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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.

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Speaker 2: Nazis march proudley through the streets of Nashville this weekend.

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Speaker 2: We have such a great show for you. Today, the

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Speaker 2: New Republic's Michael Tamaski joins us to talk about the

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Speaker 2: media coverage of the twenty twenty four election. That we'll

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Speaker 2: talk to the New Yorkers Jonathan Blitzer about his new

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Speaker 2: book Everyone Who Is Gone is here, the United States,

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Speaker 2: Central America and the making of a crisis. But first

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Speaker 2: we have the host of the Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project,

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Speaker 2: z owned Rick Wilson.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics. It's Monday, and that means

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Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, let's go. We're both in terrible moods.

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Speaker 3: Fucking cranky today. I mean, we're both just like bitchy

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Speaker 3: people today.

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Speaker 1: The first thing we're going to talk about here is

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Speaker 1: the Oh my god, let's just get this out here.

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Speaker 1: No one is swamping out any presidential candidates period. Paragraph

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Speaker 1: not happening.

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Speaker 4: You know what.

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Speaker 3: I am so fucking done with these people who think

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Speaker 3: I'm going to propose a very clever political strategy and say.

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Speaker 4: That Jew Biden should retire.

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Speaker 3: Oh yes, we'll replace him magically with with who?

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Speaker 4: With who?

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Speaker 3: You fucking morons, There is no option here. You got

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Speaker 3: to dance with the one that brung you, fight with

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Speaker 3: the army you came to war with.

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Speaker 4: This is so goddamn dumb. I you know what it is.

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Speaker 4: I'm sorry.

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Speaker 3: It's a luxury good for people who have never run

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Speaker 3: a goddamn race, who've never worked in an actual election,

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Speaker 3: who've never done politics at the retail level. This idea

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Speaker 3: that oh, well, it's so simple, we'll just swap out

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Speaker 3: Biden Harris for who who?

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Speaker 4: Exactly? True?

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Speaker 1: How about two white people, let's swap them out for right?

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Speaker 1: This idea that there's some democratic machine that is going

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Speaker 1: to go in there, right, the Council of Owls. He's

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Speaker 1: going to come out and be like, sorry, Biden, you're

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Speaker 1: eighty one. We've had a talk, we've decided it's enough,

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Speaker 1: and you know, sorry, Kamala, you're the highest woman elected

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Speaker 1: ever in America and the.

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Speaker 3: First African American woman in the vice presidential position.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but we've decided, the Council of vows we know better,

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Speaker 1: because this is the Batman movie, and so we're going

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Speaker 1: to swap you both out for two. It just is

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Speaker 1: so insane. It's not going to happen.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I hear this Molly so often. I know

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Speaker 4: you do too.

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Speaker 3: And my question is always who, who exactly? Who exactly?

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Speaker 3: Right now? Are you going to pick up the phone and.

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Speaker 1: Call Michelle Oh, a woman who has said she will

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Speaker 1: never run for elected office?

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Speaker 4: Right? Get like?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Govin's ready? Okay, great? Sure tell me another. Tell

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Speaker 3: me any practical political person, any professional person who has

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Speaker 3: been in an elections, who has run a campaign, who

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Speaker 3: has been a candidate in a national campaign. Every single

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Speaker 3: person knows this is a process that begins two or

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Speaker 3: three years before the actual election day. The moving parts

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Speaker 3: are astounding in their complexity and their expense, and the

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Speaker 3: time it takes to put them together, and the arrogance

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Speaker 3: of people who believe that they've got some simple option here. Look,

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Speaker 3: is it hard? Of course? Campaigns should be hard. They're difficult,

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Speaker 3: They're complex, and is by and old. Oh my god,

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Speaker 3: you just fucking notice now, great people brilliant.

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Speaker 4: So is Trump.

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Speaker 3: And here's the thing that I've said to a lot

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Speaker 3: of people who've done that, and have brought this up

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Speaker 3: to me, and I said, who's the one person ever

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Speaker 3: in history? Now, as of right now, in the primaries

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Speaker 3: and general elections, twenty eight people have run against Donald Trump.

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Speaker 3: Who's the one person who's ever beaten him. That would

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Speaker 3: be Joseph Robin Att motherfucking bob. So they can stop

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Speaker 3: this bullshit. It needs to stop. It is the most

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Speaker 3: a feat bullshit, counterproductive, self referential, home yoga dick sucking

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Speaker 3: I've ever heard in my life. It needs to fucking stop.

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Speaker 1: Tell us what you really say. I been clear enough,

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Speaker 1: not clear. I have a theory that I want to

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Speaker 1: try out with you, which is that condonry has become

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Speaker 1: completely removed from the real world. Yes, and part of

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Speaker 1: it maybe because people are not reading mainstream media anymore. Right.

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Speaker 1: We have a country of three hundred and thirty million people, right,

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Speaker 1: and a million tuned into The Daily Show. Okay, say

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Speaker 1: twenty million people watch that dumb YouTube clip of John

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Speaker 1: Stewart saying that Joe Biden was too old twenty even, thirty,

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Speaker 1: even forty. You still have a country of hundreds of

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Speaker 1: millions of people, and I think the pundit industrial complex

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Speaker 1: is so removed from real voters that we're almost going

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Speaker 1: on nothing.

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Speaker 3: There is a great gift that I have in this world.

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Speaker 3: I have campaigned in thirty nine states. I don't live

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Speaker 3: in Washington, I don't live in New York. I have

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Speaker 3: a relatively greater exposure to America than a lot of

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Speaker 3: people who write highly paid columns for expensive and elite publications.

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Speaker 3: The stuff they think matters, and this is also the

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Speaker 3: DC consultocracy. The stuff they think matters to Americans is

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Speaker 3: completely disconnected from reality.

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Speaker 5: So on the opposite, yes you are, That's why we

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Speaker 5: get along so well.

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Speaker 3: But at a heartfel conversation of the day with a

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Speaker 3: Democrat operative and he really spent a lot of time

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Speaker 3: trying to convince me that we need to talk about

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Speaker 3: prescription drug coverage and labor unions, and I'm like, what

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Speaker 3: the fuck are you talking about. Have you been anywhere

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Speaker 3: in America in the last five years. No one's talking

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Speaker 3: about that. They're talking about the things on the right.

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Speaker 3: They've got their immigration machine pumped up to eleven, They've

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Speaker 3: got their hate machine pumped up to eleven. Everywhere else,

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Speaker 3: people are terrified that democracy is falling apart and that

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Speaker 3: women are going to be put into the Handmaid's Tale.

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Speaker 3: This is not an easy lift anymore to just go

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Speaker 3: out and do a simple focus script and go, well,

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Speaker 3: here's what we're going to do. This is the fun issue. Oh,

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Speaker 3: it's jobs of the economy and education.

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Speaker 4: No it's not.

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Speaker 3: It's stopped being that a long time ago. We need

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Speaker 3: to rereel about what's happening in the country. And not

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Speaker 3: everybody is gonna is going to fit into what clever pundits,

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Speaker 3: and you and I are both clever pundits ourselves. But

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Speaker 3: the idea that you can you can spin this way,

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Speaker 3: to spin this thing out and say, oh, we'll just

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Speaker 3: swap out Joe Biden. It's a luxury good by people

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Speaker 3: who do not understand how politics works or the stakes

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Speaker 3: at hand.

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Speaker 1: So aight point two million people watch the Daily Show

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Speaker 1: on YouTube, which is good. That's good. I mean, look,

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Speaker 1: I think it's probably about ten million Americans.

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Speaker 3: Look, I had the number one critique of Biden from

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Speaker 3: all these people. Here's the thing that fascinates me. It's

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Speaker 3: not how's the economy doing. Oh, it's terrible, Biden's really

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Speaker 3: fucked it up. Nope, that's not their critique. You know,

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Speaker 3: Biden hasn't sufficiently, you know, fought back against ops. That's

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Speaker 3: not their critique. Biden hasn't been a strong leader in

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Speaker 3: foreign policy. That's not their critique. Their critique is Biden's old.

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Speaker 3: We aesthetically don't like old people, and therefore we should

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Speaker 3: have someone young and fresh to run against Trump. Where

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Speaker 3: the exchange here isn't young versus old, it's old versus evil.

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Speaker 1: Right, Well, I also think like voters, and again I

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Speaker 1: don't want to make sense here, but voters are old.

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Speaker 3: Yes, the average voter in this country is in their

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Speaker 3: late forties, late forties, mollie.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know if that's the mean motors a median,

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Speaker 1: but like, my sense is that a lot of people

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Speaker 1: who show up to vote are are a lot older

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Speaker 1: than that.

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Speaker 4: For the media and voting age is sixty one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so that's the thing is, like, I

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Speaker 1: don't actually think people vote on agism.

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Speaker 3: America is a post policy country on both sides.

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Speaker 1: Frankly, we Democrats are trying.

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Speaker 3: Let me put it this way, Barack Obama, who is

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Speaker 3: the most brilliant campaign and candidate of the twentieth century,

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Speaker 3: and I mean that as a high compliment. He had

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Speaker 3: a two word policy, hope change, And I remember sitting

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Speaker 3: in focus groups trying to like pin it down, like

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Speaker 3: when we were back then, it was like, don't you

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Speaker 3: know liberal Marxist Barack Obama will impose.

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Speaker 4: Full communism And they were like no, I like hope

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Speaker 4: and change. And on the Republican side with Trump, it's

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Speaker 4: like it's like, I'm angry.

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Speaker 3: I'm a sixty five year old white guy who drives

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Speaker 3: a truck and I haven't had an direction in twenty years.

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Speaker 4: Take revenge on my enemies for me.

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Speaker 1: Donald, right, exactly.

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Speaker 4: I've had too much coffee this morning.

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Speaker 1: Well we both have had too much coffee that, to

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Speaker 1: be honest, but I think so I want to say,

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Speaker 1: Biden is not being swapped out for Michelle Obama.

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Speaker 4: Nope, not happening.

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Speaker 1: The first person to ever tell me that Biden was

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Speaker 1: going to be swapped out for Michelle Obama was Michael Moore. Well,

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Speaker 1: Michael Moore once told me that, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: right before the it was Hillary. Hillary is going to

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Speaker 1: be swapped out for Michelle Obama or should be? And

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Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, okay.

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Speaker 3: Look I get it. People like Michelle Obama. That's fine,

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Speaker 3: And you know what, She's a likable person.

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Speaker 1: I like her too, She's great.

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Speaker 3: She has not spent a lot of her post Washington

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Speaker 3: time being a terrible human being, you know, and Cobb

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Speaker 3: Wesser for that, right. But this idea that any of

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Speaker 3: this is mechanically doable or practical or easy, or that

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Speaker 3: it will change the fundamental course of the election is

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Speaker 3: astounding to me. I don't understand what mental breakdown is

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Speaker 3: happening in the heads of elite pundits who keep saying this.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Jesse's bored. He just texted me, We've done this

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Speaker 1: too much so and I don't want to you know,

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Speaker 1: we don't want to lose the youngest I know. Right,

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Speaker 1: Can we talk about Fanny Willis? Because I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about Fanny Wellis.

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Speaker 4: Let's talk about Fanny Willis.

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Speaker 1: I'm watching Fanny Willis yesterday and I'm thinking, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: maybe I'm wrong, but I'm thinking, fuck these fucking people

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Speaker 1: who are dragging her through these Like in my mind,

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Speaker 1: she was pissed, but I was more pissed for her,

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Speaker 1: Like I did not feel like Republicans came out looking

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Speaker 1: great yesterday. Now the people I talked to horror. Do

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Speaker 1: you see people were like that was a little over

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Speaker 1: the top. She should have been less enraged. But I

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Speaker 1: actually think that the rage that she showed a lot

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Speaker 1: of women related.

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Speaker 4: To I actually agree with that, and I'll tell you why.

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Speaker 3: Because the idea that the Republican opo machine has come

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Speaker 3: up with is, oh, well, we can disqualify her because

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Speaker 3: of her personal life.

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Speaker 4: Is that really the game they want to play is.

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Speaker 6: That this is a problem they want it like, I

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Speaker 6: just I wonder if that doesn't have a certain potential

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Speaker 6: downside for a whole variety of Republicans.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is the thing where they say Biden

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Speaker 1: has dementia and then Trump goes on to make all

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Speaker 1: these mistakes.

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Speaker 3: Right, and the Trump goes out and speaks at like

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Speaker 3: ancient Sumerian.

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Speaker 4: It goes, yes, he's.

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Speaker 1: Right, French. Well, she's divorced, he's divorced. They are not

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Speaker 1: even dating anymore. There's a whole thing about when she says,

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Speaker 1: you know, we stop being physical, but we didn't have

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Speaker 1: the talk for another month. And it's like, in my mind,

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Speaker 1: I thought, like, this is such a bad look. They're

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Speaker 1: all trying to protect this guy who had an affair

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Speaker 1: with a porn star while his third wife had just

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Speaker 1: delivered their child and then gave her money.

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Speaker 3: Does anyone want to make an argument that Donald Trump

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Speaker 3: is somehow this figure of moral probity anybody, anybody out

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Speaker 3: there at all, because I guarantee you Donald trucks, Donald truck, Wow,

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Speaker 3: Donald truck a lot of coffee this morning, kids, a

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Speaker 3: lot of coffee. Donald Trump has a sordid, grotesque personal life.

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Speaker 3: And in his case, the MOGA's like, that's the sound

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Speaker 3: of his viruinity and masculinity. But he'll fuck anything that moves,

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Speaker 3: including office furniture. Oh oh what Trump? And Oh I'm

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Speaker 3: gonna get in trouble again because I just use the

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Speaker 3: official mocking the Trump maga voter voice.

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Speaker 4: Well, I forgot Rick see it in.

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Speaker 1: I think that that's a really good point that you know,

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Speaker 1: you have one set of rules for Trump and another

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Speaker 1: set of rules for everyone else. So Fanny Willis is divorced,

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Speaker 1: she's dating someone. First of all, Like, I actually do

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Speaker 1: agree with the people who said, like he should have

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Speaker 1: stepped down, like don't hire him. You have to be

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Speaker 1: so careful when you're going after Trump people because they'll

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Speaker 1: take everything you do and blow it up. But that said,

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Speaker 1: the case here is that somehow she did something corrupt

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Speaker 1: and they just don't have any evidence to prove it.

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Speaker 1: And then you have this other story running in the news,

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Speaker 1: which is that Trump is taking over the RNC so

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Speaker 1: it will pay his legal bills.

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Speaker 3: So this guy from North Carolina that they're putting in there,

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Speaker 3: yes he's an election denier, but he's essentially fundamentally uninteresting

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Speaker 3: in the RNC takeover the fact that they're putting Lara

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Speaker 3: Trump as the co chair of the RNC. You know,

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Speaker 3: Lara Trump is not qualified. During the roller meat station

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Speaker 3: at a wah wah Okay, she is a profoundly unequipped

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Speaker 3: person for this job except for the management of the grift,

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Speaker 3: and that is entirely what will happen. And they're putting

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Speaker 3: Chris Losovita, his strategist, in as chief operating officer, so

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Speaker 3: Chris actually knows where all the bodies are and it

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Speaker 3: can bleed the turn up until it is absolutely fucking dry.

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Speaker 3: By the time this is over, the Republican National Committee

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Speaker 3: will be utterly bankrupt. They'll have to sell the building

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Speaker 3: on C Street. It is amazing to.

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Speaker 4: Me what they're about to get away with here.

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Speaker 1: Just like game is out for me. You are a

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Speaker 1: Republican donor. Okay, maybe you donate to Trump, but are

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Speaker 1: you going to donate to the RNC when it is

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Speaker 1: just in the service of Trump.

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Speaker 3: The rnc's major donor pool is going to dry up quickly.

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Speaker 3: The rnc's small dollarpool has dried up a good bit,

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Speaker 3: in part because the only thing that works for Republican

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Speaker 3: donors now in their direct mail email campaigns is the

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Speaker 3: name Trump.

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Speaker 4: Ain't nobody out.

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Speaker 3: There going, yeah, I need me some more of that,

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Speaker 3: Tommy Tuberville, ooh no, it is now Donald Trump.

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Speaker 7: Unless the email says trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump

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Speaker 7: Trump trum trum trum trump tup trumpp trump, the small

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Speaker 7: dollar donors go, it must be one of them cook

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Speaker 7: establishment of Rhano Republicans. I'm not going to vote for him,

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Speaker 7: and I'm not going to send any money, so RANA.

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Speaker 7: They have bled their email list dry. This is a

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Speaker 7: little secret in the industry side. The RNC email lists

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Speaker 7: have been sucked dry.

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Speaker 3: They are desiccated, they are bled, bled, bled, and there's

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Speaker 3: not much more blood to get out of the out

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Speaker 3: of that particular turn up.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, lots prayers, whatever.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, thoughts and prayers. Look, there will be some money

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Speaker 3: that comes in there, it won't be what it should

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Speaker 3: be or needs to be. They're not going to raise

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Speaker 3: for five hundred million dollars to fund a convention and

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Speaker 3: everything else based on the fact that.

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Speaker 1: They need that money for other stuff.

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Speaker 4: I mean, right, but you're not going to get it.

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Speaker 3: It is also, while they're afraid and they'll give their

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Speaker 3: money to Trump, they're not afraid of whoever this mooke

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Speaker 3: is from North Carolina.

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Speaker 4: You're not really afraid of that.

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Speaker 3: They're going to spend a lot of time figuring out

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Speaker 3: what the minimum dollar figure to give to Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, You are welcome. Did you know Rick Wilson

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Speaker 1: and I are bringing together some friends for a general

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Speaker 1: election kickoff party at City Winery in New York on

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Speaker 1: March sixth. We're going to be chatting right after Super

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Speaker 1: Tuesday about what's going on, and it is going to

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Speaker 1: probably be the one fun night for the next eighty days.

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Speaker 1: If you're in the New York area, please come by

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Speaker 1: and join us. You can go to City Winery's website

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Speaker 1: and grab a ticket.

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Speaker 4: Michael Tumaski is the editor of The New Republic.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back too fast politics, my bestie and also the

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Speaker 1: person who taught me to write no pressure a mike

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Speaker 1: to MASKI. Oh shucks. So let's talk about the unique

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Speaker 1: moment in history we are in here. No pressure, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: no pressure. I mean, you're not incredibly old, but if

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Speaker 1: you were incredibly old, no, But you've been covering American

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Speaker 1: politics for a long time, and it seems like right

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Speaker 1: now we're in a period that is both terrifying and

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Speaker 1: also crushingly boring. Discuss terrifying for sure. Boring Yeah, well

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Speaker 1: it's not boring, but it's repetitive.

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Speaker 8: Donald Trump has become boring. Although, yeah, it's a very

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Speaker 8: weird thing. He is both of these things. He's a

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Speaker 8: monster who is an imminent threat to you that I estates,

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Speaker 8: but his stick is really boring now. And you know,

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Speaker 8: I watched a little bit of from South Carolina. This

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Speaker 8: was his most recent speech. It was Wednesday night. You know,

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Speaker 8: did you see this jag about the photograph of him

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Speaker 8: golfing and you know how he looked fat and then

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Speaker 8: he complained about that. Did you see all this?

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Speaker 1: Now? The part of the seventeen hour speech that I watched.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, as someone who's sat through these speeches.

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Speaker 1: They really are like two two and a half hours.

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Speaker 1: I mean they're fucking long.

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Speaker 8: Oh yeah, people walk out now, you know all the time.

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Speaker 8: You know, you don't see that reported much, but it's true.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're very boring. And he also has a

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Speaker 1: couple lies. He just goes all in on and the

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Speaker 1: people who watch him are like, I mean, again, this

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Speaker 1: is an unfair comparison, but they're little like deadheads, right,

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Speaker 1: like this is their thing, this is a raison.

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Speaker 8: Datra I think that's true of a big chuck of them.

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Speaker 8: I mean, I know people that I went to high

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Speaker 8: school with from my Facebook page, who.

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Speaker 1: Sharton Caveat you grew up in West Virginia.

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Speaker 8: I grew up in West Virginia. Yeah, so I know

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Speaker 8: a lot of these folks were new. But I still

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Speaker 8: see you know a lot of them say, oh I've

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Speaker 8: seen him four times, I've seen him six times. So yeah,

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Speaker 8: it is a little bit like that some folks. Half

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Speaker 8: of it doesn't make any sense, right.

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Speaker 1: But it doesn't necessarily matter. It doesn't matter to his people,

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Speaker 1: right because he occupies a different zone than all other

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Speaker 1: normal politicians.

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Speaker 8: Right.

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Speaker 1: He gets away with things that even people like Mike Pence.

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Speaker 1: The things that Trump gets away with are not transferable

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Speaker 1: to anyone else except maybe Don Junior.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, and not even him in quote the same way.

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Speaker 8: But I don't know how to explain it. But it's mystical,

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Speaker 8: and that is fascist. Between the fascist leader and his followers,

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Speaker 8: there is this mystical, inexplicable bond that exists that transcends

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Speaker 8: any particular thing the person might say or not say,

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Speaker 8: or do or whatever. So you know, like Trump makes

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Speaker 8: all these he makes more verbal guests Joe Biden does.

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Speaker 8: But you know, they don't care, they don't pay attention,

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Speaker 8: and so it doesn't become a mean well, there are

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Speaker 8: other reasons it doesn't become because the Democrats don't push it.

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Speaker 1: They don't fight the way the Republicans.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, they don't fight the way I always do on

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Speaker 8: things like that. But you can say anything. What do

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Speaker 8: you think he could say that with Bosi's people. I

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Speaker 8: don't know that there's any He could call them idiots

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Speaker 8: and they'd love him. He probably has.

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Speaker 1: I mean, in all those hours of speeches, he said

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. You know. I want to like

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Speaker 1: talk for a minute about how difficult it is to

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Speaker 1: write about what it is, this authoritarian because it's two things, right.

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Speaker 1: It's Trump as a sort of Mussolini character, Mussolini asque character, right,

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Speaker 1: someone who is bombastic and amusing in a way that

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Speaker 1: makes him seem less dangerous. That's why I picked Mussolini

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Speaker 1: because like Mussolini. Obviously there are many ways in which

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Speaker 1: Trump is not like him. But that sort of bumback,

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Speaker 1: a humorous kind of we're all in on the joke

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Speaker 1: is actually really does come from there. But I'm curious,

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Speaker 1: like the problems we have now of covering this is

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Speaker 1: that we know what it is, and yet it feels

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Speaker 1: like there's a lot of anxiety in the mainstream media

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Speaker 1: about how to not look like a partisan when covering

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Speaker 1: the rise of authoritarianism. And I feel like we're maybe

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Speaker 1: worrying about the wrong things. I mean, you and I

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Speaker 1: are not, they are, yeah, right, right.

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Speaker 4: Right, yeah.

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Speaker 8: Reporters does some reporters covering this, and particularly editors, and

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Speaker 8: I think there should be more focus on editors, Like specifically,

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Speaker 8: the people who write the front page headlines, are the

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Speaker 8: home page headlines for the New York Times in the

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Speaker 8: Washington Post. Those people have enormous enormous influence, who are they.

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Speaker 8: I don't know, Maybe you do. I don't know who

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Speaker 8: they are, but like just every word they choose is

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Speaker 8: so important, and everything they decide to hilight is so important.

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Speaker 8: So we saw the last weekend that her report came

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Speaker 8: out last Thursday afternoon. It was a big story, and

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Speaker 8: understandably so I'm not saying it shouldn't be a story.

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Speaker 8: I mean whether her was behaving in accordance with prosecutorial

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Speaker 8: norms in saying some of the things he said of

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Speaker 8: that report.

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Speaker 4: No, I don't think he was.

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Speaker 1: Andrew Weisman doesn't think so. And he worked on a

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Speaker 1: special council.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, nobody thinks he did. But he said

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Speaker 8: they were news. But they were news for three days

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Speaker 8: or two and a half days, And so you know,

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Speaker 8: I woke up Saturday morning. Of course, they led the

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Speaker 8: papers on Friday morning. Then I woke up Saturday morning,

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Speaker 8: getting my first coffee and walking my computer, wondering, oh boy,

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Speaker 8: what's going to be the lead story? Don't tell me.

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Speaker 8: And yes, Biden's mental acuity again for the second day running.

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Speaker 8: Now that's a choice. That's a specific decision you know

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Speaker 8: that they made. Did they need to make that? Was?

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Speaker 8: I don't remember what else was going on in the

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Speaker 8: news that day.

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Speaker 4: But a lot.

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Speaker 1: Trumpet had rejected NATO and encouraged Russia to attack NATO allies, Yes,

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Speaker 1: but for not paying their bills, the irony upon iron a. Yes.

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Speaker 8: Anyway, these are choices that mainstream media institutions made, and

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Speaker 8: years another that I wrote about this in my piece

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Speaker 8: on Monday when I was talking about all this stuff.

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Speaker 8: Trump gave a speech Friday night before an NRA crowd

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Speaker 8: in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and he referred to it as Saturday afternoon.

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Speaker 8: He said, what a nice Saturday afternoon.

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Speaker 4: Believe me, I don't have to do this.

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Speaker 8: If I didn't believe the I'd be somewhere else, I'd

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Speaker 8: be very nice place. But it was Friday night and

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Speaker 8: he called it Saturday afternoon. Now, the New York Times

437
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:36,960
Speaker 8: in the Washington Posts both had reporters there. They both

438
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:39,800
Speaker 8: ran stories on this speech. Neither of them even mentioned

439
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:41,560
Speaker 8: that he did that. And that was one of about

440
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:45,639
Speaker 8: five guests. He called Biden Obama again and other things.

441
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 8: None of them were even mentioned in the Times and

442
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:50,200
Speaker 8: Post speeches. Now, if Biden had done those things, don't

443
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:52,480
Speaker 8: you think they'd be mentioned in the In the news

444
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:54,560
Speaker 8: articles I kind of do. I certainly do.

445
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 4: The way they.

446
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 8: Covered these things, it's it's just it's it's mysterifying something.

447
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:00,639
Speaker 1: I was somewhere the other day with a bunch of

448
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 1: really smart, educated political people and they were like, well,

449
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 1: they need to get by and out there, and I

450
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:08,200
Speaker 1: was like, you guys, he gave a speech on Monday.

451
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:11,359
Speaker 1: On Tuesday, he spoke to whatever. I mean, you know,

452
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:14,439
Speaker 1: I watch c SPAN, so I see all the times

453
00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:18,000
Speaker 1: he speaks. And what's happened is that he only gets

454
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:21,360
Speaker 1: covered when he gaffs. So when he gives I mean,

455
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:23,920
Speaker 1: I heard him give a speech that was a very

456
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:28,439
Speaker 1: long speech, and it was quite he was speaking quite quickly,

457
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:32,680
Speaker 1: which for me, you know, and my father might be hereditary,

458
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 1: we have some you know, we're not fast talkers. It

459
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:38,920
Speaker 1: requires a lot of like mental acuity, which I at

460
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:41,920
Speaker 1: forty five no longer have nobody covered it at all.

461
00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: And so literally I'm with all of these smart people

462
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, they should get him out there more,

463
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:49,120
Speaker 1: and I'm like, he's out there every fucking.

464
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 8: Day, Yes, of course he is. And now he's not

465
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 8: out there. I will say this, he's not out there

466
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 8: necessarily like in campaign mode every day, you know, when

467
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 8: when you're out there as president, it's not the same

468
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 8: as being in campaign.

469
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: I mean unless you're Trump. Yeah, and everything is just

470
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 1: running and trying to stay to jail.

471
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 8: Right exactly. So they could probably do a little bit

472
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,960
Speaker 8: more of that. But yeah, the other problem here, Molly,

473
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:18,400
Speaker 8: is like the way news organizations, mainstream news organizations, define news.

474
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 8: News by definition is something that is new.

475
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 4: Now.

476
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:27,399
Speaker 8: If Trump says for the five hundredth time, in some way,

477
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 8: shape or form, that I'm going to subvert democracy if

478
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 8: you make me president again, it stops being news. I mean,

479
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 8: it's still shocking, outrageous, and it should be on the

480
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 8: front page even if it's the five hundredth time. But

481
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:41,959
Speaker 8: news organizations say, oh, that's not new this, And so

482
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 8: that's how they diminish the threat and normalize it because

483
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 8: the more he says and think about it's a terrible paradox,

484
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 8: the more he says outrageous things, the less newsworthy they become,

485
00:24:55,680 --> 00:25:00,640
Speaker 8: and the more normal two on that that's profound, Eh.

486
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: That's why they pay you the medium books. Yeah, yeah,

487
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:06,919
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's right. The other thing that

488
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:11,200
Speaker 1: I think is pretty interesting that we probably should talk

489
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 1: about is this special election in New York's third Yeah?

490
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: Where because I mean again, and everyone gets mad at

491
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: me for saying this. Why everyone gets mad at me

492
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: for saying this, I don't know, but like, so, the

493
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 1: whole theory of the case with Biden is that Biden

494
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: should drop out because the polls show he's behind. Okay, right,

495
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 1: I mean that's it. That's all that you know. And

496
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: he's old, so that's right. I mean, there's not any

497
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:37,200
Speaker 1: other information here that I'm missing, right, No, not at all. Okay,

498
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: So this is the whole you should drop out of incumbency,

499
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 1: which is an enormous advantage. And he's been quite in

500
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: my mind anyway, quite a good president. The Inflation Reduction Act,

501
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: and I don't want to sound too smug here, but

502
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,440
Speaker 1: has actually done all the things they promised it would.

503
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: But here is Joe Biden. So this whole idea is

504
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 1: based on polls New York's third district. Pole's show Swazi

505
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 1: barely eking it out. He wins by six points, actually

506
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 1: by eight points.

507
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, I noticed Mike Johnson said Biden wanted by

508
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 8: eight points and Swazi didn't. Yeah, he won by seven

509
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 8: point eight.

510
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: Right, seven point eight points, so a sixteen point swing.

511
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 8: Sixteen point swing. As I heard you say on TV

512
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 8: the other day, you argue that it's a bell Weather

513
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 8: and Mike Johnson argued that it's not at bell Weather.

514
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 8: I'm on tem Molly here. It's absolutely bell Weather. But

515
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 8: you know, it's also like it's instructive of the way

516
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 8: that the mainstream media unconsciously in bibes right wing medias

517
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 8: and tropes and talking points. It was the right wing

518
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 8: media that said this post. I grant you Pols said

519
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 8: it too, But the New York Post banging on about

520
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 8: the migrant Christness and sanctuary Swazi and all this crowd.

521
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: I didn't see that.

522
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, there's a website Sanctuary Swas Jesus Christ. So

523
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 8: it's the New York Post banging on about all this stuff,

524
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,199
Speaker 8: and so they put it into mainstream of borders heads

525
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 8: that oh, this is going to be all about the

526
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 8: border and it's going to be a disaster for Democrats,

527
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 8: and then Democrats start panicking and Republicans start looking over

528
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:17,439
Speaker 8: as it turns out dramatically overcome, and everybody expects a

529
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 8: close race or even for him to lose, and that

530
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 8: it's not remotely close, called it ten o'clock. Yeah, it

531
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 8: wasn't it all close? And he won every part of

532
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 8: the district as far as I can see. And this

533
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 8: keeps happening, as Simon Rosenberg keeps playing out, it keeps happening.

534
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 8: There was the Pennsylvania House race that night too, on

535
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 8: Tuesday night, where the Democrat won. That was a more

536
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 8: democratic district than this one was. But still Democrats keep

537
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 8: winning these special elections. And there really is a correlation

538
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 8: between these special elections and how things turn out in November,

539
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 8: because it tells you where people's heads are, and people's

540
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 8: heads are. Republicans are extreme, Republicans are against the board.

541
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 8: They've taken away abortion rights. Now they this nonsense of

542
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 8: the border where they're refusing to fix a problem that

543
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 8: they're highlighting all the time. So yeah, so all the

544
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 8: what political scientists called the fundamentals are totally in the

545
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 8: Democrats direction. The unfortunate fact is that Joe Biden's eighty

546
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:15,919
Speaker 8: one years old. Of all the things he can do,

547
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 8: the one thing you can't do is get me young

548
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 8: if you were seventy five seven points ahead.

549
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: But it is interesting to me The New York Times again,

550
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: which both of us have written for and both of

551
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,880
Speaker 1: us appreciate, and there's a lot of good stuff in there.

552
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 1: The New York Times opinion page has literally like you know,

553
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: trans panic and Biden's age, Like you know, if I

554
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: see Ross, both are the idea that Republicans are operating

555
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: in good faith, even Ross, who a lot of people

556
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: like whatever, I don't have a sense that they're operating

557
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: in good faith. I want to talk about the border

558
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: for a second. So I actually was listening to the

559
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: MPR Politics podcast, which can both be maddening but also great.

560
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: They were talking about how like there's so much emphasis

561
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: for voters on the border, right, like Republicans. It's the

562
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: same with the Biden stuff, right, bidens Old, bidens Ald.

563
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 1: And then Trump gets up there and says something that

564
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: is a gaff like Saturday morning, and with the border,

565
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: it's sort of the same thing, right, the border, the border,

566
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: the border, the border. And then it's like, well, Republicans

567
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 1: killed that legislation because Trump told them to.

568
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't know if people noticed. You know, Greg Sargent,

569
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 8: who now is my oll leg at the New Republic,

570
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 8: There's been New York guest many times he wrote a

571
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 8: piece last week for T and R picked up a

572
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 8: pole that said, people haven't really yet noticed that this

573
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 8: was Trump's fault, so Democrats really have to drive that.

574
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 8: Oh maybe they did notice it in the New York

575
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 8: Special District because they're paying more attention. There were ads

576
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 8: of stuff.

577
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: Right, But it's an opportunity for Democrats.

578
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 8: Yeah, it is, it is, and Democrats I think again.

579
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 8: You know, this is where like Corses went on this

580
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 8: smart jag last night that there's something I've written about

581
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 8: a lot too. Republicans just kind of like reflexively assume

582
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 8: that they represent Middle America and that Democrats represent Burke

583
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 8: and the Upper West Side. Well, that is not true.

584
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 8: It's just not true. Republicans are extremists. Their positions are extreme.

585
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 8: Most Middle Americans, most swing voters in Michigan and Wisconsin

586
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 8: and so on, tending to support Democratic positions much more

587
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 8: than Republican positions. They don't want extreme, harsh policies on

588
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 8: the border. They want the border police, for sure. They

589
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:33,719
Speaker 8: want us to have a border, and they want there

590
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 8: to be a process, but they want a human process.

591
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 3: You know.

592
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 8: They don't want to treat people like dogs. They want

593
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 8: to treat people like people, and they want opportunities for

594
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 8: past to citizenship and so forth.

595
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: But the reason they want those things is because they've

596
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: been told that the border is chaos and that migrants

597
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: are flooding into the country, et cetera, et cetera. I mean,

598
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: the reality is, yes, you have to have a path

599
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: to citizenship because these people can't work. So you're having

600
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: these people come in be poor, be forced to stay

601
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: poor because they can't work because there is no path.

602
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: But ultimately, the only way the economy survives, especially as

603
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: birth rates decline in wealthy nations, is with immigration. Katherine

604
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: Rampell had a really good piece about this in The

605
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: Wasting Bos that actually immigration is a huge economic boon,

606
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: and especially in a tight labor market.

607
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely huge.

608
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 8: I think your average person doesn't read reports about this,

609
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 8: but they kind of instinctively know it. They know it

610
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 8: from their communities, they know it from they see you know,

611
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 8: Salvador and restaurants and so on and so on. They

612
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 8: just know an anecdote that immigrants add to our economic

613
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 8: well being. And so this is why, as I said,

614
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 8: you know, I mean, yeah, people want a policed border,

615
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 8: but they don't want families to be separated. They don't

616
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:57,959
Speaker 8: want what Donald Trump and Republicans want. They want a

617
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 8: reasonable middle of the road policy, and so Republicans know

618
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 8: they don't represent Middle America, but that idea is fixed

619
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 8: in the media's collective mind.

620
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: So interesting and right. Thank you so much, Mike TAMASKI.

621
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back.

622
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 8: I will come back at any time, your Molly. Thank you.

623
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: Jonathan Blitzer is a writer at The New Yorker and

624
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 2: author of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here? The United States,

625
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 2: Central America and the Making of a Crisis.

626
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics. Jonathan Blitzer, Thank you so much

627
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 1: for having me son of Wolf. No, I'm just kidding.

628
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: You're not related to Wolf Blitzer, right, This is a PSA.

629
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: Yeah right, this is the most brainworms nepo baby thing

630
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: I do every day. It's like, I'm like, oh, yeah,

631
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: obviously it's Wolf Blitzer son. You'd actually be Wolf Blitzer's grandson.

632
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: As I was thinking about this, very stupid all right, So, anyway,

633
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: you wrote this incredible book about the border. I always

634
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: wonder when books come out during the time when everyone

635
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: is talking about you know, books take years and years

636
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: and years to write, so they're almost impossible to time,

637
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: So what happened.

638
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 5: Well, it's funny because in a certain sense, obviously all

639
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 5: of the drama and stress of the Southern border right

640
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 5: now is good through the book insofar as people are

641
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 5: talking about this issue. The thing I was primarily interested

642
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 5: in was the arrival of Central American asylum seekers at

643
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 5: the Southern border and kind of telling the history of

644
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 5: how that came to be, which has been for the

645
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 5: last decade at least, the kind of main story of

646
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 5: how life at the border and beyond have changed in

647
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 5: the United States. And now that remains the case. I mean,

648
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 5: there's still huge numbers of Central Americans from mel Salvador, Guatemala,

649
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 5: and Duras coming to the US seeking asylum, but now

650
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 5: the situation has gotten even more global, and so now

651
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 5: the main population of people showing up at the Southern

652
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 5: border are Venezuelans, But then there are also people from

653
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 5: a number of other countries in Latin America and in

654
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 5: the world, and so it's kind of a collision of

655
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 5: two things that were happening. And my sense of writing

656
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 5: all of this was, this problem isn't going anywhere, and

657
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:04,959
Speaker 5: I wanted to try to go back into the actual

658
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 5: history and really understand some of the lives that helped

659
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 5: kind of open up site lines into what the politics

660
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 5: and policy and history of it all had been. And

661
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 5: so now there's kind of a dual phenomenon to account

662
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 5: for the one in my book, which is the last decade,

663
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 5: and now we're entering kind of this new phase which

664
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 5: is messier and even more dramatic in some ways.

665
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: So let's talk for a minute. I would love it

666
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: if you would just talk about what drives immigration here,

667
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: what that looks like, so why these people want to

668
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,280
Speaker 1: come here, and what the factors are there.

669
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:41,840
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I would say kind of three ways of

670
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 5: breaking that down, starting with the most recent developments at

671
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 5: the border. So right now, what we're seeing is that

672
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 5: the world on a whole is experiencing more mass migration

673
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,319
Speaker 5: than it has in decades. And the people who are

674
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 5: showing up at the US southern border are people fleeing

675
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 5: all kinds of things over a kind of a range

676
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 5: of different countries and areas. And so you know, you

677
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 5: have Venezuelans fleeing collapsing totalitarian regime and they've been fleeing

678
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 5: in huge numbers since at least twenty fifteen, I mean

679
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 5: millions of people. You have, for instance, Haitians who have

680
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 5: been displaced for more than a decade following the twenty

681
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 5: to ten earthquake, who had resettled in other countries in

682
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 5: South America, but who were uprooted again as a result

683
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 5: of the economic fallout from COVID, and so they're now

684
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:27,919
Speaker 5: back on the move and have been on the move.

685
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 5: You know for many, many years. You have Nicaraguins fleeing

686
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,800
Speaker 5: a repressive government in Nicaraguile, Cubans fleeing a repressive government

687
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 5: in Cuba, people leaving their homes in large numbers because

688
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 5: of the ravages of climate change, you know, hurricanes, major storms.

689
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 5: People have lost their homes, their livelihoods. You know, you

690
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 5: have all of these things happening at once. And what

691
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 5: has been going on in Central America for many years

692
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 5: has been really nothing short of a mass exodus. And

693
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 5: that story is what I'm primarily interested in the book,

694
00:35:57,680 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 5: which is a story that kind of goes back to

695
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 5: the nineteen eighties, but the kind of primary reason, I

696
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 5: would say, on the whole to explain why so many

697
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,839
Speaker 5: Central Americans were seeking asylum in the United States. This

698
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 5: over the last decade, from maybe twenty fourteen up until

699
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 5: the last couple of years was a combination of things like,

700
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 5: you know, massive crime, really horrific gang violence that had

701
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 5: kind of dominated the region, and that incidentaly was the

702
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 5: result of US deportation policy in the nineties. You know,

703
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:25,720
Speaker 5: corrupt regimes that the US had in some form another

704
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 5: help prop up, and that we're running they their countries

705
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 5: into the ground. And so you had kind of all

706
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,360
Speaker 5: of these things happening. And what the through line is

707
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 5: in all of it is the asylum system at the

708
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,400
Speaker 5: southern border, which is a fraction of what the United

709
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 5: States immigration system is. All asylum is is a mechanism

710
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:46,240
Speaker 5: by which people showing up at the southern border seeking

711
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 5: protection you are allowed to gain entry into the country.

712
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 5: The problem is that the immigration debate in Washington has

713
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,800
Speaker 5: been stuck for so long, I mean for decades in fact,

714
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 5: that the immigration system hasn't been updated in any sense

715
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 5: really since nineteen ninety and so you know, you have

716
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 5: labor shortages all across the country, you have visas that

717
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 5: have been capped, you know, visas to reunite with family,

718
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,879
Speaker 5: temporary work visas, all of these things that should facilitate

719
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 5: people's legal entry into the United States and would make

720
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 5: this all orderly and more manageable. These have been channels

721
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 5: that have been blocked because of inaction in Congress, and

722
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:24,400
Speaker 5: so what's happened increasingly is the pressure point for the

723
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 5: whole drama has been the border, because people who otherwise

724
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 5: would have legitimate and good reason to come to the US,

725
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 5: either seeking protection or opportunity, have no choice but to

726
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 5: show up at the southern border and apply through the

727
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 5: asylum system, which is badly backlogged. There are millions of

728
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 5: cases in a backlog. It takes years before someone's case

729
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,760
Speaker 5: is actually heard, and the worse that system fares the better,

730
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:48,879
Speaker 5: the more of an incentive it provides to people who

731
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 5: are desperate to come and present themselves at the border

732
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 5: because the government is overwhelmed is in many cases letting

733
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 5: people in on the idea that in several years they'll

734
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 5: eventually have their case be adjudicated. But that's years down

735
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 5: the line.

736
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: Last week I read someone who wrote a really good

737
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 1: piece for the Washington Post about the border, who was

738
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 1: bilin Gal. Really long piece and she talked about what

739
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: the fundamental problems on the on the border were, and

740
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: she said that ultimately it came down to the fact

741
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 1: that you know, there's been no legislation for twenty years,

742
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 1: no legislation, no money, so of course you know you

743
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: have no path, so the only way to come is

744
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 1: to use this broken asylum system. So it does seem

745
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: to me to be kind of shocking that you know,

746
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: you don't have the judges right, the reason why this

747
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:37,359
Speaker 1: takes so long. You don't have the judges to look

748
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 1: at these cases. It's just a money and a legislation problem.

749
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 4: By and large, I agree completely.

750
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 5: I would say there are kind of two rough ways

751
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 5: I've come to understand just the gridlock on it. The

752
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 5: first is, without question, if the US government could devote

753
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 5: more resources to the border in the form of more

754
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 5: immigration judges, more asylum officers, you know, more agents with

755
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 5: customs and border protection to process people who are arriving,

756
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 5: you know, facilities that allow space in which to process

757
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 5: people as they arrived. That it would definitely reduce the

758
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:10,320
Speaker 5: pressure at the border. But and this is the second

759
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 5: thing that wouldn't be enough on its own. I mean,

760
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 5: basically what we're seeing now, and this gets to something

761
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 5: you've also said, because the overall immigration system hasn't moved

762
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 5: an inch in decades, there's no way for people to

763
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 5: come to the United States legally, even though there's all

764
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,400
Speaker 5: kinds of good reasons to admit them legally. And so,

765
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:32,760
Speaker 5: you know, the asylum system was never meant to address

766
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 5: the kind of scale of people arriving that we're seeing

767
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 5: now and honestly we were seeing ten years ago. But

768
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 5: because nothing else changes, that's the only aspect of the

769
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 5: system that kind of gets worked and stressed to this degree.

770
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: There's no pass turns out, ignoring something doesn't make it

771
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:49,800
Speaker 1: better exactly.

772
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,399
Speaker 5: And you know, it's funny what the Biden administration has done,

773
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 5: and we can talk about it. I mean, the Biden administration,

774
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 5: it's been a mixed bag on immigration stuff. But one

775
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 5: thing that's interesting that they've done, which kind of reflects

776
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:03,479
Speaker 5: just the general stalemate in Washington, is they've acknowledged that, look,

777
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 5: because there are no pathways, we need rather than to

778
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,280
Speaker 5: just process everyone in the worst place possible at the border,

779
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 5: we need to give people a chance to begin to

780
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 5: you know, file claims and papers with US before they

781
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 5: reach the border, and we can then parole them in

782
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,359
Speaker 5: that's the authority that the president has to basically give

783
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:24,479
Speaker 5: people legal cover to enter the country, and they've done

784
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 5: that for populations that we've seen a real rise in

785
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 5: immigration from so Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and they created

786
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 5: a program, a parole program where thirty thousand people from

787
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 5: these countries can enter the country legally each month, and

788
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 5: one of the consequences of that was that there was

789
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 5: a ninety percent drop in those populations showing up at

790
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 5: the southern border, which is to say, you know, if

791
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 5: you create legal pathways, people will avail themselves of them.

792
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 5: The problem is that the people now who have come

793
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 5: into the United States through these parole programs don't have

794
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 5: a path to legal status either because the same forces

795
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,399
Speaker 5: of gridlock or at play when it comes to you know,

796
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 5: they're eventually getting legalized. So basically, the Biden administration is

797
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:08,399
Speaker 5: in a bind because the only entity that can open

798
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 5: up legal pathways in a meaningful way, in a kind

799
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 5: of thorough going way as Congress. But Congress is a

800
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 5: dead zone. And so you're kind of in this You're

801
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 5: you're sort of in this catch twenty two situation if

802
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:20,759
Speaker 5: you're the administration, where you want to make it more

803
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 5: orderly at the border and again, we can talk about it.

804
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 5: There's a lot there, but you want to make it

805
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 5: more orderly at the border by allowing people to come

806
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,359
Speaker 5: in a more kind of ordered, lawful way. But then

807
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:32,839
Speaker 5: they're in, and now what happens They have a sort

808
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 5: of temporary legal standing for you know, two years, but

809
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:38,759
Speaker 5: what happens after that. That's a big question, right, And

810
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 5: that is a big question. This gets my sort of

811
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 5: next question, which is Republicans. This is why I love

812
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:48,280
Speaker 5: Trump so much, and I love I mean Jesus fucking Christ.

813
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 5: So Trump was like, they don't need a border bill

814
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 5: because obviously you didn't want a border bill because he

815
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 5: wants a border to be bad. But there are a

816
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 5: lot of Trump people are like, Biden can do this

817
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 5: with an executive order, she doesn't need legislation.

818
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: Explain to us why that is just not true.

819
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, and I obviously spend a lot of

820
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 5: time thinking about this stuff.

821
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 4: I don't even really know what they mean. It's when

822
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 4: they say that.

823
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 5: They're objecting already to the idea that the president is

824
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 5: taking a unilateral action in the form of this parole program.

825
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:20,799
Speaker 5: So you know, they want him with a kind of

826
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 5: you know, sweep of the pen to shut the border down,

827
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 5: which again that's also a nonsensical claim. The border cannot

828
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 5: just be shut down. It doesn't work like that. So

829
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 5: what they essentially mean when they engage in that bit

830
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:36,880
Speaker 5: of ridiculous hyperbole is for the president to suspend asylum

831
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 5: process thing. But again, the idea that not doing anything

832
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 5: or the President simply bowing to be tough and to

833
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 5: just kind of, like in a symbolic gesture, say well,

834
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 5: that's it, We're closed, which is what Congressional Republicans literally

835
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 5: say the president should do. They say he should simply

836
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 5: just clear the air once and for all and explain

837
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 5: to people that quote unquote we're closed. I mean, I've

838
00:42:58,160 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 5: had Republican congress members tell me this.

839
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,359
Speaker 1: I love that members of Congress have told you that.

840
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, is weighing in on this.

841
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 4: Yeah. Right.

842
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 5: There's not any one thing the president can do to

843
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 5: turn this around. And the thing is that he's trying

844
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,280
Speaker 5: to do which are extremely kind of narrow and technical,

845
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 5: but like would help to some degree, for instance, getting

846
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 5: more resources to the border just to reduce the sort

847
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 5: of temperature of what's going on there. The Republicans are

848
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 5: blocking and so it's a perfect circle. It's a perfect

849
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 5: circle for them. They're not saying really anything in good

850
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 5: faith here about what the president should or shouldn't be doing.

851
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: Right. But I mean, I want to pull back for

852
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 1: a second because this is my obsession when it comes

853
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:41,800
Speaker 1: to immigration, and I feel like we don't talk about

854
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,879
Speaker 1: this because I guess whatever, But we actually need immigrants.

855
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 1: You have a tight labor market, you have a population

856
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 1: that is not keeping up with the numbers. I mean,

857
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: we're going to keep people out because that works so

858
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: well for Japan. I mean, what's the thinking here.

859
00:43:57,760 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think that they're thinking here it's

860
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 5: mine ending, honestly. I mean, there's you know, this isn't

861
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 5: just a kind of aggressive call for more humanity. You know,

862
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 5: this is like a bottom line, it's.

863
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 1: A capitalist call for more workers. I mean exactly. So

864
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 1: that's what I don't guess.

865
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think, you know, I think it's

866
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 5: kind of I mean, this is going to sound sort

867
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 5: of reductive and obvious, but it's sort of the baseline

868
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 5: reality of what we see in Washington, which is just

869
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 5: the simplest politics here of getting re elected and people,

870
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 5: you know, they're playing off of resentments and confusions and

871
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 5: fears that people in the electorate have, and that's the

872
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 5: kind of be all and end all of how they're

873
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 5: gaming this issue out. I mean, it's incredible to see

874
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:39,399
Speaker 5: there are Republican governors do state and local officials who

875
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 5: are very plainly saying, look, we have labor shortages.

876
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 4: We need workers.

877
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 5: I mean, what we're seeing right now this is in

878
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 5: primarily in blue states, but it's incredibly dramatic, and it

879
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 5: kind of just shows that sort of the tragedy and

880
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,719
Speaker 5: senselessness of what we're experiencing. The governor of Texas has

881
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 5: been busting all of these migrants to blue cities and

882
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 5: blue states and doing it deliberately to so chaos with

883
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 5: coordinating with state and local authorities. So large numbers of

884
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:06,880
Speaker 5: people are showing up in cities like you know, Denver, Chicago, Washington,

885
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:08,879
Speaker 5: New York. And I was recently speaking to the mayor

886
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:11,720
Speaker 5: of Denver who said to me, you know, every day

887
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 5: we're getting calls from employers all across the city saying, look,

888
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 5: we have so many jobs we need to fill. There

889
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:20,479
Speaker 5: are thousands of people who are arriving here who want

890
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 5: to work, Please help us. What are we missing. How

891
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:23,760
Speaker 5: do we connect these dots?

892
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: And you can't hire them legally because there's no.

893
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 5: Pass exactly, they don't have work authorization, and there are

894
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 5: kind of different bureaucratic ways of doing that, but it's,

895
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 5: you know, the gears of government. Government kind of grind

896
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 5: slowly in that regard. And obviously the numbers are overwhelming

897
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 5: cities because the governor busting them to these cities is

898
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 5: trying to overwhelm them. So it's just you're kind of

899
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 5: in this bizarre situation where like this solution is crying out.

900
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,400
Speaker 5: No one's even got really a question about what some

901
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 5: of the needs are. I mean, obviously, in Washington on

902
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 5: comprehensive immigration reform, that's just a morass. But in terms

903
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:00,280
Speaker 5: of some of these more straightforward things like meeting labor needs,

904
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 5: you'd think temporary work visas. There's not controversy on that.

905
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 5: And if you talk to conservatives their game, I mean,

906
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 5: if you talk to them away from the kind of

907
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 5: combat zone of Washington, they'll say, yeah, of course, we

908
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 5: definitely need more temporary worker visas.

909
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: This is what the Co Brothers want. I mean, these

910
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: guys are they're not humanitarians. The Co Brothers actually there's

911
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 1: only one brother. Now. One of the things that I'm

912
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 1: struck by is actually, in these red states, you see

913
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: governors changing child labor laws and lowering the fines for

914
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 1: companies because they know that children are working in these factories.

915
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: And we had Hannah Aronson from the New York Times

916
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:43,359
Speaker 1: on to talk about that, and she said, they know

917
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 1: they have children working in these factories, and that's why

918
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,879
Speaker 1: they're trying to lower the fines. And these children are

919
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: spending all night working in factories, falling into Cheeto dusters,

920
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: you know, breaking their arms, being paralyzed, trying to go

921
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: to school the next day. I mean, we are in

922
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:04,040
Speaker 1: the middle of like Upton Sinclair Land.

923
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 5: You know, when you pan out and look at the

924
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 5: broader history too, I mean that's all obviously, it's horrific,

925
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 5: and it's sort of in plain sight now thanks to

926
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 5: Hannah Driver's recording and others. You know, when you pan

927
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 5: out too, though, and look at the history that there's

928
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 5: always been that tension, particularly on the Republican side. I

929
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,240
Speaker 5: mean both parties, look have had to have a very

930
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 5: vexed history of dealing with immigration policy, to be clear,

931
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 5: but on the Republican side, one of the kind of

932
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 5: interesting strains, kind of the intra family tension. There is,

933
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 5: you know, on the one hand, a kind of more

934
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 5: classic nativist populist sentiment which is sort of always sloshed

935
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 5: around the party. But then you also have more of

936
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 5: the chamber of commerce of you which is look, I mean,

937
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:41,840
Speaker 5: this is what you're describing. There's a kind of capitalist.

938
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:42,320
Speaker 4: Bottom line here.

939
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 5: Why would we block people from working in industries where

940
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 5: there are needs? But then within that community on the

941
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 5: on the right, is some disagreement about, you know, the

942
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 5: degree to which people can continue to work in an

943
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 5: undocumented fashion. Obviously it's easier, more profitable for big companies

944
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 5: to not have to pay people, to not give them

945
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 5: labor protections. That's a very scary fact, and that's been

946
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 5: a fact for decades. The intractability of reform on this

947
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 5: issue has also turned into a profit bottom line for

948
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:17,479
Speaker 5: companies and for Republican politicians who defend them.

949
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm hoping you could sort of give me a

950
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: little something to make me not so depressed.

951
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 5: So I spent years working on this book, and the

952
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:28,080
Speaker 5: deeper you get into it, you know, this is a

953
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 5: book about the history of the United States and Central

954
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 5: America and how American foreign policy and how American politics

955
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 5: have contributed to all the sorts of strife in the

956
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,280
Speaker 5: region that leads to mass migration. And so the book

957
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 5: sort of narrates the interconnectedness of the US and the

958
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 5: wider region, but also the kind of infinite loop of

959
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 5: it that the US does things that generate more migration,

960
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 5: that leads the US to do more hasty things, and

961
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:53,280
Speaker 5: on and on and on. And I have to say though,

962
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:55,880
Speaker 5: that the silver lining and doing this reporting for me

963
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 5: because obviously, on the policy and politics level it's just

964
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 5: donningly upsetting, and on the human level, there's just so

965
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 5: much suffering, so much needless gratuitous suffering.

966
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 4: I have to say that.

967
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:08,600
Speaker 5: And this is going to end up sounding really corny,

968
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, but you know, writing about people who have

969
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:13,799
Speaker 5: been kind of buffeted by these forces of history that

970
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 5: are just so vast that no single person could keep

971
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 5: them at bay, who nevertheless kind of refused to be

972
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 5: defined by those circumstances that honestly made me, I mean,

973
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:26,320
Speaker 5: even just as a journalist. And again again I realized

974
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 5: that this sounds sort of pie in the sky, but no, no,

975
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 5: I'll take it. Yeah, I mean it made me feel like, Okay,

976
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 5: you know, there's there's more of a need than ever

977
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 5: to fight on, to tell these stories, to try to

978
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:40,600
Speaker 5: get to the human dimension of this because the politics

979
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:44,320
Speaker 5: are so stupid, but the people are so endlessly interesting

980
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 5: and full of surprises, and that mismatch on the one

981
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:49,799
Speaker 5: hand is tragic and upsetting and on the other does

982
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 5: kind of give you hope.

983
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:54,880
Speaker 1: I completely agree. And as much as I feel like

984
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:58,799
Speaker 1: it's it's so crushing and sad, and the stuff we

985
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 1: hear is just every day, it's just horrendous, I do

986
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 1: feel very much that like we beat on into the sea.

987
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 1: That's a quote from Butcher to a So we beat on,

988
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 1: So we beat on. Yeah, but as I butchered this

989
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: show quote. No, it's gonna talk, but it is really true.

990
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jonathan. I hope you'll come back.

991
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 4: Oh, I would love it.

992
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:21,400
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.

993
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: A moment ou Rick Wilson. Yes, it's time for our

994
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: one segment, What is your moment of hackery?

995
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 3: The one segment of my moment of fuckery this week

996
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 3: is the inevitable moment of fuckery that is the entire

997
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 3: Republican Party. Alexi Navolney has been murdered and they are

998
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:49,520
Speaker 3: already like, well, you know, it doesn't mean Putin's a

999
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 3: bad guy, per se. He can't lose. He's at the

1000
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 3: top of his game.

1001
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:55,240
Speaker 4: Y'all.

1002
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 3: If you're in the Republican Party and you're still kissing

1003
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:01,279
Speaker 3: Vladimir Putin's ass and you're stra, say, do you want

1004
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:03,240
Speaker 3: me to start in the front of the back this guy?

1005
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:10,239
Speaker 1: Oh Jesus christ Rick, you're offending my genteel sensibilities. All right,

1006
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: go on. I mean, I don't know that we need a.

1007
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 3: Full but look, the moment of fuckery is at this

1008
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 3: goddamn party. For all of its other wild sins, excesses, mistakes, errors,

1009
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 3: violations of decency, dignity, intellect, and human rights. The fact

1010
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 3: that after Vladimir Putin has straight out murdered somebody and

1011
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 3: they're still kissing his ass, but at least they have

1012
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:38,280
Speaker 3: nice subway stations, right.

1013
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 1: Tucker, Yeah, Tucker Carlson goes grocery shopping. I do have

1014
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 1: the sense that he does not spend a lot of

1015
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 1: time grocery shopping. After watching that video.

1016
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 3: I have the sense that he sends his second second

1017
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:55,240
Speaker 3: deputy under kitchen maid scullery made to the shopping.

1018
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: Is chief of staffs chief of staff. My moment of

1019
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:02,240
Speaker 1: fuckery is is, first of all, I can't tell if

1020
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:05,359
Speaker 1: I'm like, if I'm the problem it's me, or if

1021
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 1: everyone else is a problem. So it's probably me, But

1022
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:11,920
Speaker 1: I think I might be the problem here. But I

1023
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 1: feel like my moment of fuckery is that I feel

1024
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 1: like everyone is losing their minds over the wrong presidential candidate.

1025
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 4: Yes, yes it is.

1026
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: So if you're a good natured liberal, stop it, stop it.

1027
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 1: And if you're a bad natured conservative, you do whatever

1028
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: you want. I don't care. You got Donald Trump. Good luck.

1029
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 3: My other micro moment of fuckery is that the star

1030
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 3: witness in all of the bullshit about Hunter Biden turns

1031
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 3: out to be a line liar who lies and has

1032
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 3: now been arrested by the federal government because he's a

1033
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 3: lying liar who lied.

1034
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:48,440
Speaker 1: Right, And we're talking about Merrit fucking Garland, So like

1035
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 1: this is the slowest of slow rolling DJs ever, So

1036
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:55,799
Speaker 1: like this guy must have done so much criming for

1037
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 1: him to even get indited, like right, because this is merit.

1038
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: I don't want to put my finger on the scale.

1039
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 1: I just let people, wait, let James Cally release that

1040
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: fucking latter and that motherfucker by the way. As we

1041
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:10,719
Speaker 1: go on with this moment of fuck, I just feel

1042
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:12,879
Speaker 1: like Jesse's going to cut this but don't ever buy

1043
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: James Comy's books, like that fucking guy lost the election

1044
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: for Hillary Quinton.

1045
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:21,640
Speaker 3: Thank you will, folks, have a great day.

1046
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 1: Jesse's like, I hate both of them.

1047
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 4: He's fuck up both of you right now.

1048
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: Jesse's like, I can't tell which one I hate more.

1049
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 4: Stop.

1050
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

1051
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds

1052
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:42,880
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you

1053
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend

1054
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:49,280
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.