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 Ken Baxton has been impeached as
Speaker 1: Attorney General of Texas. We have a great show today.
Speaker 1: Senator Tammy Baldwin stops by to talk about veterans services
Speaker 1: and how you pass bipartisan legislation in the year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. Then we'll talk to Kim Kelly about the
Speaker 1: horrors of black lung coming back in the West Virginia
Speaker 1: coal mines. But first we have MSNBC Daily Editor James Downey.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics. James Downey, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me again. Very excited to have you. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about what is happening with the Texas legislature. I mean,
Speaker 1: I bet this is an incredible story because it's so stupid.
Speaker 2: Oh it's yeah, it's incredible is exactly the right word.
Speaker 2: I mean Ken Paxton the attorney general. There a House
Speaker 2: panel that has been investigating him just came out with
Speaker 2: twenty articles of impeachment and recommended his impeachment. And this
Speaker 2: is a Republican led panel. The idea of impeaching an
Speaker 2: attorney general in his third term. He's been re elected
Speaker 2: relatively comfortably twice, though by Republican in Texas standards, not
Speaker 2: hugely comfortably.
Speaker 1: And he did have challengers like my favorite senator, the
Speaker 1: stupidest man in the Senate, Louis. That's the French Louis
Speaker 1: to Gomert Louis Gohmert, who failed to challenge him in
Speaker 1: the primary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has shown he has quite quite the base
Speaker 2: in Texas. He has a lot of fans on the
Speaker 2: conservative base there. These are twenty articles impeachment, largely centered
Speaker 2: around protecting a donor of his who and among other things,
Speaker 2: also hired a woman that Paxston allegedly was having an
Speaker 2: affair with.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked, so think this.
Speaker 2: Is nothing new for Paxston. That this guy has been
Speaker 2: under indictment for securities frauds since I believe twenty fifteen
Speaker 2: and has yet to stand trial thanks to a series
Speaker 2: of legal maneuvers.
Speaker 1: How do you do that, by the way.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I don't know, but I would imagine
Speaker 2: being the Attorney General of Texas helps, right, I think
Speaker 2: to some degree at least it is because he is
Speaker 2: in office that he's been able to stave it off
Speaker 2: this long and he's on an FBI investigation for these donor.
Speaker 2: Allegations of the allegations of helping this donor and protecting.
Speaker 2: Part of the articles of impeachment include retaliation against whistleblowers
Speaker 2: in his office, four different whistleblowers, and he's trying to
Speaker 2: get Basically, these four different whistleblowers have won a three
Speaker 2: point I believe it's over three million dollars a judgment
Speaker 2: against him, and he's trying to get the state to
Speaker 2: foot the bill.
Speaker 1: Wait say that again.
Speaker 2: He faces a whistleblower complaint from four different whistleblowers. This
Speaker 2: is packs done, yes, and he settled a lawsuit in
Speaker 2: February from four former aids for three point three million dollars.
Speaker 2: I mean there are allegations in the articles impeachment that
Speaker 2: are related to involving retaliation, but separate from that, he
Speaker 2: wants the state to foot the bill for the three
Speaker 2: point three million dollars.
Speaker 1: Why what's the thinking here?
Speaker 2: Because he's the attorney general? Is his thinking? I mean
Speaker 2: the legislature has already this is another area in which
Speaker 2: the Texas legislature has balked it. I mean they are
Speaker 2: not on board with doing this you know, one important
Speaker 2: piece of context here is that the Texas Republican Party,
Speaker 2: there's the conservative grassroots. There's also the sort of more
Speaker 2: business friendly establishment of the party, which is particularly powerful
Speaker 2: in the state legislature.
Speaker 1: Which part is Paxton and.
Speaker 2: Paxton is the conservative base is the grassroots, and he
Speaker 2: has been feuding with, most recently the House Speaker Feelin,
Speaker 2: who he accused of being drunk based off of a
Speaker 2: video where Feeling was slurring his words or appeared to
Speaker 2: be slurring his words.
Speaker 1: I suppose do you think the house speaker was drunk?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: I watched that video and it certainly sounded like that
Speaker 1: was not how normal people speak.
Speaker 2: He sounded like he was learning as well as that's
Speaker 2: for sure, right. But I think that Ken Paxton's bringing
Speaker 2: it up to distract. This is a guy who I mean,
Speaker 2: we've seen it. You mentioned Louis Gohmer, you met me
Speaker 2: like we obviously. Ted Cruz is another example of this
Speaker 2: where we see, particularly in Texas, but all over the place,
Speaker 2: where you have these Republicans who are beloved by the
Speaker 2: base and the grassroots and the talk show listeners who
Speaker 2: are just do not get along just on a personal
Speaker 2: level with the establishment of the party, and I mean
Speaker 2: again just something they are purely personal. I mean, Paxton,
Speaker 2: this is a guy who, from the perspective of just effectiveness,
Speaker 2: he's made the state you know, a laughing stock in
Speaker 2: terms of the kinds of challenges and the kinds of
Speaker 2: projects he's gotten involved with. I mean, he was at
Speaker 2: the forefront of the election challenges, which guy laughed out
Speaker 2: of court even by conservative judges. And abortion, yeah, well
Speaker 2: an abortion. I think there he'll have more support from
Speaker 2: again the establishment, where that's more sort of an agreement.
Speaker 2: But I think if you're the tech Republican establishment, you
Speaker 2: don't want this guy, this clown wasting I mean again,
Speaker 2: millions of dollars and wasting all of this time and
Speaker 2: all this energy on you know, on this impeachment stuff,
Speaker 2: on these pie in the sky even by Republican standards lawsuits.
Speaker 2: You know, you want someone who's going to be more effective.
Speaker 2: It's very unclear whether or not they'll actually vote to
Speaker 2: impeach him. They only need some majority in the House.
Speaker 2: They need two thirds ind and Senate, just like at
Speaker 2: the federal level.
Speaker 1: But the panel that voted to bring up the charges
Speaker 1: of impeachment was five zero.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and that was Republican led I think I
Speaker 2: think the bigger issue is whether they could get two
Speaker 2: thirds in the Senate, which is Republican majority. I believe
Speaker 2: it's close to two thirds Republican majority in the state Senate,
Speaker 2: even if the State House again moved forward with the impeachment.
Speaker 2: It's just there are there are plenty of legislators there,
Speaker 2: even if they're not in leadership, who are very beholden
Speaker 2: to the grassroots and very much agree with Paxton and
Speaker 2: are very much in his corner. You know, we talk
Speaker 2: about Greg Abbott. A lot of the terrible things he's
Speaker 2: done as governor there, a lot of them have been
Speaker 2: basically him protecting him his right flank against the Paxton
Speaker 2: wing of the party. Not so much that Paxton himself
Speaker 2: would be running against Abbot, but Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor.
Speaker 2: He was very worried about jud Challen's.
Speaker 1: It, so Patrick might run for governor against Greg Abbott.
Speaker 2: The fear was that Dan Patrick would run against him
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two, right, which is too late, so
Speaker 2: that Abbot had to make moves. Some of the stuff
Speaker 2: that Abbot has done, I mean, not that he's had
Speaker 2: a great record overall, but some of the stuff that
Speaker 2: Abbot has done has been very much in with mind
Speaker 2: towards preventing the right flank of the party from ousting
Speaker 2: him in a primary.
Speaker 1: Unbelievably insane.
Speaker 2: It's incredible, you know. And it's also incredible that in
Speaker 2: some ways I'm more surprised that Republicans would actually move
Speaker 2: to impeach him than that an attorney general would do.
Speaker 2: This would behave this way right?
Speaker 1: All right? No, no, me too. Think about all they
Speaker 1: went through with Trump, where they just were like going
Speaker 1: along with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: I think again, it's speaks to Paxton's personal lack of charm,
Speaker 2: you know, and if we we'll talk about this later
Speaker 2: again with a certain Florida governor, but I think Paxton
Speaker 2: just on a personal level, doesn't really endear himself to
Speaker 2: a lot of his fellow Texas Republican well, I guess legislators, lawmakers,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 1: Speaking of charmless, we are in this very interesting failure
Speaker 1: to launch the thing. I'm struck by. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're seeing so much breathless coverage. Do you see a
Speaker 1: world where there is you know, Ron DeSantis is Trump
Speaker 1: without the charisma right without the charm, Like, who is
Speaker 1: this for?
Speaker 2: I think the first way to answer that is to
Speaker 2: go back to the rapid, unscheduled to sent disassembly that
Speaker 2: was the Twitter spaces. I mean, that's the sort of
Speaker 2: thing you put together to announce your campaign on Twitter,
Speaker 2: even if it all goes according to plan. Is the
Speaker 2: only the kind of thing you do if you have
Speaker 2: a very online group of advisors, have people around him,
Speaker 2: his communications people, many of his most public facing communications
Speaker 2: people at least like Christina Pushaw and others very much
Speaker 2: embrace battle on Twitter. And that's weird. Like you, if
Speaker 2: you wanted to reach the most people, if you want
Speaker 2: to do it online and break some boundaries and stuff,
Speaker 2: you'd do it on YouTube. You wouldn't do it on Twitter.
Speaker 2: So who is this for? I think it's for the
Speaker 2: extremely online conservative person who you know thinks they're fighting
Speaker 2: the woke mind virus.
Speaker 1: Right all right, yes, the woke mind virus everybody drank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hardly an encouraging start for him, to say
Speaker 2: the least. I think that. Well, before we go further,
Speaker 2: I think you don't need me to tell you, but
Speaker 2: obviously you know it's important. I think to repeat before
Speaker 2: going further into the horse race coverage, is that, you know,
Speaker 2: just the fact that this guy is where he is,
Speaker 2: it's just a terrible thing for the country, given his
Speaker 2: record of voting rights, his book bands, the attacks on nCbT, Floridians,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 1: The thing I'm struck by an I was like arguing
Speaker 1: with someone about this on television yesterday. It's like he
Speaker 1: hates gay people. Like his legislation is so shockingly anti gay.
Speaker 1: I mean for a country that has codified gay marriage,
Speaker 1: like yeah, we are, this is not being gay is
Speaker 1: not a big deal in America, and like this guy
Speaker 1: wants to go back to like nineteen thirty. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just crazy.
Speaker 2: It's really remarkable, especially when you look at I mean
Speaker 2: how quickly they're moving on from their original justifications. You
Speaker 2: look at the don't say Gaygill and everybody around him
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, was like, well, this is only about
Speaker 2: elementary school children, you can't possibly object to that. And
Speaker 2: then immediately, you know, within a year, they're already expanding
Speaker 2: it to high school kids and so forth. You know,
Speaker 2: it's remarkable, And I think the thing that's particularly concerning though,
Speaker 2: is that despite the rough start in the rough past
Speaker 2: couple of months. You can look at that and say, well,
Speaker 2: he's maybe he's missus moan and so forth. But I
Speaker 2: think that's it's a long race. And he raised eight
Speaker 2: point two million on his first day. That's a very
Speaker 2: strong number.
Speaker 1: I have a question for you about that number, because
Speaker 1: one of the things that is a sort of hallmark
Speaker 1: of DeSantis world is they kind of juice numbers, So
Speaker 1: there is a he has this statistic whale. He says
Speaker 1: that the crime in Florida is the lowest ever. But
Speaker 1: the would they change the way they reported crime? This
Speaker 1: could have been raised before and then announced when he announced, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's easy to juice this number, right.
Speaker 2: I think we won't know the details behind the number
Speaker 2: until they file FEC reports and so forth. You know,
Speaker 2: campaign limits. We don't know the exact breakdown. I noticed
Speaker 2: that there wasn't anything about percentage of small donor. As
Speaker 2: far as I could see, there wasn't like a we
Speaker 2: received you know, X percent of the donations were under
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars or something like that. So, I mean, certainly,
Speaker 2: it seems like they don't really want us to ask
Speaker 2: too much about how many people are donating as opposed
Speaker 2: to how much was donated, so we don't know a
Speaker 2: lot about that. But you know, even with that, he
Speaker 2: he's got a decently sized campaign staff. He's still hanging
Speaker 2: around to twenty around twenty twenty five percent in Iowa,
Speaker 2: and people have come back from much farther than that
Speaker 2: at this point in the race, right right.
Speaker 1: There is like a horse race mentality towards the way
Speaker 1: all of us deal with these political and you know
Speaker 1: it's a horse race, because it's a race, right But
Speaker 1: the one thing I wanted to sort of interject here
Speaker 1: is that he's not running against a normal political candidate.
Speaker 1: He's running against Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. He's in a very strange situation in
Speaker 2: some ways because more so than your typical sort of
Speaker 2: clear second favorite in a race like you think back to,
Speaker 2: for example, two thousand and eight, where I think for
Speaker 2: most of it it was, you know, you had Clinton
Speaker 2: as a clear front as a front runner, and then
Speaker 2: Obama was probably like a number two. But when it
Speaker 2: came to debates, et cetera, Clinton always received the most
Speaker 2: fire from everybody on the stage. And I think one
Speaker 2: interesting difference here is going to be that I think
Speaker 2: the Santus is actually going to be the target for
Speaker 2: a lot of the and I mean there's always some
Speaker 2: extent of that. There's always the people who aren't number
Speaker 2: two always want to become sort of the alternate option
Speaker 2: to number one. But I think the added fact that,
Speaker 2: as you said, Trump is such an unusual candidate and
Speaker 2: a lot of the other candids are so worried about
Speaker 2: alienating his base that they're going to even more focus
Speaker 2: on attacking DeSantis, you know, and making themselves the Trump alternative,
Speaker 2: rather than attacking Trump, which is so stupid.
Speaker 1: Because I mean, the whole thing is just insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredibly short sighted because it's like, Okay, when
Speaker 2: you get to that point, then what what's your next step?
Speaker 2: You have to attack Trump at some point if you're
Speaker 2: going to beat him. And I do think one thing
Speaker 2: that's sort of weirdly that could be sort of weirdly
Speaker 2: to advantages the wrong word, But one thing that could
Speaker 2: be weirdly influencing DeSantis' strategy here is that, as we
Speaker 2: talked about, I think last simer I was on the show,
Speaker 2: he doesn't really have anything else other than anger right
Speaker 2: as a persona and he almost may have to attack
Speaker 2: Trump just because he can't charm the audience. He's not
Speaker 2: going to charm the electorate. He's not going to pile
Speaker 2: them with policity he tails, that's for sure. His only
Speaker 2: approach may have to be to be tough and angry
Speaker 2: with Trump. I mean, you know, and again I say
Speaker 2: that's not so much to talk about the horse race
Speaker 2: so much as like I think voters should be aware,
Speaker 2: should be looking out for where he tries to distinguish
Speaker 2: himself on his record and where he tries to sort
Speaker 2: of out extreme Trump and be aware of that threat
Speaker 2: and what that threat presents to American voters, because I think,
Speaker 2: for example, on abortion, you're going to see some very
Speaker 2: interesting exchanges and it's going to be very revealing on
Speaker 2: what both Santis and Trump just how far they want
Speaker 2: to go, just how extreme they want to go nationally
Speaker 2: in banning abortion and restricting women's rights.
Speaker 1: Out trumping Trump is a fool's errand right, I mean,
Speaker 1: people don't people didn't you know? Trump was not elected
Speaker 1: on his policy. He was elected on his stick. I
Speaker 1: mean that's the joke, because like he was a roarshack.
Speaker 1: People liked him because he felt like he might you
Speaker 1: know they liked him because they liked him, you know,
Speaker 1: and then you have DeSantis being like you love Trump's policies.
Speaker 1: Let me give you that with a less charisma and
Speaker 1: less charm.
Speaker 2: It's a disturbing pitch.
Speaker 1: If it's successful, right, I won't be though, I mean
Speaker 1: there's no chance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it's likely. It's just I don't
Speaker 2: want people to get too relaxed about him, you know,
Speaker 2: too quickly.
Speaker 1: And you know I wrote this piece which about everyone,
Speaker 1: and all the worst people in the world mad at me,
Speaker 1: including the Daily Mail. They called me a Nepo baby,
Speaker 1: and you know, I said, he's much more dangerous than Trump.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if we were going to slide
Speaker 1: into fascism, this would be the way to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, elect someone who's like Trump but good at it. Luckily,
Speaker 1: he's so not charismatic that no one will vote for him,
Speaker 1: but or he won't be able to break the Trump
Speaker 1: spou but I mean he really does have you know,
Speaker 1: if you were going to be hungry, this would be
Speaker 1: the way to get there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I think that you know you're talking about
Speaker 2: as the efficiency efficient implementation of authoritarianism. You look at
Speaker 2: the new story from my colleagues at NBC News that
Speaker 2: it's officials in his administration, not his campaign, who are
Speaker 2: soliciting lobbyists for.
Speaker 1: Contributions a John Allen story.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and that sort of taking that and taking
Speaker 2: what is already a very gross practice of governors soliciting
Speaker 2: directly from obbyous and then adding this apparats in the
Speaker 2: state on top of that. I mean, that's something that
Speaker 2: Destantis has done time and again where he just takes
Speaker 2: things that are terrible and he gloms the state apparatus
Speaker 2: onto it in very discouraging and frightening ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just unbelievable. Thank you so much, James.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 2: Of course, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed
Speaker 2: it as always.
Speaker 1: Senator Tammy Baldwin, as a junior senator from the state
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin. Welcome back, too fast. Pology, Senator Tammy Baldwin.
Speaker 1: I am so happy to be back. We're delighted. So
Speaker 1: tell us about what you've been working on for veterans.
Speaker 1: I think people will be interested in sort of the
Speaker 1: machinations of how you get involved in what legislations you
Speaker 1: do in the Senate. If you could, So if you
Speaker 1: could talk us through some of the sort of more
Speaker 1: nuts and baltsy stuff, I think that would be interesting.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Well, let's start with I just did a whole
Speaker 4: sweep through the state of Wisconsin. This is our Memorial
Speaker 4: Day recess, and so I got a chance to have
Speaker 4: input from veterans from all over the state several stops,
Speaker 4: and one of the things we were focusing on is
Speaker 4: newly passed legislation called the Packed Act, and that is
Speaker 4: so long overdue meeting our commitments to veterans to have
Speaker 4: been exposed to toxins in their service to their country.
Speaker 4: So these are burden pits, these are agent orange, these
Speaker 4: are exposures to other toxic fumes that so many in
Speaker 4: multiple eras have experienced. And the health outcomes of these
Speaker 4: exposures are varied but very serious, everything from respiratory illnesses,
Speaker 4: hypertension to certain forms of cancer. And what happened prior
Speaker 4: to this legislation is oftentimes a veteran would say, you know,
Speaker 4: I think this ailment might be connected to my time
Speaker 4: in uniform, my time in deployment, and they're basically often
Speaker 4: told no, or you know, there's nothing going on here
Speaker 4: that has to do with your service, and that has
Speaker 4: been turned around completely with the pack Deact, and now
Speaker 4: we are seeing veterans there's a review of the exposures
Speaker 4: they might have had during their service, and they're being
Speaker 4: connected to via.
Speaker 3: Services now, whether that be the ability to.
Speaker 4: Get their healthcare through the VA or a recognition of
Speaker 4: a disability that provides some disability compensation. And boy, the
Speaker 4: stories I heard this week were so powerful, including one
Speaker 4: that is so important to remember that there was a
Speaker 4: surviving spouse of a Vietnam veteran. He never had the
Speaker 4: VA admit that his illnesses might be service connected, but
Speaker 4: then after we passed the pac Act retroactively, they said,
Speaker 4: of course this cancer and this respiratory illness was service
Speaker 4: connected based on the new law, and therefore the surviving
Speaker 4: widow and children in college all got benefits related to
Speaker 4: his service. I mean, again, long overdue, but time to
Speaker 4: reach out and try to retroactively meet our commitments our promises.
Speaker 1: This dovetails with expanding the VA. Can you explain to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about what that looks like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, first of all, when you pass legislation like this,
Speaker 4: the you know, implementation is a big deal. Getting that
Speaker 4: right is a big deal. But we just didn't have
Speaker 4: enough staff who process claims in order to keep up
Speaker 4: with this, and so the VA has been hiring more
Speaker 4: folks that review these claims and that can make good
Speaker 4: on this commitment faster than you know, if we hadn't expanded.
Speaker 4: The other thing that's happening is internal to the VA
Speaker 4: health system. You know, if we have arguably three point
Speaker 4: five million veterans who may be eligible for services under
Speaker 4: the Pack Act, that requires a big expansion of capacity.
Speaker 4: And so right now a lot of the exams for
Speaker 4: eligibility are actually being done in the community. There's VA
Speaker 4: referrals to community doctors. And it's not without little bumps.
Speaker 4: And I certainly heard about a lot of these bumps.
Speaker 1: On the road, sure you did.
Speaker 4: But it is a expanding capacity to be able to
Speaker 4: determine eligibility and then get people in for both healthcare
Speaker 4: and treatment for their conditions, as well as again reviewed
Speaker 4: for eligibility for disability payments. What will that look like, Well,
Speaker 4: it's happening right now. What I can tell you though,
Speaker 4: as we speak at a time when their precarious negotiations
Speaker 4: going on on how to avoid default. If what the
Speaker 4: Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a few weeks back,
Speaker 4: were to ever come to be or even close even
Speaker 4: part thereof the VA would have to turn back on
Speaker 4: all of the hiring they've just done and the sort
Speaker 4: of expansion they've been able to achieve to implement the
Speaker 4: pack debt, and we would be basically having an empty
Speaker 4: promise for veterans once again. And so it is so
Speaker 4: vital during these very precarious days to trying to avoid
Speaker 4: default on the nation's debt, that we don't prospectively slash
Speaker 4: and burn our ability to make good on our word
Speaker 4: to our veterans, make good on our word to our
Speaker 4: seniors and other vulnerable populations like our children.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you, this bill is bipartisan. The
Speaker 1: Pack Deact was, yes, So talk to me about that.
Speaker 4: When we were passing it last year, there was a
Speaker 4: strong coalition, but it actually came close to not passing
Speaker 4: in the Senate. You know, in order to defeat a filibuster,
Speaker 4: we need sixty, which means all the Democrats and at
Speaker 4: least ten Republicans or last year, yeah, last year, at
Speaker 4: least ten Republicans because we were fifty to fifty and
Speaker 4: it was precarious.
Speaker 3: For a while.
Speaker 4: There was a moment in which some of the Republicans
Speaker 4: had reneged on their support and it looked like it
Speaker 4: was going to go down, and then we saw veterans
Speaker 4: come out and there was you know, there were people
Speaker 4: camping out on the steps of the Capitol saying, you've
Speaker 4: got to make good on your commitment.
Speaker 3: You've got to see this through.
Speaker 4: And their heroic activism following their time in uniform was
Speaker 4: really critical to getting it over the home. But we
Speaker 4: ultimately had sufficient votes from Republicans to get this Packed
Speaker 4: Act passed into law.
Speaker 1: And you also worked with JD. Vance. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about that, Well, that's.
Speaker 4: Been you know, he's come into the since all of
Speaker 4: the Sin Packed Act, et cetera. But yes, absolutely. We
Speaker 4: just introduced a measure together called the Cool Online Act. Okay,
Speaker 4: so what does that mean? Cool stands for Country of
Speaker 4: Origin labeling. So what I will tell you and everybody
Speaker 4: knows is if you go to retail store, bricks and
Speaker 4: mortar store, walk in the door and you're say, buying
Speaker 4: a shirt, and you can look in the label on
Speaker 4: that shirt and it's tell you where it was made,
Speaker 4: made in the USA, made where you can look at
Speaker 4: an object, a plate. You know, you smash your plate,
Speaker 4: you're replacing it, it'll say where it was made. If
Speaker 4: you shop online, there is no obligation right now to
Speaker 4: tell where something was made. Now, I'm somebody who loves
Speaker 4: to support Wisconsin businesses even if I can, but it'll
Speaker 4: say made in America, not usually made in Wisconsin, right,
Speaker 4: But you know, I buy local when I can support
Speaker 4: local businesses. But I want to know where something I'm
Speaker 4: buying was produced. And I've been fooled a number of
Speaker 4: times online, especially during the pandemic where I wasn't going
Speaker 4: out as much to stores, and I remember buying something
Speaker 4: and it arriving, it was all excited and saw that
Speaker 4: it was made in China and it was like a
Speaker 4: surprise to me. I thought I was buying from a
Speaker 4: US vendor. And anyways, we want this information available to
Speaker 4: consumers online when they shop. And jad Evince stepped up
Speaker 4: and said that's something that I'm interested in. You know,
Speaker 4: he hails from a manufacturing state like I do, and
Speaker 4: we want to support you as jobs.
Speaker 3: When we can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your women were the first gay senator twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: first openly gay senator that's right.
Speaker 3: It's an important distinction.
Speaker 1: It's a very important decision. But you're working with jd Vance,
Speaker 1: who has I mean, despite his earlier time being more moderate,
Speaker 1: or at least appearing more moderate, he really embraced MAGA.
Speaker 1: I mean explained to us because I think there's like
Speaker 1: a relevant issue on how we live with our I
Speaker 1: don't have any Maga relatives, but I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people do. How do you work with someone where
Speaker 1: some of their core tenants are so not your own.
Speaker 4: It's been a long journey in terms of my time
Speaker 4: in politics. But let me tell you a story from
Speaker 4: the early days, just to give you a sentence of
Speaker 4: how I approached this. Back when I was in the
Speaker 4: state Assembly. There's a very conservative Democrat, so he's in
Speaker 4: my caucus. He's been around for a long time. I'm
Speaker 4: like a freshman state assembly member. He was pro life.
Speaker 4: There was a day that we were about to consider
Speaker 4: some anti choice legislation. Typically Democrats stick together on procedural votes,
Speaker 4: and so this was a vote to advance, and I
Speaker 4: wanted everybody in our caucus to vote no so we
Speaker 4: could stop the bill. He voted yes, and it was
Speaker 4: a procedural vote. It wasn't on the substance of the bill,
Speaker 4: and I was really really angry as a woman, and
Speaker 4: I was going to march across that room and give
Speaker 4: him a piece of my mind. I don't know who intervene,
Speaker 4: but you know, nobody knew I was going to give
Speaker 4: him a piece of my mind.
Speaker 3: But Sunday came up, we had a discussion, etc. He
Speaker 3: was gone.
Speaker 4: I didn't have the confrontation. The next day, he as
Speaker 4: a committee chair again a senior member, blocked a bill,
Speaker 4: the advancement of a bill to institute the death penalty
Speaker 4: in Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: We actually don't have the death penalty in Wisconsin.
Speaker 4: And he was my biggest hero that day because that
Speaker 4: was something I never wanted Wisconsin to do. And it
Speaker 4: was like that whiplash of yesterday. I wanted to scream
Speaker 4: at him the next day. I wanted to say that
Speaker 4: was brave, that was the right thing to do, and
Speaker 4: it was against the will of the public. And that
Speaker 4: was a lesson I never have forgotten, especially when you
Speaker 4: work in a job like I do, and so bring
Speaker 4: that many many years forward. You know, I remember when
Speaker 4: I was running for reelection in twenty eighteen, running into
Speaker 4: my first Trump Baldwin voters.
Speaker 3: Like who is that?
Speaker 1: Who loves And then later you.
Speaker 4: Know, I was I ran into this guy who worked
Speaker 4: in a foundry, in a foundry actually, and he yeah,
Speaker 4: I saw him, and he said, you're picking on my
Speaker 4: guy Trump, and I'm like, you know, he said, why.
Speaker 3: Do you keep picking on my gut Trump? And I'm
Speaker 3: like you sometimes he deserves it. And he got a
Speaker 3: little bit of a grin, not much, but somebody came
Speaker 3: up to him afterwards. I said, okay, so you're a
Speaker 3: big Trump fan. What do you think of Baldwin? And
Speaker 3: he said, oh, she has my support. She supports buy
Speaker 3: America just like Trump does. And my job wouldn't be
Speaker 3: here if we didn't have buy America policies, right. And
Speaker 3: so you know, between my ancient history with my colleague,
Speaker 3: my pro life colleague, and my current dealings with folks who,
Speaker 3: yes and many many realms, have very different views, but
Speaker 3: we find common ground. And I will have to say
Speaker 3: one more thing though.
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean that I don't speak out about the
Speaker 4: things that are being said, especially when it happens in
Speaker 4: committee and on the floor and I hear it. Sometimes
Speaker 4: they say things, you know, to audiences or on Fox
Speaker 4: that I never hear about because I don't pay attention.
Speaker 4: But when I hear them in person, we have to
Speaker 4: speak out, and I do.
Speaker 1: I'm always of the belief that these people that a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff is performative, the racism, the sexism.
Speaker 1: But do you actually hear stuff from your fellow senators.
Speaker 1: You don't obviously need to answer those if you don't
Speaker 1: want to, But were you sort of bland?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: I actually remember one of my Republican colleagues coming into
Speaker 4: a hearing after somebody had just been what is.
Speaker 3: What would I call it bloviating?
Speaker 1: Or do you right?
Speaker 4: So it was one of his Republican colleagues, and he said,
Speaker 4: I come to hearings because they're informative. Some people come
Speaker 4: because it's performative. And I think we just saw that
Speaker 4: he said that of his Republican colleague.
Speaker 3: Maybe I see.
Speaker 4: It less in the Senate that I used to do
Speaker 4: in the House, which is kind of a little crazier
Speaker 4: for him. But you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 4: times they save their performances for cable news and for
Speaker 4: other media where they can grow their following and raise
Speaker 4: money and all of that sort of thing. And they're
Speaker 4: a little more.
Speaker 3: Tame in the chamber and in the committee rooms.
Speaker 4: So I guess I don't see as much of that,
Speaker 4: but I do see some, and yeah, it makes me uneasy.
Speaker 4: And then you got to decide where you're going to
Speaker 4: use your time to make your points or to respond
Speaker 4: to theirs.
Speaker 1: Both are important, especially if you're doing something like a
Speaker 1: hearing where you want information, right, Can you talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about like sort of you know,
Speaker 1: you're running for re election. State of Wisconsin really a
Speaker 1: split state, but a state that has really I think
Speaker 1: been affected by I don't know, I mean that Supreme
Speaker 1: Court election seems like a really important data point. Will
Speaker 1: you talk to us about how that factors into your thinking?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: So, first of all, you know, the twenty twenty midterms, again,
Speaker 4: we were that fifty to fifty sort of state.
Speaker 3: We had a wonderful victory. You won our governor.
Speaker 4: Won re election with like a landslide three four percent
Speaker 4: right for Wisconsin is huge, right, Yes, he like doubled
Speaker 4: his margin from four years earlier. So we re elected
Speaker 4: Tony Evers. And then we had this heartbreaking loss for
Speaker 4: our US Senate seat after the Republicsan spent I think
Speaker 4: it was seventy seven million dollars in support of the incumbent,
Speaker 4: Ron Johnson. Mandela Barnes lost by like less than a
Speaker 4: percentage point, closest Senate race in the country. He came
Speaker 4: closer to you know, upsetting an incumbent than any other
Speaker 4: candidate this past cycle. But it shows this sort of
Speaker 4: fifty to fifty nature of the state of Wisconsin. And then,
Speaker 4: you know, just a few months after that, in April
Speaker 4: of this year, we had our nonpartisan Spring general elections,
Speaker 4: and these are mayors and school county board, city council,
Speaker 4: but we had one statewide race and that was for
Speaker 4: Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. And it just so happened with
Speaker 4: our seven member court and a conservative justice retiring this racement,
Speaker 4: flipping the ideological balance of our state Supreme Court, and
Speaker 4: having just nationally experienced the overturning of Roe versus Wade,
Speaker 4: and Wisconsin has a near total criminal abortion ban. People
Speaker 4: sort of connecting the dots like that is a state law.
Speaker 4: Maybe the state Supreme Court could hear a case about it,
Speaker 4: and maybe they'd find it's unconstitutional under the state constitution,
Speaker 4: and we could become a state that provides more fulsome
Speaker 4: reproductive care than we are right now, which is, you know,
Speaker 4: we're not. That race was about rights and freedoms, and
Speaker 4: Wisconsin its resoundingly saying, regardless of party, we want our
Speaker 4: rights and freedoms back. And so it was about abortion care,
Speaker 4: but it was also about voting and gerrymandering and access
Speaker 4: to the ballot box. And it's about undoing what we
Speaker 4: saw happen during the Scott Walker administration, where voting rights
Speaker 4: were curtailed and it was made more difficult, or collective
Speaker 4: bargaining rights were curtailed or made more difficult, and so
Speaker 4: I think collectively that bundle of rights and freedoms people
Speaker 4: were like, we're sick of seeing us go backwards. And
Speaker 4: all of that became a part of that race, and
Speaker 4: you I announced my re election sort of in the
Speaker 4: wake of that, arriving the title wave of that, if
Speaker 4: you will, and certainly hope that we are going to
Speaker 4: have the ability to say that was step one. You
Speaker 4: got to keep involved to take the next step, and
Speaker 4: the next step and the next step. Those don't happen
Speaker 4: without voter involvement, activist involvement. You know, it's not one
Speaker 4: and done. We got to keep on going, Sendor.
Speaker 1: Tammy Baldwin, thanks so much, well, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, and I look talking again.
Speaker 1: Hi. It's Mollie and I am wildly excited that for
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Speaker 1: Kim Kelly is the author of Fight Like How, The
Speaker 1: Untold History of American Labor. Welcome too, Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Kim Kelly, thank you so much for having me back.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you. So. I feel like this
Speaker 1: is like part of what's happening in Republican America is
Speaker 1: that we're just like going back to all these things
Speaker 1: that were like they you know, they're always like so
Speaker 1: fetishizing the olden days. So here's something that you had
Speaker 1: in the olden days, black lung. Let's start with what
Speaker 1: black lung is.
Speaker 3: Sure, so black lung just its official designation is CWP
Speaker 3: Coal miners pneumoconiosis. It's an occupational disease that workers contract
Speaker 3: when they're working underground to coal mine. They're breathing in
Speaker 3: coal dust and silica dust and that is causing immense
Speaker 3: damage to their lungs. And it's an incurable disease. It's
Speaker 3: a really ugly, horrible disease, and it's also a preventable disease.
Speaker 3: And basically, you smother to death. You stop being able
Speaker 3: to breathe. And a black one diagnosis shortens a minors
Speaker 3: life span by at least twelve years, if not more.
Speaker 1: And that's probably an average, so it probably shortens other
Speaker 1: people's life spans much more, right, I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, depending on what you have going on. It's really
Speaker 3: it's just so ugly, and it's like you said, we
Speaker 3: think of it as this olden times thing, like I
Speaker 3: always think of that stupid quote in Zoolander. You know,
Speaker 3: I've got the black lung pop.
Speaker 1: Like well, And the idea was there was legislation to
Speaker 1: protect people from having this past in the late seventies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Mind Safety Act like that made a huge impact.
Speaker 3: It really brought numbers down. But we're in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three and things that are not as they should be.
Speaker 1: And so what has happened here? Who can we blame
Speaker 1: for this?
Speaker 3: More importantly, there's a bunch of people that I would
Speaker 3: love to get five minutes alone in a room with
Speaker 3: this issue. But essentially, the reason that black lung coal
Speaker 3: miners Newicconiosis is having this spike and has been having
Speaker 3: this spike for really the best past twenty years, is
Speaker 3: that there's a couple of different things going on. But
Speaker 3: like the most basic reason that this is happening is
Speaker 3: that this is happening in central Appalachia, in places like
Speaker 3: West Virginia, Southern Virginia, and Kentucky where the coal seams,
Speaker 3: the famous Appalachian coal seams have gotten so much thinner
Speaker 3: because people have been mining there for centuries now, and
Speaker 3: so miners have to go through much much more rock
Speaker 3: and sandstone to get to the coal they're trying to
Speaker 3: dig out, and that rock is full of silica. Silica
Speaker 3: dusk is about twenty times more toxic and deadly than
Speaker 3: regular coal dust, and so there's so much more of
Speaker 3: this incredibly toxic material floating around. There's so much more
Speaker 3: of it too, because the advances in technology since the
Speaker 3: seventies have been huge in terms of production. There's tons
Speaker 3: of heavy machinery doing the work that before which is
Speaker 3: done by people, and now you can mine about I
Speaker 3: think a minor friend of mine told me the numbers,
Speaker 3: like it takes about twenty four hours now to get
Speaker 3: the same amount of coal that used to take two weeks.
Speaker 3: Like the production is off the chain. And so there's
Speaker 3: all this happening, and there's also a lack of regulations
Speaker 3: that protect these guys, protect these workers. There isn't right
Speaker 3: now a federal silicus standard for coal mines. There's all
Speaker 3: this red tape like kind of bunched up in the
Speaker 3: tornament of labor and in whoever it is in charge,
Speaker 3: you know, who gets to dictate how we live our lives.
Speaker 3: This is a problem that we've known about since the seventies.
Speaker 3: We've known that silica dust is incredibly toxic, incredibly harmful,
Speaker 3: but it just kind of got put on the back
Speaker 3: burner for some reason. And now there's people my age,
Speaker 3: I'm thirty five, there's guys around my age, even younger,
Speaker 3: who are now dealing with this, this horrific disease in
Speaker 3: a worse way. It's progressing faster because the silva dust
Speaker 3: is more dangerous and more damaging, and so it's just
Speaker 3: this it's heartbreaking, Like reporting this story broke my heart
Speaker 3: meeting people my age who I know, you know, who
Speaker 3: have kids who have dreams, who have lives, who are
Speaker 3: now going to end up smothering to death in a
Speaker 3: hospital bed instead of living the full life they deserve.
Speaker 1: Is this like you know these regional bands where they
Speaker 1: fought for less regulation and we're seeing results of this,
Speaker 1: or is this just something that's been a kind of
Speaker 1: blind spot.
Speaker 3: Actually, this is tied to politics, and it is then
Speaker 3: we can blame on Trump like most things in a way,
Speaker 3: because this is this is an issue that's been ongoing
Speaker 3: for years, since the early two thousands, and during the
Speaker 3: Obama administration, they did try to work on a silicon
Speaker 3: rule to address this issue, and they just didn't get
Speaker 3: it out in time. But then the Trump administration showed up,
Speaker 3: and even though he loved to talk and pretend like
Speaker 3: he cared about coal miners and take photo ops with
Speaker 3: coal miners and Appalachia his During his administration, he actually
Speaker 3: installed a former coal executive to lead EMSHA, the Mind
Speaker 3: Safety and Health Administration, and when that guy was there,
Speaker 3: he spent his time examining ways to make regulations in
Speaker 3: silica less burdensome for coal operators. So he was basically
Speaker 3: trying to make it easier for coal bosses to get
Speaker 3: around regulations or to not have them at all. And
Speaker 3: so if we hadn't had this Trump era and this
Speaker 3: you know Republican bs, Oh, we care about coal miners,
Speaker 3: but we care about business more situation, and we'll probably
Speaker 3: further along. And there's probably people I know that wouldn't
Speaker 3: be as sick as they are. But it all so
Speaker 3: much of this comes down to who sits in the
Speaker 3: White House, because agency is like the torment of labor,
Speaker 3: and EMSHA like they're really subject to the turnover in Washington.
Speaker 3: You know, every few years, a new administration comes in
Speaker 3: and they decide what's going on. And if that administration
Speaker 3: doesn't care about workers, doesn't care about public health, doesn't
Speaker 3: care about upsetting, doesn't want to upset their coal boss friends,
Speaker 3: then these things aren't gonna get past, and they are
Speaker 3: going to make it through and then the next administration
Speaker 3: has to play catch up.
Speaker 1: I mean Cole I think of as expensive and bad
Speaker 1: for the environment, but there still really is a major
Speaker 1: business there, right, And can you sort of talk to
Speaker 1: us about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd bean in some places. Really it's in Appalachia,
Speaker 3: in places like West Virginia especially, it's so entwined with
Speaker 3: the not only the economy, but just the cultural fabric
Speaker 3: of the region. And because that's the main extractive resource,
Speaker 3: that's where so many people, not the workers, but the
Speaker 3: bosses have made their money. Like there's been a concentrated
Speaker 3: effort in places like that to really boost coal. As
Speaker 3: you know, this this great thing, this is our this
Speaker 3: is our best hope. This is all we have. You know,
Speaker 3: don't listen to those union people or those environmental people.
Speaker 3: This is this is all we got. And you have
Speaker 3: that rhetoric being amplified by the politicians and by business
Speaker 3: friendly media. Like it's it's different in coal country, you know,
Speaker 3: Like if you're not in that area, if you don't
Speaker 3: know folks in that culture and that tradition, you would think, well,
Speaker 3: why would anyone want to be involved with coal? Why
Speaker 3: we need to get rid of it obviously, But then
Speaker 3: you go into places like Mingo County or mate Wan,
Speaker 3: places where coal is just so it's kind of the
Speaker 3: only game in town, and you talk to people say, oh,
Speaker 3: this is the best job I can get, like I
Speaker 3: can make a decent living going into these minds like
Speaker 3: this is where like I want to get this job
Speaker 3: that otherwise there's what there's Walmart or maybe a meat
Speaker 3: packing plant where I'll make walks an hour. It's it's
Speaker 3: the same as in Alabama and the coal miner strike.
Speaker 3: I was covering there for a couple of years at
Speaker 3: Warrior met Like it's it's not always as as simple
Speaker 3: as it may seem outside of those communities, right because
Speaker 3: if you have options, you're not going to go down
Speaker 3: into a coal mine, right right, But that's assuming you
Speaker 3: have options.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what you think the Biden administration should be.
Speaker 3: Doing well right now? There is and I have to
Speaker 3: shout out MSHA Chris Williamson, the new head of it
Speaker 3: of the agency. He's I like him. I think he
Speaker 3: really cares and he's really trying to address this issue.
Speaker 3: It's like his main it's his vicious priority. And right
Speaker 3: now they're trying to promulgate a new rule, a new
Speaker 3: Silicus standard that'll take the standard down to something that
Speaker 3: matches the data we got in the seventies. Like it. Basically,
Speaker 3: this will solve solve some problems, right if we can
Speaker 3: get this rule through and really get these regularly in place.
Speaker 3: And really what I would love to see is to
Speaker 3: see Mship Agency and get a whole lot more money
Speaker 3: so they can hire more staff, so they can inspect
Speaker 3: these minds. I want them to be able to really
Speaker 3: go after the mine operators who flow out these regulations
Speaker 3: and try to get around it and actually find them
Speaker 3: something that hurts that throw some mind bosses in jail. Hell,
Speaker 3: you know, Like the administration does have the power to
Speaker 3: change the circumstances here. They just need the motivation and
Speaker 3: they need to throw some money at it. Like I
Speaker 3: would love to see a public health campaign that really
Speaker 3: emphasizes like this is not just something that happens to
Speaker 3: your grandpa, This might happen to you, Like, there is
Speaker 3: so much that can be done. I think that they
Speaker 3: just need, yea, the political will and the understanding that
Speaker 3: even if a lot of folks in these areas didn't
Speaker 3: vote for you, you still have to care and maybe
Speaker 3: if you can show how much you care, that might
Speaker 3: change the way they see you too. You know, there's
Speaker 3: so many opportunities. I think, especially in place is that
Speaker 3: get called forgotten or left behind and painted as all
Speaker 3: these trump owaysis like, people there need stuff, they need help,
Speaker 3: they need resources, And I was in charge, if I
Speaker 3: was a Democratic president and that weird alternative timeline, I
Speaker 3: would spend a lot of time getting them stuff, getting
Speaker 3: in the things they need. So yeah, well.
Speaker 1: But the governor there, Kim Justice, was a Democrat and
Speaker 1: is a Republican, and he saw so pretty involved in
Speaker 1: the mining industry, right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, it just goes to show that you can be
Speaker 3: from a place and of a place and still not
Speaker 3: give a shit about the people that have less money
Speaker 3: than you. Right, And this is not a secret people
Speaker 3: in Appalachia, especially in West Virginia. No, this is a
Speaker 3: big problem. It's just not something that is getting much
Speaker 3: attention outside of those areas unless you're like me and
Speaker 3: end up on the coal miner beach somehow. Coming down
Speaker 3: for South Philly, I mean, it's it just comes down
Speaker 3: to the influence of money and capital and anti worker,
Speaker 3: pro business, just nasty policies that Republicans and the far
Speaker 3: right and conservatives are all the same try to push
Speaker 3: through like they don't care about people. You can go
Speaker 3: up and, you know, talk about growing up in the
Speaker 3: hollers and talk about how your granddaddy is a coal miner.
Speaker 3: But if you're not using your power and your influence
Speaker 3: to actually do something about it, then you're not worth
Speaker 3: You're just not worth anybody's time.
Speaker 1: What other sort of labor stuff are you seeing in
Speaker 1: this country besides what's happening to coal miners.
Speaker 3: There's a lot, right, I've ended up focused on this
Speaker 3: very specific slice of the labor force. But I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm on the Writers Guild Council, So when I'm not
Speaker 3: paying attention to coal miners, I'm paying attention to the
Speaker 3: writer's strike, which is now I think in its third week.
Speaker 3: We've been at it for a minute. It's been really
Speaker 3: exciting to see that, especially because I've had a little
Speaker 3: bit of an inside view. Right, like my union, the
Speaker 3: Writers Gold of America East, in addition to our sister
Speaker 3: union the West, been on this strike. We've been talking
Speaker 3: about it for a long time and talking about the
Speaker 3: conditions leading up to it, and I tend to I
Speaker 3: represent the online media members of our union, not the
Speaker 3: film and TV folks, So it's kind of a big
Speaker 3: surprise to me too, hearing about some of the things
Speaker 3: these people are dealing with. And I think there's just
Speaker 3: a poll the other day that seventy percent of Americans
Speaker 3: support what we're doing, support the strike, and I think
Speaker 3: that's a big deal. So obviously, yeah, excited about the
Speaker 3: writer's strike.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing any movement there on the part of
Speaker 1: the studio as part of the streamers.
Speaker 3: I'm not proving to the negotiations, but it seems like so.
Speaker 3: The situation right now is there's two other big Hollywood
Speaker 3: unions that have contracts aspiring soon. They have negotiations coming up.
Speaker 3: I believe it's a CGA and SAG act, and that's
Speaker 3: all happening in June. So I think the studios probably
Speaker 3: aren't gonna feel like they need to pay that much
Speaker 3: attention until after that's done. And I think that's going
Speaker 3: to bite them in the ass because people be pretty
Speaker 3: fired up and we're seeing so much solidarity from other
Speaker 3: union members in different parts of Hollywood already, Like, imagine
Speaker 3: what it would look like if all of Hollywood shut down.
Speaker 3: I feel like that would send a pretty fun message
Speaker 3: to the people exploiting our members.
Speaker 1: The anxiety that I have with a lot of this,
Speaker 1: especially with the studios and the streamers. There are certain
Speaker 1: things that the government could do and probably should do,
Speaker 1: like with the AI stuff and the regulating the AI
Speaker 1: that is now sort of involved in this strike.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: the writer Guild's pretty reasonable demands about AI.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we want to ensure that they're not
Speaker 3: just having AI written scripts that then they bring our
Speaker 3: members in to rework and sound human. Now it's this
Speaker 3: AI situation. This strike is really a watershed moment. Honestly,
Speaker 3: if they're if AI is coming for our jobs, they're
Speaker 3: coming for years next, you know. Like it It's a
Speaker 3: moment where we do we could see action from the
Speaker 3: government to get ahead of this. We could see action
Speaker 3: from corporations who realized, maybe this is not what our
Speaker 3: consumers want and certainly not what our employees want. This
Speaker 3: is the moment, and I'm so hopeful that the ball
Speaker 3: won't get fumbled. But also, I mean, there's not a
Speaker 3: lot of historical evidence for the government not fumbling the
Speaker 3: ball in these types of moments. I don't think a
Speaker 3: robot could do my job, but somebody who makes more
Speaker 3: money than me, who is control of whether or not
Speaker 3: I get that commission, might think so. And then who's
Speaker 3: going to want to read that?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: It? It's tradiculous. I saw like I can't remember the person.
Speaker 3: I feel bad, But I saw such a good tweet
Speaker 3: the other day about like, why are we, like, if
Speaker 3: this is the future we're building, why are we allowing
Speaker 3: robots to why are we trying to automate art and
Speaker 3: creativity and fun stuff instead of like why are we
Speaker 3: using AI to make it safer for people to go
Speaker 3: down into a coal mine? Like that's what you should
Speaker 3: use robots to automation for, not displacing workers and making
Speaker 3: life worse for everybody else.
Speaker 1: Part of how this AI gets smarter is by reading work.
Speaker 1: And so if an AI reads all of the law
Speaker 1: and order scripts, they will learn how to this this
Speaker 1: is any way the thinking. They will then learn how
Speaker 1: to write law and order scripts better than the humans
Speaker 1: who wrote them. So what these unions are desperately sort
Speaker 1: of begging the studios to do is not to use
Speaker 1: their work or to compensate them for training the AI.
Speaker 3: Right, So, I mean that's just it's not fair. You know,
Speaker 3: you spend all of this time creating this piece of
Speaker 3: work and then you just plug it into a machine
Speaker 3: and they use that to automate your job away. It's
Speaker 3: asking people to contribute to their own well say unemployment
Speaker 3: or the dissolution of their industry and their work and
Speaker 3: their craft. Just makes me think of my friend Brian
Speaker 3: Merchants wrote really great book about the Bloodites called Blood
Speaker 3: of the Machine, and I think a lot about when
Speaker 3: we wrote in that book where there's this moment when
Speaker 3: workers were faced with the implementation of new technile anology
Speaker 3: and we're given a choice like, we can embrace this
Speaker 3: and we could deestimate our tradition, our centuries of tradition,
Speaker 3: and leave tons of people unemployed and desolate, or we
Speaker 3: could work together to regulate this and make it fair
Speaker 3: and come up with something that works for both of us,
Speaker 3: for labor and capital, for the employers and the workers.
Speaker 3: And it took in that moment in history in England,
Speaker 3: like the seventeen the hundreds, the government actually just sending
Speaker 3: their equivalent of the National Guard to stop all that.
Speaker 3: But we have this opportunity here to ask ourselves, just
Speaker 3: because we can use this technology for something, should we
Speaker 3: Who is this going to benefit? Is it going to
Speaker 3: create something worth consuming, worth listening to, worth watching, or
Speaker 3: is it just gonna align some people's pockets for a
Speaker 3: few years until the next thing comes along.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for having me on. No mo.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, my junk fast.
Speaker 3: This chaos Caucus is still up to no good in
Speaker 3: these debt ceiling negotiations.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: You know who's having a bad bad day?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 1: Chip Roy? Oh what a shame. He's mad as hell,
Speaker 1: Mad as hell, chip Roy the only person less appealing
Speaker 1: than Ted Cruz, which was ironic because he used to
Speaker 1: work for Ted Cruz. There are members of the GUP
Speaker 1: claiming Democrats got nothing from the quote unquote deal Oh
Speaker 1: really in uncapped debt ceiling with an expiration date worth
Speaker 1: approximately four trillion two basically no cuts, a freeze at
Speaker 1: a bloated twenty twenty three spending level, zero clawback. I mean, basically,
Speaker 1: let me just say. The one good thing is that
Speaker 1: if chip Roy is mad, you know that the White
Speaker 1: House is doing something right, and for that is a
Speaker 1: very heartily takes our moment of fuckory. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.