Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Donald Trump is now calling people
Speaker 1: vermin This is something that the Nazis did and a
Speaker 1: really scary sign of authoritarianism. We have an amazing show today.
Speaker 1: ABC News is Chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Carl stops by
Speaker 1: to talk to us all about his new book, Tired
Speaker 1: of Winning, Donald Trump and the End of the Grand
Speaker 1: Old Party. Then we'll talk to Brian Stelter about his
Speaker 1: new Fox News Tell All Network of Lies, the epic
Speaker 1: saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for
Speaker 1: American democracy. But first we have the host of the
Speaker 1: Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson. Welcome, two
Speaker 1: Best Politics.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson, Molli Jong Fast back with you. Was always
Speaker 2: has been of the hits of the seventies, eighties, and nineties.
Speaker 1: Here are the hits. Karl Rove had a good idea
Speaker 1: the Democrat should do, and I'm talking about ballot initiatives,
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, do a little TLDR on ballot initiatives in
Speaker 1: your former party because you're a Democrat now sorry.
Speaker 3: Ballot initiatives are used by the Republican Party very frequently
Speaker 3: to do what we call shaping the battlefield. And so
Speaker 3: in two thousand and four, and remember, folks, try to
Speaker 3: look at this through the eyes of two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: the Republican Party, to a bunche of surveys.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson is letting us into his naughty past. Continue, sir,
Speaker 1: my dirty, dirty past stories that can only be told
Speaker 1: after dark or here on Fast Politics, or for people
Speaker 1: who I love him despite his previously fascist leanings. Continue.
Speaker 2: Have you ever had fascist leanings? Per se per se?
Speaker 3: It's like in South Park and said, I'm not a
Speaker 3: seguinary of Empire per se.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: So long story short, back in two thousand and four
Speaker 3: and some very smart researchers because by the way, Democrats
Speaker 3: never underestimate the fact that Republican Party has a gigantic
Speaker 3: number of really fucking smart people working for it. It's
Speaker 3: something you fail on a lot and you think, oh,
Speaker 3: there must be old dumb Bubba's.
Speaker 4: Cousins.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of fucking PhD numerical analysis people who
Speaker 3: do voterfil analysis.
Speaker 1: In Boweling, we call those people evil because yes, continue that.
Speaker 3: We have long story short. In two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: there was a discovery made that a lot of conservative Democrats,
Speaker 3: including a lot of African American women, were very turned
Speaker 3: off by the idea of gay marriage. Now, this was
Speaker 3: an era, by the way, where even Barack Obama was
Speaker 3: opposed to gay marriage, and everyone else in the democratic
Speaker 3: world was also opposed to gay marriage. The world changes.
Speaker 3: But but but Carl Rove said, hey, assholes, and the
Speaker 3: assholes were like a thousand guys like me go out.
Speaker 3: And I didn't actually do the ballot initiative in Florida.
Speaker 3: I knew of it. I didn't pitch it. I didn't
Speaker 3: do it. I had a huge other thing I was doing.
Speaker 3: So long story short, the ballot initiatives went on the ballot.
Speaker 3: I f Florida, North Carolina, a couple other places banning
Speaker 3: gay marriage. This whole idea seems anathema to us now
Speaker 3: and repugnant and all that other business. But for politics
Speaker 3: at that moment, it gave Republicans, as specifically evangelical Republicans,
Speaker 3: a hook to talk to an audience they could never
Speaker 3: otherwise talk to, which was African American evangelicals.
Speaker 2: African Americans like Baptist Church.
Speaker 3: Ladies would be the shortcut, as we would say it
Speaker 3: in the South, the ladies with the fancy hats on Sunday. Okay,
Speaker 3: if you have never really like explored African American church
Speaker 3: lady hats, it is an entire subculture in America.
Speaker 2: It is delightful. It is delightful, wonderful people.
Speaker 1: But they realized that was a weak part of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: They did they found a hole in the Democratic base
Speaker 3: and they drove a truck through it. Now, it motivated
Speaker 3: white evangelicals through the roof, because of course, you know
Speaker 3: they're white evangelicals. That what else they want to do
Speaker 3: except make sure nobody else has an orgasm or enjoys.
Speaker 1: Their life and give everyone a go on and make
Speaker 1: sure they have to carry a dead fetus Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: But for all that, these ballot initiatives ended up having
Speaker 3: a net positive effect for Republican turnout. This is a
Speaker 3: lesson Republicans have learned in many states over the years.
Speaker 3: They either exploit a Democratic ballot initiative to scare their
Speaker 3: people or they build their own ballot initiative to motivate
Speaker 3: their people. Okay, what you're going to see right now
Speaker 3: is the Democrats have learned in Kansas, Ohio twice, Kentucky,
Speaker 3: and Virginia this in the last so since Dobbs passed
Speaker 3: in those states. Okay, and in Wisconsin's there's a lot
Speaker 3: of it in Wisconsin in twenty twenty two's state wides.
Speaker 3: But they've learned in every place it's been tested that
Speaker 3: the idea that Republicans are going and it's not just
Speaker 3: about abortion itself. It's about them using the power of
Speaker 3: government to tell you how to live your life. They're
Speaker 3: going to tell you you can't travel, They're going to
Speaker 3: tell you you have to report your period to the
Speaker 3: state just in case you're using that naughty birth control.
Speaker 3: And they're expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding government
Speaker 3: overreach right the scope of power they want to apply
Speaker 3: to individual lives, and it's pissing people the hell off.
Speaker 3: I have a great story a few miles I have
Speaker 3: not told publicly yet. We'll call this person, at least
Speaker 3: an acquaintance.
Speaker 1: We'll call this person Liz Chaining continue.
Speaker 3: No one lives, but it's somebody who was traveling with
Speaker 3: Glenn Youngkin in the last week of the campaign. Okay,
Speaker 3: somebody who was a prominent person traveling with Youngkin, and
Speaker 3: the description of this to me was was fascinating, and
Speaker 3: I knew. I didn't say it out loud, but I knew.
Speaker 3: I heard this about a week before, eight days before
Speaker 3: the election. This person said to me, when Youngkin's out
Speaker 3: there raw rawing about they're going to kick the Democrats
Speaker 3: ass and we're going to be a conservative state. He said,
Speaker 3: the whole audience they're going crazy, they're cheering. Everybody's going
Speaker 3: nuts because they also think Glenn Younkin is going to
Speaker 3: be president someday. Right, And then Youngkin would go and say,
Speaker 3: we're gonna pass a fifteen week abortion. Man, and he said,
Speaker 3: the guys in the audience are you know, hands in
Speaker 3: the air leaping out. And he goes in every woman's
Speaker 3: face in the in the audience and these are maga women.
Speaker 3: These are conservative women. He goes, you can see their
Speaker 3: faces like switch off, like that that look you know
Speaker 3: when you walk in the house and you've done something
Speaker 3: really fucking stupid, and says, we need to talk.
Speaker 2: That's the look.
Speaker 3: It was the we need to talk look, and it
Speaker 3: was killing Republicans when you look at the math. Okay,
Speaker 3: when you look at the math in Ohio, the number
Speaker 3: that you end up with at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: by deductive math alone, means that about twenty five percent
Speaker 3: of Republican women crossed over to vote for this thing,
Speaker 3: and probably more. Right, and it means about sixty percent
Speaker 3: of unregistered or independent women had to vote for this thing,
Speaker 3: or probably more so.
Speaker 1: Here's my question for you. This is like intellectual dishonesty
Speaker 1: comes home to roost. Right. The part of small government
Speaker 1: is very involved with women's menstrual cycles, right, They.
Speaker 3: Really want to know exactly when you're going to have
Speaker 3: your cycle, because obviously we can't have women out there
Speaker 3: using credit cards or bank accounts to perhaps buy an
Speaker 3: airplane ticket or drive a car to a state where
Speaker 3: they might possibly be able to violate the laws of
Speaker 3: Gilead or whatever.
Speaker 2: The fucking we're.
Speaker 1: Hitting like a Fugitive Slave Act kind of moment here
Speaker 1: right where we're seeing different states trying to open the
Speaker 1: door to something where if we know, you know, if
Speaker 1: you drove someone to get an abortion and you live
Speaker 1: in Texas.
Speaker 3: The most fascinating piece of news out of this week
Speaker 3: was the Ohio Republican Party. The speaker of the Republican
Speaker 3: House representatives. Essentially on election night, his answer to a
Speaker 3: statewide ballot insie that massed with fifty seven point seventy
Speaker 3: percent of the vote was.
Speaker 2: Fuck you, fuck you women, right exactly. And here's the thing.
Speaker 3: If a state was run by Muslims expressing this kind
Speaker 3: of thing, Republicans would rule tanks through the fucking streets. Okay,
Speaker 3: here's the thing. They have said, our religious beliefs absolutely
Speaker 3: override the Constitution of the United States, the courts of
Speaker 3: the United States, the constitution of their individual states, the
Speaker 3: courts of their individual states, the laws of their individual states.
Speaker 3: They have decided that they're going to pursue. And look, Molly,
Speaker 3: I think for years and years and years, I've said
Speaker 3: this a lot. The side that overreaches on culture war
Speaker 3: issues is the side that loses, right.
Speaker 1: And that's what Republicans have done this whole time.
Speaker 3: And these people aren't like overreaching now, they're like bundling
Speaker 3: themselves up into a freight train, slapping a bunch of
Speaker 3: coal in the engine, pushing the throttles to the maximum limit,
Speaker 3: and crashing through a fucking daycare center. The insanity level
Speaker 3: has reached the point where a very thoughtful Catholic conservative
Speaker 3: friend of mine the other day said to me, he goes,
Speaker 3: I have fought for life for a long time, not
Speaker 3: with laws or not to overturn row, but to change
Speaker 3: hearts and minds and to make adoption more available and
Speaker 3: to make support services more available.
Speaker 2: And he said, I.
Speaker 3: Am in hears he's because the work of my life.
Speaker 3: I will never convince another person that I'm doing this
Speaker 3: for reasons that can enrich the world. They're going to
Speaker 3: always think you don't like my vagina.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then and this is a person, by the way,
Speaker 3: who is a honest to God, thoughtful, smart, well educated,
Speaker 3: truly kind person who has given of himself. I'm going
Speaker 3: to guesstimate several million dollars into the adoption space over
Speaker 3: the years. And craziness, it's just crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I want to talk to you about with
Speaker 1: these Tuesday results as opposed to the fucking pulling, which
Speaker 1: I could honestly give two shits about. And I'm telling
Speaker 1: you the three thousand, six hundred people who answered unknown
Speaker 1: numbers on their cell phones and then proceeded to tell
Speaker 1: them how mad they were about Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: And by the way, they oversampled the shit out of
Speaker 3: Republicans in.
Speaker 2: The whole space.
Speaker 1: They did, of course, But you know Dean Phillips and
Speaker 1: he needs the cash and soda, Steve Smith. But here's
Speaker 1: my question for you.
Speaker 2: And you're trying to tempt me, are you.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're so here's the question. Though,
Speaker 1: when you're looking at Youngkin. One of the things I'm
Speaker 1: struck by, and I'm not sure we've seen the end
Speaker 1: of this, is that Youngkin said I'm a moderate. I'm
Speaker 1: a mega moderate, right, which is an oxymoron pobastor. That's
Speaker 1: the biggest lie they have going. But I'm a maga motterate.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Voters were not fooled, right, And
Speaker 1: even like a great example with Andy Buruscherer. Andy Bsherer
Speaker 1: also ran against a quote unquote mega matter right. He
Speaker 1: was black, you know, he came from McConnell world. He
Speaker 1: was a little more mega moderate. He lost by more
Speaker 1: than Broucheer won the last time. So I do think
Speaker 1: there's a real thing happening here where voters are not
Speaker 1: being fooled by the idea of a MAGA moderate.
Speaker 3: Discuss First off, the idea of a MAGA moderate is
Speaker 3: like a vegan cannibal It doesn't work, it's absurd.
Speaker 1: But Youngkin shopped himself as that.
Speaker 3: So Glenn Youngkin is advised by a guy named Jeff Row.
Speaker 3: Jeff Row is the biggest Republican consultant in the country.
Speaker 1: Right, He makes a ton of money.
Speaker 3: He made a hundred million dollars and lost eleven races
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: So that's the kind of hit rate that that's the
Speaker 1: Republican Party.
Speaker 3: With this listen, I wish I had that track record,
Speaker 3: that would be I would cry all the way to
Speaker 3: the bank with that track record. But he was Glenn
Speaker 3: Youngkin's consultant, still is Glen Youngkin's consultant. He's also contemporaneously
Speaker 3: advising Rond de Santis and has spent something like eighty
Speaker 3: million dollars of Rond de Santis's money. To see Rohnd
Speaker 3: de Santis crash in the polls, good work, Jeff.
Speaker 1: To see a whole discourse on does Rond de Santis
Speaker 1: where heels or not?
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you spent a week fighting about whether you
Speaker 3: were drag boots, you're not doing well as.
Speaker 1: A campaign killing it. No, no no good.
Speaker 3: So long story, short money, Jeff Row has been telling
Speaker 3: every major donor in the country and telling all these
Speaker 3: Republican activists. Young can can split the difference. He can
Speaker 3: go through the eye of the needle. He's the one
Speaker 3: who can get the magas and get the gentry Republicans.
Speaker 3: And it's all gonna And then it turns out that
Speaker 3: because to get the magas, you have to adopt a
Speaker 3: set of policy proposals, beliefs, worship of Donald Trump, a
Speaker 3: whole set of rituals and statements that voters hate. So no, Glenn,
Speaker 3: you can't get the mogas and still get the normies.
Speaker 3: It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 3: It's like being a vegan cannibal. There is no world
Speaker 3: where you can cross the two streams. There's no world
Speaker 3: where the horrific, grotesque, unacceptable nature of what the MAGA
Speaker 3: base wants. Eg you know, stay home in the kitchen, Honey,
Speaker 3: you're not pregnant again. It's been three three weeks that
Speaker 3: shit and all the craziness of conspiracies and immigrations.
Speaker 2: If you don't accept all of it, they will kill you.
Speaker 3: It's like those things in zombie movies where if people
Speaker 3: don't move too fast as zombies won't see them. But
Speaker 3: to win anybody else outside of the Maga base, you
Speaker 3: have to give away a signal and the magabase then
Speaker 3: will turn and you will destroy you. That's what happened
Speaker 3: to youngkin Well.
Speaker 1: I also think the problem is this is not a policy.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not running on policy and he never
Speaker 1: has been. This is not a policy proposition. This is
Speaker 1: a certain kind of personality proposition for all of.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's five billion, seven hundred and nineteen thousand, three
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty three moral, personal, mental, social, ethical, political deficiencies.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump has a kind of crude, grunting charisma, and
Speaker 3: the people that love him love him because he's a dick.
Speaker 3: They love him because he's on your retribution. Donald Trump
Speaker 3: is the human permission to say the inWORD for his followers.
Speaker 3: He's the human permission to tell everybody else to fuck off,
Speaker 3: and they'll burn it down if they don't get their way.
Speaker 3: And you know what, it's worked for him. It's worked
Speaker 3: as a political tool for him now for almost nine years.
Speaker 3: And I've been doing it since twenty fifteen, and I'm
Speaker 3: so old.
Speaker 1: I feel like we just went right into like Rick
Speaker 1: Wilson therapy session, Like we were like and then he
Speaker 1: was like, and I'm so old.
Speaker 3: The thing about it is no, there's no policy around Trump.
Speaker 3: It's all personality, it's all affect. It's all a show,
Speaker 3: it's all performance, and none of these other people can
Speaker 3: even get close to doing it.
Speaker 1: Because they don't have the charisma. I mean, ultimately, this
Speaker 1: is like it comes back to the weird truth about
Speaker 1: presidential races, which is the guy who you want to
Speaker 1: have a beer with wins, and for some god unknown reason,
Speaker 1: people in the republic Party want to have a beer
Speaker 1: with the orange guy and the implanted wig.
Speaker 3: There's been a long time since Trump beat every Republican
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen, where very smart people have sat in
Speaker 3: focus groups and sat in conference rooms and tried to
Speaker 3: devise the secret sauce we're going to lure back the
Speaker 3: Republican base from Donald Trump. And this idea you can
Speaker 3: have a magical word or phrase that breaks the spell
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump is wrong. He's a necromancer. He is
Speaker 3: going to kill the party before he gives it up,
Speaker 3: and it's almost dead as it is. I mean, look,
Speaker 3: they have had consecutive election losses. If you take an
Speaker 3: in aggregate national scale, and that's Congress, Senate, state houses,
Speaker 3: state senates, local officials. They've lost almost two thousand seats
Speaker 3: since twenty sixteen. They're smaller and weaker and crazier. And
Speaker 3: if redistricting wasn't so incredibly powerful, the Republicans would be
Speaker 3: basically a rump regional sort of political party. But they're
Speaker 3: not because of the Electoral College and redistricting. And so
Speaker 3: that's why we're in a position where a madman who
Speaker 3: is promising to burn America to the ground has people going,
Speaker 3: that's what I want more of.
Speaker 2: That for a dollar.
Speaker 1: Who do you think Trump picks as a vice president
Speaker 1: chill nominee candidate?
Speaker 3: My money right now, And I will tell you why
Speaker 3: my money is right now, because of the obvious makeo her,
Speaker 3: the and the and the low cut blouses lately. And
Speaker 3: I mean that in the exactly the sexist way Donald
Speaker 3: Trump does. Is Nancy Macey. She's out there being like
Speaker 3: the biggest Trump girly. The two people inside the Republican
Speaker 3: Party who desperately want to be vice president okay, who
Speaker 3: are obvious about it, who are campaigning for it every day,
Speaker 3: are at least staphonic. And Nancy Mace Carrie Lake had
Speaker 3: her moment, and you know, Trump said, the money's on
Speaker 3: the nightstand, Get the fuck out.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I was hoping we could plumb the depths
Speaker 1: of sexism, and I see we have.
Speaker 3: Yes, Well what I am channeling Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: No, no, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: He was notoriously not not a man who has ever
Speaker 3: treated women with shall we say respect or fairness. But
Speaker 3: Stephanic and Mace right now are the two that everybody
Speaker 3: said the GP is talking about. Mace is trying to
Speaker 3: work it. Remember how they made Sarah Huckabe get a
Speaker 3: makeover when she was Press secretary. Nancy mace is doing
Speaker 3: the same thing, and she's like the wide eyed makeup
Speaker 3: look and the whole big hair thing. Now she's really
Speaker 3: working on him from what we're hearing, like her people
Speaker 3: are like down at mar A Lago. My goodness, mister Trump,
Speaker 3: you look handsome today. All the usual ass kissing crap. Now,
Speaker 3: look does South Carolina? If he's worried about South Carolina,
Speaker 3: it's not going to exactly help him. But it's amazing
Speaker 3: to me that Nancy Macell used to be on calls
Speaker 3: about never Trump stuff with me back about five years ago.
Speaker 3: So good looking out, Nancy, don't think I forgot Thank you,
Speaker 3: Rick Wilson, you are as always tremendously Welcome.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Carl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News
Speaker 1: and author of Tired of Winning, Donald Trump and the
Speaker 1: End of the Grand Old Party. Welcome back to Fast Politics, John.
Speaker 2: Carl, Thanks for having me back. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, you write books very fast, so we have to
Speaker 1: be back. But so let's talk about this book. It
Speaker 1: must be so strange when you started this book, did
Speaker 1: you think that Trump would be the Republican front runner?
Speaker 2: The honest answer is now, I started this book thinking
Speaker 2: that I would be writing about the kind of sad
Speaker 2: demise of a disgraced former president. I was there, I'd
Speaker 2: described in the book. I was there for his announcement
Speaker 2: in November of twenty twenty two, when he announced his
Speaker 2: third presidential campaign, and it was a pathetic affair. I mean,
Speaker 2: nobody of any consequence from the Trump White House or
Speaker 2: even the other two Trump campaigns was there. Most of
Speaker 2: his family skipped the event, as you remember, couldn't show up.
Speaker 2: Don Junior apparently had some flight troubles even though he
Speaker 2: been there. Just a couple of days earl. None of
Speaker 2: the former confirmed cabinet secretaries were there, none of his
Speaker 2: former chiefs of staff, none of his former press secretaries,
Speaker 2: none of his former campaign managers. It was as if
Speaker 2: they had all kind of washed their hands of him
Speaker 2: and thought that he was going to fade away. And
Speaker 2: it sure looked that way. But by the way, Molly,
Speaker 2: it got worse in the coming weeks. If you remember,
Speaker 2: it was about a week later that he dined with
Speaker 2: Kanye Nick Fuentes was about a week or two after
Speaker 2: that that he said, you'd be proposed suspending the constitution.
Speaker 2: If you look at the polls from December of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, a month after he announced his presidential campaign,
Speaker 2: he was actually losing to Ron DeSantis, who had an
Speaker 2: anounced he was running yet, and he was losing pretty decisively.
Speaker 2: There was a Wall Street Journal poll that had DeSantis
Speaker 2: in the fifties and Trump at thirty eight percent. This
Speaker 2: did not look like a guy that was going to
Speaker 2: be the front runner for anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about Ron de Santis for a minute,
Speaker 1: because he could have been the Republican nominee. I mean,
Speaker 1: last January it really seemed like he could have this
Speaker 1: and he was running on this sort of trumpsm without
Speaker 1: the charisma, a sort of deluded you know, sort of
Speaker 1: putting in policy that the sort of policies that Trump
Speaker 1: might have supported, had he supported policies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that there are multiple factors that
Speaker 2: have led to Trump going from being a disgraced former
Speaker 2: president on his way to oblivion to being the clear
Speaker 2: front runner for the Republican nomination. One of those things
Speaker 2: is the utter weakness of the Ron DeSantis campaign. The
Speaker 2: appeal of Trump was never about policy. There are no
Speaker 2: real Trump policies. I mean, you know, he talks about
Speaker 2: the border, he talks about making our allies pay more
Speaker 2: for defense. If you've spent any time with him at
Speaker 2: the White House, he spend more time talking about his
Speaker 2: new color scheme for Air Force one. He got very
Speaker 2: excited about. Yes, yes, you know, so here comes DeSantis.
Speaker 2: Trump is engaging. I mean, people watch the guy. They
Speaker 2: want to know what's going to happen next DeSantis. There's
Speaker 2: nothing anything you collude to a Ron dessiontist speech.
Speaker 1: That is true. I mean, he's the front runner. Last
Speaker 1: week he was in court, he acted out pretty crazily.
Speaker 1: We've never had a front run on our goog will
Speaker 1: spend the year he's running for president in and out
Speaker 1: of court facing ninety one indictments. How do you cover this?
Speaker 1: How do you look down the barrel of a year
Speaker 1: of what is so profoundly abnormal and also how profoundly
Speaker 1: abnormal he was as president.
Speaker 2: I don't think any of us really know what this
Speaker 2: is going to look like. But I will tell you
Speaker 2: this because I just had to go back to make
Speaker 2: sure that the math was correct on this. But his
Speaker 2: testimony in New York in the civil case against his
Speaker 2: company was the eighth day that he has spent in
Speaker 2: that courtroom over the last month. So he has spent
Speaker 2: more days in court before any of these actual criminal
Speaker 2: indictments have gone to trial. This is the civil case
Speaker 2: against his company, where he has not required to be there.
Speaker 2: He was required to testify, but he wasn't required to
Speaker 2: be there when Michael Cohen took the stand or sons
Speaker 2: took the stance, or any of that. And yet he
Speaker 2: spent more time in that courtroom then he spent on
Speaker 2: actual campaign events. And that will continue, I mean, it
Speaker 2: will accelerate likely. Obviously, their main legal strategy is to
Speaker 2: delay and postpone any trials until after the election. They're
Speaker 2: not going to be able to do that across the board.
Speaker 2: It sure seems like the January sixth federal case is
Speaker 2: going to happen in early twenty twenty four. That's a
Speaker 2: major trial. He's going to have Tybee in court. This
Speaker 2: is nothing approaching a traditional campaign. This is a guy
Speaker 2: who has spent very little time actually going out and
Speaker 2: doing the rallies that animated his campaigns six in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: he has spent much time either playing golf, meeting with
Speaker 2: his lawyers, or now in court.
Speaker 1: Yeah, have you seen a shift in the rallies. I've
Speaker 1: read reporting that he's quieter in some rallies anyway, and
Speaker 1: that though I've seen both, and that there's this contradiction
Speaker 1: because these rallies are not as blustrous as they once were,
Speaker 1: at least some of them. And also there are lass
Speaker 1: and also his message is this bizarre message of retribution.
Speaker 1: So explain to me what to make of any of those.
Speaker 2: Well, the message is retributions. So one thing he didn't
Speaker 2: have when he launched last November was a coherent message.
Speaker 2: It was teleprompter Trump, and they had encouraged him not
Speaker 2: to talk about the twenty twenty campaign, because if you remember,
Speaker 2: they had just come out of the midterms where Republicans
Speaker 2: had lost so decisively, especially that we're obsessed with stop
Speaker 2: the Steal in twenty twenty. So he delivered this kind
Speaker 2: of mix of policy stuff that he doesn't care about
Speaker 2: and has a little interest in, and a few old stories.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was a really dull and lackluster speech.
Speaker 2: But as the indictments approached, he found a new message,
Speaker 2: and I think Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, was
Speaker 2: a big part of helping him find this message. And
Speaker 2: that message is in the words of his Seapac speech
Speaker 2: earlier this year, I am your retribution. This is a
Speaker 2: campaign of retribution against his enemies. And he's not really
Speaker 2: talking about the Democrats here. In some cases, he's not
Speaker 2: even really talking about the prosecutors. He's talking about Republicans
Speaker 2: who have dared tried to get in his way or
Speaker 2: haven't been sufficiently loyal. It's an odd message for a
Speaker 2: presidential campaign. It has very little to do with the
Speaker 2: concerns of most voters right now, which are questions about
Speaker 2: the economy, real concerns about Biden and his abilities going forward.
Speaker 2: This is a weird message of let's go out and
Speaker 2: destroy our enemies. His first campaign rally, which I devoted
Speaker 2: some time to and it was months after his announcement,
Speaker 2: but his first actual rally was in Waco, Texas. As
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon told me when I call him, weako, are
Speaker 2: you kidding me? What Branch Davidians? And his answer was,
Speaker 2: we are the Trump Davidians.
Speaker 1: Yikes, do two seconds on the Branch Davidians. For those who.
Speaker 2: Don't remember, the Branch Davidians were a cult whose headquarters
Speaker 2: called Mount Carmel, was in Waco. They had a legendarily
Speaker 2: awful showdown with federal law enforcement. The Bureau of Alcohol
Speaker 2: Tobacco bire ARMS had mentioned a siezure of Waco because
Speaker 2: they believed that the group was stockpiling weapons, and the
Speaker 2: siege lasted for some time, and as federal law enforcement
Speaker 2: encircled the place, they eventually went in and there was
Speaker 2: a massive inferno and more than fifty people were killed.
Speaker 2: Very strange thing to say we are the Trump Davidians,
Speaker 2: given what happened there. But Waco became this symbol to
Speaker 2: the far right of government, of a government out of
Speaker 2: control of government out to get its people. So it
Speaker 2: spawned a whole movement of armed militia groups who felt
Speaker 2: that they needed to stockpile weapons, do some basic training
Speaker 2: in parking lots and out in the woods, just in
Speaker 2: case the Feds came after them, they would be ready
Speaker 2: to fight back for real. One of those inspired by
Speaker 2: all this was Timothy McVeigh, who, a year after Waco,
Speaker 2: a year to the day after the inferno in Waco,
Speaker 2: bombed of the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing one
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty eight people, the deadliest domestic terrorist attack
Speaker 2: in American history. So this is a strange place to
Speaker 2: begin your presidential campaign. Now, when you talk to the
Speaker 2: Trump people as the data approach, they said, oh, no,
Speaker 2: it's just a coincidence. We're going to Texas because Texas
Speaker 2: is an important state. As you know, Molly, Texas is
Speaker 2: not an important state in the Republican primary process. It's
Speaker 2: not a battleground state and the general election. There's no
Speaker 2: reason have your launch at Texas. And if you're going
Speaker 2: to be in Texas, Wacos. I mean, it's quite a
Speaker 2: coincidence to be in Waco. So to hear Bannon, who
Speaker 2: is really the guy who I think is given Trump
Speaker 2: this new message that has given a rebirth to his
Speaker 2: third presidential campaign to hear him just declare we are
Speaker 2: the Trump Davidians. It is not by accident. It is
Speaker 2: because Trump this new message is to portray our own
Speaker 2: federal government as the true enemy, the deep state. Anybody
Speaker 2: who is can be portrayed as going after Trump.
Speaker 1: It's such a scary idea, right because it does feel
Speaker 1: and again, you know, we can't ever talk about what's
Speaker 1: in people's hearts and minds, but it certainly feels like
Speaker 1: this is sort of playing on the kind of anti
Speaker 1: government impulses. They could really turn dangerous, There's no question.
Speaker 2: I mean, we saw the anti government impulses turned dangerous
Speaker 2: on January sixth. Obviously, we also saw them turn dangerous
Speaker 2: in you know, shortly after the FBI did the search
Speaker 2: at mar A Lago, when he saw Gunman go into
Speaker 2: an FBI field office in Ohio. The undertones of violence
Speaker 2: are all there. I at another point, I talked to
Speaker 2: everybody around Trump and the writing of this book to
Speaker 2: try to understand where they were coming from and what
Speaker 2: they were doing. And Bannon spoke to me for quite
Speaker 2: a bit on the record and one state. One thing
Speaker 2: he said to me really stood out, which is I
Speaker 2: asked him, aren't you worried that all this will lead
Speaker 2: to violence? And without missing a beat, his answer was no,
Speaker 2: because we are going to win.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's really scary.
Speaker 2: And the apocalyptic way in which this election is described
Speaker 2: by Trump. You know, we called this, he says, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four is our final battle. I mean, it sounds
Speaker 2: like they're building up for something bigger than January sixth.
Speaker 2: You know that if this all ends in a Trump loss,
Speaker 2: either in the Republican primary, which I think is still possible,
Speaker 2: by the way, or in a general election, it's not
Speaker 2: going to end with a Trump concession.
Speaker 1: No, He's never conceded to anything ever, and he never
Speaker 1: will tell me why You think he could still not
Speaker 1: get the nomination, because that's totally fascinating.
Speaker 2: Because I think that he is incredibly volatile, more volatile
Speaker 2: than he has ever been. I think he is more
Speaker 2: divorced from reality than he has ever been. We just
Speaker 2: don't know how he's going to react as we head
Speaker 2: into the actual criminal trials. I think that those are
Speaker 2: necessarily what's you know, there's one theory that you know
Speaker 2: these Republicans that will vote for an indicted residential candidate
Speaker 2: won't vote for a convicted one. I'm not sure that's true,
Speaker 2: but look, I don't think that people have paid much
Speaker 2: attention to Trump over the past two and a half years.
Speaker 2: May sounds strange to say.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's completely right.
Speaker 2: You know, the trials have gotten all kinds of attention,
Speaker 2: and we've all, you know, January sixth hearings and all that,
Speaker 2: but Trump himself and what he has been up to
Speaker 2: and what he's talking about now and where his head
Speaker 2: is at A good chunk of the two years after
Speaker 2: he left, two years after he left the White House,
Speaker 2: truly pursuing this insane QAnon notion that there was a
Speaker 2: way that Joe Biden would be evicted from the White House,
Speaker 2: that the twenty twenty election would be somehow overturned even
Speaker 2: after it was certified, even after the inauguration, after all
Speaker 2: of that, and that he would go back into the
Speaker 2: White House before the next presidential election. I first saw
Speaker 2: some of this stuff, just you know, the kind of
Speaker 2: whack jobs like Michae Lindell and I mean Trump. I
Speaker 2: learned as I was saying, what is he up to
Speaker 2: what's he talking to people about what's going on behind
Speaker 2: the walls in mar A Lago. And he was, you know,
Speaker 2: tracking the cyber Ninja's recount out in Arizona like it
Speaker 2: was really something that was going to overturn the election
Speaker 2: results there. I mean, we're talking long after the election
Speaker 2: was over. This is crazy stuff, and that it was
Speaker 2: going to lead to this kind of domino effect in
Speaker 2: the other states, that he was going to be back
Speaker 2: in the White House. So and now you see, you know,
Speaker 2: just the other day speech in Texas, he's talking about
Speaker 2: the people that are that have been convicted of attacking
Speaker 2: police officers on January sixth, of breaking into the US
Speaker 2: Capitol building. He's talking about them as hostages. Now he
Speaker 2: says that they're not they're not prisoners, they're hostages. He
Speaker 2: is more divorced from reality than he was on January
Speaker 2: six And I don't think that the polls in any
Speaker 2: way reflect that, don't I don't think even the vast
Speaker 2: majority of Republican primary voters are quite aware of what
Speaker 2: Trump has become. And as you get closer, there will
Speaker 2: need to be more scrutiny, They'll need to be more coverage.
Speaker 2: I mean, Fox stopped covering him. This is not just
Speaker 2: the so called mainstream media. I mean, you know, Fox
Speaker 2: basically turned away from him, and that actually helped him
Speaker 2: because people didn't see I.
Speaker 1: Think that's such a great point, and I also think
Speaker 1: that Fox actually did him a favor. We don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, who is to know what's happening in
Speaker 1: the hearts and minds of the Fox empire where it
Speaker 1: stands now. But I do think that as we talk
Speaker 1: about this, I mean, when you watch these rallies that
Speaker 1: aren't getting that much coverage. The thing I've been bringing
Speaker 1: up recently is this idea he confused Jeb Bush with
Speaker 1: w Bush like it wasn't even you know, he said
Speaker 1: he ran against the guy who started the Iraq War.
Speaker 1: So there certainly does seem like his time lapse problems
Speaker 1: that he's never had before.
Speaker 2: I mean, he thinks that the guy he ran against
Speaker 2: was Obama. I mean, it's right exactly. So, yeah, the
Speaker 2: mental acuity is not solely a question that Biden has
Speaker 2: to address, but it's more than that. It's this extreme agenda.
Speaker 2: It's an agenda I think a lot of what is
Speaker 2: driving the poles. You know, all these kinds of hypothetical,
Speaker 2: which doesn't seem so hypothetical anymore. Trump Biden rematch polls,
Speaker 2: whether it be the New York Times battleground state, you know,
Speaker 2: polls over the weekend, or you know, any number of
Speaker 2: the general election matchups, would show that Trump is either
Speaker 2: tied with Biden or beating Biden. A lot of that
Speaker 2: is based on the fact that the overwhelming majority of
Speaker 2: Americans like the country is on the wrong track. This
Speaker 2: is not some well this people suddenly think, you know,
Speaker 2: Trump is the savior. But I've spent a fair amount
Speaker 2: of time in Iowa with the various candidates, have been
Speaker 2: at some Trump events, have been at some DeSantis events,
Speaker 2: you know how notoriously unreliable pulling in the Iowa CAU.
Speaker 2: Because this has been over the years, especially a couple
Speaker 2: of months out, it really wouldn't surprise me to see
Speaker 2: Trump not win in Iowa. And then the question is,
Speaker 2: given this volatility, given where his head is at, and
Speaker 2: given that he'll be staring down the beginning of his
Speaker 2: first Special Council trial, how does he react to that?
Speaker 2: How to Republican voters react to his reaction? I mean again,
Speaker 2: we'll see, certainly, look he's the overwhelming front runner. Obviously,
Speaker 2: he's talked about by most people as the presumptive nominee.
Speaker 2: It's almost like he's an incumbent. But I am not convinced.
Speaker 4: John.
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Molly. It's great to talk
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Brian Stelter is the author of Network of Lies, The
Speaker 1: Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle
Speaker 1: for American Democracy. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Brian Stelder.
Speaker 4: It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: The book is called Network of Lies, but I love
Speaker 1: this excerpt in Rolling Stone with Laura Ingram on the
Speaker 1: Fox News division. They aren't smart. Just explain to us
Speaker 1: where that comes from.
Speaker 4: It comes from this amazing treasure trove of materials that
Speaker 4: Dominion Voting Systems obtained through its lawsuit against Fox. That
Speaker 4: treasure trove is why I had to write this book.
Speaker 4: I was not out there looking to write about Fox anymore.
Speaker 4: I was enjoying my time off after being haustiff from CNN.
Speaker 4: I've been living the dream Molly told you about that
Speaker 4: last time we talked. But then these emails and text
Speaker 4: messages surfaced through the Dominion case, and they were so
Speaker 4: damning and so revealing. I have never seen a media
Speaker 4: company expose like this on the record before. So yeah,
Speaker 4: you have lor Ingram complaining, bitching and moaning about the
Speaker 4: journalists of Fox, the correspondents saying they're not smart, Hannity
Speaker 4: doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: The serious people right, like the foreign policy people.
Speaker 4: Right. You have these primetime stars saying the news division
Speaker 4: breaks no news. Ever, Hannity says they hate all three
Speaker 4: of us, And you know what, Hannity wasn't wrong. The
Speaker 4: tension was very real, and the tension still is very
Speaker 4: real between the propagandists and the people who they come
Speaker 4: from a conservative point of view. Yeah, they're flawed, but
Speaker 4: at least they're trying to be in the news business.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I think that's a really good point,
Speaker 1: and I would love it if you could just talk
Speaker 1: about that more. There are these people right there are
Speaker 1: kind of know, you know, some of them are very
Speaker 1: very good even you know, there are real reporters in
Speaker 1: that network.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say there are fewer and fewer every year,
Speaker 4: but there are some people still putting up a fight.
Speaker 4: Jackie Heinrich is one of them. She's a White House correspondent.
Speaker 4: I write about the text messages disparaging her, and you
Speaker 4: have Hannity saying, she's a twenty seven year old fake
Speaker 4: reporter wrecking our network. You know, he wants to fight
Speaker 4: with these people, he wants to fight with his own colleagues.
Speaker 4: And by the way, the head of Fox News, Suzanne Scott,
Speaker 4: she sides with the opinion people. She sides with the propagandists,
Speaker 4: so the big liars of the Big lie, she sides
Speaker 4: with them over the reporters. There's a remarkable email that
Speaker 4: I think kind of got missed in the initial coverage
Speaker 4: last spring. Remember when Dominion Fox settled, some of these
Speaker 4: emails and texts came out and there was some attention
Speaker 4: around it. But because I spent months reconstructing this and
Speaker 4: going through all all the emails, I found these other
Speaker 4: examples that were just mind blowing to me. You had
Speaker 4: Suzanne Scott, the head of Fox News, saying that a
Speaker 4: fact check, some random reporter fact checking handed and fact
Speaker 4: checking Trump was quote bad for business. It has to stop.
Speaker 4: Like it was that kind of stuff that was going
Speaker 4: on inside Fox where the management was siding with the
Speaker 4: liars over the truth tellers.
Speaker 1: Because it's for ratings.
Speaker 4: Because it's for ratings, it's for profits. I would say, ultimately,
Speaker 4: Susann Scott, you know, she has to hit her profit targets,
Speaker 4: keep the money flowing in. And here's the kind of
Speaker 4: sad but true part of the story. It worked, She worked,
Speaker 4: They succeeded. You know, Fox's audience bounced back. The network
Speaker 4: remains the beating heart of the GOP, for better and
Speaker 4: for worse.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes for worse does feel like Fox is a little
Speaker 1: bit quieter lightly.
Speaker 4: I think that is because of Tarer Carlson's oulster, and
Speaker 4: that's how Fox wants it. Fox wanted to lower the volume.
Speaker 4: Laughlin Murdoch wanted to lower the volume because he thinks
Speaker 4: at the end it goes back to the profit targets.
Speaker 4: He thinks it's better for business to be, you know,
Speaker 4: a little less scandalous, a little less controversial. I hesitate
Speaker 4: to say this, Molly, because when I look at the network,
Speaker 4: I see scandalous and misinformation all the time. Right there
Speaker 4: is nonsense on the air on any given day. Is
Speaker 4: a whole lot to fact check. You know, you could
Speaker 4: have an entire department trying to debunk the bs on
Speaker 4: Fox every day. But that said, at least Tucker Carlson's
Speaker 4: not on the air doing what Tarer Carlson did, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, there is a market change from
Speaker 4: what happened when Tucker was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still the lie, right, It's just the lie
Speaker 1: is quieter. You're not seeing sort of your friends. I mean,
Speaker 1: the thing I was always shocked by was you would
Speaker 1: just see people like Ben Collins or Taylor or this
Speaker 1: one or that one just you know, Tucker would just
Speaker 1: go after them and say these insane things and then
Speaker 1: they're you know, they'd have to basically go and dide it.
Speaker 4: Maybe this is the wrong analogy. I haven't tried it
Speaker 4: out before, but it's a difference between like an F
Speaker 4: and a D minus. You know, like Fox is still failing,
Speaker 4: but it's not doing it in as explosive and in
Speaker 4: crazy a way. And I think that's intentional on the
Speaker 4: part of Lachlan and Suzann Scott. They want the tone
Speaker 4: to be slightly different so that the likes of Media
Speaker 4: Matters or you know, More and Joe are not talking
Speaker 4: about them as much. And again I think that's the strategy.
Speaker 1: If that's true, right, They're trying to be sort of
Speaker 1: quieter but still run this sort of thing, this sort
Speaker 1: of the tension is make Trump happy, but don't make
Speaker 1: Trump too happy.
Speaker 4: Oh, the Trump Fox relationship is so twisted, and he
Speaker 4: keeps getting more and more and more twisted, because I
Speaker 4: would argue, you know, Fox is fundamentally in Trump's camp.
Speaker 4: They think they're better at being Trump than Trump. Like
Speaker 4: they think they do. Trump isn't better than Trump, you know,
Speaker 4: And there's a conflict there. For sure. Trump will never
Speaker 4: be satisfied with what he hears and sees on Fox.
Speaker 4: It's not in his DNA to be satisfied by the
Speaker 4: media coverage of his campaign. But that said, Fox is
Speaker 4: doing tremendous favors every day, whether he wants to admit
Speaker 4: that and see that or not. Like what I think,
Speaker 4: every day, Fox is accepting his status as the lifely nominee.
Speaker 4: I think Fox is not putting up the roadblocks that
Speaker 4: we saw year or two ago, you know, where there
Speaker 4: was a lot of attention and promotion of Ron de Santis.
Speaker 4: There is an acceptance of Trump and doesn't have to
Speaker 4: be that way. You know, do you think I'm crazy
Speaker 4: to say that no, Fox could put up more of
Speaker 4: a fight, I guess is what I'm trying to sell. Ultimately,
Speaker 4: Trump is the leader and Fox is just the follower,
Speaker 4: and it doesn't have to be that way. Yes, he
Speaker 4: rants about Fox on True's social Yes he complains, but
Speaker 4: he also gives interviews to the network. And he may
Speaker 4: not admit this, but it's.
Speaker 2: Clear to me.
Speaker 4: Fox is doing him favors every day. They're helping him
Speaker 4: to support him in so many ways. I had a
Speaker 4: source say to me as I was finishing the book,
Speaker 4: and so I added this at the very end. Murdoch
Speaker 4: family friends say to me, Rupert hates Trump. He can't
Speaker 4: believe we're going to end up back with Trump. But
Speaker 4: the thing about that quote, it was so frustrating when
Speaker 4: I heard. I believe it's true. I think that is
Speaker 4: the true posture of Ruper Murdoc and his son Lachlin.
Speaker 4: They've accepted Trump is going to be the nominemos lya.
Speaker 4: But Fox's programming moves and rhetorical postures. They're not resisting.
Speaker 4: They're accommodating. You know, they're not putting up a fight.
Speaker 4: They're going along with this.
Speaker 1: The sequel, isn't that because they think, at least again,
Speaker 1: I don't want to give anyone any credit here, but
Speaker 1: basically they did sort of try after January six and
Speaker 1: the viewers were like, no, we're going along with Trump.
Speaker 4: That's right. I think it's important to recognize and when
Speaker 4: Trump perceives the Fox was against him, he's right. That's
Speaker 4: not a conspiracy theory. There was a conspiracy, Ruper Murdock said,
Speaker 4: and we now know it thanks to the dominion treasure trove.
Speaker 4: He said, we want to make Trump a non person.
Speaker 4: We're pivoting away from Trump. There was a great email
Speaker 4: I found from Suzanne Scott to Rupert in the weeks
Speaker 4: after January sixth, saying, Hannity is is going to lead
Speaker 4: the seventy five million away from Trump meeting those seventy
Speaker 4: five million voters vote for Trump handed, He's going to
Speaker 4: lead them away from Trump. This was very much a
Speaker 4: concerted effort inside Fox, but it fizzled. It fizzled.
Speaker 1: He couldn't do it. He wasn't more powerful than Trump.
Speaker 4: Ultimately, I suppose that's right, although there's a part of
Speaker 4: me that thinks if Fox was more reality based, if
Speaker 4: the hosts were held accountable by the management, I think
Speaker 4: there could have been a very different path.
Speaker 1: But once they got to that point, they couldn't pull back.
Speaker 4: If Fox viewers heard every day a more truthful account
Speaker 4: of what Trump is and what he says and what
Speaker 4: he represents, if there was a focus on the most
Speaker 4: incendiary and dangerous comments he makes as opposed to you know,
Speaker 4: like a frat boy party atmosphere when talking about Trump,
Speaker 4: there was a more reality based assessment of Trump by
Speaker 4: right wing media, we might be in a different place,
Speaker 4: but I understand that that's an impossibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, though. Tell me about what you see
Speaker 1: now at CNN, because I'm curious so much has happened
Speaker 1: at that network. I'm curious what your take is. Since
Speaker 1: you've been in it, you've been out of it, you've
Speaker 1: been in it, what's your take.
Speaker 4: My take is in CNN is firing in all cylinders,
Speaker 4: you know. I think CNN, MSNBC, and NBC, ABC, CBS.
Speaker 4: With this election, there's going to be networks that are
Speaker 4: reality based and networks that are not. And you know,
Speaker 4: it seems to me CNN is right the right in
Speaker 4: the place it should be saying the truth about what's happening.
Speaker 4: I think some of the attempts last year, which again,
Speaker 4: I only I perceived, just like you, from the outside,
Speaker 4: attempts to show that the network was open to Trump.
Speaker 4: That was obviously very fraud very stressful for staffers who
Speaker 4: felt like they weren't able to speak truth to power.
Speaker 4: But it feels to me, and maybe I'm wrong, it
Speaker 4: feels to me that that period or that phase, whatever
Speaker 4: that was, is over. That's just me as a viewer,
Speaker 4: But I think when it comes to Trump or other
Speaker 4: want to be autocrats, networks like CNN have to be
Speaker 4: louder than the liars. And that's what I think CNN
Speaker 4: was doing in the Trump ears, That's what I think
Speaker 4: hosts like, surely we're trying to do. We weren't always
Speaker 4: getting it right, but we were trying to be louder
Speaker 4: than the liars, and we were trying to speak truth
Speaker 4: to power. And that's what I see CNN doing now.
Speaker 1: And you don't feel like they're still a sort of
Speaker 1: Trump is not a normal Republican candidate, but he does
Speaker 1: seem like he's being largely treated that way.
Speaker 4: I guess I might take that comment and turn it
Speaker 4: around and say, Trump now is the normal Republican party
Speaker 4: and that's the store. Perhaps is that he is now
Speaker 4: what the party is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree with that to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: But like I think you and I can both agree
Speaker 1: that if you elected a Tim Scott or Nikki Haley.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly those two people are very problematic with
Speaker 1: very problematic views, but they will not in democracy with
Speaker 1: quite the same zeal as a Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: There's definitely a market difference, right, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, Donald Trump is planning to execute Mark Milly. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not normal stuff. Maybe Vivak would also execute
Speaker 1: Mark Milly. He did call Zelenski a Nazi, so and
Speaker 1: he is Jewish. That's pretty disgusting, But he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a sort of plan to kill people who were in
Speaker 1: his administration.
Speaker 4: You may have made me speechless, Molly, because when you
Speaker 4: say it that way, you know, it makes makes me think.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just don't know how you horse race
Speaker 1: this when he is clearly planning something that we've ever seen.
Speaker 4: Well, part of me wonders if what we're seeing is
Speaker 4: just very very early stage coverage because there have not
Speaker 4: been votes yet, because we have not had primaries yet.
Speaker 4: I would like to think, I would like to hope,
Speaker 4: I would like to believe that there will be more
Speaker 4: intensive and more challenging coverage of those claims of Trump's
Speaker 4: plans in twenty twenty four, you know, when there's an
Speaker 4: actual primary season. But that might let the media off
Speaker 4: the hook to say that we're still in the pregame
Speaker 4: mode because all of this, as you said, is actively happening.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about Margaret Sullivan's really good piece today. We
Speaker 1: saw this polang again. Three thousand people, six states, but
Speaker 1: they are the six states that matter, you know, saying
Speaker 1: that Trump had better mental acuity. It doesn't matter how
Speaker 1: cute you are if you're sending people the gitmo because
Speaker 1: they drew an unflattering court sketch of you. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that the gravity of what Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: has not been accurately explained to people, people who read
Speaker 1: the mainstream media, and that is a problem.
Speaker 4: I'm with you, But I think the bigger problem is
Speaker 4: that the likes of Fox and Newsmax don't even flinch
Speaker 4: when they hear about some of these stories, don't even
Speaker 4: bother to spend the time. I'm backing it. And then
Speaker 4: the even more troubling part is there's a lot of
Speaker 4: Americans who apparently want what Trump is selling.
Speaker 1: He's a charismatic charlatan who even cares if he's a
Speaker 1: psychobouther or not. He's a Charlotte, and he's shopping something
Speaker 1: that the American people, some of the American people, think
Speaker 1: they want. What I'm struck by, though, if we're gonna
Speaker 1: journey back to twenty sixteen twenty fifteen, is that you know,
Speaker 1: you'd watch those rallies and they would be so unhinged.
Speaker 1: But the thing that he would offer people that Hillary
Speaker 1: would not. And obviously I'm not two citing this voted
Speaker 1: for Hillary. But the thing that I think is really
Speaker 1: relevant is he was offering people something. Right. He was saying,
Speaker 1: come with me, I will bring your jobs back, I
Speaker 1: will do this, I will do that. He didn't do
Speaker 1: any of those things. But these people nobody like explained
Speaker 1: to them that he didn't do any of those things. Right,
Speaker 1: So isn't now a failing on the mainstream media like
Speaker 1: he says? And even now you'll say, you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to build a wall with Mexico. Actually we've already
Speaker 1: built it and it's there, right, We've already built it
Speaker 1: into there.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: And then now Congress Mike Johnson is like, we need
Speaker 1: to get going on this wall. Are the people who
Speaker 1: are supposed to tell Donald Trump, to tell Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: people that there is no wall, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think this gets to more of a
Speaker 4: profound psychological problem. And that's maybe why I'm less critical
Speaker 4: of the media and more interested in what's going on
Speaker 4: in people's brains about this. Like I end Network of
Speaker 4: Lies with this quote from a guy that was at
Speaker 4: the Iowa State Fair in August. Trump had just been
Speaker 4: indicted again. So an NBC reporter came up to this
Speaker 4: guy named Jeff, a school custodian in Iowa, and said,
Speaker 4: do you care that he's been indicted four times? And
Speaker 4: the man said no, it just makes me want to
Speaker 4: vote for him more. And the reporter said why and
Speaker 4: the man said, And this, to me is the whole ballgame,
Speaker 4: he said, because whoever the Democrats hate is who I like.
Speaker 4: And I think we need to cover politics more through
Speaker 4: that prism and less through the you know, who's who's
Speaker 4: spending the most. I mean, it's all important, who's spending
Speaker 4: the most money, what are the policy positions? All that's important.
Speaker 4: But I think it's like we need more, We need
Speaker 4: more psychologists on television to explain this to us, because
Speaker 4: what we're going through is a battle of the soul
Speaker 4: and the heart and the brain. Do you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. There's no fact check that's going to change
Speaker 4: his thinking about politics.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, except that he doesn't understand that the
Speaker 1: Trump's legal problems are of Trump zone making and not
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party zone maker.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: But no, We're amount of reporting or fact checking your narrative,
Speaker 4: debunking or anything is going to is going to get
Speaker 4: through to a wide swath of voters who only trust
Speaker 4: Jesse Waters and only trust Eric Bowling and only trust
Speaker 4: our Carlson.
Speaker 1: Again, when we were talking about this earlier, I mean
Speaker 1: you did say that if Eric Bowling and Tucker Carlson
Speaker 1: and Greg Gottfeld explanation point. I mean, if they were
Speaker 1: to go on television and say like, look, here are
Speaker 1: the other Republicans and Democrats who have committed fraud with
Speaker 1: their accounting, and this is what happened to them, right.
Speaker 1: I mean part of it is there's a certain lack
Speaker 1: of knowledge where people don't understand that there's precedent for
Speaker 1: all of this stuff, right, Like if you leak classified documents,
Speaker 1: even if you're just showing off at a dinner, you
Speaker 1: go to jail no matter who you are, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: think of all the military generals and the captains and
Speaker 1: the lower level people even who ended up spending the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives in jail because they took a
Speaker 1: document that they weren't supposed to do and sent it
Speaker 1: to someone. I mean, I do think there's a lack
Speaker 1: of explanation here about precedent. And what you said before
Speaker 1: is if the right wing media were able to you know,
Speaker 1: if they just explained this again and again and again,
Speaker 1: people would get it.
Speaker 4: And that is why, like in Network of Lise, I
Speaker 4: come to this idea of followers versus leaders that people
Speaker 4: think Fox is leading. I think Fox should be leading.
Speaker 4: I think Rubert and Lochla Murdock have an ethical and
Speaker 4: moral responsibility to share truthful information to an audience that
Speaker 4: is starving for truth. However, Fox is not leading, they're
Speaker 4: just following. People think they're leaders, they think they're in
Speaker 4: the driver's seat and they're actually the passenger. And that's
Speaker 4: why the car keeps crashing, right, That's why the car
Speaker 4: keeps crashing because they're not driving. They should be driving.
Speaker 4: But that said, there's going to be a moment where
Speaker 4: there's going to be a trial and there's going to
Speaker 4: be a verdict. In that moment, the verdict will be
Speaker 4: read and people will hear it. Maybe that matters still
Speaker 4: right because your point about class, about ever reason, Maybe
Speaker 4: the verdict will still matter. Or maybe the propagandists will
Speaker 4: just shout so loudly that people can ignore the verdict
Speaker 4: and tell themselves are about themselves.
Speaker 1: Brian Stelter, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I don't know if this made us feel
Speaker 4: better or worse, but it's important to talk about.
Speaker 2: No moment.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, you are a special fackery gas.
Speaker 3: I try to always bring the fuckery is all right, listen,
Speaker 3: this is a sort of not national politics fuckery, but
Speaker 3: I have to say it. I really thought New York
Speaker 3: could not have a worse mayor than build a Blasio, and.
Speaker 2: Yet somehow.
Speaker 1: I feel attacked.
Speaker 3: How is it that your mayor has somehow gotten swept
Speaker 3: up in an FBI rate about Turkish influence money?
Speaker 2: I mean, get the fuck out of what is going on.
Speaker 1: My favorite part of this story is that no one
Speaker 1: is surprised, literally if you the fact that they talk
Speaker 1: our mayor's cell phone that the FBI decided they needed
Speaker 1: to confiscate both his cell phone and his iPads. There
Speaker 1: is not a person who we know, Jesse Cannon. Do
Speaker 1: you know anyone who was surprised by that bit?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, DoD Look, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 3: I'm just fascinated, Like, how is it that he combines
Speaker 3: like so much obvious grifting and incompetence and tone deafness
Speaker 3: in one package early in his term.
Speaker 2: It really does amaze me.
Speaker 1: The mayoral curse, it's real, man, it's real.
Speaker 3: Listen as a former senior advisor to the mayor of
Speaker 3: New York City and w Giuliani.
Speaker 1: Who makes them all look pretty good. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm no fan of Rudy Juliani.
Speaker 3: Rudy's problem is the mayoral curse and the everything Trump
Speaker 3: touches dies curse.
Speaker 2: Had a dirty weekend.
Speaker 3: I produced the single worst set of outcomes for any individual.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. Oh, you want to know
Speaker 1: what my moment of fucker is?
Speaker 2: I do. I was just going to ask.
Speaker 1: It is the laddered cr so mega Mike Johnson, the
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House. It's about to be Thanksgiving. He's
Speaker 1: already shopped this idea that he's going to do his
Speaker 1: laddered CR. Everyone, including I think Mitch McConnell, told him
Speaker 1: to shut the fuck up once again.
Speaker 3: When Mitch McConnell is the the most serious person in
Speaker 3: Washington and the Republicans hate him more than they hate
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer or HACKEM Jefferies. I'm not standing for Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, may he live at least another year
Speaker 3: to continue torturing Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that he weighed in on this, but
Speaker 1: everyone else has weighed in and said that a laddered
Speaker 1: CR is a last minute patch to keep the government
Speaker 1: from shutting down. Mike Johnson said, We're going to do
Speaker 1: it in a laddered way so it keeps coming up
Speaker 1: at different times to make everyone come back from vacation.
Speaker 1: Not only do Republicans hate it, Democrats hate it. Everyone
Speaker 1: hates it. Where are like seven more days of government
Speaker 1: funding until a shut down? Right?
Speaker 3: I was also told by a donor about this. You
Speaker 3: guys sent me an email this morning. They said, you
Speaker 3: understand that the rating agencies will lose their fucking minds
Speaker 3: if he does.
Speaker 1: This is nobody's never happening.
Speaker 2: It's madness.
Speaker 1: It's madness. So and by the way, I would like
Speaker 1: to point out the Republicans who were so pro Israel
Speaker 1: and obsessed with Israel. No funding they have done, no funding.
Speaker 2: Is that a damn thing.
Speaker 1: If you think they give a shit about anyone, you're wrong.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see a government shut down,
Speaker 1: or somebody's going to scramble, or five Republicans are going
Speaker 1: to vote with the Democrats. Seems unlikely to May.
Speaker 3: This was inevitable when Johnson was elected Speaker. The rule
Speaker 3: that would kill him if Matt Gates or any of
Speaker 3: these other morons gets a hard on to say, oh.
Speaker 2: Look him anymore. He's voted for them big lib TRD budgets.
Speaker 2: He'll go.
Speaker 1: The one person motion to vacate is still there.
Speaker 3: We're ungovernable. That's really something you want to hear from
Speaker 3: your from from the leaders of the the body of
Speaker 3: the legislative body that represents the vast majority of the
Speaker 3: American people.
Speaker 1: Good luck and that is our moment of fuckery. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: As always, I am delighted to be with you, and
Speaker 3: I will see you again next week here on Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday on Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.