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 Republicans are in disarray over herschel
Speaker 1: Walker's loss, and we have a show of shows today.
Speaker 1: Rhode Island's pride Senator Sheldon white House will stop by
Speaker 1: to talk to us about a new bill that curbs
Speaker 1: gas companies price gouging. Then we'll talk to Trump legal
Speaker 1: trouble expert Bloomberg's Tim O'Brien, who will fill us in
Speaker 1: on the aftermath of the Trump organization being convicted of
Speaker 1: tax fraud. But first we have Fast Politics, Faith and
Speaker 1: host of in the Time of Monsters, the nation's g tire.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics. GT here, good to be
Speaker 1: here as always. Well, I'm such a fan of yours.
Speaker 1: I love having you on the podcast. And now we
Speaker 1: must talk about very important things like I swear to God,
Speaker 1: I feel like our country is getting stupider. Trump's Jewish
Speaker 1: allies are begging him to condemn Kanye. He's refusing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean that's not out of the norm. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think one thing that Trump realized early on is
Speaker 1: that apologies for losers and then he would look weak
Speaker 1: if he ever apologizes. Week that is to this, you know,
Speaker 1: the hardcore geop he based that loves them, so like
Speaker 1: you know, like going back to like you know, when
Speaker 1: you insulted John McCain or or did innumerable things, he
Speaker 1: never apologizes, So that's not out of the ordinary. What's
Speaker 1: interesting is Trump's Jewish allies, like you know, that itself
Speaker 1: is a very oxymoronic at best. And it's a really
Speaker 1: great interview with I think the greatest living interviewer, Isaac
Speaker 1: Chutner in the New Yorker, with Morton Klein, the head
Speaker 1: of the Zionist Organization of America, which is like you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately has some standing among the official Jewish organizations. It's
Speaker 1: part of a national commission, but it actually, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's far to the right and does not really
Speaker 1: represent like, you know, the seventy of American Jews who
Speaker 1: woted for Democrats, and they recently gave the Theatre Herzel
Speaker 1: Prize to Donald Trump, their highest honor. And the interview
Speaker 1: is fascinating because he says, like, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: believe that like Trump would meet with Kanye and with
Speaker 1: Nick fluentez Uh and it's so disillusioning because we just
Speaker 1: gave him this a word a few weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: I know Donald Trump is not an anti Semite. What
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, my friend, I'm sorry. He just like you know,
Speaker 1: there's a numerous times are Trump you know, he hasn't said,
Speaker 1: well he's he's yeah. Yeah, I mean going back to
Speaker 1: like Charlotte's vale of you know, good people on both sides.
Speaker 1: And Klein managed to find excuses for all that. And
Speaker 1: I mean his basic thing is, well Trump, you know,
Speaker 1: he loves Israel and he moved the embassy to Jerusalem,
Speaker 1: and one has to think about it as a sort
Speaker 1: of quid pro coal like Trump kind of made this
Speaker 1: overtures to sort of right wing Zionism, was very close
Speaker 1: to net and yahoo um. And for that, you know,
Speaker 1: he was excused a lot of things. But even Trump
Speaker 1: has managed to do stuff that work Incline finds offensive,
Speaker 1: which is amazing because that is who like literally forgive
Speaker 1: almost anything, Like you literally have to have like dinner
Speaker 1: with an outright Holocaust denying Nazi like Nick Fluentez for
Speaker 1: him to get on your case if you support nothing
Speaker 1: out um. So so that's kind of so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it is. Uh. Yeah, I don't know if the
Speaker 1: world is getting crazier or I think that I actually
Speaker 1: think that there's a sort of interesting fissure that's not
Speaker 1: opening up. I think Trump has gone so far that
Speaker 1: even very right wing Jews are sort of like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know, like this is I think
Speaker 1: that's actually very salutary. But I think let's the old joke,
Speaker 1: you know, like the woman who votes for Tiger's clawing
Speaker 1: out people's faces, a surprise that the tiger attacked her.
Speaker 1: You know. I think some people in Trump's coalition are
Speaker 1: realizing that, you know, like Okay, we're next, you know,
Speaker 1: like he's so so Yeah. I think I think that's
Speaker 1: actually quite salutary. I mean, I don't know. I just
Speaker 1: watched a video of Kelly and Conway talking to Larry
Speaker 1: Cudlow about how they wished Trump would disavow white supremacists.
Speaker 1: I was like, did they just don't know him? I
Speaker 1: don't think it's abe that they don't know him, but
Speaker 1: like those people, they're kind of role is to mediate
Speaker 1: between Trump and the more normal Republicans, and even beyond that,
Speaker 1: the more normal you know, parts of the media and
Speaker 1: the centrist world. I mean, like something like Kelly and Conway.
Speaker 1: Like she's you know, pretty close friends with a lot
Speaker 1: of people, say it Saturday the life, you know, which
Speaker 1: has always been very kind to her. So for her,
Speaker 1: it's like a kind of marriage of convenience and and
Speaker 1: Trump is disrupting their ability to have plausible non i ability.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think she knows Trump very well,
Speaker 1: and I think more to the point, Trump knows Trump
Speaker 1: very well, and Trump knows his base very well, and
Speaker 1: he knows if he ever apologizes, that would actually be
Speaker 1: a real problem for him. I think I think the
Speaker 1: base partially loves him because he refuses to apologize, because
Speaker 1: they think apology is a sign of weakness. It's like
Speaker 1: that's what a sissy does. Excuse the archaic and offensive language.
Speaker 1: But that's what a penzy does, right, And you know,
Speaker 1: you're a real man, you don't apologize. I mean Obama
Speaker 1: went around the world and you know, trying to rebuild
Speaker 1: the alliances that Bush broken and apologize for some of
Speaker 1: the stuff in the war and terror, and that was
Speaker 1: hugely offensive. Like the idea that you know, like you
Speaker 1: would ever apologize for a mistake, right exactly. I mean
Speaker 1: so let's talk about there's a lot of other weird
Speaker 1: ship going on. The January six Committee is going to
Speaker 1: make criminal referrals, but we don't know about Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean do you feel like they should have said
Speaker 1: who they were going to refer about her? Now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean on the whole, I feel like they should
Speaker 1: have been trying to be a bit more open about it.
Speaker 1: And I mean my big concern is, like the Republicans
Speaker 1: are gonna take over the House and they're gonna like,
Speaker 1: you know, use it as a fishing expedition. So I
Speaker 1: wish all this stuff had been you know, done earlier
Speaker 1: and had been wrapped up. I mean, I think there
Speaker 1: were sort of political considerations, and to some degree they
Speaker 1: played good politics. I mean, I think the January six
Speaker 1: like commission was really useful for the Democrats and really
Speaker 1: useful in reminding people how dangerous, uh that you know,
Speaker 1: the Trump Republicans have been. But yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: wish a lot of this stuff had been done earlier
Speaker 1: and been a little bit more out in the open,
Speaker 1: whatever the political cost, because I actually think that like
Speaker 1: there's like, in terms of investigation, like we're going to
Speaker 1: see the GOP takeover and they're going to go on
Speaker 1: a fishing expedition to go through to find any little
Speaker 1: mistake to try to discredit what's been done so far. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that does seem very likely, right yeah. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: it's sort of I don't know. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: tough call. I understand the timing of why they did
Speaker 1: it when they did, but in some ways it should
Speaker 1: have everything should have been done much earlier. There was
Speaker 1: just are in the Washington Post where it said Trump's
Speaker 1: lawyers found that he you know, vouched that he had
Speaker 1: no classified material. And then immediately after that there was
Speaker 1: a story in the New York Times that show the
Speaker 1: Trump had classified material in in these other storage areas.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's I feel like that's how Trump plays
Speaker 1: it all the time, right, Oh yeah, I know absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean this goes back to what you said earlier,
Speaker 1: like do we not know Trump? Do we not know that?
Speaker 1: You know, this guy will like lie about anything. And
Speaker 1: I actually to tie you this in with like the
Speaker 1: earlier discussion about the Kanye you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that came out was that Nick Flentes was able
Speaker 1: to have dinner with Trump because the Secret Service basically,
Speaker 1: let's Trump people run their own security at Mara Lego.
Speaker 1: It's it's a private club, which means that basically anyone
Speaker 1: the Trump like you know, is willing to see can
Speaker 1: go in there. And you know, they have i know,
Speaker 1: the nuclear codes in a closet somewhere like I just
Speaker 1: does not seem a good situation, right for a good
Speaker 1: place to keep classified material. No, absolutely not. And I
Speaker 1: have always thought that this is something that could go somewhere.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a little bit trickier with like GFP
Speaker 1: control of the House, but still the National security state
Speaker 1: takes all this stuff very seriously, and it does seem
Speaker 1: like on the legal front, like we are start of
Speaker 1: seeing finally some accountability and some like you know, the
Speaker 1: inertia of the legal system being overcome. I mean, we
Speaker 1: saw that with like Cramp organization, and they're sort of
Speaker 1: criminal liabilities that they're now facing. So hopefully this will
Speaker 1: this will actually be I mean I'm using not a
Speaker 1: person to say, you know, we should rely on the
Speaker 1: system to work, because the system doesn't work often. But
Speaker 1: I actually think that this is this stuff is like
Speaker 1: a gravity where even the sort of you know, difference
Speaker 1: that people give to a former President, I think even
Speaker 1: that can be overcome. Yeah, it does seem like their justice,
Speaker 1: whatever that means is is actually kind of grinding along.
Speaker 1: In America. We have a very exciting phenomenon going on
Speaker 1: where people are shooting at the power grounds because we
Speaker 1: don't have enough guns and obviously we need to have
Speaker 1: more bonds. What do you think about this so far?
Speaker 1: I mean, I saw some stuff indicating that this might
Speaker 1: be related to the right wing terrorism, although I think
Speaker 1: the charges haven't been laid and so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like serve murkiness in the story. And part of
Speaker 1: the murkiness is that I think, unfortunately, like some of
Speaker 1: the sheriffs in these places might be sympathetic with the
Speaker 1: people doing the shooting. So yeah, I mean, on a
Speaker 1: broader thing, like you know, like we know from the
Speaker 1: f V, I know, the source of right wing terrorism
Speaker 1: is a real thing, and it's a growing threat, and
Speaker 1: it does seem increasingly likely that if Republicans face defeat
Speaker 1: in the ballot boxes, as they you know, basically did
Speaker 1: in the mid terms and in the last election, and
Speaker 1: they have this sort of conspiratorial review to the system
Speaker 1: was rigged against them, you're going to see more and
Speaker 1: more political violence coming from the right, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: see more more of this stuff. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: I just think it's like, you know, having said, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to be careful because charges haven't been laid, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't know what it is, but certainly
Speaker 1: guns are involved. So I don't think it's planned parenthood
Speaker 1: that is going out and shooting the right, like I
Speaker 1: don't think it's the League of Women Borders that are
Speaker 1: but that league of conservation voters you have to keep
Speaker 1: your eye on. We can draw, you know, reasonable differences.
Speaker 1: Are have our suspicions as to who's doing this. And
Speaker 1: I think the broader thing to keep in mind is
Speaker 1: that the radical right is becoming more violent as a
Speaker 1: natural outgrowth of this sort of propaganda that they're being fed,
Speaker 1: they're being told and they're not only in that they
Speaker 1: were robbed, that the political system doesn't work, and that
Speaker 1: you know, they're basically gonna lose their whole way of
Speaker 1: life to these dictatorial democrats. Now, what happens when people
Speaker 1: feel that they can't express themselves politically, you know, they
Speaker 1: turn to violence. And and so the very messaging that
Speaker 1: Trump and a lot of elected Republicans are doing is
Speaker 1: sort of adding fuel to the fire of right wing violence.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a real problem. And I mean,
Speaker 1: all we can do is call them out on this
Speaker 1: and keep you know, saying this language, this politics is
Speaker 1: getting people killed, which it is. Yeah. No, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that's really scary, and it does seem like
Speaker 1: we are just very lucky every day that there isn't violence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's good to have like a broad perspective
Speaker 1: on this right. So I actually think the number of
Speaker 1: people that are actually willing to go and commit like
Speaker 1: these violent acts are not like larger number, and I
Speaker 1: think American society can handle that. The problem is really
Speaker 1: that while they're not larger number, they are a part
Speaker 1: of the GOP base, and Trump is legitimized them as
Speaker 1: a part of the GOP base. And this, you know,
Speaker 1: to circle back to what we were saying earlier about
Speaker 1: him not announcing white supremacy, you know, like that's part
Speaker 1: of the way that Trump made these people feel like
Speaker 1: they're part of the Republican coalition or the mega coalition
Speaker 1: that he denounced them, so, you know, feeling that they have.
Speaker 1: I think the sense that these people have that they
Speaker 1: are powerful people that listen to them, and that these
Speaker 1: powerful people are also telling them that elections don't work
Speaker 1: is feeding into the violence. So we have to have
Speaker 1: like a clear picture of the server the ecosystem of
Speaker 1: violence that we're seeing. Yeah. No, I think it's really
Speaker 1: such an interesting and strange time to be living in America.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you one last question, which is
Speaker 1: do you think American politics is getting better? Actually? I
Speaker 1: mean I'm pretty hopeful right now, just because of not
Speaker 1: just the mid terms, but also the runoff in Georgia.
Speaker 1: You know, like, Okay, I mean, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: class half full, half empty thing. You know, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, you know Warnock one. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: like crushal Walker, who in an ideal world should get
Speaker 1: zero over some of the you ended up with. Like
Speaker 1: you know that to have a candidate that's so clearly
Speaker 1: unfit for Profice, whose own family you know, thinks he's
Speaker 1: unfit for Professe get for you for the vote, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's pretty scary. But I mean I do think that
Speaker 1: there's there's evidence that, you know, the good guys are winning,
Speaker 1: and also that the good guys are learning. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the Democrats are figuring out how to navigate
Speaker 1: in this new environment and how to you know, win elections.
Speaker 1: Not all of them. I mean in New York obviously
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party there that's a lot of trouble, and
Speaker 1: and in Florida as well, but I mean in a
Speaker 1: lot of places, the state Democratic parties are getting pretty
Speaker 1: good at figure out what they need to do, and
Speaker 1: they've gotten the message out about how dangerous Republicans are.
Speaker 1: So I went out, like, you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: we're getting near the holiday season, and I want to
Speaker 1: leave people with a little bit of hope that yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's there's ways in which politics
Speaker 1: is getting bigger better. I think that it's in terms of, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the big picture, it's gonna take a couple
Speaker 1: of cycles. Like I think you have to keep losing
Speaker 1: and losing and losing, and it's like you know, bashing
Speaker 1: your head against the wall. If you do it once, okay, twice, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you bash your head against the wall ten times,
Speaker 1: maybe something will get through and they're like, hey, I
Speaker 1: have to stop bashing my head against the wall. So
Speaker 1: I actually think that like if maga Republicans, if you
Speaker 1: know that Trump has hiloritarian right. If they lose let's
Speaker 1: say four or five election cycles in a row, then
Speaker 1: maybe you know, the hope there's will bash your head
Speaker 1: against the wall so much that they realized we should
Speaker 1: stop doing this. And that was actually going to be
Speaker 1: my last question. Do you think that will ever happen?
Speaker 1: Like they clearly people don't like it, right, Certainly swing
Speaker 1: state voters don't like it. They don't like this craziness.
Speaker 1: But it seems like Republicans don't care. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's portually a matter that you know, sort of geographical
Speaker 1: sorting that, like there's enough places in red states that
Speaker 1: are so red that like a Marjorie Taylor Green or
Speaker 1: Paul Gostars can get re elected again and again. But
Speaker 1: again I have to say, like over time it does
Speaker 1: have an impact. Like and I go back, I think
Speaker 1: the classic example is a broken party, you know, during
Speaker 1: the age of the New Deal, where they had Herbert
Speaker 1: Hoover and they had a lot of very right doing
Speaker 1: people who from the start we're saying, like the New
Speaker 1: Deal is communism and we have to get rid of
Speaker 1: Social Security. And they lost, and they lost again and
Speaker 1: again and again, and you have like basically five presidential
Speaker 1: elections where they lost and then they realized, Okay, um,
Speaker 1: let's try something different. Let's let's get like Dwight Eisenhower.
Speaker 1: He's a popular general and he doesn't want to get
Speaker 1: rid of Social Security, and he likes unions, and he
Speaker 1: likes high taxes for the rich. And let's try him.
Speaker 1: So I feel like if the Republicans, you think they're
Speaker 1: going to decide that they want jab or something, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if they lose like enough times, then one could imagine
Speaker 1: a more yeah, reasonable Republican getting in there. So I
Speaker 1: think that's the future one can maybe look forward to.
Speaker 1: Like they just keep losing, and that's they keep losing,
Speaker 1: and I mean it's it's the only way they learned, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's sad people don't learn except through adversity, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, in this case, it's actually not sad. It's
Speaker 1: good because the candidates right showed the irony of what
Speaker 1: you were saying. But yes, Jeet here, please come back.
Speaker 1: You're always such a delight to have here talking to you.
Speaker 1: Sheldon white House is the junior Senator from Rhode Island.
Speaker 1: So welcome to Fast Politics. Senator white House, thank you,
Speaker 1: great to be with you. We're so excited to have you,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to talk to you about all senators
Speaker 1: pretty cool, congratulations, I mean amazing stuff. It makes more
Speaker 1: than a two percent difference. I'll tell you. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about what, uh, what Democrats can do eight now
Speaker 1: in this lame duck period. Well, it depends on what
Speaker 1: the House will let us do, and it depends on
Speaker 1: what Republicans will let us do. Because there's still the
Speaker 1: sixty vote culture requirement UM in the Senate. I would
Speaker 1: ordinarily say we should be crushing as many nominees through
Speaker 1: as we possibly can UM, but because we held the Senate,
Speaker 1: we actually have the ability to process nominees in the
Speaker 1: next Congress with the same pace as this congress, and
Speaker 1: with Rafael warnox win, actually at a slightly accelerated pace
Speaker 1: because we don't have to worry about discharge petitions. If
Speaker 1: we can get Democrats voting for our own nominees, they
Speaker 1: go straight to the floor and tee up for the
Speaker 1: executive calendar. So I want to talk to you about
Speaker 1: your Windfall Profit Tax Act that you're working on with
Speaker 1: another favorite of this podcast, Representative Rocanna. Talk to us
Speaker 1: about what this would do and what this is the
Speaker 1: oil companies engage in international price manipulation through their cartel,
Speaker 1: so they can jack up their prices pretty high. And
Speaker 1: we saw in the wake of the Putin invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: oil prices get jacked up very high. And the result
Speaker 1: of that, of course, is that oil company profits soared
Speaker 1: and consumers got screwed at the pump. So what we
Speaker 1: would do, because we'd go back to a reasonable baseline
Speaker 1: of profit for these companies, and excess profit above that,
Speaker 1: they'd have to cough up half of it. We'd caught
Speaker 1: back and then distribute that to American consumers to spend,
Speaker 1: you know, where they wish, at the grocery store, at
Speaker 1: the gas pump, at their favorite restaurant, whatever. This seems
Speaker 1: like a very new kind of bell. If it works,
Speaker 1: it would sort of be the beginning of a kind
Speaker 1: of taxation, you know, against corporate greed. It would be
Speaker 1: a deterrent against corporate price gouging. And the Tory Party
Speaker 1: over in England the Conservatives have actually passed something rather
Speaker 1: like it. The difference, I think being in England the
Speaker 1: oil companies don't have the same control over the Conservative
Speaker 1: Party as they do over the Republican Party here. They're
Speaker 1: actually genuine conservatives in the UK. And we have fossil
Speaker 1: fuel functionaries here in the American Republican Party clearly fossil
Speaker 1: fuel companies, but they're largely responsible for climate crisis. They
Speaker 1: have a certain amount of the United States politicians sort
Speaker 1: of under their thumbs. I mean, what could what could
Speaker 1: stop this terrible situation. I think it will take public
Speaker 1: pressure on Republican members. I suspect that if Chuck Schumer
Speaker 1: brought this to a vote, we'd get pretty much all
Speaker 1: of the Democratic senators. But that doesn't get you to sixty.
Speaker 1: And so we need some Republicans to come over and
Speaker 1: agree that at least when your price gouging, share the
Speaker 1: wealth with consumers. It's actually a pretty moderate idea. We
Speaker 1: don't even take all the excess profits, we let them
Speaker 1: keep half. And even so, they've absolutely drawn a hard
Speaker 1: line in the sand that we were not going to negotiate.
Speaker 1: We're not going to talk. This is anathema to us
Speaker 1: and we want no part of it. And of course
Speaker 1: we then refused to deliver our Republican fossil fuel functionaries
Speaker 1: with the inequalities the wealth inequalities in this country and
Speaker 1: the kind of corporate mouthfeasance on the part of corporations.
Speaker 1: We really do need the United States government to reign
Speaker 1: in capitalism. I mean, do you think that that can
Speaker 1: happen in our lifetime? I hope. So. I think that
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is moving tentatively in that direction. Well,
Speaker 1: after Representative con and I filed this bill, the White
Speaker 1: House came around and said, actually, we sort liked this
Speaker 1: idea of excess profits clawback, and the President started talking
Speaker 1: about price gouging and a bill to clawback excess profits.
Speaker 1: So I think they're moving in that direction. But I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot more that can be done because
Speaker 1: the power of these corporations has gotten completely out of control.
Speaker 1: I think the target should be the dark money operation
Speaker 1: rather than just corporate America. Generally, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of very decent, principled corporations that provide very good service
Speaker 1: to their customers, and then there's this pack of them
Speaker 1: that run a dark money operation to tell the Republican
Speaker 1: Party what to do and to use the US Chamber
Speaker 1: of Commerce as their bludgeon to impose policies that the
Speaker 1: public doesn't want. It's that crew. I think that you
Speaker 1: can spotlight and put a lot of pressure on And
Speaker 1: that's what I've been encouraging the administration to do and
Speaker 1: what I've been doing myself. So let's talk for a
Speaker 1: minute about money. I feel like it's impossible to talk
Speaker 1: about dark money without talking about this very conservative Supreme Court. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the court that dark money built. Yeah. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that we can do? I mean, we have this embolden court.
Speaker 1: They're listening to voting rights. I mean every session that
Speaker 1: this court is, you know, is on the benches is
Speaker 1: a bit scary. Yeah. And the stuff they get up
Speaker 1: to is pretty grim. I mean everybody knows, for instance,
Speaker 1: about the Dobbs decision, where they merrily took a constitutional
Speaker 1: right away from half of the American population. But less
Speaker 1: well known is that around the same time that they
Speaker 1: were doing that, they were adding for the big donors
Speaker 1: who got them onto the court, a constitutional right to
Speaker 1: dark money. Can you talk a little more about that?
Speaker 1: And they actually set that up in the Americans for
Speaker 1: Prosperity Foundation case. It was a nasty little case. It
Speaker 1: sat on the Supreme Court's docket waiting to be take
Speaker 1: it up for a long time for years, and um,
Speaker 1: they didn't Budge until they saw that they had Amy
Speaker 1: Conny Barrett to give them a sixth vote, and they
Speaker 1: didn't actually move on it until like two days after
Speaker 1: the January six riot actually took it up on the eighth,
Speaker 1: when the attention of the world was everywhere else but
Speaker 1: what the Supreme Court was up to without a whole
Speaker 1: lot of fuss, but with an enormous armada of right
Speaker 1: wing front groups appearing in front of the court, they
Speaker 1: actually created the court. The dark money built, in turn,
Speaker 1: built a constitutional right to dark money. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that we can do, We could raise a lot of Hell.
Speaker 1: The other thing that we can do is past the
Speaker 1: Disclosed Act so that we maximize our ability to disclose.
Speaker 1: They're a little bit stuck between two things. The plaintiff
Speaker 1: in the dark money constitutional right case was the corporate
Speaker 1: twin of the Koch Brothers biggest political battleship, the Americans
Speaker 1: for Prosperity organization, So that was there was a huge
Speaker 1: political overlay on that. But at the same time they
Speaker 1: also have the Citizens United decision, which acknowledges that dark
Speaker 1: money is corrupting and leaves a lane for Congress to
Speaker 1: required disclosure of dark money spent at least in elections.
Speaker 1: So that's the frontier of these two battles. That you
Speaker 1: can be the appendage of a political operation and protect
Speaker 1: your dark money and then have a completely fake corporate
Speaker 1: veil between the two, a veil you could pierce with
Speaker 1: a banana, and then on the other side have a
Speaker 1: corporate operation that spends money and at least what it
Speaker 1: spends and ads would probably have to be disclosed if
Speaker 1: we passed the law requiring it. Do you think it's
Speaker 1: worth trying to get rid of the filibuster for these laws?
Speaker 1: I would do that in a heartbeat. The only thing
Speaker 1: I'd suggest is that we're actually not getting rid of
Speaker 1: the filibuster. We're actually restoring the filibuster, which is everybody
Speaker 1: gets a chance to talk themselves out, and at the
Speaker 1: end of the day you vote to a simple majority.
Speaker 1: That's what the filibuster was. Then we got is weird
Speaker 1: culture rule. To shortcut it, without touching the culture rule,
Speaker 1: you could actually make the Senate work again by changing
Speaker 1: other rules having to do with quorum calls and things
Speaker 1: like that. For instance, I have nothing against the Republicans
Speaker 1: slowing us down when we want to make a big
Speaker 1: change that they oppose for a month, but they need
Speaker 1: to be on the floor making their arguments. They can't
Speaker 1: just shut the sentate down and quorum calls and and
Speaker 1: burn time without actually standing up for the whatever it
Speaker 1: is that they're arguing for. And once they're done with
Speaker 1: their arguments and they become dilatory, then the parliamentarian needs
Speaker 1: to be able to say, Okay, everybody said their piece,
Speaker 1: here we go, now we vote. It seems like the
Speaker 1: American people in this midterm have given that they really
Speaker 1: don't like all of this radical trumps um. Do you
Speaker 1: think Republicans will hear this message or do you think
Speaker 1: they're just going to do something? I mean, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to me like there's a whole lot of soul
Speaker 1: searching going on. Well, there are two threads. There's the
Speaker 1: Maga thread with all of its sort of weird overlay
Speaker 1: of racial issues and lack of good temperament and all
Speaker 1: of that. And then there's the really really steady economic
Speaker 1: power being deployed by huge special interests from behind the
Speaker 1: screen of the dark money that they used in politics,
Speaker 1: that they used to pack the court, that they used
Speaker 1: to hide their role in front groups around the country,
Speaker 1: and we had a lot of success pointing out the
Speaker 1: mega threat, and I think Americans really saw that that
Speaker 1: was just too much, That was just disgusting and and
Speaker 1: not something independent voters swung our way in this election
Speaker 1: and kind of unprecedented fashion for a midterm. So you know,
Speaker 1: that worked. But we have not done is put enough
Speaker 1: attention on the bigger special interest influence operation that goes
Speaker 1: out of its way to work quietly and to obscure
Speaker 1: itself and to run like a covert opera ration. And
Speaker 1: that's where I think we can make the American people
Speaker 1: just as upset as they are with MAGA, only in
Speaker 1: this case they were fooled for a lot longer time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that you know. I mean, when you
Speaker 1: think about John Roberts on the court with the Dobbs decision,
Speaker 1: he didn't want Dobbs decided. He didn't want row overturned
Speaker 1: because he believed that women should have choice. He wanted
Speaker 1: it that way because he knew that these conservative justices
Speaker 1: were giving up the game. Yeah, he wanted to move
Speaker 1: more slowly and obscure the kind of rough handling by
Speaker 1: the far right that was accomplished through Judge Alido in
Speaker 1: that decision. Yeah, we're talking about voter suppression in Georgia.
Speaker 1: Normal voters, I think are more informed of the sort
Speaker 1: of nefarious nous of a lot of the Maga Republican Party. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they they overlap a bit. I mean you mentioned
Speaker 1: voter suppression. To go back to the capture of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, one of the organizations that did that, called
Speaker 1: the Judicial Crisis Network. They got checks as big as
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars seventeen million dollars in individual donations without
Speaker 1: revealing who the donor was, spent it on the ads
Speaker 1: for the Supreme Court justices, and then they go running
Speaker 1: in through associated groups to argue to the Court that
Speaker 1: they spent money to put on the court without disclosing
Speaker 1: any of that. And the voter suppression group, so called
Speaker 1: Honest Elections Project, is the group that just appeared where
Speaker 1: the arguments happened for mor v. Harper today and in
Speaker 1: the list of briefs is the Honest Elections Project, which
Speaker 1: doesn't bother to disclose that it's the corporate sibling of
Speaker 1: the Digital Crisis Network, which spent all this money on
Speaker 1: ads for the judges. The secrecy and the smarminess of
Speaker 1: it is just really very wrong. So for someone listening
Speaker 1: to this right now, what would you tell them are
Speaker 1: the things they can do themselves to help? I think
Speaker 1: the number one thing is to make getting rid of
Speaker 1: dark money and politics a huge, huge priority, not only
Speaker 1: for the individual themselves, but also for groups that they
Speaker 1: mean may be involved with. So, labor unions have a
Speaker 1: huge stake in getting rid of dark money because the
Speaker 1: dark money forces go out and try to crush labor
Speaker 1: in for instance, the Janis decision. The civil rights movement
Speaker 1: has a huge stake in protecting against dark money because
Speaker 1: dark money funds voter suppression. They've admitted it. The environmental
Speaker 1: movement has a huge stake in getting rid of dark
Speaker 1: money because of West Virginia versus e p A and
Speaker 1: the whole fake climate denial establishment that has been propped up.
Speaker 1: And yet you can go through the interests that we
Speaker 1: fight for, and over and over and over again you
Speaker 1: find that the advocacy groups don't look beyond their immediate
Speaker 1: substantive purpose to how do you break the back of
Speaker 1: this group that is coming after us. How do you
Speaker 1: expose to the American public that this is a scam.
Speaker 1: How do you get after their operation. And that's what
Speaker 1: I think all of our democratic leaning advocacy groups need
Speaker 1: to understand. They have a common cause in making sure
Speaker 1: that the public gets what is going on with these
Speaker 1: games that are being played in the dark. And if
Speaker 1: we can do that, I think that builds a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure. I mean, the public already hates this stuff.
Speaker 1: You really can't beat the polling on it. There's nothing
Speaker 1: we need to do to improve how much the public
Speaker 1: hates dark money. We just need to hammer the issue
Speaker 1: until the Republicans yell buncle and give so interesting Sheldon
Speaker 1: white House, Um, we're just at a time, but I
Speaker 1: want to ask you one last question, because you are
Speaker 1: from this state that has been so affected by climate change,
Speaker 1: are you seeing anything that is giving you hope? Tell
Speaker 1: us something good about climate. Bad news is the Biden
Speaker 1: administration hasn't really done much on climate. The good news
Speaker 1: is that gives them a lot left to do. And
Speaker 1: now with the Republican controlled House, there's no point in
Speaker 1: waiting around for legislation. They can move and accomplish a
Speaker 1: lot of executive climate stuff that is out there ready
Speaker 1: to be done. And they started in the methane regulation
Speaker 1: by baking in a pertend social cost of carbon, which
Speaker 1: is a really big deal and in time can be
Speaker 1: propagated through other agencies and other government decision making, and
Speaker 1: that I think will will markedly end up in significant
Speaker 1: emission savings. And another big thing that they could do
Speaker 1: is to align with the European Union on their carbon
Speaker 1: border adjustment, which the EU is going forward with and
Speaker 1: rather than complain and you know, piss and moan about it,
Speaker 1: line up, sign up, join up, and try to build
Speaker 1: a multi economy platform of countries that will charge for
Speaker 1: carbon unfriendly products when they cross borders that there's a
Speaker 1: tariff there. And I think the Biden administration is taking
Speaker 1: a new interest in looking at the carbon border adjustment
Speaker 1: as a as a really positive thing for American business,
Speaker 1: which it is. You put those two things together. You've
Speaker 1: got a big social cost of carbon inside and throughout
Speaker 1: the government, and you've got a carbon border adjustment on
Speaker 1: our on our borders as a tariff, and suddenly things
Speaker 1: start to look a lot better. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: That was good, good, helpful, hopeful message to end on.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Senator white House. Great to be
Speaker 1: with you, Molly. Thank you so much. Tim O'Brien is
Speaker 1: the opinion editor at Bloomberg. Welcome Too Fast Politics, Tim
Speaker 1: O'Brien Molly. I was excited to have you back on
Speaker 1: because besides being uh, the editor of Bloomberg Opinion and
Speaker 1: very smart writer, you are also the knower of all
Speaker 1: things Trump related for a long long time. And I
Speaker 1: felt that we had to since we are on the
Speaker 1: Yesterday the Trump organization got uh found guilty, and we're
Speaker 1: in a It's been a bad couple days for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: And and and the second you know, Domino to fall
Speaker 1: for him was herschel Walker losing the Senate race in Georgia,
Speaker 1: a guy that Trump hand picked to carry trump is
Speaker 1: um into the Senate. I think there's more to come
Speaker 1: for the Trump organization that could go well beyond what
Speaker 1: happened with the Manhattander's charges yesterday. It's significant. It's the
Speaker 1: first time the Trump organ has been convicted of a
Speaker 1: criminal fraud charge in a courtroom. It is not financially
Speaker 1: going to debilitate them, you know, the financial penalty is
Speaker 1: relatively modest, but reputationally it's an interesting verdict because Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has spent you know, more than fifty of his
Speaker 1: almost seventy seven years playing with toys that Fred Trump
Speaker 1: built and gave to him, and he has basically flushed
Speaker 1: a lot of that down the toilet through ineptitude and
Speaker 1: selfish is and and the organization now has a criminal
Speaker 1: fraud charge against it. It's a blight on a family
Speaker 1: legacy that was never particularly first class or blue chick,
Speaker 1: even in the Fred era, but it didn't have this
Speaker 1: this taint hanging over over it. But I think I
Speaker 1: think the State Attorney General's case, Letitia James's case, is
Speaker 1: more existentially threatening to the business, and I think the
Speaker 1: Moral Lago investigation for espionage violations and the what might
Speaker 1: come out of the January six hearings are more personally
Speaker 1: dangerous to Trump himself. So what do you think that
Speaker 1: looks like? Well, I mean, you know, this all depends
Speaker 1: on how steely prosecutors want to be. But you know,
Speaker 1: the Moral Lago case, so we're talking about Trump first
Speaker 1: and the Trump or Trump personally. The Moral Lago case
Speaker 1: is a very strong case. It certainly seems like he
Speaker 1: knowingly and willfully violated the law when he took classify
Speaker 1: documents out of the White House, violations of the Espionage
Speaker 1: Act and then he obstructed justice. It would appear he
Speaker 1: and his team once the FBI began taking a closer look,
Speaker 1: that seems to be an open and shut case. So
Speaker 1: I don't know how he gets around that. One. The
Speaker 1: January six cases we've talked about before, Molly is really
Speaker 1: whether or not Garland at the d o J wants
Speaker 1: to crack down, and all indications are he's on that track,
Speaker 1: you know he is. He's appointed a special counsel. That
Speaker 1: special council's a bulldog. That special council is going to
Speaker 1: examine the evidence. On the business side, if the Attorney
Speaker 1: General in New York finds Trump and his children and
Speaker 1: the and the business guilty of the fraud civil fraud
Speaker 1: charges she's brought, they can lose their license to do
Speaker 1: business in New York permanently. Means that the Trump work
Speaker 1: and related entities and Trump and his children can no
Speaker 1: longer do business in the state of New York, which
Speaker 1: is just a I think, an existential blow on the
Speaker 1: business side. Does it seem to you like this whole
Speaker 1: thaying is like Trump is is on his way out
Speaker 1: or do you think we're just I mean, because remember
Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen he was pulling at one percent.
Speaker 1: So I mean, are we just in another cycle of
Speaker 1: Trump being down and then up or do you think
Speaker 1: this is really the end? Well, I think there's there's
Speaker 1: you know, different categories here on the political side of it.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can count them out. You know,
Speaker 1: he still has a I think a firm hold on
Speaker 1: the hearts and minds of of the Republican electorate, and
Speaker 1: that gives him enormous leverage in primary season and in
Speaker 1: keeping a certain kind of philosophy and candidate in play
Speaker 1: within the Republican Party, the pitchfork and torch carrying kind
Speaker 1: of candidate and who's modeled in the image of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: which is a ignorant person who is a flamethrower. But
Speaker 1: that's not a viable path to a national to national
Speaker 1: victories because independence and moderates and moderate Republicans have all
Speaker 1: decided that they don't like Trump or Trump is um
Speaker 1: and that's been proven now in three national elections in
Speaker 1: a row. So I don't think he's going to go
Speaker 1: away on the political front at all, And I don't
Speaker 1: think he really cares whether or not he can figure
Speaker 1: out a way a pout their president presidency for himself.
Speaker 1: He'll be happy just to blow the shop up and
Speaker 1: blow the party up and stay in the in the
Speaker 1: spotlight in the courts. He's got real threats like he's
Speaker 1: never experienced before. And people have often spoken about how
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has always managed to get around the law
Speaker 1: and always managed to have a ninth life, But the
Speaker 1: reality is this is the first time in his life
Speaker 1: where there's been intense, purposeful law enforcement investigations with him
Speaker 1: in the crosshairs. I mean, you've been dealing with this
Speaker 1: trumpy will he get away with the question since the eighties?
Speaker 1: I mean, does he always get away with it? But
Speaker 1: what are we saying that when we say get away
Speaker 1: with it? Right? Like in the eighties, he got away
Speaker 1: with being a b S artist, and he got away
Speaker 1: with stretching the boundaries of his own prowess and lying
Speaker 1: about his business achievements and crafting this halo around himself
Speaker 1: as a can do entrepreneur when in fact he was
Speaker 1: an epic con man, grifter and screw up artists and
Speaker 1: bankruptcy artists for that matter. And he parlayed that into
Speaker 1: The Apprentice, which was also pure kabuki, but that didn't
Speaker 1: involve at the time committing or being investigated for let
Speaker 1: me rephrase that, it didn't involve being an investigated for
Speaker 1: major frauds that could land you in an orange jumpsuit.
Speaker 1: You know, that wasn't part of his life then, So
Speaker 1: this is really new. What he's gotten away with most
Speaker 1: of his life is conning people into believing he's was
Speaker 1: something he isn't, which is a super talented businessman and
Speaker 1: a brilliant politician and someone who's out to represent the
Speaker 1: little guy and the little gal. That's just not who
Speaker 1: he is. And he has gotten away with that for
Speaker 1: a long time. I think we're in a different place
Speaker 1: right now. Do you think this is the beginning of
Speaker 1: the end? I think it could be. It could be.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think the issue is what
Speaker 1: law enforcement decides to do with what's on its plate.
Speaker 1: Do they really push this through? Do they seek putting
Speaker 1: him in jail? If Donald Trump goes to jail, that's
Speaker 1: certainly the end of a lot of things, including his freedom.
Speaker 1: If he gets charged with federal fraud charges and conspiracy
Speaker 1: to overthrow the government, etcetera, etcetera. That will be embarrassing
Speaker 1: to most people. Are concerning most people, but baby Hughie
Speaker 1: doesn't get embarrassed. Baby Hue just shakes his rattle more loudly.
Speaker 1: Speaking of narcissistic billionaires, there's another narcissistic billionaire here. He
Speaker 1: wrote about who is really enjoying a trumping news cycle,
Speaker 1: and that narcissistic billionaire is Elon Musk. I tried to
Speaker 1: grapple with this at a piece I wrote yesterday. It
Speaker 1: does seem to me that we in the media are
Speaker 1: sort of primed for these news cycles of these crazy
Speaker 1: narcissists taking as hostage. Well, we're also I think what
Speaker 1: Trump has done is he's made it okay for powerful,
Speaker 1: wealthy white men to peacock and strut their stuff and
Speaker 1: be as an inane or as destructive or as self
Speaker 1: absorbed as they want to be without worrying about consequence.
Speaker 1: And I think that Trump opened the door to that politically,
Speaker 1: and he's certainly opened the door to it in the
Speaker 1: business community. Would Elon Musk have rolled this way prior
Speaker 1: to I'm not sure he would have. I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot in Musk himself that is about narcissism and
Speaker 1: unhinged behavior that's independent of Trump. But I think Trump
Speaker 1: has also taught people how to basically rule like you're
Speaker 1: in the fountain Head. And we also are in an
Speaker 1: era in which you can win over people and reached
Speaker 1: to people and run a media organization without having an
Speaker 1: old own and old fashioned newspaper, TV station, or radio station.
Speaker 1: You could do it on the web. And the web
Speaker 1: has allowed a lot of different powerful people to go
Speaker 1: directly to people without the media interceding. And I think
Speaker 1: there's some upsides to that. The media is not always
Speaker 1: the best gatekeeper, but the downsides are we I do
Speaker 1: think we want some screens for value in our society
Speaker 1: and some gatekeeping, and that's not happening in a meaningful
Speaker 1: way on social Well. It's interesting because I mean it
Speaker 1: does seem like to me that Elan's plan is that
Speaker 1: he's going to you know, he's going to create new
Speaker 1: media that he likes better. That's very wice and mad. Well.
Speaker 1: He can do that for as long as he has
Speaker 1: the funny money to be able to do that, because
Speaker 1: his wealth is predicated on two primary things, the public
Speaker 1: value of Tesla's stock and the private value of SpaceX.
Speaker 1: Those are the two things that fund his shenanigans. And
Speaker 1: Tesla's doc has been massively battered over the last year.
Speaker 1: He can't keep pulling from that piggy bank indefinitely. He
Speaker 1: bought Twitter for forty four billion dollars, thirteen billion of
Speaker 1: it is borrowed from banks. They're not happy that they're
Speaker 1: stuck with Elon's lame m and a deal. And he
Speaker 1: does have to make a profit over time or he's
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to continue to play these kind
Speaker 1: of games. Now. Tesla could continue to be a home
Speaker 1: run and SpaceX has been a, you know, a very
Speaker 1: notable achievement for him, but it's privately held. For him
Speaker 1: to pull money out of that, he'd have to sell
Speaker 1: the stake to the out to an outsider. I don't
Speaker 1: know that he'd want to do that. He does not
Speaker 1: have limitless funds forever to be able to blow tens
Speaker 1: of billions of dollars on a media investment that he
Speaker 1: does not know how to run properly. He's not a
Speaker 1: media manager. He has taken a sledgehammer to the business
Speaker 1: foundations of Twitter, apart from the kind of crazy sensationalism
Speaker 1: and racism and anti semitism that's been allowed to flow
Speaker 1: back onto the platform. And that's not a viable strategy
Speaker 1: for long term success with that business. The one aspect
Speaker 1: of Trump is um that el Hahn seems to have
Speaker 1: picked up is this like, we're going to destroy the media.
Speaker 1: We're going to create citizen journalists who will then I mean,
Speaker 1: I say, this is someone who has benefited a lot
Speaker 1: from social media, Well, you're a You're a representation of
Speaker 1: the upside of it. Right. It's like you got discovered
Speaker 1: and empowered through social and it's enabled more individuals to
Speaker 1: get that kind of visibility with which I think is awesome.
Speaker 1: That's that's the upside. The downside is at their core,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are juvenile delinquents, and they
Speaker 1: are bros who are living in digital frat houses, and
Speaker 1: they are just reveling in b a in being able
Speaker 1: to sit around and make fart jokes or do chugging contests,
Speaker 1: or so you can jump off to the off the
Speaker 1: roof onto the front lawn without breaking their legs. And
Speaker 1: they have no real interest in the betterment of a
Speaker 1: broad swath of Americans, even though they both claim that
Speaker 1: they are. We're going to see this Senate session is
Speaker 1: going to look at tech regulation again. We have a
Speaker 1: Republican House, a Democratic Senate, So who knows what that
Speaker 1: looks like, but there certainly is, especially after Crypto, the
Speaker 1: implosion of ft X, there is certainly a feeling that
Speaker 1: there's certainly a desire for regulation. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think that comes and do you think that will have
Speaker 1: an effect on any of this? Well, I do think
Speaker 1: this is a place where there might be a bipartisan
Speaker 1: union on regulating tech for entirely different reasons. I think
Speaker 1: the GOP doesn't care about bigness and companies being so
Speaker 1: large that they're unrestrained and too powerful. I think they
Speaker 1: care about tech because they see the tech companies as
Speaker 1: stewards of platforms that have a bias against conservatives, so
Speaker 1: they'll be up for like jumping into regulation on that
Speaker 1: side of it. And I think the Dems are concerned
Speaker 1: about classic anti trust fears of monopoly power and unfettered might.
Speaker 1: But those are different in triests that could wind up
Speaker 1: in a place where there's a compromise bill that both
Speaker 1: sides get a little bit of what they want. So
Speaker 1: that is a threat to the tech industry. It's a
Speaker 1: threat to Elon must get, Twitter and Facebook, Google, Amazon,
Speaker 1: They're all threatened by this, and Europe has been very
Speaker 1: aggressive on this front. Europe is already talking about whether
Speaker 1: or not they're going to permit Twitter to continue to
Speaker 1: operate over there because what they see is standard violation. Yes,
Speaker 1: so interesting. Thank you so much, Tim O'Brien, Thank you, Molly.
Speaker 1: It's always a treat, Molly john Fast, Jesse Cannon. It's
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green's party, and she's setting the agenda already.
Speaker 1: She's very obsessed with the idea of impeaching Biden because
Speaker 1: Trump was impeached and she wants to get back at
Speaker 1: Biden somehow for trumping impeached. I think ultimately she feels
Speaker 1: that that's only fair. Marjorie Taylor Green wants to impeach
Speaker 1: Joe Biden for bringing Brittany Grinder home because she's stupid
Speaker 1: and also probably racist. I am just waiting for when
Speaker 1: somebody decides this is a great placement theory because they
Speaker 1: sent a white man back to Russia and brought a
Speaker 1: black woman home. Another reason to impeach Biden, says Marjorie
Speaker 1: Taylor Green. The president of the United States treated a
Speaker 1: Russian terrorist arms dealer. By the way, they're like on
Speaker 1: the side of Russian terrorists, so you'd think they'd be
Speaker 1: happy Victor Boot left a US marine in Russian jail
Speaker 1: and bought home a professional basketball player. How many people
Speaker 1: will Victor Boot kill now? Because Biden said him she
Speaker 1: got the talking points this morning, and she's going to
Speaker 1: keep going with them. But let me just say, maybe
Speaker 1: she's just going to be our moment of fuer everything
Speaker 1: does We'll be our moment of AWA from now on. Well,
Speaker 1: she is the leader of the party. She is the
Speaker 1: leader of the House Republican Party. That's it for this
Speaker 1: episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and
Speaker 1: Friday to your the best minds in politics makes sense
Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.