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 VP Harris leads Trump by two
Speaker 1: points in a Reuter's ipsos poll. We have such a
Speaker 1: great show for you today. New York Times contributor Justin
Speaker 1: Wolfers drops by to talk about Biden's strong economy and
Speaker 1: how Kamala can run on it. Then we'll talk to
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Attorney Generals Andrea Campbell about regulating assault rifles. But
Speaker 1: first we have talking points memos. Josh Marshall, Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to have you because I feel like during.
Speaker 4: The last three weeks of just democratic freak out, you
Speaker 4: and I both had the same take, which was that
Speaker 4: all of this needed to slow.
Speaker 1: Down, and that the gut reac action to dump the nominee, well,
Speaker 1: it ultimately was the right call. I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't know yet, but people were just being a
Speaker 1: little bit emotional.
Speaker 2: I think that's right to me.
Speaker 5: As you say, I mean, we're kind of we're onto
Speaker 5: this new period yet, like you know, whether whether it's
Speaker 5: a good idea or not. It's the reality we're living in.
Speaker 5: If you're a Democrat and if you care about these things,
Speaker 5: there's you know, one choice, which is to get on
Speaker 5: board and get everybody pushing in the same direction. My
Speaker 5: sense from you know, the early days of this sort
Speaker 5: of like three weeks of agony that Democrats had, that
Speaker 5: people needed to understand the gravity of what they were proposing,
Speaker 5: that this is something that never happens. It's something that
Speaker 5: you know, the one if you if you look back
Speaker 5: through history, there is one singular thing that gets you
Speaker 5: elected president, and that is being president. Power of incumbency
Speaker 5: is just massive. And we had a primary process and
Speaker 5: Joe Biden was elected to be the nominee. You know,
Speaker 5: sometimes unforeseen things happen and you kind of have to
Speaker 5: toss the rule book out the window. But there's a
Speaker 5: reason there's a rule book. And at least for me,
Speaker 5: I was, you know, wanting to at least you know,
Speaker 5: to the extent that my job is to commentate and
Speaker 5: all that kind of stuff, to get people to slow
Speaker 5: down a bit and remember why that rule book exists,
Speaker 5: and that it's a pretty good one to follow except
Speaker 5: in extreme cases. And there's also you know, just one
Speaker 5: of these things that I always try to remind myself
Speaker 5: in politics, which is that it's important to keep your
Speaker 5: head about you, and it's very easy for that not
Speaker 5: to happen. And it's also important to not just keep
Speaker 5: your head about yourself, but maintain some kind of dignity
Speaker 5: and sense of balance in really extreme and frightening and
Speaker 5: bewildering moments, just because that's a good way to live
Speaker 5: in the world, right. I think this is a case where,
Speaker 5: you know, in piloting, they have something called I think
Speaker 5: it's like, you know, instruments only piloting or something like that,
Speaker 5: And what it is is that it's when you're in
Speaker 5: really bad weather conditions and you can't literally you can't see,
Speaker 5: you can't do it by eye. And what they tell
Speaker 5: pilots is you just look at your instruments because your
Speaker 5: sense of balance gets off, your sense of literally what's
Speaker 5: up and down gets off, how fast you're going gets off.
Speaker 5: Your brain is not able to process what's going on,
Speaker 5: and so you just look at your instruments and you
Speaker 5: don't look at anything else because you have all these
Speaker 5: cases where pilots, you know, like they fly straight into
Speaker 5: the ground because they think they're going up when they're
Speaker 5: going down, and in politically stormy moments, that's really key.
Speaker 5: And poles are the closest we have to instruments, even
Speaker 5: though they're very imperfect. There was that point where we'd
Speaker 5: been a couple weeks into this and in fact, the
Speaker 5: poles had maybe moved like literally one point. You know,
Speaker 5: I think what really decided this is that over the
Speaker 5: course of the last week they really did start to dip,
Speaker 5: but at least as long as we were in that
Speaker 5: you know, one point move.
Speaker 3: Right where it didn't move.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you kind of I think you have to say, like, look,
Speaker 5: maybe this is the right idea, but if you're telling
Speaker 5: us that he's done, he can't win. The bottom is
Speaker 5: falling out. Let's just take one moment to look at
Speaker 5: our only version of an instant panel and say, that's
Speaker 5: actually not true. The stormy weather and all the weirdness
Speaker 5: is making you think it's true, but it's actually not so. Anyway,
Speaker 5: that was I guess my version of kind of like,
Speaker 5: let's take this one step at a time.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I actually have a theory that those
Speaker 1: three weeks were really important for the base to galvanize
Speaker 1: around Kamal Harris, and that if he had just dropped
Speaker 1: out right after the debate and not waited to see
Speaker 1: some of the fallout, and there had not been these
Speaker 1: very obnoxious conversations where donors had said things like, can
Speaker 1: we skip over the vice president because, you know, because
Speaker 1: we think that these two white people from Anaheim are
Speaker 1: better to do this?
Speaker 3: You know, can we just west wing this thing?
Speaker 1: If there hadn't been that inane op ed where Aaron
Speaker 1: Sorkin had said that Democrats should nominate Mitt Romney, if
Speaker 1: we had not had those three weeks, there might have
Speaker 1: been more questions about Biden dropping out, Like I do
Speaker 1: think that letting it play out for those three weeks
Speaker 1: may have actually been a good thing. And then the
Speaker 1: Vice president has now raised one hundred million dollars. It
Speaker 1: was eighty, but now I think it's a I think
Speaker 1: I saw a hundred, but even.
Speaker 2: Still, I think at this point probably passed one hundred, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but eighty and twenty four, right, So that's record breaking.
Speaker 1: And we're seeing like a lot of enthusiasm for her.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Whether that enthusiasm translates to polls, we don't know, and
Speaker 1: whether those polls translate to winning again another question, But
Speaker 1: it's hard to think of a more seamless rollout. The
Speaker 1: other thing I want you to talk about because that
Speaker 1: speech yesterday in the campaign headquarters, which now, by the way,
Speaker 1: all those people live in Delaware forever. I'm sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, TJ. You'll grow to love Wilmington. But she came,
Speaker 1: and I thought the handoff was as generous a handoff
Speaker 1: as I had ever seen.
Speaker 5: I think so many people would agree with this, that
Speaker 5: if you care about beating Trump, if you care just
Speaker 5: about Joe Biden as president and as a person, and
Speaker 5: if you care about democratic politics, the last three weeks
Speaker 5: just pure agony at so many different levels for so
Speaker 5: many people. First of all, I think you're right that
Speaker 5: if Joe Biden had dropped out of the race like
Speaker 5: Sunday after the debate. First of all, I think at
Speaker 5: a very basic level, that would be a shocking and
Speaker 5: terribly irresponsible thing for Joe Biden to do. I mean,
Speaker 5: you're the president of the United States. You were chosen,
Speaker 5: you know, elected by primary voters to run again. You
Speaker 5: have a bad debate, and you have like forty eight
Speaker 5: hours of bad press, and you drop out of the race.
Speaker 5: That's in that would be so bad, and I do
Speaker 5: think there would be a massive probably eventually overcome, but
Speaker 5: a shock from Democratic voters like what just happened? You
Speaker 5: know what was that? A lot of people saying they
Speaker 5: don't accept it. This was such a big thing that
Speaker 5: it really probably took three weeks for everyone to process it,
Speaker 5: certainly for Joe Biden to process it. I still can't
Speaker 5: even begin to get my head around what he has
Speaker 5: grappled with over the last three weeks. Fundamentally, this is
Speaker 5: not about Joe Biden. It's about electing a president. It's
Speaker 5: about beating Donald Trump. But as a separate issue over there,
Speaker 5: that's also a big, fascinating, heartbreaking thing going on during
Speaker 5: this and a lot of people, and I was one
Speaker 5: of these people at certain points, were very against this
Speaker 5: push to push him out. As you say, there were
Speaker 5: a lot of sort of the Thunderdome crowd who wanted
Speaker 5: to just you know, jump over Kamala Harris. There was
Speaker 5: a lot of stuff to process, and I do think
Speaker 5: by the end of that three weeks most Democrats had
Speaker 5: come to the conclusion that it was necessary. Even if
Speaker 5: they hated it, it was necessary. I mean, for me,
Speaker 5: I mean, one of the ways I was looking at
Speaker 5: this was that I think it was probably possible for
Speaker 5: Biden to sort of after the debate, after the post
Speaker 5: debate appearances, to slog it out, and I still think
Speaker 5: have a chance of winning the presidency, not as much
Speaker 5: as he had had a chance of winning the president,
Speaker 5: but a chance. What really ended it, I think was
Speaker 5: that once you know, by Sunday, before he made his announcement,
Speaker 5: basically everybody in the Democratic Party had come out against
Speaker 5: him running again, and a lot of those people had
Speaker 5: become angry at him, publicly angry at him, and I
Speaker 5: think that really broke him as a candidate. Now he
Speaker 5: broke himself a lot three weeks go, but after that happened,
Speaker 5: I just think it was literally not possible to continue
Speaker 5: because if you think about it, think about the convention
Speaker 5: in what is it, three weeks or whatever. Imagine having
Speaker 5: that convention where the whole point is for everybody to
Speaker 5: be saying rah rah rah Joe Biden. And yeah, it's
Speaker 5: just if you think about that, it's it's absurd because
Speaker 5: all of those people are saying, Biden, drop out, you
Speaker 5: can't do it. And again, about half of those people
Speaker 5: had moved from drop out to being furious at him
Speaker 5: not dropping round, so it was impossible, and there we are.
Speaker 5: That is really a big part of this massive enthusiasm
Speaker 5: for Kamala Harris is not just her, although a lot
Speaker 5: of it's her, it's whole.
Speaker 2: We're done with that.
Speaker 5: We got through that three weeks and we're putting that
Speaker 5: behind us and we're moving on. And that is such
Speaker 5: a relief and such a you know, you have to,
Speaker 5: like anything in life, people have to process things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: One of the things with the people calling for him
Speaker 1: to drop out was they didn't know Sincereily like, if
Speaker 1: a president drops out, the vice president the job is
Speaker 1: that right to be there when the president cannot. You
Speaker 1: don't nominate a vice president for any other reason. So
Speaker 1: the idea that a lot of these dropouts were like
Speaker 1: you know how there's like polling where they say, like,
Speaker 1: would you like another candidate? And everyone says yes, because
Speaker 1: of course you'd like someone else, because someone you know.
Speaker 1: It's like would you like to sleep with someone who's.
Speaker 3: Not your spouse?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know, So I think what's interesting
Speaker 1: is like, but ultimately you'd ask those people and they'd
Speaker 1: say ten percent would say, you know, I'd like Michelle
Speaker 1: Obama will absolutely, unequivocally not run, you know, ten percent.
Speaker 1: I'd like Oprah, I'd like Mark Cuban, I'd like this one.
Speaker 3: I'd like that one.
Speaker 2: Like I like FDR. I mean, okay, great, great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just felt like West Wing fantasy. I'd like
Speaker 3: Mitt Romney. Nobody actually wants mid Romney.
Speaker 1: But it didn't feel like it was grounded in actual reality.
Speaker 1: It was more just like hostility to our Biden. So
Speaker 1: I think there was some like emotional preparation that needed
Speaker 1: to happen.
Speaker 5: It wasn't just about Biden. It was about a sneering
Speaker 5: contempt a lot of those people have for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 5: That was kind of ugly.
Speaker 3: And very racist and sexist.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, or a lot of things. And part
Speaker 5: of my kind of antipathy or resistance to that kind
Speaker 5: of thinking is that, I think, if that's where you're at,
Speaker 5: and let's you know, let's set aside the reasons for
Speaker 5: the moment that people wanted to skip over Harris. I
Speaker 5: think if you're thinking, like, hey, Biden will step aside,
Speaker 5: and then we'll have like a whole cool thing where
Speaker 5: everybody will throw their how to and.
Speaker 2: It'll be it'll be awesome.
Speaker 5: I think if you're thinking that way, you're not understanding
Speaker 5: the gravity of what you're doing. We're not doing this
Speaker 5: kind of make your own adventure thing. We're doing it
Speaker 5: because this is something that can never happen, that does
Speaker 5: never happen. But we have a totally unforeseen, you know,
Speaker 5: set of circumstances, and we have to do an emergency thing.
Speaker 5: And in an emergency thing, you don't get a chocolate
Speaker 5: Sunday with all the toppings you want. You hopefully you
Speaker 5: just you know what I mean, you just it's it's
Speaker 5: not that kind of thing in an unforeseen emergency. It
Speaker 5: is in the bedrock of American politics, president has to
Speaker 5: step aside. There's one person who steps in, that's the
Speaker 5: vice president.
Speaker 1: No, a really good point, and I think that with
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. And the thing I was
Speaker 1: struck by two was when I would talk to people
Speaker 1: about it, they would say, you know, I'd say, well,
Speaker 1: this is like a major thing you would be doing.
Speaker 1: And the historical president for it is not great.
Speaker 2: To put it mildly, yeah, right.
Speaker 1: Exactly, Like historically, you know, when a president steps down.
Speaker 1: It's just not great, you know. So, I mean, now,
Speaker 1: remember this is we are in a historic times, right.
Speaker 1: She's running against a man who has convicted Fallon. Now
Speaker 1: he has two more cases because one was dropped by
Speaker 1: a maga judge.
Speaker 2: That one I think will come back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, whether Trump is elected and they all disappear, but
Speaker 5: I think that one is likely to come back, right.
Speaker 1: And that you have just he's been impeached twice. I mean,
Speaker 1: he just you know, you have a Supreme Court that
Speaker 1: is preparing to make it so that he can be
Speaker 1: God king forever. And then you also have the Heritage
Speaker 1: Foundation with this fulsome plan to just dismantle the entire
Speaker 1: federal government and make it so women can't have anything
Speaker 1: at all. Basically, So I do think that it is
Speaker 1: a historic times, and so we have to wonder. And again,
Speaker 1: like the mainstream media is decimated. There are like three
Speaker 1: outlets left. So whether people understand the states of this,
Speaker 1: we have no idea. And whether they'll ever understand the
Speaker 1: stakes of it or even get that information, we don't know, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, I feel funny saying it, but
Speaker 5: I do think that, as you kind of mentioned before,
Speaker 5: that this three weeks. I think was just necessary. You
Speaker 5: can't get through something like this in a couple of days.
Speaker 5: It's not even the idea to get through something like
Speaker 5: this and a couple of days. And it's funny probably,
Speaker 5: I don't know. Four or five days after the debate,
Speaker 5: I was talking to a person who has a very
Speaker 5: high up position in democratic campaign politics, but not someone
Speaker 5: in the Biden campaign. And this person told me that
Speaker 5: what they had seen from the people knocking doors was
Speaker 5: not nearly as dramatic as you know, what the pundits
Speaker 5: were saying. So it was definitely in a kind of like,
Speaker 5: let's not freak out mode about this. But this person
Speaker 5: said again very early in July that let's kind of
Speaker 5: let it play out. If it really seems necessary, it
Speaker 5: would actually be better to do it after the GOP,
Speaker 5: just right after the GOP convention.
Speaker 3: Interesting, why, well.
Speaker 5: I think a because there's no rush, which was I
Speaker 5: think always an important part of this. I mean, like
Speaker 5: from the perspective of July second, or third, it's months
Speaker 5: or a year or two late, right.
Speaker 3: Right to have a regular process.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you need to rush backwards
Speaker 5: in time, right, it's such a rush. But having said
Speaker 5: that once you're already in July, doing it in early
Speaker 5: July versus mid July is really not.
Speaker 2: A big deal.
Speaker 5: And b what the conventions really are, unlike what the
Speaker 5: Thunderdome crowd thinks, is there four day commercials for your slate.
Speaker 5: It's a singular chance when you kind of command everything
Speaker 5: for four days, and it's not a bad thing to
Speaker 5: have the other side go first, and then you come
Speaker 5: out a day later and say, well, cool guys, but
Speaker 5: we're actually running someone else, so sorry, too bad, you
Speaker 5: can't do another convention.
Speaker 1: The timing was incredible. They made this entire thing about
Speaker 1: mental acuity because Biden was so old. But now that
Speaker 1: Biden has dropped out, Donald Trump is the oldest person
Speaker 1: ever to run for president.
Speaker 3: Whoops.
Speaker 5: The other good thing that Trump did for the Democratic
Speaker 5: ticket was that speech, right for ten.
Speaker 3: Minutes of normal and an hour and a half of crazy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean everybody was, I mean, coming after the
Speaker 5: shooting and after the convention and after all the ra rah,
Speaker 5: like most of the press was basically, let's just move
Speaker 5: on to building the cabinet. I mean, this is a formality, right,
Speaker 5: and like you know, most of the sort of the
Speaker 5: DC Insider sheets went totally in with new spiritual, serene
Speaker 5: Trump and all this kind of stuff, and then he
Speaker 5: gets up there and it's just like a total freak
Speaker 5: for an hour and a half. And that was if
Speaker 5: you're writing a non goofball script for this that was
Speaker 5: I think an important inflection because a lot of people
Speaker 5: people were still uncertain assuming it was Biden.
Speaker 2: But a lot of.
Speaker 5: People, a lot a lot of press, people who sort
Speaker 5: of chatter on Twitter and create the sort of the
Speaker 5: background noise of politics, we're saying like, ish, he's kind
Speaker 5: of whack, Like well, you know, you know, even if
Speaker 5: Biden's a wreck, this guy's kind of a mess too.
Speaker 5: The Republican convention, i think ended with this guy's campaign
Speaker 5: is going to be a bit of a mess too.
Speaker 5: Let's slow it down a little because you know, maybe
Speaker 5: it's not to be a straight line from everybody wearing
Speaker 5: a near thing to the inauguration.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right, Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: really glad that you came on.
Speaker 2: No, thanks for having me.
Speaker 6: You're real grown up, Oh, thank you, And you know
Speaker 6: these are grown up times, right or a historical hopefully?
Speaker 1: Are you concerned with Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be. Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: and by the way, we really are, I have to say,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed with iHeart to make a
Speaker 1: limited series with the experts, a lot of academics, really
Speaker 1: smart people about what a disaster Trump's second term would
Speaker 1: be for America's future. Right now, you can find the
Speaker 1: first two episodes by looking up Molly Jong Fast, That's
Speaker 1: Me Project twenty twenty five on YouTube.
Speaker 3: And if you're thinking that you're.
Speaker 1: More of a podcast person and not a YouTuber, you
Speaker 1: can and now I'm going to explain into something very complicated.
Speaker 1: Hit play on YouTube, then put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back so you can
Speaker 1: listen to it like a podcast. New episodes are dropping
Speaker 1: in the next few weeks. We need to educate Americans
Speaker 1: on what Trump's second term would look like and exactly
Speaker 1: what his plans are.
Speaker 3: For this country. Watch and help us spread the word.
Speaker 1: Justin Wolfers is a professor of economics at the University
Speaker 1: of Michigan and a New York Times contributor.
Speaker 3: Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: He's back in the US of a after seven months
Speaker 1: in Australia. Our favorite economists. Don't tell Paul Krugman, and
Speaker 1: I said that justin.
Speaker 7: Wolfers, you can tell Paul, go ahead.
Speaker 1: It's our secret. Justin Wolfers. I feel like we've been
Speaker 1: through so much. I was thinking about like you and
Speaker 1: me being like, is it going to be a recession?
Speaker 1: And you were saying, I still am optimistic. I don't
Speaker 1: think remember that where everyone was like, it's going to
Speaker 1: be a recession, it's going to be a recession. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm like, one of the things that really
Speaker 1: helps me is I remember six months ago, whereas.
Speaker 3: No one else does.
Speaker 1: And this makes me a super genius when it comes
Speaker 1: to political commentary.
Speaker 3: I'm just giving myself a little credit that I do
Speaker 3: not deserve. Paul Krookman told me that, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: But can you explain what it has, what's going on
Speaker 1: and where we are, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 7: Well, so I'm just thrilled that you want to talk
Speaker 7: economics after everything that's happened. So yeah, the story turns
Speaker 7: out to be much simpler than the emotional rollercoaster that
Speaker 7: the media and so many Americans have been through. Here's
Speaker 7: the story. Twenty nineteen, the economy was doing pretty well.
Speaker 7: I'm going to say that Trump economy was a strong economy.
Speaker 3: That's the truth, right, I've heard that from Trump before.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's how I know it. He told me, yeah, no,
Speaker 7: but it's true. Unemployment got down to a fifty year low,
Speaker 7: and that's the single best barometer of how we're doing.
Speaker 7: You might have liked it if when we grow the
Speaker 7: pie we gave some of it to the rest of
Speaker 7: us and not just the plutocrats. That's what the Trump
Speaker 7: tax cuts made sure that that's where all the cream went.
Speaker 7: But overall, the pie was big. Then the pandemic hit,
Speaker 7: and it was the sharpest, deepest, most terrifying moment of
Speaker 7: any of our economic lives. It can be hard to
Speaker 7: remember how bad it was. We have a natural psychological
Speaker 7: tendency to want to memory hold the whole thing, which
Speaker 7: matters a lot, because if you ever asked the question,
Speaker 7: are you better off than you were four years ago?
Speaker 7: Four years ago, the virus was everywhere, The economy was
Speaker 7: shut down, and you and I were scared for our professional,
Speaker 7: economic lives and personal The administration tried to pretend the
Speaker 7: pandemic wasn't happening, which is a terrible thing. To do
Speaker 7: to a pandemic, because virus has spread whether you acknowledge
Speaker 7: them or not. And so we in the United States
Speaker 7: had a worse time with the pandemic than most of
Speaker 7: the rest of the world. And then the Biden presidence
Speaker 7: he began in January twenty one, take the virus seriously.
Speaker 7: The virus was the single thing holding back the economy.
Speaker 7: The economy bounces back, surgeres, surgeres at a rate never
Speaker 7: seen before. Now Republicans say this is just bounce back,
Speaker 7: We're just recovering the jobs we lost, to which the answers, yes,
Speaker 7: that's true. That's what happens when you take the biggest
Speaker 7: economic calamity of our lifetime. Seriously, the economy bounces back,
Speaker 7: and it did. Economic growth was extraordinary through twenty twenty one,
Speaker 7: amazing through twenty twenty two. And just because people are pessimistic,
Speaker 7: they started to say, oh, then we must have a recession.
Speaker 7: I don't know it's due. And that theory doesn't work
Speaker 7: with roulette and it doesn't work for economics. And so
Speaker 7: when an economy's going well, that tells you it's probably
Speaker 7: likely to continue going well. In fact, that's what happened
Speaker 7: through twenty twenty three, everyone was saying there's a recession,
Speaker 7: except you and I, Molly, we were right. And what
Speaker 7: happens after the bounce back from a deep recession is
Speaker 7: the economy's got to start to get back to normal
Speaker 7: at some point. It's got to go from recovering from
Speaker 7: a deep high at an extraordinary rate to we're there
Speaker 7: and we need it to become boring again. And in fact,
Speaker 7: that's what's happened through twenty twenty four. The economy has
Speaker 7: gotten boring. You know, you might never have thought you
Speaker 7: would need calculus again after high school, but it matters
Speaker 7: for understanding the economy because if we said how's the
Speaker 7: economy doing, the answer is great. Unemployment is just a
Speaker 7: touch above a fifty year low. Output incomes all are
Speaker 7: well above pre pandemic levels. So that's the level. There's
Speaker 7: this thing, the first derivative, which is the rate of change,
Speaker 7: the rate of change. Things are getting better, yeah, they
Speaker 7: kind of are. They still are getting better, but now
Speaker 7: we're going to go one more derivative. The rate of
Speaker 7: change are the rate of change. Things aren't improving miraculously anymore.
Speaker 7: They're just improving at a good old slow and steady space.
Speaker 7: And so if you were used to this incredible bounce
Speaker 7: back through twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, the disappointing
Speaker 7: news is it's not happening right now. The great news
Speaker 7: is we're in a great spy, and we're moving in
Speaker 7: the right direction, and we're moving in a sustainable pace,
Speaker 7: and all of this is pretty much exactly what you
Speaker 7: want to hope for. So I think it's so worth
Speaker 7: framing any economic discussion in the context of where were
Speaker 7: you four years ago? Where are you today? You're much
Speaker 7: better off today.
Speaker 3: So let's talk.
Speaker 1: About the sort of complaints, the bad faith complaints that
Speaker 1: inflation is too inflationary and everything is too expensive.
Speaker 7: Well, inflation has been too high. You'll notice a tense
Speaker 7: that I just used. There has been what happened as
Speaker 7: part of the look, the pandemic's crazy. We've never seen
Speaker 7: anything like it before. You shut a whole economy down
Speaker 7: and then you try and open it up the next day.
Speaker 7: Economies don't work like that. Old people don't work like that.
Speaker 7: I don't work like that. Takes a while to get
Speaker 7: the engine running, and because of that, we had imbalances
Speaker 7: between people wanting to go back and spend and the
Speaker 7: economy's ability to produce and to move goods around the world.
Speaker 7: That caused high inflation in almost every country around the world.
Speaker 7: Really important because if you think Biden caused inflation is
Speaker 7: a genius because he managed to do it in every
Speaker 7: other country. Now inflation got to real crisis levels nine percent.
Speaker 7: I want to be careful, that's not a crisis. That's uncomfortable,
Speaker 7: and it's uncomfortable because it could become a crisis, as
Speaker 7: countries like Argentina have shown us. But instead of continuing
Speaker 7: to go north, it went south. And so inflation today
Speaker 7: is back around three percent. We want it ideally down
Speaker 7: around two percent. You might say, what's magical about two percent.
Speaker 7: It's when economists look at this and they say, we
Speaker 7: want inflation so low you barely notice it. Two percent
Speaker 7: is basically barely noticeable. Three percent is one percent away
Speaker 7: from being barely noticeable. Our interesting, So we're on our
Speaker 7: way back. We're almost there, and actually by election day
Speaker 7: there's a pretty good chance will be all the way there.
Speaker 7: And so the story that the folks who write talking
Speaker 7: points haven't yet come to grips with is the inflation
Speaker 7: crisis was a crisis of twenty two and twenty twenty three.
Speaker 7: But by November twenty twenty four, inflation will be either
Speaker 7: barely noticeable or a touch above barely noticeable.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to our listeners what it means with
Speaker 1: the wage growth going up?
Speaker 7: Look, here's the thing. Inflation is back to normal, but
Speaker 7: prices aren't. That's what's got people upset. Stuff at the
Speaker 7: store is still expensive. Now. One thing we could do
Speaker 7: is we could try and have the opposite of inflation.
Speaker 7: That's called deflation. That's when price is full. We could
Speaker 7: have them fall back to where they were in twenty
Speaker 7: nineteen before the pandemic. The way to do that would
Speaker 7: be to have a deep recession, maybe even the depression.
Speaker 3: It's not what you want.
Speaker 7: I think it's a bad idea. Let's not do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So the other way to make sure that people aren't
Speaker 7: hurt by inflation is if prices go up twenty percent,
Speaker 7: if wages go up twenty five percent, then we can
Speaker 7: now all afford five percent more than we could before
Speaker 7: the inflationary first And actually that's what's happening. So when
Speaker 7: inflation was as high as nine percent, it was hard
Speaker 7: for wages to keep up. It was sprinting out of
Speaker 7: the blocks. It was the hair. But once inflation then falls,
Speaker 7: the slow and steady thing that is wages, it catches up.
Speaker 7: And so people now they still find the prices at
Speaker 7: the store offensive, but there's more money in their wallets
Speaker 7: and they can afford it.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about interest rates, because part of this
Speaker 1: inflation landscape has to do with interest rates. Can you
Speaker 1: explain to me why interest rates? And I actually know why,
Speaker 1: But were you for our listeners, what's happening with interest rates?
Speaker 7: Okay, when inflation speeds up, economists start to worry that
Speaker 7: that's because the economy's ability to produce stuff isn't keeping
Speaker 7: up with how much stuff people want to buy. Demand
Speaker 7: exceed supply, so people raise prices if you can't bump
Speaker 7: around supply, and actually can. There was a lot of
Speaker 7: what Biden was trying to do with the Inflation Reduction Act,
Speaker 7: trying to get the supply side of the economy back
Speaker 7: to normal so that we could start producing as much
Speaker 7: stuff again. But once you've exhausted all of that, if
Speaker 7: you want to try and reduce the gap between demand
Speaker 7: and supply, you've got to reduce demand, and the way
Speaker 7: to do that is you raise interest rates, because if
Speaker 7: interest rates are high, if I are an investor, it's
Speaker 7: going to be less likely to makes sense for me
Speaker 7: to borrow money and start and you've build a your factory.
Speaker 7: Or if I am thinking about building a house if
Speaker 7: interest rates are high, I'm going to be less likely
Speaker 7: to do that if interest rates are high, because I'd
Speaker 7: have a much bigger mortgage as a result. And so
Speaker 7: the idea is you want to slow the economy enough
Speaker 7: that you'll slow inflation. This is where you get the
Speaker 7: word soft landing. You want to slow it enough that
Speaker 7: you won't cause a crash, but it'll be enough to
Speaker 7: reduce inflation. Economists talk about this all the time. Every
Speaker 7: business cycle, we hope will get one. Almost every time
Speaker 7: we fail. But this time it looks like we've nailed
Speaker 7: the soft landing. The economy's going well, there's no recession
Speaker 7: in sight, and inflation has fallen from its very high
Speaker 7: levels down to barely noticeable levels. We'd like it to
Speaker 7: fall a little more, and so that's where there's a
Speaker 7: little bit of debate about what should we do now.
Speaker 7: If you think inflation's all the way back to normal,
Speaker 7: or or you're confident that it will be soon, Then
Speaker 7: you say, hey, we're putting on the brakes. Let's not
Speaker 7: do that, in which case you want the Fed to
Speaker 7: reduce interest rates. But if you're worried that inflation is
Speaker 7: still a little bit higher than we'd like it to be,
Speaker 7: then maybe you want us to still keep a foot
Speaker 7: on the break to slow the economy, to slow inflation. Look, well,
Speaker 7: debate backwards and forwards. Will the Fed cut rates in September,
Speaker 7: you know, one month or two months, you know, changing
Speaker 7: the timing or whether it's by half a percentage point
Speaker 7: or a quarter. But step back, and the one thing
Speaker 7: we can be confident of is the Fed looks like
Speaker 7: it stopped raising rates. It might leave them where they
Speaker 7: are for a couple of months, but then it sees
Speaker 7: interest rates coming back down to the sorts of levels
Speaker 7: that most folks are used to. So if you've been
Speaker 7: putting off getting a mortgage, sure put it off for
Speaker 7: another few months still, but be confident that interest rates
Speaker 7: are going to be lower, you know, I think within
Speaker 7: a year for sure.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us a little bit about what
Speaker 1: is happening right now with the billionaire oligarch class going
Speaker 1: very trumpy and where cryptocurrency figures into that.
Speaker 7: Oh my goodness, Marley and Marley, I'm sorry too?
Speaker 3: Is that too mean?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 7: Not mean enough? I mean, honestly, I wish we lived
Speaker 7: in a world where the most important question on people's
Speaker 7: tongues was how do you think the working class are doing?
Speaker 7: How are people getting by? There are a lot of
Speaker 7: people with food insecurity, unable to put food on the
Speaker 7: table during the pandemic. Where are they at now? And
Speaker 7: instead because they're so splashy, so ugly, die They have
Speaker 7: so many colors, where so many types of folicece vests.
Speaker 7: We talk about mask and Trump and all of these clowns.
Speaker 7: You know, they're a big share of the world's worth
Speaker 7: and a small share of the world's humanity. One of
Speaker 7: that's meaning to dodge your question, Molly. Look, I think
Speaker 7: if I were a billionaire, I would think about my
Speaker 7: political activity as a horse race between two things. One,
Speaker 7: I want people to like me and I want to
Speaker 7: fit in. Two. I want to keep as much of
Speaker 7: my billions of dollars of cash as I can because
Speaker 7: I like bathing naked in a vault full of US dollars.
Speaker 7: What happened in twenty sixteen is Trump was, and twenty
Speaker 7: twenty the person who he is, which is awful, a rapist,
Speaker 7: a criminal, a person of low character, a person of
Speaker 7: low leadership ability, an economic illiterate, and so it was
Speaker 7: simply too embarrassing. The first of those factors I want
Speaker 7: to fit in led the billionaires to stay quiet. What's
Speaker 7: happened since then is they've realized that the tax cuts
Speaker 7: they stand to get are enormous, and once one or
Speaker 7: two billionaires comes out pro Trump, the rest start to
Speaker 7: realize that when I go to sun Valley or when
Speaker 7: I go skiing and an, the other guys are still
Speaker 7: going to talk to me, even if they come out
Speaker 7: of creatrum.
Speaker 3: They're disgusting too.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so you know, we all know how hard it
Speaker 7: is to vacation on Martha's vineyard. As a pro Trumper,
Speaker 7: it's a little less hurt and probably it's almost comfortable
Speaker 7: over on Nantucket. So once one goes, you expect a
Speaker 7: fare few of them to go to them. I say,
Speaker 7: on the one hand, you might care to make sure
Speaker 7: that you get your big piece of the pie. On
Speaker 7: the other hand, competence matters. The size of the pie
Speaker 7: will be determined by the quality of the economic advice
Speaker 7: the next president gets and the decisions that he or
Speaker 7: she makes. The quality of economic advice under the last
Speaker 7: Trump administration was literally the worst in any of our lifetimes.
Speaker 7: The decisions the president made were abysmal. And the single
Speaker 7: greatest test of economic leadership and economic policy was the pandemic,
Speaker 7: and the United States under Trump failed that to a
Speaker 7: greater degree than any other industrialized country.
Speaker 1: It's just tax cuts, I mean, and maybe a lack
Speaker 1: of regulation too.
Speaker 7: It could be that. And also like, look, how am
Speaker 7: I meant to understand a person who spends forty three
Speaker 7: billion dollars just so the rest of the world will
Speaker 7: stare at them more frequently. I don't have a great
Speaker 7: theory of these guys.
Speaker 3: That's really good.
Speaker 1: One of the things that there are some business leaders
Speaker 1: that felt that some of the regulatory stuff that Biden
Speaker 1: was doing was anti capitalist. You and I have very
Speaker 1: similar views on this. Can you explain to our listeners
Speaker 1: why capitalism with regulations is much better capitalism with no regulation?
Speaker 7: Boy, that sounds like a leading question.
Speaker 3: This is a layer for you, right.
Speaker 7: Hey, listen, I want to stop by actually acknowledging the critique,
Speaker 7: which is they said Biden is anti capitalist. Sometimes they
Speaker 7: mean anti.
Speaker 3: Capitalis yeah, good point.
Speaker 7: Think about the economy bakes one big pie, and then
Speaker 7: we have to decide who gets what slice. If capital
Speaker 7: gets a big slice, there's less left for labor. Biden
Speaker 7: is unapologetically pro labor. If you're in favor of labor
Speaker 7: getting a bigger share than you are anti capital. So yes,
Speaker 7: he was anti capital to the extent that that's what's
Speaker 7: required to be pro labor, given that most of us
Speaker 7: are not billionaires, that's kind of okay. So that's saying
Speaker 7: if the size of the pie is given, being pro
Speaker 7: labor might help more people because most people get their
Speaker 7: income from labor. Now, the truth is the size of
Speaker 7: the pies not given, which is markets. Now, I'm going
Speaker 7: to sound like everyone's favorite libertarian or the libertarian of
Speaker 7: your nightmares. Markets are an extraordinary way of generating wealth.
Speaker 7: You just need to compare North and South Korea to
Speaker 7: see this. North Korea doesn't use markets users central planning.
Speaker 7: South Korea adopted markets and in the post war period,
Speaker 7: has grown extraordinarily North Caore people are short, they're hungry.
Speaker 7: They're short because they're hungry, they're poor. All sorts of
Speaker 7: outcomes are much worse in North Korea than in South Korea.
Speaker 7: So that says markets are a fantastic way of generating
Speaker 7: wealth and lifting all of us out of poverty. The
Speaker 7: problem is, the reason markets work is because of the
Speaker 7: value of competition. The problem is, if you own a
Speaker 7: business and you're in competition with other firms, the first
Speaker 7: thing you want to do is eliminate competition. That's why
Speaker 7: Apple and Google used to have a deal where they
Speaker 7: wouldn't steal each other's employees, they wouldn't compete and pay
Speaker 7: the workers more. And when you don't compete, then we
Speaker 7: don't get all the benefits of markets. Now, you can't
Speaker 7: just ask people to compete. You've got to force them
Speaker 7: to because otherwise what they'll do is they'll try and
Speaker 7: run monopolies in which they screw you and I with
Speaker 7: higher prices. And so that's the essential point of regulation.
Speaker 7: Markets need rules to work. It's just like thinking about
Speaker 7: football or any of your favorite sports games. If there
Speaker 7: were no rules, it'd be kind of a game. Once
Speaker 7: we have rules, we have competition, and it's that competition
Speaker 7: that produces the beauty.
Speaker 3: So interesting, Thank you so much.
Speaker 7: Justin it's always a great pleasure. And Molly, I'm just
Speaker 7: going to offer one unsolicited word of advice. Here's the
Speaker 7: question I was expecting you to ask. I love the
Speaker 7: fact you went to let's go to the meat and
Speaker 7: potatoes economics. Let's continue our econ one oh one journey together.
Speaker 7: But I would have thought the news of the week
Speaker 7: was there's Kamala Harris running for the presidency, and the
Speaker 7: question is how should she run on the economy?
Speaker 3: Yes, give us that answer.
Speaker 7: She should own the economic record. She should say we
Speaker 7: faced the economic calamity of a lifetime, and we've turned
Speaker 7: the economy around. Consider where you are compared to where
Speaker 7: you were four years ago. Remember the fear, Remember the horror,
Speaker 7: Remember the concern about how we would be in a
Speaker 7: few years time. And look at life today. Isn't it better?
Speaker 2: We did that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? That's good. Well, I'm I'm pressed. Thank you, justin.
Speaker 3: I hope i'll here. I hope you'll come back soon.
Speaker 7: I look forward to it.
Speaker 1: Andrea Campbell is the Attorney General of the state of Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics. Attorney General Campbell. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to call you General Campbell. We just talked about this
Speaker 1: you know, it's too weird, but I think Attorney General
Speaker 1: Campbell is good.
Speaker 8: Right, that's great, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You are the Attorney General of Massachusetts, which is I
Speaker 1: think a really important state for any number of reasons. First,
Speaker 1: I want you to talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: you guys are doing when it comes to guns and
Speaker 1: young people, because you know, we had this assassination attempt
Speaker 1: on Donald Trump, and you, like so many of these
Speaker 1: violent gun crimes, right, and like so many of the
Speaker 1: school shootings, this was a twenty year old with an
Speaker 1: AR fifteen.
Speaker 8: That's exactly right. And you know, there were some that suggested,
Speaker 8: while you're, of course extending prayers for the former president,
Speaker 8: which I did immediately to him and his family, and
Speaker 8: of course was praying that he was okay, that we
Speaker 8: should wait in talking about gun reform and gun violence,
Speaker 8: and I said, absolutely not. It's been an epidemic, not
Speaker 8: only in Massachusetts but in this country as you know,
Speaker 8: for a very long time. I'm proud of the progressive
Speaker 8: gun laws that we have in Massachusetts. Actually, the weapon
Speaker 8: that this gentleman used you couldn't have purchased in Massachusetts,
Speaker 8: and you couldn't have purchased copies or the duplicates of
Speaker 8: that weapon. So clearly we're ahead, but there's still work
Speaker 8: to do. So since becoming Attorney General of Massachusetts, I
Speaker 8: have started a gun violence Prevention unit, and we are
Speaker 8: focused on all things related to gun enforcement, so actively
Speaker 8: enforcing our current gun laws because sadly they are under attack.
Speaker 8: And then the second was making sure that we were
Speaker 8: in the state House to expand our existing gun laws,
Speaker 8: so we had to update our assault weapons banned. We
Speaker 8: had to actually make sure there was lef legislation pass
Speaker 8: to protect and regulate ghost guns, which just recently happened.
Speaker 8: We expanded our red flag law, which also recently happened.
Speaker 8: And then the other piece I think is just as important, Molli,
Speaker 8: is there are a lot of community based organizations in
Speaker 8: Massachusetts that are on the ground breaking cycles of violence
Speaker 8: in community and so I'm pushing my team to think
Speaker 8: about funding these organizations through our new gun violence Prevention unit.
Speaker 8: And so we're convening a lot of folks right now.
Speaker 8: We just got the unit off the ground last year,
Speaker 8: but that's also going to be a major focus of
Speaker 8: the unit too.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what that gun violence unit does.
Speaker 3: And looks like absolutely.
Speaker 8: So it's the first time such a unit as existed
Speaker 8: in the office. And the reason I set it up
Speaker 8: is when I was campaign for Attorney General, there were
Speaker 8: a lot of folks, including those in law enforcement, who
Speaker 8: felt like in the state, we needed a one point
Speaker 8: of contact, a place for folks to go one to
Speaker 8: be informed of about our existing gun law. Law enforcement
Speaker 8: included they needed a place to go to ensure they
Speaker 8: were in compliance if they had to, for example, comply
Speaker 8: with certain regulations. Who could they talk to to make
Speaker 8: sure that they were doing that. Our storage laws, are
Speaker 8: licensing laws, you name it. So that was really the
Speaker 8: brain child for creating a gun violence Prevention unit, was
Speaker 8: to be a one stop shop for folks to also
Speaker 8: be a convening power. Massachusetts is progressive, so how do
Speaker 8: we work with other states, including surrounding states, on making
Speaker 8: sure removing guns from our communities addressing gun trafficking. So
Speaker 8: the unit is involved with efforts with respect to that
Speaker 8: at too, and right now it has a director and
Speaker 8: a deputy director. They're working really hard. They also work
Speaker 8: with other parts of the office to make sure the
Speaker 8: work is more intersectional. So one division is enforcing our
Speaker 8: gun laws, but making sure that they're also talking to
Speaker 8: our grant's division that can put out grants and resources,
Speaker 8: for example, to fund community based organizations taking on gun violence.
Speaker 8: So they're doing a lot of that work to make
Speaker 8: sure it's intersectional, not siloed in the office. It's a
Speaker 8: tall order, but as you know, it is timely, it
Speaker 8: has been timely for a long time. And then lastly,
Speaker 8: I will say it's not any less significant. I'm a
Speaker 8: mom of two beautiful boys. I have a four year
Speaker 8: old and a six year old, so going to be
Speaker 8: seven and five, and I want to make sure that,
Speaker 8: of course they are living free with no fear of
Speaker 8: gun violence. It's a candidate running for office, someone going
Speaker 8: to the grocery store, going to school, should not live
Speaker 8: in fear of losing their light. And so actively thinking
Speaker 8: about how we protect our children and our kids is
Speaker 8: also a major focus of the unit.
Speaker 3: Yes, so really good point.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to us about what the other sort
Speaker 1: of key issues as an attorney general that you're facing
Speaker 1: in the Massachusetts right now.
Speaker 8: In addition to addressing, of course, gun violence, other issues
Speaker 8: include everything having to do with affordability and economics. The
Speaker 8: number one issue I would say, based on polling and
Speaker 8: conversations complaints into our office, it's just to it'ssive to
Speaker 8: live in Massachusetts. Healthcare is to expensive groceries and too expensive.
Speaker 8: That is far and wide what we're here across the country.
Speaker 8: So we do a lot of consumer protection work. We're
Speaker 8: putting money back into the pockets of workers every day.
Speaker 8: Wage stuff is an issue, so when they go to work,
Speaker 8: they're not getting paid and we're setting absolutely not. So
Speaker 8: we have a whole division that takes on that work.
Speaker 8: We're taking on scams, particularly in the context of our elders.
Speaker 8: I established an Elder Justice Unit to direct and do
Speaker 8: that work. We are also making sure we're taking on
Speaker 8: student loan debt. We have great federal partners, so we
Speaker 8: are wiping out hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt
Speaker 8: for folks in Massachusetts, taking on junk fees, all those
Speaker 8: hidden fees. We have some proposed regulations out there. I
Speaker 8: think we're ahead of the game working with the Feds
Speaker 8: on this in Massachusetts as well. And then the other
Speaker 8: sets of issues. I want to mention everything having to
Speaker 8: do with protecting our civil rights, and that includes reproductive justice,
Speaker 8: I have a reproductive Justice unit that we got off
Speaker 8: the ground yet last year that is at the forefront
Speaker 8: of protecting all access to reproductive healthcare, but also gender
Speaker 8: affirming care, and also making sure we're addressing the disparities
Speaker 8: in black maternal health and then taking on hate, the
Speaker 8: uptaking complaints in terms of anti Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, you
Speaker 8: name it that's on the rise. In Massachusetts, we have
Speaker 8: sued a neo Nazi group that started in Massachusetts. Sadly,
Speaker 8: it's not something we want to be known for, and
Speaker 8: that has been significant work. In addition to suing this
Speaker 8: neo Nazi group, we're also doing a lot in terms
Speaker 8: of school based training to make sure our kids are
Speaker 8: not dealing with bullying and harassment. So it is a lot.
Speaker 8: That's a snapshot of just what rises to the top
Speaker 8: for our constituents. I think what's also relevant to folks nationwide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, one of the underreported stories this cycle has
Speaker 1: been the number of black women who are running for election,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking about Angela Osbrooks, our vice president, who
Speaker 1: is now running for president. One of the things that
Speaker 1: has really struck me is Vice President Harris was actually
Speaker 1: the second black woman ever to be in the Senate,
Speaker 1: which is insane. That's where Angela would be fourth, which
Speaker 1: is still insane. I know you've campaigned with Harris, and
Speaker 1: also can you talk to us about like what this
Speaker 1: feels like for you.
Speaker 8: I so appreciate the question, Mollie, but also your frame. Right.
Speaker 8: We are very proud of Vice President Harris. And I
Speaker 8: say we because I have been on so many different
Speaker 8: zooms with so many different women and men who are
Speaker 8: just proud of the direction we're going here and saying, frankly,
Speaker 8: it's about time. And she does have an extensive career.
Speaker 8: When I first met her, I was at UCLA graduating
Speaker 8: from law school and she was my convincement speaker and
Speaker 8: she was a district attorney then and then becomes the
Speaker 8: first black woman ang in the country, as you said,
Speaker 8: the Senate vice president. She's been doing the work. But
Speaker 8: like you've also lifted up, so have other black women
Speaker 8: who are taking on these challenges of running for office,
Speaker 8: which is not easy putting themselves out there because they
Speaker 8: feel as though they can bring a unique voice and
Speaker 8: of course a great professional background. So I would add
Speaker 8: even Lisa Blunt Rochester who's running as well, right.
Speaker 3: Who we've also interviewed who's amazing. Yeah, he's amazing.
Speaker 8: And folks with incredible stories in their own right, right,
Speaker 8: fourth and fifth, right, we could get that's a good
Speaker 8: bust cycle.
Speaker 3: Sorry, that's right.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: We're working hard to increase these numbers, and kudos to
Speaker 8: you for always lending your platform. I'm working hard, not
Speaker 8: just in Massachusetts on local races, because we need more
Speaker 8: black women too. I'm the first black woman to serve
Speaker 8: as a g in Massachusetts and the first woman of
Speaker 8: color to win statewide office in Massachusetts. While I'm proud,
Speaker 8: it clearly speaks to the work we still have to
Speaker 8: do in a state that we deem to be very progressive.
Speaker 8: And we know that's true across the country. So I'm
Speaker 8: doing the work in Massachusetts. I'm supporting some local incredible women,
Speaker 8: but also showing up nationwide and also looking at other
Speaker 8: ag races. But this is a moment in time where
Speaker 8: the inspiration and the hope that people are feeling is
Speaker 8: exactly what we need. We have candidates up and down
Speaker 8: the ballot that are uniquely positioned not only to bring
Speaker 8: people together, but have a story that offers hope and
Speaker 8: inspiration and then they have a track worker of actually
Speaker 8: helping people. They have the substance right. So it is
Speaker 8: a unique moment in time in this country. It feels
Speaker 8: really good. And as a black woman, to see other
Speaker 8: black women stepping up and stepping out there means a lot.
Speaker 8: And the Vice President has been a mentor and friend
Speaker 8: for a long time. So I'm proud of the work
Speaker 8: she's already putting in. She's not taking anything for granted,
Speaker 8: and I look forward to supporting her not just at
Speaker 8: the convention, but even beyond the convention and all the
Speaker 8: way through November.
Speaker 3: One of the.
Speaker 1: Things that has come out in the news besides this
Speaker 1: massive one hundred million dollar fundraise in twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: is that there have been these calls, these enormous calls
Speaker 1: when with black women, black men to you twenty forty thousand,
Speaker 1: I mean crazy numbers. Do you think that that kind
Speaker 1: of ground game, that kind of real enthusiasm, which I think,
Speaker 1: you know what's happened in the last twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: and this is going to air tomorrow, so where I
Speaker 1: actually will be forty eight hours, is that what we've
Speaker 1: seen is there has been grassroots enthusiasm that was literally
Speaker 1: not there for her predecessor, who is you know, who
Speaker 1: has been incredible and I believe one of the best
Speaker 1: presidents of my lifetime. But I was anxious that Democrats
Speaker 1: would not galvanize and get their shit together. But in fact,
Speaker 1: I mean I could not ask for a better twenty
Speaker 1: four hours for her. You know, what are you hearing
Speaker 1: from people?
Speaker 3: What are you seeing?
Speaker 8: Oaks are excited, they are inspired. People needed that right
Speaker 8: and you hear it all the time, the vitriol that
Speaker 8: is out there, the political divisiveness, the hate. People were
Speaker 8: feeling despair on all sides, in a sense of hopelessness.
Speaker 8: And kudos to President Biden because he gets all the credit.
Speaker 8: Like you say, I think the greatest president we have had,
Speaker 8: because he didn't just put his ego aside and really
Speaker 8: put our country first and his sacrifice on full display
Speaker 8: with he decided not to run for him in the
Speaker 8: same day to immediately put his support behind Kamala. How
Speaker 8: he did it also, of course will submit his legacy,
Speaker 8: and of course he selected her as vice president. But
Speaker 8: he I think drove that right. I think he probably
Speaker 8: recognized that wait a minute, we need some inspiration and
Speaker 8: we need some greater energy and I remember even after
Speaker 8: the debate, I said, it's his decision whether or not
Speaker 8: he's going to run, but he will have to step
Speaker 8: it up because we need someone who's going to bring
Speaker 8: energy and inspire and pump people up. And so she
Speaker 8: has hit the ground running. But I think the context
Speaker 8: was there because people were just waiting. So kudos to
Speaker 8: Biden from making the decision and not wasting any time
Speaker 8: to pivot to this new generation of leadership. And I
Speaker 8: think all of the conditions were there. And just add
Speaker 8: the assassination attempt, regardless of your party, we don't want
Speaker 8: that in unentry, right. So I think the doom and
Speaker 8: gloom that people were also experiencing the gun violence topic
Speaker 8: coming back up to say what the heck are we
Speaker 8: doing and protect our kids and to protect ourselves at
Speaker 8: public spaces.
Speaker 2: Enough is enough.
Speaker 8: All of that coming together, I think was just the
Speaker 8: perfect condition in context for Kamala Harris right to come
Speaker 8: out there, insert some enthusiasm and for folks to have
Speaker 8: something to attach to. And even as a candidate running
Speaker 8: for different levels of government, people need something to believe in, right,
Speaker 8: They need a want, hope, in positivity. Even if folks say,
Speaker 8: well no, they don't they do, because at the end
Speaker 8: of the day, life is hard, life can be hard,
Speaker 8: and so I think we are in that moment in
Speaker 8: time where it was just perfect timing and he delivered.
Speaker 8: So kudos to President Biden. They're just really grateful to him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things that I've been struck by
Speaker 1: was just when you listen.
Speaker 3: To that speech, how this was not a grudging passing
Speaker 3: of the torch.
Speaker 1: This was a complete belief that she could do this.
Speaker 1: And I think that is important.
Speaker 8: That's exactly right. And I actually had goosebumps when I
Speaker 8: read his statement regarding her and him throwing his full
Speaker 8: support and then tears because I recognize, even as a
Speaker 8: woman and as a black woman, in many industries or places,
Speaker 8: for you to be successful, you need a mentor, you
Speaker 8: need folks to invest in you. You need folks to,
Speaker 8: as they would say, sponsor you, to give you the infrastructure,
Speaker 8: to give you the relationships. Otherwise good luck, and especially
Speaker 8: if you are the first. And so for him to
Speaker 8: do that so quickly and so full with full heart
Speaker 8: and passion was exactly what we need. And I think
Speaker 8: it demonstrates in whatever sector we're in, that woman can
Speaker 8: do the job. We don't need another report on that,
Speaker 8: including in law enforcement, public safety agencies, the military. We
Speaker 8: can't do the job. We need folks to believe in us,
Speaker 8: to invest in us, and to empower us and give
Speaker 8: us the space and maybe in many ways get out
Speaker 8: of the way a little bit to allow us to lead,
Speaker 8: to step in who we are, to step into our leadership.
Speaker 8: And he did that, and that can never be lost
Speaker 8: because I hear in politics a lot of times people
Speaker 8: saying we want the next generation of leaders, but then
Speaker 8: they're holding on so tight to their own power, or
Speaker 8: they let go to move on to whatever's next for them.
Speaker 8: They don't go back to send the elevator back down right,
Speaker 8: to send the resources, to send the relationships. And anyone
Speaker 8: who's ever made it, who's ever been the first, you know,
Speaker 8: you need folks to invest in you early on, to
Speaker 8: take a risk on you. And he did just that.
Speaker 8: So I'm so proud of him, and I'm proud of
Speaker 8: this country.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting because it's like I grew
Speaker 1: up with so much privilege, and I had parents who
Speaker 1: were famous and grandparents who were famous, and a lot
Speaker 1: of financial privilege, and I still feel it.
Speaker 3: You know, and I am like.
Speaker 1: A white woman like you just can only imagine how
Speaker 1: fucking hard it has to be for black women to
Speaker 1: do this thing.
Speaker 8: And so go on, Molly, God bless you because you
Speaker 8: just get it on the head. We have to recognize
Speaker 8: it's hard for anyone who has ever been a part
Speaker 8: of a marginalized group to move forward, to move ahead,
Speaker 8: and if you are the first in any setting, that
Speaker 8: is also really hard, and to become the first, you
Speaker 8: need support. But I also recognize you naming the privilege piece.
Speaker 8: It is another layer for black women. Even on the fundraising,
Speaker 8: I should say for black women who are running for office,
Speaker 8: it's harder. You have to prove more, you have to
Speaker 8: do more to get folks to invest in you. And
Speaker 8: of course you wish you weren't so hard, but it is.
Speaker 8: And even if you have all the credentials, even if
Speaker 8: you have the background that they think is appropriate, in
Speaker 8: the best background, it's still a sales pitch to get
Speaker 8: folks to invest where sometimes, of course, it comes more
Speaker 8: natural because others have their relationships or the generational relationships.
Speaker 8: And so Bike has done what's necessary to set her
Speaker 8: up for success, and we can't discount that as you
Speaker 8: have remarked, it's critically important if we want our political
Speaker 8: leadership to be reflective of the people we serve.
Speaker 3: So here's my.
Speaker 1: Question, and this is a question I asked a campaign
Speaker 1: guy last week too. Which is the anxiety that a
Speaker 1: lot of people will listen to this podcast have, Which
Speaker 1: is our voters in the country going to just be
Speaker 1: so racist and sexist that they're not going to vote
Speaker 1: for her?
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 8: What will have to happen is she, along with every
Speaker 8: other organizer and Sarah Gate, will have to get out
Speaker 8: there with a strong message one not really make it
Speaker 8: about her. People want to know who is des vice president?
Speaker 8: Where does she come from? Her record of accomplishment? Of course,
Speaker 8: but what are you going to do for the American people?
Speaker 8: How are you going to bring them together? How are
Speaker 8: you going to deliver on all things economics and affordability?
Speaker 8: How are you going to create an opportunity for folks?
Speaker 8: What are you going to do in the context of
Speaker 8: repro What are you going to do about the Supreme Court?
Speaker 8: What are you going to do about Congress?
Speaker 3: And how do you go to white There's a long list.
Speaker 8: There's a long list. That's what people want to hear it.
Speaker 8: The sooner we all get out there with the message
Speaker 8: around who she is, and each of us have our
Speaker 8: different stories, then what we're going to do for the people.
Speaker 8: I think it's in stark contrast of frankly the noise
Speaker 8: that we're hearing from the other side. But we have
Speaker 8: to work. And let's not discount black women voters. I
Speaker 8: was just on that zoom the other day. I had
Speaker 8: forty thousand black women show up. And if all of
Speaker 8: them are organizing, all of us are going to tell
Speaker 8: our respective networks and people that voting block has always been,
Speaker 8: as many have suggested, as significant backbone of the Democratic
Speaker 8: Party's base. They are excited, they are mobilized. You have
Speaker 8: folks who were thinking about sitting this one out now
Speaker 8: they're not. So we just can't take anything for granted.
Speaker 8: Have to get out there with a strong message and
Speaker 8: do the work all the way through November and of
Speaker 8: course early voting states mobilizing as soon as possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you. I kept you
Speaker 3: too long. I'm sorry. This was great.
Speaker 8: Thank you Mollen for having me. Thank you to you
Speaker 8: and your team. Thanks for the work you do.
Speaker 3: Now moment Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2: Holly jug Fast It's really been amazing five days of
Speaker 2: turning this selection around, and one of the funniest turns
Speaker 2: is the turn on jd Vance. What are you see
Speaker 2: in here?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: Jd Vance was picked by Trump, perhaps at the instruction
Speaker 1: of Don Junior. He was a good friend of Don Junior's,
Speaker 1: also the favorite of Peter Teal. I have always thought
Speaker 1: jd Vance was not that good, and in fact, if
Speaker 1: you look at Ohio at the election, he became a
Speaker 1: Senator and he ran about twenty points behind Republican Governor
Speaker 1: Mike DeWine, so it makes sense that he was absolutely
Speaker 1: not a great candidate and not great at politics in general. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he gave his first solo rally and he bragged about
Speaker 1: drinking diet mountain dew, which I guess he feels makes
Speaker 1: him seem more appellation.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: He also said that Democrats say everything is racist, and
Speaker 1: that they might say mountain dew was racist. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: he did not get a laugh, and for that that
Speaker 1: is our moment of fuck Ray. That's it for this
Speaker 1: episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and
Speaker 1: Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense
Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.