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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Donald Trump is now calling people

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Speaker 1: vermin This is something that the Nazis did and a

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Speaker 1: really scary sign of authoritarianism. We have an amazing show today.

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Speaker 1: ABC News is Chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Carl stops by

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Speaker 1: to talk to us all about his new book, Tired

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Speaker 1: of Winning, Donald Trump and the End of the Grand

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Speaker 1: Old Party. Then we'll talk to Brian Stelter about his

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Speaker 1: new Fox News Tell All Network of Lies, the epic

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Speaker 1: saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for

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Speaker 1: American democracy. But first we have the host of the

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Speaker 1: Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson. Welcome, two

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Speaker 1: Best Politics.

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Speaker 2: Rick Wilson, Molli Jong Fast back with you. Was always

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Speaker 2: has been of the hits of the seventies, eighties, and nineties.

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Speaker 1: Here are the hits. Karl Rove had a good idea

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Speaker 1: the Democrat should do, and I'm talking about ballot initiatives,

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Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, do a little TLDR on ballot initiatives in

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Speaker 1: your former party because you're a Democrat now sorry.

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Speaker 3: Ballot initiatives are used by the Republican Party very frequently

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Speaker 3: to do what we call shaping the battlefield. And so

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Speaker 3: in two thousand and four, and remember, folks, try to

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Speaker 3: look at this through the eyes of two thousand and four,

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Speaker 3: the Republican Party, to a bunche of surveys.

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Speaker 1: Rick Wilson is letting us into his naughty past. Continue, sir,

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Speaker 1: my dirty, dirty past stories that can only be told

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Speaker 1: after dark or here on Fast Politics, or for people

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Speaker 1: who I love him despite his previously fascist leanings. Continue.

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Speaker 2: Have you ever had fascist leanings? Per se per se?

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Speaker 3: It's like in South Park and said, I'm not a

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Speaker 3: seguinary of Empire per se.

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Speaker 1: Yes.

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Speaker 3: So long story short, back in two thousand and four

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Speaker 3: and some very smart researchers because by the way, Democrats

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Speaker 3: never underestimate the fact that Republican Party has a gigantic

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Speaker 3: number of really fucking smart people working for it. It's

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Speaker 3: something you fail on a lot and you think, oh,

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Speaker 3: there must be old dumb Bubba's.

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Speaker 4: Cousins.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of fucking PhD numerical analysis people who

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Speaker 3: do voterfil analysis.

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Speaker 1: In Boweling, we call those people evil because yes, continue that.

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Speaker 3: We have long story short. In two thousand and four,

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Speaker 3: there was a discovery made that a lot of conservative Democrats,

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Speaker 3: including a lot of African American women, were very turned

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Speaker 3: off by the idea of gay marriage. Now, this was

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Speaker 3: an era, by the way, where even Barack Obama was

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Speaker 3: opposed to gay marriage, and everyone else in the democratic

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Speaker 3: world was also opposed to gay marriage. The world changes.

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Speaker 3: But but but Carl Rove said, hey, assholes, and the

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Speaker 3: assholes were like a thousand guys like me go out.

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Speaker 3: And I didn't actually do the ballot initiative in Florida.

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Speaker 3: I knew of it. I didn't pitch it. I didn't

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Speaker 3: do it. I had a huge other thing I was doing.

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Speaker 3: So long story short, the ballot initiatives went on the ballot.

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Speaker 3: I f Florida, North Carolina, a couple other places banning

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Speaker 3: gay marriage. This whole idea seems anathema to us now

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Speaker 3: and repugnant and all that other business. But for politics

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Speaker 3: at that moment, it gave Republicans, as specifically evangelical Republicans,

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Speaker 3: a hook to talk to an audience they could never

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Speaker 3: otherwise talk to, which was African American evangelicals.

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Speaker 2: African Americans like Baptist Church.

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Speaker 3: Ladies would be the shortcut, as we would say it

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Speaker 3: in the South, the ladies with the fancy hats on Sunday. Okay,

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Speaker 3: if you have never really like explored African American church

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Speaker 3: lady hats, it is an entire subculture in America.

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Speaker 2: It is delightful. It is delightful, wonderful people.

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Speaker 1: But they realized that was a weak part of the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party.

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Speaker 3: They did they found a hole in the Democratic base

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Speaker 3: and they drove a truck through it. Now, it motivated

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Speaker 3: white evangelicals through the roof, because of course, you know

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Speaker 3: they're white evangelicals. That what else they want to do

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Speaker 3: except make sure nobody else has an orgasm or enjoys.

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Speaker 1: Their life and give everyone a go on and make

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Speaker 1: sure they have to carry a dead fetus Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 3: But for all that, these ballot initiatives ended up having

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Speaker 3: a net positive effect for Republican turnout. This is a

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Speaker 3: lesson Republicans have learned in many states over the years.

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Speaker 3: They either exploit a Democratic ballot initiative to scare their

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Speaker 3: people or they build their own ballot initiative to motivate

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Speaker 3: their people. Okay, what you're going to see right now

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Speaker 3: is the Democrats have learned in Kansas, Ohio twice, Kentucky,

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Speaker 3: and Virginia this in the last so since Dobbs passed

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Speaker 3: in those states. Okay, and in Wisconsin's there's a lot

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Speaker 3: of it in Wisconsin in twenty twenty two's state wides.

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Speaker 3: But they've learned in every place it's been tested that

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Speaker 3: the idea that Republicans are going and it's not just

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Speaker 3: about abortion itself. It's about them using the power of

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Speaker 3: government to tell you how to live your life. They're

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Speaker 3: going to tell you you can't travel, They're going to

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Speaker 3: tell you you have to report your period to the

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Speaker 3: state just in case you're using that naughty birth control.

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Speaker 3: And they're expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding government

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Speaker 3: overreach right the scope of power they want to apply

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Speaker 3: to individual lives, and it's pissing people the hell off.

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Speaker 3: I have a great story a few miles I have

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Speaker 3: not told publicly yet. We'll call this person, at least

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Speaker 3: an acquaintance.

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Speaker 1: We'll call this person Liz Chaining continue.

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Speaker 3: No one lives, but it's somebody who was traveling with

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Speaker 3: Glenn Youngkin in the last week of the campaign. Okay,

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Speaker 3: somebody who was a prominent person traveling with Youngkin, and

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Speaker 3: the description of this to me was was fascinating, and

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Speaker 3: I knew. I didn't say it out loud, but I knew.

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Speaker 3: I heard this about a week before, eight days before

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Speaker 3: the election. This person said to me, when Youngkin's out

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Speaker 3: there raw rawing about they're going to kick the Democrats

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Speaker 3: ass and we're going to be a conservative state. He said,

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Speaker 3: the whole audience they're going crazy, they're cheering. Everybody's going

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Speaker 3: nuts because they also think Glenn Younkin is going to

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Speaker 3: be president someday. Right, And then Youngkin would go and say,

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Speaker 3: we're gonna pass a fifteen week abortion. Man, and he said,

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Speaker 3: the guys in the audience are you know, hands in

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Speaker 3: the air leaping out. And he goes in every woman's

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Speaker 3: face in the in the audience and these are maga women.

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Speaker 3: These are conservative women. He goes, you can see their

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Speaker 3: faces like switch off, like that that look you know

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Speaker 3: when you walk in the house and you've done something

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Speaker 3: really fucking stupid, and says, we need to talk.

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Speaker 2: That's the look.

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Speaker 3: It was the we need to talk look, and it

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Speaker 3: was killing Republicans when you look at the math. Okay,

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Speaker 3: when you look at the math in Ohio, the number

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Speaker 3: that you end up with at the end of the day,

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Speaker 3: by deductive math alone, means that about twenty five percent

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Speaker 3: of Republican women crossed over to vote for this thing,

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Speaker 3: and probably more. Right, and it means about sixty percent

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Speaker 3: of unregistered or independent women had to vote for this thing,

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Speaker 3: or probably more so.

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Speaker 1: Here's my question for you. This is like intellectual dishonesty

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Speaker 1: comes home to roost. Right. The part of small government

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Speaker 1: is very involved with women's menstrual cycles, right, They.

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Speaker 3: Really want to know exactly when you're going to have

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Speaker 3: your cycle, because obviously we can't have women out there

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Speaker 3: using credit cards or bank accounts to perhaps buy an

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Speaker 3: airplane ticket or drive a car to a state where

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Speaker 3: they might possibly be able to violate the laws of

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Speaker 3: Gilead or whatever.

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Speaker 2: The fucking we're.

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Speaker 1: Hitting like a Fugitive Slave Act kind of moment here

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Speaker 1: right where we're seeing different states trying to open the

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Speaker 1: door to something where if we know, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you drove someone to get an abortion and you live

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Speaker 1: in Texas.

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Speaker 3: The most fascinating piece of news out of this week

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Speaker 3: was the Ohio Republican Party. The speaker of the Republican

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Speaker 3: House representatives. Essentially on election night, his answer to a

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Speaker 3: statewide ballot insie that massed with fifty seven point seventy

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Speaker 3: percent of the vote was.

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Speaker 2: Fuck you, fuck you women, right exactly. And here's the thing.

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Speaker 3: If a state was run by Muslims expressing this kind

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Speaker 3: of thing, Republicans would rule tanks through the fucking streets. Okay,

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Speaker 3: here's the thing. They have said, our religious beliefs absolutely

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Speaker 3: override the Constitution of the United States, the courts of

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Speaker 3: the United States, the constitution of their individual states, the

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Speaker 3: courts of their individual states, the laws of their individual states.

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Speaker 3: They have decided that they're going to pursue. And look, Molly,

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Speaker 3: I think for years and years and years, I've said

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Speaker 3: this a lot. The side that overreaches on culture war

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Speaker 3: issues is the side that loses, right.

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Speaker 1: And that's what Republicans have done this whole time.

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Speaker 3: And these people aren't like overreaching now, they're like bundling

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Speaker 3: themselves up into a freight train, slapping a bunch of

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Speaker 3: coal in the engine, pushing the throttles to the maximum limit,

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Speaker 3: and crashing through a fucking daycare center. The insanity level

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Speaker 3: has reached the point where a very thoughtful Catholic conservative

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Speaker 3: friend of mine the other day said to me, he goes,

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Speaker 3: I have fought for life for a long time, not

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Speaker 3: with laws or not to overturn row, but to change

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Speaker 3: hearts and minds and to make adoption more available and

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Speaker 3: to make support services more available.

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Speaker 2: And he said, I.

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Speaker 3: Am in hears he's because the work of my life.

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Speaker 3: I will never convince another person that I'm doing this

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Speaker 3: for reasons that can enrich the world. They're going to

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Speaker 3: always think you don't like my vagina.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And then and this is a person, by the way,

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Speaker 3: who is a honest to God, thoughtful, smart, well educated,

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Speaker 3: truly kind person who has given of himself. I'm going

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Speaker 3: to guesstimate several million dollars into the adoption space over

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Speaker 3: the years. And craziness, it's just crazy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what I want to talk to you about with

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Speaker 1: these Tuesday results as opposed to the fucking pulling, which

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Speaker 1: I could honestly give two shits about. And I'm telling

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Speaker 1: you the three thousand, six hundred people who answered unknown

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Speaker 1: numbers on their cell phones and then proceeded to tell

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Speaker 1: them how mad they were about Joe Biden.

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Speaker 3: And by the way, they oversampled the shit out of

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Speaker 3: Republicans in.

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Speaker 2: The whole space.

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Speaker 1: They did, of course, But you know Dean Phillips and

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Speaker 1: he needs the cash and soda, Steve Smith. But here's

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Speaker 1: my question for you.

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Speaker 2: And you're trying to tempt me, are you.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what you're so here's the question. Though,

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Speaker 1: when you're looking at Youngkin. One of the things I'm

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Speaker 1: struck by, and I'm not sure we've seen the end

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Speaker 1: of this, is that Youngkin said I'm a moderate. I'm

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Speaker 1: a mega moderate, right, which is an oxymoron pobastor. That's

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Speaker 1: the biggest lie they have going. But I'm a maga motterate.

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Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Voters were not fooled, right, And

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Speaker 1: even like a great example with Andy Buruscherer. Andy Bsherer

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Speaker 1: also ran against a quote unquote mega matter right. He

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Speaker 1: was black, you know, he came from McConnell world. He

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Speaker 1: was a little more mega moderate. He lost by more

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Speaker 1: than Broucheer won the last time. So I do think

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Speaker 1: there's a real thing happening here where voters are not

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Speaker 1: being fooled by the idea of a MAGA moderate.

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Speaker 3: Discuss First off, the idea of a MAGA moderate is

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Speaker 3: like a vegan cannibal It doesn't work, it's absurd.

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Speaker 1: But Youngkin shopped himself as that.

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Speaker 3: So Glenn Youngkin is advised by a guy named Jeff Row.

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Speaker 3: Jeff Row is the biggest Republican consultant in the country.

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Speaker 1: Right, He makes a ton of money.

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Speaker 3: He made a hundred million dollars and lost eleven races

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 1: So that's the kind of hit rate that that's the

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Speaker 1: Republican Party.

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Speaker 3: With this listen, I wish I had that track record,

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Speaker 3: that would be I would cry all the way to

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Speaker 3: the bank with that track record. But he was Glenn

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Speaker 3: Youngkin's consultant, still is Glen Youngkin's consultant. He's also contemporaneously

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Speaker 3: advising Rond de Santis and has spent something like eighty

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Speaker 3: million dollars of Rond de Santis's money. To see Rohnd

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Speaker 3: de Santis crash in the polls, good work, Jeff.

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Speaker 1: To see a whole discourse on does Rond de Santis

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Speaker 1: where heels or not?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, when you spent a week fighting about whether you

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Speaker 3: were drag boots, you're not doing well as.

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Speaker 1: A campaign killing it. No, no no good.

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Speaker 3: So long story, short money, Jeff Row has been telling

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Speaker 3: every major donor in the country and telling all these

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Speaker 3: Republican activists. Young can can split the difference. He can

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Speaker 3: go through the eye of the needle. He's the one

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Speaker 3: who can get the magas and get the gentry Republicans.

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Speaker 3: And it's all gonna And then it turns out that

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Speaker 3: because to get the magas, you have to adopt a

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Speaker 3: set of policy proposals, beliefs, worship of Donald Trump, a

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Speaker 3: whole set of rituals and statements that voters hate. So no, Glenn,

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Speaker 3: you can't get the mogas and still get the normies.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't work that way.

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Speaker 2: Again.

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Speaker 3: It's like being a vegan cannibal. There is no world

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Speaker 3: where you can cross the two streams. There's no world

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Speaker 3: where the horrific, grotesque, unacceptable nature of what the MAGA

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Speaker 3: base wants. Eg you know, stay home in the kitchen, Honey,

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Speaker 3: you're not pregnant again. It's been three three weeks that

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Speaker 3: shit and all the craziness of conspiracies and immigrations.

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Speaker 2: If you don't accept all of it, they will kill you.

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Speaker 3: It's like those things in zombie movies where if people

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Speaker 3: don't move too fast as zombies won't see them. But

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Speaker 3: to win anybody else outside of the Maga base, you

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Speaker 3: have to give away a signal and the magabase then

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Speaker 3: will turn and you will destroy you. That's what happened

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Speaker 3: to youngkin Well.

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Speaker 1: I also think the problem is this is not a policy.

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not running on policy and he never

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Speaker 1: has been. This is not a policy proposition. This is

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Speaker 1: a certain kind of personality proposition for all of.

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump's five billion, seven hundred and nineteen thousand, three

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Speaker 3: hundred and sixty three moral, personal, mental, social, ethical, political deficiencies.

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump has a kind of crude, grunting charisma, and

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Speaker 3: the people that love him love him because he's a dick.

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Speaker 3: They love him because he's on your retribution. Donald Trump

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Speaker 3: is the human permission to say the inWORD for his followers.

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Speaker 3: He's the human permission to tell everybody else to fuck off,

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Speaker 3: and they'll burn it down if they don't get their way.

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Speaker 3: And you know what, it's worked for him. It's worked

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Speaker 3: as a political tool for him now for almost nine years.

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Speaker 3: And I've been doing it since twenty fifteen, and I'm

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Speaker 3: so old.

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Speaker 1: I feel like we just went right into like Rick

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Speaker 1: Wilson therapy session, Like we were like and then he

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Speaker 1: was like, and I'm so old.

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Speaker 3: The thing about it is no, there's no policy around Trump.

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Speaker 3: It's all personality, it's all affect. It's all a show,

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Speaker 3: it's all performance, and none of these other people can

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Speaker 3: even get close to doing it.

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Speaker 1: Because they don't have the charisma. I mean, ultimately, this

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Speaker 1: is like it comes back to the weird truth about

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Speaker 1: presidential races, which is the guy who you want to

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Speaker 1: have a beer with wins, and for some god unknown reason,

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Speaker 1: people in the republic Party want to have a beer

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Speaker 1: with the orange guy and the implanted wig.

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Speaker 3: There's been a long time since Trump beat every Republican

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Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen, where very smart people have sat in

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Speaker 3: focus groups and sat in conference rooms and tried to

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Speaker 3: devise the secret sauce we're going to lure back the

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Speaker 3: Republican base from Donald Trump. And this idea you can

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Speaker 3: have a magical word or phrase that breaks the spell

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Speaker 3: of Donald Trump is wrong. He's a necromancer. He is

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Speaker 3: going to kill the party before he gives it up,

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Speaker 3: and it's almost dead as it is. I mean, look,

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Speaker 3: they have had consecutive election losses. If you take an

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Speaker 3: in aggregate national scale, and that's Congress, Senate, state houses,

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Speaker 3: state senates, local officials. They've lost almost two thousand seats

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Speaker 3: since twenty sixteen. They're smaller and weaker and crazier. And

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Speaker 3: if redistricting wasn't so incredibly powerful, the Republicans would be

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Speaker 3: basically a rump regional sort of political party. But they're

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Speaker 3: not because of the Electoral College and redistricting. And so

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Speaker 3: that's why we're in a position where a madman who

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Speaker 3: is promising to burn America to the ground has people going,

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Speaker 3: that's what I want more of.

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Speaker 2: That for a dollar.

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Speaker 1: Who do you think Trump picks as a vice president

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Speaker 1: chill nominee candidate?

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Speaker 3: My money right now, And I will tell you why

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Speaker 3: my money is right now, because of the obvious makeo her,

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Speaker 3: the and the and the low cut blouses lately. And

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Speaker 3: I mean that in the exactly the sexist way Donald

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Speaker 3: Trump does. Is Nancy Macey. She's out there being like

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Speaker 3: the biggest Trump girly. The two people inside the Republican

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Speaker 3: Party who desperately want to be vice president okay, who

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Speaker 3: are obvious about it, who are campaigning for it every day,

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Speaker 3: are at least staphonic. And Nancy Mace Carrie Lake had

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Speaker 3: her moment, and you know, Trump said, the money's on

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Speaker 3: the nightstand, Get the fuck out.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I was hoping we could plumb the depths

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Speaker 1: of sexism, and I see we have.

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Speaker 3: Yes, Well what I am channeling Donald Trump?

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Speaker 1: No, no, I appreciate it.

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Speaker 3: He was notoriously not not a man who has ever

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Speaker 3: treated women with shall we say respect or fairness. But

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Speaker 3: Stephanic and Mace right now are the two that everybody

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Speaker 3: said the GP is talking about. Mace is trying to

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Speaker 3: work it. Remember how they made Sarah Huckabe get a

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Speaker 3: makeover when she was Press secretary. Nancy mace is doing

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Speaker 3: the same thing, and she's like the wide eyed makeup

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Speaker 3: look and the whole big hair thing. Now she's really

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Speaker 3: working on him from what we're hearing, like her people

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Speaker 3: are like down at mar A Lago. My goodness, mister Trump,

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Speaker 3: you look handsome today. All the usual ass kissing crap. Now,

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Speaker 3: look does South Carolina? If he's worried about South Carolina,

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Speaker 3: it's not going to exactly help him. But it's amazing

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Speaker 3: to me that Nancy Macell used to be on calls

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Speaker 3: about never Trump stuff with me back about five years ago.

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Speaker 3: So good looking out, Nancy, don't think I forgot Thank you,

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Speaker 3: Rick Wilson, you are as always tremendously Welcome.

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Carl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News

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Speaker 1: and author of Tired of Winning, Donald Trump and the

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Speaker 1: End of the Grand Old Party. Welcome back to Fast Politics, John.

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Speaker 2: Carl, Thanks for having me back. It's great to be here.

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Speaker 1: Well, you write books very fast, so we have to

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Speaker 1: be back. But so let's talk about this book. It

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Speaker 1: must be so strange when you started this book, did

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Speaker 1: you think that Trump would be the Republican front runner?

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Speaker 2: The honest answer is now, I started this book thinking

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Speaker 2: that I would be writing about the kind of sad

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Speaker 2: demise of a disgraced former president. I was there, I'd

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Speaker 2: described in the book. I was there for his announcement

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Speaker 2: in November of twenty twenty two, when he announced his

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Speaker 2: third presidential campaign, and it was a pathetic affair. I mean,

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Speaker 2: nobody of any consequence from the Trump White House or

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Speaker 2: even the other two Trump campaigns was there. Most of

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Speaker 2: his family skipped the event, as you remember, couldn't show up.

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Speaker 2: Don Junior apparently had some flight troubles even though he

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Speaker 2: been there. Just a couple of days earl. None of

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Speaker 2: the former confirmed cabinet secretaries were there, none of his

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Speaker 2: former chiefs of staff, none of his former press secretaries,

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Speaker 2: none of his former campaign managers. It was as if

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Speaker 2: they had all kind of washed their hands of him

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Speaker 2: and thought that he was going to fade away. And

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Speaker 2: it sure looked that way. But by the way, Molly,

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Speaker 2: it got worse in the coming weeks. If you remember,

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Speaker 2: it was about a week later that he dined with

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Speaker 2: Kanye Nick Fuentes was about a week or two after

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Speaker 2: that that he said, you'd be proposed suspending the constitution.

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Speaker 2: If you look at the polls from December of twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty two, a month after he announced his presidential campaign,

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Speaker 2: he was actually losing to Ron DeSantis, who had an

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Speaker 2: anounced he was running yet, and he was losing pretty decisively.

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Speaker 2: There was a Wall Street Journal poll that had DeSantis

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Speaker 2: in the fifties and Trump at thirty eight percent. This

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Speaker 2: did not look like a guy that was going to

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Speaker 2: be the front runner for anything.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about Ron de Santis for a minute,

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Speaker 1: because he could have been the Republican nominee. I mean,

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Speaker 1: last January it really seemed like he could have this

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Speaker 1: and he was running on this sort of trumpsm without

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Speaker 1: the charisma, a sort of deluded you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: putting in policy that the sort of policies that Trump

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Speaker 1: might have supported, had he supported policies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that there are multiple factors that

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Speaker 2: have led to Trump going from being a disgraced former

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Speaker 2: president on his way to oblivion to being the clear

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Speaker 2: front runner for the Republican nomination. One of those things

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Speaker 2: is the utter weakness of the Ron DeSantis campaign. The

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Speaker 2: appeal of Trump was never about policy. There are no

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Speaker 2: real Trump policies. I mean, you know, he talks about

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Speaker 2: the border, he talks about making our allies pay more

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Speaker 2: for defense. If you've spent any time with him at

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Speaker 2: the White House, he spend more time talking about his

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Speaker 2: new color scheme for Air Force one. He got very

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Speaker 2: excited about. Yes, yes, you know, so here comes DeSantis.

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Speaker 2: Trump is engaging. I mean, people watch the guy. They

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Speaker 2: want to know what's going to happen next DeSantis. There's

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Speaker 2: nothing anything you collude to a Ron dessiontist speech.

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Speaker 1: That is true. I mean, he's the front runner. Last

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Speaker 1: week he was in court, he acted out pretty crazily.

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Speaker 1: We've never had a front run on our goog will

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Speaker 1: spend the year he's running for president in and out

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Speaker 1: of court facing ninety one indictments. How do you cover this?

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Speaker 1: How do you look down the barrel of a year

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Speaker 1: of what is so profoundly abnormal and also how profoundly

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Speaker 1: abnormal he was as president.

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Speaker 2: I don't think any of us really know what this

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Speaker 2: is going to look like. But I will tell you

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Speaker 2: this because I just had to go back to make

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Speaker 2: sure that the math was correct on this. But his

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Speaker 2: testimony in New York in the civil case against his

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Speaker 2: company was the eighth day that he has spent in

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Speaker 2: that courtroom over the last month. So he has spent

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Speaker 2: more days in court before any of these actual criminal

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Speaker 2: indictments have gone to trial. This is the civil case

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Speaker 2: against his company, where he has not required to be there.

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Speaker 2: He was required to testify, but he wasn't required to

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Speaker 2: be there when Michael Cohen took the stand or sons

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Speaker 2: took the stance, or any of that. And yet he

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Speaker 2: spent more time in that courtroom then he spent on

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Speaker 2: actual campaign events. And that will continue, I mean, it

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Speaker 2: will accelerate likely. Obviously, their main legal strategy is to

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Speaker 2: delay and postpone any trials until after the election. They're

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Speaker 2: not going to be able to do that across the board.

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Speaker 2: It sure seems like the January sixth federal case is

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Speaker 2: going to happen in early twenty twenty four. That's a

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Speaker 2: major trial. He's going to have Tybee in court. This

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Speaker 2: is nothing approaching a traditional campaign. This is a guy

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Speaker 2: who has spent very little time actually going out and

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Speaker 2: doing the rallies that animated his campaigns six in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 2: he has spent much time either playing golf, meeting with

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Speaker 2: his lawyers, or now in court.

435
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, have you seen a shift in the rallies. I've

436
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 1: read reporting that he's quieter in some rallies anyway, and

437
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 1: that though I've seen both, and that there's this contradiction

438
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: because these rallies are not as blustrous as they once were,

439
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,080
Speaker 1: at least some of them. And also there are lass

440
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:06,480
Speaker 1: and also his message is this bizarre message of retribution.

441
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 1: So explain to me what to make of any of those.

442
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:14,960
Speaker 2: Well, the message is retributions. So one thing he didn't

443
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 2: have when he launched last November was a coherent message.

444
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 2: It was teleprompter Trump, and they had encouraged him not

445
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:27,159
Speaker 2: to talk about the twenty twenty campaign, because if you remember,

446
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:29,840
Speaker 2: they had just come out of the midterms where Republicans

447
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:34,679
Speaker 2: had lost so decisively, especially that we're obsessed with stop

448
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 2: the Steal in twenty twenty. So he delivered this kind

449
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 2: of mix of policy stuff that he doesn't care about

450
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:43,639
Speaker 2: and has a little interest in, and a few old stories.

451
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:46,960
Speaker 2: I mean, it was a really dull and lackluster speech.

452
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 2: But as the indictments approached, he found a new message,

453
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:54,480
Speaker 2: and I think Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, was

454
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 2: a big part of helping him find this message. And

455
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 2: that message is in the words of his Seapac speech

456
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:05,440
Speaker 2: earlier this year, I am your retribution. This is a

457
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:11,160
Speaker 2: campaign of retribution against his enemies. And he's not really

458
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 2: talking about the Democrats here. In some cases, he's not

459
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:18,880
Speaker 2: even really talking about the prosecutors. He's talking about Republicans

460
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:21,199
Speaker 2: who have dared tried to get in his way or

461
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:25,239
Speaker 2: haven't been sufficiently loyal. It's an odd message for a

462
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 2: presidential campaign. It has very little to do with the

463
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 2: concerns of most voters right now, which are questions about

464
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 2: the economy, real concerns about Biden and his abilities going forward.

465
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 2: This is a weird message of let's go out and

466
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 2: destroy our enemies. His first campaign rally, which I devoted

467
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 2: some time to and it was months after his announcement,

468
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 2: but his first actual rally was in Waco, Texas. As

469
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon told me when I call him, weako, are

470
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 2: you kidding me? What Branch Davidians? And his answer was,

471
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 2: we are the Trump Davidians.

472
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: Yikes, do two seconds on the Branch Davidians. For those who.

473
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,680
Speaker 2: Don't remember, the Branch Davidians were a cult whose headquarters

474
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 2: called Mount Carmel, was in Waco. They had a legendarily

475
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 2: awful showdown with federal law enforcement. The Bureau of Alcohol

476
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 2: Tobacco bire ARMS had mentioned a siezure of Waco because

477
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 2: they believed that the group was stockpiling weapons, and the

478
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 2: siege lasted for some time, and as federal law enforcement

479
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 2: encircled the place, they eventually went in and there was

480
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 2: a massive inferno and more than fifty people were killed.

481
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 2: Very strange thing to say we are the Trump Davidians,

482
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 2: given what happened there. But Waco became this symbol to

483
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:50,239
Speaker 2: the far right of government, of a government out of

484
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 2: control of government out to get its people. So it

485
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 2: spawned a whole movement of armed militia groups who felt

486
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 2: that they needed to stockpile weapons, do some basic training

487
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,719
Speaker 2: in parking lots and out in the woods, just in

488
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 2: case the Feds came after them, they would be ready

489
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 2: to fight back for real. One of those inspired by

490
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 2: all this was Timothy McVeigh, who, a year after Waco,

491
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 2: a year to the day after the inferno in Waco,

492
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 2: bombed of the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing one

493
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty eight people, the deadliest domestic terrorist attack

494
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 2: in American history. So this is a strange place to

495
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,679
Speaker 2: begin your presidential campaign. Now, when you talk to the

496
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 2: Trump people as the data approach, they said, oh, no,

497
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:40,719
Speaker 2: it's just a coincidence. We're going to Texas because Texas

498
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 2: is an important state. As you know, Molly, Texas is

499
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 2: not an important state in the Republican primary process. It's

500
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 2: not a battleground state and the general election. There's no

501
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 2: reason have your launch at Texas. And if you're going

502
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 2: to be in Texas, Wacos. I mean, it's quite a

503
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,400
Speaker 2: coincidence to be in Waco. So to hear Bannon, who

504
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:01,719
Speaker 2: is really the guy who I think is given Trump

505
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 2: this new message that has given a rebirth to his

506
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:09,120
Speaker 2: third presidential campaign to hear him just declare we are

507
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 2: the Trump Davidians. It is not by accident. It is

508
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 2: because Trump this new message is to portray our own

509
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 2: federal government as the true enemy, the deep state. Anybody

510
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 2: who is can be portrayed as going after Trump.

511
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:26,679
Speaker 1: It's such a scary idea, right because it does feel

512
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:30,440
Speaker 1: and again, you know, we can't ever talk about what's

513
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 1: in people's hearts and minds, but it certainly feels like

514
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,639
Speaker 1: this is sort of playing on the kind of anti

515
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: government impulses. They could really turn dangerous, There's no question.

516
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 2: I mean, we saw the anti government impulses turned dangerous

517
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 2: on January sixth. Obviously, we also saw them turn dangerous

518
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 2: in you know, shortly after the FBI did the search

519
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 2: at mar A Lago, when he saw Gunman go into

520
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 2: an FBI field office in Ohio. The undertones of violence

521
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 2: are all there. I at another point, I talked to

522
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 2: everybody around Trump and the writing of this book to

523
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 2: try to understand where they were coming from and what

524
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 2: they were doing. And Bannon spoke to me for quite

525
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 2: a bit on the record and one state. One thing

526
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 2: he said to me really stood out, which is I

527
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,360
Speaker 2: asked him, aren't you worried that all this will lead

528
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 2: to violence? And without missing a beat, his answer was no,

529
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 2: because we are going to win.

530
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 1: Yes, it's really scary.

531
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 2: And the apocalyptic way in which this election is described

532
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 2: by Trump. You know, we called this, he says, twenty

533
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 2: twenty four is our final battle. I mean, it sounds

534
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 2: like they're building up for something bigger than January sixth.

535
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 2: You know that if this all ends in a Trump loss,

536
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 2: either in the Republican primary, which I think is still possible,

537
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 2: by the way, or in a general election, it's not

538
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: going to end with a Trump concession.

539
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: No, He's never conceded to anything ever, and he never

540
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: will tell me why You think he could still not

541
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: get the nomination, because that's totally fascinating.

542
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 2: Because I think that he is incredibly volatile, more volatile

543
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 2: than he has ever been. I think he is more

544
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 2: divorced from reality than he has ever been. We just

545
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 2: don't know how he's going to react as we head

546
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 2: into the actual criminal trials. I think that those are

547
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 2: necessarily what's you know, there's one theory that you know

548
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 2: these Republicans that will vote for an indicted residential candidate

549
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 2: won't vote for a convicted one. I'm not sure that's true,

550
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 2: but look, I don't think that people have paid much

551
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 2: attention to Trump over the past two and a half years.

552
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 2: May sounds strange to say.

553
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: No, I think that's completely right.

554
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 2: You know, the trials have gotten all kinds of attention,

555
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 2: and we've all, you know, January sixth hearings and all that,

556
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 2: but Trump himself and what he has been up to

557
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 2: and what he's talking about now and where his head

558
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 2: is at A good chunk of the two years after

559
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 2: he left, two years after he left the White House,

560
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 2: truly pursuing this insane QAnon notion that there was a

561
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 2: way that Joe Biden would be evicted from the White House,

562
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 2: that the twenty twenty election would be somehow overturned even

563
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 2: after it was certified, even after the inauguration, after all

564
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 2: of that, and that he would go back into the

565
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 2: White House before the next presidential election. I first saw

566
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 2: some of this stuff, just you know, the kind of

567
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 2: whack jobs like Michae Lindell and I mean Trump. I

568
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 2: learned as I was saying, what is he up to

569
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 2: what's he talking to people about what's going on behind

570
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 2: the walls in mar A Lago. And he was, you know,

571
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 2: tracking the cyber Ninja's recount out in Arizona like it

572
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 2: was really something that was going to overturn the election

573
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 2: results there. I mean, we're talking long after the election

574
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 2: was over. This is crazy stuff, and that it was

575
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 2: going to lead to this kind of domino effect in

576
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 2: the other states, that he was going to be back

577
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 2: in the White House. So and now you see, you know,

578
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 2: just the other day speech in Texas, he's talking about

579
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 2: the people that are that have been convicted of attacking

580
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 2: police officers on January sixth, of breaking into the US

581
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 2: Capitol building. He's talking about them as hostages. Now he

582
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 2: says that they're not they're not prisoners, they're hostages. He

583
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 2: is more divorced from reality than he was on January

584
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 2: six And I don't think that the polls in any

585
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 2: way reflect that, don't I don't think even the vast

586
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 2: majority of Republican primary voters are quite aware of what

587
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 2: Trump has become. And as you get closer, there will

588
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 2: need to be more scrutiny, They'll need to be more coverage.

589
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 2: I mean, Fox stopped covering him. This is not just

590
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 2: the so called mainstream media. I mean, you know, Fox

591
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 2: basically turned away from him, and that actually helped him

592
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 2: because people didn't see I.

593
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: Think that's such a great point, and I also think

594
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: that Fox actually did him a favor. We don't know,

595
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, who is to know what's happening in

596
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: the hearts and minds of the Fox empire where it

597
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: stands now. But I do think that as we talk

598
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 1: about this, I mean, when you watch these rallies that

599
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: aren't getting that much coverage. The thing I've been bringing

600
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: up recently is this idea he confused Jeb Bush with

601
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: w Bush like it wasn't even you know, he said

602
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: he ran against the guy who started the Iraq War.

603
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: So there certainly does seem like his time lapse problems

604
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: that he's never had before.

605
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 2: I mean, he thinks that the guy he ran against

606
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 2: was Obama. I mean, it's right exactly. So, yeah, the

607
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 2: mental acuity is not solely a question that Biden has

608
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 2: to address, but it's more than that. It's this extreme agenda.

609
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 2: It's an agenda I think a lot of what is

610
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 2: driving the poles. You know, all these kinds of hypothetical,

611
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 2: which doesn't seem so hypothetical anymore. Trump Biden rematch polls,

612
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 2: whether it be the New York Times battleground state, you know,

613
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 2: polls over the weekend, or you know, any number of

614
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 2: the general election matchups, would show that Trump is either

615
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 2: tied with Biden or beating Biden. A lot of that

616
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 2: is based on the fact that the overwhelming majority of

617
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 2: Americans like the country is on the wrong track. This

618
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 2: is not some well this people suddenly think, you know,

619
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 2: Trump is the savior. But I've spent a fair amount

620
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 2: of time in Iowa with the various candidates, have been

621
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 2: at some Trump events, have been at some DeSantis events,

622
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:31,239
Speaker 2: you know how notoriously unreliable pulling in the Iowa CAU.

623
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 2: Because this has been over the years, especially a couple

624
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 2: of months out, it really wouldn't surprise me to see

625
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:41,239
Speaker 2: Trump not win in Iowa. And then the question is,

626
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 2: given this volatility, given where his head is at, and

627
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 2: given that he'll be staring down the beginning of his

628
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 2: first Special Council trial, how does he react to that?

629
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 2: How to Republican voters react to his reaction? I mean again,

630
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 2: we'll see, certainly, look he's the overwhelming front runner. Obviously,

631
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 2: he's talked about by most people as the presumptive nominee.

632
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 2: It's almost like he's an incumbent. But I am not convinced.

633
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 4: John.

634
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back. Thank you so much.

635
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Molly. It's great to talk

636
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 2: to you.

637
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: Brian Stelter is the author of Network of Lies, The

638
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle

639
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: for American Democracy. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Brian Stelder.

640
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 4: It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

641
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 1: The book is called Network of Lies, but I love

642
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: this excerpt in Rolling Stone with Laura Ingram on the

643
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: Fox News division. They aren't smart. Just explain to us

644
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 1: where that comes from.

645
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 4: It comes from this amazing treasure trove of materials that

646
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 4: Dominion Voting Systems obtained through its lawsuit against Fox. That

647
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 4: treasure trove is why I had to write this book.

648
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 4: I was not out there looking to write about Fox anymore.

649
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 4: I was enjoying my time off after being haustiff from CNN.

650
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 4: I've been living the dream Molly told you about that

651
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 4: last time we talked. But then these emails and text

652
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 4: messages surfaced through the Dominion case, and they were so

653
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 4: damning and so revealing. I have never seen a media

654
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:13,919
Speaker 4: company expose like this on the record before. So yeah,

655
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 4: you have lor Ingram complaining, bitching and moaning about the

656
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 4: journalists of Fox, the correspondents saying they're not smart, Hannity

657
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 4: doing the same thing.

658
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,720
Speaker 1: The serious people right, like the foreign policy people.

659
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 4: Right. You have these primetime stars saying the news division

660
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 4: breaks no news. Ever, Hannity says they hate all three

661
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 4: of us, And you know what, Hannity wasn't wrong. The

662
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:38,879
Speaker 4: tension was very real, and the tension still is very

663
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 4: real between the propagandists and the people who they come

664
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 4: from a conservative point of view. Yeah, they're flawed, but

665
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:47,720
Speaker 4: at least they're trying to be in the news business.

666
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I think that's a really good point,

667
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: and I would love it if you could just talk

668
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: about that more. There are these people right there are

669
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:02,200
Speaker 1: kind of know, you know, some of them are very

670
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: very good even you know, there are real reporters in

671
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: that network.

672
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say there are fewer and fewer every year,

673
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 4: but there are some people still putting up a fight.

674
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:15,439
Speaker 4: Jackie Heinrich is one of them. She's a White House correspondent.

675
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 4: I write about the text messages disparaging her, and you

676
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 4: have Hannity saying, she's a twenty seven year old fake

677
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,919
Speaker 4: reporter wrecking our network. You know, he wants to fight

678
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 4: with these people, he wants to fight with his own colleagues.

679
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,800
Speaker 4: And by the way, the head of Fox News, Suzanne Scott,

680
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 4: she sides with the opinion people. She sides with the propagandists,

681
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 4: so the big liars of the Big lie, she sides

682
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 4: with them over the reporters. There's a remarkable email that

683
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 4: I think kind of got missed in the initial coverage

684
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 4: last spring. Remember when Dominion Fox settled, some of these

685
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 4: emails and texts came out and there was some attention

686
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 4: around it. But because I spent months reconstructing this and

687
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 4: going through all all the emails, I found these other

688
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 4: examples that were just mind blowing to me. You had

689
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 4: Suzanne Scott, the head of Fox News, saying that a

690
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 4: fact check, some random reporter fact checking handed and fact

691
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,840
Speaker 4: checking Trump was quote bad for business. It has to stop.

692
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 4: Like it was that kind of stuff that was going

693
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 4: on inside Fox where the management was siding with the

694
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 4: liars over the truth tellers.

695
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: Because it's for ratings.

696
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 4: Because it's for ratings, it's for profits. I would say, ultimately,

697
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 4: Susann Scott, you know, she has to hit her profit targets,

698
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 4: keep the money flowing in. And here's the kind of

699
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 4: sad but true part of the story. It worked, She worked,

700
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 4: They succeeded. You know, Fox's audience bounced back. The network

701
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 4: remains the beating heart of the GOP, for better and

702
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:31,479
Speaker 4: for worse.

703
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: Oftentimes for worse does feel like Fox is a little

704
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: bit quieter lightly.

705
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 4: I think that is because of Tarer Carlson's oulster, and

706
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 4: that's how Fox wants it. Fox wanted to lower the volume.

707
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 4: Laughlin Murdoch wanted to lower the volume because he thinks

708
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:47,720
Speaker 4: at the end it goes back to the profit targets.

709
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 4: He thinks it's better for business to be, you know,

710
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 4: a little less scandalous, a little less controversial. I hesitate

711
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 4: to say this, Molly, because when I look at the network,

712
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 4: I see scandalous and misinformation all the time. Right there

713
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 4: is nonsense on the air on any given day. Is

714
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:05,399
Speaker 4: a whole lot to fact check. You know, you could

715
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 4: have an entire department trying to debunk the bs on

716
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 4: Fox every day. But that said, at least Tucker Carlson's

717
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 4: not on the air doing what Tarer Carlson did, you

718
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 4: know what I mean, there is a market change from

719
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 4: what happened when Tucker was there.

720
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still the lie, right, It's just the lie

721
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: is quieter. You're not seeing sort of your friends. I mean,

722
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: the thing I was always shocked by was you would

723
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 1: just see people like Ben Collins or Taylor or this

724
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 1: one or that one just you know, Tucker would just

725
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: go after them and say these insane things and then

726
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: they're you know, they'd have to basically go and dide it.

727
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 4: Maybe this is the wrong analogy. I haven't tried it

728
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 4: out before, but it's a difference between like an F

729
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 4: and a D minus. You know, like Fox is still failing,

730
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 4: but it's not doing it in as explosive and in

731
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 4: crazy a way. And I think that's intentional on the

732
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 4: part of Lachlan and Suzann Scott. They want the tone

733
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 4: to be slightly different so that the likes of Media

734
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,240
Speaker 4: Matters or you know, More and Joe are not talking

735
00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 4: about them as much. And again I think that's the strategy.

736
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 1: If that's true, right, They're trying to be sort of

737
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: quieter but still run this sort of thing, this sort

738
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,319
Speaker 1: of the tension is make Trump happy, but don't make

739
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:18,320
Speaker 1: Trump too happy.

740
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:22,239
Speaker 4: Oh, the Trump Fox relationship is so twisted, and he

741
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 4: keeps getting more and more and more twisted, because I

742
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 4: would argue, you know, Fox is fundamentally in Trump's camp.

743
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 4: They think they're better at being Trump than Trump. Like

744
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 4: they think they do. Trump isn't better than Trump, you know,

745
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:35,839
Speaker 4: And there's a conflict there. For sure. Trump will never

746
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 4: be satisfied with what he hears and sees on Fox.

747
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 4: It's not in his DNA to be satisfied by the

748
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 4: media coverage of his campaign. But that said, Fox is

749
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 4: doing tremendous favors every day, whether he wants to admit

750
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 4: that and see that or not. Like what I think,

751
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 4: every day, Fox is accepting his status as the lifely nominee.

752
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,319
Speaker 4: I think Fox is not putting up the roadblocks that

753
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 4: we saw year or two ago, you know, where there

754
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 4: was a lot of attention and promotion of Ron de Santis.

755
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 4: There is an acceptance of Trump and doesn't have to

756
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 4: be that way. You know, do you think I'm crazy

757
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,319
Speaker 4: to say that no, Fox could put up more of

758
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 4: a fight, I guess is what I'm trying to sell. Ultimately,

759
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,240
Speaker 4: Trump is the leader and Fox is just the follower,

760
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 4: and it doesn't have to be that way. Yes, he

761
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 4: rants about Fox on True's social Yes he complains, but

762
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 4: he also gives interviews to the network. And he may

763
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 4: not admit this, but it's.

764
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 2: Clear to me.

765
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 4: Fox is doing him favors every day. They're helping him

766
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 4: to support him in so many ways. I had a

767
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:33,319
Speaker 4: source say to me as I was finishing the book,

768
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 4: and so I added this at the very end. Murdoch

769
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 4: family friends say to me, Rupert hates Trump. He can't

770
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 4: believe we're going to end up back with Trump. But

771
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 4: the thing about that quote, it was so frustrating when

772
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 4: I heard. I believe it's true. I think that is

773
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 4: the true posture of Ruper Murdoc and his son Lachlin.

774
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 4: They've accepted Trump is going to be the nominemos lya.

775
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 4: But Fox's programming moves and rhetorical postures. They're not resisting.

776
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:00,799
Speaker 4: They're accommodating. You know, they're not putting up a fight.

777
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:02,879
Speaker 4: They're going along with this.

778
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,840
Speaker 1: The sequel, isn't that because they think, at least again,

779
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: I don't want to give anyone any credit here, but

780
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 1: basically they did sort of try after January six and

781
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:17,760
Speaker 1: the viewers were like, no, we're going along with Trump.

782
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 4: That's right. I think it's important to recognize and when

783
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:23,399
Speaker 4: Trump perceives the Fox was against him, he's right. That's

784
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 4: not a conspiracy theory. There was a conspiracy, Ruper Murdock said,

785
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:29,919
Speaker 4: and we now know it thanks to the dominion treasure trove.

786
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 4: He said, we want to make Trump a non person.

787
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 4: We're pivoting away from Trump. There was a great email

788
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 4: I found from Suzanne Scott to Rupert in the weeks

789
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 4: after January sixth, saying, Hannity is is going to lead

790
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 4: the seventy five million away from Trump meeting those seventy

791
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 4: five million voters vote for Trump handed, He's going to

792
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 4: lead them away from Trump. This was very much a

793
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 4: concerted effort inside Fox, but it fizzled. It fizzled.

794
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:55,240
Speaker 1: He couldn't do it. He wasn't more powerful than Trump.

795
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 4: Ultimately, I suppose that's right, although there's a part of

796
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 4: me that thinks if Fox was more reality based, if

797
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 4: the hosts were held accountable by the management, I think

798
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 4: there could have been a very different path.

799
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: But once they got to that point, they couldn't pull back.

800
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 4: If Fox viewers heard every day a more truthful account

801
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 4: of what Trump is and what he says and what

802
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 4: he represents, if there was a focus on the most

803
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 4: incendiary and dangerous comments he makes as opposed to you know,

804
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 4: like a frat boy party atmosphere when talking about Trump,

805
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 4: there was a more reality based assessment of Trump by

806
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 4: right wing media, we might be in a different place,

807
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:31,200
Speaker 4: but I understand that that's an impossibility.

808
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, though. Tell me about what you see

809
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: now at CNN, because I'm curious so much has happened

810
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,479
Speaker 1: at that network. I'm curious what your take is. Since

811
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 1: you've been in it, you've been out of it, you've

812
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 1: been in it, what's your take.

813
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 4: My take is in CNN is firing in all cylinders,

814
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 4: you know. I think CNN, MSNBC, and NBC, ABC, CBS.

815
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 4: With this election, there's going to be networks that are

816
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 4: reality based and networks that are not. And you know,

817
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 4: it seems to me CNN is right the right in

818
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 4: the place it should be saying the truth about what's happening.

819
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 4: I think some of the attempts last year, which again,

820
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 4: I only I perceived, just like you, from the outside,

821
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 4: attempts to show that the network was open to Trump.

822
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,879
Speaker 4: That was obviously very fraud very stressful for staffers who

823
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:19,320
Speaker 4: felt like they weren't able to speak truth to power.

824
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 4: But it feels to me, and maybe I'm wrong, it

825
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 4: feels to me that that period or that phase, whatever

826
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 4: that was, is over. That's just me as a viewer,

827
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 4: But I think when it comes to Trump or other

828
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 4: want to be autocrats, networks like CNN have to be

829
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:32,840
Speaker 4: louder than the liars. And that's what I think CNN

830
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 4: was doing in the Trump ears, That's what I think

831
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 4: hosts like, surely we're trying to do. We weren't always

832
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:38,800
Speaker 4: getting it right, but we were trying to be louder

833
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 4: than the liars, and we were trying to speak truth

834
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:43,280
Speaker 4: to power. And that's what I see CNN doing now.

835
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:47,400
Speaker 1: And you don't feel like they're still a sort of

836
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,879
Speaker 1: Trump is not a normal Republican candidate, but he does

837
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:53,720
Speaker 1: seem like he's being largely treated that way.

838
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 4: I guess I might take that comment and turn it

839
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 4: around and say, Trump now is the normal Republican party

840
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 4: and that's the store. Perhaps is that he is now

841
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 4: what the party is.

842
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:06,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree with that to a certain extent,

843
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 1: But like I think you and I can both agree

844
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: that if you elected a Tim Scott or Nikki Haley.

845
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly those two people are very problematic with

846
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: very problematic views, but they will not in democracy with

847
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,240
Speaker 1: quite the same zeal as a Donald Trump.

848
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 4: There's definitely a market difference, right, I.

849
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: Mean, Donald Trump is planning to execute Mark Milly. I mean,

850
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 1: this is not normal stuff. Maybe Vivak would also execute

851
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 1: Mark Milly. He did call Zelenski a Nazi, so and

852
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: he is Jewish. That's pretty disgusting, But he doesn't have

853
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: a sort of plan to kill people who were in

854
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:49,359
Speaker 1: his administration.

855
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:51,799
Speaker 4: You may have made me speechless, Molly, because when you

856
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:53,919
Speaker 4: say it that way, you know, it makes makes me think.

857
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:56,439
Speaker 1: I mean, I just don't know how you horse race

858
00:44:56,600 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: this when he is clearly planning something that we've ever seen.

859
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 4: Well, part of me wonders if what we're seeing is

860
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 4: just very very early stage coverage because there have not

861
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 4: been votes yet, because we have not had primaries yet.

862
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 4: I would like to think, I would like to hope,

863
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 4: I would like to believe that there will be more

864
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 4: intensive and more challenging coverage of those claims of Trump's

865
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 4: plans in twenty twenty four, you know, when there's an

866
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,400
Speaker 4: actual primary season. But that might let the media off

867
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 4: the hook to say that we're still in the pregame

868
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:27,240
Speaker 4: mode because all of this, as you said, is actively happening.

869
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:30,800
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about Margaret Sullivan's really good piece today. We

870
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:35,399
Speaker 1: saw this polang again. Three thousand people, six states, but

871
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 1: they are the six states that matter, you know, saying

872
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 1: that Trump had better mental acuity. It doesn't matter how

873
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 1: cute you are if you're sending people the gitmo because

874
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: they drew an unflattering court sketch of you. I mean,

875
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: I think that the gravity of what Donald Trump is

876
00:45:55,239 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 1: has not been accurately explained to people, people who read

877
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: the mainstream media, and that is a problem.

878
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 4: I'm with you, But I think the bigger problem is

879
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:09,720
Speaker 4: that the likes of Fox and Newsmax don't even flinch

880
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:12,359
Speaker 4: when they hear about some of these stories, don't even

881
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 4: bother to spend the time. I'm backing it. And then

882
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 4: the even more troubling part is there's a lot of

883
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 4: Americans who apparently want what Trump is selling.

884
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 1: He's a charismatic charlatan who even cares if he's a

885
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: psychobouther or not. He's a Charlotte, and he's shopping something

886
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 1: that the American people, some of the American people, think

887
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 1: they want. What I'm struck by, though, if we're gonna

888
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: journey back to twenty sixteen twenty fifteen, is that you know,

889
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 1: you'd watch those rallies and they would be so unhinged.

890
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: But the thing that he would offer people that Hillary

891
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 1: would not. And obviously I'm not two citing this voted

892
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: for Hillary. But the thing that I think is really

893
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: relevant is he was offering people something. Right. He was saying,

894
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 1: come with me, I will bring your jobs back, I

895
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: will do this, I will do that. He didn't do

896
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 1: any of those things. But these people nobody like explained

897
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: to them that he didn't do any of those things. Right,

898
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: So isn't now a failing on the mainstream media like

899
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 1: he says? And even now you'll say, you know, we're

900
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 1: going to build a wall with Mexico. Actually we've already

901
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,880
Speaker 1: built it and it's there, right, We've already built it

902
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 1: into there.

903
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 2: Okay.

904
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: And then now Congress Mike Johnson is like, we need

905
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: to get going on this wall. Are the people who

906
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: are supposed to tell Donald Trump, to tell Donald Trump's

907
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:28,479
Speaker 1: people that there is no wall, right.

908
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 4: I mean, I think this gets to more of a

909
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 4: profound psychological problem. And that's maybe why I'm less critical

910
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 4: of the media and more interested in what's going on

911
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 4: in people's brains about this. Like I end Network of

912
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:40,799
Speaker 4: Lies with this quote from a guy that was at

913
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 4: the Iowa State Fair in August. Trump had just been

914
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 4: indicted again. So an NBC reporter came up to this

915
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 4: guy named Jeff, a school custodian in Iowa, and said,

916
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:51,080
Speaker 4: do you care that he's been indicted four times? And

917
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:53,400
Speaker 4: the man said no, it just makes me want to

918
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,359
Speaker 4: vote for him more. And the reporter said why and

919
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 4: the man said, And this, to me is the whole ballgame,

920
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 4: he said, because whoever the Democrats hate is who I like.

921
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 4: And I think we need to cover politics more through

922
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:07,959
Speaker 4: that prism and less through the you know, who's who's

923
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 4: spending the most. I mean, it's all important, who's spending

924
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 4: the most money, what are the policy positions? All that's important.

925
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 4: But I think it's like we need more, We need

926
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 4: more psychologists on television to explain this to us, because

927
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,319
Speaker 4: what we're going through is a battle of the soul

928
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 4: and the heart and the brain. Do you know what

929
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,400
Speaker 4: I'm saying. There's no fact check that's going to change

930
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 4: his thinking about politics.

931
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, except that he doesn't understand that the

932
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 1: Trump's legal problems are of Trump zone making and not

933
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party zone maker.

934
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 2: Right.

935
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:38,240
Speaker 4: But no, We're amount of reporting or fact checking your narrative,

936
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,919
Speaker 4: debunking or anything is going to is going to get

937
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:44,800
Speaker 4: through to a wide swath of voters who only trust

938
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 4: Jesse Waters and only trust Eric Bowling and only trust

939
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 4: our Carlson.

940
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:50,879
Speaker 1: Again, when we were talking about this earlier, I mean

941
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: you did say that if Eric Bowling and Tucker Carlson

942
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: and Greg Gottfeld explanation point. I mean, if they were

943
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: to go on television and say like, look, here are

944
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:07,239
Speaker 1: the other Republicans and Democrats who have committed fraud with

945
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: their accounting, and this is what happened to them, right.

946
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:13,319
Speaker 1: I mean part of it is there's a certain lack

947
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: of knowledge where people don't understand that there's precedent for

948
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 1: all of this stuff, right, Like if you leak classified documents,

949
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:24,800
Speaker 1: even if you're just showing off at a dinner, you

950
00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: go to jail no matter who you are, right, I mean,

951
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:32,400
Speaker 1: think of all the military generals and the captains and

952
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: the lower level people even who ended up spending the

953
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: rest of their lives in jail because they took a

954
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 1: document that they weren't supposed to do and sent it

955
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:43,759
Speaker 1: to someone. I mean, I do think there's a lack

956
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: of explanation here about precedent. And what you said before

957
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:50,400
Speaker 1: is if the right wing media were able to you know,

958
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: if they just explained this again and again and again,

959
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: people would get it.

960
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:58,239
Speaker 4: And that is why, like in Network of Lise, I

961
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 4: come to this idea of followers versus leaders that people

962
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 4: think Fox is leading. I think Fox should be leading.

963
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:06,400
Speaker 4: I think Rubert and Lochla Murdock have an ethical and

964
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 4: moral responsibility to share truthful information to an audience that

965
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 4: is starving for truth. However, Fox is not leading, they're

966
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,360
Speaker 4: just following. People think they're leaders, they think they're in

967
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 4: the driver's seat and they're actually the passenger. And that's

968
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:22,279
Speaker 4: why the car keeps crashing, right, That's why the car

969
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 4: keeps crashing because they're not driving. They should be driving.

970
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 4: But that said, there's going to be a moment where

971
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 4: there's going to be a trial and there's going to

972
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:30,719
Speaker 4: be a verdict. In that moment, the verdict will be

973
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:33,480
Speaker 4: read and people will hear it. Maybe that matters still

974
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 4: right because your point about class, about ever reason, Maybe

975
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 4: the verdict will still matter. Or maybe the propagandists will

976
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,800
Speaker 4: just shout so loudly that people can ignore the verdict

977
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 4: and tell themselves are about themselves.

978
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:46,880
Speaker 1: Brian Stelter, thank you for joining me.

979
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:48,879
Speaker 4: Thank you. I don't know if this made us feel

980
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 4: better or worse, but it's important to talk about.

981
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 2: No moment.

982
00:50:56,920 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, you are a special fackery gas.

983
00:51:00,239 --> 00:51:04,360
Speaker 3: I try to always bring the fuckery is all right, listen,

984
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:07,279
Speaker 3: this is a sort of not national politics fuckery, but

985
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:09,799
Speaker 3: I have to say it. I really thought New York

986
00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 3: could not have a worse mayor than build a Blasio, and.

987
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 2: Yet somehow.

988
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: I feel attacked.

989
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 3: How is it that your mayor has somehow gotten swept

990
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 3: up in an FBI rate about Turkish influence money?

991
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 2: I mean, get the fuck out of what is going on.

992
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:30,800
Speaker 1: My favorite part of this story is that no one

993
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: is surprised, literally if you the fact that they talk

994
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:40,320
Speaker 1: our mayor's cell phone that the FBI decided they needed

995
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:44,359
Speaker 1: to confiscate both his cell phone and his iPads. There

996
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 1: is not a person who we know, Jesse Cannon. Do

997
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 1: you know anyone who was surprised by that bit?

998
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 2: Absolutely, DoD Look, I'm not surprised.

999
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 3: I'm just fascinated, Like, how is it that he combines

1000
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 3: like so much obvious grifting and incompetence and tone deafness

1001
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:05,919
Speaker 3: in one package early in his term.

1002
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 2: It really does amaze me.

1003
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:11,359
Speaker 1: The mayoral curse, it's real, man, it's real.

1004
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 3: Listen as a former senior advisor to the mayor of

1005
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 3: New York City and w Giuliani.

1006
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 1: Who makes them all look pretty good. And by the way,

1007
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:21,920
Speaker 1: I'm no fan of Rudy Juliani.

1008
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 3: Rudy's problem is the mayoral curse and the everything Trump

1009
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 3: touches dies curse.

1010
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:28,240
Speaker 2: Had a dirty weekend.

1011
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 3: I produced the single worst set of outcomes for any individual.

1012
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. Oh, you want to know

1013
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: what my moment of fucker is?

1014
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:39,439
Speaker 2: I do. I was just going to ask.

1015
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 1: It is the laddered cr so mega Mike Johnson, the

1016
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House. It's about to be Thanksgiving. He's

1017
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: already shopped this idea that he's going to do his

1018
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 1: laddered CR. Everyone, including I think Mitch McConnell, told him

1019
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:58,360
Speaker 1: to shut the fuck up once again.

1020
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 3: When Mitch McConnell is the the most serious person in

1021
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 3: Washington and the Republicans hate him more than they hate

1022
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer or HACKEM Jefferies. I'm not standing for Mitch McConnell.

1023
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, may he live at least another year

1024
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 3: to continue torturing Mike Johnson.

1025
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:18,440
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that he weighed in on this, but

1026
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,080
Speaker 1: everyone else has weighed in and said that a laddered

1027
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:24,760
Speaker 1: CR is a last minute patch to keep the government

1028
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 1: from shutting down. Mike Johnson said, We're going to do

1029
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 1: it in a laddered way so it keeps coming up

1030
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:32,280
Speaker 1: at different times to make everyone come back from vacation.

1031
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 1: Not only do Republicans hate it, Democrats hate it. Everyone

1032
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:39,280
Speaker 1: hates it. Where are like seven more days of government

1033
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:41,239
Speaker 1: funding until a shut down? Right?

1034
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 3: I was also told by a donor about this. You

1035
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 3: guys sent me an email this morning. They said, you

1036
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:48,960
Speaker 3: understand that the rating agencies will lose their fucking minds

1037
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:49,439
Speaker 3: if he does.

1038
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 1: This is nobody's never happening.

1039
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 2: It's madness.

1040
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:55,319
Speaker 1: It's madness. So and by the way, I would like

1041
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: to point out the Republicans who were so pro Israel

1042
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 1: and obsessed with Israel. No funding they have done, no funding.

1043
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:03,439
Speaker 2: Is that a damn thing.

1044
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:07,240
Speaker 1: If you think they give a shit about anyone, you're wrong.

1045
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see a government shut down,

1046
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: or somebody's going to scramble, or five Republicans are going

1047
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,200
Speaker 1: to vote with the Democrats. Seems unlikely to May.

1048
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 3: This was inevitable when Johnson was elected Speaker. The rule

1049
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:23,400
Speaker 3: that would kill him if Matt Gates or any of

1050
00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:25,839
Speaker 3: these other morons gets a hard on to say, oh.

1051
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 2: Look him anymore. He's voted for them big lib TRD budgets.

1052
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 2: He'll go.

1053
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:33,480
Speaker 1: The one person motion to vacate is still there.

1054
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:36,600
Speaker 3: We're ungovernable. That's really something you want to hear from

1055
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 3: your from from the leaders of the the body of

1056
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 3: the legislative body that represents the vast majority of the

1057
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:42,320
Speaker 3: American people.

1058
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 1: Good luck and that is our moment of fuckery. Thank you,

1059
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:46,720
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson.

1060
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:49,520
Speaker 3: As always, I am delighted to be with you, and

1061
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 3: I will see you again next week here on Fast Politics.

1062
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:58,719
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

1063
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:02,000
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday on Friday to hear the best minds

1064
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:05,239
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you

1065
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend

1066
00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:11,640
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.