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 Mike Johnson vows to hold federally
Speaker 1: hostage to the state of California after the deadly fires.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today. The
Speaker 1: Atlantics George Conway stops by to talk to us about
Speaker 1: the Jack Smith report and Biden's final days. Then we'll
Speaker 1: talk to The New York Times Ryan Mack about Tech Bros.
Speaker 1: Fires and what's happening in California. But first the.
Speaker 2: News, Smalie, have you been popping the popcorn while Pete
Speaker 2: Higgsith gets confirmed today?
Speaker 1: No, I have been watching the Pete Hegseith confirmation and
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, they prepared him really well.
Speaker 2: Can I play you a contradiction to prepared very well?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Please, mister Higgs said, I do not believe that you
Speaker 3: are qualified to meet the Oldwhelm meet the band job.
Speaker 3: We must acknowledge the concerning public reports against you. A
Speaker 3: variety of sources, including your own writings, implicate you with
Speaker 3: disregarding the laws of war, financial mismanagement, racists, and sexist
Speaker 3: remarks about men and women. In uniform, alcohol abuse, sexual assault,
Speaker 3: sexual harassment, and other troubling issues. I have reviewed many
Speaker 3: of these allegations and find them extremely alarming. Indeed, the
Speaker 3: totality of your own writings and elected conduct that would
Speaker 3: disqualify any service member from holding any leadership position in military,
Speaker 3: much less being confirmed.
Speaker 1: As a Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 3: Nonetheless, I understand that you reject many of these reports
Speaker 3: as they involve whistleblowers, non disclosure agreements, and are anonymous,
Speaker 3: although numerous sources the HECKSA.
Speaker 4: What is the highest level of international negotiations that you
Speaker 4: have engaged in that you've led them? Because the Secrety
Speaker 4: Defense does lead international security negotiations, there are three main
Speaker 4: ones that the Secretary of Defense leads and signs. Can
Speaker 4: you name at least one of them?
Speaker 1: Could you repeat the question, Sena, sure, what.
Speaker 4: Is the highest level of international security agreement that you
Speaker 4: have led? And can you name some that the Secretary
Speaker 4: of Defense would lead? There are three main ones.
Speaker 5: I have not been involved in international security arrangements because
Speaker 5: I have not been in government other than serving in
Speaker 5: the military, So my job has been you name one
Speaker 5: of the three main ones that talking about defense arrangements,
Speaker 5: I mean NATO might be one of the one that
Speaker 5: you're referring to.
Speaker 4: Status of Forces agreement would be one of them, stead of.
Speaker 5: Force status of forces agreement. I've been a part of
Speaker 5: teaching about Status of Forces agreement.
Speaker 4: You don't remember to mention it. You're not qualified, mister heiseth.
Speaker 4: You're not qualified. You talk about repairing our defense industrial.
Speaker 1: Complex, you're not qualified to that.
Speaker 4: You could do the acquisition and cross servicing agreements, which essentially.
Speaker 1: I thought he did a pretty good job. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not a head fan, and you know, there are
Speaker 1: definitely cabinet appointees that seem like they will sail through.
Speaker 1: I was sort of on the fence about whether he
Speaker 1: would sail through, but I actually think he's going to
Speaker 1: get through. And look, the problem with him is twofold, right,
Speaker 1: he's not competent to run a three million plus organization
Speaker 1: of more than three million people. And he's also clearly
Speaker 1: has some form of alcohol issue. Maybe he's not God,
Speaker 1: I mean right, I mean, he clearly has. He's clearly
Speaker 1: a person who should not drink. But I thought he
Speaker 1: did well. I thought they prepared him well. And the
Speaker 1: only moment where he really got flu mixed was when
Speaker 1: he couldn't answer that question to Duck Wars, I thought,
Speaker 1: what the mistake that Democrats made here was not coordinating
Speaker 1: better with each other. And I think that what would
Speaker 1: have worked really well. And I'm not sure why they
Speaker 1: didn't do this, and I know that they don't historically
Speaker 1: do this, but I think they should start was I
Speaker 1: wish they had had each member of the committee focused
Speaker 1: on a different aspect. I think they would have done
Speaker 1: better had they asked questions and then made him answer
Speaker 1: them instead of like I saw this a couple of
Speaker 1: different times in the hearings. You had someone like Senator Jillibrand,
Speaker 1: who's obviously, like, very passionate about this topic for obvious
Speaker 1: reasons as am I. But you know, she'd ask him
Speaker 1: a question he wouldn't be able to answer, and then
Speaker 1: she'd just keep going. And I wonder how much if
Speaker 1: these interviewers, if these senators would ask a question and
Speaker 1: push push push for answers, that they might get more
Speaker 1: Like I think that the moments of like a senator
Speaker 1: grand standing, and that we saw this on left and
Speaker 1: the right. We always see this, you know, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the joke about these committee hearings. I almost wondered
Speaker 1: if we could have more of the just like push
Speaker 1: him to try to get him to answer questions, because
Speaker 1: if you can't answer a question that says more than
Speaker 1: a senator saying stuff we already know they think.
Speaker 2: Or they collapse like Kavanaugh did with the I drink beer, right.
Speaker 1: I think that might have been a better way to
Speaker 1: do it than to just sort of keep going, you know,
Speaker 1: keep talking and talking and talking. We get it, we
Speaker 1: get it, And I think that would have been better. Look,
Speaker 1: I never thought that Democrats would be able to prevent
Speaker 1: hegseeth and I'm not sure how Like the ones that
Speaker 1: I the ones that keep me up at night are
Speaker 1: Gabbard and RFK and Cash Battel. Everyone else I think
Speaker 1: is sort of I just don't know how many people
Speaker 1: you can possibly filibuster. And I think he's going to
Speaker 1: get through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seems that way after today, so mally switching gears.
Speaker 2: Jack Smith's report dropped last night, and it seems like
Speaker 2: Trump would have been convicted as the analysis. What are
Speaker 2: you seeing here?
Speaker 1: Well, with all this stuff, you know, the rules were
Speaker 1: made that like you can't convict a former president, you
Speaker 1: can't do this to a form, you know, they were
Speaker 1: at every point there were these rules that the Justice
Speaker 1: Department made that protected Trump from any accountability, and then
Speaker 1: they sort of tried to get him accountability and they couldn't.
Speaker 1: So I do think, like Merrick Garland, the fact that
Speaker 1: this even got released so far after Trump was in
Speaker 1: office is a really good example of how much these
Speaker 1: this was sort of a failure on the part of
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland, Like, this stuff should have come out right away.
Speaker 1: They should have, you know, gone all in unaccountability, They
Speaker 1: should have held Trump accountable. Now, this coming out a
Speaker 1: week before he's inaugurated, less than a week before he's inaugurated,
Speaker 1: he's a real sign that everything didn't go the way
Speaker 1: it was supposed to it. There's not a ton of
Speaker 1: new information though the forty fifth president inspired his supporters
Speaker 1: to commit acts of physical violence. That's a statement you
Speaker 1: really don't want ever written about you. He's spread a
Speaker 1: false narrative about election fraud in the twenty twenty race,
Speaker 1: he determined in the final report. So, I mean, those
Speaker 1: are serious, serious, serious allegations, which we also happen in
Speaker 1: real time. And then let's also add that Trump is
Speaker 1: so struck by them that. In response, he hits out
Speaker 1: at Smith at one am when normal people are sleeping,
Speaker 1: but he and Elon are on the internet, branding Smith
Speaker 1: to be deranged and a lame brain prosecutor. Look, it's
Speaker 1: a weird moment in Trump world, where you have he's won,
Speaker 1: he's about to be president again, and yet he's still
Speaker 1: really angry that Jack Smith is releasing this report. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. It's like, you think about it, it's like
Speaker 1: Trump knows deep down that he did something wrong. Right,
Speaker 1: People who don't think they did something wrong don't stay
Speaker 1: up all night tweeting about a report, right, they just
Speaker 1: go bad. I mean, I'm serious, Like there's like real
Speaker 1: telltale heart stuff going on here. By the way, the
Speaker 1: fact that this gets released a few days before the confirmation,
Speaker 1: it makes everybody look stupid, right. It makes the people
Speaker 1: supported Trump look stupid. It makes Trump look stupid. It
Speaker 1: makes the people who know that Trump did someling wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know it under it sort of makes
Speaker 1: a mockery of everyone on the left and the right
Speaker 1: because it shows that the system doesn't work, that it
Speaker 1: didn't work, and that you know, Trump is now going
Speaker 1: back into office. So I think of it as like
Speaker 1: it really shows it on every point that nobody did
Speaker 1: what they were supposed to do, and that democracy, you know,
Speaker 1: it continues to be in real peril.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of things that are in peril. For as
Speaker 2: long as I can remember paying attention to the news
Speaker 2: would be sitting at the table with my family. I
Speaker 2: can remember Republicans wanting to cut SNAP. But I would say,
Speaker 2: right now, we're probably in the time where the crosshairs
Speaker 2: could be shot most effectively, and it's looking like that's
Speaker 2: where Republicans are aiming very early on in these first
Speaker 2: hundred days of the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: So the central tension here is that Trump and Republicans
Speaker 1: want to cut the social safety net. They want to
Speaker 1: take away stuff like Snap, and they want to do it.
Speaker 1: That's food stamps. They used to be called food stamps
Speaker 1: when we were young. They want to do it in
Speaker 1: order to pay for these billionaire tax cuts, millionaire billionaire
Speaker 1: tax cuts. So the underlying tension of the election was
Speaker 1: always that these twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen tax cuts, they
Speaker 1: basically the only piece of legislation Trump was able to enact,
Speaker 1: would expire if Biden or Harris Scott elected, re elected,
Speaker 1: and so what happened instead when Trump won was that
Speaker 1: he wants to make the fiscal conservatives happy by giving
Speaker 1: them something. He wants to keep these tax cuts where
Speaker 1: they are, and so what he is planning to do
Speaker 1: is cut Social Security of Medicare. But that's very unpopular,
Speaker 1: and so Republicans are trying to figure out a way
Speaker 1: to cut Social Security and Medicare without getting political blowback
Speaker 1: for cutting Social Security and Medicare. And there's different stuff
Speaker 1: going around. Look, you know, Mike Johnson has a one
Speaker 1: seat majority in the United States Congress. He has now
Speaker 1: been told that he has to punish California for having wildfires,
Speaker 1: you know, even though they are the fifth largest economy
Speaker 1: in the world and pay into the federal government quite
Speaker 1: a bit more than any of the states that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump likes. Right, there's sort of the quote unquote good states.
Speaker 1: So hard for me to imagine that this will end
Speaker 1: well for anyone. I do want to just add the
Speaker 1: California if they decide they don't want to be a
Speaker 1: part of America, they could be their own country tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And so playing chicken with California on federal aid seems
Speaker 1: like a loser for them right, because, like think about it,
Speaker 1: there is no world in which this doesn't end poorly
Speaker 1: for Trump and for everyone involved. So I think that
Speaker 1: I think that that ultimately California will get as much
Speaker 1: eight as it wants. And I think that all this
Speaker 1: dumb grandstanding about woke won't serve anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, except for Republican fundraising from the people who who
Speaker 2: cheer for that stuff.
Speaker 1: George Conway is a contributor to the Atlantic and a lawyer.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, too Fast Politics, My best friend and also
Speaker 1: fellow dog owner, the one the only Papa Conway.
Speaker 6: Welcome, Welcome, well, thank you for having me once again
Speaker 6: for the five thousand, six hundred and forty seventh time.
Speaker 1: Look, man, you make good content.
Speaker 6: We're just here, No, I just feel when you can't
Speaker 6: find anybody better. I'm the one you go to, which
Speaker 6: is fine, Which is fine. That's one role as your friend,
Speaker 6: it's my role.
Speaker 1: That is an insane, insane thing to think, but I'll
Speaker 1: let you do if it keep if it keeps you humble.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about why it's a bad idea to issue
Speaker 1: preemptive pardons and make a complete mockery out of the
Speaker 1: justice system. You might not know where I stand on this.
Speaker 6: I don't believe in making a complete mockery of the
Speaker 6: justice system. So therefore, if you believe that the preemptive
Speaker 6: Partners would do that, I support your position completely. No
Speaker 6: I understand the rationale for them or the motivation for them.
Speaker 6: I think there are a lot of people and have
Speaker 6: actually had this discussion on Michael Cohen's podcast and express
Speaker 6: this view, and he yelled at me, but he always yells,
Speaker 6: that's what he does on his podcast. But my view,
Speaker 6: you know, I feel bad for the people who could
Speaker 6: potentially be victimized by bullshit prosecutions by the next administration.
Speaker 6: On the other hand, I don't believe that people who
Speaker 6: have not done anything wrong should be tarnished with the
Speaker 6: suggestion they have done in something by being offered a pardon.
Speaker 6: And I think legally accepting a pardon does not actually
Speaker 6: constitute an admission of guilt, but it is commonly viewed
Speaker 6: as such. I think the best way to defend people
Speaker 6: who are subject to false accusations and trumped up accusations,
Speaker 6: so to speak, would be to defend them, and I,
Speaker 6: for one, will contribute money and I will contribute time
Speaker 6: to help these people I think there are going to
Speaker 6: be a lot of lawyers who will volunteer to help
Speaker 6: these people. And that being said, I don't you know,
Speaker 6: it's small consolation to having your life potentially turned upside
Speaker 6: down by bullsh investigation. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: I still think there is some justice left in our
Speaker 6: justice system. And you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: you still have to prove of facts in a courtroom
Speaker 6: beyond a reasonable doubt that const due to crime in
Speaker 6: order to put somebody in jail, and with good lawyering,
Speaker 6: and I think that, you know, the risk that people
Speaker 6: are really going to be unjustly prosecuted is not high
Speaker 6: and convicted, I deeply, deeply empathize with people who might
Speaker 6: be subject to this. This is just the way we
Speaker 6: have to do it. I mean, I don't think the
Speaker 6: preemptive party really would be constructive. It would be used
Speaker 6: politically against the people who are standing up for democracy.
Speaker 6: I just think there's so many reasons that it's a
Speaker 6: bad idea. It shouldn't get off ground. And I think
Speaker 6: I don't think it's actually going to happen. I think
Speaker 6: what happened by now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I also think part of it is that
Speaker 1: the people who are the very famous people like the
Speaker 1: Liz Chenese. It ultimately is actually worse to publicly take
Speaker 1: these pardons, is worse for democratic norms than to not.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I am sure that Liz Cheney would never accept
Speaker 6: the party, she would not ask for one, and she'd
Speaker 6: be perfectly happy to engage in a fight over And
Speaker 6: they have so many defenses, these people who worked in
Speaker 6: the January sixth Committee, this is all going to end
Speaker 6: up being smoke by the chief lunatic. My new title
Speaker 6: for him is first Felon of the United States. And
Speaker 6: again that's ffotus all caps. It should be capitalized because
Speaker 6: out of respect, first felons should be capitalized. It should
Speaker 6: be capitalized because it's referring very specifically to an individual.
Speaker 6: So any English teacher will tell you that he is
Speaker 6: the first felon in multiple senses, the first felon to
Speaker 6: ever be elected president and to become president. He is
Speaker 6: the chief felon of the United States in the sense
Speaker 6: there are no other felons who really exceed his authority
Speaker 6: in power. And I was achieved as much as him,
Speaker 6: so I mean, he really is the first felon of
Speaker 6: the United States. And maybe I should raise some money
Speaker 6: for a billboard.
Speaker 1: I think that's coming. There's no way that's not coming.
Speaker 6: Billboard to go up and say, welcome to you know,
Speaker 6: to somewhere in Palm Beach. Welcome to mar A Lago,
Speaker 6: home of the nation's first felon. First felon, of course,
Speaker 6: would be really nice mugshot picture of the first felon.
Speaker 1: That's wonderful.
Speaker 6: This is and this is my announcement of this idea.
Speaker 6: I think people should do this maybe and I save
Speaker 6: this for your podcast.
Speaker 1: It clearly seems that this is coming. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the Jack Smith report that broke last night. It
Speaker 1: feels to me, and again I could be wrong, that
Speaker 1: were those two have dropped a little earlier, it would
Speaker 1: have been a little bit better to discuss.
Speaker 6: I think it would have been better for the report
Speaker 6: to have dropped earlier. I think it would even be
Speaker 6: better than better if the whole investigation had been conducted earlier.
Speaker 6: It led to this report. The report is, you know,
Speaker 6: absolutely a scathing condemnation of the first felon of the
Speaker 6: United States, but it doesn't add much to the public record.
Speaker 6: I mean I skimmed through it and I read the
Speaker 6: press reports because I figured that if there was something
Speaker 6: additional juice, that there was juicy that we didn't know before,
Speaker 6: the press would have seized on it. But I skimmed
Speaker 6: the one hundred and thirty seven page and then footnotes,
Speaker 6: and it doesn't appear that there is that much in
Speaker 6: there that is new, I mean. And the fact of
Speaker 6: the matter is, most of what we know about what
Speaker 6: Trump did on January sixth, twenty twenty one, we knew
Speaker 6: by January eighth, twenty twenty one, Okay, after we read
Speaker 6: the morning newspapers on that day, after a full day
Speaker 6: of reporting, knew what he did, what most of what
Speaker 6: he did was on the public record, and it certainly
Speaker 6: was you know, I think the January sixth committee did
Speaker 6: an excellent job investigating this, and I think I'm sure
Speaker 6: Jack Smith not only replicated that but exceeded that. But
Speaker 6: the truth of the matter is we've already seen basically
Speaker 6: what the material that would have prosecuted him and convicted him,
Speaker 6: you know, when after the Supreme Court's Community decision, it's
Speaker 6: all out there, and all of that information, most of
Speaker 6: that information, it wasn't necessary to conduct all of those
Speaker 6: other investigations of all the minions, the one thousand people,
Speaker 6: the Proud Boys, the whatnot and the other hooligans who
Speaker 6: were convicted. There should have been a parallel investigation starting
Speaker 6: champe Ey twentieth twenty first, twenty twenty one, the US
Speaker 6: Attorney's office. They should have handled the people on the hill,
Speaker 6: the jan sixers, the little guys, and there should have
Speaker 6: been a special council appointed then to handle what happened
Speaker 6: from the White House down and then could have them
Speaker 6: meet if there were connections, you have the people work together.
Speaker 6: But if they had done that, this case would have
Speaker 6: been tried two years ago or three. It wasn't that complicated.
Speaker 6: Knew what he did on the theories that Smith ultimately
Speaker 6: brought this case, and it was a streamline case because
Speaker 6: it was directed at one man, the man who, as
Speaker 6: the report says, instigated the entire event, the entire attempt
Speaker 6: to overthrow the Constitution of the United States, and the
Speaker 6: violence against police office, the destruction at the Capitol. It
Speaker 6: was all because of him. Now you cannot you can't
Speaker 6: say that he was conspiring with the individuals who conducted
Speaker 6: the physical violence. But he did try to pollute the
Speaker 6: electoral process. He tried to commit fraud on state legislators,
Speaker 6: on the Congress, all selectoral certificates, so many things that
Speaker 6: just basically were out there in the public, and the
Speaker 6: theories on which Trump was charged didn't require an investigation
Speaker 6: from the bottom up. Now, I hate to say this
Speaker 6: about Garland because I admire Attorney General Garland for his
Speaker 6: intelligence and his integrity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's go. I love this, let's go, let's
Speaker 1: get this.
Speaker 6: Report is effectively a significant condemnation of how he conducted
Speaker 6: himself in his four years. This information could have been
Speaker 6: obtained by twenty twenty three, at the latest of twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we saw it on television.
Speaker 6: We saw it on television, as again or repeating myself.
Speaker 6: And the other thing is that what happened was because
Speaker 6: there was no ongoing investigation in twenty twenty one of
Speaker 6: Trump people forgot about his It should have been immediately
Speaker 6: framed as potential criminality, which it was potential criminality, but
Speaker 6: it wasn't framed as such because everybody was. The Justice
Speaker 6: Department went off and did what it had to do,
Speaker 6: which is prosecute the hundreds of hooligans and morons who
Speaker 6: conducted all the destruction on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 1: Mayor Garland was a person whose whole life was about
Speaker 1: becoming a Freme Court justice, world's most careful person. Ever,
Speaker 1: that is not so one you should have leading the DOJ.
Speaker 6: Well, it isn't, It isn't. I mean, I'm not second
Speaker 6: guessing him, okay, because I'm first guess. On the day
Speaker 6: after the inauguration, you may recall, I wrote a five
Speaker 6: thousand word piece argue that multiple special counsels should be
Speaker 6: a point to investigating Trump because there were so many
Speaker 6: different things that he committed that did that were potentially criminal,
Speaker 6: from his finances to the Stormy Daniel's case to Ukraine,
Speaker 6: the Ukraine extortion that was criminal. Also, this is first guessing,
Speaker 6: not second guessing. And I think history is not going
Speaker 6: to look well on Attorney General Garland. And I hate
Speaker 6: to say that because I think, you know, he was
Speaker 6: an admirable person. All You're right, he was in the
Speaker 6: wrong job. It was the wrong job. I mean that,
Speaker 6: I think really more than anything. I mean, I think
Speaker 6: it was important to have somebody a perceived integrity, which
Speaker 6: he has, right but in the end, but in the end,
Speaker 6: you needed somebody who was going to push this thing
Speaker 6: fast and he ultimately found the guy to do that.
Speaker 6: And you look at look at other criminal prosecutors, look
Speaker 6: at Menendez. He got convicted, and he was indicted after Trump.
Speaker 1: And Menendez going to jail, correct.
Speaker 6: And he was indicted. I think after Trump it was
Speaker 6: imperative to keep the thing going just because to move
Speaker 6: the thing quickly, not only because it was important that
Speaker 6: this was the most significant crime they have committed in
Speaker 6: public life ever, but because Trump could be depended upon
Speaker 6: to run again in order to avoid prosecution. Was pretty
Speaker 6: clear he was going to do that by twenty twenty one.
Speaker 6: And this notion, this self deceptive notion that both Senator
Speaker 6: McConnell had, that Trump would somehow go away, which it
Speaker 6: was shared by them by people in the Biden administration,
Speaker 6: a lot.
Speaker 1: Of people on the Biden administration.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this man is like a vampire.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I also think these are the norms that he crushed.
Speaker 1: To think that those norms would somehow work to prevent
Speaker 1: him from bad and criminal acts is kind of nutting.
Speaker 6: Well, no, the norms are fine, The norms were fine.
Speaker 1: Well, they didn't work, right.
Speaker 6: They can work, they do work, they should work.
Speaker 1: They usually work on someone normal.
Speaker 6: But the reason is there was a lack of energy.
Speaker 1: This is a small point, but I'm going to make
Speaker 1: it because it's my podcast. Is that these norms work
Speaker 1: if you have shame or if you have some pause,
Speaker 1: and they work on literally almost everyone, but they don't
Speaker 1: work on Trump and to try and use them.
Speaker 6: Okay, we're talking about different norms. You're talking about norms
Speaker 6: of behavior.
Speaker 1: No, I'm talking about Justice Department norms. Right, Like, usually
Speaker 1: when you have somebody in a court case at some
Speaker 1: point that they sit for trials or they follow subpoenas.
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't do stuff like that.
Speaker 6: Look, I don't agree in the following sense. Yeah, I
Speaker 6: guess he doesn't follow to me, yes, but you can,
Speaker 6: you can enforce things against him. There was nothing preventing
Speaker 6: Garland from getting all the evidence that he needed. The
Speaker 6: problem was that the norms were not followed by the
Speaker 6: Justice party. He was not treated like the criminal that
Speaker 6: he is. Okay, you know he complains that he was
Speaker 6: singled out. Yeah, he was singled out for special helpful
Speaker 6: treatment to him. Anybody else who did this, Okay, like
Speaker 6: the classified documenting the class would have been basically arraigned immediately.
Speaker 1: Right, let's have two seconds here, on the head Seth fight.
Speaker 1: So Pete headsets totally unqualified allegations of sexual.
Speaker 6: I disagree that he's totally unqualified. The United States Department
Speaker 6: of Defense is probably I mean, it's the largest employer
Speaker 6: in the world, and it is probably the largest purchaser
Speaker 6: of alcohol in the world. I mean, you think about it.
Speaker 6: You've got px's all around the nation, you have officers clubs.
Speaker 6: There is no way that the Department of Defense isn't
Speaker 6: the largest booze purchaser on the planet. And that is
Speaker 6: something that heg Seth could manage.
Speaker 1: Yes, very much.
Speaker 6: In fact, I mean I think I'm sure the Joint
Speaker 6: chiefs will be happy to take him on a tour
Speaker 6: of all the officers clubs to keep him busy whilst
Speaker 6: they conduct the business of the other business.
Speaker 1: So just to just to cut you off here for
Speaker 1: a second, as much.
Speaker 6: As I well, you're you made the mistake of inviting you.
Speaker 1: No, I'm happy to have you, but just for two seconds.
Speaker 1: There's a real pressure campaign going on. Heg Seth has
Speaker 1: sherpas who are very much good at doing that Maga
Speaker 1: thing of intimidating people and making them do what they want.
Speaker 1: Does he get the only sort of people who could
Speaker 1: possibly There was a piece yesterday in The New Yorker
Speaker 1: from by our friend Jane Mayer who said that basically
Speaker 1: Collins refused to meet with the with one of the
Speaker 1: alleged victims. So talk to us about one of the accusers.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about what you think. I mean, does
Speaker 1: he get through? And if he gets through, is he
Speaker 1: put in a little room where he can buy all
Speaker 1: the booze? I mean, where does this go?
Speaker 6: I have said time and again and I repeat myself
Speaker 6: that nobody is ever going to go broke betting on
Speaker 6: the spinelessness of Republican senators. Okay, so that that's that's
Speaker 6: the thing. I mean, obviously, if if two or three break,
Speaker 6: that could be you know, that should be enough. But
Speaker 6: you know, unless they if Jony Earns caves, if these
Speaker 6: if these women cave, if Senator Collins won't even meet
Speaker 6: with some of the victim, I mean, you know, that
Speaker 6: tells you a lot. It tells you that that tells
Speaker 6: you that they're afraid that the cowards and they consider
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, I susant Collins. So how when
Speaker 6: is she up again for re election.
Speaker 1: In two years?
Speaker 6: In two years it's like, and how old is she?
Speaker 1: And that's a purple state.
Speaker 6: That is a purple state.
Speaker 7: It's my point is like these people care less about
Speaker 7: their own reputation and integrity, and they're they're willing to
Speaker 7: debase themselves time and again for this mean even the
Speaker 7: better and Collins is a little bit better, not much, right,
Speaker 7: but but she is a little bit better. I mean,
Speaker 7: you know, I like to see what Murkowski's gonna do.
Speaker 6: She's got some.
Speaker 1: Cohmonists, Yeah she does.
Speaker 6: And Joanie Ernst, who actually knows, you know, who is
Speaker 6: really good on defense issues and there's a good reputation
Speaker 6: on defense issues, and herself was an assault victim. If
Speaker 6: Trump gets her vote, it's over. The guy's going to
Speaker 6: go through. But it just shocks me that these people
Speaker 6: put there. I mean, why be elected to an office
Speaker 6: if you're going to debase yourself. I do not understand that.
Speaker 6: It's something that I will carry with me to my
Speaker 6: grave about Republican politicians and the spinelessness of Republican politicians,
Speaker 6: which is why we have Donald Trump today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. The one sort of real piece of news
Speaker 1: from this report was this Pence that Trump while he
Speaker 1: was watching the riot rage. The TV where Trump was
Speaker 1: sitting show a rider saying that Pence was Trump's last hope,
Speaker 1: and then Trump issued a tweet directing the mob to
Speaker 1: target Pens Is that sort of I mean we sort
Speaker 1: of knew that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, the exact
Speaker 6: timing of it is interesting, but we knew. We mean,
Speaker 6: he was pressuring Pence for weeks, okay, and they met
Speaker 6: and it wasn't a pleasant meeting. So of course he
Speaker 6: was going to say something about Pence of course, like
Speaker 6: we can't be friends. And good for Karen Pence for
Speaker 6: not even acknowledging Donald.
Speaker 1: Trumps mother Beence. Welcome to the resistance, mother.
Speaker 6: Pet Yes exactly.
Speaker 1: George Conway the one, the only Thank you for joining.
Speaker 6: Always good.
Speaker 1: Ryan Mack is a journalist at the New York Times
Speaker 1: and the co author of Character Limit, How Elon Musk
Speaker 1: Destroyed Twitter. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Ryan Mack.
Speaker 8: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Delighted to have you. So you are right now in California.
Speaker 1: You are where the fires are. You've been reporting about
Speaker 1: the fires. So can you get us sort of caught
Speaker 1: up on where we are now?
Speaker 8: Sure? I'm typically a technology for the New York Times.
Speaker 8: I'm based in Los Angeles, but for the last week
Speaker 8: I've been turned into a full time fire reporter. You know,
Speaker 8: it's all hands on deck down here. It's kind of
Speaker 8: an unprecedented disaster. I've kind of lent my reporting help
Speaker 8: to where I can around the newsroom. You know where
Speaker 8: we stand right now. There's two major fires, the Palisades
Speaker 8: Fire which is still raging, as well as the Eton
Speaker 8: fire out in kind of the eastern part of LA
Speaker 8: and around a town called Altadena, which was devastated. I've
Speaker 8: been reporting largely in Altadena. I haven't been to the
Speaker 8: Palisades yet, but I can tell you what I've seen
Speaker 8: out there is just absolute destruction of whole neighborhoods. A
Speaker 8: lot of folks have used this metaphor of a bomb
Speaker 8: going off, and I've never been in a bomb zone
Speaker 8: or a war zone, but it looks bad. It's just horrible.
Speaker 8: So yeah, we have dozens of reporters around town. They're
Speaker 8: a measurable number of outlets here trying to understand what's happening.
Speaker 8: There haven't been a clear picture of how these fires started,
Speaker 8: but they have spread very rapidly given the weather conditions
Speaker 8: down here and terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from what I understand, the Altadena fire and the
Speaker 1: Pasadena fire are now contained right or out.
Speaker 8: No, the Altadena fire, which is the Eden fire, is
Speaker 8: still going. I think the last I checked it was
Speaker 8: in the thirty ish percentage containment is where they were
Speaker 8: estimating it at. The Palacies fires is less contained. That's
Speaker 8: on the west side of La. It's threatening communities in.
Speaker 1: Malibu and Brentwood, right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was stopped from going to Brentwood, which is
Speaker 8: another neighborhood, but it's kind of moving westward up into
Speaker 8: some more rural areas. But there are people up there,
Speaker 8: you know, into Panga, into Malibu, and they're continuing to go.
Speaker 8: You know, there's we're talking on a Tuesday afternoon right now.
Speaker 8: The winds are supposed to get continue to be bad
Speaker 8: through tonight and so we're just going to have to
Speaker 8: see where we end up tomorrow morning with the winds
Speaker 8: and if other you know, if this thing picks up.
Speaker 8: There have been other fires that have started as well
Speaker 8: in the southern California region, and there's one now called
Speaker 8: the Auto Fire, which is more towards Oxnard, which is
Speaker 8: kind of northwest. So you know, they're beyond the fires
Speaker 8: that are happening now, there's a lot of concern about
Speaker 8: other ones starting some of the inland Empire and what
Speaker 8: those could do to kind of already stretched resources.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us sort of what because I've
Speaker 1: been following them, because my brother lives there, my father.
Speaker 1: What I've had a really hard time sort of getting
Speaker 1: my head around is kind of like how this happened,
Speaker 1: because it seems like there are a number of factors
Speaker 1: that caused this, and I'm wondering if you could just
Speaker 1: talk us through that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think at first I'd like to speak to
Speaker 8: like understanding how this is because you know, I haven't
Speaker 8: really lived through a fire like this in my lifetime,
Speaker 8: even though I've grown up in southern California, grew up
Speaker 8: in Orange County and fires are kind of always a threat.
Speaker 8: You know, I haven't lived in a neighborhood that's been
Speaker 8: devastated in this way.
Speaker 1: But from Diddion to Nathaniel West, I mean this has
Speaker 1: been a It's yeah, it's part of.
Speaker 8: The way of life done here. But I will say,
Speaker 8: like now, having lived through on I don't think you
Speaker 8: can understand the scale until you've been here. You know,
Speaker 8: it almost consumes your life. You wake up every morning,
Speaker 8: I now check this app called Watch Duty, which I
Speaker 8: wrote about recently me too, you know, to check the containment.
Speaker 8: You know, you're paying attention to very large aircraft these
Speaker 8: like water carriers and where those are going. You're paying
Speaker 8: attention to the press conferences that are happening every couple
Speaker 8: hours to get updates on you know, number of missing people,
Speaker 8: number of dead, and it just consumes you. Yeah, and
Speaker 8: now having that's been my last week, it's been it's
Speaker 8: been interesting because you know, I've read about disasters in
Speaker 8: the past, especially things like the hurricanes down in you know,
Speaker 8: the Southeast that happened late last year, but when you're
Speaker 8: living through it, it's it's a whole nother matter. It's just
Speaker 8: been devastating.
Speaker 1: The problem was that it was so many fires. Just
Speaker 1: sort of get us up to speed on.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there was a lot of concern heading into you know,
Speaker 8: last Tuesday, a week ago, there were these very high
Speaker 8: winds that were coming through southern California, known as the
Speaker 8: Santa Ana Winds. I know, winds are a part of
Speaker 8: life here, especially in this time of year, but there
Speaker 8: was already concern that if there was a fire event.
Speaker 8: These winds could spread embers very quickly. It could spread
Speaker 8: fires very quickly, and there's a lot of dry vegetation
Speaker 8: in these hillsides and on these mountains that could be
Speaker 8: consumed by an inferno. And on top of that, I
Speaker 8: don't think we had the resources to be prepared for
Speaker 8: kind of a two pronged attack in a way, you know,
Speaker 8: if I think, you know, if there had been one fire,
Speaker 8: it would have been more manageable. But because there were
Speaker 8: two fires that happened in quick succession, you know, the
Speaker 8: winds also prevented these aircraft from getting up in the
Speaker 8: air and being able to douse these blazes. So this
Speaker 8: thing just took off first in the Palisades and then
Speaker 8: in Altadena up in the hills and were kind of unmitigated,
Speaker 8: you know. I was I was talking to residents in
Speaker 8: Altadena who who got alerts about the wind, but by
Speaker 8: the time the fire was literally at their doors or
Speaker 8: they had no more service, the power was out in
Speaker 8: their area, They had no internet, they couldn't have communication,
Speaker 8: and they kind of just got up and left because
Speaker 8: they were smoking their homes, their trees were on fire.
Speaker 8: I don't know We're still assessing the causes and the
Speaker 8: failures here, but there seemed to be a failure of
Speaker 8: communication of significant warning, even though there was already concerns
Speaker 8: about the winds. And I don't think anyone expected that
Speaker 8: these fires could go into these neighborhoods in the way
Speaker 8: that it did. Became an urban fire in a way
Speaker 8: where it hopped from home to home. You know, we
Speaker 8: think about fires in southern California, you know, going through
Speaker 8: the brush and rural areas or non populated areas, But
Speaker 8: in Altadena, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains,
Speaker 8: like this fire moved miles beyond the mountains into the town,
Speaker 8: to the point where you can go for blocks and
Speaker 8: not find kind of an intact home.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about misinformation, because it feels like
Speaker 1: there's been a fallod of misinformation here. It's hard for
Speaker 1: even me, like works in this business, to sort of
Speaker 1: figure out like what's real what's not real? Like and
Speaker 1: I know that the right has wanted to say this
Speaker 1: was fires started by migrants, that this was somehow the
Speaker 1: fault of homeless people. So can you just talk us
Speaker 1: through some of the misinformation going on?
Speaker 8: I think The key to understand any disaster is that
Speaker 8: there's always going to be fear. There's real fear among
Speaker 8: people who aren't getting high quality information because we simply
Speaker 8: just don't know. And in those you know, minutes, in
Speaker 8: those hours, in those days where there is a lack
Speaker 8: of good information, you know, there there is bad information
Speaker 8: that's going to permeate, and there are people that are
Speaker 8: going to try and take advantage of that situation and
Speaker 8: spread bad information. Whether that's because they you know, are
Speaker 8: trying to mean well and they're trying to you know,
Speaker 8: help others, or they're maybe trying to you know, advance
Speaker 8: some position politically. There was a lot of blame on versity,
Speaker 8: equity and inclusion initiatives in city government for example. You
Speaker 8: know that is a kind of favorite right wing argument
Speaker 8: that DEI is destroying the world. I mean we saw
Speaker 8: it when, for example, the doors were falling off Boeing planes.
Speaker 8: You know, right wing influencers and kind of high profile
Speaker 8: and high profile individuals we're pushing this idea that you know,
Speaker 8: Boeing is woke and it's affected by DEI and therefore
Speaker 8: you know, pilots are bad and planes are bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, is greed whoa now.
Speaker 8: And you know that that became an argument, and immediately
Speaker 8: after the fires, you know, people just looking for things
Speaker 8: to blame, organizations to blame, and yeah, and that environment
Speaker 8: causes certain misinformation to proliferate, and it's hard beating back
Speaker 8: those essentially lies in those moments because you know, as
Speaker 8: a reporter, you're trying to report accurately. You know, you're
Speaker 8: trying to check everything, whereas someone who is you know,
Speaker 8: spreading information only has to hit their re tweet button
Speaker 8: or has to put some unverified claim online and it spreads. So, yeah,
Speaker 8: I saw the DEI stuff. There's a you know, discussion
Speaker 8: about migrants for example, kind of your play the hits
Speaker 8: kind of from right wing members. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a lot of blame, you know, towards
Speaker 1: elected I get, I completely get. I have to say
Speaker 1: part of the problem, from what I understand, is that
Speaker 1: the fact that they were multiple fires meant that even
Speaker 1: though there was quite a lot of water, the water
Speaker 1: pressure ended up dropping and that was why some of
Speaker 1: the hydrants were empty. Is that correct or Am I
Speaker 1: wrong there?
Speaker 8: Yeah, there are a lot of concerns about about water,
Speaker 8: and I don't think we've ascertained what exactly happened here.
Speaker 8: But I mean, oh.
Speaker 1: Really, so you think it might be the reservoirs, because
Speaker 1: I know there's one reservoir that was offline.
Speaker 8: You think about your home, right and this is a
Speaker 8: firefighter put this to me. You know, think about your home.
Speaker 8: Let's say you turn all your all yours. You know
Speaker 8: you're not going to get the best you know in
Speaker 8: your home, you're not going to get the best shower
Speaker 8: pressure water pressure from your shower. Similar kind of thing
Speaker 8: happened here where people are all drawing from the same source.
Speaker 8: You know, you have firefighters trying to link into hydrants,
Speaker 8: you have people trying to use their garden hoses to
Speaker 8: spray down their rooftops. You know, everyone's trying to save
Speaker 8: their homes, and it's drawing from this resource and preventing
Speaker 8: sometimes emergency workers from getting the best possible use of water.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you think it was water pressure.
Speaker 8: Though, h yeah. And I mean I've talked to some
Speaker 8: firefighters in Altadena, for example, who said, you know, above
Speaker 8: a certain above a certain street, they would tap into
Speaker 8: a fire hydrant and wouldn't get any water at all.
Speaker 8: A thing that we have to think about as well,
Speaker 8: in which we also saw in Malle for example, with
Speaker 8: that kind of horrible fire. Is that when you turn
Speaker 8: the power off, it prevents the pumps from going and
Speaker 8: pumping water through the system. And so there's always this
Speaker 8: trade off of turning off power.
Speaker 1: Explain why you why they turn off the power.
Speaker 8: They turn off the powers to prevent these lines from
Speaker 8: being electrified. You know, these above ground lines which could
Speaker 8: you know, fall in high winds and spark a blaze.
Speaker 8: So utility companies are always weighing this kind of trade
Speaker 8: off of do we keep the power on and run
Speaker 8: this risk you know of potentially a power line going
Speaker 8: down and sparking a flame, but you know, maintaining power
Speaker 8: to people who who would be unhappy if their power
Speaker 8: went out, maintaining the water because you know, water pumps
Speaker 8: rely on on electricity, or do we turn this thing
Speaker 8: off and you know, maybe piss off residents, but you know,
Speaker 8: prevent that fire risk from happening. And I think it's
Speaker 8: a really tough call because you don't know when you
Speaker 8: when you've made the right decision, when you turn off
Speaker 8: the power and everything goes right and then no fire happens.
Speaker 8: It's not like you get a pat on the back
Speaker 8: and be like, yeah, you stop that fire, because you
Speaker 8: know no one, no one knows that you stop that fire. Right,
Speaker 8: there's no reward for that. And actually, some some utilities
Speaker 8: here we've understood like don't even have a power shut
Speaker 8: off plan, Like they it's not in their emergency plan
Speaker 8: to shut off the power. There's other mitigation techniques. That's
Speaker 8: kind of the trade off there with electricity.
Speaker 1: So let's talk for a minute about preparedness because this
Speaker 1: is the new normal, right, probably not five fires going
Speaker 1: at once, but certainly we will see more fires, more
Speaker 1: dry cartments, more fires. This is where climate change is going.
Speaker 1: This is where we're heading. Since you are in California,
Speaker 1: since you are in southern California, you're seeing the discussion
Speaker 1: move towards. For example, we know that in Pacific Palisades
Speaker 1: a lot, you know, a state farm dumped like twelve
Speaker 1: hundred policies in July. So here you have a scenario
Speaker 1: where people can't get insurance, which means they can't get mortgages,
Speaker 1: which means they maybe can't rebuild, so or they get
Speaker 1: the money, but they rebuild, but they can't they can't
Speaker 1: insure the value. So do you think there's an eye
Speaker 1: for what a new California can look like? Or do
Speaker 1: you think too soon? And what's the conversation around that.
Speaker 8: I know those discussions are happening. I've been so close
Speaker 8: to the ground and paying attention to you know, just
Speaker 8: people sifting through their rubble and trying to say what
Speaker 8: you know was left people trying to figure out where
Speaker 8: they're sleeping tonight. You know, I've been in Altadina more
Speaker 8: than the Palisades. I haven't been in Palisades at all,
Speaker 8: but Altadena is not as wealthy of a neighborhood as
Speaker 8: the Palisades, and so you have people sleeping in their
Speaker 8: cars and you know, packed into the surviving home of
Speaker 8: the family. You know, you have people thirteen fifteen people
Speaker 8: sleeping in a home now because all these families are
Speaker 8: crammed in there because homes are lost. So yeah, I
Speaker 8: think that discussion is being is happening. It's certainly being had,
Speaker 8: and there's wondering about how LA will rebuild. It's just
Speaker 8: not something I've really been in tune with because you know,
Speaker 8: I've been out in the field.
Speaker 1: In the field, though, are people talking about rebuilding their houses?
Speaker 1: I mean, how are they sort of processing this loss.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's tough. Alta Dina for example, these some of
Speaker 8: these families have lived there for decades, many generations within
Speaker 8: their homes. Altadena is a pretty diverse community. Black Hispanic families.
Speaker 8: There are you know, white families some like that have
Speaker 8: moved in recently as property values have gone up and
Speaker 8: has become kind of a more desirable place to live.
Speaker 8: You know, Altadenas is somewhat more rural than your average
Speaker 8: Los Angeles county town. People keep horses, for example. You
Speaker 8: get a lot of space, and it's on the east side.
Speaker 8: But these families that have lived there for decades have
Speaker 8: seen their home values go up astronomically. You know, some
Speaker 8: people have talked to you know, their parents bought their
Speaker 8: home for one hundred thousand dollars and now it's I
Speaker 8: think the average home values anywhere from one point two
Speaker 8: to one and a half million dollars in the area,
Speaker 8: and so that was kind of everything for them, right
Speaker 8: that was that was their generational wealth. And so now
Speaker 8: that that's gone, that's taken from them. They're not sure
Speaker 8: because like it's going to be expensive to rebuild. Even
Speaker 8: if they do rebuild again, Like we talked about you,
Speaker 8: you're not clear if they're going to be ensured. So
Speaker 8: what happened if another event like this happens again, Because
Speaker 8: it's very likely, you know, we're not in a situation
Speaker 8: where we are reversing the effects of climate change. Yeah,
Speaker 8: it's super tough. And there are people in those neighborhoods
Speaker 8: whose homes have survived, and you ask it sometimes. You know,
Speaker 8: it's also very random where the fire hits, right, because
Speaker 8: I've been on blocks where there's one or two homes
Speaker 8: that have survived and the rest of like completely been
Speaker 8: you know, incinerated. And you talk to those people and
Speaker 8: they're like, I'm lucky my home survived. But am I
Speaker 8: really lucky because I'm going to live in this neighborhood
Speaker 8: where there's nothing around me and it's going to be
Speaker 8: under construction for years, if under construction at all. So yeah,
Speaker 8: it's just it's such a tragedy.
Speaker 1: Here you are covering this place where you grew up,
Speaker 1: basically like you're breathing the air, you're watching the sort
Speaker 1: raine from the sky. How are you handling it well?
Speaker 8: For when I want to underline that I'm extremely lucky,
Speaker 8: Like my home was not affected. I was out of
Speaker 8: an evacuation zone, and my way working through this is
Speaker 8: and helping others is kind of reporting on it the
Speaker 8: best I can. That being said, as a resident of
Speaker 8: LA with you know, La County, with some ten million
Speaker 8: other people, I'm concerned. You know, I don't know if
Speaker 8: they are on breeding is okay, you know, I don't
Speaker 8: know if the water supply is going to be okay.
Speaker 8: I'm concerned about people finding housing in a in already
Speaker 8: like kind of stretched housing market. You know, on a
Speaker 8: personal level, I've I thought of living here for a
Speaker 8: long time and buying a home eventually and kind of
Speaker 8: settling down. I don't know if that's feasible anymore, or
Speaker 8: if that's even a reasonable thing. And that's really sad
Speaker 8: to think about when you know you've finally, you know,
Speaker 8: I've moved around a bit in my life and finally
Speaker 8: find the place that you want to come back to
Speaker 8: because this is where I'm from and in a way,
Speaker 8: and I don't know if it's a long term option.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ryan Matt.
Speaker 8: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 6: No mor.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon Smelly.
Speaker 2: We have an update on a thing we've talked a
Speaker 2: lot about a continuous bit of fuckera down in North
Speaker 2: Carolina with former guests of the podcast Justice Riggs. Seems
Speaker 2: that she got a pretty great victory here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Justice Riggs, guest of this podcast Judge in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: so they won't be able to toss and North Carolina
Speaker 1: Judge denies Republicans' request to toss sixty thousand ballots. Look,
Speaker 1: Republicans did not win this Judge ship, but they really
Speaker 1: are mad. And when Republicans don't win, they cheat, and
Speaker 1: that is what we are seeing here is they want
Speaker 1: to cheat. They want to throw out with Justice Riggs
Speaker 1: her victory in order to win and keep control over
Speaker 1: North Carolina. You'll remember that North Carolina they ran a
Speaker 1: really terrible candidate for governor, a guy called Mark Robinson.
Speaker 1: He lost, which is probably the best thing we can
Speaker 1: say about him. And Republicans are really just trying to
Speaker 1: keep control over North Carolina. But they're doing it by
Speaker 1: trying to cheat, which is really just app absolutely should
Speaker 1: not be surprising to anyone. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and
Speaker 1: Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense.
Speaker 1: Of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
Speaker 1: send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.