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 JD. Vance was wildly offended by
Speaker 1: a Biden gaff a mere day after he called Puerto
Speaker 1: Ricans who were offended by a comedian at Trump's rally snowflakes.
Speaker 1: So here we are. We have a show of shows today.
Speaker 1: The Great Senator Alf Frankin stops by to parse the
Speaker 1: last days of the election Psycho. Then we'll talk to
Speaker 1: Pro Publica's Molly Reddin about the leaked tapes of Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Russ Vought talking about the Trump administration's
Speaker 1: plans if they are elected.
Speaker 2: Somali Kamala held a rally at the Ellipse. It was
Speaker 2: almost two point five times bigger than Trump's Madison Square
Speaker 2: Garden rally. And I'm going to shock you. Triggered the
Speaker 2: snowflake known as Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has some kind of obsession with crowd size
Speaker 1: and so he stayed up late at night. True thing,
Speaker 1: very mad, he said. Kamala's speech was terrible, full of
Speaker 1: lies and nothing new. I mean, I love the way
Speaker 1: his criticism is amazing. He wrote on truth quote unquote
Speaker 1: social in the middle of the night. Where are the jobs?
Speaker 1: There are none. This is a very tight labor market.
Speaker 1: So that's maybe not where I would go. Two hours later,
Speaker 1: so he had trouble sleeping and maybe perhaps saw his
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania internals because he followed up with Pennsylvania is cheating
Speaker 1: and getting caught comma at large scale levels rarely seen before.
Speaker 1: And then all caps. You know he's doing well when
Speaker 1: he hits into all caps report cheating to authorities, law
Speaker 1: enforcement must act Comma now explanation. The post was apparently
Speaker 1: response to a false report that Pennsylvania officials had sent
Speaker 1: early voters home without ballots. Trump has a tendency to
Speaker 1: look you know, this is what the guy does, right.
Speaker 1: All he cares about is crowd size and not going
Speaker 1: to jail. So he's truthing about crowd size and winning
Speaker 1: the selection. Because remember Donald Trump is running to stay
Speaker 1: out of jail. Right. He has that federal case. The
Speaker 1: document's case is really an open and shudcase, and the
Speaker 1: MAGA judge did dismiss some of the cases against him.
Speaker 1: But my man has just got a lot of legal exposure.
Speaker 1: And by the way, his biggest donor the richest guy
Speaker 1: in the world. You'll remember Elon musk Well. Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal reported that he has had many conversations with Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 1: Also not something you're supposed to do when you have
Speaker 1: top secret clearance. So you can tell that this is
Speaker 1: a we don't want to go to jail campaign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm shocked more people don't mention that basically both
Speaker 2: of them are running to stay out of jail.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you can see that they have the drive
Speaker 1: of someone who it's not just about winning, it's really
Speaker 1: about that there are not other good choices.
Speaker 3: We have to remember.
Speaker 2: Elon even said as much to Tucker Carl So this
Speaker 2: isn't you and I'm making wild conjecture here. So speaking
Speaker 2: of mister Elon, he is talking about how we might
Speaker 2: have to endure hardship and crash the economy. What are
Speaker 2: you seeing here?
Speaker 1: Elon has when not jumping up and down like a
Speaker 1: giant ax and buying houses or a dipshit, yes, or
Speaker 1: as Tim Wallas calls him, a dipshit, Elon has this
Speaker 1: idea And again like this is a lot of these
Speaker 1: billionaires really uncomfortable with the debt. By the way, this
Speaker 1: is a guy who made all his money from government subsidies, right,
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that is caused all this debt. Right,
Speaker 1: government subsidies, tax breaks for him. So you know, like
Speaker 1: he could just pay down the debt and that would
Speaker 1: actually make a lot more sense. So this guy, he says,
Speaker 1: and this is my favorite part, we have to reduce
Speaker 1: spending to live within our means, Musk says. And you
Speaker 1: know that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will
Speaker 1: ensure long term prosperity. You know what that means, right, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare.
Speaker 1: I mean, all this shit's gonna go, right, Department of Education,
Speaker 1: so that we can pay for Elon Musk's subsidies. Right,
Speaker 1: his tax breaks. And look, that's what these guys want.
Speaker 1: They want tax breaks for billionaires. I mean, remember Donald
Speaker 1: Trump created the biggest tax break for the wealthiest people,
Speaker 1: and that expires next year. And instead of upping taxes
Speaker 1: or just you know, making them a little higher, the
Speaker 1: corporate taxes, Elon Musk and all the other billionaires want
Speaker 1: Trump to cut taxes. And remember Trump has mused about
Speaker 1: ending income tax and just doing tariffs, which would be
Speaker 1: really inflationary. It would make normal people have very little
Speaker 1: money to spend, but it would be a huge boon
Speaker 1: to wealthy people.
Speaker 2: Jeez Somali, this was heartbreaking to read in ProPublica today
Speaker 2: that a Texas woman died after the hospital said it
Speaker 2: would be a crime to intervene in her miscarriage. What
Speaker 2: are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: And it may be there are more than one because
Speaker 1: in this piece it says at least two Texas women
Speaker 1: died after doctors delayed emergency care. They told her and
Speaker 1: her husband that the medical team they couldn't act until
Speaker 1: the fetal heartbeat stopped. By the time the fetal heartbeat stopped,
Speaker 1: this woman was so badly septic she died. We're seeing
Speaker 1: more and more of these stories. There is no accident
Speaker 1: that this is happening. These Republican electeds who drew up
Speaker 1: this legislation made it vague because they didn't want doctors
Speaker 1: to be able to treat. They wanted situations like this.
Speaker 1: If these laws were clear, you would have fewer women dying.
Speaker 1: This has never been about life. This has always been
Speaker 1: about Republicans seizing power, keeping women down, making it so
Speaker 1: women are secondary, women are property, women are chattel. It
Speaker 1: is just so disturbing, and you're seeing this woman is
Speaker 1: a woman of color, and you see that women of
Speaker 1: color are affected at much higher rates. Maternal mortality in
Speaker 1: this country is already a Shonda like, just such a
Speaker 1: terrible We have terribly high maternal mortality rates in this country.
Speaker 1: All that the end of Row did was mean that
Speaker 1: more women will die. And we're seeing this and we're
Speaker 1: going to see more of it. And you know, this
Speaker 1: is twenty twenty four. Women do not have to die
Speaker 1: of sepsis. This woman is dying because Republican men have
Speaker 1: crazy religious beliefs. That's it.
Speaker 2: But everyone's happy that Donald Trump turned it back to
Speaker 2: the States.
Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, Donald Trump says, everyone is happy except
Speaker 1: for that woman and her family who died and the
Speaker 1: other women who died.
Speaker 2: So speaking of Donald Trump and women a thing I
Speaker 2: don't like to do. Nicki Haley an avid Trump supporter.
Speaker 2: Come letely she was a little little turned off by
Speaker 2: the MSG hate rally. What'd you see here?
Speaker 1: So Nicky Haley is like trying to keep her powder dry.
Speaker 1: I mean, she really is. She wants to if Harris wins,
Speaker 1: she wants to run twenty twenty eight. Doesn't want to
Speaker 1: alienate the base, wants to be on corporate boards, but
Speaker 1: knows that the only way she will be the heir
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party is if she doesn't alienate Trump's
Speaker 1: base but still offers something for country club Republicans. And
Speaker 1: she's trying to walk that line. She knows, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: Nicky Hailey is not an altuist, right. She is doing
Speaker 1: this because she wants power, and she knows that there
Speaker 1: were a lot of country club Republicans who did not
Speaker 1: like a Madison Square Garden rally where medians said terrible
Speaker 1: things about black people and Jewish people, and you know
Speaker 1: where there were homages towards nineteen thirty nine, and then
Speaker 1: Donald Trump said it was a day of love. So
Speaker 1: I would just watch things that Nikki Haley does because
Speaker 1: she's pretty smart and she really wants to be president,
Speaker 1: and she's playing her cards really carefully. And to be
Speaker 1: a Republican who plays their cards carefully is almost is
Speaker 1: pretty unusual, because most of them have just burned their
Speaker 1: boats at the shore. I want to talk about something really,
Speaker 1: really really important, this Scotus ruling. So today scotis six
Speaker 1: days before an election. Virginia had an appeal after a
Speaker 1: federal judge found that the state illegally purged more than
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred voter registrations in the past two months. A
Speaker 1: federal appeals court had previously allowed the judge's order to
Speaker 1: remain in effect. The Supreme Court went in decided on
Speaker 1: partisan lines to throw out the votes. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to read you a guy called Steve Mazzy. He covers
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court for the Economists. Very very smart guy.
Speaker 1: He wrote, I haven't been worried unduly about Scotis messing
Speaker 1: with this election Bush v. Gore style, But dividing along
Speaker 1: partisan lines in a partisan election dispute six days before
Speaker 1: November fifth, while providing zero explanation is a little ominous.
Speaker 1: Watch these fuckers because the Conservatives in the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: at those six conservatives, they'll do anything to win. And
Speaker 1: we should all be on high alert about the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Al Franken is a former Senator and the host of
Speaker 1: the Al Franken Show. Molly Bredden is a reporter at
Speaker 1: Pro PUBLICA. Welcome back Too Fast Politics, Al Franken Ami.
Speaker 1: We're just tearful today, so we're just filled with joy.
Speaker 1: Harris did a speech last night at the Ellipse. It
Speaker 1: was I think profoundly popular people. Really, I think she
Speaker 1: did a really good job and really threaded the needle,
Speaker 1: and it was a wildly lauded speech. Then Joe Biden
Speaker 1: made a verbal gaff and the political press and multiple
Speaker 1: paragraphs being obsessed with it and completely drowning her out.
Speaker 3: Well, it was again what he called the rally.
Speaker 1: I think, and again you know with Biden you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to do this, but with Trump, this is all
Speaker 1: anyone does. I think he was trying to say that
Speaker 1: the guy who made the joke was garbage, but because
Speaker 1: he's Joe Biden, he came out that Trump supporters are garbage,
Speaker 1: which wasn't really what he said. I see people who
Speaker 1: like Jady Vance, who said that the people of Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico being told that they were a floating island of garbage,
Speaker 1: should just get over it. Jady Vance is now very offended, now.
Speaker 3: Very offended by Biden.
Speaker 1: By Biden, and he is hoping that this will become
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton's Basket of deplorables moment. Even though Joe Biden
Speaker 1: is not actually running for re election, they don't care.
Speaker 1: They're just desperately trying to make it a basket of
Speaker 1: deplorables moment, and they are in the mainstream media is
Speaker 1: happy to oblige.
Speaker 3: Do you know the history of basket of deplorables? Because
Speaker 3: she wasn't referring to the people, she was referring to
Speaker 3: the basket of attitudes they had.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: I know, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You're in the post truth ecosystem.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that leap is zero.
Speaker 3: But I mean, you know, I just feel bad for
Speaker 3: her because that may have made a big difference in
Speaker 3: the election, and she was actually kind of quoted Atticana.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, right, But the point is, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the really important point here is that it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Right, the truth doesn't matter. Jd Vance doesn't
Speaker 1: care that he was wildly offended by this misstatement and
Speaker 1: he was telling these people in Puerto Rico to suck
Speaker 1: it up. He doesn't care. I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: meaningful part of this incredibly annoying news cycle, which has
Speaker 1: involved various ups and downs, is that a lot of
Speaker 1: really important Puerto Rican celebrities bad Bunny j Lo, Ricky Martin,
Speaker 1: with millions and millions of followers, indoors Harris.
Speaker 3: And Pennsylvania has a large Puerto Rican population.
Speaker 1: Like half a million.
Speaker 3: That's a lot. Yeah, yeah, you know what's funny about JD.
Speaker 3: Vance's just I mean just popped in my head. I
Speaker 3: mean he did say a few years ago, he did
Speaker 3: say that Trump might be the American Hitler, right, right,
Speaker 3: he said that. And a number of years ago Walls
Speaker 3: said he was in China during Kenneman Square, and he
Speaker 3: was actually it was there a couple months later, but
Speaker 3: that was made into a big deal. But not calling
Speaker 3: him Hitler. Why didn't we bring that up in the debate.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, yes, I remember it. Well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just this is the thing, right, like the double
Speaker 1: standard between Republicans and Democrats and what is truth and
Speaker 1: what is untrue? I am harkened back to the Bowling
Speaker 1: Green massacre and one Kelly and Conway who said that
Speaker 1: it was really all about alternative facts.
Speaker 3: You remember that alternative facts to me is an amazing phrase,
Speaker 3: alternative facts, because that was she first used alternative facts.
Speaker 3: I think about the size of the crowd, right. Sean
Speaker 3: Spicer said that his cry was bigger in Obamas than
Speaker 3: either of Obama's or both of Obama's biggest crowd ever. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it just you know, it just wasn't She was
Speaker 3: asked about it the next day and she said, well,
Speaker 3: there's going to be these things called alternative facts, and
Speaker 3: that just said everything that was a day two of
Speaker 3: the administration. We're going to be there's going to be
Speaker 3: alternative facts. And because alternative facts, that means nothing's true anymore.
Speaker 3: And the flooding the zone with shit comes from too.
Speaker 3: I mean that kind of thinking, which is we'll just
Speaker 3: flood the zone with shit and so no one will
Speaker 3: know the difference between what's true and what isn't and
Speaker 3: that's the way we want it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not surprised. I'm
Speaker 1: not at all surprised. But you know, it's this sort
Speaker 1: of post truth thing and you don't have to you know,
Speaker 1: Trump is held to a different standard. I think it's
Speaker 1: a bit interesting that Trump has that the mainstream media
Speaker 1: has fallen so hook line and sinker for explaining Trump right, like, well,
Speaker 1: Trump didn't mean to say, you know whatever, right, America's
Speaker 1: a garbage can. He didn't mean to say it, or
Speaker 1: he didn't say it that way, or he's Trump's being Trump.
Speaker 1: But when Joe Biden makes a gaff and there's a
Speaker 1: guy with a stutter, who's not a good orator and
Speaker 1: who's had been plagued with problems his whole life, it's like,
Speaker 1: how dare he? I mean, there is a certain amount
Speaker 1: of like even the mainstream I'm thinking of, like Playbook
Speaker 1: Today devoted many many paragraphs to Biden's gaff and very
Speaker 1: few to Harris's pretty spectacular speech on the ellipse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and again it's just sort of a
Speaker 3: bigger than life figure versus is America ready for a
Speaker 3: woman's and are they ready for a woman who's you know,
Speaker 3: five foot two or something? Right?
Speaker 1: I think she's like my maybe a little shorter than
Speaker 1: I'm like five to five, but.
Speaker 3: Yes, go on, well anyway, I mean, like Michelle Obama
Speaker 3: is almost six feet tall, right, or is six feet tall?
Speaker 3: It's so fun because the speech was very good. I
Speaker 3: just don't know if it makes a difference.
Speaker 1: Right. So the question here is will Americans vote for
Speaker 1: an autocrat who has all these criminal charges and is
Speaker 1: a compulsive liar and it's also seventy eight years old
Speaker 1: and really slowing down? Or will they vote for a woman.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: That's where we are.
Speaker 3: That's where we are, and that's why you and I
Speaker 3: are nervous, even though we should be confident, because we
Speaker 3: should be because we should trust the American people.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting because it's like one of their favorite
Speaker 1: attacks on her is that she's unqualified. She's been like
Speaker 1: sex crimes prosecutor, elected attorney general, senator, vice president, and
Speaker 1: they're like, she's not qualified. Donald Trump is qualified because
Speaker 1: he was a reality television host and did four years
Speaker 1: where he allowed a million people to die from COVID
Speaker 1: or he dropped.
Speaker 3: The ball when he dropped the ball on the pandemic.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because he always says, are you better
Speaker 3: off than you were four years ago? And the answer
Speaker 3: is yes, four years ago, we were in the middle.
Speaker 3: We're still in this and still suffering from your lack
Speaker 3: of leadership, and people aren't necessarily dying and the economy
Speaker 3: was in the toilet at that time because of the pandemic.
Speaker 3: So are you better off than you were four years ago? Yes?
Speaker 1: Right, but you'll have mainstream media abundanto would be like,
Speaker 1: are you better off four years ago? Well, you had
Speaker 1: to wear masks and you couldn't go anywhere getting all
Speaker 1: this money from the government. And also voters have Trump amnesia.
Speaker 1: If it were a Democrat, I'm going to go out
Speaker 1: on a limb here and say they wouldn't be like
Speaker 1: voters have Biden amnesia. They'd be like voters are pissed.
Speaker 3: Yep. And that's the question right now. Are Americans pessed
Speaker 3: or they are they ready to embrace the future. And
Speaker 3: I think that's what the big question is in this
Speaker 3: because we know what Trump is about. We know it's
Speaker 3: about retribution, and it's about a Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: which you did remarkably beautiful podcast about and reminding people
Speaker 3: of what is in that thing, and that he would
Speaker 3: get rid of the ACA. I was there when they
Speaker 3: tried to do it, when McCain put his thumbs down,
Speaker 3: Thank god. But can you imagine the plan they came
Speaker 3: up with would have gotten rid of Medicaid expansion, So
Speaker 3: all these people who have healthcare would and all these
Speaker 3: rural hospitals who benefited from that, because now when someone
Speaker 3: came to the emergency room, if they before they didn't
Speaker 3: have insurance, now they do have insurance. The hospital gets paid,
Speaker 3: so the hospital.
Speaker 1: Contreat and doesn't have to close. I mean that was
Speaker 1: the other thing.
Speaker 3: Higher specialists and get the newest equipment. That's why all
Speaker 3: these states voted for it by referendum. Yeah, and red states,
Speaker 3: red states who didn't have it voted by referendum together,
Speaker 3: states like Missouri and Idaho. But you know, because they
Speaker 3: knew that medicaid expansion really helped them. It was helping
Speaker 3: people in rural states.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the thing is, you really do have
Speaker 1: a Republican party that has terrible, wildly unpopular ideas, and
Speaker 1: then you have people like Leon Mush who are like billionaires,
Speaker 1: who are like, this is very good for me, and
Speaker 1: now Leon is trying desperately to swing this election to Trump.
Speaker 1: I think like their tax bracket trumpers, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what it is.
Speaker 3: Tax bracket trumpers. I see. So in other words, the wealthy.
Speaker 1: You're so wealthy you don't care about fascism.
Speaker 3: And Comma actually wants to do the op said, which
Speaker 3: is a good tax breaks to people under four hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. What's the difference is because his tax cut
Speaker 3: last time really benefit people at the top, and hers
Speaker 3: would benefit middle class people and working people and middle
Speaker 3: class people. And if you ask them who should be
Speaker 3: tax more, and they say the wealthy, right. And that's
Speaker 3: what I don't understand is that most of the stuff
Speaker 3: he is saying is very wildly unpopular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why they're investing so much money in disinformation, right,
Speaker 1: because if voters could see that, you know, he's going
Speaker 1: to take away your health care, he's going to raise taxes.
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea that he's going to do away
Speaker 1: with income tax, which is like the dream of every
Speaker 1: rich person because they don't want their income tax and
Speaker 1: just put put tariffs on, like you know, that's thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of dollars.
Speaker 3: Now, let me, can I ask you something about Trump.
Speaker 3: He must know by now that China doesn't pay for
Speaker 3: the tear tariffs. He must know that, right, but he
Speaker 3: will never admit it because he always says we can
Speaker 3: replace taxes with tariffs. That's that's that plan.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to go on a limb here and
Speaker 1: tell you something, my hottest take. I don't think Mexico
Speaker 1: is going to pay for the wall.
Speaker 3: Well, that didn't happen. But the terraff thing drives me
Speaker 3: nuts because that's not how terriffs work.
Speaker 1: No, I mean and I mean, there are other problems
Speaker 1: with this whole tariff discourse. For example, Mexico is not
Speaker 1: a major maker of cars, you know that bring Mexican cars.
Speaker 3: Well, I think some American American companies have far making
Speaker 3: factories in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Plans planed to Mexico, but they're not necessarily Mexican cars.
Speaker 3: So have I done my riff on terraffs?
Speaker 1: If you have a riff on tariffs, I want to hear.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, it's not a great rift, but it's basically
Speaker 3: let's say Best Buy imported one thousand TVs from China
Speaker 3: and there was a twenty percent teriff on them. Okay,
Speaker 3: and they're five hundred dollars a piece, and so they're
Speaker 3: that's what they're valued a is so the tariff would
Speaker 3: be another one hundred dollars right. So now, and who
Speaker 3: pays the tariff, well, not China, not the country sending it.
Speaker 3: What pays for it is best Buy. They have to
Speaker 3: pay the import you know, the import fee, which is
Speaker 3: a tariff. So now they have a choice. They can
Speaker 3: either raise the price to six hundred dollars a TV
Speaker 3: or add one hundred dollars or not. But the point
Speaker 3: is is it either hurts best buy or hurts the
Speaker 3: customers who buy it or the whole point of terrorists,
Speaker 3: I suppose is discourage foreign TVs, especially Chinese TVs. Point
Speaker 3: is it doesn't raise any money. And he keeps saying
Speaker 3: We're going to replace the income tax with terrorists. Terrorists
Speaker 3: don't bring us money. China doesn't pay for the tariff.
Speaker 3: The order pays for the tariff.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, two things can be true. Donald Trump can
Speaker 1: be not smart and also Donald Trump can be dishonest.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, we have two things are working together here
Speaker 1: to paint a picture that is neither true nor accurate.
Speaker 3: But what does he think his voters are? What does
Speaker 3: he think Americans are?
Speaker 1: Because I'm gay? What do you think I'll let you
Speaker 1: thread the needle here?
Speaker 3: Well, just a scary though. I think the American people
Speaker 3: are smarter than that. I think that's why I think
Speaker 3: she's going to win. But I'm nervous about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not getting a great sense of what it
Speaker 1: will look like because we just don't have the you know,
Speaker 1: we don't know if Trump will be able to get
Speaker 1: those low propensity voters out or if they will if
Speaker 1: they are still obsessed with him, and if enough of
Speaker 1: the low propensity voters listen to THEO Voss and Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan and get out there and are registered and vote
Speaker 1: for him, and that will be the question.
Speaker 3: Did you listen to Rogan's interview?
Speaker 1: I listened to a little bit of it.
Speaker 3: Then you couldn't listen anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't mind him Joe Rogan.
Speaker 3: No, no, I was, but he was allowing Trump to
Speaker 3: talk about the Lincoln bedroom, yes for a long time,
Speaker 3: and the wrong son who died.
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that that interview solved anyone's problems. I
Speaker 1: don't think undecided voters listened to Joe Rogan particularly. I
Speaker 1: think it's his people, and I think those people I
Speaker 1: don't know that he needs more of his people. I
Speaker 1: think he needs more of being normal pretending to be normal.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we're looking at history, generally you pivot
Speaker 1: to the general election and you try to pretend you're
Speaker 1: not batched. That's generally how a person would run this campaign.
Speaker 1: He has not done that well.
Speaker 3: He did Madison Square Garden instead. That was his closing argument.
Speaker 3: And the question is you know, is that going to negatively?
Speaker 3: I mean, I love that Pennsylvania has a large Wecan population.
Speaker 3: That's wonderful and I would love that. That is what
Speaker 3: ultimately made the difference, is that vote? That joke? Do
Speaker 3: you remember Don Rickles? Yes, okay, you're you're you're old
Speaker 3: enough to remember Done Riculs.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm very old, not as old as you, but old.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm not not anywhere near as old as me.
Speaker 3: That's why I was saying. I was asking if a
Speaker 3: young person like you remember Don Richels. He was hilarious
Speaker 3: and he would insult every ethnicity and every race and
Speaker 3: he would do that, but it was an interesting thing.
Speaker 3: He had actually joke work, something called joke work, and
Speaker 3: he was funny himself, that comedian delivering that line. I
Speaker 3: really didn't get what well, and it didn't get any
Speaker 3: laughs at the concert. I'm puzzled by a lot. I'm
Speaker 3: puzzled by. But if that is the final argument that
Speaker 3: he makes and hers is the ellipse going to find
Speaker 3: out what the American people respond to?
Speaker 1: Yes we are, and now we wait ye outrank and
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me.
Speaker 3: Everyone vote, everyone vote, and everybody do everything you can
Speaker 3: between now when you hear this to get out the vote.
Speaker 1: Yep. That's all we can do.
Speaker 3: It's gotv time get out the vote, ye, So make
Speaker 3: sure that all your friends, all your relatives, not the
Speaker 3: ones that are going to vote for Trump, but make
Speaker 3: sure that everyone you know who should be voting vote
Speaker 3: And also you can get still the time to get
Speaker 3: on and make phone calls and door knock. It's still
Speaker 3: time to do that.
Speaker 1: Fully your college kids into voting. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thanks Molly.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 1: episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly Jong
Speaker 1: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
Speaker 1: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 1: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back just like a podcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
Speaker 1: to this country, So please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 1: Molly Reddin is a reporter at Pro Publica. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Molly, thank you for having me. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited when people are named Molly and are not a dog.
Speaker 1: Oh I got me too, like an actual dog.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ye oh my god, there are too many.
Speaker 1: It's so I don't understand what happened, but everyone in
Speaker 1: the world decided to name their dog Molly about ten
Speaker 1: years ago or five years ago. For those humans named Molly,
Speaker 1: it's very annoying, it is. Yes, yeah, I'm happy you
Speaker 1: share this predicament with me. Now, speaking of things that
Speaker 1: are both annoying and worrying, let's talk about Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. But before we talk about it, you work
Speaker 1: for pro Publican. Propublican does some of the most important
Speaker 1: straight reporting. It's a moment when we really desperately need this,
Speaker 1: so tell us about this story.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you so much. And yes, what the story
Speaker 4: is about is we obtained through our reporting, a pair
Speaker 4: of videos of russ Vote, who is a longtime Trump ally,
Speaker 4: He was in charge of Trump's budget at the end
Speaker 4: of Trump's administration, who.
Speaker 1: Was the head of the office management About.
Speaker 4: It right, and roughly what that means? That office is
Speaker 4: responsible for sort of making sure that the money going
Speaker 4: out the door of the federal government supports the president's
Speaker 4: objectives and agenda. But he was prepared to take that
Speaker 4: really far because there are other things obviously the federal
Speaker 4: government has to do and is obligated to spend money
Speaker 4: on by Congress, and he really wanted to take that
Speaker 4: decision making power away from Congress and away from democratic input,
Speaker 4: small d democratic and really just turn the federal budget
Speaker 4: into a MAGA policy machine. And so part of what
Speaker 4: he's laying out in these speeches is how Project twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five and the people surrounding him and the people
Speaker 4: Trump chooses if there's a second Trump administration, can help
Speaker 4: him achieve that. And it's also mixed with a very
Speaker 4: strong ideological vision for the country that is Christianity and
Speaker 4: a very specific right wing Christianity.
Speaker 1: I want to pause for a minute and talk about
Speaker 1: just like sort of unpack this. So Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five is something that Jesse and I really Jesse, though
Speaker 1: I was involved, did this documentary series on YouTube about it,
Speaker 1: and for the few of you who did not google
Speaker 1: Molly johnfest in Project twenty twenty five, but I just
Speaker 1: want to give like a quick sort of TLDR on it.
Speaker 1: It is this document website. It's a staffing directory too.
Speaker 1: But it's also these ideas that the second Trump Admin,
Speaker 1: if we are so unlucky to get it, would be
Speaker 1: And they are largely about sort of drowning the federal
Speaker 1: government and making it so small and so useless that
Speaker 1: we no longer are able to count on it for
Speaker 1: anything so continue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and also just concentrating even more power in the
Speaker 4: hands of the president and really turning the federal government
Speaker 4: into an agent of his whims. And I should say,
Speaker 4: you know, Pormer. President Trump has said that he doesn't
Speaker 4: know anything about Project twenty twenty five. There's been a
Speaker 4: ton of according to the contrary and also Project twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five, which is this, you know, nearly thousand page document.
Speaker 4: A lot of what it lays out are pretty close
Speaker 4: to the commitments that he's made on the campaign trail.
Speaker 1: Right, but also they really do involve cutting funds the
Speaker 1: federal government in order to starve it to death. So
Speaker 1: tell us Russ Voyd, what has he been doing since
Speaker 1: he is out of the Trump Admin.
Speaker 4: So, since he's been out of the Trump Admin, he's
Speaker 4: been running a think tank called the Center for Renewing
Speaker 4: America and they've been gathering a lot of former Trump
Speaker 4: personnel a sort of fellows to workshop and incubate ideas
Speaker 4: for a next Trump administration. You know, he has talked
Speaker 4: recently about how they are building out detailed plans for
Speaker 4: every agency to sort of you know, starve it as
Speaker 4: you put it if they don't like what they do,
Speaker 4: or transfer the funding if they do. One thing he
Speaker 4: said in his speech is we have detailed agency plans.
Speaker 4: We are writing the actual executive orders, we are writing
Speaker 4: the actual regulations now sorting out the legal authorities for
Speaker 4: all of what President Trump is running on. So they
Speaker 4: want to be ready to execute Trump's vision really from
Speaker 4: day one.
Speaker 1: Give me like explanation about what the videos are of?
Speaker 4: Sure, so you know the videos are partly laying out
Speaker 4: sort of a cultural vision for the United States.
Speaker 1: Do we know how we got the videos? Like how
Speaker 1: they were made?
Speaker 4: I mean the videos seem to have been produced by
Speaker 4: the Center for Renewing America.
Speaker 1: Wow, interesting and then maybe not released because they might
Speaker 1: have hurt Trump.
Speaker 4: These videos were of russ Vote addressing people for annual
Speaker 4: conferences of Center for renewing America. And you know a
Speaker 4: lot of their befellos and cohort and donors seem to
Speaker 4: have been in the audience. They were not intended to
Speaker 4: be released publicly, and we found them through our reporting, right.
Speaker 1: So give me a sort of what he says in them.
Speaker 4: There's sort of two types of things he talks about.
Speaker 4: One is sort of where he wants to see the
Speaker 4: conservative movement go. He thinks it's become too secular, too globalist.
Speaker 4: He thinks they've abandoned the Constitution and allowed leftists and
Speaker 4: liberals to run roughshod over the nation's founding principles. He's
Speaker 4: very focused on what he calls renewing a consensus of
Speaker 4: America as a nation under God, really infusing a future
Speaker 4: republican government with Christian principles. So that's one aspect, and
Speaker 4: he lays us out in really dramatic terms. He talks
Speaker 4: about this year as a year that will and this
Speaker 4: is a quote rival seventeen seventy six and eighteen sixty
Speaker 4: for the complexity and the uncertain of the forces arrayed
Speaker 4: against us. And yeah, right that struck us is really apocalyptic,
Speaker 4: really potentially dark, you know, seventeen seventy six and eighteen sixty,
Speaker 4: notably two years when the country was at the beginning
Speaker 4: of a war or right on the precipice of the
Speaker 4: Civil War. You know, eighteen sixty was not the year
Speaker 4: the Civil War started. It's the year that the first state,
Speaker 4: South Carolina seceded out of protest over Abraham Lincoln's election.
Speaker 4: So I think it's conspicuous that he chose that year
Speaker 4: where the nation sort of fractures and not the year
Speaker 4: that the bloodshed starts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then explain to us kind of
Speaker 1: what else you were struck by in these videos.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, the other half of what he talks about,
Speaker 4: besides sort of this cultural turnaround that he pictures, he
Speaker 4: talks in a lot of detail about certain kinds of
Speaker 4: preparations that they want to make to accomplish really specific
Speaker 4: I guess policy outcomes. So one good example of this
Speaker 4: is he talked about building what he calls a shadow
Speaker 4: Office of Legal Counsel. The Office of Legal Council exists
Speaker 4: already under the DOJ, what he wants it to do.
Speaker 4: This has been a big priority for the Center for
Speaker 4: Renewing America and other groups involved in Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: They are really interested in laying the legal groundwork, making
Speaker 4: the legal case for something. Trump has talked about a
Speaker 4: lot on the campaign trail, which is using the military domestically,
Speaker 4: specifically vote talks about using it to put down domestic protests.
Speaker 4: And so he's talking in these speeches, which he hasn't
Speaker 4: said explicitly in public before, about really building an office
Speaker 4: that is going to rationalize on paper deploying the military
Speaker 4: against say, we wish we had done this in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty following the unrest over George Floyd's murder, and if
Speaker 4: there are protests over Trump winning the White House, we
Speaker 4: want to use the military to put down those protests,
Speaker 4: is essentially what he's saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so that's sort of an amazing and
Speaker 1: also quite insane thing, which is this idea that they need,
Speaker 1: that the police are not enough, that the army needs
Speaker 1: to be used on American citizens. That is something that
Speaker 1: is kind of has, at least in the modern political discourse,
Speaker 1: become a kind of red line. So that's pretty shocking.
Speaker 1: Does he justify it in any way?
Speaker 4: I mean, he refers to the protests as riots and
Speaker 4: sort of conjures up images, which are you know, not
Speaker 4: really accurate of pro democracy protests being very violent. One
Speaker 4: thing that was really striking to me is that, you know,
Speaker 4: there's this argument Democrats have been making on the campaign
Speaker 4: trail calling Trump a threat to democracy. Obviously, they have
Speaker 4: a lot of things to say about Trump, but that's
Speaker 4: one of the things that they've been campaigning on, and
Speaker 4: Vote has sort of recast that as that's not Democrats
Speaker 4: calling on voters to defeat Trump at the ballot box.
Speaker 4: That is Democrats using what he calls coded language to
Speaker 4: discourage the military from putting down anti Trump protests. He's
Speaker 4: saying they're trying to make Trump sound like a would
Speaker 4: be dictator or an authoritarian, so that when we tried
Speaker 4: to deploy the military after Trump wins, like if we
Speaker 4: find that necessary, they're not going to respond to those
Speaker 4: orders to quell the violence.
Speaker 1: We've really hit upside down here, right. The idea is
Speaker 1: that using the military on American citizens should be good,
Speaker 1: and the reason why it's not being encouraged is because
Speaker 1: Democrats are saying that Trump is an autocrack. That's right,
Speaker 1: which is real upside down world.
Speaker 3: Staff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean something that he sort of refers to
Speaker 4: in one of the speeches that we don't exactly detail
Speaker 4: on the piece, but during the summer of twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: when Trump did tell some of his staff that he
Speaker 4: wished to use the military, like deploy the military against protesters,
Speaker 4: General Mark Milly, who was the chair of the Joint Chiefs,
Speaker 4: essentially refused or talked Trump out of it, said like
Speaker 4: that that's a really dangerous and terrible idea and you
Speaker 4: shouldn't do that. That's sort of what Vote is referring
Speaker 4: to here, is that he doesn't want the military to
Speaker 4: have these protomaocracy instincts.
Speaker 1: Right, So the idea is to paint democracy as partisan,
Speaker 1: that's right, And to say that democrat saying that Trump
Speaker 1: is an autocrat actually makes them anti democracy.
Speaker 4: Right, that it's not actually a pro democracy message, it
Speaker 4: is simply an anti Trump message.
Speaker 1: Right. Does void think he's going to get any traction
Speaker 1: with this idea or is there a pushback from the
Speaker 1: person he's talking to.
Speaker 4: He's addressing a crowd, he's making a pair of speeches
Speaker 4: where he's sort of uninterrupted for forty five minutes. The
Speaker 4: Vote has told people privately. Rather in July, he accidentally
Speaker 4: spoke to a pair of undercovered journalists who were hoping
Speaker 4: as representatives of a potential donor and CNN got product exchange. Yeah,
Speaker 4: he's talked about how Trump has blessed the Center for
Speaker 4: a New in America and was very supportive of what
Speaker 4: we do, and certainly a lot of people working at
Speaker 4: the Center or with the Center remain in favor in
Speaker 4: Trump's orbit.
Speaker 1: I want you to sort of pull back here. Why
Speaker 1: do you think that these speeches? So when were they given?
Speaker 4: They were given in twenty twenty three, and then.
Speaker 1: You're in twenty twenty four, and they were given to
Speaker 1: a large group of donors or.
Speaker 4: There were some donors in the audience. There were other
Speaker 4: speakers featured on some of the promotional material include Representative
Speaker 4: Chip Roy from Texas, Deeve Bannon, Scott Perry, another representative
Speaker 4: Mark Paletta who's also a former budget officer with the
Speaker 4: Trump administration. Ken Kuchinelli who was involved with DHS in
Speaker 4: the first Trump administration. And so that is sort of
Speaker 4: sort of like the cohort he's speaking to.
Speaker 1: Why do you think these speeches have been released now?
Speaker 4: I think they've been released out well, first of all,
Speaker 4: because we found them, yes, right, good point, Yeah, they weren't,
Speaker 4: you know, they weren't met for public consumption. And I
Speaker 4: can see why because they put all of these fairly unpopular.
Speaker 4: You know, Project twenty twenty five is not popular, and
Speaker 4: that's part of like why we believe Trump is trying
Speaker 4: to distance himself from it. You know, they put a
Speaker 4: lot of what Trump and his allies have been talking
Speaker 4: about about retribution and revenge all in one place in
Speaker 4: very like dark and foreboding terms. There's not a friendly
Speaker 4: frame around this. This is a really I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: we use this word and the story. It's a really
Speaker 4: apocalyptic vision for what the country could look like. And
Speaker 4: so I can see why, you know, these weren't posted
Speaker 4: on the Center for a Newing America website.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to realize that when people
Speaker 1: figured out what was in Project twenty twenty five, it
Speaker 1: was wildly unpopular. Right, taking away healthcare unpopular, This kind
Speaker 1: of Christian nationalist stuff. You can't get the majority interested
Speaker 1: in this. They don't like it because it's so so
Speaker 1: different than the way we live now in this country
Speaker 1: and the way we live more broadly in this century.
Speaker 1: So it's not popular. But what this does, I think,
Speaker 1: which is really important. It threads a needle between Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and Project twenty twenty five and what it's going
Speaker 1: to look like in five days if people really like
Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think you know, to your point, once
Speaker 4: people figured out what was in Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 4: it wasn't popular. I think it's really compelling that, you know,
Speaker 4: Project twenty twenty five, these big white papers about what
Speaker 4: we should do under our next administration. Even though Project
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five is public, it's not written for the
Speaker 4: average voter, right, they're white papers. Therefore, people expecting to
Speaker 4: be the under secretary of whatever in the next administration.
Speaker 4: And so I think it speaks to how extreme a
Speaker 4: lot of the proposals are, that the plans have really
Speaker 4: resonated with and alarmed a lot of just ordinary people.
Speaker 4: I think it's it's really unusual that what is essentially
Speaker 4: a policy document becomes kind of a watchword for what
Speaker 4: a future administration is planning. And so that that really
Speaker 4: sticks out to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much, Molly, thank you a moment
Speaker 1: sick Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2: Molly jung Fast. One of the things I think has
Speaker 2: not been pushed to the American people enough is the
Speaker 2: horror that RFK Junior, conspiracy theorist, crazy person of many decades,
Speaker 2: man who once stalked an event you and I through
Speaker 2: that he would be the head of the DC and
Speaker 2: technic all our lives if Trump gets elected.
Speaker 3: What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: RFK Junior is a crazy anti vax conspiracy theorist who
Speaker 1: does not understand science, either because he's very, very stupid,
Speaker 1: which is what I think, or there's some other reason.
Speaker 1: I think it's because he's stupid. He does not understand
Speaker 1: how vaccines were. He truly believes that they don't work.
Speaker 1: He does not understand science. He is a moron. He
Speaker 1: made some kind of nefarious deal with Donald Trump, and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is now saying that he's going to put
Speaker 1: him in charge of the CDC. I don't actually think
Speaker 1: that's going to happen, because I don't think Donald Trump
Speaker 1: really keeps his promises. But even the fact that he's
Speaker 1: offering that should make you terrified, should make you clear
Speaker 1: that this guy does not give a fuck what happens
Speaker 1: to any of us, and the idea that he would
Speaker 1: put RFK in control of the CDC is just completely
Speaker 1: in And you do see these Republicans really are at
Speaker 1: war with the federal government and trying to destroy it,
Speaker 1: and that, my friends, is our moment of fuck right.
Speaker 2: It's a little scary with the brain worm got a
Speaker 2: bunch of his brain, and that's who we think should
Speaker 2: be running things.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.