Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And President Trump's inauguration is perhaps said
Speaker 1: to be moved indoors due to very cold temperatures. We
Speaker 1: have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln
Speaker 1: Project's own Stuart Stevens stops by to talk about the
Speaker 1: lessons learned as Biden leaves office. Then we'll talk to
Speaker 1: Democracy Forward Sky Perryman about how they will push back
Speaker 1: on the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: But first the news, So, Malie, the Supreme Court has
Speaker 2: ruled unanimously one of the rare things we see that
Speaker 2: it is legal for the law that was passed banning
Speaker 2: TikTok to go forward. But there's a lot of gray
Speaker 2: area here because last night President Biden said he would
Speaker 2: not uphold the laws. So this now throws it into
Speaker 2: the lap of mister Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: So here's a problem with TikTok, right, And this is
Speaker 1: what we've heard from the Gang of Eight, is that
Speaker 1: there is clearly a lot of stuff going on behind
Speaker 1: the scenes that China is doing.
Speaker 3: With our data, and we don't even know the half
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: Right, There's a reason federal employees are not supposed to
Speaker 1: have it. There's a reason people in the military are
Speaker 1: not supposed to have it.
Speaker 3: Right. There's clearly a lot here that we're not being told.
Speaker 1: And then there is the incredible addictive quality of the algorithm,
Speaker 1: more addictive than the very addictive Instagram. So there were
Speaker 1: all sorts of reasons why, and we just have no transparency.
Speaker 1: It's a company that is owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 1: They say that it's not, but it really is. It's
Speaker 1: just this is very much bad, bad, bad, But Congress
Speaker 1: doesn't want to legislate this because they just don't. Right.
Speaker 1: They actually did legislate it. They legislated a ban, and
Speaker 1: what happened was that TikTok got lobbyists and now maybe
Speaker 1: there won't be a ban. I would also like to
Speaker 1: add there's an app on the Appstore called red Note,
Speaker 1: which is also has a Chinese providence, again the nuances
Speaker 1: of which are not readily apparent, and that charted became
Speaker 1: the top app. The fallacy here is you can't ban
Speaker 1: just one of these apps, right, there's like a lack
Speaker 1: of transparency here, and banning TikTok, the ideas if you
Speaker 1: ban TikTok, you will then end up with something TikTok like.
Speaker 1: I want to add that this band should go through.
Speaker 1: This is one of the few times that this extremely
Speaker 1: partisan Supreme Court, all nine of them, were like, shut
Speaker 1: down the fucking app, and still people on the left
Speaker 1: and people on the right were like, maybe not.
Speaker 3: So do I think TikTok is going to get banned?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Do I think that we're just going to continue on
Speaker 1: as business as usual?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Is this a national security risk? Absolutely? Are millions and
Speaker 1: millions of people. I mean, imagine if you allowed CBS
Speaker 1: to be owned by the Chinese government, That's what this
Speaker 1: is like. Imagine if ten times no, imagine if a
Speaker 1: hundred times more people watch CBS and it was owned
Speaker 1: by the Chinese government.
Speaker 3: That's what we have here.
Speaker 1: So real dereliction of duty on the part of almost
Speaker 1: everyone except bafflingly, the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: And the other thing I would say is it's almost
Speaker 2: like these apps should be controlled by a nonpartisan body
Speaker 2: and be seen in as a public work. But I'm
Speaker 2: just going to stop putting my socialist views in here,
Speaker 2: move on to the next subject.
Speaker 3: Socialism quote unquote.
Speaker 2: Continue quote unquote socialist. Yes, I know, wanted to make
Speaker 2: sure free speech stays up. So there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of bided statements on the way out of office. Burn
Speaker 2: his last few days, and the first one was on
Speaker 2: the Equal Rights Amendment. Molly, what are you seeing here
Speaker 2: as somebody who this is near and dear to their heart.
Speaker 1: The Equal Rights Amendment. Look, this is something it was ratified. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting thing because it's something my mother fought
Speaker 1: forward to. The thinking was that it was not so
Speaker 1: crazy to have equal rights for women in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: So Phylish Flaughley basically dismantled the er by spending all
Speaker 1: of this time I'm trying to convince women that it
Speaker 1: would prevent them from getting child support, and I mean,
Speaker 1: just you know the kind of misinformation we see broadly
Speaker 1: now in America. So I think very smartly. Senator Kirsten
Speaker 1: Jilibrand was committed to trying to get the Senate Archivist
Speaker 1: to read the er into the record and thus sort
Speaker 1: of create a world in which it was part of
Speaker 1: the Constitution. The Senate Archivist she just wouldn't do it
Speaker 1: and refused. Instead of pushing her the way a Republican
Speaker 1: might firing her and hiring someone else who would do it.
Speaker 1: They Biden just let her refuse, even though Senator Jili
Speaker 1: Brand had a really good point, which is it's actually
Speaker 1: her interpretation of the Constitution is irrelevant, right, but didn't matter,
Speaker 1: so she refused to read it. So instead Biden decided
Speaker 1: and instead of forcing her, which is what a lot
Speaker 1: of Democrats wanted, including what I wanted, he just did
Speaker 1: this statement that said it's happened, which is very nice
Speaker 1: and pretty but meaningless. Susan Glasser from The New Yorker
Speaker 1: has a really smart take on it, and I think
Speaker 1: this is correct. Biden ended his tenure with symbolic statements
Speaker 1: about the er that does nothing for actual women, but
Speaker 1: seems like a sad metaphor for where his presidency has ended.
Speaker 1: Rovers's weight is gone, no national laws to help women
Speaker 1: in place, Trump and a host of other sexual harassers
Speaker 1: return to power, And you really do see how so
Speaker 1: much of what has happened in this twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: cycle was about backlash to women and how Democrats were
Speaker 1: just not able to do the necessary things to protect them.
Speaker 1: And look, I mean, life is long and we'll see
Speaker 1: what happens. But it certainly feels like a real It
Speaker 1: just feels like a moment where again Democrats brought a
Speaker 1: stuffed animal to a knife fight.
Speaker 2: Agreed. So last night Friend of the Show MSNBC host
Speaker 2: Lawrence O'Donnell hosted President Biden for an outgoing presidential interview,
Speaker 2: and one of the things he said that really caught
Speaker 2: you and i's eye is that how bad the Red
Speaker 2: States really screwed the handling of their economies during the
Speaker 2: COVID years, especially with supply chains.
Speaker 1: I was watching these hearings today, the Christie Nome Homeland
Speaker 1: Security hearings, and we saw Republicans like Bernie Marino in
Speaker 1: the state of Ohio just grandstand and politic and he
Speaker 1: even he asked Christy Nome if Lake and Riley would
Speaker 1: still be alive had this is really what he asked,
Speaker 1: had Alejandro Mayorcas not been Homeland Security Secretary. It could
Speaker 1: truly craven bit of politicking. Right, would a nursing student
Speaker 1: have been murdered had there been a different Homeland Security Okay?
Speaker 1: But what head But what I think is interesting is
Speaker 1: that Biden really tries not to do that. Democrats really
Speaker 1: try not to politicize things. One of the reasons why
Speaker 1: Trump was able to win. But he did criticize at
Speaker 1: this moment with Lawrence Red States, and he said Red
Speaker 1: States really screwed up in terms of the way they
Speaker 1: handled their economy and the way they handled manufacturing and
Speaker 1: the way they handled access to supply chains. That's why
Speaker 1: he ended up investing more in Red States than Blue
Speaker 1: states through various measures. Shortly after being asked about his
Speaker 1: economic response to COVID, what I think is interesting about
Speaker 1: this is we get back to the California problem.
Speaker 3: Right. California, fourth largest.
Speaker 1: Economy, pays way more into federal taxes than takes out,
Speaker 1: is going to need billions and billions of dollars to
Speaker 1: rebuild after these fires. Already we see Republicans trying to
Speaker 1: play politics. If Republicans were to lose California, our entire
Speaker 1: American economy would greater. And so I do think that
Speaker 1: on behalf of all of us who pay taxes, Republicans,
Speaker 1: please do not make California furious.
Speaker 2: I'll say so, mai one. Speaking of the Lake and
Speaker 2: Riley Act, Republicans are just downright giddy too. Get to
Speaker 2: making sure that brown people get deported from this country
Speaker 2: as much as possible, but ICE, who seem to usually
Speaker 2: be on that side, are saying whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy,
Speaker 2: chill out.
Speaker 1: So ICE warms that Republicans racist immigration bill is a
Speaker 1: total bust. By the way, what I think is interesting
Speaker 1: is we're seeing a lot now of ICE sort of
Speaker 1: trying I can't figure out who is trying to message
Speaker 1: to who, but we are seeing some like I saw
Speaker 1: this in this hearing today, Well, we're just going to
Speaker 1: deport the criminals. We're not going to deport everyone. We're
Speaker 1: seeing some of that. I'm very curious to know is
Speaker 1: that because who is saying let's not deport everyone, and
Speaker 1: who is saying let's deport everyone? And how is this
Speaker 1: being acted out behind the scenes, Because clearly there is
Speaker 1: some level of anxiety here that Donald Trump is just
Speaker 1: going to go in and deport everyone and American citizens too.
Speaker 1: And I think I'm clearly picking that up as an undertone.
Speaker 1: So one of the things you have to remember is
Speaker 1: like ICE agents are people, and if they're on television
Speaker 1: holding screaming children and you know, deporting people, like we
Speaker 1: live in a new world where everyone has a camera
Speaker 1: and everyone has a video, and like during you know
Speaker 1: historically when we have in this country in turned people,
Speaker 1: like in World War Two when America in turned Japanese
Speaker 1: people and took their houses. People didn't have iPhones, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't the results were not as immediately tangible. And
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot of Anxiet society here,
Speaker 1: that people and ice are going to be asked to do.
Speaker 3: These things, and that the blowback for them is going
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: Very tough, and rightly so, because I think they are
Speaker 1: going to be asked to do these things. Stuart Stevens
Speaker 1: is a legendary campaign manager and the author of the
Speaker 1: Conspiracy to End America Five Ways My old Party is
Speaker 1: driving our democracy to autocracy. Welcome back to fast politics, Stuart.
Speaker 1: Thank you, we needed you before Trump two point zero
Speaker 1: takes over.
Speaker 4: Discuss I have a positive take on this.
Speaker 3: Oh please, somebody has to have a positive take.
Speaker 4: I believe that the moment they were in, exactly at
Speaker 4: this moment, is the high order mark of trump Ism.
Speaker 4: I think it will prove to be like my ancestors
Speaker 4: and pickets charge, they almost get to the wall, but
Speaker 4: can't get over the wall. You really have to be
Speaker 4: careful here about drawing conclusions about this election.
Speaker 3: Ooh, say more about that?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, an incumbent president with a forty point approval rate,
Speaker 4: and all the post World War two elections incumbent party
Speaker 4: got within two points of the presidential approval. So Harris
Speaker 4: actually overperformed that and you had a right track under
Speaker 4: thirty percent. It's a very difficult environment to win an election.
Speaker 4: You know. When I was working for Bush in two thousand,
Speaker 4: we would track the right track, wrong track and moving
Speaker 4: little movements in it in a race that was as
Speaker 4: tight as the two thousand race, really made a difference.
Speaker 4: I mean, in a typical race, you should get if
Speaker 4: you're an incumbent, you should get ninety percent of the
Speaker 4: right track, and if you're a challenger you should get
Speaker 4: eighty five to ninety percent of the wrong track. So
Speaker 4: that was a good environment for a challenger to beat
Speaker 4: an incumbent party now, and that's what happened. I don't
Speaker 4: think that should be confused with it being an active
Speaker 4: embrace of trump Ism. I think there are two very
Speaker 4: different things. I think this is how you end up
Speaker 4: worshiping volcanoes. There's a drought, the volcano Belch is in,
Speaker 4: it rains, and the next thing you know, you're worshiping
Speaker 4: the volcano Guard. They're probably not related. And I just
Speaker 4: don't think the country is where compassm is. And we
Speaker 4: had an election unlike any other we've ever had and
Speaker 4: combent president gets out in July, vice president comes in.
Speaker 4: You know, probably we shouldn't try that again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and by the way, that that didn't work when
Speaker 1: it was done historically either.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I still maintain I think the Harri's campaign ran
Speaker 4: a very good campaign. I also think that it's a
Speaker 4: mistake to look at all of the field operation that
Speaker 4: they did and think that that is now no longer
Speaker 4: beneficial or applicable to campaigns because she lost. To me,
Speaker 4: that's like saying, Okay, we lost Vietnam. No more helicopters,
Speaker 4: right right, right, that's it. I don't think we lost
Speaker 4: because of the helicopters, and I don't think they lost
Speaker 4: because of the field And I think she could have
Speaker 4: gone Joe Rogan hourly and it wouldn't have impacted the election.
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't need to talk about this election.
Speaker 1: It's over, and maybe it's better just not. But I
Speaker 1: just wonder Trump was forward facing for four years.
Speaker 4: You mean talking about the future, not even talking.
Speaker 1: About the future, just being on tell like being a
Speaker 1: celebrity for four years, and you remember that that people
Speaker 1: were Google searching the day of the election.
Speaker 3: Is Joe Biden still in the race?
Speaker 1: Like I wonder how much like in this New America,
Speaker 1: you have to just be out there all day, every day,
Speaker 1: no matter what.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. One of the lessons the Democratic Party to
Speaker 4: take from this is when you govern, you do have
Speaker 4: to govern like you represent the whole.
Speaker 3: Country, right, which they did well.
Speaker 4: When you politic you don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that I think is the case.
Speaker 4: In these hearings. That's not governing politics as a servant
Speaker 4: of governing. But your first obligation in those hearings as
Speaker 4: a Democrat is a political obligation. And I don't think
Speaker 4: that you should worry at all about how it's going
Speaker 4: to be received. Your message is going to receive by
Speaker 4: those voters who are deep into Trumpism.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like the cautiousness that we saw in twenty sixteen, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not even talking about the candidate. I'm just talking
Speaker 1: about the cautiousness, the Clinton cautiousness which then we saw
Speaker 1: in Biden world, which Biden was able to eat out
Speaker 1: a win with it in twenty twenty, perhaps because of
Speaker 1: just how unpopular Trump was, But that cautiousness is not
Speaker 1: how you win elections. And I think like when you
Speaker 1: think about sort if you even just look at twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four and you look at Rubin, who was one
Speaker 1: of the you know, who was able to win over
Speaker 1: Trump voters.
Speaker 3: He did that by just being ever are all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But anyway, it's neither here nor there, or it's
Speaker 1: not relevant anymore because there are no elections at least
Speaker 1: until twenty twenty five. But I'm wondering if you could
Speaker 1: talk to us about Trump is planning a kind of
Speaker 1: shockun on on Monday and then this weekend. On today,
Speaker 1: we just saw the mayor of New York go down
Speaker 1: tomorrow lago.
Speaker 3: That's ongoing.
Speaker 4: I think the technical term for that is plea bargain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So in my mind there's a real question about
Speaker 1: what happens next and what that looks like.
Speaker 4: Well, I think you're right. I think you will do
Speaker 4: shocking all and I think that as it begins to
Speaker 4: take effect, it's not a majority of it's not going
Speaker 4: to be popular in politics. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 4: really important that you distinguished if someone says in a
Speaker 4: poll that they're worried about immigration, they think that the
Speaker 4: border is a problem, that doesn't mean that that is
Speaker 4: what consumes them in their life. If you just ask them,
Speaker 4: do you think it's a problem, yes. If you ask
Speaker 4: me if terrorism bad, yes, walk around thinking about terrorism?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: And I think that the mandate that Trump is trying
Speaker 4: to take from that is going to be one that
Speaker 4: is going to play into their instincts to overreact. And
Speaker 4: we do have the reality that the economy is really good.
Speaker 4: And what do they just like about the economy the most,
Speaker 4: that record stock market or the record low unemployment. So
Speaker 4: I just don't think that there is a broad mandate
Speaker 4: for most of the stuff they want to do, if
Speaker 4: you go back to two thousand and four. So we
Speaker 4: want a very narrow election. I mean, if less than
Speaker 4: half the people who attend to Ohio State home game
Speaker 4: had changed their votes, we would have lost Ohio and
Speaker 4: we would have lost the election. We being when I
Speaker 4: was working for Bush, and what did Bush do? He
Speaker 4: took that as a mandate and he went out and
Speaker 4: tried to privatize social Security, and it blew up in
Speaker 4: his face. There was not a desire to do that.
Speaker 4: So I don't think that people like the headsets and
Speaker 4: the Tulsi and the cash betel. I think the reason
Speaker 4: Trump nominates these people, I think he knows they're idiots.
Speaker 4: He nominates them because he wants to see senators humiliate themselves.
Speaker 4: He wants to assert their subservience through the humiliation of
Speaker 4: having to say things that are not true. And I
Speaker 4: felt this so strongly watching my old friend and client,
Speaker 4: Senator Roger Wicker, now Chairman of the Armed Services Committee,
Speaker 4: in the headset hearings. I know Roger well. In many
Speaker 4: ways we come from the same world. I don't think
Speaker 4: Roger would hire PDX has to cut his law.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: I mean that literally, he wouldn't hire some weird guy
Speaker 4: with the drinking problem was tattooed up to like be
Speaker 4: that close to his house and yet here he is now.
Speaker 4: He doesn't have to do that. And John McCain wouldn't
Speaker 4: have done it. He would have insisted that Trump appoints
Speaker 4: someone who was competent, you know, a competent conservative. You know,
Speaker 4: it's not like you're asking to point Bernie Sanders Secretary
Speaker 4: of Defense.
Speaker 1: No, when you're watching that, because I watched it too.
Speaker 1: There's like some congeniality and some like Senate congeniality, and
Speaker 1: then there's a lot of like real weird grandstanding. Like
Speaker 1: I was watching a hearing today where Bernie Marino blamed
Speaker 1: the fires on Governor Gavenwsom. Like it's a sort of
Speaker 1: hodgepodge of the kind of congeniality that the Senate once had,
Speaker 1: plus like Fox News auditions.
Speaker 3: I mean, is that what you're seeing?
Speaker 4: Yeah, listen, I think the it's inevitable to watch a
Speaker 4: hearing and not be frustrated if you are against the
Speaker 4: person who's being nominated, because there is such an erratic
Speaker 4: flow of questions and there's no coherent follow through you
Speaker 4: have each individual senator. It's it's a very tough way
Speaker 4: to prosecute somewhere. If every three minutes a new proecutter
Speaker 4: had a step up in front of a jury and
Speaker 4: take another new tack, the jury would just be confused.
Speaker 4: You Know what I would have liked to have seen
Speaker 4: Democrats do, still would is everyone ask two questions at
Speaker 4: the beginning of their hearing. You believe that Joe Biden
Speaker 4: want a free and fair election in twenty and if
Speaker 4: the equivocator say no, they said, okay, doesn't matter what
Speaker 4: else you say doesn't matter. You're disqualified. And do you
Speaker 4: believe that the criminals who assaulted police officers in January sixth,
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one should be pardon And if you're equivocated
Speaker 4: and now you say that's it, you're disqualified.
Speaker 3: But who would disqualify that?
Speaker 4: You have to say that that disqualifies you from service
Speaker 4: in this government. And I think it's about framing what
Speaker 4: is the level here that is acceptable. So if you
Speaker 4: look at Rubio, there's a level that I disagree with
Speaker 4: you on public policy in a lot of ways, but
Speaker 4: I think that you are an acceptable nominee for Secretary
Speaker 4: of State. You may be a terrible one, you may
Speaker 4: be a great one, but in keeping with advising consent,
Speaker 4: I can, without a heavy contents vote for you. And
Speaker 4: that should be the same consistent line in all of
Speaker 4: these The obligation here for Democrats is to just remind
Speaker 4: people that it doesn't have to be this way, that
Speaker 4: there is a simple standard here that's not an egregious one.
Speaker 4: Appoint competent people who aren't going to use these and
Speaker 4: very important positions to work through their own personal issues.
Speaker 4: When you go too much into the weeds of well
Speaker 4: this discoff is that discollifies. It's easy to lose the
Speaker 4: big picture that just you are a ridiculous nominee, you
Speaker 4: are a basthoon, you're a weekend cable show host.
Speaker 1: My theory of the case is they should just try
Speaker 1: to figure out who are the most dangerous and go
Speaker 1: all in. So, for example, I think about RFK Junior,
Speaker 1: who obviously would have an enormous effect on the way
Speaker 1: this country handles another pandemic for example.
Speaker 4: Yep, if these nominated people were going to.
Speaker 1: Die, So why when Democrats just focus on those candidates.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that they're not doing that. I would
Speaker 4: focus on Kennedy, Patel, Hegset and Gabbard. Yeah, what's interesting
Speaker 4: about Kennedy is it's going to accelerate a divide in
Speaker 4: the country because the people who are going to be
Speaker 4: most damaged are going to be those who are less
Speaker 4: informed and lower income, with the exception of the nutty
Speaker 4: kind of whole foods moms that don't believe in vaccinations,
Speaker 4: and that's in the same way in the pandemic. It's
Speaker 4: the statistic that's provable that's demonstrable. That's true. Those in
Speaker 4: red states who listened to Fox News died at a
Speaker 4: higher rate. One of the mortality elements in that disease
Speaker 4: was do you watch Fox News? I mean that's it's
Speaker 4: sort of like the points on to a joke. You know,
Speaker 4: it's really deadly to watch Fox News or something. Yes,
Speaker 4: it was deathley, it did kill people. Why is Trump
Speaker 4: doing this? I mean he's a guy who's you know, vaccinated,
Speaker 4: everybody in his family's vaccinated. He doesn't believe this kooky stuff.
Speaker 4: He does it to prove that he can, to make
Speaker 4: you do it. This is how dictators operate, their need
Speaker 4: to humiliate those that are serving under him. It's a
Speaker 4: bad way to run a democracy.
Speaker 1: Democrats are in a very tough position. The thing that
Speaker 1: I was stripped by. I thought the best moments in
Speaker 1: these hearings were when Democrats were very specific and they
Speaker 1: said things like Bernie Sanders asking Scott Besson, who is
Speaker 1: by far not the worst pick in any stretch of
Speaker 1: the imagination, very quote unquote normal.
Speaker 3: You know, worked for George Soros.
Speaker 1: This guy is not ideologically maga whatever that means. So
Speaker 1: question is, and he's gay, and you know, he's got kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just a number of reasons why he
Speaker 1: seems like probably one of the less terrifying choices. But
Speaker 1: when Bernie Sanders asked him, did he believe that you
Speaker 1: should raise federal minimum wage from seven to twenty five?
Speaker 1: He said no, And then he sort of couldn't answer
Speaker 1: these questions about Medicare Medicaid. Maybe he doesn't know what
Speaker 1: they are, maybe he had you know, he's read Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: I mean, who knows.
Speaker 1: But I thought those questions were the most effective because
Speaker 1: part of what's happening here is that Democrats need to
Speaker 1: explain to the people what Republicans are about to do,
Speaker 1: because if they don't, Republicans will blame Democrats. And if
Speaker 1: we've seen anything in the last four years, it's that
Speaker 1: that actually works.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, And that's the case in the minimum wage,
Speaker 4: where the majority of the country supports raising the minimum wage.
Speaker 4: You know, you can have a conversation should it be twelve,
Speaker 4: should it be fifteen, but it's it's overwhelmingly popular. The
Speaker 4: same with raising taxes on people who make more than
Speaker 4: a million dollars a year. You know, all my life,
Speaker 4: I've looked to polls that asked that question, and I've
Speaker 4: never seen it lower than eighty percent.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I have been really struck by the fact that Democrats
Speaker 1: were able to lose on populism, right, Like Biden enacted
Speaker 1: all this populist legislation and Republicans were like, we're running
Speaker 1: a populist They're not.
Speaker 4: I go back, and you know, there's this sort of
Speaker 4: InVogue now for some reason to say that demographics are
Speaker 4: our destiny. But Trump's support is non college educated white voters,
Speaker 4: which is the fastest declining group in the country. And
Speaker 4: I think a lot of these people are supporting Trump
Speaker 4: driven not by ideology or by choice as much as
Speaker 4: by race. And I don't think we talk about that enough.
Speaker 1: Certainly that is what's going on too. But the fact
Speaker 1: that Democrats were not able to capture populism when Republicans
Speaker 1: entire goshtalt is about making sure these tax cuts for
Speaker 1: billionaires stay in place, that feels like a real like.
Speaker 4: It's a classic messaging failure. I don't really understand. Well,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't understand the Republican Party, so god forbid,
Speaker 4: I would understand the Democratic Party. But you know, there
Speaker 4: are moments when I look at the Democratic Party and
Speaker 4: I remember why as Republicans we won races we shouldn't
Speaker 4: have won. And it goes to this larger question to framing.
Speaker 4: I mean what I think had I been on that here,
Speaker 4: I would have challenged Pete Texas patriotism. I wish for
Speaker 4: ben It. I don't think you're a patriot. If you
Speaker 4: support using military to fire on protesters, you're not. That's
Speaker 4: not American. You're a disgrace. And I think you have
Speaker 4: to use that kind of broad framing. Now you look
Speaker 4: at a nominee like Harris, who I thought ran a
Speaker 4: very good campaign, But she's not a candidate who is
Speaker 4: going to emerge just biographically and otherwise as a populist
Speaker 4: candidate per se. She is going to be seen as
Speaker 4: something that most people would think was an extraordinary career,
Speaker 4: which I think is positive. But it's not like she
Speaker 4: rose up out of the desert like El sid to
Speaker 4: claim this Mannle And I think there are a lot
Speaker 4: of Democratic candidates out there who are governors, particularly who
Speaker 4: do that better, you know, who aren't from San Francisco.
Speaker 4: This is the kind of easy labels you could put
Speaker 4: on someone my carrots, but you know, I thought her
Speaker 4: speech capturing patriotism was really a roadmap for where Democrats
Speaker 4: need to go, and I hope because she lost, they
Speaker 4: don't abandon that.
Speaker 3: Stuart Stevens, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 4: Molly. I always listened to the show and always I'm
Speaker 4: smarter for it. I think.
Speaker 1: Sky Perriman is the president of Democracy Forward.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Sky.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you always for having me.
Speaker 1: Explain to us what your organization does. Just for those
Speaker 1: of us who don't remember from the last time you
Speaker 1: were on.
Speaker 5: Democracy Forward is a legal organization and we bring cases
Speaker 5: and legal challenges against anti democratic actions that harm people
Speaker 5: and communities across the country. We also do work on
Speaker 5: policy and public affairs and ensure that people can use
Speaker 5: their voice in the most effective way in this pivotal moment.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about what that looks like.
Speaker 1: Right now we're about to go into Trump two point zero.
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 5: Well, for us, it means that our work is scaling
Speaker 5: and expanding, which, as you know, Molly, we've been doing
Speaker 5: for the last three years, really bringing in some of
Speaker 5: the best lawyers in the country, some of the best advocates.
Speaker 5: Because of the threats to democracy that we see at
Speaker 5: the state level, the threats to people. We just recently
Speaker 5: blocked a big law in Arkansas that Sarah ha could
Speaker 5: be Sanders signed that would have criminalized librarians. I mean,
Speaker 5: that is the reality that communities are living in today.
Speaker 5: But we know we're going to have a lot of
Speaker 5: work to do because if the Trump administration this time
Speaker 5: does what it says it's going to do, what it's
Speaker 5: already been doing in these last few weeks, we know
Speaker 5: that there will be a lot of need for legal
Speaker 5: challenges to protect people's economic well being and keeping costs
Speaker 5: down and protecting their wages, to protecting the ability of
Speaker 5: the government to function in a way that is nonpartisan
Speaker 5: and not sort of ideological with our civil service, to
Speaker 5: protecting voting rights, and so much more.
Speaker 3: So, let's talk about what that means.
Speaker 1: You know, Trump had promised shock and all, So what
Speaker 1: do we think shock and all looks like? And also
Speaker 1: we're not going to predict the future because nobody knows,
Speaker 1: but it does seem to me pretty strange that the
Speaker 1: mayor of.
Speaker 3: New York is in mar Lago and I have to
Speaker 3: wonder where that goes. And you know, whether or not
Speaker 3: he signs off on something. You know what that looks like.
Speaker 5: Well, look, he's already said he's going to come in
Speaker 5: and do a shotgun awe of executive orders, And yesterday
Speaker 5: Politico reported that we at Democracy Forward and alongside lots
Speaker 5: of partners, are going to be looking at those executive
Speaker 5: orders the minute they come in and analyzing them. Your
Speaker 5: listeners can go to Democracy twenty twenty five dot org,
Speaker 5: which is an effort that we launched to get real
Speaker 5: time information on inauguration day and on days throughout the
Speaker 5: early Trump administration on what is happening with executive orders,
Speaker 5: what legal challenges are going to be brought and will
Speaker 5: be brought to address anything that is unlawful. And so
Speaker 5: I think that you will see everything from a range
Speaker 5: of kind of performative executive orders that will declare things
Speaker 5: to shock in all people, to target communities, to executive
Speaker 5: orders that will do real things that are problematic for people,
Speaker 5: whether that is conditioning federal funding on the particular ideology
Speaker 5: that the Trump administration has a kind of a far
Speaker 5: right ideology, which they've said that they would maybe seek
Speaker 5: to do to declaring or undermining our federal civil servants,
Speaker 5: who are the people that do the work across the
Speaker 5: country of our government for the American people doing something
Speaker 5: to politicize them, to seeking to politicize the military. And
Speaker 5: then of course we know on immigration that we will
Speaker 5: see some type of shock and all action, and that
Speaker 5: doesn't even touch foreign policy and some of the other
Speaker 5: areas that we're watching. What we can do. We've seen
Speaker 5: this play but before the Trump administration loss nearly eighty
Speaker 5: percent of the time in court the last time we've
Speaker 5: talked about this before. But looks like they've not learned
Speaker 5: a lot of their lessons that many of the things
Speaker 5: they're going to seek to do will have legal problems.
Speaker 5: We and others are going to be there in court
Speaker 5: on behalf of people and communities to make sure their
Speaker 5: rights are protected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering what that looks like if we're trying
Speaker 1: to protect people, for example, if they go in and
Speaker 1: they just start taking people out, I mean, like, is
Speaker 1: due process going to still happen? I mean, what's your
Speaker 1: sort of guess on how you can push back against
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: There's a range of laws that have not actually been
Speaker 5: rewritten yet by the US Supreme Court that really every administration,
Speaker 5: you know, Republican Democrat, whoever is in office, has to
Speaker 5: follow in order to you know, in order to be
Speaker 5: able to institute policies or agendas, and that Trump administration
Speaker 5: really often flagrantly disregards those. And so we've had a
Speaker 5: lot of success, as have our partners, in suing and
Speaker 5: winning when they disregard the law. That's a real thing.
Speaker 5: And I think you've had folks on your show talk
Speaker 5: about this. But the courts today, in terms of the
Speaker 5: way the federal judicial landscape looks, the types of judges
Speaker 5: that are on the court, that believe in the rule
Speaker 5: of law, that believe that the court's fundamental role is
Speaker 5: to protect our rights, not to reverse them. The federal
Speaker 5: courts look better than they did on the last day
Speaker 5: of the Trump administration because of President Biden's historic record
Speaker 5: on appointing federal judges and getting them confirmed that really
Speaker 5: represent America. So I think the courts are going to
Speaker 5: be a real front line. That's only the front line,
Speaker 5: and it's going to take everybody using their voice, making
Speaker 5: sure their members of Congress know understanding that this president
Speaker 5: does not have some broad margins in the United States
Speaker 5: Congress where he can ram an agenda through unless people
Speaker 5: let him do that, and that that will be a choice,
Speaker 5: and it will be a choice with political consequences. So
Speaker 5: I think that it's going to take all of those
Speaker 5: tools to make sure that we're really protecting the American
Speaker 5: people and their well being in this time.
Speaker 1: Jesse and I just did all this stuff about Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five during this summer, and one of the things.
Speaker 3: That we were struck by was that a lot.
Speaker 1: Of this like and I was listening to Russ Vought
Speaker 1: nomination hearing this week, and you know, he's one of.
Speaker 3: The architects of Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: He's going to run the Congressional Budget Office if he
Speaker 1: gets appointed, which I think is very likely. He does
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that's sort of you know, he
Speaker 1: knows how how Washington works.
Speaker 3: He is an insider.
Speaker 1: So he breaks a law in ways that or I
Speaker 1: don't know, if he breaks a lot. He skirts the
Speaker 1: law in ways that are very clever. And I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about how they held the Ukraine money.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about it many.
Speaker 1: Ways, and which he said, and there are laws he's
Speaker 1: planning to use this time about ways to sort of
Speaker 1: control the purse and make and take that away from Congress.
Speaker 1: I mean, how worried are you about that? And what
Speaker 1: do you think the legal pushback is for that.
Speaker 5: You know, they can try to do these things, But fundamentally,
Speaker 5: I think that we're going to see in the legal
Speaker 5: cases are going to show this, the reporting will show this,
Speaker 5: and people's voices will show this. This is not an
Speaker 5: administration that's shown that it's committed to the American people.
Speaker 5: It's not an administration that's actually shown that it's committed
Speaker 5: to hard working American people. You're already seeing that with
Speaker 5: the fact that's seeking to operate some you know, shadows
Speaker 5: situation having you know, billionaires who you know do not
Speaker 5: have experience sort of advocating for the common good advising.
Speaker 5: We're already just seeing a range of this stuff, and
Speaker 5: so there are many laws that are implicated at democracy forward,
Speaker 5: we successfully challenge the federal government's abrupt discontinuation of federal
Speaker 5: funding to communities across the country that they sought to institute.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of things on the funding side where
Speaker 5: I think there are legal remedies that will need to
Speaker 5: be exercised. And then there's a lot of things they
Speaker 5: just can't do unless Congress approves it, and I think
Speaker 5: there'll be a fight there. They are very shrewd. We
Speaker 5: understand that, and I think, you know, you saw that
Speaker 5: in the campaign where they sought to run a whole
Speaker 5: campaign where they said that they didn't you know, they
Speaker 5: were disavowing Project twenty twenty five. And then immediately when
Speaker 5: they're elected they put the architects right in their administration
Speaker 5: to accelerate it. But I think that and I do
Speaker 5: believe this. I think the American people will very soon
Speaker 5: see this for what it is, and I think the
Speaker 5: court and our Congress and other forums like that are
Speaker 5: really going to have, you know, be part of that
Speaker 5: exposure scene. They're going to have some choices to make.
Speaker 5: I mean, there are a number of laws and policies
Speaker 5: that are being challenged right now in court that really
Speaker 5: help people in communities. I mean our privacy protections, healthcare
Speaker 5: privacy protections, labor protections like overtime pay, and other important
Speaker 5: policies that far right groups have sought to challenge. The
Speaker 5: Department of Justice has been defending that the Trump administration
Speaker 5: will not defend it's going to start showing I think
Speaker 5: to people across the country, really what's at stake in
Speaker 5: our everyday lives for all of us, And I think
Speaker 5: that you'll see a real tide shift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, because I don't know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen. It just feels like that voters are not
Speaker 1: connecting with what this administration is going to do.
Speaker 3: And you know there's a reason for that, right.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you could sort of talk to us
Speaker 1: about what democratic at the state level can do. So like,
Speaker 1: for example, we're going to see a lot of executive orders.
Speaker 3: We don't know what they are, but there are.
Speaker 1: Certainly things that Democrats can do, and we've seen democratic
Speaker 1: attorneys general are sort are prepared for this moment. Will
Speaker 1: you explain to us a little bit what's happening there?
Speaker 5: Well, the attorney generals are already acting. I mean they're
Speaker 5: already you've already seen them this week. Go seek to
Speaker 5: intervene in cases where the Department of Justice is defending
Speaker 5: you know, whether it's the Affordable Care Act or other
Speaker 5: really important you know, elements of really important policies to
Speaker 5: make sure that those cases have a strong defense. Because
Speaker 5: we you know, the Trump administration is coming in and
Speaker 5: will be leading the DOJ. And so you're already seeing
Speaker 5: the attorneys general across the country act in that way.
Speaker 5: And I think that they have definitely made clear that
Speaker 5: if this administration, as have we have come in and
Speaker 5: sign executive orders or take other actions that threaten people's
Speaker 5: rights that threatened the ability of states to protect their people,
Speaker 5: but the threatened people's rights overall, that you will see litigation.
Speaker 5: And in the last administration, state ags played a critical
Speaker 5: role in protecting the rights of people across the country.
Speaker 5: I mean for even people that did not live in
Speaker 5: the states where those ags were from. They litigated really
Speaker 5: important cases, as did we, as did other organizations like
Speaker 5: the ACLU and civil rights organizations and so many. It's
Speaker 5: going to take everybody, but I do think that you're
Speaker 5: going to see that this time again.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the Supreme Court we saw with the
Speaker 1: Trump sentencing. There is no reason why they should have
Speaker 1: weighed on the Trump sentence, but you know, they do
Speaker 1: have this very broad sense in which the president can
Speaker 1: do whatever we want. Right Well, we'll remember their last
Speaker 1: decision when it came to presidential immunity.
Speaker 3: But I'm wondering there's a theory of the case.
Speaker 1: Now and again, we have so little to go on,
Speaker 1: so little to give us hope, but that this is that,
Speaker 1: this is why I bring this up. There's a sort
Speaker 1: of chance, very slim chance that Roberts and Cony Barrett
Speaker 1: are at least a little bit won't totally represtamp everything
Speaker 1: Trump wants to do. Do you think that's overly optimistic.
Speaker 5: I don't. I think it's overly optimistic. I think it's
Speaker 5: consistent with what we've seen in the courts for some time.
Speaker 5: It's consistent with what we've seen just this week. And look,
Speaker 5: I'm never going to tell you that the courts are
Speaker 5: the silver bullet here. I mean, it is going to
Speaker 5: take everyone in this country that believes in themselves, that
Speaker 5: believes in their families and their communities and their future,
Speaker 5: and that is committed to saying we are not going
Speaker 5: to enable a far right agenda that is not for
Speaker 5: working people, that is not for our schools, that is
Speaker 5: not for our communities to pull this country back. You know,
Speaker 5: you have to if you want to get that agenda three,
Speaker 5: you're going to have to get it through our democracy.
Speaker 5: And that means you're going to have to be able
Speaker 5: to get it through the courts and get it through Congress,
Speaker 5: and I think that, you know, we're really you know,
Speaker 5: you know, I think that that's going to be a
Speaker 5: big piece of this I certainly don't think the courts
Speaker 5: are the silver bull here. And of course this Supreme Court,
Speaker 5: you and I have talked about it a lot. This
Speaker 5: Supreme Court has reversed the rights of people in many
Speaker 5: ways over the last few years. But I do think
Speaker 5: you will see the Supreme Court and the courts across
Speaker 5: the country serve as an incredible check on a lot
Speaker 5: of what this incoming administration is going to seek to do.
Speaker 5: Because the incoming administration operates unlawfully and is pushing and
Speaker 5: a way of operating that is not consistent with our laws.
Speaker 5: And so I think that it's not overly optimistic to
Speaker 5: say that there will be some wins. I mean, that's
Speaker 5: going to happen, but we will also need to make
Speaker 5: sure that people who are not lawyers, who are not
Speaker 5: involved in these cases, you know, don't give up hope
Speaker 5: and really demand of their elected officials and of their
Speaker 5: community members and of themselves that we are going to
Speaker 5: ensure that this country is not on accelerating a backslide.
Speaker 1: Right, we have seen judges do insane things for Trump
Speaker 1: though over the last four years.
Speaker 5: There's no question that this Supreme Court, that the decisions
Speaker 5: that we've seen out of the Supreme Court, especially the
Speaker 5: immunity decision, are really contrary in many instances to the
Speaker 5: way that our laws have been interpreted for some time.
Speaker 5: For the very founding principles of our country that was
Speaker 5: founded to reject and throw off monarchy, I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: there's no question about that. And so the fight this
Speaker 5: time is going to look different in that it's going
Speaker 5: to require a high degree of collaboration among people that
Speaker 5: are building cases through the courts, and communities that are affected,
Speaker 5: and lawmakers at every level. Right, It's really going to
Speaker 5: require all of us together. And that's not a talking
Speaker 5: point and it's not a you know, Goldilocks kind of
Speaker 5: naive image. This country can do this. I mean, we
Speaker 5: have done it before in earlier times of our history.
Speaker 5: But that is the pivotal moment that we're at and
Speaker 5: the work that we're doing it democracy forward, and the
Speaker 5: work that we have the privilege of seeing and working
Speaker 5: with others that are doing in so many organizations and
Speaker 5: communities across the country. Is really to make sure that people,
Speaker 5: the American people have the tools that they need, the
Speaker 5: legal tools they need, and the other tools they need
Speaker 5: to meet this moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm wondering if you can just talk to
Speaker 1: us for like a little bit. Is it sort of
Speaker 1: set up for people to be able to protest peacefully?
Speaker 1: Are you worried that there hasn't been more protesting yet?
Speaker 1: I mean, where are you with that? Because we did
Speaker 1: have four years ago a lot of protests.
Speaker 3: And it seems like that is not what's happening anymore.
Speaker 5: I don't look at the presence or absence of sort
Speaker 5: of protests in the streets right now as an indication
Speaker 5: really of anything. I mean, to be candid with you,
Speaker 5: I think that what we've seen is this is a
Speaker 5: president that got elected telling people that he didn't know
Speaker 5: anything about Project twenty twenty five. Pulling consistently has shown,
Speaker 5: including you know, as he was being elected, that conservatives, liberals,
Speaker 5: and independents all reject that extreme agenda you now have.
Speaker 5: In the early stages of the transition, and throughout the
Speaker 5: last few weeks a number of announcements that suggest they're
Speaker 5: going to accelerate a Project twenty twenty five agenda which
Speaker 5: the majority of the people do not want. We've seen
Speaker 5: the final voting counts that show that the majority of
Speaker 5: the voting public did not vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: He did win the.
Speaker 5: Popular vote, but if you add up everybody that went
Speaker 5: to the polls and who they voted for, you know,
Speaker 5: the majority of them did not vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: The majority voted against them. So I think that really
Speaker 5: this shows you that this is a moment and that
Speaker 5: we're in It's not momentary. I think last time people
Speaker 5: thought that this was he lost the popular vote. They
Speaker 5: thought this was a fluke. You know, how could this happen?
Speaker 5: But we are now seeing this extremism that has really
Speaker 5: set in across the country because of groups like the
Speaker 5: Project twenty twenty five, groups that are trying to wield
Speaker 5: political power. Right, so we're in the middle of it.
Speaker 5: This is an opposition that we are building and a
Speaker 5: real path and plan for a better future that includes everyone,
Speaker 5: not just some people, and not just the privilege, and
Speaker 5: not just people who are politically loyal. And so I
Speaker 5: think that the strategies this time are just different. I
Speaker 5: think you will see people use their voices and protests
Speaker 5: in more traditional ways. But I also think you're going
Speaker 5: to see them in the courts, and I promise to
Speaker 5: that the communities that we're working with, I think you're
Speaker 5: going to see them in the courts. I think you're
Speaker 5: going to see them demanding more of their elected representatives.
Speaker 5: I think you're going to see this is about collective
Speaker 5: power building and really leveraging the power of the American people,
Speaker 5: their belief in a better future at this time to
Speaker 5: stop some of this very extreme and radicalized policies that
Speaker 5: we're hearing about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, thank you, Scot thank you.
Speaker 2: No more Thickly Jesse Cannon s my junk fast Minnesota,
Speaker 2: home to Governor Walls, who you and I have been
Speaker 2: a fan of. There's fuckery going on there with the
Speaker 2: State House trying to make sure that Governor Walls can't
Speaker 2: enact any nice things like school lunches. Again, what are
Speaker 2: you seeing?
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is still happening in North
Speaker 1: Carolina with Justice Riggs, right. I mean, this is kind
Speaker 1: of a thing we're seeing everywhere, which is that these
Speaker 1: Republicans are inspired by Trump's anti democratic rhetoric and by
Speaker 1: the fact that it won for him.
Speaker 2: But we should say. What's really nice is how many
Speaker 2: people are showing up to fight back against justice. Riggs
Speaker 2: is starting to work. It seems like the Griffin campaigns
Speaker 2: backing down because the overwhelming populace is really showing up
Speaker 2: and that is hope for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is good one vote margin for two weeks.
Speaker 1: The GOP claims that they can with that one vote
Speaker 1: margin just do whatever the fuck they want.
Speaker 3: Of course, I don't think we should be surprised.
Speaker 1: By this, but it really is this kind of anti
Speaker 1: democratic vein in the Republican Party, and luckily Governor Wallas
Speaker 1: is on it.
Speaker 3: Maybe he will come on the podcast next week and
Speaker 3: talk about it.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.