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. An MTG's rally for Trump didn't last
Speaker 1: ten minutes. What a show? A show of shows we
Speaker 1: have today? Representative Rocana talks tech regulation, everyone's favorite, but
Speaker 1: we make it fun. Then we'll talk to the Washington
Speaker 1: Post Michael Shearer about the dark money political group that
Speaker 1: could guarantee Donald Trump's reelection. But first we have Washington
Speaker 1: Post contributing columnist, close personal friend, the one the only,
Speaker 1: George Conway. Welcome back to Fast Politics. George Conway. I'm Molly.
Speaker 1: Anything happens today, nothing, pretty much nothing. Trump's lawyers, good lawyers,
Speaker 1: bad lawyers discuss I think Michellis seems like she's relatively
Speaker 1: smart because she knew to put it into that little
Speaker 1: fiasco they had outside the courthouse. Takapine, he shouldn't be
Speaker 1: allowed anywhere near microphone. I don't know how he's going
Speaker 1: to try Jean Carroll's case in two or three weeks,
Speaker 1: because he basically has a domain coherent to say. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't really get a feel for a new guy
Speaker 1: who didn't really seem to have a presence of command
Speaker 1: of the situation. But that may have been because there
Speaker 1: was so much noise in the very beginning when he
Speaker 1: was speaking. But it was sort of a very strange
Speaker 1: I thought, a very strange press conference with the held
Speaker 1: where you had the new lead guy, nobody could hear him,
Speaker 1: and then you had Tacopina trying to assert himself as
Speaker 1: the alpha male, and then Michelle is basically shutting them
Speaker 1: both down and saying, thank you very much, let's go.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was my impression of it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it struck you as any different, but it
Speaker 1: just it was a very very odd and I don't
Speaker 1: think they did a very good job helping their client there. Well,
Speaker 1: why are they even having a press conference? Because Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is watching TV on the way back to Laguardi
Speaker 1: at airport and he expects his lawyers to say some
Speaker 1: crazy stuff that will make him feel better or else.
Speaker 1: He's going to get on the phone as soon as
Speaker 1: he gets on the seven to fifty seven and he's
Speaker 1: going to start yelling at somebody, right, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's not careful legal analysis no where. Since you are
Speaker 1: a lawyer who can do careful legal analysis. Let's just
Speaker 1: talk for a minute about this case. There are other
Speaker 1: cases coming down the pike that are probably stronger cases.
Speaker 1: I don't think this case is a case. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think people are saying that's it. Oh, that's all
Speaker 1: I have. Oh it's right, he don't beat this rapid's like.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's necessarily true. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: true because first all, he did it, he's gilby the charges.
Speaker 1: Have we rub the indictment in the statement of facts,
Speaker 1: I think they're legally sufficient. I mean, the criticism you
Speaker 1: can make of the cases, this case should have been
Speaker 1: bought years ago, right, it should have been brought by
Speaker 1: the Feds back in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 1: I didn't have the expectations that other people had. For
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you know, this is this case
Speaker 1: is you know this case. The next proceeding in this
Speaker 1: case is going to be in December. I gather, according
Speaker 1: to the reporting, and you know, we're going to have
Speaker 1: so much this will be so far in the rearview
Speaker 1: mirror by then, it's not going to be We're going
Speaker 1: to forget about this case for a while. We're going
Speaker 1: to forget about this case within a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: because we'll talk to us about the Gene Carroll trial.
Speaker 1: Because you have some insight there, well, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know that I have any particular insight. I mean
Speaker 1: I did help or find a lawyer at some party,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I think this case is
Speaker 1: I think it's a pass little case. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's perfectly fine. I think if you're if it's try,
Speaker 1: he'll probably be convicted. His best chance in this case
Speaker 1: is to argue that the charges should all be misdemeanors, right,
Speaker 1: And I don't think he's going to win on that.
Speaker 1: But he could win on that, but I don't think
Speaker 1: he's gonna win cleanly on it. And I don't think
Speaker 1: he really wants to face a jury of manhattanites in
Speaker 1: this case. But on the other hand, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is, it's like we've got
Speaker 1: some more serious things coming up, which will be the
Speaker 1: Georgia case as much is very serious. Gene Carroll case
Speaker 1: is going to be quite a show. And he's dead
Speaker 1: to right on, dead to rights as as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell. On on the Marlague of Marlogue, of documents. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Marlago documents case is a real I mean there
Speaker 1: can be obstruction there. I mean, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that could happen there. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: you know, I've been saying for months that it's the
Speaker 1: shortest distance between and Orange Jumption. So basically, he came in,
Speaker 1: he said he was not guilty. It took an hour,
Speaker 1: then they got him out. Do we think there was
Speaker 1: a We think there wasn't a mug shot. There wasn't
Speaker 1: many of the normal things we think of when people
Speaker 1: getting booked. I you know, I don't know, having never
Speaker 1: attended a book, and I can't speak to that. But
Speaker 1: they didn't take a much shot, I gather, and they
Speaker 1: didn't do fingerprints, because we should be so lucky that
Speaker 1: we can't find all the trump I mean, it's funny
Speaker 1: because reading this document, one of the things that I'm
Speaker 1: struck by is just how many of the stories from
Speaker 1: the first season come back. Oh look, I mean it's
Speaker 1: always the Love Child, right, you know, it's an HBO special.
Speaker 1: You know, they wait five seasons and you come back
Speaker 1: and somebody resurfaces from season one, you know, and the
Speaker 1: Sopranos was somebody who gets released from prison after four
Speaker 1: seasons away, So you know, I mean, that's that's just
Speaker 1: what happens. And then if that's life in the Trump land,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen the evidence. We've just seen what's in
Speaker 1: this document, but there's no evidence to see. And in
Speaker 1: the following said, it's like these documents say what they say,
Speaker 1: they were false. Right. Jim Trusty was on CNN with
Speaker 1: Jake Tapper attacking cohen credibility. But cohen credibility isn't really
Speaker 1: an issue. I mean, it's the issue is did this
Speaker 1: all happen? Were these checks written? And they were, and
Speaker 1: he signed some of them. I don't see how he's
Speaker 1: not convicted of something, whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony,
Speaker 1: is going to be There are a couple of interesting
Speaker 1: issues that how you apply the state law here and
Speaker 1: what it takes to bump up a misdemeanor to a felony.
Speaker 1: And I could argue both sides of that. I think
Speaker 1: the DA has the better of it. Can you give
Speaker 1: us just a sort of a clue on what it
Speaker 1: is that changes a misdemeanor to a felony? Yeah, here,
Speaker 1: here's what it is. I mean, basically, it's a misdemeanor
Speaker 1: the falsified books and records in the state of the
Speaker 1: marketing Okay, corporate books and records. But it can be
Speaker 1: a felony if you're committing and doing the falsification with
Speaker 1: the intense to commit fraud or with the intense to
Speaker 1: commit another crime. So the question is, all right, what's
Speaker 1: the other crime in order for it to become a
Speaker 1: felony and the other crime? And Drag explain at his
Speaker 1: press conference and the indictment put the indictment less than
Speaker 1: clear about it. There's potential pro federal Leshing Campaign Act
Speaker 1: violation and violation of the contribution limits. There is also
Speaker 1: a state campaign finance law which prohibits the use of
Speaker 1: prohibits promoting the candidacy to relate Leans. And then there's
Speaker 1: also there was also some tax angle that he described
Speaker 1: where I think it was there was a they believe
Speaker 1: it was a scheme to falsely report pain the payment
Speaker 1: story the angle payment says income to Michael Collin even
Speaker 1: though it wasn't, although they gross them up for it.
Speaker 1: There's no reason why one of those won't stick, and
Speaker 1: I think they probably will one one or those three
Speaker 1: possibilities will stick. But we'll see. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: he could, he could, maybe he'll maybe he'll get convicted
Speaker 1: and and it'll get sent reverse to a mistomean or
Speaker 1: on appeal. But I don't see how they don't prove
Speaker 1: the elements of these events as a misdemeanor at a
Speaker 1: minimum and probably fold. We see Don Junior is really
Speaker 1: leaning in on pumping up a lot of information about
Speaker 1: the judge's daughter. I mean, does the jude Is there
Speaker 1: any legal mechanism to protect this judge's daughter from this
Speaker 1: sort of right wing I mean, some of these people
Speaker 1: are theoretically dangerous right right. And the defendant obviously can't
Speaker 1: be subjective restraint because he's the defendant. He didn't get
Speaker 1: a gag order, which I think is kind of shocking.
Speaker 1: I think the judge was smart not to do it
Speaker 1: on day one. Okay, I think he was smart the
Speaker 1: great or what he probably did or what it sound
Speaker 1: like he did, we'll see the transcript, I'm shore, but
Speaker 1: what he did was he cautioned both sides exercise restraint
Speaker 1: in their public statements about the case. Yeah, well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure Trump will do that. He's known for his restraint. Yes,
Speaker 1: we'll see how that goes. Don Junior's post about the
Speaker 1: daughter of the judge really that was sick. What was sick?
Speaker 1: And in Shane and a jurisdiction I think that the
Speaker 1: court might have over him, could be that he you know,
Speaker 1: he's a potential witness. He signed some of those checks right, Well,
Speaker 1: we don't know which it was he or Eric right, No,
Speaker 1: it was it was Don Junior signed some of themself,
Speaker 1: at least want of them. Okay, he may be a
Speaker 1: potential witness. He might be subject that it's a gag
Speaker 1: order because of that, although he probably might have a
Speaker 1: first to have to do the analysis. This is how
Speaker 1: these guys play them. That's that's the thing that's maddening
Speaker 1: about it is and they have no moral vocompunctions. They
Speaker 1: will they want to threaten and intimidate people. And the
Speaker 1: notion that he's posting the photograph social and on Twitter
Speaker 1: of the judge's daughter is really really good and insane.
Speaker 1: But this is what they do. This is how they act. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean Trump obviously is delighted by this as a
Speaker 1: fundraising technique. I mean he's been sending fundraising emails out
Speaker 1: all day. I don't think he's the life. I think
Speaker 1: he's horrified. I think he's lost control of the situation,
Speaker 1: and I think he knows that. I meant, you know,
Speaker 1: this was this one's the ultimate indignity for him. So far,
Speaker 1: the indignities are going to get worse for him. I
Speaker 1: think gets further in, further down the legal process and
Speaker 1: more charges made against him. He's completely lost control of
Speaker 1: the situation. I I The symbolic thing to me that
Speaker 1: I saw was the core officers were leading him into
Speaker 1: the hallway outside the courtroom and didn't hold the door
Speaker 1: open and let the door just kind of close in
Speaker 1: his face. And I kept thinking watching that trunk having
Speaker 1: to push the door open for himself for the first
Speaker 1: time he probably who knows how many years, contrasting that
Speaker 1: with the time that he shoved aside. I think it
Speaker 1: was the Prime Minister of Montenegro, so we could get
Speaker 1: it in front of a photograph of tomatoes on it, right, yeah, contrast,
Speaker 1: So anyway, that was sort of the thing. The thing
Speaker 1: about that was the impression that I left in the
Speaker 1: image that I will always carry with me watching this
Speaker 1: show today. No, I think it's the beginning of the
Speaker 1: end for what's going to take a while. So what
Speaker 1: you're saying is kind of what Maggie said all along,
Speaker 1: which is this idea that in fact, Trump while he
Speaker 1: is sending out fundraising emails with the fake mug shot,
Speaker 1: and he is certainly raising money and cashing in. You
Speaker 1: do truly believe that psychologically she's not doing well with us, No,
Speaker 1: of course not. There's a problem of all crazy norses,
Speaker 1: which is and want to be the center of attention.
Speaker 1: They want everything to revolve around them, but they're terrified
Speaker 1: of being humiliated and those two urges and they because
Speaker 1: like we've seen us a thousand times, because he wants
Speaker 1: to put himself in the middle of everything and he's
Speaker 1: but he's too stupid to know how to do it,
Speaker 1: and he ends up doing it in a way that
Speaker 1: either gets him into trouble or makes or causes him
Speaker 1: to make a fool out of I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: he's like so many different instances, like his press consiences
Speaker 1: in COVID, you know, where he pretends to be no
Speaker 1: everything and makes a complete a jackass out of himself
Speaker 1: because he's an idiot. That's the conundrum he faces here,
Speaker 1: Except it's just it's what's at risk for him is
Speaker 1: not just his reputation and it's the perception that some
Speaker 1: people have of whether he's intelligent or not, but his
Speaker 1: liberty is it. And we're going to see that again
Speaker 1: in each one of these cases where he is charmed
Speaker 1: and drawing. So now I'm going to ask you one
Speaker 1: last question, which is like the annoying question that I
Speaker 1: ask people when I'm really interested and just want to
Speaker 1: know for my own dification, how do you think this
Speaker 1: plays out? I mean, do you think that? And again,
Speaker 1: I know you can't get to the machinations of like
Speaker 1: does he get found guilty in which cases? But more
Speaker 1: just the question is like do you think eventually he's
Speaker 1: like this is enough, I'm gonna or do you think
Speaker 1: he just fights? You know, he's not going away. He
Speaker 1: will not go away. He cannot helps himself. This is
Speaker 1: a death match. I can to struggle to the end
Speaker 1: for him because it's xpencil for him. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know any way out of it for him.
Speaker 1: I don't He's not going to throw in the tality,
Speaker 1: not going to see guilty. He's not going to admit
Speaker 1: a mistake or error or a crime. He's just going
Speaker 1: to continue to fight back in the ways that he
Speaker 1: knows how to fight back, which he is engaging in
Speaker 1: attacks on the system and the people who are acting
Speaker 1: actors in the justice system, and attacking the rule of law,
Speaker 1: and in fighting pencil violence. What he's going to do
Speaker 1: because he doesn't really have a playbook that works in
Speaker 1: this situation, because he doesn't know the thoughts and he
Speaker 1: knows they're the laws. I want to ask you one
Speaker 1: last question. Does Trump get the nomination? Yes? Is there
Speaker 1: any Marco Nicki Haley, George Conway. Always a delight, Thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us. Thank you. Congressman Rocana represents California's
Speaker 1: seventeenth district. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Congressman Rocanna, Thank you, Molly.
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure to be on. I always want to
Speaker 1: talk to you because I think you're fascinating, but I
Speaker 1: really want to talk to you when the bank runs started.
Speaker 1: That is your district, Silicon Valley, home of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: great innovation and some other stuff. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: where we are now with that. I'm glad the administration
Speaker 1: made the decision to protect all of the depositors. It
Speaker 1: would have been statastrophic for regional banks if they hadn't
Speaker 1: done that. I was pushing Seconty yelling, as you may remember,
Speaker 1: on Face the Nation Sunday morning, they made the decision
Speaker 1: to finally protect the depositors by Sunday evening. If not,
Speaker 1: you would have had everyone rushing their money in four
Speaker 1: banks in this country JP Morgan Chase, Well, it's far
Speaker 1: agoing Bank of America. And in the past ten years
Speaker 1: there have been seventy three bank failures that where the
Speaker 1: FDIC has been involved. In seventy two of those cases,
Speaker 1: depositors have had all their money. So this is consistent
Speaker 1: with what we've done over the left ten years. Now.
Speaker 1: I think what we need to do is make sure
Speaker 1: that we are taking care of the unninshort accounts and
Speaker 1: charging a fee for them. Right now, we have about
Speaker 1: ten trillion dollars in money that is, in short, eight
Speaker 1: trillion dollars in money that is uninshort in the banking system.
Speaker 1: I like those unshort account holders to uninsured drivers. They're
Speaker 1: basically driving with no insurance and all of us bear
Speaker 1: the risk. I'm working with Republican on a bill to
Speaker 1: have a mandatory fee on those accounts in mandatory insurance.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to this for a second,
Speaker 1: because I think this is important here. I mean, these
Speaker 1: accounts are uninsured after two hundred and fifty correct, This
Speaker 1: was the way that it was set up. I mean,
Speaker 1: this wasn't like a personal choice. People have their money
Speaker 1: in those banks. They know that the money is only
Speaker 1: insured up to two hundred and fifty thousand, and that
Speaker 1: it was uninsured beyond that. But you know, if you're
Speaker 1: a startup or small business and you've got a couple
Speaker 1: million bucks in that account that you're music for payroll.
Speaker 1: People didn't just they didn't expect the bank run. And
Speaker 1: what ends up happening is when these banks end up failing,
Speaker 1: the FDIC Lending Deposit Fund comes in and guarantees depositors,
Speaker 1: and that's funded by bank premiums. And what the bank
Speaker 1: premiums end up going up. But ultimately the users of banks,
Speaker 1: all of us, pay that cost. And what I'm suggesting
Speaker 1: is that if you have an account over two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand, you should be required to pay some
Speaker 1: mandatory bank in shortance fee so that if the bank
Speaker 1: by some chance goes under, there's a fun to cover
Speaker 1: the deposit. Right, No, no, exactly, Now, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you that weekend, Thursday we learned about Silicon Valley Bank.
Speaker 1: I mean that weekend, did you get so many anxious
Speaker 1: phone calls? I did? I mean I probably had one
Speaker 1: hundred texts by Friday afternoon. I sent out an email
Speaker 1: to people in the valley and I'd take four pm
Speaker 1: on Friday, and we had six hundred people by seven
Speaker 1: thirty join a webinar on one email. And it was
Speaker 1: probably the only person of government communicating with all of
Speaker 1: these tech entrepreneurs, bcs of folks out in the valley
Speaker 1: trying to appeal to come. But what I realized that Paul, was,
Speaker 1: you know, money now is moving at the speed of
Speaker 1: Twitter or its folks are on social media, and we've
Speaker 1: got to have government moved fast in a modern economy.
Speaker 1: Right was this White House? Did you feel like they
Speaker 1: were open to your suggestions and the suggestions of your colleagues.
Speaker 1: I do. I thought Steve Chetty in particular, was open.
Speaker 1: I told Treasury with the respect that, well, Janet Gellen
Speaker 1: is a far smarter economist than I will ever be.
Speaker 1: I had to gently contradict her on face the nation
Speaker 1: when I was asked to respond, and the reason is
Speaker 1: she was being a bit more hesitant, and I think
Speaker 1: there was an idea with the FDI s that they
Speaker 1: should give fifty percent of the deposits back on Monday morning,
Speaker 1: and that as a matter of economic theory may have
Speaker 1: been fine, but as a practical matter of what we
Speaker 1: needed was decisive leader ship to say that the depositors
Speaker 1: deposits will be protected, to bring calm, make sure there
Speaker 1: wasn't a regional run of the bank. And I give
Speaker 1: the administration credit that they got there by Sunday evening
Speaker 1: before the markets opened, and so they made the decision
Speaker 1: in time. Now I understand there was a hesitation. No
Speaker 1: one wants to be seen out as bailing out the banks.
Speaker 1: I don't believe this was a bailout because the executives
Speaker 1: and shareholders will go to zero. But you remember what
Speaker 1: Obama didn't go after the bank executives. That was a
Speaker 1: real problem, and so I'm sure that that was weighing
Speaker 1: on the White House's mind. Appropriately, as I said to
Speaker 1: a number of people at the White House, no one
Speaker 1: has a greater stake in the success of the American
Speaker 1: economy and President Biden, and if we had not acted
Speaker 1: that it would have been potentially catastrophic for the American economy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and likely for democracy too, or possibly because a lot
Speaker 1: is riding on the Biden reelection. I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: there have been a lot a chatter that you were
Speaker 1: going to make an announcement, and in the end you
Speaker 1: endorsed Representative Barbara Lee. Why did you do that? Of course,
Speaker 1: I love serving in the House of Representatives for two reasons.
Speaker 1: I believe representing Silicon Valley is one of the most
Speaker 1: consequential places, for better or worse, in the world to represent,
Speaker 1: and that was brought home to me in a few
Speaker 1: weeks before my announcement with all of the Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: bank crisis. So I get a lot of the interesting,
Speaker 1: exciting people of this next generation or in the House,
Speaker 1: Maxwell Frost and Delia Ramis and Summer Lee and just
Speaker 1: so much energy, and I feel like I can make
Speaker 1: a contribution in the House and bold progressive innovative policy.
Speaker 1: In terms of Barbara Lee, I've admired her in my
Speaker 1: whole adult life, as she's a strong anti war voice
Speaker 1: of a person already. That's why I endorsed her. So
Speaker 1: Barbara Lee is most famous for having been the one
Speaker 1: person to stand up on the Iraq war, and I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of hers. Two, I'm going to push
Speaker 1: back here. She's seventy six, but at young seventy six,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that in a There are some people
Speaker 1: who age, and there are other people like Niati Pelosi
Speaker 1: or Barbara Lee who have more energy than members ychiagrists
Speaker 1: my age. And she's you know, I remember when I
Speaker 1: a few years ago going with Barbara down to see
Speaker 1: President Carter, and you know, she rented a car from
Speaker 1: the Atlanta airport. We went down a plane Georgia and
Speaker 1: she drove the whole way drove back. I mean, she's
Speaker 1: she's a silver up and about doing exciting things. If
Speaker 1: I didn't think she had the energy or the bashion
Speaker 1: for it, I wouldn't have endorsed her. So now I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about regulation because this is
Speaker 1: something near and dear to my heart. We uh so
Speaker 1: we had this, you know again, these regional banks. We're
Speaker 1: going to go back to the bank run for a minute,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to take this somewhere else. To regional
Speaker 1: banks had less regulation than the larger banks. Part of
Speaker 1: what we're living through now is we're living through a
Speaker 1: lot of the Trump deregulation, and that's why we're having
Speaker 1: all these train derailments, and that's why we're having all
Speaker 1: these things that could have been avoidable. Talk to me
Speaker 1: where you are about the bank regulations, the train regulations.
Speaker 1: And then I'm Benna asking something else about that Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley Bank was lobbying me and many people to have
Speaker 1: the deregulation in two eighteen, saying, Row, you don't understand it.
Speaker 1: It's an entrepreneurial economy. We need latitude. We can't have
Speaker 1: the same regulations as the people in New York. They
Speaker 1: don't understand the ballet culture. And I'm very proud that
Speaker 1: I voted again to what they were recommending about it,
Speaker 1: uphold dot Frank and I wish everyone had done that.
Speaker 1: A lot of Democrats did, but a few didn't, and
Speaker 1: Trump ultimately signed it. Had that legislation been into effect,
Speaker 1: I think this one never occurred. I mean there would
Speaker 1: have been stress and liquidity tests. Now some people are
Speaker 1: saying that the liquidity and stress tests wouldn't have accounted
Speaker 1: for rapidly rising interest rates, that that's a problem with
Speaker 1: the test if they didn't. But more than what the
Speaker 1: test is that this would it would have been a
Speaker 1: signal to the FED and regulators that you need to
Speaker 1: monitor and enforce regulations against mid size large banks. Instead,
Speaker 1: by passing the deregulation, we set a sake sent to
Speaker 1: signal leave these banks alone. And this was the consequence.
Speaker 1: You represent Silicon Valley. We are in this moment where
Speaker 1: AI is EXE is about to sort of explode onto
Speaker 1: the scene in a big way. Congress has had some
Speaker 1: trouble regulating technology that I feel like that's the understatement
Speaker 1: of the year. Talk to me about what you can do,
Speaker 1: what you think you can do, what you think needs
Speaker 1: to be done. Whereas its afford to understand what AI is,
Speaker 1: which is basically looking at large patterns of data, large
Speaker 1: patterns of language and finding patterns there. But the one
Speaker 1: thing it can't do is to see if those patterns
Speaker 1: are actually true they correspond with the external world, or
Speaker 1: if they correspond with a person's own constitution or aspirations,
Speaker 1: and so it doesn't replace judgment or human thinking. The
Speaker 1: challenge is by looking for these patterns, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: some advantages to it. We want to use these patterns
Speaker 1: to find a rare cancer, to figure out how to
Speaker 1: map the human genomes so that we could have cures
Speaker 1: to figure out how you target a military base without
Speaker 1: having collateral damage with civilians. But we also have to
Speaker 1: be careful that there are dangers. If you have large
Speaker 1: patterns and the patterns end up having falsehoods in them
Speaker 1: and you don't have human verification or a check, then
Speaker 1: you're going to spew more misinformation. What if you have
Speaker 1: a bias program that spots these patents, it starts making decisions,
Speaker 1: they can have it without a safety check. And so
Speaker 1: what we need is a safety check, and what we
Speaker 1: need is a check on human judgment to avoid the
Speaker 1: negatives of AI. So what does that mean. It means
Speaker 1: we need regulations that say, if you have a complex
Speaker 1: AI system, you need to have human judgment. Let me
Speaker 1: give you an example. If we're going to use AI
Speaker 1: in our defense department, I don't trust a machine to
Speaker 1: authorize the strike. I think in general or someone has
Speaker 1: to look at that. If we're going to have AI
Speaker 1: do Wikipedia entries, we need to have human editors. Still, right,
Speaker 1: you know we need a human check, we need a
Speaker 1: safety check. But you know, I mean think about AI
Speaker 1: this like let's say you ask chat GPT, how can
Speaker 1: I be happy? What chat GPT will do is it'll
Speaker 1: go and look at every language model, with your demographics,
Speaker 1: with your geography, with your characteristics as a journalist, and
Speaker 1: come up with a more paragraph answer on how you
Speaker 1: can be happy based on when it detected in the language.
Speaker 1: In that circumstance, I don't think anyone in this country
Speaker 1: would say, Okay, that's really how I could be happy.
Speaker 1: I mean if it was that simple, because it's not
Speaker 1: corresponding to really adepth of understanding of who you are,
Speaker 1: what your life is, what your goals are, what your
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities are. So it's important to neither exaggerate nor minimize
Speaker 1: what AI is. It's transformative in that it allows us
Speaker 1: to use large patterns and to figure that out quickly.
Speaker 1: So we literally can now figure out someone's human genome
Speaker 1: for one hundred bucks, whereas what Bill Clinton was doing
Speaker 1: it it costs three billion bucks to figure out person's
Speaker 1: at DNAC. That's extraordinary. But we're not going to be
Speaker 1: replacing judgment, empathy, thinking, or an understanding of truths, so
Speaker 1: we still need our philosophy majors. I get that, but
Speaker 1: let's just talk about the sort of broader tech regulation.
Speaker 1: For a minute, Elon bought Twitter. Twitter still continues to
Speaker 1: really be a sort of high for journalists and politicians.
Speaker 1: There's no regulation, right, He's not forced to keep people verified.
Speaker 1: The White House said they wouldn't pay for verification. He
Speaker 1: stripped the New York Times. I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: an example, but I want to like get to what
Speaker 1: it's larger implications for real world legislation. There are no
Speaker 1: rules in Twitter or in the Internet at large. I mean,
Speaker 1: he can do whatever he wants. Well, he's disciplined by
Speaker 1: the market and by human demand. I mean, if he'd
Speaker 1: really started doing just things that were totally outrageous, then
Speaker 1: people would presumably migrate off. The problem is whatever they
Speaker 1: were advertising Massiban or something. I mean, it was so boring,
Speaker 1: right right, No, No, it's not great. It's hard to use.
Speaker 1: But I mean I'm just thinking about like the larger
Speaker 1: implications of like there certainly seem like there are regulatory
Speaker 1: things that need to happen when it comes to technology. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: the first thing that needs to happen is protecting people's
Speaker 1: own data and people owning their own data. But in
Speaker 1: a pat from like Twitter, I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that these have it is more competition, so more
Speaker 1: platforms can come so that they're basic anti trust. And then,
Speaker 1: as I told Elon directly, I said, why do you
Speaker 1: want to be the person calling the balls and strikes?
Speaker 1: Why do you want to be the person who's gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, call the automatic strike. You know these days
Speaker 1: where where the baseball the pitchers count runs out. Then
Speaker 1: and you're the one saying, Okay, this is not verified,
Speaker 1: this is verified. This is a tweet that has a problem.
Speaker 1: You're you're an innovator, Go focus on getting us to Mars,
Speaker 1: or go focus at starlink or SpaceX. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna own Twitter, set up an independent board
Speaker 1: that's going to make these these balls and strikes so
Speaker 1: you're not involved in them up. And Jeff Beyz also,
Speaker 1: like it or not, you know, did that with the
Speaker 1: Washington Post. When I write articles of the Washington Post
Speaker 1: criticizes me, I'm not sitting there thinking that Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: is criticizing me and people. You know, you can have
Speaker 1: some complex theory of how it's corporate on, but as
Speaker 1: a basic matter, there's an independent between the corporate ownership
Speaker 1: and the editorial decision making. And I think social media
Speaker 1: platforms would be well served with that, whether that's Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: or Elon Musk, to just have some role of separation
Speaker 1: between those who do the content and those who are
Speaker 1: the capital owners. Right. So, now we have just had
Speaker 1: another mass shooting. The Republicans. I'm sure you saw this
Speaker 1: thing with Jamal Bowman and Thomas Massey, Thomas Massey arm
Speaker 1: all the teachers. Republicans seem to be operating a bad
Speaker 1: faith about the guns. Do you see any light on
Speaker 1: the horizon here? I mean when it's Andy Hookkapen and
Speaker 1: we didn't do anything after six year olds were murdered,
Speaker 1: I said, what is the capacity of this country to react?
Speaker 1: I mean, what would it take? I mean within and
Speaker 1: we've seen to me that was sort of emblematic, one
Speaker 1: of the most horrific things that could happen, and the
Speaker 1: country did nothing. And now it just keeps repeat eating
Speaker 1: in some form. I mean, nine year olds shot to
Speaker 1: death and we're not responding. I guess the question for
Speaker 1: me is just this next generation, the young folks. They
Speaker 1: are growing up with this anxiety and this real need
Speaker 1: to do something, and it's going to take their generation
Speaker 1: getting involved and continuing to hold us to account. But
Speaker 1: it's been a frustration of mine. Seven years in Congress.
Speaker 1: The only thing we did was Chris Murphy's law, the
Speaker 1: bipartisan one, and that's just one step. I mean, we
Speaker 1: still have so much more to do, but it's very polarizing.
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I'm you know, I have someone
Speaker 1: who works across the island a lot of things. This
Speaker 1: is just one area where the parties are totally divided. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's such a complete nightmare. Rocana, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I hope you will come back. I always
Speaker 1: enjoy it. Thank you. Michael Shearer is a national political
Speaker 1: reporter at The Washington Post. Welcome too Fast Politics. Michael, Hey,
Speaker 1: how are you? You know you've written two articles that
Speaker 1: have captured my anxiety, that have spun me into a
Speaker 1: whole new level of anxiety. And this whole problem starts
Speaker 1: with a man called Mark Penn. Talk to us about
Speaker 1: no labels. So no labels to the group that's been
Speaker 1: around for more than a decade point and mostly what
Speaker 1: they've been is like a centrist think tank. They helped
Speaker 1: set up something called the Problem Solvers Cocress of the House,
Speaker 1: which is like Republicans and Democrats who want to get
Speaker 1: together and find a person solution that close to Joe mansion,
Speaker 1: and then they later brouched you out into this network
Speaker 1: of packs and helping politicians get elected. But they had
Speaker 1: started the last year something entirely new and different, and
Speaker 1: that is a project that will cost it. They estimate
Speaker 1: seventy million dollars to get on all fifty state ballots
Speaker 1: so that if they want to next year, they can
Speaker 1: run a third party candidate in the presidential election and
Speaker 1: possibly in the down ballot race right Orhouse, on the
Speaker 1: theory that the American people don't want to see a
Speaker 1: matchup between the two people who will be put forward
Speaker 1: by the major party candidates. They've been sort of operating
Speaker 1: on the assumption that Joe Biden and Donald Trump will
Speaker 1: be the nominees. Even though they won't say explicitly that
Speaker 1: Biden is an unacceptable nominee, they're kind of inferring that
Speaker 1: because they think he's too liberal. Right. The whole idea
Speaker 1: is they want less liberal right, or at least if
Speaker 1: they were to keep going on their bullshit, that would
Speaker 1: be it. Right. Yeah, On the assumption that Biden does
Speaker 1: not represent the broad rational, common sense middle ground of
Speaker 1: American politics and has been steered to the left by
Speaker 1: the crazy far left activists. Yeah, Okay, it's not true,
Speaker 1: but yes, continue. So they have put together this group
Speaker 1: of mostly former you know name brandish politicians Joe Lieberman
Speaker 1: of the two thousand Democratic ticket fame, who is now
Speaker 1: an independent, pet McCrory, the former governor and Senate ganging
Speaker 1: Republican side, and North Carolina Larry Hogan, who considered a
Speaker 1: presidential run himself, former governor of Maryland's Republican And they're
Speaker 1: floating this idea that the unthinkable as possible if only,
Speaker 1: you know, Americans try and think outside the two party bucks.
Speaker 1: And they call it an insurance policy, and they say
Speaker 1: it will not be triggered until they have more polling
Speaker 1: and possibly named candidates sometime early next year. They're going
Speaker 1: to have a convention in April in Texas where these
Speaker 1: candidates may win the nomination of No Labels, which is
Speaker 1: not actually a political party, which is legally interesting, and
Speaker 1: then they may run. And they say they're not going
Speaker 1: to do it, if they're going to just be spoilers,
Speaker 1: they're not trying to do the Ralph later get five
Speaker 1: percent thing that happened in two thousand. They're going to
Speaker 1: run only if they can win, and they've done a
Speaker 1: bunch of polling so far. The polling again that's so
Speaker 1: far does not clearly show that they have a path.
Speaker 1: That does show what we kind of all know, which
Speaker 1: is that, you know, the American people are pretty unhappy
Speaker 1: in the direction of the country. The American people are
Speaker 1: economically anxious. I don't trust anything that comes out of
Speaker 1: no levels. But let's talk about Mark Penn and Nancy
Speaker 1: explain to us a little bit, our listeners, what the
Speaker 1: history of Mark Penn is. So, Mark Penn came up
Speaker 1: in the Clinton years. He was a poster political consultant
Speaker 1: for from President Clinton, and then when Hillary Clinton ran
Speaker 1: for president in two thousand and eight, he was the
Speaker 1: main consultant to Hillary Clinton, and he made a number
Speaker 1: of big bets about how and why she would win
Speaker 1: the primary against Barack Obama that did not prove to
Speaker 1: be correct, and after that his relationship to Democratic Party
Speaker 1: became more and more rocky. Yeah. So would you say
Speaker 1: that Mark Penn was mad that he sort of had
Speaker 1: a falling out with Hillary Clinton? Yeah. I think it
Speaker 1: was broader than just Hillary Clinton. I think it was
Speaker 1: like there was a falling out within that campaign. Losing
Speaker 1: campaign stended resolve in acrimony, but so that happened, but
Speaker 1: there was a broader falling out, and Penn started talking
Speaker 1: in the years after that about opening for a third
Speaker 1: party bid. He ended up working for Microsoft for a while.
Speaker 1: His wife, Nancy Jacobson, who is the founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of No Labels, sort of took the ball. And initially
Speaker 1: this wasn't a third party effort, right, This was just
Speaker 1: a sort of like, can we get a common sense
Speaker 1: middle ground to American politics and empower the sort of
Speaker 1: non wacky part of the electorate, right, And then that
Speaker 1: built over time. Now Nancy's team says Mark Penn has
Speaker 1: absolutely no involvement with No Labels, but we know that's
Speaker 1: not true. It is also true that Mark Penn has
Speaker 1: been echoing the same things publicly that No Labels is saying. Now.
Speaker 1: He's written about it in columns in The Hill and
Speaker 1: spoken about it publicly. It's also true that Harris as,
Speaker 1: the polling firm that No Labels uses, is owned by
Speaker 1: a large public company called Stagwell that Mark Penn now runs.
Speaker 1: There are relationships here although No Labels people will push
Speaker 1: back very hard at the idea that, you know, Nancy
Speaker 1: Jacobson couldn't be doing this on her own and that
Speaker 1: she would need her husband's help to come up with
Speaker 1: these ideas. Now, there have been times in the past
Speaker 1: where it's been reported that Penn has helped sort of
Speaker 1: cabits about tweets that No Labels has put out and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I want to ask you about No
Speaker 1: Labels as connection to Targeted Victory. Targeted Victory is owned
Speaker 1: by Stagwell, the same company that owned har Sacks The Polster.
Speaker 1: They also happen to own SKADK, which is the democratic
Speaker 1: firm that Anita Done and a bunch of buying advisors
Speaker 1: worked for. In the past. No Labels has used Targeted Victory,
Speaker 1: which has like digital yeah, I mean it also has
Speaker 1: some very sketchy people who work for it. Target Victory.
Speaker 1: No Target Victory, interestingly, is going to be basically the
Speaker 1: Tim Scott campaign very surely, I think, I mean Jim
Speaker 1: Scott is on his way towards announcing who can always
Speaker 1: pull back, but the whole Like if you I was
Speaker 1: at Nile with Tim Scott a few weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: the whole crew traveling with them, our Targeted Victory people.
Speaker 1: They're definitely signed up for a presidential race of their
Speaker 1: I don't know if Targeted Victory is still working directly
Speaker 1: with No Labels, although we know that in the Passionate
Speaker 1: ame a vendor. Now I want to ask you about
Speaker 1: this situation. So we have this third party group. They
Speaker 1: have clearly some kind of relationship with Joe Mansion. We
Speaker 1: talk to us about that. I met with him last
Speaker 1: Thursday and I said, well, so it's Joe Mansion all
Speaker 1: of then, And the answer was, what Joe Mansion is
Speaker 1: a friend of this effort of No Labels. We worked
Speaker 1: with them for a long time. It's been reported the
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion shows that the Labels Mansion also has a
Speaker 1: sort of stated desire to punish the far right and
Speaker 1: the far left and elevate the center. So they have
Speaker 1: similar ideological approaching, maybe right, I mean that's what they
Speaker 1: say their approaches. I would like not give them the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt. I know you need to be
Speaker 1: a stray reporter, but I can have my opinion. But
Speaker 1: Manson did get on the phone with me on Saturday,
Speaker 1: and it said very clearly, not only that he thought
Speaker 1: that twenty twenty four project by No Labels and this
Speaker 1: insurance policy was a great idea for the country and
Speaker 1: for democracy as a way of sort of punishing the extremes,
Speaker 1: but also that he would not rule in or rule
Speaker 1: out appearing on the ticket himself. He's probably not going
Speaker 1: to run percent it again. He could. He's not sort
Speaker 1: of making the moves you would make if he was
Speaker 1: going to run percent again. It's a very tough state
Speaker 1: for him to win again. He said, it'll make a
Speaker 1: decision by the end of the year. And he also
Speaker 1: said by the end of the year he'll make a
Speaker 1: decision about whether to run for something else, like maybe president.
Speaker 1: I don't know who that ticket is for, but I
Speaker 1: know who it can hurt. So let me ask you.
Speaker 1: There's another thing happening when No Labels is they're working
Speaker 1: really hard to get on the ballot in a state
Speaker 1: where one of their favorite politicians is running for reelection.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about that. Trying to get on all
Speaker 1: fifty ballot, all fifty states. But one of the early
Speaker 1: ones they did do was Arizona. They collected the signatures
Speaker 1: they needed, they delivered the signatures to the Democratic Secretary
Speaker 1: of State Rfantes. He said, you got it, these are
Speaker 1: the right signatures. You're gonna be able to be on
Speaker 1: the ballot. And last week the Arizona Democratic Party filed
Speaker 1: suit saying that the Secretary of State aired and accepting
Speaker 1: those signatures. Now, the concern among Democrats is twofold one.
Speaker 1: Arizona is a swing state in the presidential race, so
Speaker 1: if say Joe Mansion's on the ticket, it could hurt
Speaker 1: Biden Trump or Republican acts can actually win the electoral
Speaker 1: votes in mid state. But also Christian Cinema, the formerly
Speaker 1: Democratic senator who's now an independent, has not said whether
Speaker 1: she's going to run for reelection again, and it's possible
Speaker 1: we have a three way race in that state. And
Speaker 1: now if we have a three way race, presumably Cinema
Speaker 1: would have a place to a way to appear on
Speaker 1: the ballot pretty easily by getting no labels to give
Speaker 1: her their ballot one. Do Democrats have a case? So
Speaker 1: the case they may I'm not a lawyer. I don't
Speaker 1: know the answer to that, but I can explain what
Speaker 1: the case is. The case they make is that you
Speaker 1: need to collect a very large amount of signatures, and
Speaker 1: so no labels collected something like forty thousand sigatures, and
Speaker 1: the state statute says when the signatures are turned on
Speaker 1: in they have to come with affidavits from electors that
Speaker 1: this party, this new party is going to use and
Speaker 1: basically who the party is, like the board of directors
Speaker 1: of the party, and the affidavits have to say that
Speaker 1: the signatures are right and proper and real. The affidavits
Speaker 1: were submitted, but the signature on the affid davids came
Speaker 1: before all the signatures were collected. Oh so that's kind
Speaker 1: of scatch. That's the case they're making that it was
Speaker 1: sort of a process error here, and that since the
Speaker 1: electors could not have sworn to the validity of the
Speaker 1: signatures since they were all collected, the affidavits aren't true,
Speaker 1: they're false. And if the affidavits are false, then the
Speaker 1: law has not been followed and this party cannot be
Speaker 1: on the ballot. Do you think it'll work, like, I
Speaker 1: honestly don't know. There's a lot of ways I could
Speaker 1: hypothetically say, a judge could try and splice that. The
Speaker 1: other fact is that the signatures have been checked partially
Speaker 1: and they're okay. It's not like the signatures are bad.
Speaker 1: It's this process error, so I don't know the answer
Speaker 1: of how it goes. I think the way to look
Speaker 1: about lawsuits, though, is that this is sort of the
Speaker 1: opening bell of a much broader war that is getting
Speaker 1: started now, in which the Democrats are going to come
Speaker 1: after no labels and every return. I also don't rule
Speaker 1: out I know the Republican Party and some of its
Speaker 1: consultants have been looking at this too right now. The
Speaker 1: sense I get from talking to people over there is
Speaker 1: then they don't see this as believe. They think it's
Speaker 1: probably hurts Democrats more than Republicans, at least where they've looked,
Speaker 1: but they have not ruled out the possibility that put
Speaker 1: their party ballot could hurt them. So could you could
Speaker 1: foresee in the coming months, maybe in a different state,
Speaker 1: depending on who science the signature ballots and what the
Speaker 1: dynamics of the state are, the Republicans will push back
Speaker 1: against this. But that said, theles is very well funded,
Speaker 1: and signature gathering is basically a math equay evolving money
Speaker 1: on one end and signature is coming out the other end.
Speaker 1: You just get enough people to collect the signature, he'll
Speaker 1: eventually get their signatures these sort of challenges meaning slow
Speaker 1: things down, But I doubt they can disrupt the whole project.
Speaker 1: Why are they so well funded? Who gives money to
Speaker 1: No Labels? Wouldn't we all like to know? Well, we
Speaker 1: know a little bit Republican Nelson valves the signature gathering
Speaker 1: effort of No Labels is being funded through a nonprofit
Speaker 1: group that does not disclose its donors ergo dark money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are other political operations of No Labels, the stuff
Speaker 1: which I referenced before, that where they fund candidates they
Speaker 1: like that have been involved donations from named donors, and
Speaker 1: a number of those donors you know those donors include
Speaker 1: long time Republican donors. I mean, I think that clearly
Speaker 1: No Labels appeals to a type of Republicans Wall Street,
Speaker 1: you know, low regulation, modern tax cuts for billionaires, but
Speaker 1: also not social warrior kind of like chamber of commerce,
Speaker 1: seeing type well healed person. And so presumably the donors
Speaker 1: to this effort are the same as the donors to
Speaker 1: what has been disclosed to those packs, but we don't know.
Speaker 1: When I asked Nancy Jacobson why she's not disclosing the donors,
Speaker 1: she said she wants to shield them from the hate
Speaker 1: that comes. Oh Jesus Christ, what a fucking baby. If
Speaker 1: re electing Donald Trump is wrong, she doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be right. So dark money donors, but certainly a fair
Speaker 1: number of Republicans that we know now some Palets, etc.
Speaker 1: Have given in the past, and also everyone's favorite union
Speaker 1: buster Starbucks chief right in twenty eighteen. Maybe he didn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I mean, I think he's an
Speaker 1: interesting one to bring up, Howard Charles because he came
Speaker 1: into like the theory of the case is that this
Speaker 1: is realistic and doable. It can be done right. You
Speaker 1: can get thirty six thirty eight percent of the country
Speaker 1: to vote for somebody who's not a Democrat or Republican.
Speaker 1: If you remember four years ago around this time, Howard
Speaker 1: Schultz was like on a book tour of sorts, yeah,
Speaker 1: trying to drop up support. And after he did a
Speaker 1: sixty minutes special and the whole premise of it was, look,
Speaker 1: forty percent of America identifies as independent, so we just
Speaker 1: have to go tell them they've got a candidate. Now
Speaker 1: it will win. And what he found out very quickly
Speaker 1: is telling a pritical scientists have done and posters have
Speaker 1: gone for a long time. But when you call yourself
Speaker 1: independent doesn't mean you're like almost all of those people
Speaker 1: who call themselves independent behave almost identically two Democrats or Republicans,
Speaker 1: and the pure independent portion of the electorate that's somewhere
Speaker 1: between I don't know, five and ten percent, depending on
Speaker 1: who you talk to and how you ask the question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really quite disturbing and also worrying. I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 1: I hope they'll come back. Yeah, I looked to thank
Speaker 1: you for having Jesse Jannon Molly jung Fast. There's fuckery
Speaker 1: about in Florida. Who would have thunk that state could
Speaker 1: deliver it. Two very authoritarian things happened in two very
Speaker 1: authoritarian goop state houses, and while they don't involve Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: they are still extremely relevant. One of them was there
Speaker 1: was a protest of the states very Florida's extremely draconian
Speaker 1: anti choice laws, and during that protest, Nicky Freed, who
Speaker 1: was the agg chair and recently ran for governor, was arrested,
Speaker 1: arrested for peacefully protesting, which technically we're not supposed to
Speaker 1: be arrested for peacefully protesting. And then in the state
Speaker 1: of Tennessee, which has had a lot of protests because
Speaker 1: they just recently had a school shooting. The Republicans took
Speaker 1: steps to expel these three democratic lawmakers because of using
Speaker 1: the protests as the excuse. These are both ways in
Speaker 1: which small ways in which these Republican leaning authoritarian, curious
Speaker 1: state government is trying to hurt the few Democrats in
Speaker 1: legislature in these states. So they are are many moments
Speaker 1: of fakery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to your the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.