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 the FDA has approved an over
Speaker 1: the counter oral contraceptive. We have a star studded show today.
Speaker 1: Sisters in Law podcast host Joyce Vance tells us all
Speaker 1: about Trump's legal woes, and there are a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Axios national political correspondent Alex Thompson
Speaker 1: about everything happening in Biden world and Ron DeSantis' many
Speaker 1: bad political instincts. But first we have the author of
Speaker 1: the big Live pod Save Americas, Dan Pfeiffer.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics, Dan.
Speaker 3: Paifer, Thanks for havould be good to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're excited to have you back, especially right now
Speaker 1: because I feel like this is you know, you worked
Speaker 1: in the Obama administration. You have this little podcast no
Speaker 1: one's ever heard of, probably the reason all of us
Speaker 1: are doing what we're doing right now. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: like you have worked in an administration and I feel
Speaker 1: like there are echoes of Obama here where it's like
Speaker 1: things are actually going quite well, and the Biden administration
Speaker 1: does not seem to be able to like kind of
Speaker 1: get the credit for it.
Speaker 3: I mean, no president has ever or their staff has
Speaker 3: ever believed in our case, at least correctly, and in
Speaker 3: bindensc Care directly, they get credit for all everything good
Speaker 3: they have done. But there is a particular disconnect right
Speaker 3: now between the trajectory of the economy and people's opinion
Speaker 3: on that economy. I think it's a very complicated, complex
Speaker 3: reason for set set of reasons for that. But how
Speaker 3: we we the progressive democratic world more broadly figures out
Speaker 3: how to unstick that situation is going to be very
Speaker 3: closely tied to what happens in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about that, because you know, we
Speaker 1: have a lot of economists on here, and I'm married
Speaker 1: to a venture capitalist, So we spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time worrying about the public market, and.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 1: And I lived through two thousand and eight, and you know,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about what you know, there was
Speaker 1: a real conviction and I wouldn't even say conviction. I
Speaker 1: would say on the left, it was an anxiety. On
Speaker 1: the right, it was a fantasy that we were going
Speaker 1: to head to recession, that there was no way that
Speaker 1: you could quash inflation without driving the American economy into
Speaker 1: a recession.
Speaker 2: And it seems like that's not happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems, based on both the job numbers and
Speaker 3: the inflation numbers out earlier this week, that we are
Speaker 3: headed towards what the economists call soft landing, where you
Speaker 3: defeated inflation without heading to a recession. That would be huge,
Speaker 3: both substantively and politically, huge victory for the Biden administration
Speaker 3: and the set and everyone who's been trying to do this.
Speaker 1: So, I mean there was a lot of like deft
Speaker 1: kind of maneuvering behind the scenes that made this happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean you have the set of and
Speaker 3: this is you can't talk about this without tying it
Speaker 3: to the set of letislat of a college rests. The
Speaker 3: President has made first the American Rescue Plan to bring
Speaker 3: the economy back quickly, right, they get to restart hiring
Speaker 3: in this country, and then a bunch of longer term
Speaker 3: bills like the Chips Acts and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill,
Speaker 3: which are leading to investment, which is then improving the markets.
Speaker 3: It's improving hiring, and it is keeping me. It has
Speaker 3: kept the economy strong despite a pretty aggressive set of
Speaker 3: rate increases from the FED. It's almost like the economy
Speaker 3: is so strong that even the said can't start. John
Speaker 3: pal seems to be trying by he's been unable to do.
Speaker 2: It, and the jobs numbers.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not going to go crazy here on
Speaker 1: the economy start because I'm just a hobbyist. But the
Speaker 1: sort of feeling I always had growing up was that
Speaker 1: Republican presidents would sort of fall into good economic news
Speaker 1: is and then Democrats would have to sort of dig
Speaker 1: out from the whole that Republicans put us in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that is. That has been the very clear history.
Speaker 3: So there's an old, tired metaphor about Democrats having to
Speaker 3: clean up after the elephants at the circus every time
Speaker 3: they get in office.
Speaker 1: But voters like to vote for Republicans on the economy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is a really interesting question. Republicans
Speaker 3: have had an advantage on the economy more broadly, going
Speaker 3: back to Ragan, Democrats out of for a very long time,
Speaker 3: New Deal Roosevelt clad in the nineties had a very
Speaker 3: strong abamba one, you know, had a big advantage on
Speaker 3: the economy. Even in miss all the troubles he had
Speaker 3: against Romney and twenty twelve, no president. And this is
Speaker 3: sort of gets to the question of how Biden is
Speaker 3: connect to navigate this is no person in monern history
Speaker 3: has won a presidential election without winning on the economy.
Speaker 3: The closest is it has ever been for the winners
Speaker 3: that Biden and Trump are essentially tied in the exit
Speaker 3: polls on the economy. And so right now he the president,
Speaker 3: despite all of the successes and the state of the economy,
Speaker 3: you know jobs at you know unemploy rate disks, see
Speaker 3: your low inflation coming down for more than a year
Speaker 3: now sort back to the normal range. All of those things,
Speaker 3: is at a significant deficit on the economy. And that's
Speaker 3: why we're talking about bodynomics. That's why they're out the
Speaker 3: every day is they know they have to solve that problem.
Speaker 3: And the best time to solve that problem is right
Speaker 3: now when the Republicans are in the midst of all
Speaker 3: their insane stuff in the primary. And he has sort
Speaker 3: of a little bit of a free lays out the
Speaker 3: right word, but he is not in a day to
Speaker 3: day back and forth with Donald Trump or on Santas
Speaker 3: he can just talk about the economy. This is what
Speaker 3: I wominated a moment at this exact point in time,
Speaker 3: was getting killed on the economy. Americans believed that he
Speaker 3: was not for eonomy. It was worse, for sure, it
Speaker 3: was actually bad. Had we actually had a harder challenge
Speaker 3: in the sense that we add to tell people that
Speaker 3: things were going to get better rather than things are better.
Speaker 3: There wasn't you had to look at the horizon here.
Speaker 3: There's a possibility just some to look out their window
Speaker 3: and they may be able to feel better about it.
Speaker 3: But the reasons why they are and I think are
Speaker 3: very complex, and that there is I do think one
Speaker 3: of the things we have to recognize is the polling
Speaker 3: is not telling us everything that it used to tell us,
Speaker 3: because there are a couple measures you look at it.
Speaker 3: There is overall economic approval of the president, there is
Speaker 3: approval of the economy itself, and there is right track
Speaker 3: rown track. I'm gonna do these in reverse order. Right track,
Speaker 3: wrong track is terrible. Right it is more suspended history.
Speaker 3: That is when you do focus groups on this, and
Speaker 3: the reason those numbers are slow is Republicans all think
Speaker 3: the country is on the wrong direction because Joe Biden
Speaker 3: is president Donald Trump is not, and Democrats think the
Speaker 3: country a lot of Democrats and some independence think the
Speaker 3: country is on the wrong track because Donald Trump might
Speaker 3: be president again. Like everything that's happening in this country,
Speaker 3: you know, it's hard to turn on the news despite
Speaker 3: the economic indicators strong the news and look at Donald
Speaker 3: Trump running around gaining in the polls for the Republican
Speaker 3: nomination with two indictments under his spelt and saying things
Speaker 3: are going great in the country. So you understand that
Speaker 3: on approval of the economy. Over the last fifteen years,
Speaker 3: economic approval has become a proxy for presidential choice in
Speaker 3: I remember this so clearly that this happened, This has
Speaker 3: happened in every presidential election in recent history. Where in
Speaker 3: the middle of the two thousand and eight recession, basically
Speaker 3: the economic approval rating from when for the before almost
Speaker 3: elected after Baba's like, it did not change, right. People
Speaker 3: thought the economy was going terribly for all that on
Speaker 3: his reasons, but the people who thought it was completely
Speaker 3: reversed Republicans thought the economy was doing better under Bush
Speaker 3: immediately thought it was terrible. And then you have black
Speaker 3: and brown voters who were by far suffering the worst
Speaker 3: under the resent under the financial crisis. Feeling better about
Speaker 3: the economy has brought a Babama's president. And then even
Speaker 3: since then, the number of Republicans willing to say a
Speaker 3: Democrat is doing well on the economy has going as
Speaker 3: a kind of pass. It was like fifteen to eighteen
Speaker 3: people when Obama's present. Now it's under under ten for Biden,
Speaker 3: and so that's going to lower your ceiling under all scenarios. Now,
Speaker 3: the challenge for by on this is that his economic
Speaker 3: approval rating is among Democrats among Democrats is ten to
Speaker 3: twelve points lower than his overall approval rating among Democrats.
Speaker 3: I think that's going to change as the election picks up,
Speaker 3: and I think those two things are going to become
Speaker 3: one and the same, because how people are going to
Speaker 3: get think you'd be thinking about Biden versus Trump, or
Speaker 3: Biden versus Disantas, or Biden versus Doug Program or whoever
Speaker 3: whoever you want to pick as opposed to Biden versus
Speaker 3: whatever could possibly be in an ideal scenario. But the
Speaker 3: thing you look at and you worry about if you're
Speaker 3: the President's team, you or at least you worry it's
Speaker 3: serially to worry. It is time to work on fixing
Speaker 3: is Biden's numbers among economic members, among independents, a group
Speaker 3: he won in twenty twenty are pretty far underwater, and
Speaker 3: that had and that's something that is going to have.
Speaker 3: You have spent a lot of time and money, frankly
Speaker 3: to change those impressions.
Speaker 2: But it is interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems more and more likely that DeSantis
Speaker 1: is not going to be the guy.
Speaker 3: It seems that just help me.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I just think like it's so
Speaker 1: there seems to be this kind of hail Mary pass
Speaker 1: from Republican donor class where they're sort of trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, some other person who is you know,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing donors doing events for Brook Scott.
Speaker 2: And I know a friend of mine. You know, they're
Speaker 2: trying to get youngkin in.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, I mean, it's not that they don't have
Speaker 1: enough candidates.
Speaker 3: No, they have more candidates than they need. It's basically,
Speaker 3: if you look at the field right now, it's hard
Speaker 3: to imagine anyone running in this current field who can
Speaker 3: beat Donald Trump. Right that's just if you look at him,
Speaker 3: they are immensely flawed. They're not offering what the Party
Speaker 3: clearly wants. You know, in some in these polls, people's
Speaker 3: number one thing they want in a candidate who's not
Speaker 3: Trump is for that candidate to be like Trump. And
Speaker 3: that was what the Saya's argument was. But he doesn't
Speaker 3: have the charisma or the skill or Coastald Trump is
Speaker 3: not just an extreme politician. He's not my cup at tea,
Speaker 3: but he's a charismatic extreme politician. And DeSantis is Christmas
Speaker 3: is not a word now I used to describe him.
Speaker 3: And you know this happens every time. In twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: when people were pretty satisfied with Romney in that field,
Speaker 3: there are efforts to get both Rubio and Christita on.
Speaker 3: I mean there were people basically offering to write you know, five,
Speaker 3: ten to fifty million dollars checks of super packs to
Speaker 3: get Chris Christina.
Speaker 2: On the salad days.
Speaker 3: Yes for Chris Christy, for sure, Chris CHRISTI. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: there will be those efforts. I would imagine that maybe
Speaker 3: more young Kin than Scott, because I don't know sure
Speaker 3: what Scott's bringing to the table, but young Cain you
Speaker 3: can see on paper at least. Why the people the
Speaker 3: sort of people who can write the checks you need
Speaker 3: to get candidates to run, would be interested in someone
Speaker 3: like Line. Now Kenny's I mean he is himself a
Speaker 3: very rich Republican, so there's an affinity.
Speaker 1: There, what I think is interesting and youngkin. It has
Speaker 1: the same problem as all of these candidates right there.
Speaker 1: You can look good on paper and then get in
Speaker 1: the race, and you know, I mean Desanta's has his
Speaker 1: problem is every time voters get to know him, they
Speaker 1: decide they don't like him.
Speaker 3: I said this on Ponze Repers, which is candidates for
Speaker 3: president generally can do at least two of the following
Speaker 3: three things. Be a good speaker in front of a
Speaker 3: crowd like Obama, right, be really good in a small group.
Speaker 3: You know where you are, You're talking to Iowa Coccus Coors,
Speaker 3: and you were just you can persuade them and charm them,
Speaker 3: you know, like Biden is very good at that, Bill
Speaker 3: Clinton obviously famously good at that. George Bush quaity good
Speaker 3: at that actually. Or you are very deaft with the media, right,
Speaker 3: which was you know that was the Hallmark cot Be pootage.
Speaker 3: Just as Kifane Trump is in his own weird way,
Speaker 3: very deaf with the media. Ron DeSantis is good at
Speaker 3: none of those things. In fact, I think he's actively
Speaker 3: bad at all of them. There was something diminishing once
Speaker 3: you get in a race, right, no matter how even
Speaker 3: Obama came in. He got in that race, and we
Speaker 3: have twenty thousand people in Springfield, Illinois and Oprah's endorsing him,
Speaker 3: and then the second year, down fifteen points to Hillary
Speaker 3: Clinton in the polls, or you're losing to John Edwards
Speaker 3: and the Iowa coccause you look small, and then you
Speaker 3: have to build your way out of it, right. Biden
Speaker 3: had to do that, John McCain had to do that
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight, Romney had to do in
Speaker 3: twenty twelve. Like there's always a moment where the tests
Speaker 3: the candidate and if they have a little luck and
Speaker 3: a lot of skill, they can come back. It's just
Speaker 3: hard to see any of these candidates, particularly DeSantis, having
Speaker 3: enough skill. So, you know, like even when Biden was
Speaker 3: struggling mightily in twenty twenty, you knew that he had
Speaker 3: a long history, a deep reservoir of support, and one
Speaker 3: hell of an electability argument against Trump, right, and when
Speaker 3: McCain was, you know, was basically firing his campaign staff
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight. You knew that he had
Speaker 3: won some of these states before. There was a deep
Speaker 3: reservoir support with him among independents, and he was a
Speaker 3: pretty he was a you know, a very deft politician,
Speaker 3: and he could come back. John Carey, you know, certainly
Speaker 3: had an electability argument and a profile that Vic Cannas
Speaker 3: were looking for in two thousand and four. It's just
Speaker 3: what has Rohn de Santas had that people want. It's
Speaker 3: really hard to divine when looking at the race thus far,
Speaker 3: completely baffling.
Speaker 1: So twenty twenty four is going to be twenty twenty
Speaker 1: again unless something humongous have ends. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think that that presents an opportunity for all of us
Speaker 1: to learn from our previous mistakes or do you think
Speaker 1: we just barrel into another or do you think we
Speaker 1: all just have nervous breakdowns and die because we can't
Speaker 1: stand another. I mean, it's basically been a decade taken
Speaker 1: up by Trump at this point.
Speaker 3: I think, as you look at it right now, Joe
Speaker 3: Biden would have to be a slight favorite against Trump
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four. And that says nothing about Joe
Speaker 3: Biden's political skills or anything if we had national popic
Speaker 3: food elections, he would be a significant favorite. Well, like,
Speaker 3: we just have to go into this election no matter
Speaker 3: what the polls are going to tell us throughout twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four that the total number of voters who will
Speaker 3: decide the election will be fewer people that attended the
Speaker 3: most recent Tailer Sweat concert. Like that's what it's going
Speaker 3: to be, right, It's going to be one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: people if we're lucky over four or five states, and
Speaker 3: it's just going to be that close, and it is
Speaker 3: a game of inches. And I think that is one
Speaker 3: thing where I think we the world thought that that
Speaker 3: political gravity was real, and that or at least political
Speaker 3: gravity was stronger than polarization and structure and the structural
Speaker 3: advantage electoral college. And it's not right no matter Trump,
Speaker 3: even with Trump could be have three convictions under his
Speaker 3: belt and he's probably going to do all at least
Speaker 3: pretty close to as well as he was doing in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty And what what is like the most worrisome
Speaker 3: thing here is you talked about it, and I've talked
Speaker 3: about it, is what role is a third party candidate
Speaker 3: play here, whether it's Joe Manchin and Fred Upton or
Speaker 3: John Huntsman or Frankly Cornell West. All it takes is
Speaker 3: a few thousand voters you know who either were Trump
Speaker 3: Biden you know, go no labels this time, or you
Speaker 3: know a lot of voters you know we've Biden did
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly well with the people who voted for a third
Speaker 3: party candidate twenty sixteen. He won those I think by
Speaker 3: like two to one or three to one, and if
Speaker 3: any of those people go back to third parties, that
Speaker 3: could be the difference in some of these states. And
Speaker 3: so that is there is this additional factor that we're
Speaker 3: going to have to be very vigilant of. And we
Speaker 3: all came out of twenty sixteen and recognizing the danger
Speaker 3: of it, and our party team tends to forget these
Speaker 3: things over time. Right, It's obviously why Al Gore loss.
Speaker 3: We cared passionately about it. We're conservative. It didn't really
Speaker 3: matter in two thousand and eight, we didn't have one.
Speaker 3: Twenty twelve, twenty sixteen, it was the death of us,
Speaker 3: maybe literally, and we're back at it in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: When we talk.
Speaker 1: About no labels, those guys, Mark Penn, I mean, how
Speaker 1: angry are you Mark pennon no Labels is the brainchild
Speaker 1: of a man who used to be a Democrat.
Speaker 3: I have been basically angry at Mark Penn for going
Speaker 3: on like seventeen years now, so even when he was
Speaker 3: still active in Democratic Party. Is one of the more
Speaker 3: malicious forces and more malicious and avarice forces at our party.
Speaker 3: I think no one who has noted hammer, worked around him,
Speaker 3: or worked against him is shocked that this is where
Speaker 3: we have ended up, Mark.
Speaker 1: Penn and Nancy Jacobson, I mean and raising millions and
Speaker 1: millions of dollars from Republicans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who understand exactly what that money is for. But
Speaker 3: I mean Nelson Pelts gave millions of dollars. There are
Speaker 3: people in the Pelts family who I love and who
Speaker 3: are my friends. But on the other side of it
Speaker 3: is Nelson who is a Republican mega donor and who's
Speaker 3: giving this money in the hopes of helping Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and did Trump go to his birthday party pretty recently?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes he can't Donald Trump a ten your
Speaker 3: birth already. And that also somehow believe in some fantastical
Speaker 3: third party return to CENTRALSM Like those two things are
Speaker 3: not compatible.
Speaker 1: I mean, this whole thing is bullshit. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: certainly a real threat. It's very real. I continually I'm
Speaker 1: just shocked by the idea that Trump has been indicted twice,
Speaker 1: probably coming up on a third, impeached twice, and really
Speaker 1: he somehow, I mean, you don't think that's going to
Speaker 1: make the base a little smaller.
Speaker 3: I think we should operate as if it won't. It
Speaker 3: certainly can be. There are going to be a lot
Speaker 3: of people, I think who voted for I don't know.
Speaker 3: It is a very real question. You would think that
Speaker 3: a party of that seems like they would care about electability,
Speaker 3: would be concerned about backing a guy who's been indicted
Speaker 3: twice and soon to be three and maybe four times.
Speaker 3: But polarization is very real. And if he is a nominee,
Speaker 3: no matter how many times he gets indebted mriter of
Speaker 3: our times, it gets convicted, no matter what he says,
Speaker 3: no matter what tape comes out a week before the election,
Speaker 3: down Trump is going to go into election day two
Speaker 3: inches from the end zone. Right, He's been the one
Speaker 3: yard line. And that is just That's how it is.
Speaker 3: And that is true of DeSantis, that is true of
Speaker 3: Doug Bergum, it's true of Glenn Youngkin or Rick Scott
Speaker 3: like that's where we are in Trump is potentially more
Speaker 3: dangerous than those because he's the only person in the
Speaker 3: Republican Party who has shown a capacity to jack up
Speaker 3: turnout beyond previously known levels in rural areas. It's not
Speaker 3: just how you have to get to think. You have
Speaker 3: to look at support levels in turnout levels. And he
Speaker 3: moved support levels and among Republicans and rule areas from
Speaker 3: where Democrats were in twenty twelve. But in Republicans, no
Speaker 3: matter what the running for Senate, Congress, governor, have kept
Speaker 3: those support levels, but they haven't gotten in turnout levels,
Speaker 3: which is why Democrats won in seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. Trump is different ways on the ballot, and
Speaker 3: so I think we just have to operate. Is if
Speaker 3: this is going to be an incredibly close election, no
Speaker 3: matter what insane like, that should be the less. No
Speaker 3: matter what insane, thank terrible thing he does, matterhigt of
Speaker 3: times he gets convicted or indicted or whatever else, this
Speaker 3: is going to be a game of benches.
Speaker 1: Dan, thank you so much for coming on and joining us.
Speaker 1: And now I will go and move to a pineapple
Speaker 1: under the sea.
Speaker 3: But thank you. Yes, I apologize for ending on that.
Speaker 3: Not so and that's what let's take note.
Speaker 1: Joyce Vance is a professor at University of Alabama and
Speaker 1: host of the podcast Sisters in Law.
Speaker 2: I am so excited to have my friend.
Speaker 1: Who I really really like and who I'm going to
Speaker 1: do a panel with.
Speaker 2: At the Texas Trip Fast That's right, we are. I'm
Speaker 2: very excited about that.
Speaker 4: That's going to be great.
Speaker 1: It's going to be amazing, Joyce Vance, Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. Great week to be with you, Mollie.
Speaker 2: It is a great week.
Speaker 1: I mean it's hot and we're and you're in Alabama,
Speaker 1: so it's really hot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys don't know what hot is. It's a
Speaker 4: terrible down here.
Speaker 1: Our listeners know a little bit about what's going on.
Speaker 1: But I would love you to give USS like a
Speaker 1: two second primer on Trump's many legal challenges.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, if I only have two seconds, let
Speaker 4: me talk.
Speaker 2: Oh you last ten minutes, yes, but go on.
Speaker 4: Yes, he's in a lot of trouble, right, and it's
Speaker 4: great civil and criminal and typically we think that going
Speaker 4: to jail is the worst thing that can happen to
Speaker 4: a person, and it is a terrible thing. But in
Speaker 4: Trump's cases, he faces some really severe civil consequences as well.
Speaker 4: So let me start there.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, that's interesting.
Speaker 4: Egene Carrol is going to take Trump back to trial
Speaker 4: on defamation charges. The verdict she won earlier this year
Speaker 4: for five million dollars was actually the second case she
Speaker 4: filed that was comments he made about her after he
Speaker 4: left the presidency. But now in January, she's entitled to
Speaker 4: go back to trial on comments he made while he
Speaker 4: was the president, using the megaphone of the presidency. And
Speaker 4: the interesting thing about this case is most of the
Speaker 4: issues are resolved in civil litigation. When an issue has
Speaker 4: been resolved between two parties in prior litigation, that ruling
Speaker 4: holds in future cases. In other words, you can't keep
Speaker 4: litigating over and over and over again whether or not
Speaker 4: Donald Trump acted with actual malice towards Egen Carroll. Pretty
Speaker 4: Much the only issue that's at stake in this next
Speaker 4: trial is the issue of damages. And here's the argument
Speaker 4: we can expect Eging Carroll's very capable lawyer, Robbie Caplan
Speaker 4: to make. She's going to say, we successfully suit him
Speaker 4: for defamation, and the next day he got on national
Speaker 4: television and he defamed her again. So now, ladies and
Speaker 4: gentlemen of the jury, your job is to issue an
Speaker 4: amount of damages that will be sufficient to make him stop.
Speaker 4: Five million dollars wasn't enough, you know? And what do
Speaker 4: you think ten fifteen. It'll depend on what the jury
Speaker 4: wants to do. That case is serious for Trump, and
Speaker 4: there are other civil cases. For instance, the New York
Speaker 4: Attorney General is trying to impose what's sometimes called the
Speaker 4: death penalty for businesses on his New York operations. So
Speaker 4: that case scheduled for this ball, but it may get
Speaker 4: pushed out of the way by some of the criminal stuff.
Speaker 4: They're the Manhattan DA's charges, charges that pre date Trump
Speaker 4: going into the presidency and which by the way, can't
Speaker 4: be pardoned by a president. Those are state charges. There's
Speaker 4: the Maral Logo case, and I think we all know
Speaker 4: what's going on there. The real issue is will doj
Speaker 4: be able to try that case before the election or not?
Speaker 4: The evidence is overwhelming. Next on the ticket is probably
Speaker 4: a separate investigation. Jack Smith is running the investigation into
Speaker 4: January sixth. That's a big case. It's not just January sixth.
Speaker 4: There's both a pre election component, a resolving the election component,
Speaker 4: and then a trying to interfere with the certification and
Speaker 4: the transfer of power component. It is unlikely at this
Speaker 4: point that Smith will be able to try this case
Speaker 4: before the election. So I think a lot of this
Speaker 4: comes down to what evidence he wants to put forward
Speaker 4: in the indictment. I would expect a big, speaking indictment,
Speaker 4: and then of course Georgia. We don't know who's going
Speaker 4: to go first, Jack Smith or Georgia.
Speaker 1: You're pretty sure there's going to be another Jack Smith indictment.
Speaker 4: So it's an interesting question, Molly, because sometimes what prosecutors
Speaker 4: will do in a close case is they'll give the
Speaker 4: evidence to the grand jury and they'll they'll let the
Speaker 4: grand jury make the decision about whether there's enough. But
Speaker 4: Jack Smith looks like he's playing for keeps. He's brought
Speaker 4: in all of the witnesses, including the former vice president.
Speaker 4: They're working hard, they're working fast. That has to be
Speaker 4: done in this case, whether you're going to indict or not.
Speaker 4: But he looks like Key's for real, and we're on
Speaker 4: the DOJ timeline. We're on the summer timeline. So I
Speaker 4: would expect that if we're going to see an indictment,
Speaker 4: it will be in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, and then let's talk about Georgia.
Speaker 4: Fannie willis experienced prosecutor, well versed in the use of
Speaker 4: Georgia's Mini Rico statute. She too, is looking at a
Speaker 4: lot of moving parts. It almost seems to me that
Speaker 4: there might be an inside Georgia case involving Georgia politicians
Speaker 4: and fake electors, and then an external influence case, or
Speaker 4: she may indict it altogether. There's some value in bringing
Speaker 4: everything at once. But she has signaled as strongly as
Speaker 4: she can, telling the judges in her courthouse that she
Speaker 4: plans on having her folks work remotely in late August
Speaker 4: or early September. That looks to me like she's serious.
Speaker 2: So you think that will be late August early September.
Speaker 4: You know, she has paneled two new grand juries just
Speaker 4: this week. Presumably those are the grand juries that will
Speaker 4: hear any criminal indictments. They could end today, but she
Speaker 4: has sent this letter to the court suggesting that that
Speaker 4: would be a good time to not schedule hearings and
Speaker 4: that her folks will be working from home. I'd call
Speaker 4: that a signal.
Speaker 2: Right, all right, yeah, that does sound like a signal.
Speaker 1: We've already seen now that Trump has decided he's going
Speaker 1: to run out the clock, right that that is his tactic,
Speaker 1: and we've seen him do that before. The Jack Smith
Speaker 1: case for now, anyway, is in Florida. So the question
Speaker 1: I think I wonder is can he run out the
Speaker 1: clock in Florida with Jack Smith? Because of this maga
Speaker 1: judge Judge Eileen Cannon, right.
Speaker 4: And it's largely up to her. She has discretion. We
Speaker 4: saw her rather than holding the lawyer's feet to the
Speaker 4: fire and holding her first the sip of pre trial
Speaker 4: conference on schedule and classified discovery, instead of really requiring
Speaker 4: the defense lawyers to do what she'd told him to do,
Speaker 4: she gave him a couple of extra days. You know,
Speaker 4: in the ultimate scheme of things, three days probably not
Speaker 4: a big deal. But if that becomes weeks to resolve motions,
Speaker 4: or if the lawyers say, you know, I need to
Speaker 4: go on vacation and she says, okay, go ahead and go,
Speaker 4: then it becomes really impossible to get this case to
Speaker 4: trial ahead of the election. And this is a case
Speaker 4: that could be prepared to try pretty quickly. Something interesting,
Speaker 4: Molly that I'll just flag for you is that when
Speaker 4: the defense lawyers were trying to argue that there shouldn't
Speaker 4: even be a trial setting that discovery would be really complicated,
Speaker 4: they were relying on thirty year old cases. You know,
Speaker 4: Manuel Noriega, right, Classified discovery is never easy. It's always complicated.
Speaker 4: It's gotten a lot more streamlined in the last thirty years.
Speaker 4: We have much better access to technology, and so yes, defendants'
Speaker 4: rights do have to be protected. They have to have
Speaker 4: sufficient time. It is not easy, but it's not trial
Speaker 4: three years from now.
Speaker 2: Not easy.
Speaker 4: It's trial in the spring, not easy.
Speaker 2: Right, right right? I mean will he be able to
Speaker 2: run out the clock?
Speaker 4: Two questions? One will the judge do her job? I
Speaker 4: wish I was more optimistic than I am about that. Second,
Speaker 4: will Jack Smith go to the Eleventh Circuit to seek refusal?
Speaker 4: I think he will do that on her first really
Speaker 4: bad ruling. I'm not sure that they shouldn't have done
Speaker 4: it right away, but you know, asking a judge to
Speaker 4: recuse those are sensitive issues. Perhaps the prosecutors felt better
Speaker 4: about her, but it's not just this issue of how
Speaker 4: fast she goes to trial. The real problem here is
Speaker 4: that once the jury is sworn in and their in
Speaker 4: trial rulings that she makes about important things like what
Speaker 4: evidence can go in, what arguments the prosecution can make.
Speaker 4: If Trump gets an acquittal, the prosecution can't appeal those things,
Speaker 4: And so the judge can really put her thumb on
Speaker 4: the scale of justice if she's inclined to. And that's
Speaker 4: the big question here. Is she inclined to?
Speaker 5: I mean, it seems like she might be right. The
Speaker 5: problem is we don't know. And so here's how lawyers
Speaker 5: resolve that kind of an issue. Judges are supposed to
Speaker 5: avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Maybe she as pure
Speaker 5: as the driven snow. But if she was a responsible judge,
Speaker 5: she would say, I know that these two earlier cases
Speaker 5: where the Eleventh Circuit really called me for being out
Speaker 5: of bounds, they create an appearance of impropriety, and I'm
Speaker 5: going to recuse from handling this case. That might have
Speaker 5: meant that DOJ would get another Trump appointed judge, right,
Speaker 5: and that would be just fine.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, aren't there only four? I mean in
Speaker 1: that district in Florida.
Speaker 4: It depends on division, right, Every federal district. There ninety
Speaker 4: four across the country. They're mostly divided into divisions. She's
Speaker 4: in Fort Pierce. There are questions about where in the
Speaker 4: district this case should be tried. I wonder if we
Speaker 4: won't ultimately see it in the big courthouse in Miami
Speaker 4: for security reasons.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: Interesting, A lot of little issues there, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: really matter, you know, if it's a Trump appointed judge
Speaker 4: or not. You just don't want to judge where. A
Speaker 4: lot of people will will have lingering questions that there's
Speaker 4: a serious appearance of impropriety, not just not something speculative.
Speaker 4: This is a serious appearance of impropriety.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to us a little bit about Walton
Speaker 1: not Trump's co defendant.
Speaker 4: I find it to be a little bit difficult to
Speaker 4: not feel somewhat sorry for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: This is somebody who came to the military from Guam,
Speaker 4: from sort of humble origins, you know, phenomenally successful, gets
Speaker 4: to work with the President of the United States, and
Speaker 4: that power imbalance and just that whole scenario I think
Speaker 4: helps us understand why Walt Nauda is where he is.
Speaker 4: He sticks with Trump. When Trump leaves the presidency, he
Speaker 4: moves around these boxes with classified material, and it is
Speaker 4: entirely possible. And look, we're all reading tea leaves, but
Speaker 4: I think this is what the indictment adds up to
Speaker 4: now to takes those boxes and takes them to Trump
Speaker 4: so that Trump can look through stuff and pulse stuff
Speaker 4: out he does not want the government to find and
Speaker 4: maybe now even put some of that material into Trump's
Speaker 4: hands so he can take it to Bedminster with him.
Speaker 4: There's less clarity on that right now. Seems reasonable. So
Speaker 4: if now to you know, if I was walting out
Speaker 4: as defense lawyer, I am nobody's defense lawyer. But if
Speaker 4: I was in this scenario representing my client and his interests,
Speaker 4: I would say, buddy, you're looking at twenty years plus
Speaker 4: in prison. Let's go cut a deal with the government.
Speaker 4: And so there's this concern because the reporting is that
Speaker 4: his lawyers are paid for by Trump's pack. Maybe even
Speaker 4: Trump had to sign off right on the lawyer. And
Speaker 4: we've seen this before Trump's lawyers.
Speaker 1: You know that there's a sort of mafia thing where
Speaker 1: if they pay for your lawyers, that means they set
Speaker 1: your defense.
Speaker 4: Exactly, and it's not supposed to be that way. The
Speaker 4: lawyers still have an obligation to represent the client, but
Speaker 4: really are they What we know here from the media
Speaker 4: is that there was an offer made to Nauda pre trial,
Speaker 4: and his lawyers sort of blew it off and claimed
Speaker 4: that there had been prosecutorial impropriety in that meeting. So
Speaker 4: whether or not Walt Nauda is well served by his
Speaker 4: lawyers remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: But it's not like Walt Nada is in a place
Speaker 1: where he can afford these lawyers. And I was hoping
Speaker 1: you could talk about this because I was reporting about this.
Speaker 1: The Florida lawyers kind of got together and decided they
Speaker 1: were going to charge Trump all out of money.
Speaker 4: Well, look, Trump is a dangerous client to take on.
Speaker 1: Right, but you need to have a specific kind of
Speaker 1: security clearance to take that job.
Speaker 4: You need to be able to obtain a clearance. And
Speaker 4: what DOJ has represented is that the FBI is prepared to,
Speaker 4: you know, do those clearances expeditiously, just in a matter
Speaker 4: of days.
Speaker 2: So it's not you can't be Michael Cohen and get
Speaker 2: that clearance.
Speaker 4: I think that that's right. You have to be able
Speaker 4: to get a clearance. But look, a lot of people
Speaker 4: can have a security clearance, Molly, I held you know,
Speaker 4: a top secret sci claim parents for many years in
Speaker 4: my life. And so there are plenty of former United
Speaker 4: States Attorneys assistant United States Attorneys in Miami who are
Speaker 4: members of the bar in that court who would have
Speaker 4: been available in this three week search that resulted in
Speaker 4: a lawyer who is very well qualified to do state
Speaker 4: criminal work and state family court work, but who has
Speaker 4: never been in federal court, wasn't even registered in the
Speaker 4: federal filing system, right. The judge had to order that
Speaker 4: she'd be entered into that. That's concerning, and that sort
Speaker 4: of breaks your heart for mister Nada. He should have
Speaker 4: a lawyer representing him, not Donald Trump. There are a
Speaker 4: lot of people who put Donald Trump's interests first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems likely that that is how it
Speaker 1: will go for poor Walt Nada, who is an adult
Speaker 1: who makes his own decisions, but still clearly everything Trump touches,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course there's Cassidy Hutchinson, right, Absolutely, Trump lawyers,
Speaker 4: and so you wonder if something like that might not
Speaker 4: happen for now to maybe he will talk to prosecutors,
Speaker 4: maybe he will hear something in court, but it's the
Speaker 4: financial issue. Right, how do you if your walt now
Speaker 4: to figure out how to go and put down whatever
Speaker 4: it is a couple hundred thousand dollars as a retainer
Speaker 4: for your own lawyers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely crazy. So let me ask you.
Speaker 1: Now, you know we're watching this Trump legal drama unfold.
Speaker 1: I mean, how much of a stress to using this
Speaker 1: is to Trump? You know, because politically he hasn't paid
Speaker 1: a price, but you know he's seventy seven years old.
Speaker 4: To a normal human being, this would be really stressful, right,
Speaker 4: just the fact that you were dealing with all these
Speaker 4: legal issues, we're going to have to be in court
Speaker 4: a good bit. But Trump is sort of suey generous.
Speaker 4: He's just cut from his own cloth. He's very unique.
Speaker 4: I think he has skated through so much of his life.
Speaker 4: Maybe he thinks, you know, he can rule double sixes
Speaker 4: one more time and break free from all of it.
Speaker 4: And certainly to your earlier point, Molly, and you seem
Speaker 4: to be awfully savvy about how this works for a
Speaker 4: non lawyer. I have to say that every time I
Speaker 4: listen to you, I think that.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, why trying to just say anything stupid?
Speaker 1: Because I'm not a lawyer, so I just ask a
Speaker 1: lot of questions.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it takes a whole village of us
Speaker 4: to try to figure this out, right, But trum Trump's
Speaker 4: game is to win in twenty twenty four and then
Speaker 4: he has to get out of jail free card, and
Speaker 4: that is the fight for democracy's life that we are
Speaker 4: going to live through.
Speaker 1: I have to say, like, it definitely seems like that's
Speaker 1: the plan, is that he's going to be able to
Speaker 1: because if he wins again, he can just punt everything
Speaker 1: down the road and then pardon himself.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, he can appoint his own attorney general,
Speaker 4: he can ignore the courts. I mean, he has shown
Speaker 4: a willingness to get away with behavior that is not
Speaker 4: the way presidents behave in a democracy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable. So there are no legal mechanisms. The thing
Speaker 1: I'm struck by again and again when we talk about
Speaker 1: this is like, this is a more of a theoretical
Speaker 1: question that I just want you to sort of bat around,
Speaker 1: which is Trump really was able to grow in a
Speaker 1: system where no one had ever been like that? Can
Speaker 1: you explain because there's no mechanism for like someone who
Speaker 1: operates without shame or remorse.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the key to
Speaker 4: Trump's success. There are no norms, there is only self interest,
Speaker 4: and so Bob Muller and the Muller investigation is a
Speaker 4: great way to think about this. Muller an institutionalist, right,
Speaker 4: a straight arrow who believed in the system and believed
Speaker 4: that if he worked within the confines of the system,
Speaker 4: there would be accountability, if not from DOJ from Congress.
Speaker 4: That was not the paradigm that Trump was living in.
Speaker 4: And Trump shamelessly obstructed that investigtionation should still, in my judgment,
Speaker 4: have been criminally charged for obstruction of justice based on
Speaker 4: the Muller report. But we lived in a system of
Speaker 4: deference where too many people thought, if we can just
Speaker 4: get a little bit further down the road, this crazy
Speaker 4: guy is going to disappear and everything will be restored.
Speaker 4: And the lesson of Trump and his failure to play
Speaker 4: by the rules is that it's a tough needle to thread. Mollie,
Speaker 4: you cannot destroy all the norms. You cannot become Trump.
Speaker 4: To destroy Trump, right, that really would be the end
Speaker 4: of democracy. I mean, crowds of people shouting, you know,
Speaker 4: lock him up when he hasn't been convicted in a
Speaker 4: criminal court. We cannot let him turn us into that.
Speaker 4: But that said, we have to be stronger, we have
Speaker 4: to be more evolved. We've seen some of that from
Speaker 4: Jack Smith, right, He's been a little bit take no prisoners.
Speaker 4: But by the same token, there's still that missing first
Speaker 4: year where DJ did not want to engage on the
Speaker 4: Trump portion of the January sixth case, and ultimately that
Speaker 4: lost year may cost us an awful lot.
Speaker 2: So interesting.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you, I know, to come in and
Speaker 1: have to talk about sort of the whole gestalt is a.
Speaker 2: Bit weird, but we really needed you.
Speaker 4: It's not weird. It's my favorite thing to do. I'll
Speaker 4: come back anytime and I'll bring my dollie to market
Speaker 4: your dollar.
Speaker 2: Yes, I would love it.
Speaker 1: Hi, it's Molly and I am wildly excited that for
Speaker 1: the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to
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Speaker 2: Thanks for your support.
Speaker 1: Alex Thompson is a national correspondent at Axios.
Speaker 2: Welcome Too Fast Politics, Alex Thompson.
Speaker 3: Glad to be here.
Speaker 2: Alex, tell us what your beat is.
Speaker 3: I'm covering the twenty twenty four election, so a little
Speaker 3: bit of the GOP car wreck, and then also that
Speaker 3: Biden reelect as well.
Speaker 1: And you also are writing a book about Biden. I am,
Speaker 1: so you know a lot of stuff. Now you are
Speaker 1: in the process of writing this book. We're not getting
Speaker 1: you're good when you're at peak dish.
Speaker 3: No, that will come in about a year.
Speaker 1: But we can still probably bully or manipulate you into telling.
Speaker 2: Us some interesting stuff.
Speaker 3: I think you can.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a hope.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit first about the Republican side,
Speaker 1: because what I mean, and I know you're not on
Speaker 1: the opinion side, so you don't don't feel that you
Speaker 1: have to give your opinion. I will just manipulate you
Speaker 1: into doing it. What is happening with this GOP primary field?
Speaker 3: I mean, essentially it's Trump versus everybody and You're seeing
Speaker 3: every single candidate try to figure out is there a
Speaker 3: way to change the dynamic of this primary now. Some
Speaker 3: are just hoping for the debate stage. You see Chris
Speaker 3: Christy base and you know, arguing you have to go
Speaker 3: right through him. You have someone like Tim Scott who
Speaker 3: essentially is trying to play nice with everybody and just
Speaker 3: focus on his own image and never attacks anyone and
Speaker 3: just feels that the party may come to him in
Speaker 3: order to go to a fresh face. Then you have
Speaker 3: someone like DeSantis in between, who is is basically picking
Speaker 3: and choosing his spots, you know, saying Trump was a
Speaker 3: good president, but and trying to you know, in some
Speaker 3: ways that is subtle. In some ways that is overt
Speaker 3: contract himself. But essentially Trump is the four in ch
Speaker 3: of Pound Gorilla. He is the King Kong of the race,
Speaker 3: and every single Republican strategists is scratching their heads trying
Speaker 3: to think, how can we change that dynamic?
Speaker 2: Tell me if I'm wrong, You're really much more in
Speaker 2: it than I am.
Speaker 1: But it does feel like twenty sixteen all over again.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. I mean, I think there are a lot
Speaker 3: of parallels. I'd say the biggest difference between the two
Speaker 3: sides is that Trump at the beginning was pulling and like,
Speaker 3: you know, you have to remember in June of twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: that's when Trump gets in the race, and he was
Speaker 3: in single digits and then he just sort of took
Speaker 3: off like a rocket ship and people were sort of
Speaker 3: in denial that he could actually win. And this time
Speaker 3: there is a sense of, well he is, like, there's
Speaker 3: an almost an air of inevability. But in terms of
Speaker 3: I think what you're talking about is trying to figure
Speaker 3: out how to go at him. We are seeing basically
Speaker 3: everyone recycle all the saying strategies.
Speaker 2: It didn't work that and it's not working now.
Speaker 3: No, And I think maybe the only big difference is
Speaker 3: you're seeing Ron de Santis go to where Ted Cruz
Speaker 3: was near the end. You know, you're seeing Ronda Santis
Speaker 3: to it earlier.
Speaker 1: And Ron DeSantis has a lot of Ted Cruz's people.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's not a coincidence that the teams are very similar.
Speaker 3: I can tell you that Senator Cruz has remarked to
Speaker 3: other people, well, he's like, you know, those are a
Speaker 3: lot of my people over there. On both the official
Speaker 3: and the Super PAC side. You know, in some ways
Speaker 3: you could argue that they're trying to run the Ted
Speaker 3: Cruz twice sixteen campaign, but just with a different candidate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as someone who was the one they found, the
Speaker 1: one person less likable than Ted Cruz to run as
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. Will see how it goes.
Speaker 3: But it does.
Speaker 1: Seem like the demise of Ron De Santis politically. He
Speaker 1: does seem to have captured the headlines. It's been four months,
Speaker 1: it feels like. And again, you can answer this however
Speaker 1: you want, that the more voters know him, the less
Speaker 1: they want him.
Speaker 3: I agree and disagree with you, So I'll say I
Speaker 3: disagree with you and that I don't think anyone is
Speaker 3: ever as dumb or as smart as the national narrative is.
Speaker 3: I do think we're we are employees to potentially see
Speaker 3: a DeSantis like comeback. Boomletke by far and away as
Speaker 3: the most money of any candidate in the race that
Speaker 3: includes Trump. Yeah, that's not nothing. And I do think
Speaker 3: he has the most advanced team in Iowa on the ground,
Speaker 3: and I do think they are getting a little bit
Speaker 3: more comfortable now that all being said, I think his
Speaker 3: rollout was a mess beyond just the Twitter stuff, I
Speaker 3: think really beyond. But there is this very you know,
Speaker 3: we talked, I just talked about how he has so
Speaker 3: much money, But the reasoning has so much money is
Speaker 3: because of this weird interplay with the super Pack. It's
Speaker 3: not sometimes clear to anybody, to donors, people, even in
Speaker 3: the DeSantis world, who actually is in charge. And thet's
Speaker 3: closest age that went over to super Pack. Phil Klock
Speaker 3: has already not been fired. But let's you know, he
Speaker 3: essentially has already been thrown out of the Superpack. So
Speaker 3: there's no one over at the super Pac that has
Speaker 3: you know, there's a few people, but the original team
Speaker 3: that was supposed to be close to the Santis isn't
Speaker 3: the super Pac anymore so, and that's caused a lot
Speaker 3: of confusion. That's why you see this sort of messaging
Speaker 3: that goes, you know, seems to go up and down.
Speaker 3: You also saw that at the very beginning, they were
Speaker 3: so confident, they were like, we don't need the mainstream media.
Speaker 3: The mainstream media doesn't matter now. And now I can
Speaker 3: tell you reporters on the campaign jar getting like pitched
Speaker 3: by the DeSantis people, you know, multiple times a day
Speaker 3: to write stories. So you know, clearly they now have
Speaker 3: conceded the mainstream media as much as they hate it,
Speaker 3: you know, does matter a bit when you're trying to present.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who could have thunk it there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I do feel like some of the
Speaker 1: problem with Desanta's world is they're too smart by half, right,
Speaker 1: Santa's had Susan. I want you to explain to our
Speaker 1: listeners because this is like in the Weeds, who Susie
Speaker 1: Wyle is and why losing her may have ultimately have
Speaker 1: sort of reverberations that are impossible to quantify.
Speaker 3: This is one of the most fascinating subplots. It's very
Speaker 3: Shakespearean right in the way that is so Susie Wilds
Speaker 3: worked for Trump in twenty sixteen. Then she is brought
Speaker 3: in after Ronda Santis, you know, wins the Gubernatoria Republican primary,
Speaker 3: and what's an upset The National Republican Party is like,
Speaker 3: we got to get better people in there. So they
Speaker 3: bring Susie Wiles, who led Florida for Trump in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: she comes in, Ronda Santis wins, she joins the administration,
Speaker 3: and within a year she's on the outs and not
Speaker 3: just like oh, she went to go spend time with
Speaker 3: her family sort of on the outs. It's like, no,
Speaker 3: she is on the outs. We never want to speak
Speaker 3: to her again. She's terrible, And Ronda Santa is basically
Speaker 3: telling that anyone who will listen, you cannot hire Susie Wilds.
Speaker 3: So it is. It was an acrimonious scored shars, yes,
Speaker 3: and na Cuzy Wilds is essentially they don't have titles
Speaker 3: of her, you know, the top tier of the Trump campaign,
Speaker 3: but basentially in practice she is co campaign manager of
Speaker 3: the Trump re election. Now there's a few practical things.
Speaker 3: It is not a coincidence that you have seen a
Speaker 3: lot of shit talking from former DeSantis aids. You know,
Speaker 3: it seems like every other story, I mean, going back
Speaker 3: to twenty twelve. Basically, Ron DeSantis does not have besides
Speaker 3: his wife, does not have many loyalists around him, and
Speaker 3: a lot of people feel burned. And so there is
Speaker 3: a large group of desantus alumni that are willing to
Speaker 3: should talk him and you know, I think having Susie Wilds,
Speaker 3: who knows all those people. There's a bunch of former
Speaker 3: DeSantis people from the twenty eighteen campaign that are now
Speaker 3: on the Trump team and I think the acrimonies of
Speaker 3: that relationship has really enabled for a lot of these
Speaker 3: embarrassing stories about DeSantis to come out, and it is
Speaker 3: going to be fascinating, just like everything in politics, like
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, comes down to personal relationships.
Speaker 3: And there is none that's sort of more interesting than
Speaker 3: the Susie Wiles and DeSantis's hatred, like red hot rage
Speaker 3: toward her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so interesting. I don't want to like spend this
Speaker 1: whole time talking about this one, aid, but Susan wild
Speaker 1: is really good. She is very respected. The number you know,
Speaker 1: the Trump world, it's almost it's so easy to find
Speaker 1: people to shit talk to each other. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: been like a dynamic of that world, you know, going
Speaker 1: back to when he was in business, and that comes
Speaker 1: from the top down because Trump loves to gossip and
Speaker 1: chit talk and people usually close with So I bring
Speaker 1: that up because to this day, I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: it does exist, but no one has shit talked to
Speaker 1: Susie Wilds in that world.
Speaker 3: They've all should talk to each other. But I think
Speaker 3: there is real respect. I mean, she is this is
Speaker 3: not Corey Lewandowski here, I mean.
Speaker 2: And she's very powerful in Florida.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, maybe it's me that this subplot
Speaker 1: of the older woman getting you know, mistreated by this
Speaker 1: younger campaign and then going and sort of bringing back
Speaker 1: her power to this, I just think it's a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting step up. I want to get back to the
Speaker 1: publican party primary is DeSantis, Trump and everyone else.
Speaker 2: But mostly it's just Trump and everyone else.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that's fair to say. And what's going
Speaker 3: to be a really interesting to watch is if Trump
Speaker 3: does not show up to the first debate, does that
Speaker 3: mean that everyone treats DeSantis, you know, as a punching bag,
Speaker 3: Because I think the Santis obviously wants this to be
Speaker 3: a Trump versus DeSantis race because that elevates him. But
Speaker 3: every other candidate is waiting to take DeSantis down so
Speaker 3: that it becomes Trump versus versus everybody. And you know,
Speaker 3: DeSantis committing to going to that debate and Trump, if
Speaker 3: he steps it out, could end up being a really
Speaker 3: brutal SmackDown per desantas if he's not ready for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's likely not, because we've seen him try
Speaker 1: to interact with others, with humans and it does not
Speaker 1: go great. Let's talk about the Biden reelect. We got
Speaker 1: Biden tell us what's happening behind the scenes, moving people around,
Speaker 1: and also talk to us about that rage story.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So I'll start with the rage story and then
Speaker 3: I'll go into sort of where the reelect is. Right now,
Speaker 3: Joe Biden has this very carefully cultivated image of the
Speaker 3: kindly uncle, kindly grandpa, treat everybody with respect. But I
Speaker 3: can tell you behind closed doors, this guy's a yeller
Speaker 3: and will lead aids sometimes pretty shaken, especially if they're
Speaker 3: not used to it. Sometimes his rages can get so
Speaker 3: intense that you'll literally have an aid nervous to meet
Speaker 3: alone with him, and will bring in other people to
Speaker 3: come into the meeting because they know they're going to
Speaker 3: give him bad news and that way that the sort
Speaker 3: of firing line can be distributed. I'd also say that
Speaker 3: this does undermine sort of his public image, but also
Speaker 3: does undermine the Republican image of him basically being a
Speaker 3: brain in a jar, right, which is sort of what
Speaker 3: they try to insinuate every day. And I tell you,
Speaker 3: I was talking to somebody who was talking people in
Speaker 3: the White House and they were just like, man, you know,
Speaker 3: I wish you was senile.
Speaker 2: Because right right, because.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, So Republicans are like, he's see now, he's
Speaker 1: see now. This story is actually helps make the case
Speaker 1: that Biden is competent. And by the way, nobody gives.
Speaker 1: We're not on cable news, so I can say this
Speaker 1: a shit. If a man is a mean boss, right,
Speaker 1: nobody cares. In fact, they may like it right a
Speaker 1: woman forget it right. We remember what happened with the
Speaker 1: rumors Senator Cloba show. But I mean, maybe it does somewhere,
Speaker 1: but it seems very likely to not hurt Biden. I
Speaker 1: wonder why the Biden administration wouldn't necessarily want this out there.
Speaker 3: It was interesting to me and reporting the story out
Speaker 3: because it wasn't handed to me. I certainly worked on
Speaker 3: it for a bit. But then once I went to them,
Speaker 3: you know, this is a white House that is very
Speaker 3: aggressive and defending its people, and this is one of
Speaker 3: those stories. And part of it was because I know
Speaker 3: they know it through. But they didn't push back that hard.
Speaker 3: You know, they basically were like, let's give you some
Speaker 3: added context on like other nice things he does essentially right,
Speaker 3: and they didn't push back on any of the underlying facts,
Speaker 3: which to me reading between the lines. I did sort
Speaker 3: of wonder if they wouldn't mind this, because I can
Speaker 3: tell you behind closed doors, they may say, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: it's fine, but they are very worried about these age
Speaker 3: numbers and the poll of course, and they're trying to
Speaker 3: figure out how to change.
Speaker 2: It, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, the joke is that I just wrote about
Speaker 1: this yesterday at many Fair, was like, you cannot have
Speaker 1: this conversation, Like you can have this conversation about Biden's
Speaker 1: age if he's running against DeSantis, but if he's running
Speaker 1: against Trump, and it becomes a contest of who is healthier,
Speaker 1: and is Biden, the guy who bikes every day healthier
Speaker 1: than Trump, the guy who had COVID and lied about
Speaker 1: how sick he was, Like, you know, and Trump is
Speaker 1: three years younger than Biden.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is going to bite them in the ass.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because I think about, like if you
Speaker 1: go back in time to the debate performances, right, the
Speaker 1: Trump world was like, Biden is terrible debater. He's going
Speaker 1: to be terrible. He can't talk. So then he opened
Speaker 1: his mouth and people were like, that's not right, and
Speaker 1: then it ended up like really elevating him, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the same exact thing they're doing.
Speaker 3: It is really interesting. A few months ago, they RNC
Speaker 3: started putting out some new talking points, basically saying, like
Speaker 3: the age stuff matters, but it's not going to be determinative.
Speaker 3: We need to really go after Biden read about substance,
Speaker 3: on his issues, on him doing a bad job, And
Speaker 3: I do think people do sometimes get surprised. You know,
Speaker 3: they might see a debate and follow twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: and realize that Joe Biden is more with it than
Speaker 3: some of the quick clips on Fox News Primetime would suggest. Yeah.
Speaker 3: That being said, I think where Biden is struggles in
Speaker 3: a contrast with Trump, even though he does exercise more,
Speaker 3: and although they both eat pretty pretty terribly. I gotta
Speaker 3: tell you, I know it's true.
Speaker 2: Well, the ice cream, I mean I was reading about it.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, ice cream's okay, but the chicken nuggets.
Speaker 3: And his aides joke that Biden's food palette is kindergarten, right,
Speaker 3: It's like beige, like every like it's it's lots of carbs,
Speaker 3: French fries, pasta. Like They'll keep trying to get him
Speaker 3: eat more fish, but then he'll sort of double down
Speaker 3: on dessert, and so it's like, don't really make him.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I find thislius.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, continue, Oh but I would saying, you know,
Speaker 3: the thing that Biden has always struggled with is just
Speaker 3: and this is part of where politics is in this
Speaker 3: reality television age we live in, is that, you know,
Speaker 3: the performance aspect of it, Trump just seems younger, and
Speaker 3: you know, Joe Biden's team continue. I mean, I know
Speaker 3: there's there's Democrats that have communicated to the president's team like,
Speaker 3: stop putting the guy just behind the lecture and the
Speaker 3: letting him talk. It's just not his best format, is
Speaker 3: what they say. You know, it just makes him look
Speaker 3: even older. But they're still trying to figure it out.
Speaker 3: I don't. My suspicion, although I don't know, you don't
Speaker 3: have firm reporting, but my suspicion was it wasn't a
Speaker 3: coincidence that we saw pictures of him at the beach
Speaker 3: over the weekend.
Speaker 2: They want those beach pictures.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but I don't. I think they are
Speaker 3: trying to figure out any way to change those age numbers.
Speaker 3: They're debating a lot of different things. I don't know
Speaker 3: for sure, the beach ones I didn't make some calls
Speaker 3: on it afterward. That was striking to me that those emerged.
Speaker 2: Alex, we're going to want you to come back.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Oh well, that's I love to come back.
Speaker 1: The bad news is we're going to need you to
Speaker 1: come back because I want to know more about what's
Speaker 1: going on. And also, as the Republican debates start going
Speaker 1: and the first starts flying over under, I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask you to prea it in the future what you're
Speaker 1: never supposed to do over under.
Speaker 2: The Trump shows up at the debates.
Speaker 3: I think he's not going to show to the first one,
Speaker 3: and then he will shut the second.
Speaker 2: Very cinematic. We will see if you're right. Thanks so much, Alex.
Speaker 3: Thank you no more perfectly. Jesse Canon, Milly jog Fast.
Speaker 6: So the insurers have gone woke, according to Rohn dea Santis,
Speaker 6: and they're leaving Florida because of climate change, and they
Speaker 6: don't want to ensure homes in Florida because it's gonna
Speaker 6: screw them financially. What do you see in here?
Speaker 1: Turns out the only bigger scam than Las Vegas insurance.
Speaker 1: They don't like to lose their money, and it turns
Speaker 1: out that ensuring houses that will be underwater is a
Speaker 1: bad business model, and so they are leaving the state
Speaker 1: of Florida. You know, Florida where woke goes to die.
Speaker 1: It ain't wokeness, buddy, it's capitalism. Do not confuse capitalism
Speaker 1: with wokeness. And for that that is our moment of
Speaker 1: fuck Ray. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics.
Speaker 2: Makes sense of all this chaos.
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Speaker 1: for listening.