Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast, and this is Fast Politics. Well,
Speaker 1: we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's
Speaker 1: best minds, and Donald Trump isn't having a very good week.
Speaker 1: All right, We really really have an amazing first episode
Speaker 1: for everyone today. First, we're gonna talk to President Biden's
Speaker 1: Chief of staff Ron Clean all about how the administration
Speaker 1: is making decisions as well as how they're handling inflation
Speaker 1: in America today. Then we'll talk to Bloomberg Opinion editor
Speaker 1: Tim O'Brien about the subject he knows best, which is
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and he's gonna tell us what to think
Speaker 1: about Trump's terrible, terrible week. But first, we have a
Speaker 1: moment that many of you listeners have been waiting for.
Speaker 1: It's time to reunite to former New Abnormal co hosts.
Speaker 1: Here's founder of the Lincoln Project, Rick Wilson and Molly
Speaker 1: John Fast. Welcome to the podcast. Rick Wilson, who wait,
Speaker 1: what was so bad? He's back. Since I was exiled
Speaker 1: a year and a half into the chill, outer darkness
Speaker 1: of not having a podcast, since the cruel hand of
Speaker 1: fate descended on me, is continued to be quite famous
Speaker 1: and appear on television Rick Wilson, Molly John Fast, I
Speaker 1: am back with you from the state of Florida for
Speaker 1: Ston to be destroyed State of Florida. So it turns
Speaker 1: out that Florida is America, and America is unfortunately for US, Florida.
Speaker 1: I mean, what happened Like the last year, it's just
Speaker 1: been the entire Republican Party is all Florida. Well, look
Speaker 1: here's the long understood national cultural and political phenomenon of Florida.
Speaker 1: It's a fucking magnet for crazy and it has been
Speaker 1: that way. And look, I'm a fifth generation Floridian. Okay,
Speaker 1: My people came here in the eighteen fifties. We're o
Speaker 1: g s. We're We're like the salt of the damn
Speaker 1: salt of the earth of Florida, and no one else is.
Speaker 1: It has become a state where disaffected people from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, New York have flooded. Now the New York
Speaker 1: New Jersey people flooded down to the Palm Beach and
Speaker 1: Broward County area, and the people from Ohio and Wisconsin
Speaker 1: flooded into the Tampa Bay area, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the people from Michigan went down to Naples and Cape
Speaker 1: coral Um. And so we have this enormous demo of
Speaker 1: people who've moved here in the last twenty five years,
Speaker 1: who were piste off about the high taxes in their states,
Speaker 1: who were getting older, and who wanted to die somewhere
Speaker 1: warm and cheap. And I can tell you Florida excels
Speaker 1: warm and cheap, whether it's climate strip clubs or nursing
Speaker 1: homes without power during a hurricane. So, speaking in Florida again,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this Ron de Santis fellow,
Speaker 1: that's President de Santis to you, neither your friend nor mine,
Speaker 1: who you have a nickname for. Yes, there's a circle
Speaker 1: of never Trump Republicans in Florida who have decided and
Speaker 1: we know hit the irritates him now, so we use
Speaker 1: it frequently. We call him Tater joey in appearance and
Speaker 1: starchy in attitude. He's Tater. He's a little he's a
Speaker 1: little dumpling. Okay, So there's a new ABC Washington Post
Speaker 1: poll that shows that Trump's popularity in the Republican Party
Speaker 1: has dropped a Since I'm shocked by this discuss. This
Speaker 1: will definitely be the thing that takes him away from
Speaker 1: the Republican base, Molly, because it's not like he's talking
Speaker 1: about John McCain or disabled reporters are grabbing pussy or
Speaker 1: sucking Putin's dick, or saying that he wants to star
Speaker 1: in an anime homo erotic fantasy with Kim Jong un,
Speaker 1: or any other goddamn thing he did for the last
Speaker 1: seven years. Listen, Donald Trump still controls the Republican base.
Speaker 1: I haven't looked at this particular survey, but I'm sorry
Speaker 1: wish casting is not a strategy, and he is. He
Speaker 1: is the presumptive nominee for unless he's dead or in jail,
Speaker 1: and both of those seem un likely since obviously we
Speaker 1: live in the hands of a cruel and angry god.
Speaker 1: This idea, though, that he's less popular, sure, maybe, so
Speaker 1: that means the only controls of the Republican base. Okay,
Speaker 1: tell me how Rohnda Santis or Ted Cruz or Josh
Speaker 1: Holly or Nicky Hayley or Christie Nome or any other
Speaker 1: fucking moron who gets in the Republican primary. When you've
Speaker 1: got a guy who gives you pure, unadulterated Trump and
Speaker 1: you're offering them diet Trump they're gonna pick the real
Speaker 1: Trump every time. It's the Gresham's law of politics. Bad
Speaker 1: politics drives out good he he gives them the crack
Speaker 1: they want. And it is not gonna go the way
Speaker 1: a lot of people think it's gonna go just because
Speaker 1: he's in political trouble, because he's been gonna gonna be indicted.
Speaker 1: I will argue all day long, an indictment makes him stronger. Now,
Speaker 1: should we indict him? Of course we should. Should we
Speaker 1: put him in jail, of course we should. Should we
Speaker 1: have a new punishment involving live wolves and rabies, of
Speaker 1: course we should rub yourself in the gravy, Donald, the
Speaker 1: little succumbing. But no, no, but let's just let's stay
Speaker 1: out of Game of Thrones for a minute here. I just, yes,
Speaker 1: I understand an indictment makes him more popular with his face.
Speaker 1: But does an indictment make him more popular with the
Speaker 1: donor class? Does it make him more popular with who cares?
Speaker 1: He raises of his money from small dollars? And you
Speaker 1: know this, this whole story this week, like the strung
Speaker 1: super Peck didn't raise any more money. Yes, it's because
Speaker 1: they renamed it, and so did a new one. Because
Speaker 1: that the one that was the one that was sucking
Speaker 1: down all the money right now is about to be
Speaker 1: in legal trouble. So they booted up a new one
Speaker 1: to move all the cash out of the old one.
Speaker 1: Why is the old one going to be in legal trouble? Criming?
Speaker 1: That just a supposition or do you have like no, Well,
Speaker 1: because they've been using the same America pack essentially to
Speaker 1: fund Trump's lifestyle. And a pack can do a lot
Speaker 1: of ship, right, but it can't go out and buy
Speaker 1: it do repairs on your jet. And you think that's
Speaker 1: going to come out? Yes, So I just want to
Speaker 1: get back to this idea for a second. We have
Speaker 1: a situation where Trump can only get I mean, he
Speaker 1: can get. He can't get enough to win anything in
Speaker 1: a general election. Are you sure? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I think he can't. I mean, because I can.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that thirty or calculates in the
Speaker 1: populations of California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington.
Speaker 1: And guess what, it doesn't calculate him the populations of
Speaker 1: Florida or what does calculated? But but they're disproportionately underrepresented
Speaker 1: in the hard in the hard number of versus the
Speaker 1: electoral College count. I can absolutely draw you a scenario
Speaker 1: where Donald Trump, at thirty five or forty popularity wins
Speaker 1: the Republican primary and then wins the general election. I
Speaker 1: don't like that. I would rather live somewhere far away,
Speaker 1: pre prefably another planet. But it's the fact. And we
Speaker 1: have to be real about this because the biggest failure
Speaker 1: of everyone, of the old Republican Party, of the media,
Speaker 1: of the Democrats, of the Hillary campaign, and damn near
Speaker 1: of the Biden campaign in is to underestimate the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario. Never never think that it can't get worse
Speaker 1: and worse things can't happen because they do. Um so,
Speaker 1: so my point is, this is a This is a
Speaker 1: guy who no matter what has gone wrong in our
Speaker 1: world for him, the average Republican voter, when it's against
Speaker 1: Joe Biden again, they won't say, well, he's stole nuclear secrets,
Speaker 1: he kept a bunch of top secret stuff in a
Speaker 1: room with his you know, old clothes, signed newspapers, and
Speaker 1: they will say. They will say, if I confided with
Speaker 1: a deep steak, because the pedophiles want to get Donald
Speaker 1: Trump saved the babies and enough of them will do that.
Speaker 1: And look, you go into a multiple candidate field in
Speaker 1: and let's say it's de Santis who but right now
Speaker 1: looks like the best of the match in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, having the money, the campaign infrastructure, of the cruelty,
Speaker 1: the psychosis to meet all the tests. But you also
Speaker 1: end up with Nicky Haley and Christine Nome and Tom
Speaker 1: Cotton and Josh and Ted Cruise and whatever other crowd
Speaker 1: of scales and weirdos decide they're going to do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you go to Iowa, and you know what, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: goes to Iowa and he gets starts, starts with the
Speaker 1: vote at a minimum, and the race is gonna smear
Speaker 1: that peanut butter all over the map, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: end up with He's goes and wins Iowa, and he
Speaker 1: goes and wins New Hampshire, and he goes and wins
Speaker 1: South Carolina. But we have to talk about the mid
Speaker 1: term as opposed to just my anxiety. Okay, hello, I'm
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson. How many wretchet your anxiety? I mean, really,
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting here getting more and more anxious. I'm
Speaker 1: already stressed enough. Can we just talk about the mid terms. Well,
Speaker 1: the mid terms. If you had asked me this question
Speaker 1: eight months ago, when I was thrown off a podcast
Speaker 1: and didn't have one anymore and cruelly and cruelly thrown
Speaker 1: into the cold night, UM, I would have said that
Speaker 1: the Republicans were gonna win sixty five House seats and
Speaker 1: would have and would have a probably a plus four
Speaker 1: or even plus five in the Senate. Now, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: saved us by picking the most outrageously weird, dumb, corrupt, stupid, creepy,
Speaker 1: funck wit crowd of absolute mouth breathing gutter snipe moron
Speaker 1: funk wits that I could have possibly imagined. I feel
Speaker 1: like you're censoring yourself so much. I know, right, I'm
Speaker 1: really I feel like I'm holding back. Maybe it's because
Speaker 1: I'm not used to being on a podcast anymore. I
Speaker 1: don't know you have your own podcast. But the fact
Speaker 1: that you didn't get a Purdue in Georgia, you didn't
Speaker 1: get a McCormick in Pennsylvania, you didn't get a Tempkin
Speaker 1: in Ohio, and so on and so on and so on,
Speaker 1: Well what you got, Jesus Christ, Well, listen, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about Arizona a little bit in a minute.
Speaker 1: That's a separate and horrible topic of its own, but
Speaker 1: it has opened up the possibility of winning in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: and Fetterman, you know, has has despite all the terrible
Speaker 1: personal stuff that has befallen him, the guy has well
Speaker 1: overperformed in an increasingly read state. Dr Oz is I
Speaker 1: could not have picked a worse, weirder, more Turkish New
Speaker 1: Jersey candidate than Dr Oz because you know, everybody is
Speaker 1: thinking themselves. I'm really looking for a guy who's both
Speaker 1: from Turkey and from Jersey. You know, he voted in
Speaker 1: the two thousand in the two thousand eighteen Turkish elections, Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm aware. Do you know when he was in the
Speaker 1: Turkish military he swore an oath that includes things like allah. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say if a if a Democrat had done
Speaker 1: the same thing, I promise you it would be NonStop.
Speaker 1: Fox would have already spun off a separate satellite channel,
Speaker 1: the Muslim thread, how we face it. If it if
Speaker 1: Oz had been a Democrat and it was in the
Speaker 1: in the boot was on the other foot, they would
Speaker 1: do that. It would be like yeah, Oz of Turkey
Speaker 1: all day long. They would do the whole for the drama.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about this. So you
Speaker 1: think those candidates are going to keep Democrats, it seems
Speaker 1: likely you're in the hunt. Okay, they're in the hunt.
Speaker 1: And there's a degree to which the competitive nature of
Speaker 1: bad candidate selection in the Republican primaries where where's old crow.
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell calls it candidate quality, credid quality, mall is real.
Speaker 1: It's very real, people say. Candidate quality is much like
Speaker 1: my sexuality, seething. Everybody was looking for Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you know, Molly can quality. Jesus Christ, No, listen, all
Speaker 1: kidding aside. This is one of the rules. The guys
Speaker 1: like me who came up in Republican politics from the
Speaker 1: Lee Atwater era on, we learned to fundamental rules. One
Speaker 1: just when baby, and two candidate quality matters. And so
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, in the wake of the Tea Party,
Speaker 1: the Republicans got heart on for crazy and so you
Speaker 1: ended up with you know, Christine o'donald and aching all
Speaker 1: these other subpar, low quality candidates got their asses kicked. Well.
Speaker 1: Mitch summoned to the tribe immediately after the election and said,
Speaker 1: We'll never doing that shoot ago, I'm sorry, that's sort
Speaker 1: of a Nixon m We got the idea, although I
Speaker 1: just I just had a great parody at idea called
Speaker 1: Songs of Passionate Rich McConnell, Jesus Christ please, Jesse and
Speaker 1: I are like, this is why you were thrown off
Speaker 1: the podcast. But here's a here's a question for you.
Speaker 1: If Republicans do not recapture they sent I think McConnell resigns,
Speaker 1: I mean resiscu me retires why he serves out, But
Speaker 1: I think he retires. How well, he's up there for
Speaker 1: one thing, but that has never stopped an American politician ever. Yes,
Speaker 1: look at the leadership of the Democratic Party in the House, right,
Speaker 1: I mean look at everywhere. It's so young and sprightly
Speaker 1: and fresh. So you think he has done? I think
Speaker 1: he will see at that point two things. One is
Speaker 1: that he no longer controls his caucus because people that
Speaker 1: are coming into that caucus are increasingly not like Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 1: They're like Tommy Toberville. You know who's the guy who's
Speaker 1: like an example of like lead paint warnings from the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, Well, let's your child drink lead paint chips.
Speaker 1: Tommy stopped looking that wall. Stop Tommy and Cindy Hyde
Speaker 1: Smith and even Rick Scott, who has done America an
Speaker 1: enormous favor this year by incinerating a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars of donor money. Where did that money go?
Speaker 1: Nineteen million dollars went into text messaging, sixteen million went
Speaker 1: into American Express bills. Now, I'm sorry, my superpack has
Speaker 1: taken a lot of ship. We only spent eighty five
Speaker 1: point six percent of our of our money, which is
Speaker 1: higher than everybody else, by the way, on direct voter contact.
Speaker 1: But nobody ever got their m X bills paid by
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Project. Get the funk out of here, these people.
Speaker 1: It is a gigantic grifta rama. Rick Scott brought in
Speaker 1: a bunch of people because and I'm not exaggerating, kidding
Speaker 1: or joking, I'm just exhausted even telling you this. After
Speaker 1: Rick Scott, in one one of his senior stratagist came
Speaker 1: out of a meeting and said, everything we do from
Speaker 1: now on is running for president. I just can't imagine
Speaker 1: who thinks this person is going to be president. I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had Barack Obama America's first African American president.
Speaker 1: We may someday have Hillary Clinton. At the time, I
Speaker 1: thought this, you know, a woman president. But is America
Speaker 1: really ready for our first, our first reptile American president.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I don't think so. Look, and
Speaker 1: I'm not anti reptile. God knows. I have an alligator
Speaker 1: in my lake behind my house right now. I have
Speaker 1: not killed shot him. No, that's that was another that's
Speaker 1: the new gator. Okay, I'm glad we've he stayed very
Speaker 1: far back in the back of the swamp right now.
Speaker 1: He's only been like near the edge of the Virgin
Speaker 1: the back by the top of the meadow once this year,
Speaker 1: so he has been allowed to live. But but I
Speaker 1: do think it's a good point that there are a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans in the Senate who have presidential ambitions,
Speaker 1: almost almost all of them strangely at well. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Cindy Hyde Smith you can count her ound
Speaker 1: possibly and Marcia Blackburn does not see a world where
Speaker 1: she becomes president, you know, I hope not. I hope not.
Speaker 1: I think I'd like Marsha to see a world where
Speaker 1: she becomes literate and chordates. But you know, these are
Speaker 1: these are lofty goals for that for that world. But
Speaker 1: what are you seeing in the in the House races?
Speaker 1: What do you think that? Look, the House races for
Speaker 1: Republicans have fallen off somewhat, But I cautioned Democrats who
Speaker 1: have been picking out curtains and deciding what bills are
Speaker 1: going to pass on the first day, you better watch
Speaker 1: yourselves because redistricting is still a powerful normative force in
Speaker 1: this election. There's still a very very very very very
Speaker 1: very significant probability that Republicans are competitive enough to bring
Speaker 1: you to a tie ball game in the House. God,
Speaker 1: can you imagine? Who, I mean, how would that even play?
Speaker 1: Do you see a world in which McCarthy stays is
Speaker 1: as the leader? Look, I think I think at least
Speaker 1: Dephonic really wanted it. She was working it under the
Speaker 1: surface for a while. And since at least Dephonic basically
Speaker 1: has the chrisma of dryer lint and is the Gretchen
Speaker 1: Wieners of Congress, you know it just it didn't come
Speaker 1: together like she thought. So she announced the the day
Speaker 1: she's got to stay and run for for Caucus chair
Speaker 1: Conference chair. Excuse me, and It really comes down to
Speaker 1: whether or not Trump's sadism plays itself out right after
Speaker 1: the election, because there's nothing Trump loves more, as you
Speaker 1: saw with Jade Evance this week, than torturing someone who
Speaker 1: has ever offended him, right, And that was an amazing
Speaker 1: moment where he said, Ja d Vance is kissing my asses.
Speaker 1: If you did something like that in d C to
Speaker 1: be that humiliated in Washington, I have some recommendations. They're
Speaker 1: friends of mine, not I'm not a client, but I
Speaker 1: do know who they are, who will perfectly happily abuse you,
Speaker 1: who will happily abuse you and humiliate you for a
Speaker 1: a less intensive thing than running for US. I feel
Speaker 1: like you're more unhinged than usual. Hey, but I mean
Speaker 1: that with all the love in the world. It did
Speaker 1: that Ja d Vance Trump humiliate, absolutely humiliating Jady Vans
Speaker 1: and then covering with yes, but Maga loves him, and
Speaker 1: you know, I mean that was sort of amazing. Do
Speaker 1: you think Jade Vance Jade Vance wins though, because Ohio
Speaker 1: is so red? Right? Ohio is a very red state,
Speaker 1: and Tim Ryan has has a very credible approach, personality, temperament,
Speaker 1: all those things. But Maga Republicans in Ohio are by
Speaker 1: far the largest Demo in the party, and they look
Speaker 1: at Tim Ryan, a moderate Democrat by any scoring mechanism,
Speaker 1: and say he's a predator, pedophile, gay, communist, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: and and we can't vote for him because of the children. Right.
Speaker 1: I will keep my counsel, but you come back to
Speaker 1: me after the election if if Tim Ran doesn't make it,
Speaker 1: because I have I will have something else to say
Speaker 1: about things at that point. Who are the Democratic candidates
Speaker 1: that you're really excited about. Well, I'm very happy with
Speaker 1: where Whitmer's ended up. We were we were worried about
Speaker 1: Whitmer earlier in the year and that was going to
Speaker 1: be one of our big focus areas. And look, because
Speaker 1: we're in Michigan because you know, at this point, because
Speaker 1: Joscelyn Benson is actually the most important seat in the
Speaker 1: country in a weird way. Oh no, not in a
Speaker 1: weird way. I mean you mean Michigan could never go
Speaker 1: for another especially because the suite of Republican candidates in
Speaker 1: Michigan is practically Arizonan and its shittiness. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: they're really don't believe in democracy even at all. Now
Speaker 1: they're really they're done with democracy, democracies and an inconvenience.
Speaker 1: We look, we're also very closely following Arizona because you
Speaker 1: end up with carry Lake as governor and what's his
Speaker 1: ding dong as secretary of State, and you might as
Speaker 1: well not go compete in Arizona if you're a Democrat,
Speaker 1: you might as well just, you know, put up a
Speaker 1: wall around the state. You want to all motherfucker's you
Speaker 1: get one, here you go. We ran it out a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago after Carry Lake said I want
Speaker 1: to get out of the federal government, and the Voice
Speaker 1: ever guy said, because that would mean we lose all
Speaker 1: of our air traffic control. That will be fun. Look, listen,
Speaker 1: this is a year where two big factors, to look
Speaker 1: back to what I was saying earlier, have changed the
Speaker 1: battlefield for Democrats. The first significant factor is, of course,
Speaker 1: the shitty candidates on the Republican side and the further
Speaker 1: decline of the entire Republican Party into this psychotic, angry,
Speaker 1: objectionist fury mongering. Every everything is a crisis, every single thing.
Speaker 1: Oh my odd, I saw a sign for an open
Speaker 1: gender bathroom. That means, you know, any second now, my
Speaker 1: kids will have mandatory reassignment surgery. And these panics they
Speaker 1: get into this catalog of imaginary demons they ride with.
Speaker 1: It's made them less and less and less rational about everything. Now.
Speaker 1: The second big factor is Dobbs. The thing that Dobbs
Speaker 1: did that's bigger politically than I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people have worked through in their heads is the demographic
Speaker 1: of voters in the Republican Party. If you model it,
Speaker 1: about twenty two of Republican women are pro choice, about
Speaker 1: eight percent of Republican men are pro choice. There's also
Speaker 1: a weird demographic. It's kind of me by the way,
Speaker 1: weird demographic that whatever you feel about abortion is a
Speaker 1: moral issue, you have a bigger concern about the overreach
Speaker 1: of government in your bank account, your bedroom, your bathroom,
Speaker 1: and your browser history. But but what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that's what we saw in Kansas, US. That's what's driving
Speaker 1: a lot of this way way way over the over
Speaker 1: the expected margins of registration women registering to vote for
Speaker 1: as Democrats. There's a lot going on here that is
Speaker 1: very meaningful, driven by the effective Dobs on the center,
Speaker 1: not on the left. There's also a little bit of
Speaker 1: like not buyer's remorse, but a sense that you know
Speaker 1: they've reached the pinnacle. This was the number one to three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
Speaker 1: and ten priority for social conservatives for years unless they
Speaker 1: and they know that gay marriage is not going to
Speaker 1: be as easy honestly as you saw this new rolling
Speaker 1: American support gay marriage. Thank you, Rick Wilson for joining me.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back. I'll consider it. We'll see.
Speaker 1: Ron Klain is White House Chief of Staff under President
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Welcome to Fast Politics, Ron Clint, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, thanks for having me. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: start by talking about gas prices because I feel like
Speaker 1: gas prices is a hard thing for a president of control,
Speaker 1: and yet things have been going great with gas prices.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to us a little bit about that
Speaker 1: and then also talk about what's happening with OPEC in
Speaker 1: October and if you think that will affect Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: we have had a streak. We're doing this on the
Speaker 1: We're at nine seven consecutive days in a row of
Speaker 1: gas prices declining. It's one of the longest streaks in many,
Speaker 1: many years. Uh, it's every single day in July, every
Speaker 1: single day in August, every single day in September so far.
Speaker 1: So why did that happen? Obviously a lot of things,
Speaker 1: some things are beyond the president's control. But President Biden
Speaker 1: has taken some very strong steps to try to give
Speaker 1: people relief on gas prices. One of those steps was
Speaker 1: ordering the largest release in history from the U S
Speaker 1: Strategic Petroleum Reserve, hundred any million barrels of oil. We're
Speaker 1: in the process of selling them off. Most of that
Speaker 1: is finished, but there's still too significant sales left. That
Speaker 1: helps bring down the price. Were putting more oil in
Speaker 1: the market, oil that we're not pumping out of the ground,
Speaker 1: oil that has already been pumped out of the ground
Speaker 1: and is in storage for just such a purpose. We've
Speaker 1: also worked with our allies to do the same things.
Speaker 1: UH sales from strategic petroleum reserves in several of the
Speaker 1: European countries also helping to bring this down. The other
Speaker 1: thing the President has done is has made it very
Speaker 1: clear to the oil companies and all the parts of
Speaker 1: this industry that is the price of oil declines, the
Speaker 1: price of gas needs to come down. Too. Too often
Speaker 1: we've seen cases where the price of oil comes down
Speaker 1: because price of gas doesn't come down. There's an old
Speaker 1: saying rockets up feathers down that when the price of
Speaker 1: oil goes up, the price of gas goes up super fast.
Speaker 1: When the price of oil goes down, the price of
Speaker 1: gas goes down slowly. We've made it clear that's unacceptable.
Speaker 1: So the price of gas is still too high. We
Speaker 1: continue to work on this every day, but we do
Speaker 1: haven't moved in the right direction. And ask for OPEC
Speaker 1: is going to do they having us a very small
Speaker 1: production cut, we think that the next uh, sayale, we
Speaker 1: do from the strategic petroleum reserve more than offsets that.
Speaker 1: So I think, barring some kind of event that disrupts
Speaker 1: the supply, like a hurricane in the Gulf or something
Speaker 1: like that, we think we're on track for continued declines
Speaker 1: on the price of gas. A lot of the inflationary stuff,
Speaker 1: it's not really necessarily in the presidence control, though the
Speaker 1: president does almost always get blamed for it. I'm curious, like,
Speaker 1: what you've tried to do that, For example, England has
Speaker 1: crazy high inflation. What are the things that you guys
Speaker 1: have done besides with oil? Obviously, energy prices are a
Speaker 1: big part of inflations. Why inflation is higher in England
Speaker 1: than it is here. That's why inflation in the US
Speaker 1: has eased as the price of gas has come down.
Speaker 1: But we have much a much broader agenda to fight
Speaker 1: inflation than that. It starts, of course, with also trying
Speaker 1: to untangle the supply chains that have slowed down the
Speaker 1: flow of goods to market raises their price. We've had
Speaker 1: a supply chain task force making a lot of improvements
Speaker 1: on how goods get from ports and how they get
Speaker 1: across the rails, and that brings down the price. That's important,
Speaker 1: but it's also important to kind of fight inflation where
Speaker 1: people are around the kitchen table, where they're paying prices
Speaker 1: for things. That's why we passed the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 1: To bring down the cost of prescription drugs, which sadly
Speaker 1: is one of the fastest rising elements of inflation in
Speaker 1: the United States. To bring down the cost of insurance premiums,
Speaker 1: which also really bite people's wallets. To bring down the
Speaker 1: cost of energy in terms of the cost of heating
Speaker 1: your home or cooling your home depending on what time
Speaker 1: of year it is, and the cost of energy by
Speaker 1: having more energy efficient appliances and things like that. So
Speaker 1: we're tackling the kinds of expenses that really take money
Speaker 1: out of people's wallets and trying to give people, as
Speaker 1: the present likes to say, a little breathing room, try
Speaker 1: to make their their budgets, their cost a little more affordable.
Speaker 1: So one of the things Jesse and I are we're
Speaker 1: talking about earlier is like, how do you decide what
Speaker 1: to deal with in this White House? Well, look, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a decided situation. I mean, with inflation,
Speaker 1: you had to, but I mean, like you guys did
Speaker 1: this student loan forgiveness? Like how do things you know
Speaker 1: become what you you know? Where you go with them? Look,
Speaker 1: I think the starting point for us he is the
Speaker 1: agenda that President Biden ran on. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think there was obviously a lot of noise in the
Speaker 1: race and maybe people didn't pay as much attention to
Speaker 1: the agenda as they should have. But the president ran
Speaker 1: on a very clear agenda things he was going to do.
Speaker 1: He said that he would tackle four great crises facing
Speaker 1: our country. The economic crisis. People forget, but just two
Speaker 1: years ago when he was running for president, had twenty
Speaker 1: million people out of work, We had an unemployment rate
Speaker 1: that was a ten percent. We had lines of people
Speaker 1: in cars waiting for a box of food, he said.
Speaker 1: He tacked that he has He has created more jobs
Speaker 1: in the first two years of his administration than any
Speaker 1: president in history, bought the unemployment right down to a
Speaker 1: fifty year low. He said he would tackle uh COVID,
Speaker 1: and we have. We have brought down the number of
Speaker 1: cases by, brought down them of deaths by We've made
Speaker 1: boosters and tests and treatments widely available. That's made a
Speaker 1: lot of progress in our country. He said he would
Speaker 1: tackle the climate crisis, and we have. We've brought along
Speaker 1: the most significant climate change legislation and American history, possibly
Speaker 1: in world history. President signed in the law last month
Speaker 1: tackling that. And he said he would tackle the racism crisis.
Speaker 1: President has an administration that looks like America for the
Speaker 1: first time, first time ever in history. Then the majority
Speaker 1: of the cabinet is not white, first time ever in history,
Speaker 1: had the kind of percentage of African Americans in every
Speaker 1: aspect of the government. He's also signed a police reform
Speaker 1: executive order to change the way we police in this country.
Speaker 1: Given tremendous a to HBCUs we've brought down the black
Speaker 1: unemployment rates significantly. So those four crises are kind of
Speaker 1: the center of our gender and what we have been
Speaker 1: dealing with since we got here. So you have in
Speaker 1: a sort of interesting and delicate trade situation. Can you
Speaker 1: explain to us a little bit about the Inflation Reduction
Speaker 1: Act and what's happening in trade. It's so interesting to
Speaker 1: me because I have seen in my lifetime such a
Speaker 1: sort of an about face on trade too. Yeah, I think, Look,
Speaker 1: you know, right now, the US dollar is very very
Speaker 1: strong because our economy is very very strong, and that's
Speaker 1: really leading something that we haven't seen in a long time,
Speaker 1: which is the major factor in global trade right now,
Speaker 1: is US exports. Not things we're buying from other countries,
Speaker 1: things we're selling to other countries. Said an all time
Speaker 1: record for exports last month. But most of this country
Speaker 1: has ever exported in a single year. And that's creating
Speaker 1: a lot of jobs here in America. We've seen this
Speaker 1: resurgence of manufacturing jobs. We've created more manufacturing jobs these
Speaker 1: two years than any time since the early nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: America is making things, and the world is buying what
Speaker 1: we make, and that is a tremendous boon for our
Speaker 1: economy and for our workers. We're always off, always trying
Speaker 1: to work with partners on you know, having effective trade regimes.
Speaker 1: Obviously right now a lot of trade we have with
Speaker 1: Europe is critical to keeping Europe in good shape as
Speaker 1: we fight this war. As the Ukrainians fight this war
Speaker 1: of Russian aggression and supplies from Europe, they need backing
Speaker 1: from Europe. So our trade relationships with Europe are a
Speaker 1: very important part of that overall effort of backing up
Speaker 1: Ukrainian security. You know, trade is a vital element of
Speaker 1: what we do. Do you think there's an opportunity for
Speaker 1: the US and the UK to have a certain special
Speaker 1: relationship because of England leaving the EU. There's two issues there.
Speaker 1: I think one is do we have a special relationship
Speaker 1: with UK? We do, obviously, it's uh the long time
Speaker 1: relationship and probably our closest relationship with another country. And
Speaker 1: then the question is would we wind up with a
Speaker 1: separate trade agreement with the UK. That could happen at
Speaker 1: some point in time, but Prime Minister trust Our Sofa
Speaker 1: said she doesn't expect it to happen anytime soon, and
Speaker 1: I don't think it will we have this situation with
Speaker 1: the chips. Can you talk about this for a minute.
Speaker 1: Chips are going to be a big, big, big part
Speaker 1: of the future, and there's really been a Biden push
Speaker 1: to manufacture chips here, which I think is exciting, but
Speaker 1: also it's been sort of a conflict with Asia. Right. Well, look,
Speaker 1: I think that the world is highly dependent on chips
Speaker 1: manufactured in Taiwan, and they are great chips. Were certainly
Speaker 1: happy to import those chips, but the need for chips
Speaker 1: has just escalated out of control. I think we all
Speaker 1: know virtually everything we have in our homes has a
Speaker 1: computer chip in it. Not just our computers, but are
Speaker 1: our toasters and our coffee makers, and you know, just
Speaker 1: almost everything in your kitchen has a chip in it.
Speaker 1: Now you're smart refrigerator and smart oven and all these things,
Speaker 1: and so many of them go into our cars. And
Speaker 1: so there aren't enough chips. One of the reasons why
Speaker 1: we've seen higher prices, one of the reasons why it's
Speaker 1: hard to get a new car is because we don't
Speaker 1: have enough chips to make all the cars we could make,
Speaker 1: and to make all the things we could make. So
Speaker 1: the President said, look, we're gonna make this a priority
Speaker 1: so that we're not dependent on a foreign source of chips,
Speaker 1: so we're not dependent on long import times on those chips,
Speaker 1: so that we can re really rejuvenate American manufacturing, advanced
Speaker 1: manufacturing of these more high tech products, and so that
Speaker 1: we can bring down costs. And so he proposed, along
Speaker 1: with bipartisan members of both the House and Senate, legislation
Speaker 1: to really stimulate the production of chips. And in the
Speaker 1: State of the Union address earlier this year, we had
Speaker 1: the CEO of Intel, which had promised to build the
Speaker 1: largest manufacturing facility in the history of the country in
Speaker 1: southwestern Ohio if Congress had passed this build to encourage
Speaker 1: the manufacturing of chips. Congress did pass that bill, and
Speaker 1: the President was proud or this month to be at
Speaker 1: the groundbreaking for that facility outside of Columbus in Ohio.
Speaker 1: And so you know we're gonna see and and even
Speaker 1: since then, my Crowns announced a major chips Manu factoring
Speaker 1: facility up in Idaho. When we're seeing more US investment
Speaker 1: in kinds of batteries we need for electric cars and
Speaker 1: all kinds of very advanced manufacturing. So they have one
Speaker 1: additional benefit on top of all the other benefits I've
Speaker 1: mentioned so far, which is they create thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: and tens of thousands of good paying jobs, manufacturing jobs.
Speaker 1: Six figure manufacturing jobs don't need a college degree. We're
Speaker 1: talking about people who either have one or two years
Speaker 1: of specialized training or maybe a community college degree. They
Speaker 1: don't need a four year college degree. So part of
Speaker 1: what the presidents also said is he build an economy
Speaker 1: that work for everyone. We're obviously trying to get people
Speaker 1: to college who want to go to college, trying to
Speaker 1: make it affordable for them, trying to deal with that,
Speaker 1: but we also think that people should be able to
Speaker 1: have jobs they can raise a family on, they can live,
Speaker 1: and they can live a good life on even if
Speaker 1: they choose not to go to college. And uh ramping
Speaker 1: up our advanced manufacturing is a critical part of that.
Speaker 1: You have this unique situation and with the Biden presidency
Speaker 1: of having an ex president who is continually in the
Speaker 1: fray and trying desperately to insert himself into the discourse.
Speaker 1: Is that hard? Well, look, I would say that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is certainly unique, and I definitely want to be
Speaker 1: carefully or not to comment on any of the investigations,
Speaker 1: the matter of Marlague and all that. We're leaving that
Speaker 1: to the Justice Department. But in terms of his no
Speaker 1: longer Twitter feed is truth, social feeding rallies and all
Speaker 1: the all the noise coming from Trump. The presidents made
Speaker 1: it very clear to us, our job is to do
Speaker 1: our jobs. His job is to do his job. And
Speaker 1: he got elected I think in large part because he
Speaker 1: promised people that he wouldn't be that kind of president.
Speaker 1: He'd be a very different kind of president, and it'd
Speaker 1: be a president be focused on doing the things our
Speaker 1: country needs done. Progress Donald Trump when he was president,
Speaker 1: he announced almost every single week would be infrastructure week,
Speaker 1: and an infrastructure bill never passed. Biden said, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. I'm actually gonna get it passed,
Speaker 1: and he passed with bipartisan support, the largest infrastructure bill
Speaker 1: since Eisenhower was president. So, uh, you know, we're here.
Speaker 1: We're about getting things done, about making the country a
Speaker 1: better place. We have to stand up for democracy. It's
Speaker 1: vital and I think we have to respond to the
Speaker 1: things Trump says that are anti democratic, in the kind
Speaker 1: of movement he leads that is trying to derail our democracy.
Speaker 1: But on a day to day basis, I think our
Speaker 1: fundamental goal here is to deliver on the economy, on COVID,
Speaker 1: on race, on climate, and uh, you know that Trump
Speaker 1: owns two truth, social own the truth, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: get things done. Thank you so much, thank you. Tim
Speaker 1: O'Brien is editor of Boomberg Opinion. Welcome Too Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Tim Obrian Molly, I feel like we're old podcasting leads
Speaker 1: at this point, and we totally are. And I had
Speaker 1: to talk to you because nothing happened this week before
Speaker 1: we started taping. You were just saying, we were talking
Speaker 1: about what a good Donald Trump impression you do. I apologize,
Speaker 1: and you were saying, continue, Well, we He and I
Speaker 1: were at marl Lago for a weekend in let me
Speaker 1: think it was probably two thousand and five, the spring
Speaker 1: of two thousand and five. He had a Ferrari there
Speaker 1: that he wanted to sort of show off to me,
Speaker 1: and he did not know how to drive it. You know,
Speaker 1: those Ferraris have gearshifters, paddle shifters on the steering wheel.
Speaker 1: They've probably changed since then. You know, that was I
Speaker 1: think the first and last time I was in a
Speaker 1: two car may He was still wearing his golf clothes,
Speaker 1: and he said, I really want to show you something.
Speaker 1: So we drove into downtown Palm Beach. We pulled up
Speaker 1: to a stop light, he put the windows down and
Speaker 1: people on the corner began pointing at him, and he goes,
Speaker 1: isn't that amazing. Later that same night, I had dinner
Speaker 1: with Milania and him at marl Lago and she went
Speaker 1: to bed after dinner, and there was a sort of
Speaker 1: an event around the pool and there were these giant,
Speaker 1: like six ft high speakers arrayed around the swimming pool
Speaker 1: and Donald and I were standing at one end, and
Speaker 1: he was in a navy blue BRIONI suit. I am
Speaker 1: not kidding. The song that was blaring out of the
Speaker 1: speakers was played that funky music white Boy, and he
Speaker 1: was doing the kind of white guy bite your bottom
Speaker 1: lip dance in his blue suit. And he asked him
Speaker 1: to really crank up the speakers and and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I love blasting this music as loud as
Speaker 1: I possibly can, because all of these m efforts in
Speaker 1: Palm Beach never wanted me to be here, So I
Speaker 1: just played as loud as I possibly can now to
Speaker 1: remind that I'm here and I'm not going away. And
Speaker 1: then he was president, right, right. You really get the
Speaker 1: award though, for the only person who covers Donald Trump, though,
Speaker 1: that's good at this invitation. Everybody else, if you cover him,
Speaker 1: you're bad at it. And I know you're happy to
Speaker 1: hear this. So let's talk about this week, because it
Speaker 1: was a very bad week for Donald Trump. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the consequences of Donald Trump choosing
Speaker 1: a run for the presidency and have come home to
Speaker 1: roost on Donald Trump and his children. You know, it
Speaker 1: came home to roost on the country and the Constitution
Speaker 1: and people of color, and women and and a lot
Speaker 1: of other groups prior to this. But he had somehow
Speaker 1: escaped the consequences of his own decisions, as he has
Speaker 1: so often throughout his life. And you know, in this case,
Speaker 1: it was the New York Attorney General, Leticia James, indicting
Speaker 1: him for financial fraud. So that was Wednesday, but even
Speaker 1: like on Monday, Maggie Harman had a piece in The
Speaker 1: New York Times which talked about how that Eric Kershman
Speaker 1: had warned Trump that he was taking a legal stuff
Speaker 1: back to mar Longo and there could be in other words,
Speaker 1: you know, and in Hershman was a star witness in
Speaker 1: the January six hearings too, in which he testified that
Speaker 1: you know, they they told him not to go down
Speaker 1: to the ellipse and that what he was doing there
Speaker 1: was inappropriate and possibly illegal, and that Kirshman told other
Speaker 1: members of Trump's inner circle that he wasn't onna planning partner.
Speaker 1: So this is the second time that Hirshman, a lawyer,
Speaker 1: has get him a lawyer's inside account of telling Trump
Speaker 1: don't do something, it's wrong, and Trump doing it anyway.
Speaker 1: And in a criminal case, that is evidence of intent.
Speaker 1: And that's the hurdle of prosecutor has to overcome in
Speaker 1: a criminal case if you're pursuing something that might end
Speaker 1: up with Donald Trump in prison. And so I think
Speaker 1: the Hirshman testimony is significant, and you know this, he
Speaker 1: is mired in a tar pit of existential legal threats.
Speaker 1: There's the Tish James case. Obviously, there's a an electoral
Speaker 1: fraud case with with very hot tangible evidence in Georgia, right,
Speaker 1: that's Fanny Willis another black woman, Yes I responsible, I mean,
Speaker 1: And then we have Tish James has said that she
Speaker 1: will refer this to the Southern District of New York,
Speaker 1: which is different than Alvin brag Right. Well, but she's
Speaker 1: she's referring I think, other evidence she's uncovered that she
Speaker 1: thinks amounts to a federal crime, and she's referring it
Speaker 1: to both the U. S. Attorney's Office for the Southern
Speaker 1: District and to the I R S. So it suggests
Speaker 1: that what she's sending is evidence of criminal tax fraud.
Speaker 1: And you know, one way out of for Trump, out
Speaker 1: of the civil charges that tish shandas filed, is the
Speaker 1: allegations are that he duped banks, that he gave them
Speaker 1: false information and these unsophisticated, poor little banker people didn't understand,
Speaker 1: which is a hard, hard hurdle to overcome because banks
Speaker 1: are sophisticated lenders. It's really a lot harder when you
Speaker 1: say that I R S people should be equally sophisticated
Speaker 1: and vigilant and the birdhas on them to make sure
Speaker 1: that you're not lying to them. And in a way,
Speaker 1: I think that you know that referral could hold possibly
Speaker 1: more peril for him as things play out. Should should
Speaker 1: the I R S and use Attorney's office pursue it.
Speaker 1: And also I think that it's interesting. I mean, I
Speaker 1: still think like this all makes Alvin Brag the New
Speaker 1: York d A continually look terrible, right because what is
Speaker 1: he doing well? You know, Molly, I have mixed thoughts
Speaker 1: about that. I think within that office, I think there
Speaker 1: was a disagreement among the prosecutors themselves about whether or
Speaker 1: not they had the goods for an air tight criminal
Speaker 1: fraud case. And I think the tension within that office
Speaker 1: revolved from I think some members of the prosecutorial team
Speaker 1: saying the stakes are too high, We've got to take
Speaker 1: this to court no matter what, and others saying, if
Speaker 1: we go there, it's a former president and it has
Speaker 1: to be air tight. And there was reasonable arguments to
Speaker 1: be made on both sides, and you could argue that
Speaker 1: sy Vans should have taken care of that before he
Speaker 1: left office, and let left this giant, kind of complicated
Speaker 1: sandwich on Alvin Bragg's desk. Interesting. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, Bragg is indicted, Weisselberg, Trump's CFO.
Speaker 1: There's a good chance, you know, he's prosecuting the company still,
Speaker 1: so I don't think Trump's gonna just fly out of
Speaker 1: that without consequence. But it's certainly I had thought for
Speaker 1: a long time that that was the most perilous case
Speaker 1: he was facing. And I don't investigation he was facing,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it is any longer. Oh interesting,
Speaker 1: So what do you think it is? I think if
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland gets his boots on and collects the evidence
Speaker 1: that you know, the January six Committee has surfaced so
Speaker 1: robustly and and wonderfully that there should be a federal
Speaker 1: indictment there for fraud on the American public and interfering
Speaker 1: with a congressional proceeding and you know, in one word,
Speaker 1: what could just be called a coup. Right, So interesting.
Speaker 1: The thing that I find fascinating is then he decided,
Speaker 1: like a normal person would say, like I'm I'm facing
Speaker 1: all of these legal problems. I should probably take a
Speaker 1: low profile. But instead Donald Trump decides to go on
Speaker 1: Sean Hannity's show and accompanied by the two Krakens in
Speaker 1: his midst his two sons who took to Twitter and
Speaker 1: said politics and nothing wrong here, which is just you know,
Speaker 1: they also are both defendants, so you would have thought
Speaker 1: they would have been more judicious, but you know, being
Speaker 1: judicious is not a Trump family traite now, and then
Speaker 1: the Potter familius goes on Hannity and just starts spouting
Speaker 1: the same kind of nonlinear, unhinged word salad that he
Speaker 1: always does at moments when he's really cornered, and he
Speaker 1: clearly feels cornered, and he's you know, he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a good legal game. You know, his default is to
Speaker 1: play media game, playing it really badly right now, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what's interesting. What I thought was interesting
Speaker 1: was I think that the takeaway from that interview that
Speaker 1: many of us took away was different people say different things.
Speaker 1: But as I understand and it, if you're the present
Speaker 1: thing to United States, you can declassify just by saying
Speaker 1: it's declassified, even by thinking about it. Well, so you
Speaker 1: know what's interesting to me about that is, you know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump famously sued me. We we deposed him for
Speaker 1: two days in December of two thousand and seven, and
Speaker 1: during the course of that we asked him a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about is everything, but we were zeroing on
Speaker 1: how he valued his golf courses and because he had
Speaker 1: provided no paperwork for how he actually got to these
Speaker 1: kind of crazy valuations he had and and my attorney said, well,
Speaker 1: do you have a profit and low statements for the
Speaker 1: for the golf course and he'son, no, I don't have
Speaker 1: any of those. And they said, well, then how do
Speaker 1: you decide what they're worth? And he said mental projections?
Speaker 1: And uh. And you know, Donald Trump sense of himself,
Speaker 1: the world around him, his history, his abilities, and how
Speaker 1: he conducts himself has been one big mental projection. So
Speaker 1: of course he's going to say that he can mentally
Speaker 1: project the classification of state secrets when it suits him. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that's actually not how the law work. But it is interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, he basically is going along this Richard Nixon.
Speaker 1: It's not a crime if the president does it. Well,
Speaker 1: Nixon was wrong too, And it's always interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: it's always interesting when people think they have superpowers that
Speaker 1: enable them to blow off the constitution and the law.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think this moment is so important,
Speaker 1: because we have to stand up for the rule of
Speaker 1: law and for institutions, and for the idea that you're
Speaker 1: not allowed to stick nuclear secrets in your stocks and
Speaker 1: store them in an old closet drawer at your beach club.
Speaker 1: Slash house in Palm Beach. How do you think, I mean,
Speaker 1: you really know Trump and you're very smart, how do
Speaker 1: you see this plays out? I don't know. I've been
Speaker 1: wrong so many times. I think one of the myths
Speaker 1: about Trump is that he routinely escapes culpability. He got
Speaker 1: past the Mueller probe and past two impeachments, and that
Speaker 1: he's had a life of the this and the that,
Speaker 1: and it has never been held accountable. Well, law enforcement
Speaker 1: never chose to hold him seriously accountable throughout his life.
Speaker 1: It happened once when he and his father got investigated
Speaker 1: for racial discrimination in their housing projects in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and they got held accountable for that. After that,
Speaker 1: he never did. The stakes went up when he became president.
Speaker 1: I think people began circling him and trying to make
Speaker 1: sure that his worst tendencies didn't unravel the national fabric.
Speaker 1: And he now, as we said earlier in the show,
Speaker 1: you know, he's now got very existential legal consequences facing
Speaker 1: him because of his own actions. He lacks the power
Speaker 1: of the presidency. His celebrity is not enough to save
Speaker 1: him from this. Neither are his personal finances, and his
Speaker 1: business is under siege. I think there's a very high
Speaker 1: possibility Donald Trump is going to get indicted in at
Speaker 1: least one of these venues that we've talked about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it also seems like this legal team has to
Speaker 1: be so expensive, right, And you know, I really want
Speaker 1: to I hope that part of the investigation of Trump
Speaker 1: includes how he's paying his legal bills, because if they're
Speaker 1: coming out of campaign donations that all of his credulous
Speaker 1: small dollar donors have have made to him, to the
Speaker 1: tune of hundreds of millions of dollars um, I think
Speaker 1: there's a real, I think question about whether or not
Speaker 1: that's a fraudental use of the funds. And you know,
Speaker 1: his packs are being investigated now as well. You know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is a wealthy man. Even if he's not
Speaker 1: a billionaire, he has ample resources. I think he can
Speaker 1: probably afford to pay his legal bills on his own.
Speaker 1: But he's also a wildly cheap person. And if he
Speaker 1: could find another piggy bank to dip into, he might
Speaker 1: have done that, even it would have been wiser for
Speaker 1: him to use his own money. The two p is
Speaker 1: paying for some amount of Trump's legal bills, right, And
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about campaign finance law to know
Speaker 1: whether or not that's appropriate. But apart from that, the
Speaker 1: fact that the GOP is willing to pay for some
Speaker 1: of these bills is an indicator of, I think, the
Speaker 1: kind of twisted integration that exists between Trump, Trump is
Speaker 1: um and the modern Republican Party and the fact that
Speaker 1: even now the party elders are afraid to completely alienate him.
Speaker 1: And supposedly the sense is they kind of told him,
Speaker 1: or what was announced recently, was that they would stop
Speaker 1: paying whatever part of the legal bills they were paying
Speaker 1: if he announced before the mid terms. You know, he's
Speaker 1: not going to pay attention to anybody. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: just not going to listen to what the party needs,
Speaker 1: what Republicans voters voters need. He's going to think, Donald Tree,
Speaker 1: you can understand everything Donald Trump does through two lenses,
Speaker 1: self aggrandizement or self preservation. From July Jonathan carl Scoop
Speaker 1: r n C warning to Trump, if you run for president,
Speaker 1: will stop paying your legal bills. Officials say, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: those always feel to me like trial balloon kinds of stories.
Speaker 1: And he is a huge fundraiser. Still, he has a
Speaker 1: huge draw for money, for the party. He makes or
Speaker 1: break certain kinds of candidates, though not all of them.
Speaker 1: And you know, in a lot of ways, the GOP
Speaker 1: is his party now, even if he's not sitting at
Speaker 1: top of it, because Trump is um is the coin
Speaker 1: of the realm. Yeah, Jesus, so depressing. Thank you so much, Tim,
Speaker 1: This is great, Thanks Molly, thanks for having me our
Speaker 1: special guest for a moment of fun. Gray is going
Speaker 1: to be one, Rick Wilson, So do you want to
Speaker 1: go first? Or should I go first? Sure? My moment
Speaker 1: of fucory is every fucking reporter in the country who
Speaker 1: doesn't understand what Rhonda Santis did to them this week
Speaker 1: when he jerked them off about the second flight to Delaware.
Speaker 1: They should have understood right then, stop covering the bullshit.
Speaker 1: This is a twenty twenty four campaign operation. Treat it
Speaker 1: like that, and you can see exactly why he's doing it.
Speaker 1: He's looking to drive into the Republican valence where Trump
Speaker 1: triumphed over all the other morons in the field that
Speaker 1: was immigration. Trump knew that they would say, you can't
Speaker 1: say that about Mexicans. And Trump knew that they would say,
Speaker 1: oh wha, how impractical, and it didn't matter because he
Speaker 1: understood the base better. That's a that's reporters thinking this
Speaker 1: is about immigration are making are totally missing the boat
Speaker 1: on what this guy's doing immigration. This is a subject
Speaker 1: object collision problem. The entire operation is the Republican i'mary,
Speaker 1: that's what's happening here. Yeah, that's my moment of that
Speaker 1: was which if I had a podcast, I might have
Speaker 1: thought of having one. All right, well, my moment of
Speaker 1: fuckery is the Michigan GOP candidate for governor Tutor Dixon
Speaker 1: sampire poor. Wait what does that mean? If you just
Speaker 1: go ahead and google Tutor Dixon vampire porn, you will
Speaker 1: be illuminated. No, I don't want to do that right now.
Speaker 1: She was in showtime like softcore porn movies in the
Speaker 1: ninety nineties. Anyway, when not getting eaten by zombies, We've
Speaker 1: gone down a real fucking rabbit hole. Tutor Dixon was
Speaker 1: making fun of Gretgen Whitmore for almost for the kidnapping
Speaker 1: plot where she was almost kidnapped. The sad thing is
Speaker 1: that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to
Speaker 1: your head, and ask if you're ready to talk for
Speaker 1: someone so worried about being kidnapped. Gretchen Whitmer sure is
Speaker 1: good at taking business hostage and holding it for Rance
Speaker 1: him and I think that's quite fucked up. And so
Speaker 1: that goes from my moment of faery, which you have
Speaker 1: now staged. Rick Wilson again. You know, Molly, I have
Speaker 1: I have a few gifts and I have to just
Speaker 1: make take full advantage of them. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: You're very welcome. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the
Speaker 1: best minds and politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.