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 President she has rejected Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: invite to the inauguration.
Speaker 2: What are we even doing here?
Speaker 1: The Boston Globe Sam Brody gets us up to speed
Speaker 1: with the weird twists inside of Congress, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of them. Then we'll talk to Robert Faderici
Speaker 1: about Trump's many, many, many business conflicts of interest.
Speaker 2: But first the news.
Speaker 3: Bye you and I we often discussed that we think
Speaker 3: President Biden has largely been a very great president, but
Speaker 3: I'm really disappointed in one of these pardons he did.
Speaker 3: I was happy to see he gave clemency to Sway people,
Speaker 3: but this feels bad.
Speaker 1: I started reading it and I thought, oh god, it's
Speaker 1: the Cars for Kids.
Speaker 4: Whoever wrote that song should be in jails.
Speaker 1: That person should be one eight hundred Cars for Kids.
Speaker 1: But this is actually kids for Cash, which he's a
Speaker 1: judge who accepted big kickbacks in order to exchange sentencing
Speaker 1: kids to a for profit prison, thus making the Cars
Speaker 1: for Kids videos seem good. Yes, over twenty five hundred
Speaker 1: children were impacted by these corrupt judges, and some of
Speaker 1: them ended up And you'll be not surprised to hear
Speaker 1: this taking their own lives for profit prisons. Remember, for
Speaker 1: profit prison stock recently went up after Donald Trump got elected.
Speaker 1: So do with that information what you will. The sentence
Speaker 1: has demonstated a lot of people. The guy was, I
Speaker 1: don't know why this person should be pardoned.
Speaker 4: They accepted two point one million in bribes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and mother of a kid who killed themselves said
Speaker 1: that the sentence was being shelved and said that it
Speaker 1: was deeply painful. Look, Donald Trump has certainly done worse,
Speaker 1: but the goal with pardons is too is for just
Speaker 1: is to enable justice to be done. That does not
Speaker 1: sound like what is happening here. So pretty dark moment
Speaker 1: in Biden world.
Speaker 3: So, Molly, I kind of remember we made this documentary
Speaker 3: in the late spring, and we said, when Donald Trump
Speaker 3: says he doesn't know what Project twenty twenty five is,
Speaker 3: he's fucking lying like he always is, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to shock you.
Speaker 4: He's confessed to the lie.
Speaker 1: Now, I am just completely shocked that Donald Trump did
Speaker 1: exactly what we thought he would do. You'll remember that
Speaker 1: in July when Project twenty twenty five, when when somebody
Speaker 1: actually read what was in it and saw how unpopular
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, this is the thing about Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, and again, it's a sort of schmorgas board.
Speaker 1: I think since you and I have really done a
Speaker 1: lot of interviews about it, it's a kind of Schmorgasborg
Speaker 1: of all of the kind of wildly unpopular thing that
Speaker 1: Republicans and the Heritage Foundation have always wanted to do,
Speaker 1: things like cut Social Security, Medicare, make it impossible to
Speaker 1: send birth control pills, band pornography.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a wish list of the far right.
Speaker 1: So Trump in July wrote on to Social I know
Speaker 1: nothing about Project twenty twenty five. For whatever reason, that
Speaker 1: was enough, and voters decided that he didn't.
Speaker 2: I don't know. You know, the fact that people from
Speaker 2: his administration.
Speaker 1: Worked on it, that the fact that there was so
Speaker 1: much crossover between Trump's administration and Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Nobody managed to notice that. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Well, on Thursday, Donald Trump was named for the second
Speaker 1: time Times Person of the Year, and in the interview,
Speaker 1: Trumps sotened his tone on Project twenty twenty five. You'll
Speaker 1: be shocked to hear and said, praise some of its
Speaker 1: ideas good stuff.
Speaker 3: So many of us have long long been suspect of
Speaker 3: how willing the AI tech overlords we have are to
Speaker 3: costell trump sass, and turns out those of us who
Speaker 3: are weary of this have been proven correct.
Speaker 1: Look, all tech wants is to not be regulated. They
Speaker 1: don't need a Republican to not regulate them. Democrats are
Speaker 1: more than happy to also not regulate them. Remember, Democrats
Speaker 1: had the Presidency and the Senate and they did not
Speaker 1: regulate tech, and they had the opportunity to What I
Speaker 1: think is happening here, which is something I don't want
Speaker 1: to say interesting because it's just awful.
Speaker 2: But what is happening here is that people have.
Speaker 1: Decided that they want to manipulate Trump, and they know
Speaker 1: that the way to manipulate Trump is to give him
Speaker 1: money and say he's great. And these are people who
Speaker 1: want Trump's large ass more than they want anything else. So,
Speaker 1: you know, for someone like Sam Altman, who really needs
Speaker 1: no regulation for AI and really needs to be able
Speaker 1: to do whatever the fuck he wants, a million dollars
Speaker 1: to Trump's inaugural fund and a your great is easy, right,
Speaker 1: because he doesn't care. I mean, he just wants a
Speaker 1: positive regulatory environment and for Trump to like him. So
Speaker 1: this week we saw Bezos donate a million dollars, we
Speaker 1: saw Meta donate a million dollars, and we saw Sam
Speaker 1: Almon donate a million dollars. We're going to see more
Speaker 1: of this is this obeying in events. People are saying
Speaker 1: this obeg events. By the way, I want to say
Speaker 1: one thing about Timothy Schneider. There are many other ideas
Speaker 1: that he has besides obeying events. And I actually don't
Speaker 1: know that this is obeyed events. I think this is
Speaker 1: trying to curry favor.
Speaker 4: It seems to exceed it in my.
Speaker 1: Opinion, right, I mean, I think this is a manipulative
Speaker 1: play for an autocrat. I think it's clear that these
Speaker 1: companies are not going to stand up for anyone's rights.
Speaker 1: But I also think like this is the sort of
Speaker 1: the gamble they're making is if they give Trump money
Speaker 1: and suck up to him, then Trump will do what
Speaker 1: they want. Now, look that may happen. They've had that experience.
Speaker 1: I mean, by the way, this is like not a
Speaker 1: partisan thing, right, I mean, tech, you know, lobbyists exist
Speaker 1: so that they can get to politicians. Right, Lobbyists don't
Speaker 1: exist for any other reason. They exist to lobby. So
Speaker 1: this is like.
Speaker 2: A sort of very garish lobbying.
Speaker 1: The question is, in my mind, is Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: so incredibly unreliable. You know, there's the low level grift
Speaker 1: and then there's all sorts of other kind of desires.
Speaker 2: In Trump world.
Speaker 1: I don't know that this is necessarily the straight line
Speaker 1: that these companies think it is, but we will see, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, we paid the ticket and now we take
Speaker 1: the ride.
Speaker 3: Speaking of taking the ride, I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 3: going back to pulio being abundant in America. Since Robert
Speaker 3: F kN a Junior's lawyer, has asked the FDA to
Speaker 3: revoke the approval of the polio vaccine.
Speaker 1: So this guy, Aaron Surrey, is specialized in vaccine lawsuits
Speaker 1: and he is RFK Juniors. He's been helping him vet
Speaker 1: candidates for HSS because in this insane world we're living in,
Speaker 1: RFK is going to be picking federal health officials for
Speaker 1: the incoming Trump administration. This lawyer partitions the government to
Speaker 1: revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which obviously polio
Speaker 1: not good. I'm no doctor, He also petitioned to seek
Speaker 1: a pause in the distribution of thirteen other vaccines ones
Speaker 1: that have done He wanted to get rid of the
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine mandates. I just want to pause for a
Speaker 1: second and talk about the second. A lot of times
Speaker 1: you'll see people say like, make polio grade again, and
Speaker 1: you'll say, well, that's hyperbole.
Speaker 2: They don't actually want to make polio grade again.
Speaker 1: No, no, they actually want to get rid of the
Speaker 1: polio vaccine.
Speaker 2: And if you think about that.
Speaker 1: What that will look like, what it will mean to
Speaker 1: have to live in a country where children get polio again,
Speaker 1: not because there is no vaccine, but because the people
Speaker 1: in the federal government don't understand how vaccines work. It
Speaker 1: will just be a certain kind of America that we
Speaker 1: have never ever ever experienced, or at least not for
Speaker 1: a long time. Sam Brody is a national political reporter
Speaker 1: at the Boston Globe. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Sambrody.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me. It's great to be back.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the fact that yesterday at
Speaker 1: two o'clock the Senate went home for the weekend.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they sure did. I was there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a Thursday.
Speaker 1: They had a slate of judges to confirm what the
Speaker 1: fuck is going on.
Speaker 5: It's a good question. People might be like, wait, it's Thursday,
Speaker 5: it's two pm. Most people work a full five day week.
Speaker 5: What does the Senate do? What is the Senate doing?
Speaker 5: And this is one of the like immutable laws of Washington,
Speaker 5: like unless the government is literally about to shut down,
Speaker 5: even in some cases, they'll skip down pretty close to
Speaker 5: that deadline. But that's another thing. Unless there is an
Speaker 5: enormous urgent crisis. The Senate three point five day weekend
Speaker 5: has become a sacri saint concept. And you might be
Speaker 5: looking at the dwindling calendar here for Democrats to confirm
Speaker 5: judges and other you know, important positions and go. Maybe
Speaker 5: they should stick around, But this is the way it works.
Speaker 5: The members get they get cranky if they're in Washington
Speaker 5: too long. I get it, it's not always the best
Speaker 5: place to be. And you know, I think Schumer's pointed
Speaker 5: to a lot of you know, pretty legitimate progress on
Speaker 5: that front. But yeah, if you keep them in, they
Speaker 5: get cranky.
Speaker 1: Now they still have judges to fucking confirm. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 5: No, they do, they do. You have to double check
Speaker 5: me on this one. I haven't seen any kind of
Speaker 5: definitive statement from Schumer on how they're approaching the endgame here,
Speaker 5: because come January third, the flip of Congress will be
Speaker 5: in effect, and I've not heard anything to indicate that
Speaker 5: they're even considering keeping or eating into the traditional holiday
Speaker 5: break whatsoever. I mean, they're slated to be done the
Speaker 5: Thursday before the week of Christmas and not return, believe
Speaker 5: until it's swearing into the new Congress. So it's really,
Speaker 5: you know, this last week before Christmas that they can
Speaker 5: really do anything unless they're going to alter the schedule.
Speaker 5: I know that they've had to withdraw some nominations for
Speaker 5: lack of support. I think at a certain point, you know,
Speaker 5: they have done a lot, and they could do more
Speaker 5: by staying in. But you know, it's one of these
Speaker 5: perennial things. Even members of the president's own party, our
Speaker 5: no outgoing president's own party, do not really want to
Speaker 5: eat into their Christmas break to get however, many more judges.
Speaker 5: The thing is is that Republicans can also pull procedural
Speaker 5: levers to make that process much much slower if they
Speaker 5: want to do it. The thing about the Senate is
Speaker 5: that it is unlike the House, and the House majority
Speaker 5: rules they can run rough shot over the minority and
Speaker 5: just kind of do whatever they want. The Senate kind
Speaker 5: of operates on this very delicate balance between the majority
Speaker 5: and the minority, and as long as they're kind of,
Speaker 5: you know, going within the rules of the road, normally speaking,
Speaker 5: they let things proceed at a normal pace. But if
Speaker 5: the minority gets mad at something the majority is doing,
Speaker 5: so they keep them in over holidays, they can say, okay,
Speaker 5: well we're not going to there's all these levers head.
Speaker 5: They can ultimate things go very very very slow. They
Speaker 5: can't stop things, generally speaking, if there is a will
Speaker 5: in the majority to do it, but they can make
Speaker 5: it go a lot slower. So I don't know how
Speaker 5: many they could confirm if they were to stay in,
Speaker 5: they certainly could confirm at least what And there are
Speaker 5: those who say, wait, that's what we should be doing.
Speaker 1: Isn't it hard to imagine a world where Mitch McConnell
Speaker 1: doesn't confirm all the judges he possibly can.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, Democrats are staring down a at
Speaker 5: least two potentially for or longer minority stretch in the Senate.
Speaker 5: It is unclear when they will be back in the
Speaker 5: majority in the Senate and they can win back the
Speaker 5: presidency in four years. But if you don't have a
Speaker 5: Senate that's going to confirm your nominees for judge ships,
Speaker 5: that's going to get really hard. I do think that
Speaker 5: in McConnell and Conservatives have put a huge emphasis on judges,
Speaker 5: and I should say that Democrats They've confirmed a ton
Speaker 5: of judges during Biden's presidency, so it's not as if
Speaker 5: they're coming into this stretch having dragged their feet, you know.
Speaker 5: And Schumer has spiked the football a number of times
Speaker 5: on the number of judges that they fulfilled. But yeah, look,
Speaker 5: I mean there are some who say that Democrats are
Speaker 5: looking at as indefinite a minority period in the Senate
Speaker 5: as they have seen. I mean, they lost the majority
Speaker 5: remember in twenty fourteen, and it took them until twenty
Speaker 5: twenty one to get back. It's going to be tough
Speaker 5: for them to do it in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: There's really not many pickup opportunities.
Speaker 5: No, there's main in North Carolina which are not easy,
Speaker 5: and they'll have to defend some seats. And because the
Speaker 5: Republicans fled Pennsylvania there to give them fifty three. Even
Speaker 5: if they won both me in North Carolina, they wouldn't necessarily,
Speaker 5: you know, they'd still have to win another. So it's tough,
Speaker 5: and so yeah, I think it is it's a little
Speaker 5: bit legitimate question to say, you know, what would what
Speaker 5: would McConnell do in the last ten days of being
Speaker 5: in control of the Senate.
Speaker 1: I saw McConnell give a floor speech this week where
Speaker 1: he was furious at two judges for unretiring.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he seems like he is.
Speaker 2: Not going quietly into that good night.
Speaker 5: No, he definitely is not. And this is his thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, he really was the architect of the modern,
Speaker 5: you know, present day conservative strategy as it relates to
Speaker 5: the judiciary, one that you know, Trump and his people
Speaker 5: picked up. I mean, that was really the most long
Speaker 5: lasting impact of the first Trump term, all due respect
Speaker 5: to the tax cut built, but McConnell and Trump's partnership
Speaker 5: to stock a ton of young conservatives on the federal bench.
Speaker 5: I mean, and that was all that's on McConnell. You know,
Speaker 5: Trump isn't going into office. They came about how he's
Speaker 5: going to get you know, some good young lawyers in
Speaker 5: on the like fifth circuit. That's that's McConnell. And you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: him kind of continuing to police the way Democrats are
Speaker 5: doing this going out for then retirement stuff again, thinks
Speaker 5: he has no control over but yeah, you're totally right.
Speaker 5: He is not going to let this one go. And
Speaker 5: I do think that that's a point in favor of Okay,
Speaker 5: say Democrats were going to charge through the holiday break
Speaker 5: and try and confirm as many judges as they could.
Speaker 5: They could confirm some, you know that if they if
Speaker 5: they did it and had the will to do so.
Speaker 5: But that's the kind of move that McConnell will counter back.
Speaker 5: He will, he will meet that ante. And he's not,
Speaker 5: you know, in charge. You know, the transition is happening.
Speaker 5: But he's as good a manager of how you slow
Speaker 5: things down on the floors as well as anyone. I mean,
Speaker 5: this guy, you know, has led the party for such
Speaker 5: a long time, and you better believe when it comes
Speaker 5: to judges, this is the thing that they are going
Speaker 5: to bring their a game to to try and slow
Speaker 5: down as much as possible. But it is a legitimate question.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I saw an act of this group I think was indivisible.
Speaker 5: They dropped off sleep bags to the offices of Democratic
Speaker 5: senators this week, saying, you know, let's lock some time here,
Speaker 5: let's sleep in your office, let's get as much done.
Speaker 5: And so I think this is one of those things where.
Speaker 6: You see a huge gulf between the activist class of
Speaker 6: the Democratic Party that is very anxious, that is worried
Speaker 6: about what the next two four six years are going
Speaker 6: to bring and want to see some action from their
Speaker 6: Democratic sangers on this.
Speaker 1: Speaking of how fucked we all are, can you explain
Speaker 1: to us what's happening with this confirmation battle that has
Speaker 1: begne with Trump's cabinet nominees.
Speaker 5: Yeah, anywhere you want to start on that, I'm.
Speaker 2: Man start with Pete hagg Seth.
Speaker 5: I think we're going to be talking about this nomination
Speaker 5: for a long time in a lot of ways, because,
Speaker 5: you know, a week and a half ago, I think
Speaker 5: most people you might have talked to you on the
Speaker 5: hill or in the lobbying world or just whatever, would
Speaker 5: have said, you know, hag Seth has done. He's got
Speaker 5: the drip trip of stories. We're seeing reports that Trump
Speaker 5: is considering Ron de Santis, of all people, to take
Speaker 5: his place it's like deathwatch. You know, his time is
Speaker 5: about to run out, and then he kind of pulls
Speaker 5: a mini Cabanaugh and under the you know, lights from
Speaker 5: the cameras on Capitol Hill in the hallway as he's
Speaker 5: going into a meeting, says, I'm not answering to the media.
Speaker 5: I answered to Trump, I answer to the senators. I'm
Speaker 5: going to see this through. And you know, that fight
Speaker 5: apparently got Trump to buy in again on that nomination.
Speaker 5: And now they've mobilized, you know, the MAGA kind of
Speaker 5: influencer space and the act of this space. They are
Speaker 5: going to just totally crush anyone who even expresses like
Speaker 5: mild skepticism or caution about he sets nomination. I think
Speaker 5: they have understood, and I'm a little surprised it took
Speaker 5: them this long that no one wants to be primaried,
Speaker 5: that folks like Joni Ernst are worried about this, and
Speaker 5: that if they can bring the full force of the
Speaker 5: MAGA movement to there to get someone they want through,
Speaker 5: And I wouldn't be shocked at this point if HEXP
Speaker 5: got confirmed. Now the obviats, we don't know what's going
Speaker 5: to come out in some of these FBI background checks.
Speaker 5: We don't know what these hearings are going to look
Speaker 5: like necessarily, but he's completely turned things around. And that's
Speaker 5: in large part because of his own defiance, but also
Speaker 5: the Mago movement king in and saying we are actually
Speaker 5: going to ruin any Republican centator that goes against us
Speaker 5: on this.
Speaker 1: The media narrative has turned around, but he still has
Speaker 1: to sit through hearings.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right, and that's the big X factor here,
Speaker 5: and that's why I'm reluctant to say that this is
Speaker 5: the week he turned it around. I think if he's
Speaker 5: able to get through these hearings without any more bombshells
Speaker 5: or you know, embarrassing moments, one thing that I would
Speaker 5: point out, I mean, we've focused a lot for good reason.
Speaker 5: I mean, we in the press and commentators have focused
Speaker 5: on his own misconduct. But it remains the case that,
Speaker 5: you know, from a nuts and bolts perspective, that stuff aside.
Speaker 5: Even if it didn't exist, Senators would have serious questions
Speaker 5: about this guy's preparedness and ability to lead the Department
Speaker 5: of Defense, which has two million people, is responsible for
Speaker 5: keeping the country safe. And Hegseth has taught in wars,
Speaker 5: so he has military experience, but compared to people who
Speaker 5: held this job in the past, has way less of
Speaker 5: a sense of how the Pentagon works. I wouldn't be
Speaker 5: shocked if there were several kind of embarrassing moments, if
Speaker 5: he trips up on things that someone in his shoes
Speaker 5: as a nominee would really be expected to know. And
Speaker 5: those are the kind of things that can really damage
Speaker 5: a nomination. I mean, you know, again, he's got a
Speaker 5: lot to answer for on the personal side, very very
Speaker 5: serious things. Can he answer the questions on a policy
Speaker 5: level that's going to make some of these folks feel
Speaker 5: okay about supporting him? Again, remember these defense hawks on
Speaker 5: the Republican side, they're going to be asking a lot
Speaker 5: of these questions. Those could be some big moments.
Speaker 1: Right in my mind, the scarier candidate is actually Cash Fatal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think that a lot of Democratic senators
Speaker 5: would agree. The thing about the Pentagon is, you know,
Speaker 5: the leader of the Pentagon is obviously an extremely important position,
Speaker 5: but it is such a massive bureaucracy. And the FBI
Speaker 5: is also a large bureaucracy, but that's also that's a
Speaker 5: smaller agency and has a ton of power to execute
Speaker 5: kind of precisely what Trump is six sedd on when
Speaker 5: it comes to retribution, the deep stai, cleaning out law enforcement,
Speaker 5: getting back his enemies. And I do think that, you know,
Speaker 5: this is a dynamic that many have observed. But you know, Gates,
Speaker 5: while he was in kind of covered for some of
Speaker 5: the other nominees that were questionable, hag Seth is doing
Speaker 5: the same. I think senators are looking at this saying,
Speaker 5: I can't be against all of his people. I can't
Speaker 5: be against Pulci Gabbard and Pete Haig Sceth and RFK
Speaker 5: and Cash Battel. They're going to have to pick their moments,
Speaker 5: if they pick any moments at all, which I think
Speaker 5: is a big is a big if. But I've been
Speaker 5: noting that, you know, Cash Hotel has started to make
Speaker 5: the rounds very established Republicans, you know, people like John Cornyn,
Speaker 5: who is you know, not considered a MAGA person, but
Speaker 5: is considered someone vulnerable to a primary. He's out there
Speaker 5: talking about how great his meeting with Cash Battel is.
Speaker 5: I think that is as good an indicator as any
Speaker 5: as where his nomination is going.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? You say, and Cash Hotel's
Speaker 1: going to make it through.
Speaker 5: I would be surprised if he didn't. At this point,
Speaker 5: you never know what can happen. And again, these hearings
Speaker 5: are going to be really important. Even in this day
Speaker 5: and age. I don't think you can undervalue the impact
Speaker 5: of big moments at hearings. We still remember when nominees
Speaker 5: trip up over things or they you know, kind of
Speaker 5: look stupid, and so those those moments are totally possible.
Speaker 5: But I think in a way that Hegset doesn't. Patel
Speaker 5: animates the MAGA right in just a really unique way.
Speaker 2: Right. He's their guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he is one of them, And I think I
Speaker 5: would be curious what a ranking I guess from the
Speaker 5: MAGA side of the kind of their most essential cabinet
Speaker 5: people if they had to pick one or two to
Speaker 5: get it, and guaranteed who would they pick. I think
Speaker 5: Cash Hotel would be on that list because he represents
Speaker 5: you know, the whole Trump ethos when it comes to
Speaker 5: deep state everything. I mean, this is the guy and
Speaker 5: this is what the bass is animated out that the
Speaker 5: core part of the MAGA base is not you know,
Speaker 5: animated about inflation. They're they're animated about getting someone in
Speaker 5: like cash Battel in there to go after Trump's enemies
Speaker 5: and sort of get retribution on on the last you know,
Speaker 5: what they see is the last four years of persecution
Speaker 5: of Trump.
Speaker 1: Do you think cash Battel will go after Trump's enemies?
Speaker 2: It's is it hyperbole or is do you think it's real?
Speaker 1: And also do you think he can make that case
Speaker 1: like to the American people?
Speaker 5: It's complicated. I mean I think that will he want
Speaker 5: to do. I mean, there's been a lot of great
Speaker 5: reporting on cash Battel and you know his role in
Speaker 5: the first Trump administration, his willingness to kind of do
Speaker 5: whatever it was that Trump felt was necessary to do.
Speaker 5: I think at any rate, they start with, you know,
Speaker 5: he said that, you know, we're going to turn the
Speaker 5: FBI into a museum of the deep state on day one.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure that's that's going to happen. What I
Speaker 5: do think is that we'll probably start to see subtle
Speaker 5: shifts within, you know, within the FBI in terms of
Speaker 5: you know, how are they policing decisions within the agency,
Speaker 5: personnel decision and what are people's backgrounds. I don't think
Speaker 5: we're going to see anything super external in the early
Speaker 5: going and look, I mean I think that if Patel
Speaker 5: is smart and we may see, look, you might meet
Speaker 5: with some Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. It I means
Speaker 5: the case that Trump has talked a lot about crime, Fennel, like,
Speaker 5: the FBI is a law enforcement agency. So I think
Speaker 5: that Patel has not been full fire breather during this process.
Speaker 5: If he's if he's smart, and perhaps this is part
Speaker 5: of the reason why he's able to win over people
Speaker 5: like Cornin or at least give those senators cover to
Speaker 5: back him. Is he's talking about you know, what does
Speaker 5: that BEI going to do about fentanyl? What are they
Speaker 5: going to do about kind of more sort of straight
Speaker 5: up crime issues that affect people? And frankly that Trump
Speaker 5: is going to need like he looks like he did
Speaker 5: something on right. This was a big reason a lot
Speaker 5: of people voted for Trump, and I don't think that's
Speaker 5: lost on them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just is so incredibly bleak.
Speaker 1: So who else do you think of Trump's nominees are
Speaker 1: going to like, I mean, who else could you see
Speaker 1: not getting through?
Speaker 5: So I think at this point I think back off
Speaker 5: often in this process too. You know, Senator Tom Cotton tweeted,
Speaker 5: I think was last week or the week before. And
Speaker 5: Cotton is in GOP leadership now, very influential in both
Speaker 5: the establishment Republican space and the Trump Republican space, so
Speaker 5: he's worth paying attention to what he says. And he said,
Speaker 5: I expect all of Donald Trump's nominees will get confirmed
Speaker 5: by the Republican Senate. And I view that as like
Speaker 5: a laying down the gauntlet, like you got to confirm
Speaker 5: all of them. You know that this is the standard.
Speaker 5: You don't get to pick and choose or go whatever.
Speaker 5: And of course senators are very independent, They're going to
Speaker 5: make their own decision, but that is furthering the expectation
Speaker 5: that they're all gonna get confirmed. And I think that
Speaker 5: just raises the bar for any Republican Senator to vote
Speaker 5: no on any of these folks. And what I think
Speaker 5: that will result in is them thinking that the person
Speaker 5: is just personally so disqualifying. You know that their record
Speaker 5: or whatever it is, you know, for example, of hegseat,
Speaker 5: if you feel that he is not capable of running
Speaker 5: the Department of Defense, or you feel he's unethical or
Speaker 5: whatever it may be, that you vote against. Gabard is
Speaker 5: another one. Toul See Gabbard. I think that is. You know,
Speaker 5: she's nominated to be the director of National Intelligence. There's
Speaker 5: been some interesting reporting coming out for some of her
Speaker 5: early meetings of Republican senators that they are not very
Speaker 5: impressed with her grasp of the issues, not necessarily what
Speaker 5: you want or somebody who's in charge of running the
Speaker 5: nation's you know, seventeen intelligence agencies. So in those situations,
Speaker 5: you could see perhaps Republicans saying the stakes are so
Speaker 5: high that I have to vote no. But look, I
Speaker 5: think in a prior time, I just did a piece
Speaker 5: on Trump's nominee for Labor secretary. Not as important to
Speaker 5: the national security as some of these other things, but
Speaker 5: he nominated a Republican congresswoman who actually supports unions. She
Speaker 5: has endorsed the pro Act, which is the most important
Speaker 5: kind of wabor legislation of modern times. Unions like her.
Speaker 5: I talked to a bunch of labor leaders who are like,
Speaker 5: you know what, Yeah, she's she's pretty good. Republicans a
Speaker 5: lot of them really don't like her views. The Wall
Speaker 5: Street Journal editorials has gone like a on a mini
Speaker 5: crusade against this nominee, And you could think in a
Speaker 5: prior time. Oh man, this is kind of queen a
Speaker 5: policy disagreement for senators to go after, not like is
Speaker 5: this person qualified to do the job. But I think
Speaker 5: someone like her Lori Chavez Dreemer probably has an easier
Speaker 5: time in this environment. And I would think despite policy disagreements,
Speaker 5: that she would have an easier time getting confirmed because
Speaker 5: it's not so about you know, basic questions about whether
Speaker 5: she can do the job.
Speaker 1: Well, Oh, Sam Brody, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 5: Of course, thank you so much for having me back.
Speaker 1: Robert Faderici is an investigative reporter at Pro PUBLICA.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 7: Robert, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Everything you write about your beat is about to become
Speaker 1: pretty much the most important beat of all the beats.
Speaker 2: So explain to us what you do and sort of
Speaker 2: how you got here.
Speaker 7: So several months ago we made a bet that Trump
Speaker 7: media and truth Social would become very important. Peer Social
Speaker 7: had sort of been thought about as a joke, sort
Speaker 7: of a Twitter clone, not a very serious thing, but
Speaker 7: it has become a meme stock. And what that means
Speaker 7: is it now valued in the billions. It makes up
Speaker 7: a majority of Donald Trump's net worth. And we figured
Speaker 7: that if the first presidency, was any indication he would
Speaker 7: not meaningfully divest if he became president again, and all
Speaker 7: of that has sort of played out now. So it
Speaker 7: is the most important asset Donald Trump has. There's no
Speaker 7: indication that he's going to be divesting. In fact, he
Speaker 7: has said he is not selling his shares. And what
Speaker 7: that means is he's got all sorts of conflicts of
Speaker 7: interest going into his next presidency. Last time around, a
Speaker 7: lot of hay was made about several million dollars he
Speaker 7: made from foreign dignitaries and domestic political groups, from his
Speaker 7: hotels and real estate interests. You know, the conflicts of
Speaker 7: interest from Trump Media and truth Social are going to
Speaker 7: eclipse that. We're talking business deals with. You know, in
Speaker 7: one case, a major GOP donor that's already happened. We've
Speaker 7: already reported on that people who want to make him
Speaker 7: wealthier can buy up shares and drive the share price up.
Speaker 7: There's been pure speculation, but you know that Elon Musk
Speaker 7: could swoop in and have X buy truth Social, which
Speaker 7: would essentially realize this paper wealth for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Let's pause for a second. Explain to our listeners. We
Speaker 1: have very savvy listeners, but we also have some listeners
Speaker 1: who might not completely understand Donald Trump, and Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is a bit like this too, right, though at a
Speaker 1: different scale. A lot of his wealth is actually not liquid, right,
Speaker 1: it's the stock.
Speaker 2: Isn't there a lock up for it too?
Speaker 7: The lockup is up, so he could sell the shares today.
Speaker 7: Of course, you know, once word gets out that he's
Speaker 7: selling shares, that will drive the share price down. He
Speaker 7: has said he's not going to do that. There are
Speaker 7: other ways he could realize it too, which would also
Speaker 7: result in disclosure.
Speaker 1: So other ways he could realize it would be using
Speaker 1: it as collateral for something else exactly, and that would
Speaker 1: have to be disclosed publicly because it's a publicly traded company.
Speaker 7: Yes, and because of he is a very large shareholder,
Speaker 7: he's a majority shareholder. That should be disclosed publicly if
Speaker 7: it happens.
Speaker 2: But people who own the stock, that is not a
Speaker 2: public disclosure.
Speaker 7: If you own less than a certain threshold, which could
Speaker 7: still be a very large amount.
Speaker 1: So the worry here I want to get into is
Speaker 1: one you don't know who's giving Donald Trump money via
Speaker 1: this company, which is explained to our listeners why the
Speaker 1: value of his company is so preposterous.
Speaker 7: It seems as though people have essentially been buying up
Speaker 7: the stock as a proxy for Donald Trump's political fortunes.
Speaker 7: We saw that kind of thing. When there were good
Speaker 7: developments for Trump during the campaign, the share price would
Speaker 7: often go up. When there were bad developments, the share
Speaker 7: price would go down. It's sort of disconnected from economic reality.
Speaker 7: The revenue of this company is almost nonexistent. There's no
Speaker 7: reason it should be worth billions of dollars by traditional metrics.
Speaker 7: But like AMC and other meme stocks, it has blown
Speaker 7: up and that has made Donald Trump much much wealthier.
Speaker 1: But it's not real wealth. So even though it's wealth,
Speaker 1: it's not actual as wealth. So can you sort of
Speaker 1: explain to us why this is such a conflict besides
Speaker 1: the fact that it's an opportunity to give a future
Speaker 1: president money.
Speaker 7: Let me give you a good example, you know, from
Speaker 7: one of our past stories. So the company put out
Speaker 7: a disclosure about a new streaming deal it it got
Speaker 7: involved in. And the two entities that were part of
Speaker 7: that deal, you know, we talked to people no one
Speaker 7: had ever heard of him, and so we dug deeper
Speaker 7: on both of them, and one of them is owned
Speaker 7: or controlled by a major GOP donor in Louisiana. This
Speaker 7: is a person, you know, He's an energy magnet. He
Speaker 7: has vast lobbying interests during a second Trump administration. He
Speaker 7: personally lobbied the first Trump administration and got concession. So
Speaker 7: now not only is he a major GOP donor and
Speaker 7: a Trump donor, but he is literally in business with
Speaker 7: Donald Trump. And if he needs something, if he wants
Speaker 7: something during a second Trump administration, will he have a
Speaker 7: benefit over your average person?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Talk to us about sort of the other Trump
Speaker 1: has wall.
Speaker 2: Street is I was reading in the New York Times
Speaker 2: this morning.
Speaker 1: Wall Street is incredibly excited about another Trump admin You
Speaker 1: write about ways in which wealthy people are able to
Speaker 1: avoid paying taxes, able to sort of win against the
Speaker 1: little guy. Talk to us about some of the opportunities
Speaker 1: you think Wall Street will have here.
Speaker 7: The most significant legislative achievement of the first time around
Speaker 7: was TCJA, the tax bill that reduced the tax burdens
Speaker 7: dramatically for wealthy people. Many parts of that are up
Speaker 7: for renewal during the next Trump administration, and so if
Speaker 7: those elements are renewed, that it's going to be a
Speaker 7: huge benefit for wealthy people. And then he has promised
Speaker 7: to reverse course on crypto regulation. He is nominated someone
Speaker 7: or he's going to nominate someone to lead the SEC
Speaker 7: who has a very different view on crypto and how
Speaker 7: much it should be regulated.
Speaker 2: Which is not at all, right, which.
Speaker 7: Is very little. And interestingly, again all roads lead back
Speaker 7: to Trump Media. It was recently reported that Trump Media
Speaker 7: is in talks to acquire a crypto exchange company. So
Speaker 7: in more than one way, the president is going to
Speaker 7: be in the crypto business himself, as his administration deregulates crypto.
Speaker 1: So talk about what you're going to be watching in
Speaker 1: this admin where there are opportunities for corruption or things
Speaker 1: that you think could be misused theoretically at least.
Speaker 7: So you know, our latest story this is this is
Speaker 7: the first time that a president is going to be
Speaker 7: a majority shareholder of a publicly traded company. So essentially
Speaker 7: Donald Trump is going to select the chairman of the
Speaker 7: SEC who is essentially going to be the main regulator
Speaker 7: of his own company. And we talked to current and
Speaker 7: former SEC officials and we asked them, do you think
Speaker 7: the SEC is going to aggressively regulate the President's company
Speaker 7: and largely they had serious doubts that the SEC would
Speaker 7: be up to the task. We actually, through our reporting
Speaker 7: discovered an instance of Trump media for a long time
Speaker 7: now making a potential material misrepresentation about truth social the
Speaker 7: kind of thing that the SEC would potentially go after.
Speaker 7: And with Trump coming into the office and choosing the
Speaker 7: SEC chairman, there are real doubts about whether the SEC
Speaker 7: will go after that kind of thing. That matters in
Speaker 7: a narrow sense, right, but it also matters in a
Speaker 7: larger sense in that part of the reason the American
Speaker 7: economy is the americano is because there is faith that
Speaker 7: is well regulated. If there start to be doubts that
Speaker 7: companies connected to the president says ally, it's like Elon,
Speaker 7: Musk and Tesla, which make up a much larger share
Speaker 7: of the market, are not being properly regulated. There may
Speaker 7: be short term benefits for those companies, but long term,
Speaker 7: are they going to get loans? Will people want to
Speaker 7: invest in them? It could potentially affect the confidence in
Speaker 7: the American markets, which should have bad effects for everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to not see how regulation has I mean,
Speaker 1: if you think about what happened with Boeing, right, I
Speaker 1: mean regulation is actually quite a good thing, largely, or
Speaker 1: at least in my mind.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean it's it's always you know, you've got
Speaker 7: to find the sort of happy medium, right, you want
Speaker 7: to regulate enough but not too much.
Speaker 1: Eric Trump, he's actually in Abu dhah Bay at a
Speaker 1: bigcoin conference.
Speaker 2: What does that sort of say.
Speaker 7: When the president and his family have foreign business interests?
Speaker 7: It creates conflicts of interest when you're also the person
Speaker 7: who's in charge of shaping American foreign policy. That's why
Speaker 7: you don't want those kinds of foreign financial entanglements. And
Speaker 7: it's you know, that's one example, the one you mentioned.
Speaker 7: You've also got, you know, Jared Kushner who has I
Speaker 7: think it's hundreds of millions of dollars in fees his
Speaker 7: fund largely from the Saudis. You know, we found an
Speaker 7: instance several months ago of representatives for Trump media going
Speaker 7: to North Macedonia and meeting with the prime minister there
Speaker 7: to talk potential business. What does that mean for US
Speaker 7: foreign policy as it relates to North Macedonia. So yeah,
Speaker 7: typically that's why we want to see the president, meanfully
Speaker 7: the best from his these kinds of financial interests, particularly
Speaker 7: foreign financial foreign related financial interests. It doesn't appear we're
Speaker 7: gonna see that this time around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there any kind of accountability? Is there any
Speaker 1: chance to do that?
Speaker 7: If the SEC and the DOJ fail to properly enforce
Speaker 7: securities laws as it relates to Trump media or anything else,
Speaker 7: there is always the potential that state authorities, which Donald
Speaker 7: Trump has no control over, could swoop in. We've actually
Speaker 7: surfaced one example already of that. The New York AG,
Speaker 7: according to a source of ours and some records we reviewed,
Speaker 7: has begun probing a matter related to Trump media. We
Speaker 7: may see more of that kind of thing in the
Speaker 7: coming years.
Speaker 1: There is a sense that Kryptocrats have won, for lack
Speaker 1: of a better word, Is there any chance that they
Speaker 1: won't kind of become the free for all that it
Speaker 1: looks like it's going to be.
Speaker 7: I've learned that my ability to predict is quite poor.
Speaker 7: I do know that at Pro Publica we plan to
Speaker 7: aggressively and fairly cover this, and so at the very
Speaker 7: least we hope that you know, if there are abuses
Speaker 7: of power, we will be informing the public about them.
Speaker 2: That is a really important point.
Speaker 1: And I'm just wondering if you can kind of explain
Speaker 1: how why it's so important, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 7: Yeah, for there to be any hope of real accountability,
Speaker 7: you need investigative reporting. This job is very hard, you know.
Speaker 7: Abuses of power are typically not out in the open.
Speaker 7: Sometimes during the first Trump administration they obviously were, but
Speaker 7: they're often not, and the work of trying to untangle
Speaker 7: what happened or is happening is often extremely complicated. You
Speaker 7: will have one idea of what happened, and then you'll
Speaker 7: dig deeper, and your idea will shift, and you'll dig
Speaker 7: even deeper and it'll shift again. You'll reach out to
Speaker 7: the people who you believe are abusing their power and
Speaker 7: they'll explain some things to you that you didn't previously realize.
Speaker 7: And so it's a process and you need people who
Speaker 7: are experts at doing this kind of work to do
Speaker 7: it fairly and thoroughly. I mean, Elon Musk has been
Speaker 7: on Twitter saying you are the media now, and I'm
Speaker 7: all for citizen journalism. I think it has value, but
Speaker 7: you need trained, experienced experts to be doing the work also,
Speaker 7: because it's not easy work and it's not straightforward, and
Speaker 7: you won't get up a fair and thorough product if
Speaker 7: you have just anyone doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 7: Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: No moment, Jesse.
Speaker 4: Cannon, Molly.
Speaker 3: We can kind of say this episode had a theme
Speaker 3: of well, we knew that was going to happen, and
Speaker 3: sure enough, Texas is filing a lawsuit against out of
Speaker 3: state abortion practices.
Speaker 4: It's not good.
Speaker 2: I mean, we saw this coming a mile away. We
Speaker 2: saw this coming a mile away. We said they're.
Speaker 1: Going to ban abortion pills, and everyone said, you're crazy.
Speaker 1: And I want to point out, this is the thing
Speaker 1: that makes me so crazy about this is that we
Speaker 1: had all of these voters who voted to codify.
Speaker 2: Abortion in their state constitution and still voted for Trump.
Speaker 1: You guys, they're not going to fucking codify abortion in
Speaker 1: their state constitution. Republicans, We've seen this in Florida before.
Speaker 1: We've seen them refuse to enact these ballot measures once
Speaker 1: they've happened. Remember, in Florida, we had felons who were
Speaker 1: re enfranchised.
Speaker 2: That was the ballot initiative, and.
Speaker 1: Instead of enacting that, Florida government added more sort of
Speaker 1: poll taxes to make it harder for felons to vote.
Speaker 1: So you think that people, I mean Florida, the abortion
Speaker 1: ballot is shift in pass, but in some of these
Speaker 1: states it did. And if you don't think these people
Speaker 1: are going to ban abortion, you are out of your mind.
Speaker 1: We are in find Out Territory and it's really a bummer.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.