Then we'll talk to author
Speaker 2: David Dally about his new book Anti Democratic inside the
Speaker 2: Far rights fifty year plot to control American elections. But
Speaker 2: first we have the host of the Enemy's List, the
Speaker 2: Week of Project's own, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, the One, the Only Rock Wilson.
Speaker 3: Good morning, Molly.
Speaker 4: I'm hoping today we can spend some time considering why
Speaker 4: the national media goes to interview a fucking lunatic who
Speaker 4: stands on stage screaming like a guy behind the gas
Speaker 4: station who's trying to suck the alcohol out of a
Speaker 4: sock full of Sterno, and treats him like he's a
Speaker 4: human being.
Speaker 5: Let's not cast his versions on Sterno.
Speaker 1: Some of the best alcoholics I know have drank stern out.
Speaker 5: I personally have never drank.
Speaker 1: It, but as a actually, never mind, we have time
Speaker 1: for this conversation.
Speaker 5: Show. Come see us in California.
Speaker 3: We are doing a live show, y'all.
Speaker 4: And if you don't come and watch us in this
Speaker 4: live show, you are missing. Like when Molly and I
Speaker 4: are on a podcast together, as we've done now for
Speaker 4: off and on.
Speaker 3: For four years, our whole lives well seemingly forever.
Speaker 4: When Molly and I are together on a podcast, you
Speaker 4: guys can see the sort of like banter chemistry we
Speaker 4: get when we are sitting together in a room, whether
Speaker 4: it's in a Starbucks or on a stage with a
Speaker 4: thousand people in the audience, it's a totally different vibe.
Speaker 4: And by totally different, I mean awesome.
Speaker 5: Oh yes, and we.
Speaker 1: Also, more importantly, we make fun of each other. Yes,
Speaker 1: we do audience questions. But let's just get back to
Speaker 1: this press Offerts. So you and I talk I think
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, either on the podcast or in real life.
Speaker 5: I think it was actually a real life phone call.
Speaker 3: I think it was. Yeah, yeah, we.
Speaker 1: Were talking about like what we thought it might be
Speaker 1: because I remember twenty sixteen. And in twenty sixteen, Trump
Speaker 1: did something which he no longer does, but he would
Speaker 1: have these press conferences where he'd have a piece of
Speaker 1: evidence quote unquote.
Speaker 5: And it would be like, either, here are.
Speaker 1: Women Bill Quinton slip with, here are my taxes from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two?
Speaker 5: Maybe right? Remember those piles.
Speaker 3: Of maybe right.
Speaker 1: So I've seen Trump do those press conferences, so part
Speaker 1: of me thought like always going to have like five
Speaker 1: swift body guys who are going to swift boat Tim Walls,
Speaker 1: and they're going to say, you know, and the media's
Speaker 1: going to be like, well did this you know whatever?
Speaker 3: Trump accused?
Speaker 1: Right, Trump accuses you know, forty year veteran of you
Speaker 1: know whatever. But Carrie had three purple hearts. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like he was some adult.
Speaker 4: There was a world, a time in the deminiscent past
Speaker 4: where Chris Osavita and Rick Wilson were the two guys
Speaker 4: you called to do like really stinky shit. They're really
Speaker 4: like they're really like bad stuff. And I gotta tell
Speaker 4: you the swift Boat hit. Look, he was in theater,
Speaker 4: he was on the boat, he got hurt. I mean,
Speaker 4: the standard of the purple heart is one thing. But
Speaker 4: this thing tried to make Tim Walls and say that
Speaker 4: a twenty five year veteran who put in his retirement
Speaker 4: papers ten and a half months before his unit even
Speaker 4: had the idea they were going to go to Iraq.
Speaker 1: He decided to run for Congress because of George W.
Speaker 5: Bush, because of the war in Iraq.
Speaker 4: This story is not going to help Donald Trump in
Speaker 4: the end. And I'll tell you why. Bone Spurs Colonel
Speaker 4: Bone Spurs Von pussy Grabber, the hero of the Battle
Speaker 4: of Studio fifty four, wounded in the dick in the
Speaker 4: storming of Turtle Bay. No, this guy is the lowest,
Speaker 4: the lowest, most shitty human being to ever walk the earth.
Speaker 4: He has contempt for soldiers. He insulted the family of
Speaker 4: soldiers repeatedly. John Kelly, John McCain, he insulted a family
Speaker 4: one time in Arlington. He calls soldiers suckers and losers,
Speaker 4: and as many times as they breathless each you remember
Speaker 4: story of that.
Speaker 3: He fucking said it and he thinks it right.
Speaker 5: No, no, no question.
Speaker 1: And also Adam Kinzinger, I think, had a really good
Speaker 1: point about this. You'll remember Adam Kinzinger, who used to
Speaker 1: be in the Republican Party until he dare across the
Speaker 1: Orange God. He said, in fact, that you know, once
Speaker 1: you're arguing about military service, you're losing. Like the appropriate
Speaker 1: response to both Vans and Walls is that they both serve.
Speaker 4: There are more pictures of Tim Waltz in uniform over
Speaker 4: the decades than there are of Donald Trump as president.
Speaker 4: And honestly, the depth of the perversity of this attack
Speaker 4: really actually tells you something super interesting about not only
Speaker 4: Trump but Chris Losovita, who is running Trump's operation, is
Speaker 4: that these guys only have one song to sing, they
Speaker 4: only have one note to play. They're not good at
Speaker 4: the when it gets out of their little comfort.
Speaker 1: Zone, right, And that brings us to the Trump presser,
Speaker 1: where Trump did exactly what he has been doing since
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, which was a mashup of the greatest hits,
Speaker 1: slightly tweaked but not very much.
Speaker 3: Not far.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's always the you know, the apocalypse is
Speaker 4: coming and I'm the only person who can save you.
Speaker 4: If you don't vote for me, it will have a
Speaker 4: great depression and the Mexicans will flood your street with
Speaker 4: taco trucks.
Speaker 5: Yes, on every corner.
Speaker 3: And force you to eat delicious tacos.
Speaker 5: Right exactly.
Speaker 1: But the thing that I thought was interesting was in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, one of the things that really helped Trump
Speaker 1: was division in the Democratic Party. For sure was Bernie
Speaker 1: should have gotten it, and that was one of his
Speaker 1: favorite refrains.
Speaker 5: And so what he's trying to do this time.
Speaker 1: I saw a piece where the author said, actually, what
Speaker 1: he's trying to do is he can't get over Biden
Speaker 1: being out of the race.
Speaker 5: I don't agree.
Speaker 1: I think he hopes that he can get the Biden
Speaker 1: stands to fight with the Harris group and to get division.
Speaker 4: May I point out for our friend Donald Trump, ain't
Speaker 4: gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean and remember historically, like when LBJ
Speaker 1: decided not to run again, he was slow to endorse
Speaker 1: his vice president, correct, and that did help the Republican
Speaker 1: And one of the things that Biden immediately did was
Speaker 1: that he was quick to endorse Harris. And his message
Speaker 1: has been this entire time, if you want to honor me,
Speaker 1: elect her, and his campaign has seamlessly become her campaign.
Speaker 4: Without even a hiccup, without even a speed bump. It
Speaker 4: turned into her campaign overnight. Everybody swallowed any and look,
Speaker 4: I'm sure. Look, all human beings have resentments and but
Speaker 4: hurt and all this other stuff in your life. Fine,
Speaker 4: but you know what, none of them are displaying it
Speaker 4: or acting out on it. You're not hearing her campaign
Speaker 4: being full of leaks of people go I would have
Speaker 4: done this because I'm a genius and they're dumb. All
Speaker 4: of it is rolling together very smoothly. All of it
Speaker 4: is coming together very well. They have had a whole
Speaker 4: series of terrific events across Michigan, Wisconsin. Everything's working great.
Speaker 4: And the people that are complaining are not her fellow
Speaker 4: Democrats and not Biden stands. And there are Biden stands.
Speaker 4: I count myself among them. Look, I think he's one
Speaker 4: of the best presidents.
Speaker 5: I think one of the best presidents.
Speaker 4: We've had, no doubt about it. I mean, look, and
Speaker 4: I think we will have in our lifetimes two underappreciated,
Speaker 4: one termer presidents, and I think it'll be Joe Biden
Speaker 4: and hw Bush.
Speaker 5: Well will agree to agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you can disagree with me on that.
Speaker 4: But you know what, we didn't go to Iraq with
Speaker 4: my boss. I'm gonna stand George HW Bush till I'm dead.
Speaker 3: I'll be the last one.
Speaker 5: We're hitting the rocks here.
Speaker 1: But if you know the tour sells out, I'll buy
Speaker 1: you one of his terrible.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about hw my boss Jesus Christ woman.
Speaker 1: But to celebrate either way, I'm buying you one of
Speaker 1: his son's terrible baintings.
Speaker 3: That sounds good. You know what I do have rolled
Speaker 3: up in a tube.
Speaker 4: I have a black velvet Dick Cheney painting from Tijuana.
Speaker 1: Oh no, oh, yeah, that's a terrible thing. That's like
Speaker 1: they find that's what your heirs. Fine, nobody wants this.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can get Dick to sign it.
Speaker 3: The old man I might be able to. I needed
Speaker 3: to get on that.
Speaker 1: So another thing we need to talk about is a
Speaker 1: helicopter story, because his story about how he was in
Speaker 1: a rough helicopter landing with Willie Brown, and Willie Brown
Speaker 1: said lots of bad things about Kamala Harris during this
Speaker 1: helicopter story.
Speaker 3: None of.
Speaker 4: He's just I mean, I guess Willy Brown reminded us
Speaker 4: of the fundamental truth of Donald Trump is he's always
Speaker 4: full of shit. Yes, Brown's like he's making that ship
Speaker 4: up right.
Speaker 6: Anything bad.
Speaker 1: He was in a helicopter not with Willie Brown, but
Speaker 1: instead with Jerry Brown Samson.
Speaker 5: Not even a.
Speaker 1: Little bit Jerry Brown, progressive governor of California, Willie Brown
Speaker 1: involved in San Francisco politics.
Speaker 4: Former mayor of San Francisco, former Speaker of the California Assembly.
Speaker 1: Right, neither not, neither are the same person. And Newsom,
Speaker 1: who was in that helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump
Speaker 1: in January twenty nineteen, said it's not even true. There
Speaker 1: was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: says Jerry Brown not to be confused with Willy Brown.
Speaker 1: No one has ever confused him, nor will they ever.
Speaker 1: And Newsom said, I call complete bs as.
Speaker 4: One would because because as you may have figured out
Speaker 4: once again, Donald Trump is always lying.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is never not lying. It's always a lie.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Laurence, who is a friend, Yes, of course, yes,
Speaker 1: and who did really, really, really important monologue last night
Speaker 1: where he talked about are we doing it wrong again?
Speaker 4: Yes, let's talk about it, because I think since last
Speaker 4: night I've watched it four.
Speaker 5: Times that hour that I will never get back of
Speaker 5: my life.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: No, I'm talking about Lawrence's recapitulation of it, because honestly,
Speaker 4: that was a press conference that, as amusing as it
Speaker 4: was to watch Trump display all of his pathologies and
Speaker 4: his insanity on television, Lawrence is right. Those reporters, they're
Speaker 4: in that room. First off, they were a handpick group.
Speaker 4: Let's be real about that.
Speaker 1: Which I think is really important because Harris does not
Speaker 1: have a handpicked group travel whether she just has the
Speaker 1: she has the pool, which is different, an important difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very important difference.
Speaker 4: So a handful of reporters, including a lot of the
Speaker 4: usual suspects that Trump you know, calls it to in
Speaker 4: the morning. And I'm not saying they're bad reporters, by
Speaker 4: the way, I'm just saying they are the ones Trump
Speaker 4: likes to talk to.
Speaker 5: Okay, right, right right, It's important to remember.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he has a comfort zone with those folks, and
Speaker 4: he also knows that they're going to play by the rules.
Speaker 4: You're going to ask journalistic questions like journalists. But because
Speaker 4: he's hacked the system, he understands he can play fuck
Speaker 4: around here and he does. And so what do you have.
Speaker 4: You have Donald Trump up on the stage, chewing up
Speaker 4: the scenery from the very first few minutes. All my
Speaker 4: friends on Wall Street, my many, many, many friends on
Speaker 4: Wall Street, tell me if you let Kamala, It's Great
Speaker 4: Depression Part two, And no one says, right, who who? Exactly?
Speaker 4: What do you mean exactly? What is a great? What
Speaker 4: is a depression?
Speaker 3: Donald?
Speaker 4: When do you think it will happen? What do you
Speaker 4: think will cause it? Because you could tell this was
Speaker 4: Donald flailing and desperately grasping to be in the spotlight.
Speaker 4: He wanted to change the narrative, and his own people
Speaker 4: did not want him. Hey boy, I'll brick little news.
Speaker 4: His own people did not want him to do this.
Speaker 4: They tried to stop him, but the reporters were already
Speaker 4: on their way to mar A Lago, and when he
Speaker 4: heard they were coming down for a staff briefing, he
Speaker 4: sees on this like a wolverine on a piece of
Speaker 4: rum meat. And he wanted to do the Trump Show
Speaker 4: because he believes the Trump Show is his most effective
Speaker 4: form of communication.
Speaker 5: Yes, but he's wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean the cool right is that he actually he's
Speaker 1: he's like like so many narcissists, obsessed with his mistakes.
Speaker 1: And in twenty sixteen, the Trump Show was covered in
Speaker 1: a very incredulous you know, it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: he's saying something racist. And now it's like, yes, he's
Speaker 1: saying something racist. Now I agree. If you don't fact
Speaker 1: check him live, he wins.
Speaker 4: Right, and all the networks took at wall to wall,
Speaker 4: and Jason Miller was bragging about it to reporters last
Speaker 4: night and bragging about it to reporters this morning, and
Speaker 4: bragging about it on social media this morning. No one
Speaker 4: else can do this, No one else gets well to
Speaker 4: wall coverage with no interruptions, and and he was correct.
Speaker 4: The newsworthiness and the clickworthiness and the eyeball worthiness of
Speaker 4: a Trump presser is regretfully never balanced against the corrosive
Speaker 4: damage that putting him out there without fact checking, without
Speaker 4: a single moment of context does to this country is unspeakable.
Speaker 4: They should not get away with this idea that there's
Speaker 4: no cultural, political national cost to Donald Trump being on
Speaker 4: stage saying things that are objectively untrue.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Trump's exchange on methapristone, because I
Speaker 1: think that's an important moment.
Speaker 3: I think that, by the way, and the Florida abortion amendment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that question was a good question too, where somebody
Speaker 1: as he clearly has no idea.
Speaker 5: What is going on. He said maybe I'll vote for it.
Speaker 5: He's not going to say maybe.
Speaker 3: I'll have a press conference announcing my vote.
Speaker 1: I mean, by the way, if Joe Biden had ever
Speaker 1: said maybe I'll have a press conference to announce my
Speaker 1: vote on a constitutional amendment November, every person in the
Speaker 1: fucking world would.
Speaker 3: Be like, what the fuck is this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So Haig says, there are other things a federal
Speaker 1: government can do, not just a band. Would you direct
Speaker 1: your FDA, for example, to revoke access to methapristone. By
Speaker 1: the way, this is in itself a completely insane thing, right,
Speaker 1: a president revoking access to a drug that has been
Speaker 1: on the market since nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, it's been a proof for almost
Speaker 4: fifty fucking years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not quite fifty years, right, but you know many
Speaker 1: years you could do this that will be would be supplemental, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and those things are pretty open and humane. Okay, that
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. But there was a brief period
Speaker 1: when Trump wasn't in the spotlight, and I now go
Speaker 1: back to reading his quotes and they don't make any sense.
Speaker 5: Again.
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember like, oh, this is how this
Speaker 1: guy talks. But you have to be able to have
Speaker 1: a vote. And all I want to do is give
Speaker 1: everybody a vote. And the votes are taking place right
Speaker 1: now as we speak.
Speaker 4: And what he's talking about is giving the states the
Speaker 4: power to completely ban mifipristone.
Speaker 1: Right, Is that something you would consider, Garrett says, And
Speaker 1: Trump says, there are many things on a humane basis
Speaker 1: that you can do outside of that, but you also
Speaker 1: have to give a vote. And the people are going
Speaker 1: to say that. I mean, okay, don't know what the
Speaker 1: fuck that means, but I think it means he's open
Speaker 1: to banning mathaprostone.
Speaker 3: That's what he means.
Speaker 4: Trump sees that idea of returning this question to the
Speaker 4: states as an escape hatch for him personally. Okay, he
Speaker 4: sees it as a way to get out of the
Speaker 4: moral culpability for what Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and a
Speaker 4: whole bunch of other states will do under the power
Speaker 4: that this Supreme Court will give them, because if they
Speaker 4: know how this Court rules on things in the abortion
Speaker 4: and female autonomy family of decisions.
Speaker 3: He knows that, and so he thinks I can be
Speaker 3: the good guy here. A little bit.
Speaker 4: I can pretend I'm not really for it, and I
Speaker 4: can sort of kind of wink and nod about it.
Speaker 4: And no, he doesn't get to do that, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: And when he was asked about the Florida ballot initiative,
Speaker 4: which is why Florida is flashing let's say it's flashing
Speaker 4: yellow now for the Trump campaign. Which is why Florida
Speaker 4: is flashing yellow for them, because there's a choice ballot
Speaker 4: initiative on the and it's got the approval right now
Speaker 4: of over seventy four percent of Florida voters, including fifty
Speaker 4: two percent of Republicans, and he's scared of that. So
Speaker 4: he's trying to say, um, I mean I could, or
Speaker 4: maybe I kind of sort of my own right exactly.
Speaker 1: So I think that's where we are, and I think
Speaker 1: that we're going to see more of that.
Speaker 5: Of course, Trump being a complete lunatic.
Speaker 4: Here's the thing. The rules of the both sides world
Speaker 4: should mean that they should be covering wal to wall
Speaker 4: every minute of Vice President Harris's speeches. Yes, they should
Speaker 4: be covering them without interruption. Because Trump did not really
Speaker 4: do Q and A yesterday. Let's be very clear about
Speaker 4: what he really did yesterday. He went out there and
Speaker 4: did as everyone said, she goes, this is not festive
Speaker 4: as season. And yet that was the airing of the grievances.
Speaker 4: He just went out there and aired the fucking grievances.
Speaker 4: He wasn't really answering questions. And they also every reporter
Speaker 4: there knew that underneath this is not the campaign headline
Speaker 4: that was written in most of their papers today. A
Speaker 4: lot of their papers today wrote like Trump and fiery
Speaker 4: presser challenges Harris to blah blah blah. No, they know,
Speaker 4: they know, and he knows, and Jason Miller knows, and
Speaker 4: Chris and Susy know. All the people around Trump know
Speaker 4: that if they can get reporters back into the frame
Speaker 4: where they're just mechanically reporting the shit, Trump says that
Speaker 4: some fraction of Americans will believe it. I'm not asking
Speaker 4: them to pick sides. I'm not asking them to do anything.
Speaker 4: It's not legitimate journalism.
Speaker 1: We're just asking them not to let him repeat the
Speaker 1: lie on chat.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly what it is, Molly.
Speaker 4: I'm asking them not to be a part of the
Speaker 4: lie factory of Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: Exactly.
Speaker 2: We have even more toward dates for you did you
Speaker 2: know the linked projects. Rick Wilson have Fast Politics, Malli
Speaker 2: jug Faster are heading out on tour to bring you
Speaker 2: a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join
Speaker 2: us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
Speaker 2: Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh
Speaker 2: at the Regent Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest
Speaker 2: and we'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the
Speaker 2: twenty first of September, and on the twenty second we'll
Speaker 2: be in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going to
Speaker 2: hit the East coast. On September thirtieth, we'll be in
Speaker 2: Boston at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
Speaker 2: we'll be in affiliate City Winery, and then DC on
Speaker 2: the second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just
Speaker 2: announced that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth
Speaker 2: of October at City Winery. If you need to laugh
Speaker 2: as we get through this election and hopefully never hear
Speaker 2: from a guy who lives in a golf club again,
Speaker 2: we got you covered. Join us in our surprise guests
Speaker 2: to help you laugh instead of cry your way through
Speaker 2: this election. Season and give you the inside analysis of
Speaker 2: what's really going on right now. Buy your tickets now
Speaker 2: by heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics
Speaker 2: as Unusual dot bio. Edith Olmsted is an associate writer
Speaker 2: at The New Republic.
Speaker 5: Welcome to Fast Politics by Mollie.
Speaker 7: I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1: This is such an interesting and disturbing story that when
Speaker 1: we saw it.
Speaker 5: We were like, oh fuck, we have to get her
Speaker 5: on here.
Speaker 1: Explain to us a little bit about what Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is planning to do with elections.
Speaker 7: So, Elon Musk has started a pack called the America Pack,
Speaker 7: and we know this because he told Jordan Peterson about
Speaker 7: it last month when he was trying to dispel rumors
Speaker 7: that he was going to donate forty five million dollars
Speaker 7: to Trump every month.
Speaker 5: Can you just.
Speaker 1: Stop for one second and explain to me Key's saying
Speaker 1: he never planned to do it. But is he telling
Speaker 1: the truth now? That is a really good question. I
Speaker 1: actually don't know. The Wall Street Journal published that he
Speaker 1: was intending to and I find it hard to believe
Speaker 1: that they would publish it if it were not, at
Speaker 1: least at one point the case. But he has since
Speaker 1: sort of dispelled that reporting, and I think it is
Speaker 1: important he's like done this very trumpy thing, which is
Speaker 1: that's right, it wasn't the Wall Street Journal piece about him.
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murnoch but
Speaker 1: has very very high standards for things they published.
Speaker 5: They're like a real newspaper. So it is interesting to
Speaker 5: me that you.
Speaker 1: Have instead of like saying, well, I used to think that,
Speaker 1: but I no longer do, or I was going to,
Speaker 1: but I changed my mind. Instead, Elon does this trumpy
Speaker 1: thing of saying I never said that.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, it's incredibly trumpy, and he has only gotten Trump
Speaker 7: years since. He has sort of fully endorsed Trump in
Speaker 7: the wake of I think it was his shooting that
Speaker 7: sort of inspired Musk to take this intense turn. But
Speaker 7: now he started the America Pack, which is a specific
Speaker 7: kind of pack. It's a canvassing pack, which means that
Speaker 7: I can work side by side with the Trump campaign
Speaker 7: to do canvassing around the country. And this is particularly
Speaker 7: important right now because Trump's ground game is, you know,
Speaker 7: a little bit lacking at the current moment.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 7: They just don't have the sort of grassroots enthusiasm or
Speaker 7: support that we're sort of seeing on the Democrats side,
Speaker 7: Like even Trump's allies are talking about it, and I
Speaker 7: think there's a piece in the Washington Post this morning
Speaker 7: that was all about that. So this is a big
Speaker 7: part of his campaign that actually needs bolstering. And so
Speaker 7: as a result, Musk has started this pack and he
Speaker 7: had all these digital ads right and they had pictures
Speaker 7: of Trump being shot, sort of trying to evoke this
Speaker 7: emotional experience in a viewer, trying to get them to
Speaker 7: register to vote, specifically registered to vote was something that
Speaker 7: all of these ads are pushing, and they're pushing it
Speaker 7: off on the main website too. When you go to
Speaker 7: the America pack website, there was an option, not anymore,
Speaker 7: but there was an option to register to vote. And
Speaker 7: in some states you could register to vote. It would
Speaker 7: take you to a page and you would enter your information,
Speaker 7: like where you're from, and it would direct you to
Speaker 7: a page which would actually take you to a site
Speaker 7: where you could register to vote. But crucially, in some
Speaker 7: key battleground state this was not the case. You would
Speaker 7: get redirected to another page which would ask you for
Speaker 7: your age, your name, your address, a lot of personal
Speaker 7: information and then Once you had entered all that, it
Speaker 7: would just pop up a little thing saying thank you,
Speaker 7: but it would never actually read you to a page
Speaker 7: where you could register to vote, and it certainly didn't
Speaker 7: enter the information into any registries. So essentially the ads
Speaker 7: were asking people to register to vote, but not actually
Speaker 7: giving them the opportunity.
Speaker 5: Right. But it was for Trump's supporters.
Speaker 7: Right, I think it was supposed to be directed at
Speaker 7: swing voters in battleground states who were theoretically, like Musk,
Speaker 7: caught up in the like whirlwind of energy that happened
Speaker 7: after Trump's attempted assassination that could be motivated to take
Speaker 7: political action after that event. I don't necessarily think it
Speaker 7: was for his base, or maybe it was, but I
Speaker 7: don't know what amount of his base is actually not
Speaker 7: registered to vote.
Speaker 5: Right, right, Right, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: So what other stuff have you seen that Elon is
Speaker 1: doing to support Trump and trump Ism? And also do
Speaker 1: we know how much money he put into this pack?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 7: Overall, I'm actually not sure how much money. But must
Speaker 7: America packboard eight hundred thousand dollars into digital advertisements to
Speaker 7: target voters just in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Georgia,
Speaker 7: North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to ad Impact.
Speaker 5: Okay, so that is.
Speaker 1: A lot of ad money, though it's not forty five million.
Speaker 5: Dollars a month.
Speaker 7: No, certainly it is not. They also had a contract
Speaker 7: for fifteen million dollars with a canvassing service that was
Speaker 7: going to send people around the country to canvas for them,
Speaker 7: but that contract actually got canceled, and it's kind of
Speaker 7: unclear what's going to happen with the money that they
Speaker 7: poured into that.
Speaker 1: Okay, but Mosk is the owner of Twitter, which is
Speaker 1: now called as What kind of abilities does he have
Speaker 1: to sort of target X users with ads? I mean,
Speaker 1: can you do that? Has he decided to put ads
Speaker 1: on AX? Do we know that our data is safe?
Speaker 1: Is there anything to prevent him from just like going
Speaker 1: hog wild with it?
Speaker 7: That's a great question. It seems to me that I
Speaker 7: haven't seen any America PEX on X, which is my
Speaker 7: only indication. But I'm in New York, so it's sort
Speaker 7: of like, why would I see an ad for it?
Speaker 7: Most of the ads that I read about were seen
Speaker 7: on Google, like in a response to the Google searches,
Speaker 7: So I think it's likely that this information. We know
Speaker 7: that when Musk is collecting information under the banner of
Speaker 7: the America pack as opposed to under the banner of
Speaker 7: the CEO of X, that information can be filtered straight
Speaker 7: into canvassing projects with the Trump campaign. So I feel
Speaker 7: like because of FEC guidelines, they're able to coordinate in
Speaker 7: a much more like legal way as opposed to Trump's
Speaker 7: dealing our information and then giving it to Trump anyway.
Speaker 7: But I actually am not sure about him taking information
Speaker 7: from X and giving it. I feel like maybe the
Speaker 7: information on X isn't as willfully given, and if it
Speaker 7: is willfully given, it's likely incomplete right, right, right, That.
Speaker 1: Would make a lot of sense. So Musk has X,
Speaker 1: he has all this data. We don't know if he's
Speaker 1: using it for Trump's benefit. Like, we don't have any
Speaker 1: algorithmic transparency, so we don't know how much Elon is
Speaker 1: messing with what we see or how we see it, do.
Speaker 7: We We certainly don't. End I know less about the
Speaker 7: inner workings of X, to be honest, right, But no,
Speaker 7: But he does exactly, which is pretty concerning for a
Speaker 7: guy who is ramping up his power in this upcoming election,
Speaker 7: because it seems like he certainly has expressed his political
Speaker 7: stake in what's going on, but we don't know what
Speaker 7: exactly his means are to making his plan come to life.
Speaker 7: But he's certainly getting a lot of media attention, but
Speaker 7: also like he's getting funded by like some of the
Speaker 7: richest guys in Silicon valleys. So it's truly disturbing the
Speaker 7: like reach that he has.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about some of the like there was
Speaker 1: sort of a weekend when a lot of these Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley types who weren't necessarily all in on the Trump
Speaker 1: train decided, and it was after Trump had been shot,
Speaker 1: and one after another, a bunch of them came out
Speaker 1: and this is all in crowd, et cetera. And these
Speaker 1: are the people who likely had some influence in Trump
Speaker 1: picking Jdie Van So who knows this crew has been
Speaker 1: very trumpy and very committed to Trump. But are they
Speaker 1: still It certainly seems so to me. What it feels
Speaker 1: like is like the sort of frenzy around Trump is
Speaker 1: a little bit waning, but their wallets are still open
Speaker 1: to him, as it kind of seems because you have
Speaker 1: people like well, obviously Peter Teel, who is pretty much
Speaker 1: all in non Trump. But you also have people like
Speaker 1: Joe Lonsdale, who's one of the co founders of Talenteer.
Speaker 1: He donated a million dollars to the America pack and
Speaker 1: he's like obviously buddies with Peal because they both created
Speaker 1: Palenteer together, and the Winkleby are both in I forgot
Speaker 1: about them. Oh, how horrifying. Also like just regular I'm
Speaker 1: not regular venture capitalist right, because there are some more
Speaker 1: supporting Harris, so as a Max Well, the other Palenteer
Speaker 1: guy who is sort of a grievous warhawk, Alex Carr.
Speaker 7: I have a personal pet, interesting palent Heer. I just
Speaker 7: think it's really like anytime something scares me and I
Speaker 7: don't understand it, I like become obsessed with it. And
Speaker 7: so that's kind of what's happened with me and Valenteer.
Speaker 7: But Alex Kark has said that he's supporting Harris, which
Speaker 7: is very interesting based on his of general warmongereness at
Speaker 7: being the head of a military contractor in all right, right,
Speaker 7: can you talk to us about there's some evidence that
Speaker 7: Eric and Don Junior are getting involved in a bitcoin launch.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us there seems like Trump world
Speaker 1: has gotten very tight with cryptocurrency, and I mean that
Speaker 1: would make a lot of sense because they're both like
Speaker 1: kind of sketchy. Can you talk about that.
Speaker 7: There's actually been a lot of like, yeah, Donald Trump
Speaker 7: Junior promised that there would be some huge crypto announcement
Speaker 7: coming up, which I think that Trump and Harris are
Speaker 7: finding themselves in this place where they're sort of battling
Speaker 7: over or Harris at least has tried to see more
Speaker 7: competitive about being pro crypto.
Speaker 5: Right than Biden.
Speaker 7: Yes, and Trump has definitely made it clear that he
Speaker 7: is cozying up to all these sort of bitcoin guys.
Speaker 7: He wants bitcoins to be produced in the United States,
Speaker 7: even though I think there was a really horrifying article
Speaker 7: in the Time a couple of weeks ago about this
Speaker 7: town in Texas where they're producing bitcoins and everyone around
Speaker 7: them was getting slowly poisoned, which maybe is worth back
Speaker 7: checking me on, but I'm pretty sure so he sees
Speaker 7: it as an economic opportunity for the United States, and
Speaker 7: I definitely thinks being pushed by his sons, who are
Speaker 7: the same guys obviously who are pushing for JD Vance.
Speaker 7: This is all part of like a sort of new
Speaker 7: right economic populism model that these guys have been pushing,
Speaker 7: where they want to bring manufacturing into the United States
Speaker 7: no matter what the cost to I guess like the
Speaker 7: world economy and also human life would be.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the tensions I think in the Trump campaign
Speaker 1: is how much of Trump's money is going to the
Speaker 1: campaign and how much is going to his many lego
Speaker 1: bells and his members of his family who work for
Speaker 1: the campaign, right right.
Speaker 7: He's definitely cashed in or like Bond, further in on
Speaker 7: having the sort of Trump coin and stuff than Biden obviously,
Speaker 7: who was totally gave regulation. I guess I don't know
Speaker 7: very much about his whole cryptocurrency gamble that he's making.
Speaker 5: But he definitely wants those donors.
Speaker 7: Right, like the same kind of like Cronius that he
Speaker 7: is really interested in capturing in the whole JD bad situation.
Speaker 1: Right, And that I think is really an important data point.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that is going on right
Speaker 1: now is that Vance is following Harris and Walls around
Speaker 1: while they campaign and doing press conferences, et cetera. It
Speaker 1: seems like wildly a normal to me, But is there
Speaker 1: some precedent for this?
Speaker 7: I was wondering the same thing. It seems sort of
Speaker 7: depressing or sad, especially because seems to be following them
Speaker 7: everywhere they go, but doing a really small event just
Speaker 7: in the same city, which well, there's a lot here actually,
Speaker 7: And it's really interesting to me that Trump has sort
Speaker 7: of been staying put all week. He's been in Florida
Speaker 7: doing fundraising and interviews. He's going to have a press
Speaker 7: conference later today. But I think that Trump has gotten
Speaker 7: so used to his sort of non campaign style of
Speaker 7: campaigning against Joe Biden, where he doesn't realize the amount
Speaker 7: of effort it's going to take to actually motivate voters
Speaker 7: in these states. He doesn't know how to campaign anymore.
Speaker 7: He's got a lot of support obviously, but he doesn't
Speaker 7: have the stamina, I guess. I mean that's kind of
Speaker 7: how it seems. It seems like Trump has lost a
Speaker 7: little bit of his stamina. And I think that just
Speaker 7: goes to speak to well, it goes to speak to
Speaker 7: a lot of things, but including that Trump's ground game.
Speaker 7: It's not that he doesn't have a ground game because
Speaker 7: of like a mistake, it's because he doesn't value these
Speaker 7: campaign events. It's because he doesn't think he needs to
Speaker 7: go out and get the vote, because Trump's plan has
Speaker 7: ever lied in getting the vote, it lies in fomenting
Speaker 7: claims of voter fraud. And I think ultimately that's going
Speaker 7: to be his play in November. So I think he
Speaker 7: knows he and Vance know with these like depressing little
Speaker 7: rallies where Vance is giving the most hostile, awkward answers,
Speaker 7: that like, it doesn't really matter what you do, you
Speaker 7: just have to create the appearance that you are doing something.
Speaker 7: But I'm not aware of any precedent where Vance would
Speaker 7: be for whatever reason, It's like he's trailing them. It's
Speaker 7: so weird, right exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't white understand how this helps.
Speaker 5: Right, I mean that I feel like that is what
Speaker 5: I don't totally get.
Speaker 7: I think it helps if you want Vance to be
Speaker 7: a little gadfly who warms around Paris and Waltz and
Speaker 7: just it's sort of there to be a foil to them,
Speaker 7: But strategically it doesn't make tons of sense to me, right.
Speaker 1: I think Trump feels that he has a better relationship
Speaker 1: with the mainstream media than he does and that maybe
Speaker 1: perhaps this will somehow appeal to journalists.
Speaker 7: Oh, because of the whole she's not taking questions thing.
Speaker 1: Right, and I'm your buddy, buddy, and I'm gonna go around.
Speaker 5: Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 7: I totally see how that could be Trump's play, but
Speaker 7: unfortunately he picked Advance, who seems like somewhat allergic to
Speaker 7: being personable on camera, which is crazy because I know
Speaker 7: that's why he was selected. It almost makes no sense
Speaker 7: in that way, Like even when he gets like softball questions,
Speaker 7: like he got a question yesterday where somebody was like,
Speaker 7: what makes you smile?
Speaker 6: And he answered me.
Speaker 5: So angrily, suck.
Speaker 7: It was like, it makes me smile when you guys
Speaker 7: are stupid jerks, And it's like, why would you answer that,
Speaker 7: Like why wouldn't you say you're wife or your three
Speaker 7: kids that you're supposedly so obsessed with, like instead, he
Speaker 7: just is so strange.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 1: It was an incredible moment, I thought when he said that,
Speaker 1: And then also he said like a journalist asked him
Speaker 1: another softball question, which was people like to have beers
Speaker 1: with people in Wisconsin?
Speaker 5: Why would people want have a beer with you? And
Speaker 5: he was like, because I love to.
Speaker 1: Drink, which again, like I'm sober since I was nineteen,
Speaker 1: so you know, but I would think that like the
Speaker 1: correct answer to that would be like because I love
Speaker 1: football or something and apple pie and hanging out with
Speaker 1: other people. But this, again, is this Desanti's vein of
Speaker 1: Trump is who want to use anger, but he can't
Speaker 1: quite figure out the way to do it the way
Speaker 1: that Trump was able to use anger in an affable way,
Speaker 1: and these guys use it in a scale.
Speaker 7: I totally agree. I think that something that's really present
Speaker 7: in Bance as the president, desantists it's like simmering resentment,
Speaker 7: and we're seeing it directed a lot at sort of
Speaker 7: the media that's following him around. It's an unintended consequence,
Speaker 7: like if they thought that this was going to make
Speaker 7: the media happy. The media doesn't want to be snapped
Speaker 7: at every day, especially when they're like throwing you softballs
Speaker 7: about nothing. Like the beer question was so crazy because
Speaker 7: he was like, I actually do like beer, as like
Speaker 7: implying that as opposed to the Libs who hate beer,
Speaker 7: Like what kind of nonsense is that?
Speaker 1: It was a very weird answer to a very weird
Speaker 1: question to very strange Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: I hope you will come back.
Speaker 7: Oh absolutely, I'm really really happy that you asked me,
Speaker 7: and I'm a big listener. My mom is a huge
Speaker 7: slip as thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed with iHeart to make a
Speaker 1: limited series with the experts on what a disaster Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five would be for America's future Right now.
Speaker 1: The first four episodes, with the final episode coming next week,
Speaker 1: are available by looking up Molly John Fast Project.
Speaker 5: Twenty twenty five on YouTube.
Speaker 1: If you are thinking you are more of a podcast
Speaker 1: person and not a YouTuber, you can hit play when
Speaker 1: you get to the video, put the phone on lockscreen
Speaker 1: and it will play back. New episodes are dropping in
Speaker 1: the next week as well. We need to educate America
Speaker 1: on what Trump's second term would do to this country.
Speaker 1: Please watch and help us spread the word.
Speaker 2: David Day is the author of Anti Democratic Inside the
Speaker 2: Far Rights fifty year Plot to Control American elections.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, David, Thank you for having me
Speaker 1: tell me the story of your book and explain to
Speaker 1: us why.
Speaker 5: You wrote it.
Speaker 6: This is a book about how an anti democracy faction
Speaker 6: has hijacked the Supreme Court and the Judiciary capturing and
Speaker 6: corrupting much of our politics and policy. The justices who
Speaker 6: have made it harder for people of color to vote
Speaker 6: to have handed Donald Trump immunity from prosecution for committing
Speaker 6: crimes while in office, have taken away reproductive freedoms that
Speaker 6: abortion rights. They owe their seats on this court to
Speaker 6: a fifty year dark money project that the right has
Speaker 6: been working on now for decades. It's an anti democratic
Speaker 6: project because these are people who are fully aware that
Speaker 6: their agenda is not supported by the majority of Americans,
Speaker 6: that they cannot achieve it through democratic means, and so
Speaker 6: reactionaries like Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society, they have
Speaker 6: relied on the ideological allies that they placed on this
Speaker 6: court to advance the economic, social, and political interests of
Speaker 6: a narrow and wealthy and radical elite.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's right. So tell us where this starts.
Speaker 6: I start this story back in the early nineteen seventies,
Speaker 6: as conservatives realize that the Warren Court has been expanding rights,
Speaker 6: that the Warren Court has been embracing the full multi
Speaker 6: racial spirit of the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution and
Speaker 6: there is a lawyer in Virginia. His name is Lewis Powell.
Speaker 6: And Lewis Powell writes a memo for the Chamber of Commerce,
Speaker 6: and he says, Guys, the consumer movement, the civil rights movement,
Speaker 6: the anti Vietnam movement, the environmental movement, they are attacking
Speaker 6: big business. They are changing America, and we have to
Speaker 6: fight back. And Powell says that the plutocrats and big
Speaker 6: business has got to get involved and to fight for
Speaker 6: the courts. He says, this is the area of opportunity
Speaker 6: if big business will invest in it. About six months later,
Speaker 6: Richard Nixon appoints Lewis Powell himself to the US Supreme Court,
Speaker 6: where he then is part of a handful of very
Speaker 6: important decisions in the seventies and nineteen eighties that help
Speaker 6: gut campaign finance reform, that help as well erode of
Speaker 6: voting rights. These are the decisions that lead to Citizens United,
Speaker 6: that inspire a young John Roberts on his lifelong crusade
Speaker 6: against voting rights. But I also find another memo. A
Speaker 6: lot of people know about the Powell memo. What I
Speaker 6: also uncovered was the roots of the Federalist Society, written
Speaker 6: by a man named Michael Horowitz who writes about seven
Speaker 6: or eight years after Powell to the Scafe Foundation, one
Speaker 6: of the big right wing conservative billionaire foundations. And what
Speaker 6: Horowitz has to say is that Powell has some good ideas.
Speaker 6: He created a lot of conservative architecture, that the Koch
Speaker 6: Brothers invest in, Heritage Foundation, things like that, But he says,
Speaker 6: we haven't done enough to try to win the hearts
Speaker 6: and minds of a future generation. And so what Horowitz
Speaker 6: says has to be done is the conservative legal movement
Speaker 6: needs to move into law schools and attract the next generation.
Speaker 6: And it's Horowitz who connects the young founders of a
Speaker 6: group called the Federalist Society to all of these big
Speaker 6: right wing donors. And it's Horowitz who then, as the
Speaker 6: chief of staff for Reagan's Office of Management and Budget
Speaker 6: in the nineteen eighties, who helps bring all of these
Speaker 6: young Federalist Society conservatives into the administration. They begin to
Speaker 6: populate DOJ that the Department of Justice, which becomes sort
Speaker 6: of the intellectual hothouse of this young Federalist Society set,
Speaker 6: especially under ed Meese, you have folks involved in the
Speaker 6: process of picking judges, of creating originalism, not as a
Speaker 6: theory of constitutional interpretation, but as a way for conservatives
Speaker 6: to win policy. Originalism is sort of a trojan horse
Speaker 6: as a way to get victories that would not have
Speaker 6: been one otherwise. And the war on the Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 6: which John Roberts and his allies fight from the Department
Speaker 6: of Justice.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the war on the Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 1: because so much of this anti democracy stuff started with
Speaker 1: an attack unvoting rights and making it harder for people
Speaker 1: to vote.
Speaker 5: Explain and does where that figures into.
Speaker 6: This, It's very prominent. I think it's at the very
Speaker 6: heart of so much of the anti democratic spirit and
Speaker 6: the minority rule that grips our politics right now. I think,
Speaker 6: in many ways, the most important case and one of
Speaker 6: the most disastrous cases that the Supreme Court has decided.
Speaker 6: I know it's a long list recent years, but it's
Speaker 6: going back to twenty thirteen in the Shelby County versus
Speaker 6: Older case that really eviscerated the Voting Rights Act. When
Speaker 6: Congress passes the Voting Rights Act, they include somely called preclearance,
Speaker 6: which forces the states that had the worst records on
Speaker 6: race and voting to run any change that they wanted
Speaker 6: to make past the Department of Justice. This was a
Speaker 6: big deal, but it was passed for a big reason
Speaker 6: because for one hundred years prior to the passage of
Speaker 6: the Voting Rights Act and still afterwards, there were states
Speaker 6: that engaged in absolute insidious and devious and violent and
Speaker 6: evil ways to get around the Reconstruction Amendment with pall
Speaker 6: taxes and literacy tests and violence at the polls. And
Speaker 6: so Congress knew what it was doing when it included preclearance,
Speaker 6: and the courts backed it up time and time again.
Speaker 6: In two thousand and six, when Congress reauthorizes the Voting
Speaker 6: Rights Act, and it's nearly unanimous. It's three hundred and
Speaker 6: ninety to thirty three in the House and it's ninety
Speaker 6: eight to nothing in the Senate, signed into law by
Speaker 6: President George W.
Speaker 3: Bush.
Speaker 6: But there's this sneaky undercurrent that's going on within the
Speaker 6: Federalists society, within the conservative legal movement to try to
Speaker 6: undercut this, not through the political process, but to use
Speaker 6: their advantages in the courts. And so the Shelby County case,
Speaker 6: Roberts effectively decides that, well, things have changed in the South,
Speaker 6: and he bases this really on vibes, not on the
Speaker 6: sixty thousand paget that Congress generates, not on the nearly
Speaker 6: unanimous bipartisan vote, not on the decades and dozens of
Speaker 6: hearings that have been conducted across the South on why
Speaker 6: preclearance is still essential, how it has stopped and prevented
Speaker 6: and cured all kinds of nefarious schemes to this day,
Speaker 6: including elections across the South that would just be canceled
Speaker 6: when it appeared that a black politician might win them.
Speaker 6: There's an election in Mississippi in two thousand and one,
Speaker 6: a mayor's race that is just canceled. This isn't happening
Speaker 6: in nineteen fifty five or in nineteen sixty two. It's
Speaker 6: happening in two thousand and one, right in the middle
Speaker 6: of our electimes, right around the times that you know,
Speaker 6: planes strike the Twin Towers. So this is modern history.
Speaker 6: This is just a few years before the Chief Justice says, well,
Speaker 6: you know, I think things have changed, and by ending preclearance,
Speaker 6: what he does is unleash all of these dark forces
Speaker 6: to really just run free. Preclarance was the prison guard,
Speaker 6: and as soon as the prison guards took wigh. What
Speaker 6: you see across the states that Republicans had gerrymandered is
Speaker 6: just an onslaught of voter ID bills and precinct closures
Speaker 6: and new laws that create longer lines in areas where
Speaker 6: Republicans don't want people to vote. And let's face it,
Speaker 6: all of these state legislative maps also had had to
Speaker 6: be precleared. So the kinds of laws that are being
Speaker 6: passed in state legislatures around the country right now on
Speaker 6: reproductive rights, on teaching black history and schools, on so
Speaker 6: many other things. The extreme legislation coming out of the
Speaker 6: right in Texas and Florida and Alabama and Georgia. All
Speaker 6: of this happening in states that had been covered by
Speaker 6: preclearance that these maps would have had to have been precleared.
Speaker 6: Now they don't have to be. This is the consequence
Speaker 6: we are living in that America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so much in this post Row America
Speaker 1: about what it's.
Speaker 5: Like to lose rights you have.
Speaker 1: And I feel like the Jim Crow laws in the
Speaker 1: South were sort of the template for what they're doing
Speaker 1: now with voting.
Speaker 6: I think that's right in a lot of ways, because
Speaker 6: what you see after the Civil War Congress passes the thirteenth, fourteenth,
Speaker 6: and fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, and to me, these
Speaker 6: reconstruction amendments really represent the best articulation of America's founding
Speaker 6: vision and ideals. Those amendments are US at our absolute best,
Speaker 6: ensuring equal protection, ensuring one person, one vote, ensuring citizenship
Speaker 6: and a voice for everyone. But those amendments, even though
Speaker 6: states across the South had to ratify them as a
Speaker 6: condition for re entering the Union, they didn't last very long.
Speaker 6: The Supreme Court, in a series of cases in the
Speaker 6: eighteen sixties and the eighteen seventies, really began picking away
Speaker 6: at those amendments and in many ways nullifying them because
Speaker 6: they made it impossible for the federal government to enforce
Speaker 6: those amendments in states. They said that would be an
Speaker 6: encroachment on states' rights, and so many of those states
Speaker 6: across the South, unsurprisingly simply did not enforce them. And
Speaker 6: then the courts also said, in an echo of what
Speaker 6: we see from the Roberts Court, they say, well, the
Speaker 6: Civil War was a long time ago, that was a
Speaker 6: decade ago. We're past that now. When we finally move
Speaker 6: on and stop treating people differently, we ought to be
Speaker 6: treating everyone the same. And that's the same rationale that
Speaker 6: is being used now as soon as the Court limits enforcement,
Speaker 6: just as the Court limited enforcement in twenty thirteen. What
Speaker 6: you begin all of these new state constitutions across the South,
Speaker 6: in Mississippi, in Alabama, and they enshrine white supremacy. If
Speaker 6: you go back look at the documents, if you go
Speaker 6: back and look at the actual transcripts of these things,
Speaker 6: they say very clearly, what we are doing here is
Speaker 6: enshrining white supremacy. And they come up with all kinds
Speaker 6: of schemes. The white primary or at large districts, literacy
Speaker 6: tests have pull texts. When that doesn't prove to be
Speaker 6: quite enough, then you see lynchings and the kinds of
Speaker 6: violence that would happen if black citizens dared try to
Speaker 6: cast a vote. And this lasts all the way up
Speaker 6: until the passage of the Voting Rights Act, right, I mean,
Speaker 6: even the Civil Rights Acts of nineteen fifty seven nineteen
Speaker 6: fifty nine are not enough to stop this because there
Speaker 6: was no real enforcement teeth in there. The Civil Rights
Speaker 6: Act forces judges in the locality where the complaint is
Speaker 6: received to fix it, and that simply wasn't going to
Speaker 6: happen because oftentimes those judges in this album the nineteen
Speaker 6: fifties were segregationists or pals with the sheriffs, or they
Speaker 6: would just make it difficult for DOJ to come in
Speaker 6: and do what they wanted to do. Nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 6: in Dallas County, Alabama, where Selma is, you had a
Speaker 6: one percent of the black population registered to vote. By
Speaker 6: the time the Voting Rights Act arrives in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 6: after victory after victory under the Civil Rights Act, it
Speaker 6: was still only four percent. So you just didn't see
Speaker 6: enough of actual progress until preclarance forced it into play.
Speaker 6: And so when John Roberts says that things have changed
Speaker 6: in the South, now, nothing has changed in the South.
Speaker 6: Nothing really has changed dramatically in the South at all.
Speaker 6: One hour after the Shelby County decision, Texas enacts it's
Speaker 6: draconian voter ID bill that the state admits full well
Speaker 6: is going to stop six hundred thousand Latinos who are
Speaker 6: citizens and registered to vote from voting because they are
Speaker 6: demanding specific forms of ID that they've already researched and
Speaker 6: know that these voters don't have, so it's not that
Speaker 6: things have changed in the South. Things are the same.
Speaker 6: What is no longer the same is that there is
Speaker 6: no longer a mechanism in place for the federal government
Speaker 6: to prevent this kind of explicit racism.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Until the MAGA judges joined the court, Roberts was able
Speaker 1: to kind of make it seem as if he was
Speaker 1: a centrist, or at least he was not quite as
Speaker 1: anti voting. And even during this what we've read reported
Speaker 1: about the Dobbs League, it was reported and again, I mean,
Speaker 1: it feels like something he might want people to know
Speaker 1: about him, right, that he was pushing back on overturning
Speaker 1: Row and Da da da. Then he says he's sort
Speaker 1: of worked hard to present himself as a moderate.
Speaker 5: Is he really a moderate?
Speaker 6: No, John Roberts has worked hard to create a myth
Speaker 6: of himself as an institutional centrist. He's presented himself as
Speaker 6: an umpire calling balls and strikes, something out of an
Speaker 6: Indiana John Cougar song. John Roberts is the most successful
Speaker 6: Republican politician of the last twenty five years. And he
Speaker 6: has hidden this, and he's masked himself behind this idea
Speaker 6: of being a centrist and in many ways. The institutional
Speaker 6: mainstream media and the Supreme Court media has gone along
Speaker 6: with this. But Roberts might not be an arsonist the
Speaker 6: way that the MAGA judges are. Roberts would not burn
Speaker 6: the house down. He would take it one floor piece
Speaker 6: of floorboard at a time and just slowly demolish it.
Speaker 6: Roberts isn't going to bash you over the head to
Speaker 6: change the law. He's going to the frog and the
Speaker 6: pot of boiling water and slowly turn it up until
Speaker 6: the frog no longer notices it's being boiled. And that's
Speaker 6: what Roberts has done on case after case after case.
Speaker 6: What I try to walk through an anti democratic is
Speaker 6: that Roberts does a two step on all of these cases.
Speaker 6: You know, if it's the Rocky horror picture show, it's
Speaker 6: a step to the right and then a jump to
Speaker 6: the right. And Citizens United in Shelby County in Common
Speaker 6: Cause versus Rujoe, which closed the federal courts to partisan
Speaker 6: gerrymanderin claims what Roberts does is that there's always a
Speaker 6: case beforehand of these which Roberts takes a small tentative
Speaker 6: step in that direction and invites the next case in
Speaker 6: that next case is when he really smashes it down.
Speaker 6: So he does it slowly, and he often does it
Speaker 6: with this deep dishonesty and disingenuousness. If you look at
Speaker 6: the Shelby County case. The Shelby County case, Roberts decides this,
Speaker 6: he says on a doctrine of equal sovereignty. He says
Speaker 6: that there is a tradition in American politics at constitutional
Speaker 6: law that all states must be treated equally. He fundamentally
Speaker 6: made this up. There is oh such doctrine. There is
Speaker 6: an equal footing doctrine that says that states must be
Speaker 6: admitted to the Union under the same rules. But he
Speaker 6: turned this into equal sovereignty. And he did so by
Speaker 6: cutting out with an ellipsis and just editing away the
Speaker 6: piece of the law that didn't apply to him and
Speaker 6: which actually said that he was misusing it, the piece
Speaker 6: that said that this has nothing to do with voting
Speaker 6: or any other kinds of rights. He just cut it.
Speaker 6: If you go back and look at the actual law,
Speaker 6: it's the exact opposite of what John Roberts says.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 6: You know, I mean that the US Supreme Court right
Speaker 6: now has got a really low standing with the American
Speaker 6: public because people think that they're just partisan actors, and
Speaker 6: people are right about that. But imagine what would happen
Speaker 6: if people knew that these guys are just making the
Speaker 6: law up and editing it as they wish, because as
Speaker 6: they can, because they can get away with.
Speaker 1: It because there's no checks and balances on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 6: Yes, this Supreme Court has really become a super legislature.
Speaker 6: It's become a legislature nine with Leonard Leo and John
Speaker 6: Roberts having effectively hand picked a super majority. They have
Speaker 6: no checks and balances, no accountability. They're unelected, they have
Speaker 6: lifetime appointments, They decide cases in private. They have no
Speaker 6: ethics code. And until and unless we stand up to
Speaker 6: this and reform the court, this is the America we're
Speaker 6: going to be and it's not the America I want
Speaker 6: to be in. It's time to stand up and fight
Speaker 6: for it.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, David.
Speaker 6: My pleasure, Molly, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: No moment, Rick Wilson, what is your moment of fuckery?
Speaker 4: My moment of fuckery today, Molly is Chris Losovita playing
Speaker 4: what I call the one note flute. The guy's only
Speaker 4: got one act. The guy's only got one play, and
Speaker 4: it's to try to tear down the opponent based on
Speaker 4: his patriotism and his military service. Now, look, they're going
Speaker 4: at walls in a whole bunch of different directions, But
Speaker 4: the two that I find the most insane are trying
Speaker 4: to say that a guy that served in the National
Speaker 4: Guard for twenty four years and who the Minnesota National
Speaker 4: Guard says he put in his paperwork to retire ten
Speaker 4: months before that, he is somehow a traitor to the country.
Speaker 4: Go fuck yourself, is my answer on that one. That
Speaker 4: is some weapons grade bullshit, And a lot of their
Speaker 4: other attacks are falling apart already, Like it turns out
Speaker 4: the law that he signed doesn't require tampons in boys' bathrooms,
Speaker 4: which is synth the magas man. They are having all
Speaker 4: kinds of weird feelings about this one. They're like having
Speaker 4: all kinds of like conflicted, like don't look at me,
Speaker 4: I might have a woody feelings about it.
Speaker 3: They can't quite sort out their hatreds.
Speaker 1: We're getting the pure unadulter, righted Rick Wilson here continue.
Speaker 4: You are getting the pure Rick Wilson this morning. I
Speaker 4: am Liddy MC litt. This entire attack on walls is
Speaker 4: going to fail, and I'll tell you why, because we
Speaker 4: talked about it earlier. Every time you want to make
Speaker 4: that attack, the Democrats shouldn't be playing defense on walls.
Speaker 4: They should be going right back at Colonel Pussy von
Speaker 4: bone spurs. And that is the way Democrats, that is
Speaker 4: the way.
Speaker 5: I just said yes to something. Maybe I'm dirty.
Speaker 4: I trust me, Molly, trust me Mally. As I've told you,
Speaker 4: we are uncancellable.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, but yes, I think it's
Speaker 1: a really good point. And again it's this coverage that
Speaker 1: don't let Trump say the lion checked, don't let Trump
Speaker 1: drive the narrative. He is a bad faith actor. And
Speaker 1: you saw it yesterday when he said I have a
Speaker 1: debate on Fox News. Right that debate was he wants
Speaker 1: her to go to Fox News because that's his propaganda arm.
Speaker 1: And remember at the Black Journalism Association conference we had
Speaker 1: Harris Faulkner, who wasn't even a member of the association.
Speaker 1: So Trump wants his people in there to juice it
Speaker 1: for him, and don't let him.
Speaker 3: Cheat exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: And I believe that there's a moral obligation in this thing,
Speaker 4: and I know a lot of folks in the press.
Speaker 3: They react very very badly.
Speaker 4: To what they think is lecturing and what they think
Speaker 4: is hostility towards journalism or media, which I think you
Speaker 4: and I can safely say that our lives prove that
Speaker 4: we are not hostile to journalism or media and in
Speaker 4: fact value it tremendously. But this idea that we're going
Speaker 4: to let Trump play the same game he played before
Speaker 4: with a terrifying and terrible consequence to this country is
Speaker 4: deeply disturbing to me.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Rick Wilson any time.
Speaker 3: Talk to you later.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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