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 over seventeen hundred doctors have signed
Speaker 1: a letter urging the Senate to reject RFK Junior as
Speaker 1: Health Secretary. How is it only seventeen thousand? We have
Speaker 1: such a great show for you today, The Nation's jet
Speaker 1: here gets to the bottom of why Trump is so
Speaker 1: excited about annexing Canada. Then we'll talk to Senator Tammy Dunckworth.
Speaker 2: But first the news Somali.
Speaker 3: The Supreme Court shocked everyone last night and let the
Speaker 3: sentencing go ahead with Donald Trump. And the sentencing has happened.
Speaker 3: What are you seeing here?
Speaker 2: Let us rephrase this.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court proved to not be complete partisan hacks.
Speaker 2: This is the shock was so Trump.
Speaker 1: He had a call earlier this week, perhaps completely unrelated
Speaker 1: but likely not, with his good friend Justice Alito, And
Speaker 1: who knows Alito said it. It was about recommending a
Speaker 1: clerk for the Trump two point zero admin. Maybe perhaps
Speaker 1: the appearance of impropriety is certainly appearing anyway, So then
Speaker 1: Trump went to his good friends, said I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: sentenced for this fraud stuff because I'm president or will
Speaker 1: be president.
Speaker 2: And ergo I am God king.
Speaker 1: And you will be completely shocked to find out that
Speaker 1: there are five justices who do not think Trump should
Speaker 1: be king, and this is perhaps very good news for
Speaker 1: American democracy. You will be very unsurprised to hear that
Speaker 1: Thomas Alito, who have complete brainworms and our maga to
Speaker 1: the core, and Gorsich, who who is just a complete
Speaker 1: disaster except when it comes to Native Americans, which somehow
Speaker 1: is one thing. And Justice keg stand three white men,
Speaker 1: and Justice Thomas who is not white, all believe that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump should be God king. On the other side,
Speaker 1: we have the three liberal justices, Justice Amy, who actually
Speaker 1: we have heard in oral arguments is quite smart though
Speaker 1: she was put on the court to overturn row, which
Speaker 1: she did for Trump. And Justice Roberts, who is theoretically
Speaker 1: the chief Justice, though he's behaved in a very kind
Speaker 1: of non chief ye way, those guys said, no, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump can still be sentenced. We are not going to
Speaker 1: step in. We are not going to do everything he wants. Now, look,
Speaker 1: this is insane. Okay, we need to take a moment here.
Speaker 1: I think I've been pretty calm about the coming Trump admin.
Speaker 1: You know when we talk about how to protect the norms,
Speaker 1: and this is not normal. This is not normal, even
Speaker 1: a little right, not normal at all to have a
Speaker 1: president call up the Supreme Court. Or maybe he was
Speaker 1: talking about something totally different with Alito, but there certainly is.
Speaker 1: It really feels like impropriety, and it's not normal to
Speaker 1: go to the Supreme Court and say, please just fix
Speaker 1: this for me. They're not supposed to be fixers. They
Speaker 1: are supposed to be beyond politics. They are supposed to
Speaker 1: be the arbiters of the Constitution, and so watching this
Speaker 1: is pretty insane. So we can be grateful that there
Speaker 1: are five still, say in Supreme Court justices, but we
Speaker 1: should also realize that the even being here is so
Speaker 1: beyond the norms, is so not how any of this
Speaker 1: is supposed to work. We should be screaming from the rooftops.
Speaker 1: There are I have said, I say again and again.
Speaker 1: Trump is not going to annex Canada. That's just a distraction.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this stuff is just a distraction.
Speaker 1: Sending Junior to Greenland, distraction, distraction, distraction. I'm calling up
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court because you want them to do something
Speaker 1: for you. This is fucking bad, and this is the
Speaker 1: kind of stuff that we all need to be talking
Speaker 1: about and writing about and thinking about.
Speaker 2: And again, there is no ethics.
Speaker 1: Code for the Supreme Court, so they can get away
Speaker 1: with doing whatever they want. And this is how we
Speaker 1: got here, and it's just wrong and bad and Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: so that I think I have, that's as soap boxy
Speaker 1: as I'm going to get.
Speaker 3: Well, well, let's do a little celebrating and some good news.
Speaker 3: Then in that case, Joe Biden first president ever to
Speaker 3: have job growth in every month of his presidency since
Speaker 3: they started measuring it. And this job support, we'll be
Speaker 3: shocked to say it's doing pretty well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they chose not to re elect him, but the
Speaker 1: economy he's leaving is a gift, a gift to a
Speaker 1: guy who is planning to put tariffs on everything.
Speaker 3: But the funny thing is Pop, Fox News Night and
Speaker 3: Day is preparing everyone for that. The economy is going
Speaker 3: to take. It's because Joe Biden has given Trump a
Speaker 3: ticking time. Bob is what they.
Speaker 1: Say, right, I mean, Rupert Murdoch sees what's going on here.
Speaker 1: He sees the writing on the wall and so he
Speaker 1: is trying to run a little bit of interference for
Speaker 1: his buddy. Yeah, job growth, great economy, and then Joe
Speaker 1: Biden cannot get reelected. You know, It's enough to make
Speaker 1: a person very, very very depressed.
Speaker 3: It really is something so in other horrifying Supreme Court news,
Speaker 3: because we can't find two stories in a row that
Speaker 3: are good. Jimmie Raskin did reprimend Samuel Alito for that
Speaker 3: call with Trump? What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: Look again, protecting norms and institutions sometimes means avoiding the
Speaker 1: appearance of impropriety, even if this wasn't improper, though I
Speaker 1: really do believe.
Speaker 2: Also, I just want to point out.
Speaker 1: That Alito had this clerk fourteen years before now, so
Speaker 1: he's had this cork, had had many other jobs after Aledo.
Speaker 1: And the question is why was it so important for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump to talk to Alito about this clerk when
Speaker 1: he was you know, his fIF you know, his fifth
Speaker 1: most recent employer. And so even if it wasn't improper,
Speaker 1: no one knows what was said on the call, But
Speaker 1: even if it wasn't, the appearance of impropriety is absolutely
Speaker 1: just a norms crusher in every way. And look, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of politics. What we saw in Trump one
Speaker 1: point zero is that a lot of politics was Trump
Speaker 1: was able to crash through these guardrails because a lot
Speaker 1: of American politics was just a certain level of gentility
Speaker 1: that kept things in place and what allowed for some
Speaker 1: level of It's not real corruption per se, but there
Speaker 1: were guardrails just for the fact that these politicians had
Speaker 1: to interact with each other, and those guardrails were really
Speaker 1: blown through by Trump. So we really need to make
Speaker 1: get clear that the Supreme Court is a redline and
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump should not be able to bully them
Speaker 1: into doing what he wants and being a rubber stamp
Speaker 1: on him, though we know they will be to a
Speaker 1: certain extent.
Speaker 3: Well, there are guardrails and then there are laws, and
Speaker 3: mister Trump broke some of them. There is now about
Speaker 3: a week and a half left for Jack Smith to
Speaker 3: get the details of that out to the world in
Speaker 3: a report. What are you seeing here with what's going
Speaker 3: on with the Federal Appeals Court?
Speaker 1: The Federal appeals courts, and on Thursday would not block
Speaker 1: the Justice Department from releasing the report by Special Counsel
Speaker 1: Jack Smith. Again, this is the last possible moment for
Speaker 1: sleepy Merrit Garland, my buddy, sleepy Republican. By the way,
Speaker 1: poor went out for all the Republicans who did not
Speaker 1: do shit, right.
Speaker 2: Merrick Garland.
Speaker 1: What about our friend head of the FBI, Chris Ray,
Speaker 1: another Republican who did not do shit? All these people
Speaker 1: who just were like, if we close our eyes real tight,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump will go away.
Speaker 2: Good work, everybody, good work.
Speaker 3: I'm going to do a standing ovation, which you standing
Speaker 3: up did not do.
Speaker 2: Both sections of mister Smith's two volume report remained for
Speaker 2: the moment under an injunction put in place this week
Speaker 2: by a lower court judge in the state of Florida.
Speaker 2: You know who that judge is, the one.
Speaker 3: Who's about to replace Alito or Thomas, whichever retires first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or to replace Amy if cat Turd has his way.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, well, we know that we have to always
Speaker 3: save a space like it's Elijah at the political table
Speaker 3: for cat turd.
Speaker 1: Yep, exactly, cat tired the Pat Buchanan of America, of
Speaker 1: America of the twenty twenties, Cat tired or went out
Speaker 1: for poor cat turd, very mad at Justice.
Speaker 2: Amy for not taking care of his guy, Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1: By the way, I just want to point out what
Speaker 1: this whole sentence in fiasco.
Speaker 2: He was sentenced to nothing.
Speaker 1: Yes, like I mean, yes, now he's a fallon congratulations.
Speaker 2: But I know a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I don't know a lot of people, but I know
Speaker 1: a few people have gone to jail, and I think
Speaker 1: if they were just fealons and didn't have to go
Speaker 1: to jail, like generally, the jail part is the worst part. Again,
Speaker 1: I am not a prison consultant, but my sense is
Speaker 1: if you don't have to go to jail, that's a win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: Jed Here is a contributor to the nation and the
Speaker 1: host of the Time of Monsters.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Jed Here always great to join the program.
Speaker 1: I am so you know why I wanted to have
Speaker 1: you on. Besides the fact that we often have you
Speaker 1: on and think you're very, very smart.
Speaker 4: It's because of the fact that I'm soon to become
Speaker 4: an American after Donald alex Is the Canada and we
Speaker 4: become the fifty first state head al I'll let you
Speaker 4: know of Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. I welcome our
Speaker 4: American liberators. Although I will also say, like the last
Speaker 4: time Canada in the United States Thought Award. The White
Speaker 4: House did burn down.
Speaker 2: So we're mateen twelve.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, that's it's all.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think you know, like where the whole New Territory.
Speaker 4: We're not in counses anymore, isn't.
Speaker 1: There's like a debunked story about one of the first
Speaker 1: ladies saving a painting.
Speaker 4: Dolly Madison. I think, yes, that's right, that's right. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I know that that did not happen. But she was
Speaker 4: rewarded with chocolate ice cream named in her on her
Speaker 4: behalf because she saved painting from the Canadian hordes. But
Speaker 4: it's not true, rude, it's not true.
Speaker 1: No, yes, it's both stupid and also didn't happen.
Speaker 4: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like so much of American history, but we are
Speaker 1: making our own stupid American history right here.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about what the fuck is going on.
Speaker 1: Trump has decided that he is going to annex Canada.
Speaker 1: Not really, but really, but also, can I just ask,
Speaker 1: aren't you guys all like pretty liberal up there?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I think that the polling does show that
Speaker 4: if the American election were held in Canada, Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: would have gotten something like seventy percent of the votue.
Speaker 4: In some ways, if Canada we're annexed, it would change
Speaker 4: American politic Their leaked It depends on jerrymandering the Electoral College.
Speaker 4: Who does. But I don't think it's in the interest
Speaker 4: of the United States Republican Party necessarily to do this, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that ultimately, like you'd probably be
Speaker 1: better off adding Puerto Rico because at least Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: has some conservatives. But again, what I think, and again,
Speaker 1: we are going to have four years to try to
Speaker 1: figure this out, and we did it so magically last time.
Speaker 2: What do you think Donald Trump is doing here?
Speaker 1: I will end up saying this sentenced ten thousand times
Speaker 1: because basically Donald Trump has made the world his interpreter.
Speaker 1: You remember when he was on the campaign trail and
Speaker 1: he said bacon and everyone had to explain that he
Speaker 1: meant the price of bacon, right, that they were all
Speaker 1: this shorthand, but his people understood, but that if you
Speaker 1: weren't completely read in on the machinations, you wouldn't. But basically,
Speaker 1: what I think is happening here is that he's doing
Speaker 1: this Nixonian thing of I'm the craziest guy in the room.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, sur sure. I think there's a couple of
Speaker 4: things that are going on. I mean, I do actually
Speaker 4: think this is not a serious proposal. It is the
Speaker 4: sort of very typical Trumpian let's throw crap against the wall,
Speaker 4: and you know, and also a little bit of a
Speaker 4: distraction as well. I think the and it says I
Speaker 4: don't think there's any serious plans to take over.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But having said that, I mean, I think both
Speaker 4: Trump and I think, interestingly Elon Moss are very interested
Speaker 4: in using the presidency to reshape not just America but
Speaker 4: the world and American aligances with the world. And Musk
Speaker 4: much more of course, rightly is basically trying to abilies
Speaker 4: Europe and to push the far right in Europe, including
Speaker 4: in Germany, where you know, like I don't think the
Speaker 4: history of promoting fire right governments in Germany has been
Speaker 4: a happy one. And he's, like, I mean, Musk, he's
Speaker 4: also trying to like overthrow the government of England. He's
Speaker 4: called for Prince Charles to call for an election. There's
Speaker 4: a couple of things going on here. Like we know
Speaker 4: that Trump and Musk do not like NATO, and they
Speaker 4: don't like what they call globalism, and what they mean
Speaker 4: like globalism is basically the system that was set up
Speaker 4: by Franklin Roosevelt and its successors in World War two,
Speaker 4: sort of like an international system of alliances where the
Speaker 4: United States has collective security with other nations and has
Speaker 4: things like NATO and also has trade agreements. And this
Speaker 4: was you know, like one could argue that there was
Speaker 4: a form of American im perialism, but it's also like
Speaker 4: an attempt to work within the nations of other countries
Speaker 4: to have some sort of system in place. And there's
Speaker 4: always been a critique on the right that this system
Speaker 4: of the liberal international order, the system of alliances, is
Speaker 4: bad for the United States. It doesn't give the US
Speaker 4: the room come maneuver, and it ties America to these
Speaker 4: like diabolical governments in Europe that will exploit America. And
Speaker 4: that was the critique of the right going back decades.
Speaker 4: This was like, actually what Herbert Hoover thought, this is
Speaker 4: what Charles Lindberg thought, this is what Robert Taff taught.
Speaker 4: People forget this, but I mean, the Republican Party was
Speaker 4: in the forties was against NATO, like Robert Taff had
Speaker 4: this sort of critique of NATO that I'm articulating, And
Speaker 4: there have always been figures on the right that haven't
Speaker 4: wanted that, and what they wanted instead.
Speaker 1: Right, it's this America Last phenomenon, Right, we both read
Speaker 1: that book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Quit yeah, So, and what they
Speaker 4: wanted was what they call in America First policy, which
Speaker 4: is sometimes mislabeled by the media as isolationism, but it
Speaker 4: was actually basically a policy of hemispheric domination. The idea
Speaker 4: is that the United States should leave Europe to the Europeans,
Speaker 4: it should concentrate on dominating the Western hemisphere, and then
Speaker 4: also using if it's going to expand, expand into Asia,
Speaker 4: because the Pacific is America's lake. Now, this all sort
Speaker 4: of fell by the wayside during the Cold War, when
Speaker 4: with Eisenhower and Nixon and Reagan you basically had Republicans
Speaker 4: who bought into the liberal international order, the idea of
Speaker 4: working with NATO and work with alliances. But there'll always
Speaker 4: been people on the right who have not thought that way,
Speaker 4: who have like wanted to return to the foreign policy
Speaker 4: of Charles Lindberg and Robert Taft. And I'll just remind
Speaker 4: people Charles Lindberg's foreign policy was like, let's let Hitler
Speaker 4: be overlord of Europe. He will protect us from the
Speaker 4: communist right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So one person who thought that way was Pat Buchanan,
Speaker 4: who I think is a very important yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And this is this John Dance book When
Speaker 1: the Clock Broke, So yeah, so talk to us about
Speaker 1: this because he makes a direct parallel from David Duke
Speaker 1: to Pat Buchanan to early chomp is so discuss.
Speaker 4: So I think this essential precondition was the sort of
Speaker 4: waning of the Cold War in the nineteen eighties and
Speaker 4: the Soviet Union not no longer being seen as a
Speaker 4: communist threat, and there were a lot of people on
Speaker 4: the right who are thinking, well, okay, you know, like
Speaker 4: we're not fighting the Soviets anymore, then, like why do
Speaker 4: we need NATO and also why don't we like return
Speaker 4: to the foreign policy of Robert Taft? And then these
Speaker 4: people were called paleo conservatives, and I think the most
Speaker 4: most of them are very obscure kind of intellectuals. But
Speaker 4: the one person people will know why we is Pat Buchanan.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's two parts of this. One is we're
Speaker 4: not fighting communism abroad. So we should focus on the
Speaker 4: main enemy, which is liberalism at home, and we should
Speaker 4: have a culture war at home. We should take the
Speaker 4: ideas of David Duke about race and like try to
Speaker 4: use them as our own. The second component of this
Speaker 4: is like, yeah, returning to a Robert Taft foreign policy.
Speaker 4: So in nineteen ninety, Pat Buchanan wrote a column where
Speaker 4: he said American the American dream annexing most of Canada.
Speaker 4: And Buchanan said, like, well, you know, Canada, they're having
Speaker 4: this problem with coveect separatism. This could be an opportunity
Speaker 4: for the United States. We should invite like parts of Canada.
Speaker 4: He mentioned the maritime provinces, the western provinces of Verda
Speaker 4: and Saskatchewan, and then North Northern Territories. And he added
Speaker 4: in this column we should also buy Greenland from Denmark.
Speaker 4: And also Pat Buchanan had a long standing belief that
Speaker 4: it was a mistake to have handed over the Panama
Speaker 4: Canal to the people of Panama and that the United
Speaker 4: State should take it over. So so in nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: Pad buy Cannon is basically saying, you know exactly what
Speaker 4: Trump is saying. Now He's not alone. A lot of
Speaker 4: these other paleo conservatives think along this line, and some
Speaker 4: of our very bizarre creatures. One is Peter Brimlow, who's
Speaker 4: most known now for a racist website called v Dare.
Speaker 4: Another is this guy Craig Shoemaker, who Pat Buchannan quoted
Speaker 4: and cited as an authority and who was the head
Speaker 4: of something called the American Expansionist Party.
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus Christ, great, should I.
Speaker 4: Just wanted it's a little digression, but it's actually very
Speaker 4: interesting to get a set to where these guys are
Speaker 4: coming from. So this guy basically started off as a
Speaker 4: gay rights activist of the sixties, but ran into problems
Speaker 4: because he had views of women that other gay rights
Speaker 4: people didn't like. Like he basically said, we should be
Speaker 4: a Menzoni space. I don't want to have like this
Speaker 4: whole gay lesbian by translating, you know, like no women,
Speaker 4: no girls. He also was like a virulent racist who
Speaker 4: basically said black people are and I am quoting here
Speaker 4: the enemy who should be exterminated. We're pretty crazy crack
Speaker 4: blaw people. So I think one of the things with
Speaker 4: the Trump era, and I think, you know, like Musk
Speaker 4: is also part of this is that like these kind
Speaker 4: of crazy fringe ideas that have hovered up the wings
Speaker 4: of the Republican Party. They've decided, let's take them up
Speaker 4: again and let's mainstream them. And they're partially able to
Speaker 4: do that because the old Republican elite has been discredited
Speaker 4: and so therefore they need to juice things up. I mean,
Speaker 4: what basically happened was, you know, the Cold War won
Speaker 4: down the presidency of George W. Bush attempted to revive
Speaker 4: a kind of a right wing internationalism in the form
Speaker 4: of the Global War on Terror. But that was a
Speaker 4: disaster that totally discredited the sort of intervention is swinging
Speaker 4: the Republican Party, and that created a vacuum. And into
Speaker 4: that vacuum step Donald Trump, who was able to leverage
Speaker 4: a his celebrity and b the fact that he realized
Speaker 4: that there were all these string components of the Republican
Speaker 4: coalition that you could energize and get worked out by,
Speaker 4: you know, bringing back the ideas of Pabri Canon and
Speaker 4: Craig Shoemaker. You know that these so basically like, now
Speaker 4: how serious it is as policy? As I said, I
Speaker 4: don't foresee like actually buying Greveland or taking over Canada
Speaker 4: but I do actually think that it's well, we've already
Speaker 4: seen it. It's it's how did this reptive effect? I
Speaker 4: mean Justin Trudeau stepped down, and I mean he's been
Speaker 4: unpopular for a long time. I think there are a
Speaker 4: lot of people in his own party, like you know,
Speaker 4: like as with Joe Biden, who have wanted him to
Speaker 4: step down for a while and make up for another leader.
Speaker 4: But what happened was he got into a dispute with
Speaker 4: his finance mister Christia Freeland, and in her letter resignation,
Speaker 4: Freelance said these very important that like you know, Canada
Speaker 4: is facing a crisis with Trump pretning carepors. We need
Speaker 4: like a leadership that can unite the country. I no
Speaker 4: longer feel like you can provide that leadership. That was like,
Speaker 4: it's not the ultimate cause, which I think is you know,
Speaker 4: it's unpopularity due to COVID and inflation, you know, as
Speaker 4: was Joe Biden, as everyone with everyone, But I think
Speaker 4: it was the precipitating cause that like the Canadian elite
Speaker 4: is very very scared of what's happening. This is this
Speaker 4: is up truely just of like so he said, Canadians
Speaker 4: are liberal, Well we have conservators here, but I'll tell you,
Speaker 4: like quite conservative Canadians, you know, don't want to like
Speaker 4: lose their country and join the United State. And there
Speaker 4: are people like the Globe and Meal is kind of
Speaker 4: like a business newspaper. One of their more conservative columnists
Speaker 4: Andrew Coin, who's a real sort of emblem of sort
Speaker 4: of you know, like the sort of like old wasp
Speaker 4: elite in Canada. His father would have been headed the
Speaker 4: governor of the Bank of Canada. Andrew Coin has basically said,
Speaker 4: you know, Canada can no longer rely on the United
Speaker 4: States as a reliable ally. We have to have like
Speaker 4: a new foreign policy, perhaps like deepen our ties with Europe,
Speaker 4: deep in our ties with the last in American countries,
Speaker 4: try to have some sort of counterweight that that is
Speaker 4: a kind of like thinking that's happening even among conservative Canadians.
Speaker 4: I think that the same thinking is happening in Europe.
Speaker 4: I think we're already seeing a lot of people in Europe.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're the EUS protesting against Trump's the plans
Speaker 4: to anna Greenland, and I think that they are serious
Speaker 4: people in Europe who are thinking, you know, like we've
Speaker 4: relied on America for our protection for like seventy years.
Speaker 4: What if they're going to keep electing I was like, drop,
Speaker 4: who are gonna, like, you know, have people like Elon
Speaker 4: Musk or literally destabilizing our societies who are promoting I
Speaker 4: cannot begin to explain like the people that Elon Musk
Speaker 4: are promoting, people like Tommy Douglass and the AfD. This
Speaker 4: would be like someone from outside of America. So let's
Speaker 4: say someone being like.
Speaker 2: Make David Duke your president.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. It would be like like, as
Speaker 4: of powerful people in Europe, we're certainly saying we want
Speaker 4: America to elect David Duke. It's an incredibly destabilizing thing.
Speaker 4: So there are people inside the European elite who are
Speaker 4: now explicitly thinking, well, you know, why don't we leverage
Speaker 4: culture ties with China. Why don't we like, you know,
Speaker 4: open up trade ties with your China. China can offer us,
Speaker 4: you know, five g they can offer us cheap electric cars.
Speaker 4: President g is a tyrant. He's bad for his own people,
Speaker 4: but he's far away from us and he doesn't want
Speaker 4: to interpere in our domestic politics. I think that's a
Speaker 4: very serious conversation that's happening in Europe, and it's happening
Speaker 4: in Canada. Like, I don't think Canada would necessarily, although
Speaker 4: I think the other interesting thing is that the Chinese
Speaker 4: are very aware of all this. The government of China
Speaker 4: has just basically announced to Canada that, you know, guys,
Speaker 4: if you want, like, you know, closer trading ties with US,
Speaker 4: you like, if you want to sell your product products
Speaker 4: if you can't, if you have to care for and
Speaker 4: you can't sell your products of America, we're here, You're
Speaker 4: We'll be happy to find No. No, I don't think
Speaker 4: for a variety of reasons, I don't think the Canadian
Speaker 4: elite is going to go for closer ties with China.
Speaker 4: But I think the smart play for Canada, as for Europe,
Speaker 4: is like closer integration with each other and with Latin America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're the only people who are normal anymore. Honestly,
Speaker 1: with Africa, it's destabilizing, and the goal is to have
Speaker 1: it be destabilizing. And there's a larger question here about
Speaker 1: whether tech the tech bros want to see America succeed
Speaker 1: or want to destabilize America so that they can make
Speaker 1: more money. It's not entirely clear that those two things
Speaker 1: are aligned in any way.
Speaker 4: I mean the thing is like money has no loyalty,
Speaker 4: money has no patriotis on at resultant like Elon Musk,
Speaker 4: I mean he wins both ways, both like a kind
Speaker 4: of more destabilized Europe and a more details America. I
Speaker 4: mean he gets us regulation so he can do what
Speaker 4: he wants with his companies, but also like a stronger
Speaker 4: China is not bad for the Elon muss right, right.
Speaker 2: Right, exactly. And I think that's a real question.
Speaker 1: And Elon Musk has lots of deals with China and
Speaker 1: is very conflicted. So let's talk about what we're seeing here.
Speaker 1: We've got Trump is coming, We're trying to sort of
Speaker 1: figure out. You know, I feel like we're in the
Speaker 1: calm before the storm here. So here's my question for you,
Speaker 1: which I actually start we started talking about. Is like
Speaker 1: the bombastic language that Trump is using. If you look
Speaker 1: back on four years of Trump, it tended to be
Speaker 1: he wanted people to think he was crazy and then
Speaker 1: would sort of back down. But Trump is much older,
Speaker 1: his rhetoric has continued to be quite a explosive. What
Speaker 1: is your take on where the people who want the
Speaker 1: sort of normal, what the people who want.
Speaker 2: A sort of normal democratic order should be doing.
Speaker 4: I think the main thing is to be much more
Speaker 4: oppositional than they have been. I think that there has
Speaker 4: been a kind of instinct to say, I, once seeing
Speaker 4: what we're seeing this in the immigration vote, you know,
Speaker 4: well Trump won like you know, a plurality of the vote,
Speaker 4: a sort of decisively the eleccoral college, we should like
Speaker 4: try to, you know, get along. I think that's just
Speaker 4: like the wrong thing to do, especially since he's doing
Speaker 4: all these crazy things. And I think like the people
Speaker 4: who are hoping that he's like like this all just
Speaker 4: rhetoric that you know, ultimately the more stable advisors will
Speaker 4: come along. I mean, I think it's not just Trump
Speaker 4: is older, but also he has a cattery of people
Speaker 4: around him who are like not the sort of you know,
Speaker 4: Rex Tillerson Maddest type people he had in the first term,
Speaker 4: who are like real hardcore idologues. And I think Musk
Speaker 4: is the wildcard here, right because like in the first term,
Speaker 4: Trump had Steve Bannon, but I think the revoking establishment
Speaker 4: was very cagey and very quick to kind of push
Speaker 4: Brandon out of there, and you know, like leverage Bannon's
Speaker 4: own bad tendencies against them. But I mean, I think
Speaker 4: it's much harder to get rid of Ela Musk, that is,
Speaker 4: to get rid of Steve Bannon. I mean, Musk has like,
Speaker 4: you know, he's the richest man in the world. He
Speaker 4: has a huge media outlet. So I think that the unstable,
Speaker 4: radical element of Trumpism has a much like stronger power
Speaker 4: than now than before. And to my mind that that
Speaker 4: actually argues for like, you know, the real strategy of resistance,
Speaker 4: which I don't think that we're seeing right now. And
Speaker 4: I actually think in the long term, I think the
Speaker 4: smarter play is to stake out like a position like
Speaker 4: of like you know, like opposition, because I think a
Speaker 4: lot of this stuff is going to come crashing down
Speaker 4: on Trump's head sooner rather than later. And I think
Speaker 4: that what the democratic is smart politics, is not in
Speaker 4: fact smart politics. I think they think that, you know,
Speaker 4: they can triangulate.
Speaker 1: But I think there's anxiety that maybe he'll be normal
Speaker 1: this time, which all of us want, but history shows
Speaker 1: us that that is not how it's going to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I just I don't see him normalizing anytime soon.
Speaker 4: And I think the one one has to prepare for
Speaker 4: quite a radical Trump administration. And it could well be,
Speaker 4: though I think that real political opposition will have to
Speaker 4: come from outside the Democratic Party, like in terms of
Speaker 4: like social movements.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's a real question. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you. Jeete. I hope you won't come back.
Speaker 4: You can't give me away. I'm going to be a
Speaker 4: fellow American anytime now.
Speaker 1: Senator Tammy Duckworth is the junior senator from the state
Speaker 1: of Illinois.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics. Senator Tammy Duckworth.
Speaker 5: Thank you, it's good to be on. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to have you. So let's talk about what
Speaker 1: is going on on your article to responsibility and these
Speaker 1: hearings that are coming up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, my job is to make sure that
Speaker 5: the people who are nominated to the various positions within
Speaker 5: the president's administration are actually qualified and capable of doing
Speaker 5: their jobs. And I've had quite a few meetings, and
Speaker 5: you know, I've met with Senator Rubio who's been nominated
Speaker 5: to be Secretary of State. I've met with Hamasman Collins
Speaker 5: who today I met with him, he's nominated to be
Speaker 5: Secretive Veterans Affairs. I might have had very good conversations
Speaker 5: with them where I've been able to ask them their
Speaker 5: questions of their vision, with experience they have, how they're
Speaker 5: kind of running the department. And then my next person
Speaker 5: is going to be mister Pete Hesath, who is nominated
Speaker 5: to be Secretary of Defense, but he is avoiding meeting
Speaker 5: with me and all that the other senate them, so
Speaker 5: I've not been able to ask in questions about his
Speaker 5: qualifications for the job, which makes it really hard for
Speaker 5: me to do my job.
Speaker 1: What do you think that is? I mean, why do
Speaker 1: you think that he's doing that? Because sooner or later
Speaker 1: he's going to have to sit and do hearings that
Speaker 1: are going to be public. I mean, this is the
Speaker 1: thing I don't understand. So can you talk us through that?
Speaker 5: Sure? So at the hearing, each senator has seven minutes
Speaker 5: to ask questions. I certainly have more questions for him
Speaker 5: than the seven minutes. And usually most nominees will come
Speaker 5: and meet with the senators, especially those who sit on
Speaker 5: the committee. You have a pretty thorough, in depth conversation
Speaker 5: and to establish a relationship because we're going to be
Speaker 5: working with these people for the next four years, right,
Speaker 5: and so to make sure that we understand where they
Speaker 5: want to take the department, what their emphasis are going
Speaker 5: to be, and I can express to him the things
Speaker 5: that I'm concerned about. And usually it's a pretty collegial
Speaker 5: process because it is about the well being of the
Speaker 5: United States of America. It is about making sure that
Speaker 5: our country remains safe and strong, especially when it comes
Speaker 5: to the Department of Defense. But he's only met with Republicans,
Speaker 5: and he's only going to make himself available to meet
Speaker 5: with me after I'm going probably after I'm going to
Speaker 5: be asked to vote for him. So I'm only going
Speaker 5: to get some minutes to ask him questions. And you know,
Speaker 5: he's a TV personality. He'll stall and not answer questions,
Speaker 5: and then we won't get answers to our questions, and
Speaker 5: then I'm going to be asked to vote for him.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of people who are pretty
Speaker 1: cynical at this moment on the left and the right
Speaker 1: about Trump getting his nominations through. Pete Hagg said, he
Speaker 1: has no history managing an organization, especially one with three
Speaker 1: million plus people. Do you think that you know they
Speaker 1: have enough Republicans to get these people through?
Speaker 2: Do you think there.
Speaker 1: Are Republicans you are in the setting, but in the
Speaker 1: Senate a while, and you know a lot of these
Speaker 1: people really, well, are there any Republicans where you have
Speaker 1: faith that they will take their article to responsibilities?
Speaker 2: Seriously?
Speaker 5: If you asked me that question a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 5: my answer would have been yes. But unfortunately, what I
Speaker 5: see now is that some of my Republican colleagues who
Speaker 5: have spoken out about their concerns to miss a hexseth
Speaker 5: immediately came under just a huge onslaught of attacks from
Speaker 5: Resident Trump along with other you know, leaders in the
Speaker 5: Maga Republican wing, to the point where now they have
Speaker 5: walked back some of their concerns. So I worry that
Speaker 5: they will bow to the pressure. I hope they won't
Speaker 5: realize wn't happen yet, but we'll see, We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: So you really think they're just I mean, because we've
Speaker 1: all had our time in the barrel in Maga world.
Speaker 1: So you really think these people, even though they have security,
Speaker 1: even though you know, we've seen people like Mitt Romney,
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, we know what happens. Like, you really think
Speaker 1: they can't stand up to Trump.
Speaker 5: Well, they could, but they probably won't be Senators very long.
Speaker 5: I mean, Romney could not get re elected in Utah,
Speaker 5: which is why he retired. So I guess it depends
Speaker 5: on whether my colleagues choose country over self. I hope
Speaker 5: they choose country.
Speaker 1: But what I saw in the last weeks was that
Speaker 1: Murkowski did complain about the mag of movement on Jony Earnst, Like,
Speaker 1: do you think that that is because there's some sense
Speaker 1: that she may do the right thing, or do you
Speaker 1: think that that is just talk.
Speaker 5: I hope that she should do the right thing, but
Speaker 5: we won't know until then. The best that I can
Speaker 5: do is do my job and ask mis the hex
Speaker 5: seth questions that show whether or not he's qualified to
Speaker 5: do the job, and make it clear that if you
Speaker 5: vote for this guy, you're voting for someone who is
Speaker 5: absolutely unqualified to do this job.
Speaker 1: So I read reporting today that a bunch of Republicans
Speaker 1: do not feel that Tolsey Gabbert is actually not going
Speaker 1: to make it through. Do you think there's a certain
Speaker 1: sacrificial lamb math here, or do you think that some
Speaker 1: of these Republicans do have a spawn.
Speaker 5: I hope that my Republican colleagues she used to put
Speaker 5: the national security of the United States of America above
Speaker 5: their own personal loyalty to President Trump. None of us
Speaker 5: swore an oath to the President of the United States.
Speaker 5: We saw an earth of defender constitution, and so I
Speaker 5: hope that maybe you know, more of them will step
Speaker 5: up and say, we can't get somebody who met with
Speaker 5: and was essentially a talking point for Bashar Assad to
Speaker 5: be Director of National Intelligence. We don't think that somebody
Speaker 5: who has never commanded a unit larger than leading an
Speaker 5: infantry platoon should be in charge of three million personnel.
Speaker 5: I hope that my colleagues would do the right thing,
Speaker 5: but I won't know until the votes are cast.
Speaker 4: So we'll see.
Speaker 1: The person who keeps me up at night is cash Battal.
Speaker 1: Does Cash Battel's hearing go after the other cabinet secretaries?
Speaker 1: And is there any sense in which there's kind of
Speaker 1: a more of a fullsome conversation about him as an
Speaker 1: FBI like a bunch of these nominees seem like very unusual, strange, inappropriate,
Speaker 1: but he seems like a whole other level.
Speaker 5: He keeps me up at night as well to think
Speaker 5: that this is the position that he's been nominated, and frankly,
Speaker 5: if the likes of cash Bertel or Trolsa Gabbert are confirmed,
Speaker 5: I don't think our allies will work with us. I mean,
Speaker 5: if I were our allies, I would immediately cut off
Speaker 5: all intelligence sharing with the United States because I wouldn't
Speaker 5: trust it would be true rule of law in the
Speaker 5: United States and true guarding of intelligence information in the
Speaker 5: United States with the two of them in charge. And frankly,
Speaker 5: that will put many assets in deep jeopardy and could
Speaker 5: result in god forbid that the death of our troops
Speaker 5: who are going to have to be in harm's way
Speaker 5: because we're not going to receive information that could keep
Speaker 5: our troops safe overseas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a real worry. That seems like
Speaker 1: a nonpartisan worry. I mean, I know it's not a
Speaker 1: trumpest worry because Trump has appointed her. But you must
Speaker 1: see Republicans who can relate to this.
Speaker 5: I know that they can relate to it, But whether
Speaker 5: or not they will act on that is, you know,
Speaker 5: not something that I can predict. Were this, you know,
Speaker 5: six years ago, when you had folks around like Amid Ronney,
Speaker 5: or if you had John McCain, if you had some
Speaker 5: other folks. Yeah, but those folks are all gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there are still.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't have faith in like Collins and Murkowski.
Speaker 5: And Collin's voted for Kavanaugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about Senate Democrats and what you
Speaker 1: guys are doing to sort of try to sort of
Speaker 1: hold the line on some of Trump's scarier policies.
Speaker 5: Well, we are united in our effort to stop these
Speaker 5: policies that we feel will be harmful to the United States.
Speaker 5: We are going to do everything we can to stop
Speaker 5: these policies that are harmful to working Americans. We're going
Speaker 5: to make sure that when they try to pay for
Speaker 5: their billionaire tax cuts by cutting Medicare and mediciate, that
Speaker 5: we're going to do everything we can to make sure
Speaker 5: the American people know what they're doing and to slow
Speaker 5: them down and try to stop them. And with the
Speaker 5: case of Missa Hexseeth, the best thing we can do
Speaker 5: is at this hearing to ask questions that Americans can
Speaker 5: look at it and say, oh, you know what, that
Speaker 5: wasn't partisan, that actually was something that makes sense.
Speaker 4: You know what do you mean?
Speaker 5: He has never led an organization larger than forty people,
Speaker 5: So so really speak to whether or not these people
Speaker 5: can do their jobs. From the fact that Tozy Gabbert
Speaker 5: was called a Russian asset by state controlled media in
Speaker 5: Russia should worry people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean agreed. And it's also a real question
Speaker 1: about sort of how the government works. Trump has a
Speaker 1: lot We know that there are a lot of executive
Speaker 1: orders coming down the pike. We don't totally know what
Speaker 1: they are, but there's a lot of them are pretty dystopian.
Speaker 1: What can you guys do in the United States Senate
Speaker 1: to come up the works?
Speaker 5: I mean, there's a lot of procedural things that we
Speaker 5: can do. And part of it is also just shining
Speaker 5: a light on what is happening. Because when you shine
Speaker 5: a strong enough light and there's enough pushback, you do win.
Speaker 5: I mean, they tried to end the Affordable Care at
Speaker 5: the last time around, and we were able to stop
Speaker 5: that from happening because we rallied the American people. The
Speaker 5: Republicans said that the Packed Act was too expensive, and
Speaker 5: we shined a light on that and rallied Americans around,
Speaker 5: and so that shame Republicans to voting to support the
Speaker 5: Packed Act. So that our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans can
Speaker 5: actually get the care that they need that they've been
Speaker 5: injured in their service of this country. So the best
Speaker 5: thing we can do is to be as open and
Speaker 5: shine as strong a light as possible on these tactics
Speaker 5: of theirs.
Speaker 1: Because what I'm struck by is like when you think
Speaker 1: about the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court we know is
Speaker 1: heavily trumpy, but we did see with this immunity decision
Speaker 1: that five to four they said, like the.
Speaker 2: President is not a king.
Speaker 1: Now they've done a lot of other very trumpy things
Speaker 1: that struck me as a little bit surprising, and perhaps,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course this is norms crushing all of it,
Speaker 1: but I just am curious.
Speaker 5: Well, yes, they have a lifetime appointment senators.
Speaker 1: Right, but senators have long I mean long terms, and
Speaker 1: people like Tillis, I mean Tillis is in a swing state,
Speaker 1: Collins is in a blue state. I mean, the calculus
Speaker 1: of getting re elected. You think that's largely what's happening.
Speaker 5: Oh, I think so again. I bring up Mitt Romie,
Speaker 5: a former Republican presidential candidate from Utah, could not win
Speaker 5: in a primary to be re elected and has left. Right,
Speaker 5: that's the consequence of standing up to Donald Trump. That
Speaker 5: is a consequence of putting country above Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, no, it's worth thinking about. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: No mo pftly Jesse.
Speaker 3: Cannon by Jung Fast. You know, one of the things
Speaker 3: that we've been using as a tool to sleep well
Speaker 3: at night is that these people make big claims and
Speaker 3: they can't do it. You know, we now have the
Speaker 3: Golf of egg prices, I mean, I'm sorry, the Gulf
Speaker 3: of America. And then we had that Elon Musk was
Speaker 3: going to cut the government by at least two jillion dollars.
Speaker 3: It's looking like that ain't going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you'll be shocked to find out that Doge
Speaker 1: is just not is anyone somebody who was going to
Speaker 1: cut the federal government by at least.
Speaker 2: Two trillion dollars. But you know, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: He's very busy interfering with all of the other things. Look,
Speaker 1: you know, interfering with the German election, interfering with the
Speaker 1: British election, making fun of Trudeau. Listen, Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: putting Elon Musk in this weird fake government position. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is getting all of his very rich friends. They're
Speaker 1: going to fix the federal government. No one has ever
Speaker 1: thought of this before. Let me just point out that,
Speaker 1: like we're watching in real time, Elon discover how the
Speaker 1: federal government works. It does a lot of stuff besides
Speaker 1: give him tax incentives that made him the richest man
Speaker 1: in the world who knew Well, see, you know, I
Speaker 1: actually think he's going to try to cut a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, and I don't think that it's going to work.
Speaker 2: But he's already hedging.
Speaker 1: And he says he was asked by Mark Penn, famous
Speaker 1: liberal Mark Penn, who writes pieces for The New York
Speaker 1: Times about what liberals should do.
Speaker 3: One might say, the king of concern trolling.
Speaker 1: Right, this famous liberal Mark Penn, who is most famous
Speaker 1: for trying to use no labels to stymy democratic legislation.
Speaker 3: I thought he was most famous for giving Hillary Quinton
Speaker 3: the advice that helped her lose to Barack Obama.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's also famous for that, Mark Penn. That's right.
Speaker 1: That Mark Penn was sitting with Elon because he's such
Speaker 1: a liberal, and Elon wants to give interviews to liberals
Speaker 1: so clearly, and he was interviewing him, and Elon said
Speaker 1: what all of us thought which is I think we'll
Speaker 1: try for two trillion. I think that's the best case outcome.
Speaker 1: Must responded, but I do think you kind of have
Speaker 1: to have some overage. I think if we try for
Speaker 1: two trillion, we'll get to one trillion, all right, So
Speaker 1: that is about half of what he's saying.
Speaker 2: And if you're just making up numbers, why the fuck not.
Speaker 1: This is vindicating for budget specialists and also for people
Speaker 1: who have half a brain who have been deeply skeptical
Speaker 1: about Musk's claim from the jump about any of this. Look,
Speaker 1: everyone likes the hollowed out carcass that is Twitter. It
Speaker 1: works really well for the nine people who are still
Speaker 1: on there. He's going to do that. He's going to
Speaker 1: hope he's going to try to do that to the
Speaker 1: federal government, and let's hope he can.
Speaker 3: I know that Doze is named after a dog, and
Speaker 3: I think we have a sleeping dog that's going to lie.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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