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 transgender people in Florida now face
Speaker 1: the state taking their drivers' licenses. We have a star
Speaker 1: studded show today. Egene Carroll and Robbie Kaplan join us
Speaker 1: to talk about their massive victory over former President Trump
Speaker 1: and what's next in their quest for justice. Brian Class
Speaker 1: talks to us about his new book Fluke, Chance, Chaos,
Speaker 1: and why everything we do matters. But first we have
Speaker 1: former Senator and host of the Al Franken podcast, the one,
Speaker 1: the Only Al Franken. Welcome back to you Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite guests, Al Franken, were You're my
Speaker 1: favorite hosts except for like hosts who have like TV
Speaker 1: shows and no no, So I want to start by
Speaker 1: talking about this insane border legislation. I had breakfast with
Speaker 1: Chris Murphy on Friday morning at Steak and Eggs. Have
Speaker 1: you ever been there?
Speaker 2: No? But it sounds like I know what their menu is.
Speaker 1: And I had it Homelet oh, okay, cheese eggs. I'm
Speaker 1: getting to the headline here, and he said they had
Speaker 1: been working on this border package for like about three
Speaker 1: and a half months, and it's Langford, him and everyone's
Speaker 1: favorite independent. She's not even everyone's favorite independent, right because
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders is everybody's favorite cinema with cinema, but she's
Speaker 1: not everybody's favorite Independent, and that they had something. But
Speaker 1: of course, you know what did that mean? So you
Speaker 1: actually have worked with Langford? I mean, you've worked with
Speaker 1: all these people, but you've certainly worked with Langford.
Speaker 2: And Chris, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And yeah, So we were just talking about I would
Speaker 1: be curious, let's talk about this in Saturday.
Speaker 2: Well, length Efford is very very conservative and on the border,
Speaker 2: and basically what they were trying to do is come
Speaker 2: up with something that both sides could live with. And
Speaker 2: we do have a problem at the border. I don't
Speaker 2: know what's in the package. No one actually knows what
Speaker 2: it is, but clearly it's going to be something much
Speaker 2: stricter in terms of letting people in and kicking people out.
Speaker 2: And they had a deal that included funding the war
Speaker 2: in Ukraine and Israel. So they had it worked out
Speaker 2: and they had worked on it for how many months?
Speaker 2: I don't know, would Chris tell you like four months
Speaker 2: or five months or something like that. They've been working
Speaker 2: on us, I'm sure constantly, maybe much longer. And they
Speaker 2: had a package and that they were going to go with,
Speaker 2: and then Trump said I don't want it because I
Speaker 2: want to have it not solved. I don't want Biden
Speaker 2: to take credit.
Speaker 1: I want something to run on, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And they went, oh, okay, McConnell wall, all right, well, okay,
Speaker 2: that's what you want. We want more judges, you know,
Speaker 2: and and we want fascist running the government so right.
Speaker 1: Because of the tax cut. Let me ask you a
Speaker 1: question about Mitch McConnell here, because you actually know him too.
Speaker 1: When Mitch McConnell said Trump wants us to kill this DL,
Speaker 1: was Mitch McConnell actually trying to throw Trump under the
Speaker 1: bus or was Mitch mcconnald just speaking truth to power.
Speaker 2: I think what he was doing is well for this,
Speaker 2: either he'll get phone under the bus or it'll help him.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'm doing we're all supposed to
Speaker 2: do right now from our own politics. And that's why
Speaker 2: I think what he did. I think he was being
Speaker 2: sincere though actually that he was saying like, okay, now
Speaker 2: we got now we gotta do what the boss says,
Speaker 2: and get him elected. That's what they want, and that's
Speaker 2: that way they get judges, and that way they get
Speaker 2: they get what they want.
Speaker 1: It's such an insane thing to think about for a
Speaker 1: minute here, because here's Mitch McConnell. This is probably, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe he runs again. Never underestimate the
Speaker 1: ability of senators to refuse to leave. But it does
Speaker 1: seem like, you know, here you are into your older
Speaker 1: years and you realize that your legacy is going to
Speaker 1: be just like Trump Patsy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, everybody is Trump's Patsy basically on
Speaker 2: the Republican Party right now. And that's the politics. They
Speaker 2: want a Republican president. He's the he's the nominee, that's clear,
Speaker 2: and he demands that kind of loyalty and fealty and
Speaker 2: he gets it. They've surrendered.
Speaker 1: So it seems like now even though Republicans don't control
Speaker 1: the Senate and they only control the House by I
Speaker 1: think it's two right now, right right? If Swazi when
Speaker 1: then there'll be one. You would just need one Republican.
Speaker 2: Just one COVID.
Speaker 1: That wasn't what I was thinking, but you could just
Speaker 1: one to say you know this party is really pathetic.
Speaker 1: I'm going to switch, and you have a speaker who
Speaker 1: Keem Jeffers.
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought of that. I don't know any Republican
Speaker 2: House member who would do that. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know hardly any of them anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, you only need one, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of them who are on their way out right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just saying, like Patrick McHenry, you know somebody.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Patrick McHenry is not going to do
Speaker 1: it because he comes from Freedom Caucus and is ultimately
Speaker 1: probably as bad as the rest of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know the House lot. But I'd name someone
Speaker 2: who would do this, and then what would happen to them?
Speaker 1: They'd have to hire mid Romney levels of private security,
Speaker 1: so they'd have to be quite rich. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it just seems is unlikely that there really isn't anyone
Speaker 1: who could do that, not even could. I mean any
Speaker 1: of them could, but none of them would. The thing
Speaker 1: I'm so struck by. I want you to talk about
Speaker 1: this for a minute, because this is something I feel
Speaker 1: like we don't talk about but is actually really important.
Speaker 1: Like the economy is quite good and Biden made this
Speaker 1: big announcement to pause natural gas export because we are
Speaker 1: now the largest exporter of natural gas in the entire world,
Speaker 1: and a.
Speaker 2: Lot of that kind of happened because of the war
Speaker 2: in Ukraine and Europe not taking gas from Russia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so here we are a gas giant pausing it
Speaker 1: because Biden actually cares about the environment and wants to
Speaker 1: look at the impact of some of what this is
Speaker 1: doing to indigenous people. What this is, you know, a
Speaker 1: sort of study, but it's clearly easy to ramp up.
Speaker 1: It means that the OPEC does not have the monopoly
Speaker 1: it once did. It means a lot of really good things.
Speaker 1: So business leaders are not embracing Biden even though the
Speaker 1: economy is so good. This is like this weird dichotomy
Speaker 1: where Democrats don't get credit for good economies and Republicans do,
Speaker 1: and then polling shows that people trust Republicans better on
Speaker 1: the economy. Why does this happen, Well.
Speaker 2: That's good propaganda by Republicans. Actually, Biden's economy and his
Speaker 2: job creation numbers are higher than Trump's, and we have
Speaker 2: to advertise that that's something we have to be talking about.
Speaker 2: And people are beginning to feel it. I mean, there
Speaker 2: has been that lag since that, you know, since nine
Speaker 2: percent inflation, and that's scared of the Jesus out of people.
Speaker 2: They had not seen that since you know, it's really
Speaker 2: the seventies, and there's a lag from that that people
Speaker 2: are beginning to see the economy is picking up. The
Speaker 2: stock markets as the highest, you know, and that affects
Speaker 2: people's pensions obviously, and the four oh one ks, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I think that there's enough time between on the election
Speaker 2: for people to see that Biden has been a much
Speaker 2: better steward of the economy than Trump has, just in
Speaker 2: terms of job creation.
Speaker 1: It's like they all just want a tax cut.
Speaker 2: I don't think all wealthy people want a tax cut.
Speaker 1: No, but I mean all these Republicans just want a
Speaker 1: tax cut.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Americans don't Trump voters, don't Yes, Trump voters.
Speaker 2: Should people at the top be paying more? They'll say yes.
Speaker 2: They don't like the elites. They you know, they feel
Speaker 2: like the elites are self serving, and that's what the
Speaker 2: Republicans are. They're self serving for people at the top.
Speaker 2: And so this is one of the basic fights that
Speaker 2: we have, and it's one that we really need to
Speaker 2: be pressing, and that Biden needs to be pressing, which is, hey, everybody,
Speaker 2: we're for taxing people at the top at a higher level.
Speaker 2: That's what we do. That's what harright, that's our thing.
Speaker 2: All polling shows that Americans want that, including Trump vote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, this is the thing. It's economic populism.
Speaker 1: Somehow the party that is the economic populist party cannot
Speaker 1: get credit for it.
Speaker 2: Well, we have to be loud about it. And this
Speaker 2: is where Biden needs to get out and do rallies.
Speaker 2: And Biden needs to go out and show that he
Speaker 2: can do rallies, and he needs to be hitting these
Speaker 2: points over and over again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're in this news crisis, right, We're in this
Speaker 1: mainstream media crisis where like there's such a drop off
Speaker 1: and local news. A lot of these really good papers
Speaker 1: are gone or going massive layoffs this year, like you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the numbers or humongous.
Speaker 2: And where people get their local news now is from
Speaker 2: talk radio, and talk radio is all this right wing
Speaker 2: bladder and.
Speaker 1: Also from social media right, which is like Jesse can
Speaker 1: tell us what's happening on TikTok, But the algorithm did
Speaker 1: have Again, I know this is not a huge group,
Speaker 1: but they did have Osama bin Lawden's was it Osama
Speaker 1: bin Laden? Yes, his letter to America trending? Yes, poor
Speaker 1: Jesse has to.
Speaker 2: Unmute Osama bin Laden's letter to America.
Speaker 1: Yes, Jesse, tell Al Frank in this story, please unmute.
Speaker 1: He's im poor Jesse.
Speaker 3: Osama bin Laden's letter to America trended on TikTok when
Speaker 3: the Israel October seventh started because it was an indictment
Speaker 3: of American imperialism, and the kids found it relevant for
Speaker 3: some reason.
Speaker 2: Oh the kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm really glad to be the voice of this.
Speaker 4: This is really what the paycheck pays me for.
Speaker 1: And there's some sense in which it's very possible that
Speaker 1: the algorithm may have helped.
Speaker 2: This out right, the algorithm, once something starts to trend THEND,
Speaker 2: then it just goes nuts. Is that it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, TikTok again. There is a sense in which the
Speaker 1: algorithm supports more of a negative bent in America versus
Speaker 1: in China, where it encourages children to read and be good.
Speaker 2: I see so, and that's what was in Osama bin
Speaker 2: Laden's letter.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, definitely not.
Speaker 2: I didn't I was just confused there for a segment.
Speaker 4: The death to America for refrain was pretty strong, as
Speaker 4: I recall from the early days of the two thousands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not great.
Speaker 2: So Issama bin Laden wrote two letters, one for Chinese TikTok,
Speaker 2: which is a wholesome Listen to your parents, do your homework,
Speaker 2: try to get into an American university. That's because it
Speaker 2: was written several years ago. He doesn't say that anymore.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't.
Speaker 4: He was known for his misscleoes to see the future.
Speaker 2: Try to go to an American university, but don't fly there,
Speaker 2: go by boat.
Speaker 1: Anyway. The point is, yes, I'm sorry, please help me.
Speaker 2: That was dark.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it was really dark, but it was sort
Speaker 1: of hilarious. But again, here we are on the precipice
Speaker 1: of another Trump Biden showdown, and I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of anxiety, right, I mean, why do the stakes
Speaker 1: have to continually be so high?
Speaker 2: Well, the stakes are incredibly high right now. Did you
Speaker 2: notice we have the possibility of Donald Trump being elected
Speaker 2: and the second term is going to be very different
Speaker 2: than the first, meaning it's going to be the first
Speaker 2: on steroids. I mean it's going to be if one
Speaker 2: be vindicated and two there'll be just no holes barred.
Speaker 2: And I I assume that if he wins, they'll be
Speaker 2: or there may very well be a Republican Senate and
Speaker 2: may very well be a Republican House, although I don't
Speaker 2: see them holding the House because I think Americans have
Speaker 2: been watching this house enough.
Speaker 1: To see us so bad.
Speaker 2: To see how I mean, this is a spectacularly bad house.
Speaker 2: I actually see possibility of both houses whipping Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is an existential threat to our democracy, and if
Speaker 2: he becomes president or this country, the nature of this
Speaker 2: democracy changes, meaning it may not be one. And at
Speaker 2: the end of four years. Yeah, we got nine months
Speaker 2: of this of being scared.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because it's like, it's not funny,
Speaker 1: but it's the like, do you want to have elections election?
Speaker 1: I was listening to NPR and they were talking about
Speaker 1: how Trump is only eligible to serve four more years,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking myself, like, oh, okay, well, I'm sure
Speaker 1: then he'll stick by that.
Speaker 2: I see him doing all kinds of things. I worry
Speaker 2: about him switching the parliamentarian in the Senate and try
Speaker 2: to do everything with fifty votes. If he has fifty
Speaker 2: if you look at the history of autocracies, there's all
Speaker 2: kinds of things he can do, you know, and at
Speaker 2: a certain point the autocrat says, nope, we're changing this,
Speaker 2: and he's able to. This is as frightening as is.
Speaker 2: Last night I was on CNN. I read just a
Speaker 2: couple things, and I want to get these guys to
Speaker 2: start speaking out. This is James Mattis, who was of
Speaker 2: course Sectuary of Defense, talking about Trump. He is more
Speaker 2: dangerous than anyone could ever imagine. Now he said this,
Speaker 2: and these guys tend to say these things once or
Speaker 2: write them once. They got to start talking like every day.
Speaker 2: This is John Kelly, who was his chief staff. Right.
Speaker 2: The depths, the depths of his dishonesty is just a
Speaker 2: to me. He is the most flawed person I have
Speaker 2: ever met in my life. Now it's sort of up
Speaker 2: to these guys, I think, not to say this once,
Speaker 2: but to be saying it every day. And they're supposed
Speaker 2: to be patriots, they were military, they love this country.
Speaker 2: This guy is so dangerous and we need everybody, not
Speaker 2: just hopefully Taylor Swift, because she didn't serve with him.
Speaker 2: She didn't you know, she didn't see it. Up close
Speaker 2: and these guys did. I mean, there's on and on
Speaker 2: it goes with these people and they say these things
Speaker 2: once and get quoted in some story. But they have
Speaker 2: to they have to come out. So this is my
Speaker 2: new thing. I'm just pounding this. You guys come out
Speaker 2: and start talking and start talking every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Al Franken, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: You bet, Molly. Always a pleasure, always fun, except now.
Speaker 1: Egen Carroll is a columnist and author. ROBERTA. Kaplan is
Speaker 1: a lawyer who represented Egen Carroll in our case against
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, as well as arguing United States v. Windsor
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics. Robbie Caplan and Egen Carroll, you.
Speaker 5: Don't much better you need than you, Egene.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about this case because
Speaker 1: I remember when I introduced George to Egen, he said, oh,
Speaker 1: I know the lawyer. I know the lawyer. I know
Speaker 1: the woman who can do this case. How did you
Speaker 1: know George, Robbie.
Speaker 5: You know, I don't think I really knew him. I mean,
Speaker 5: he was a lot tough for many years while I
Speaker 5: was at Paul Weiss. I certainly knew who he was
Speaker 5: because lawyers at firms like that kind of generally know
Speaker 5: each other. I don't think we ever had a case together,
Speaker 5: or I cannot call any circumstances in which we interacted.
Speaker 5: But when Trump was elected and George, who I thought
Speaker 5: was remarkably not only prescient but courageous and disavowing him
Speaker 5: right away as a conservative Republican, we somehow became acquainted.
Speaker 5: And I don't honestly when he made that call, and
Speaker 5: not even should we'd ever met yet.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting because it's like the thing you were
Speaker 1: so famous for was same sex marriage, right, arguing that
Speaker 1: from in front of the Supreme Court. It's a different
Speaker 1: kind of moral courage, but it's similar in a certain way, right.
Speaker 5: I don't know how to answer that. I think George
Speaker 5: is more courageous doing what he did because I was
Speaker 5: very My decision on Windsor was very popular among the people.
Speaker 5: I found that with George, his decision was exceedingly unpopular
Speaker 5: in the group of people he found that with so
Speaker 5: very My wife supported me. His wife was.
Speaker 6: Much Yeah, she's.
Speaker 1: Not a fan of mine either. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: how this case when, and sort of a little bit
Speaker 1: about as you were getting going in it. How was
Speaker 1: the process? This is all because of this Adult Survivors
Speaker 1: Act too. Right.
Speaker 5: The case that was tried first, that was tried less Spring,
Speaker 5: was all because of the Adult Survivors Act, which Egene
Speaker 5: herself tried helped bring about.
Speaker 1: And that is the second case. Right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, with the second case that was filed, it just
Speaker 5: moved a lot faster because it didn't have any of
Speaker 5: these complicated issues about federal power and whether he was president, etc.
Speaker 1: Right. Can you talk a little bit about the Adult
Speaker 1: Survivors Act and also Egene's involvement in that.
Speaker 5: Sure. So the Adult Survivors Act was a law that
Speaker 5: grew out of the realization by many many people that
Speaker 5: women who had been sexually assaulted, for example, at the
Speaker 5: time that Egene was assaulted, and even for years and
Speaker 5: years before that, quite rationally, in my view, at that
Speaker 5: point in time, would have and could have it probably
Speaker 5: should have made the decision not to report it. We
Speaker 5: weren't a society that was particularly open.
Speaker 1: To those issues.
Speaker 5: The DA's offices weren't particularly open to those issues, and
Speaker 5: so a lot of women again rationally, decided to keep
Speaker 5: it quiet. So the Adult Survivors that said, look, if
Speaker 5: that had happened to you many years ago, and you
Speaker 5: could no longer be a claim because of what's called
Speaker 5: the statue limitations, which means your case is barred by
Speaker 5: the time limits. You can have a free one year
Speaker 5: look back, essentially, in which during the course of that
Speaker 5: year you can bring those claims and statute of limitations
Speaker 5: are not a defense. That's basically what it did. That
Speaker 5: that period is now over. It began two Thanksgivings ago,
Speaker 5: when it ended last Thanksgiving. Egen, you should talk about
Speaker 5: your role of getting a tasked.
Speaker 1: Yes, please do, Molly.
Speaker 6: As you know, I'm not good at politics. I don't
Speaker 6: about how to even go about it. Robbie's wife, Rachel
Speaker 6: A Line was my sort of my coach the goose.
Speaker 6: I turned the board myself to write to every single
Speaker 6: member of the House of Representatives in Albany. I didn't
Speaker 6: know how to be assembly the Assembly, all the Assembly members. Molly,
Speaker 6: how do you write a letter to all the Assembly
Speaker 6: members in Albany? And she really coached me through. So
Speaker 6: that was the first thing we did. Second thing we
Speaker 6: did is I went to Albany with Rachel Tuckman, one
Speaker 6: of our great lawyers here, and Rachel at the time
Speaker 6: she didn't want anybody. Now it was six weeks pregnant,
Speaker 6: and that woman ran up. You've been to Albany and
Speaker 6: Molly right the down staircase or wherever that thing is going.
Speaker 6: There were so many stairs in the New York camp up.
Speaker 6: And that woman is six weeks who was told she
Speaker 6: should not be traveling, walking, driving. She went the stairs,
Speaker 6: We got into the elevator. We went from office to office,
Speaker 6: knocking on doors, introducing ourselves. And here's the thing on
Speaker 6: Nobody wanted to talk to us. Now body, nobody wants
Speaker 6: to hear about sexual assault. They just they feel bad
Speaker 6: about it. They don't know how to handle it. They
Speaker 6: don't want two women knocked around their doors show the saw.
Speaker 6: You know, they don't except Linda Rosenthal. She said, come girls,
Speaker 6: and we sit down, and she helped us plot out
Speaker 6: and Senator Brad hole in money those two really and
Speaker 6: plus the letters, I think ana a little bit and lo,
Speaker 6: lo and behold the thing passed. It passed amazing. It
Speaker 6: made all the difference. And look what happened.
Speaker 5: Remember at the end, everybody, remember last month when everybody
Speaker 5: started coming forward, and remember on puff Daddy.
Speaker 1: So this adult Survivors Act. There's a certain window and
Speaker 1: which you can come forward, and I think when does
Speaker 1: it end? I think it ended last month, right.
Speaker 5: There might have some extensions for whatever reason, but it's
Speaker 5: oldver it ended at a little bit. I think the
Speaker 5: woman and who Sue Litle purported to sue Sean Colms
Speaker 5: was doing so order in New York City law, which
Speaker 5: was about to expire. I think we built survivors that
Speaker 5: expired around Thanksgiving, Okay, November twenty second, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We spend so much time on this
Speaker 1: podcast talking about conservatives going into the legal system to
Speaker 1: take away our rights, especially after Row. It's really interesting
Speaker 1: the idea that you could conceivably change these rights so
Speaker 1: that survivors would have more rights.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, well that's what and that's is that how
Speaker 5: what happened? More rights?
Speaker 6: Who are got more rights?
Speaker 5: I mean part of the right side in terms of
Speaker 5: kind of what's happening legally at SCOTUS right now. Theoretically,
Speaker 5: at least, the states should have a lot more power,
Speaker 5: and so states like New York and California and others
Speaker 5: that want to pass progressive legislation should have more power
Speaker 5: to do so as a Supreme court kind of gets
Speaker 5: you rid of all these federal protections.
Speaker 1: It's a halcyon thought. Unlikely, right, I mean, And they're
Speaker 1: ultimately their goal is just to dismantle the federal governments. Ye,
Speaker 1: do whatever they want. I'm curious. So now, so just
Speaker 1: tell me about the sort of process of waiting. I mean, Egene,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you were flooded with vitrial. I always
Speaker 1: find like that it actually kind of gets to me,
Speaker 1: even though I say it doesn't get to me, it
Speaker 1: sort of gets to me.
Speaker 6: Oh well, it's intense today, yet very intense today after
Speaker 6: we did Madou last night, and we did yesterday, and
Speaker 6: you know, the morning shows, and they just are because
Speaker 6: we really really trounced Donald Trump, and it's making people
Speaker 6: a little insane. His supporters, they really can't believe that
Speaker 6: an elderly woman and a hot shot lawyer and a
Speaker 6: team of young just indestructible attorneys almost well of us
Speaker 6: who are women, just wrongstier. So it's making people a
Speaker 6: little nervous, and so they strike out at Robbie and me.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot about this, Like you're my
Speaker 1: mom's age, you're a little younger than my mom, and
Speaker 1: you are Donald Trump's age right now.
Speaker 5: I'm eighty eighty, your mom's.
Speaker 6: Eight eighty three. I had told you that I was
Speaker 6: walking down the street. Erika John was the first celebrity
Speaker 6: I saw, and I had just come in from Montana.
Speaker 6: I'm walking down the avenue and there comes this vision
Speaker 6: blond hair, yards of it lying out around her head.
Speaker 6: And this was a woman I work you reading in
Speaker 6: my little Montana cabine. Fear of flying made such an
Speaker 6: impression on all this, and she's coming towards me. I'm
Speaker 6: walking my dog.
Speaker 5: I just I can't believe it. I was in nningar
Speaker 5: Erica John herself walking down the street, and she was
Speaker 5: so I did. I was not prepared for her beauty,
Speaker 5: much of which you create, and you've been inherited with
Speaker 5: your massive amounts it.
Speaker 6: Well, I don't know what color your here today, Molly
Speaker 6: spread and blonde.
Speaker 1: So but let me ask you. Now, you're in this
Speaker 1: moment where Trump and his followers and his are you know,
Speaker 1: he's not going to pay a penny of it. We're
Speaker 1: going to appeal. Da da da da da. Talk me
Speaker 1: through next steps. So here's where we are right now.
Speaker 1: Did vertice has come in. Trump has an opportunity, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure people take, to file what are called post
Speaker 1: traum motions, basically arguments to the judge that the jury
Speaker 1: verdict should be set aside.
Speaker 5: Those arguments have about a zero percent chance of success.
Speaker 5: Once Judge Kaplan denies those motions, then he will issue
Speaker 5: what's called the judgment, and then Trump has I think
Speaker 5: it's thirty days to either seek an appellate bond or
Speaker 5: to deposit about eighty nine or ninety million dollars with
Speaker 5: the court. Last time, when the verdict was only five
Speaker 5: million dollars, he actually deposited five point five million dollars
Speaker 5: in the court. This time, he's either got to get
Speaker 5: a bond or he has to deposit ninety million dollars.
Speaker 5: If he doesn't, that means that we can start ed
Speaker 5: forcing right away.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean?
Speaker 5: That means we could say he'd give us pay us
Speaker 5: the money, and if he can't pay it all, we're
Speaker 5: allowed to get information about his bank accounts, about his
Speaker 5: checking accounts, about how much he's earning, his tax statements,
Speaker 5: et cetera.
Speaker 1: And that will ultimately destroy the myth of Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: I don't know that for a fact, but I wouldn't
Speaker 5: be shocked. You mean the myth of him is being wealthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean you'll be able to see everything
Speaker 1: he's hidden for so long.
Speaker 5: So when does that mean our case closes? Robin? Where's
Speaker 5: our case? Club? Our chief closes? Finally closes when the
Speaker 5: appellate court is done with it, the Second Circuit and
Speaker 5: if he seeks reviews to the Supreme Court, which I
Speaker 5: think is extremely doubtful here when they probably or not
Speaker 5: taking the case. Okay, so he remained open, so it'll
Speaker 5: switch courts, so it'll go from the district court to
Speaker 5: the Second Circuit.
Speaker 6: But well, man, he defans me again. Yes, is our
Speaker 6: case still open?
Speaker 5: No, we would have to follow if we want to
Speaker 5: bring the case, we'd have to follow yet another case.
Speaker 5: Carol three. I see.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious. Now you had this experience of being
Speaker 1: in these depositions with him. Can we talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what that was like? What was that like?
Speaker 5: It was not as crazy, believe it or not as
Speaker 5: the trial, which was one of the crazy experienced, but
Speaker 5: it was pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: Can you tell the story of what he said to you?
Speaker 5: I did shoo depositions with him. The first one was
Speaker 5: in another case that's about a fraud case, really, and
Speaker 5: at the end of that deposition he was not happy
Speaker 5: with me. And at the end of that deposition they
Speaker 5: said something like off the record, off the record to
Speaker 5: make sure that everything was turned off, and he said
Speaker 5: to me, see you next Tuesday. I, fortunately for me,
Speaker 5: had no idea what that meant. So I, what are
Speaker 5: you talking about. I'm coming back on Wednesday. Literally, But
Speaker 5: I said it sounds like I was being witty, but
Speaker 5: it was just ignorant. And then we got in the
Speaker 5: car and my associates, my colleagues told me what he meant,
Speaker 5: and I was like, thank god I didn't know, because
Speaker 5: I would have gotten very upset. And then later that
Speaker 5: next Wednesday, we were there for the eging Arreld deposition,
Speaker 5: and that's where he made these very very significant errors, including,
Speaker 5: you know, talking about the excess Hollywood tape and saying
Speaker 5: how fortunately or unfortunately men had been able to get
Speaker 5: away with that from millions of years, and looking at
Speaker 5: a photo of Ejen her then husband, Donald Trump, and
Speaker 5: his then wife in point to Gene and saying, that's
Speaker 5: Marlon Maple's.
Speaker 1: That was incredible. I remember talking to you after that,
Speaker 1: to seeing you socially somewhere, it's just so like it
Speaker 1: just negates all the lies he was saying about are Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean I was because when he listened to the video,
Speaker 5: I'm kind of like soft at my wisaritory and I said,
Speaker 5: did you just say that was Marlon Bapoles And I
Speaker 5: say something like that, and.
Speaker 1: I'm so shocked. Unbullieable but never Molly.
Speaker 6: And he says to grab and he said, no offense,
Speaker 6: but I'm had a tragure. Gee, you either we're not
Speaker 6: right take eye typing either. And of course he air
Speaker 6: is the thing on a tirade against Rodney. You know,
Speaker 6: she's a Democratic wob of grabit Center and Center. That's
Speaker 6: how he ended that.
Speaker 5: Oh, Robbie Johnam, I hadn't for lunch or that was
Speaker 5: the first deposition. He looks to me, he said, well
Speaker 5: I wanted to I said, okay, sir, I'm going to
Speaker 5: cover this one more topic and then we'll break for lunch.
Speaker 5: And he said, why do we have to break for lunch?
Speaker 5: I just want to go straight through And I said, look,
Speaker 5: I would, but there's a court reporter here, there's a
Speaker 5: videographer there, title to lunch breaks, that we're gonna have
Speaker 5: to take a break, And then you could kind of
Speaker 5: see his brain clicking, and he said, well, you're here
Speaker 5: in mar A Lango. What do you think you're going
Speaker 5: to eat for lunch? And I said, well, I actually
Speaker 5: raised this with your attorneys yesterday, including Onlina Hob I think,
Speaker 5: and I said, and they graciously offered to provide us
Speaker 5: with lunch, at which point he took a huge pile
Speaker 5: of papers them across the team.
Speaker 1: It really does seem unfit, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and all of that Molly is nothing, literally nothing
Speaker 5: compared to the way he acted in that corporo.
Speaker 1: Yeah. First, I want you to talk about the pointing,
Speaker 1: because I think that's really interesting. And then I want
Speaker 1: you to talk about how much candidate Trump really hurt
Speaker 1: defendant Trump.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, the answer is a lot. So in terms
Speaker 5: of the pointing, I didn't even see it because when
Speaker 5: I'm in court, I'm very formal. I don't turn back
Speaker 5: and I was facing forward. But I realized afterwards. I
Speaker 5: think a reporter told me that during her rebuttal, Sean Crowley,
Speaker 5: who's quite tall and was wearing heels, so she was
Speaker 5: super tall every time she mentioned Donald Trump stood and
Speaker 5: kind of pointed at it. He would have been to
Speaker 5: her last and apparently he was just like glaring at her,
Speaker 5: and she's pointing at him, and it was quite quite something,
Speaker 5: very very courageous of her, dramatic.
Speaker 1: I would love you to just talk about what happened
Speaker 1: in the courthouse that you felt like really hurt him.
Speaker 5: There's a kind of a way, I think, to reduce,
Speaker 5: to concentrate it all down and think about it this
Speaker 5: way in this case, which was only about damages and
Speaker 5: in which we really focused on all his repeated defamations
Speaker 5: of Egene, even those after the verge in the last case,
Speaker 5: continuing during this trial, like he would leave the courthouse
Speaker 5: and he would go and to fade Egene again, if
Speaker 5: that's the subject of the case. And you're basically saying
Speaker 5: to the jury, here's a man who's a bully, who
Speaker 5: cannot follow the rules, who thinks they don't apply to him.
Speaker 5: Acting in the courtroom like a bully who can't follow
Speaker 5: the rules is arguably not a great strategy. I think
Speaker 5: the anti strategy, that's not a great idea. And so
Speaker 5: we were joking the other day, I'm not even sure
Speaker 5: Sean and I needed to close. I think we just
Speaker 5: like sat down because they saw it all for themselves.
Speaker 5: Oh no, and you're closing, moll. And you read this
Speaker 5: granscript right.
Speaker 1: Yet no would talk to us about the closing arguments.
Speaker 6: Oh, it was brilliantly built, it was movie, it was powerful.
Speaker 6: Robbie had the jury in the palm of her hand.
Speaker 6: This story is very odd, Molly. They were very intensely
Speaker 6: paying attention, but they didn't think it was correct to
Speaker 6: look at the attorneys. They were very careful, not together.
Speaker 6: They didn't even look at it. During the clothing argument,
Speaker 6: they looked at Ross's. Sure they were torturing us because
Speaker 6: they literally would not work our way. They would not
Speaker 6: let her.
Speaker 5: But during their clothing you were aware of Robbie.
Speaker 6: Then every once in a while they would look at
Speaker 6: you because you could not look away because she was
Speaker 6: describing what the man had done. And she told her
Speaker 6: riveting story, and of course she was and only just begun.
Speaker 6: She so incited him that when you could hear a
Speaker 6: pin drop in the courtroom for the closing was so amazing,
Speaker 6: when everybody was riveted to her, He stands up and
Speaker 6: I don't think he walks out.
Speaker 5: He stalked up.
Speaker 6: He's stalked up, and Robbie is, of course, as she's
Speaker 6: told you, she was outawhere. Judge Chaplin had to say
Speaker 6: for the record, he's defendant has left the courtroom, I think,
Speaker 6: or he says like that, lots the car, and Robbie
Speaker 6: of course doesn't miss a beat. She goes right on
Speaker 6: with the next say, she didn't miss her the flow,
Speaker 6: She just went on and it was well drawn him
Speaker 6: from the road. He did come back for Hoba.
Speaker 5: For Hobba, he.
Speaker 1: Left because he was obviously couldn't control himself. Maybe.
Speaker 5: I mean, it seems like only about eight minutes into
Speaker 5: my clothing, which was an hour, so you know, at
Speaker 5: the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Wow. And then he came back later.
Speaker 5: He came back when I was done to watch Alena
Speaker 5: Hobba clothes. And then maybe because they convinced him he
Speaker 5: couldn't do it again, he had to stay for Sean
Speaker 5: Crowley's rebuttal Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Can you just talk to us about his legal representation
Speaker 1: because he used to have Joe Tacopina right right the
Speaker 1: first trial, Yeah, and then he switched. Was Alena Habba.
Speaker 1: The person who should be taking a trial.
Speaker 5: Yes I'm not. It's not for me to say, but
Speaker 5: I don't think she's had a lot of trial experience.
Speaker 5: And Judge Kaplan is a very strict he said it
Speaker 5: on the record, a very formal judge who expects lawyers
Speaker 5: not only to behave but to do things in the
Speaker 5: proper way. And if you don't know how to do
Speaker 5: things in the proper way, he loses patience, which he
Speaker 5: lost many, many, many times. And she would really talk
Speaker 5: to him. I mean, the one thing that was the
Speaker 5: most stressful part of it all and why it was
Speaker 5: so much crazier than the depositions, is between Trump kind
Speaker 5: of shrugging and walking out and making gestures and kind
Speaker 5: of talking under his breath and Haba directly challenging the
Speaker 5: judge in the most obstinate, in disrespectful way. The very
Speaker 5: first day, she said to him, I really don't appreciate
Speaker 5: how you're speaking to me, but I can't. I have
Speaker 5: to tell you, Molly, I can't imagine saying that to
Speaker 5: a judge. Yeah, I don't know what drug I would
Speaker 5: have to be on to say that to a judge.
Speaker 5: So it was always toense because you kind of never
Speaker 5: knew when those things were going to happen. Judge Kevin
Speaker 5: did an amazing job of keeping his equanimity, but it
Speaker 5: was a struggle.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the jury they were protected their anonymous jurors.
Speaker 1: This is a pretty unusual thing to do, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: So it's not uncommon in criminal cases, like in terrorism cases,
Speaker 5: it happens all the time, but in civil cases it's
Speaker 5: very rare. They did it in My Nazi, My Charlott's
Speaker 5: Fall Nazi case for similar reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think it was this. Among the many smart decisions
Speaker 5: that the judge made, this might have been the smartest
Speaker 5: because the jury felt completely safe and completely protected. And
Speaker 5: at the end he said to them, you know, I
Speaker 5: can't tell you not to speak to the lawyers or
Speaker 5: not to expose yourselves, but if I were you, I
Speaker 5: would tell you not to My advice you would be
Speaker 5: not to do That's not arning. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, it feels so chilling. Robbie, Kaplan, Eji and Carol,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much. Really appreciate you both.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Molly. Brian Klass is the author of Fluke, Chance, Chaos
Speaker 1: and Why Everything We Do Matters. Welcome back to Fast
Speaker 1: Politics Behind Class.
Speaker 7: Thanks for having on the show again.
Speaker 1: Your book is called Fluke, Chance, Chaos and why everything
Speaker 1: we do matters. So explain to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about why you got here to write this book.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So there's sort of two stories. I mean, one
Speaker 7: is I think that the world works this way and
Speaker 7: it's swayed by these small shocks that have big consequences
Speaker 7: and we just pretend otherwise. So the opening story of
Speaker 7: the book is about a vacation that a couple took
Speaker 7: to Kyoto, Japan in nineteen twenty six, and the husband
Speaker 7: of the couple nineteen years later ends up as the
Speaker 7: Secretary of War for the United States, and in nineteen
Speaker 7: forty five he's the chief civilian in charge of word
Speaker 7: to drop the atomic bomb, and the target committee basically
Speaker 7: says they want to drop it on Kyoto, and they
Speaker 7: send it to Truman and so on, and Stimpson, because
Speaker 7: he is the husband of this couple that went there
Speaker 7: in nineteen twenty six, because he has a soft spot
Speaker 7: for the city, he twice meets with Truman and gets
Speaker 7: it taken off the list. And so the first atomic
Speaker 7: bomb dropped on Hiroshima purely because an American government official
Speaker 7: went on holiday nineteen years earlier to Kyoto and decided
Speaker 7: he didn't want the city destroyed. So, you know, I
Speaker 7: think as a political scientist, there's as bad aspect, which
Speaker 7: is like the world does shift this way on a
Speaker 7: personal level. The sort of origin story of the book
Speaker 7: is that there's a story from my family history where
Speaker 7: a woman in nineteen oh five in rural Wisconsin had
Speaker 7: a mental breakdown and tragically decided to kill her four
Speaker 7: children and then kill herself. And her husband came home
Speaker 7: and found the whole family dead. And this is my
Speaker 7: great grandfather and his first wife. He remarried to my
Speaker 7: great grandmother. And the only reason I exist is because
Speaker 7: of this mass murder. So I feel like a cosmic accident,
Speaker 7: a bit of a fluke, as it were.
Speaker 1: But the Jesus, this is pretty rough.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 7: But the really strange thing about this is like, you know, Molly,
Speaker 7: like we wouldn't be talking if these kids didn't get killed, right,
Speaker 7: And I think like that's the thing that we ignore,
Speaker 7: Like there's all these ripple effects in politics, in society
Speaker 7: and in our own lives, which is why I talk
Speaker 7: about chaos theory in the book a lot. But it's like,
Speaker 7: you know, when we tell the stories of politics when
Speaker 7: we go on MSNBC, as both of us do, to
Speaker 7: explain politics, like it's always big reasons for big events, right,
Speaker 7: And I think there's a lot of ripple effects that
Speaker 7: are sort of lurking there that explain the world better
Speaker 7: often than the sort of obvious variables. Because you wouldn't
Speaker 7: imagine that the vacation history of a government official would
Speaker 7: cause the atomic bomb to land on one city rather
Speaker 7: than another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for sure, true, and I think important.
Speaker 1: So we look at right now, I mean I guess yeah,
Speaker 1: you could say like the World War one, right, was
Speaker 1: started by a fluke, right archduke, world War two? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean there are there are all these different things
Speaker 1: that are started. You know, we don't know what things
Speaker 1: will lead to. It's interesting. So now when we look
Speaker 1: at Trump and trump Ism, do we see that there's
Speaker 1: like it doesn't feel like a fluke led us to
Speaker 1: trump Ism as much as just like a continual hostility
Speaker 1: of a group of people who liked Trump's racism and
Speaker 1: economic populism.
Speaker 7: I think there are flukes that we can see very
Speaker 7: clearly with Trump, though, I mean one of them. For example,
Speaker 7: is there speculation that he decided to run for president
Speaker 7: in twenty eleven when the White House correspondence dinner happened.
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to say that when Obama
Speaker 1: was making those jokes.
Speaker 7: Right, yeah, and Obama humiliated him. You know what this
Speaker 7: is true or not, I don't know, but that's one possibility.
Speaker 7: So maybe he doesn't run. Then you get to the
Speaker 7: twenty sixteen election. Right, You've got like, you know, seventy
Speaker 7: eighty thousand votes that decide the race in three states.
Speaker 7: And part of the reason why the FBI investigation is
Speaker 7: reopened is because of Anthony Wiener. If this doesn't happen,
Speaker 7: maybe Komi doesn't make his statement, maybe Clinton narrowly wins,
Speaker 7: and then we have a totally different narrative, right because
Speaker 7: like Brexit then becomes the outlier of populism and it's
Speaker 7: like the high water mark of it, and we say, oh, well,
Speaker 7: but then Clinton wins is like the establishment figures maybe
Speaker 7: populism is dead. I mean, there's all these things where
Speaker 7: a lot of things pivot on very small, narrow outcomes,
Speaker 7: and you know, there's some really strange stuff too. I
Speaker 7: talk about this in the book briefly, and it's a
Speaker 7: little bit in the weeds. But if you look at
Speaker 7: the twenty twenty election results, there's this little swoop across Georgia,
Speaker 7: this blue swoop in the counties where Biden basically racks
Speaker 7: up enough votes to win. And also the Democrats end
Speaker 7: up winning in Georgia in the Senate and control the Senate.
Speaker 7: That crescent shape that if you look up the county
Speaker 7: level election results, it is literally caused by an ancient
Speaker 7: inland sea at the time of the dinosaurs, because there
Speaker 7: was fhytoplankton that lived there and they died and became
Speaker 7: really rich soil. So when slavery was established, they put
Speaker 7: all the plantations on this swoop and then all of
Speaker 7: the enslaved people were brought there and then they were
Speaker 7: freed and they stayed there. And this is where a
Speaker 7: lot of the black population in Georgia lives that votes Democrat.
Speaker 7: So you know, I mean, there's all these things where
Speaker 7: if you take the long sweep of history, yeah, you
Speaker 7: can see geological contingencies and so on, but there's also
Speaker 7: aspects about you know, I think what we do as
Speaker 7: pundits or analysts is we stitch history backwards. So like
Speaker 7: something happens like oh, this was inevitable. Trump was always
Speaker 7: going to rise because of these undercurrents. But if he'd
Speaker 7: lost in twenty sixteen, there would have a really different America,
Speaker 7: I think, And so you know, there could have been
Speaker 7: this this backlash to Trump is in this sort of
Speaker 7: condemnation in the Republican Party saying, oh, well, he was
Speaker 7: never going to win anyway, and then maybe the party
Speaker 7: isn't authoritarian and overly racist, right, So you know, I
Speaker 7: think there's a lot of these moments in history where
Speaker 7: it could have pivoted slightly differently. And that's, you know,
Speaker 7: not to mention the fact that Trump was sort of
Speaker 7: made into this kingpin, celebrity apprentice guy when actually he.
Speaker 2: Was a business failure.
Speaker 7: If somebody they picked somebody else, maybe he doesn't rise,
Speaker 7: you know. So I think basically what happens is when
Speaker 7: you try to make sense of politics, you are told
Speaker 7: to look for big causes for big effects that are
Speaker 7: really oppos and I think that when you look in
Speaker 7: detail at history, that very quickly falls apart. As we
Speaker 7: all know in our own lives, right, and we've seen
Speaker 7: all these little happenstance moments. I think the really bewildering
Speaker 7: thing is the stuff that we don't ever see, right,
Speaker 7: like the stuff in our lives, like the sliding doors
Speaker 7: sort of moments where or you hit the snooze button
Speaker 7: and your life might unfold slightly differently. You can only
Speaker 7: observe the life you live. And I think that's true
Speaker 7: for politics as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super interesting. And yeah for exit, yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder about that too. And Trump, you know, he did
Speaker 1: manage to the electoral college itself feels very flugish because
Speaker 1: we've now seen this happen a bunch of times where
Speaker 1: a candidate has won the electoral college and lost the
Speaker 1: popular vote and gone on to be president, which is
Speaker 1: just completely strange. The fluke thing I always think about
Speaker 1: is like, this is so sick. But I think, what
Speaker 1: if Mitt Romney had won. I didn't like Mitt Romney
Speaker 1: at the time, but now I think, like Mitt Romney
Speaker 1: had president, perhaps you know that the Republican Party wouldn't
Speaker 1: have lost its mind.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so you know, I think I think that's definitely
Speaker 7: a fair counterfactual to consider. And he probably if he'd won,
Speaker 7: he would have been the nominee in twenty sixteen almost certainly, right,
Speaker 7: So then that would have knocked out Trump in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7: I think what's really striking if you look at the
Speaker 7: twenty first century, though, is that our politics and our
Speaker 7: lives have been just like walloped over and over and
Speaker 7: over by these shocks, right, Like you look at the
Speaker 7: twenty first centuries nine to eleven, the Iraq War, the
Speaker 7: financial crisis, the Arab Spring, which was started by literally
Speaker 7: lighting himself on fire in central Tunisia. Then you have
Speaker 7: you know, Brexit Trump, the pandemic started by a mutated
Speaker 7: virus infecting one person in China, and then you have
Speaker 7: you know, Gaza and Ukraine and so on and sort
Speaker 7: of these constant upheavals. And I think the thing that
Speaker 7: you know, I argue in Fluke as well, is that
Speaker 7: we've engineered a system that's that's really prone to this, right,
Speaker 7: because we've set up systems where like the world operates
Speaker 7: with no slack. Probably the best example this was a
Speaker 7: couple of years ago when a gust of wind hit
Speaker 7: a boat in the Suez Canal and twisted sideways, you know,
Speaker 7: wiped out fifty four billion dollars of economic output. And
Speaker 7: it's like, you know, from like one boat, you know,
Speaker 7: So I think I think this stuff like you know,
Speaker 7: Trump's presidency also pivots to a large degree on COVID
Speaker 7: or January sixth. You know what, if they had taken
Speaker 7: it a bit more seriously and had sort of broken
Speaker 7: it up, or they didn't allow the protest movement to
Speaker 7: even get started or whatever, or if January sixth, there's
Speaker 7: a great contingency here where the guys with the zip
Speaker 7: ties they get really close. Let's imagine they actually get
Speaker 7: somebody who's in Congress or in the Senate and kill them.
Speaker 7: Does that mean that Trump can rebound the way he
Speaker 7: has in twenty twenty four, I mean maybe, but maybe
Speaker 7: not right. So, I think this is all these things
Speaker 7: where these split second changes or small changes Anthony Wiener's
Speaker 7: celfo or a joke about you know Trump in twenty eleven.
Speaker 7: I think we just write that out as noise, and
Speaker 7: the wisdom, the received wisdom you get is like, you know,
Speaker 7: ignore the noise, focus on the signal. And I'm not
Speaker 7: sure that's a good idea. I think there's a lot
Speaker 7: of stuff in our politics that is swayed by noise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in for sure. I think that last statement
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of stuff in our politics that's
Speaker 1: swayed by noise is for sure, Troe. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about that noise right now. There's a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 1: My personal anxiety is that I am missing stories, that
Speaker 1: I am missing part of the world because I am
Speaker 1: not getting the news that everybody else is, or I'm
Speaker 1: not getting enough of it. It's kind of nots but
Speaker 1: I have a lot of anxiety about the siloed nature
Speaker 1: of the world. Now, Am I right? Am I wrong?
Speaker 1: I mean, talk to me about that.
Speaker 7: One of the biggest problems that we've embedded into American
Speaker 7: politics is that we have totally different information pipelines depending
Speaker 7: on who we are, right, And like, I think this
Speaker 7: is where the United States has a totally broken system
Speaker 7: that is going to have generational consequences, not just trump Ism,
Speaker 7: but that will outlast Trump probably. And it's something you know,
Speaker 7: I can say, as you know, I live in the UK,
Speaker 7: I come back to the US every so often. I
Speaker 7: flip on you know, Fox News and Newsmax to see
Speaker 7: what's going on. There's just nothing like that in the
Speaker 7: developed democracies and the rest of the world. And the
Speaker 7: sort of propaganda that does exist on the airwaves in
Speaker 7: the United States is something that I think has also
Speaker 7: embedded risk in this because you think about like QAnon,
Speaker 7: for example, and fifty percent of American Republicans now say
Speaker 7: that they believe at least one plank of QAnon. I mean,
Speaker 7: one of those people is going to do something really crazy,
Speaker 7: and some of them already have.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: A guy tried to like blow up the Hoover dam
Speaker 7: at one point and thankfully didn't succeed based on QAnon belief.
Speaker 7: Not to mention the Pizzagate incidenta the guy tried to
Speaker 7: shoot up the pizza joint, Right, So there's I think
Speaker 7: there's all these things where like we have this illusion
Speaker 7: of order because we've avoided some of the catastrophes that
Speaker 7: could have happened. But you know, I think some of
Speaker 7: that's luck. I think some of that is just like
Speaker 7: all the ingredients are there, we've sort of designed a tinderbox,
Speaker 7: and then we're just hoping a spark doesn't fly. And
Speaker 7: I think, you know, this is the stuff where what
Speaker 7: I'm talking about with this sort of design of systems
Speaker 7: and the proneness to flukes today is like, you know,
Speaker 7: the Arab spring was a place where everybody was on edge.
Speaker 7: I mean, all the people were restless and angry about
Speaker 7: the dictatorships. One guy lights himself on fire, and all
Speaker 7: of a sudden, you have a civil war in Syria
Speaker 7: with hundreds of thousands of people dying, multiple regimes collapse.
Speaker 7: And so my point is that, like you know, I
Speaker 7: think we've set up these systems that are just super
Speaker 7: super prone to shocks, and the mistake we make is
Speaker 7: imagining they're like an outlier that's some weird thing that
Speaker 7: we couldn't have foreseen. I think we've designed systems that
Speaker 7: when the noise of life gets into the system, it
Speaker 7: actually creates these massive consequences. So, you know, that is
Speaker 7: something I worry about. The information pipelines is one that
Speaker 7: amplifies it. And I think you're right to worry that
Speaker 7: we all get a little slice of reality because we
Speaker 7: exist in information bubbles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you got back to America this time, we
Speaker 1: had dinner and we were chatting, and you said that
Speaker 1: you felt like America was a little bit scarier even
Speaker 1: than it had been a couple of years ago when
Speaker 1: you were here the last time. Can you talk about that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's something that's really striking.
Speaker 7: I've lived abroad for almost thirteen years now, and every
Speaker 7: time I go home, which is multiple times a year,
Speaker 7: I'm just struck by social dysfunction in a way that
Speaker 7: is totally alien in many parts of Europe. It's not
Speaker 7: Europe or Britain is like some paragon of good governance. Obviously, Like,
Speaker 7: you know, things are messed up really bad here.
Speaker 1: Now you have bracs At, you have Richie Sudac, We
Speaker 1: often have Ian Dunstan here to tell us just about
Speaker 1: how fucked up you guys are.
Speaker 7: But yes, continue, yeah, so there are there are problems,
Speaker 7: but like you know, I mean, the way I always
Speaker 7: explains to people is the British version of Anthony Fauci
Speaker 7: is named Chris Whitty, and he's like universally regarded as
Speaker 7: a hero. In the UK, almost everybody got vaccinated and
Speaker 7: just sort of followed the rules. We like had this
Speaker 7: tradition where everyone went out on their doorsteps and clapped
Speaker 7: for the nurses for.
Speaker 1: Like months, right, yeah.
Speaker 7: Now, I went home to the US in like twenty
Speaker 7: twenty one, and it was like this extreme polarization where
Speaker 7: you could see whether someone is a Democrat or Republican
Speaker 7: based on whether they were wearing a mask and then
Speaker 7: also like Anthony Fauci is like at credible risk of
Speaker 7: being murdered, and you know, these are like little canaries
Speaker 7: in the coal mine. But it's also like just the
Speaker 7: visibility of partisanship where you know, you have these flags
Speaker 7: everywhere of you know, Trump or also all sorts of
Speaker 7: things where everything about like a lot of people's lives
Speaker 7: is sort of their identity is fused with partisanship, and
Speaker 7: it's just an it's like an angrier culture sure than
Speaker 7: what I'm used to in the UK. So you know,
Speaker 7: I do worry about that because it's long term stuff.
Speaker 7: I mean, this is not just like you know, Trump
Speaker 7: goes away and then everything's fine. I think there's sort
Speaker 7: of a like a vitriol in American politics, an undercurrent
Speaker 7: of violence that is just so not in many parts
Speaker 7: of other rich democracies in the world.
Speaker 1: Basically quite actually quite scary in my mind. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, is Fox News to blame or is it
Speaker 1: this sort of right wing media eco system.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think it's a combination of right wing
Speaker 7: media and politicians who effectively inside violence. I mean, this
Speaker 7: is the big difference, right, Like there's decorum in politics
Speaker 7: in the UK not perfect. Boris Johnson broke a lot
Speaker 7: of rules. But if Boris Johnson said that, you know,
Speaker 7: the top general in the UK maybe should be killed
Speaker 7: for treason like Trump did with Mark Milly, it would
Speaker 7: not just be the end of his political career, he
Speaker 7: would be shunned by every single politician in his own party.
Speaker 7: And I think this is the sort of stuff where
Speaker 7: like you just don't see it because it's like, you know,
Speaker 7: it's the terrible of the frog boiling or whatever in
Speaker 7: the boiling water. It's like, I think a lot of
Speaker 7: Americans are just like numbed to the fact that it's
Speaker 7: gotten so insane. I mean, I look at this stuff
Speaker 7: from over here and there's just a constant stream of
Speaker 7: the most insane stories and the most insane rhetoric, and
Speaker 7: you know, it's just beyond any sort of discourse that
Speaker 7: exists in the UK. And I'm not trying to pump
Speaker 7: up the UK too much because I say there's a
Speaker 7: lot of problems, but like I mean, Boris Johnson got
Speaker 7: knocked out office because he had some people over during
Speaker 7: COVID and Liz Trusts, you know, when she tanked the economy,
Speaker 7: she had a nine percent I mean, she had a
Speaker 7: nine percent approval radium was ousted in forty nine days.
Speaker 7: I mean, Trump has had a forty percent approval rating
Speaker 7: since twenty sixteen. Right, It's like nothing he does matters
Speaker 7: in terms of his approval. So, you know, I am
Speaker 7: worried about that. Where like people don't change their minds
Speaker 7: in the US, and the vitriol is so extreme, and
Speaker 7: the sort of toxic environment of right wing cable news
Speaker 7: and so on and propaganda lets along with this sort
Speaker 7: of vile rhetoric of Republicans calling for violence, that's this.
Speaker 7: It's a cocktail made for political violence. And I think
Speaker 7: that as someone who studies political violence is part of
Speaker 7: my job, my diagnosis of why there hasn't been worse
Speaker 7: violence is that we are lucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that doesn't make me feel better.
Speaker 7: No, I know, I mean, but this is this is
Speaker 7: my honest assessment. Like I think, I think we have
Speaker 7: every single ingredient for like severe political violence and assassinations
Speaker 7: and so on. I'm surprised that hasn't happened. I hope
Speaker 7: it never happens. I hope that this is something where
Speaker 7: I'm completely wrong about it. But we have politicians stoking
Speaker 7: hatred you have extreme media polarization where people don't even
Speaker 7: agree on reality anymore. You have four hundred million guns
Speaker 7: for a population of three hundred and thirty million people.
Speaker 7: I mean, you have this rhetoric that says that Democrats
Speaker 7: are communists who are trying to basically kidnap your children
Speaker 7: if you're a que non believer, for sexual gratification, or
Speaker 7: just that they're trying to destroy America because they believe
Speaker 7: that China is, like you know, better than you know,
Speaker 7: the best thing since fly spread. Those delusions are ones
Speaker 7: that cause people to act, and so, you know, bringing
Speaker 7: it back to that sense of the flukes and the contingencies,
Speaker 7: I think we're just sort of in that tinderbox moment,
Speaker 7: and I'm really worried about how twenty twenty four is
Speaker 7: going to play out. I know it's not comforting, but
Speaker 7: it is something where the dynamics are so dysfunctional. I'm
Speaker 7: frankly surprised that there hasn't been worse violence in the
Speaker 7: United States. So I would be shocked if twenty twenty
Speaker 7: four unfold without any political violence.
Speaker 1: Well, that was really upsetting. Tell us how we put
Speaker 1: the genie back on the bottle.
Speaker 7: The number one thing is electoral defeat. Eventually, this will
Speaker 7: focus the mind of Republicans and it's what needs to happen.
Speaker 7: It hasn't happened throughout these last several electoral defeats, but
Speaker 7: I think that like a resounding rejection of the sort
Speaker 7: of extremism, violent rhetoric and trump Ism is the first
Speaker 7: step to getting the party, the Republican Party, back from
Speaker 7: the brink of this like full on embrace of authoritary
Speaker 7: and violent extremism and barring that, I really worry about it.
Speaker 7: So I think there's a way that this can happen.
Speaker 7: I think it's why everyone's actions in twenty twenty four
Speaker 7: are so important, because this is the most important election
Speaker 7: I think in modern history, and the effects of it
Speaker 7: could be very positive if the outcome is resounding, and
Speaker 7: it could be so, you know, my hope is that
Speaker 7: there will be a resounding rejection of this and it
Speaker 7: will start to dial back this rhetoric and make consequences
Speaker 7: for those who embrace the sort of rhetoric of violence.
Speaker 1: Thanks Brian, There no moment full Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 4: Uh oh, Molly, I'm feeling vibes. I think they're impeach
Speaker 4: bit whoa this is strange. I'm feeling vibes. What do
Speaker 4: you What do you feel about here?
Speaker 1: It's a vibes based impeachment. Just like in succession. We
Speaker 1: can agree these are not here as people. The Republicans
Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives, fresh off trying to impeach
Speaker 1: Joe Biden non vibes, have moved on to impeach Alejandro
Speaker 1: myiorcis on vibes. Let me just say two things here.
Speaker 1: You cannot impeach someone because you don't like them. That's
Speaker 1: not how any of this works. They had a conservative lawyer,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Turley, who said, you can't impeach people people for
Speaker 1: not liking how they're doing their job. It has to
Speaker 1: actually be an impeachable event. But God forbid Republicans ever
Speaker 1: do anything that makes any sense, and for that they
Speaker 1: feature prominently House Republicans. Yet again, are our moment of
Speaker 1: fuck Gray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
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