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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and the Republican Governors Association has withdrawn
Speaker 1: support from Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. We have such a
Speaker 1: great show for you today, the focus Groups. Sarah Longwell
Speaker 1: joins us to talk about focus groups. Then we'll talk
Speaker 1: to MSNBC's Paula Ramos about her new book, Defectors, the
Speaker 1: Rise of the Latino far Right and what it means
Speaker 1: for America.
Speaker 2: But first the news.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, I'm going to tell you Republicans desperately need
Speaker 1: to keep these House seats in Long Island and New
Speaker 1: York State Hudson Valley area, and all they want is
Speaker 1: to get these Long Island congressmen re elected.
Speaker 2: And guess what.
Speaker 3: Just broke these days?
Speaker 4: Hearing about a Republican congressman having an affair seems to
Speaker 4: just mean that we've reached another week in our politics
Speaker 4: since I can think of last week with Mark Green,
Speaker 4: but this one was even on the payroll of the congressman.
Speaker 2: Right exactly.
Speaker 1: You know it's a Republican because they've got their mistress
Speaker 1: on the payroll. John Edwards would like a word, right,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Is a nonpartisan activity. Anthony d
Speaker 1: Esposito and New York two Democrats have been salivating over
Speaker 1: the seat. It's a seat that Biden, It's in a
Speaker 1: district that Biden won in twenty twenty. So in April,
Speaker 1: mister d Esposito added someone to his payroll, a woman
Speaker 1: with whom he was having an affair. Okay, they have
Speaker 1: four sources here. This is from the New York Times.
Speaker 1: The woman she collected two thousand dollars a month for
Speaker 1: a part time job in the same district office. So
Speaker 1: that's pretty bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I should say, since I'm familiar with congressional staffers
Speaker 4: salaries being married to one of them, this is very
Speaker 4: entry level salary, like right above in Yeah.
Speaker 1: What I think is one of the amazing parts of
Speaker 1: the story is that Manu Raju, who covers Congress for CNN,
Speaker 1: went and asked Speaker Johnson if he had spoken Speaker
Speaker 1: of the House Mike Johnson, very very very religious man
Speaker 1: if he had spoken to Dsposito about employing his mistress
Speaker 1: in his district office.
Speaker 2: And he said he had not, that he's.
Speaker 1: Been very busy, as one is when you're the Speaker
Speaker 1: of the House, though this might be important. Then GOP
Speaker 1: whip MANU asked the GOP whip tom Emers. You'll remember
Speaker 1: Tom Emers had some problems because Trump had counted him out.
Speaker 1: He had wanted to be the Speaker of the House.
Speaker 1: Tom Emmer said, we got to get through the week.
Speaker 1: We got a CR that's up tomorrow, and I think
Speaker 1: we're going to have a good vote. So you'll remember
Speaker 1: that Republicans keep being unable to pass a continuing resolution
Speaker 1: because Trump wants to shut down the government. The time
Speaker 1: is now really tight in order to get the CR
Speaker 1: pass so that the government doesn't shut down right before
Speaker 1: an election, because Speaker Johnson has sort of told Trump
Speaker 1: that he can't do that, but they are now sort
Speaker 1: of barreling towards it, and so they have a very
Speaker 1: short period of time in order to pass a continuing resolution.
Speaker 2: So a lot of fuckery there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 4: Mister Brett Farv, a person you and I know a
Speaker 4: lot about because you and I are the most knowledgeable
Speaker 4: people on sports in the world. He had a little
Speaker 4: hearing today and there's a lot of fuckery.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Brett Favre is famous for playing a lot
Speaker 1: of sport, whatever that is.
Speaker 2: I think it's.
Speaker 3: Football, Yes, I know that much.
Speaker 1: He's also famous for his involvement in the largest corruption
Speaker 1: case in Mississippi state history. You know, Mississippi is a
Speaker 1: state with a lot of poverty, a lot of bad
Speaker 1: outcomes when it comes to feedle, maternal life, when it
Speaker 1: comes to education. It's just a state that really has
Speaker 1: had a tough time. So Brett Farv is a cute
Speaker 1: used of misusing Mississippi state welfare funds, and he used
Speaker 1: it to build a stadium, and he used it to
Speaker 1: build a volleyball center. And there are texts by the
Speaker 1: way of him talking to other people. So Brett Favre,
Speaker 1: will the media find out that we're using welfare to
Speaker 1: funds intended for it to help the poorest residents of
Speaker 1: America's poor state build a volleyball center. And the woman
Speaker 1: wrote back, Now the governor is fully on board. Five
Speaker 1: years later, anyway, so Brett Farv was testifying from the
Speaker 1: House today and he talked about how basically none of
Speaker 1: this was his fault, and how he had been tricked
Speaker 1: and how unfair it was. And then he added that
Speaker 1: he had lost a lot of money on other investments,
Speaker 1: including and Jesse's going to play this now, but basically
Speaker 1: that he had lost money on investments in a pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: company that was supposed to help people with concussions, and
Speaker 1: then he worked in that he had been diagnosed with
Speaker 1: parkinson three years ago. Again, I still think that stealing
Speaker 1: that money was wrong, despite the fact that he has Parkinson's.
Speaker 2: That's just me. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
Speaker 4: I've never seen an exemption in a law book that
Speaker 4: says that once you have Parkinson's, you're not liable for
Speaker 4: your crimes anymore. Sobali, the Vice President, has talked about
Speaker 4: throwing away the filibuster to codify abortion rights in America.
Speaker 4: And I'm going to shock you here. Joe Manchin and
Speaker 4: a bunch of idiots are really mad about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean again. She appeared on Wisconsin today. You'll
Speaker 1: remember that Republicans are saying she's not doing enough interviews,
Speaker 1: but here she is actually doing a local news interview,
Speaker 1: and she's saying not that she will eliminate the philibuster
Speaker 1: for everything, just that she will eliminate the philibuster for row.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who think that philibuster should
Speaker 1: be eliminated for Roe, and you'll remember Roe was the
Speaker 1: law of the land for almost fifty years. And Trump
Speaker 1: did install a very conservative Supreme Court. He put three
Speaker 1: chumpy justices on the Supreme Court with the purpose of
Speaker 1: overturning Row. This is a real special situation where I
Speaker 1: think getting rid of the philibuster does not necessarily mean
Speaker 1: getting rid of the philibuster for good.
Speaker 4: The justices that were installed here one might remember at
Speaker 4: Mereric carl And these were basically ill gotten gains injustices right.
Speaker 1: Well they did they stall the Gore Sitch Seed and
Speaker 1: then Justice keg Stand and then Justice bear it. Her
Speaker 1: hearing started while people were already voting.
Speaker 4: We have even more tour dates for you. Did you
Speaker 4: know the Lincoln projects, Rick Wills that have past politics?
Speaker 4: Bole jug Faster heading out on tour to bring you
Speaker 4: a night of last for our dark political landscape. Join
Speaker 4: us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
Speaker 4: Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh
Speaker 4: at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest
Speaker 4: and we'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the
Speaker 4: twenty first of September, and on the twenty second, we'll
Speaker 4: be in Chicago at Citywinery. Then we're going to hit
Speaker 4: the East coast. On September thirtieth, we'll be in Boston
Speaker 4: at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
Speaker 4: we'll be Infilliate City Winery, and then DC on the
Speaker 4: second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just announced
Speaker 4: that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth of
Speaker 4: October at City Winery. If you need to laugh as
Speaker 4: we get through this election and hopefully never hear from
Speaker 4: a guy who lives in a golf club again, we
Speaker 4: got you covered. Join us in our surprise guests to
Speaker 4: help you laugh instead of cry your way through this
Speaker 4: election season and give you the inside analysis of what's
Speaker 4: really going on right now. Buy your tickets now by
Speaker 4: heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as
Speaker 4: Unusual dot bio.
Speaker 1: Sarah Longwhile is the publisher of The Bulwark and the
Speaker 1: host of the focus group podcast Welcome Back two Fast Politics.
Speaker 5: Aw Hey, thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to have you.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because it's like this election cycle, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's been like a century.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well almost a decade.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's true.
Speaker 5: You know, there's a lot of people I've met for
Speaker 5: the first time kind of in the twenties seventeen, and
Speaker 5: you know, we all had like really little kids or
Speaker 5: like I just had my first kid. Now everybody's got
Speaker 5: like grown kids, and it's all been in the span
Speaker 5: of time when Trump happens.
Speaker 2: It's really true.
Speaker 1: It's actually like my kids are like late teens or
Speaker 1: early twenties.
Speaker 2: Now it's like, what can we talk about this?
Speaker 1: Like yesterday there was this sort of they tracked Trump's rallies,
Speaker 1: and now he's gone from like doing five this is
Speaker 1: actually a front.
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about.
Speaker 1: A Frank Luntz tweet, I'm sorry to tell you, yea
Speaker 1: everyone's favorite.
Speaker 2: And I mean that ironically, he had.
Speaker 1: A tweet about like agreeing that Trump really isn't doing
Speaker 1: very many rallies to what he was doing in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: where he was doing as many as three or four
Speaker 1: a day.
Speaker 2: He does feel like the man is like low energy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, like on the point of you know,
Speaker 5: time flies when you're trying to ward off an autocracy
Speaker 5: like Donald Trump is an old man, like he is
Speaker 5: seventy eight.
Speaker 2: I'm seventy eight now, oldest person ever to run for president, oldest.
Speaker 5: Person ever to run for president. So like he's lost
Speaker 5: a step, and you know, he has been able to,
Speaker 5: I think thrive in comparison to Joe Biden because he
Speaker 5: does still have like big lunatic energy when he is
Speaker 5: talking right, and he's charismatic. Yeah, I mean just to
Speaker 5: people who find his particular way of being charismatic. I
Speaker 5: find him repellent whenever he opens his mouth. But you know,
Speaker 5: different strokes for different folks, but he just it is
Speaker 5: so clear when you listen to him where you go back.
Speaker 5: I end up. It's a hazard of my profession that
Speaker 5: I often go back and we'll watch sort of old
Speaker 5: debate footage. And I was doing it at the time,
Speaker 5: you know, looking at Joe Biden's performance going back some years,
Speaker 5: but even looking at Trump, he looks really different. He
Speaker 5: looked terrible at the debate. And I wouldn't normally say
Speaker 5: that as a judgment other than look, they set up
Speaker 5: the prism of age and mental acuity, Like that's the
Speaker 5: frame they wanted with Joe Biden, and now he's got
Speaker 5: to live in that frame, and he's too old to
Speaker 5: be doing this.
Speaker 2: I think that's really important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they were basically running on Biden's age
Speaker 1: until the moment Biden dropped out.
Speaker 5: He's still trying to run on Biden's age. Trump is
Speaker 5: very old, and I think he's very sad that he's
Speaker 5: no longer running against Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, and he does sometimes he slips into as
Speaker 1: I run against Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he clearly wishes as we all look back, because
Speaker 5: it's been such an insane campaign for one that was
Speaker 5: set up to be so boring in terms of just
Speaker 5: like a rematch to a two guys we knew very well.
Speaker 5: It's been an absolute wild ride. I cannot believe how
Speaker 5: unprepared his campaign was for the possibility that maybe Joe
Speaker 5: Biden was going to drop out, and they've never found
Speaker 5: their footing since.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly. I mean that is really what's so
Speaker 1: interesting is that they did. They kept saying, you know,
Speaker 1: Biden has to drop out, Biden has to drop out,
Speaker 1: Biden has to drop out, and then they were like, wait, what.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. They did not think Democrats had it
Speaker 5: in them. Yeah, but it really is Republicans now who
Speaker 5: no matter how big bad things get, they won't drop
Speaker 5: out them. And you look at this Mark Robinson guy,
Speaker 5: like Donald Trump has taught all of these guys you
Speaker 5: just power through. And that's why that's why I think
Speaker 5: they didn't think Joe Biden would do it because Donald
Speaker 5: Trump would never do it. He would never give up power,
Speaker 5: he would never step aside. And he's taught all of
Speaker 5: these other Republicans, like, is the scandal of epic proportions
Speaker 5: so much so that it seems like you'll never get
Speaker 5: out from under it? Is there so much evidence well
Speaker 5: did not It's like the shaggy rule of politics. Just
Speaker 5: like say it wasn't you and pretend like it didn't happen.
Speaker 5: Just barrel through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but let's talk about Mark Robinson in North Carolina
Speaker 1: for a minute, because what is so interesting about him
Speaker 1: is almost everyone in his campaign has it. It's him
Speaker 1: and whoever is left in there who's given up on
Speaker 1: trying to have a career.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's the play there?
Speaker 5: I mean the play is to lose I think. I
Speaker 5: mean I'm watching him. He's got this like OJ defense
Speaker 5: going on where he's like, we're gonna find the real
Speaker 5: person who did it. We will dedicate every last minute
Speaker 5: we have figuring out which AI did went back in
Speaker 5: time and subscribed me to all the like spad I
Speaker 5: was a black Nazi and indorsed slavery, that the transgender
Speaker 5: porn was my jam while I'm you know, demonizing transgender kids.
Speaker 5: The funny thing about the Mark Robinson stuff is all
Speaker 5: the new stuff is like it's bad, but is it
Speaker 5: worse than the stuff? We already knew him being a
Speaker 5: holocaust and I are him saying that, you know, him
Speaker 5: acting like he's a big pro life guy when he
Speaker 5: paid for an abortion, you know ford his wife had
Speaker 5: so like, this guy's been a bad guy from the jump.
Speaker 5: And you know, the voters in North Carolina, the Republican
Speaker 5: primary voters, they had a choice between like Joe Normy
Speaker 5: candidate and Mark Robinson. And in the primary they picked
Speaker 5: Mark Robinson by a landslide. And this is what Republican
Speaker 5: primary voters want. I guess they're going to get it
Speaker 5: good and hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, Sarah, I would say, also he is You'll
Speaker 1: remember he's also the lieutenant governor. Now he's already has
Speaker 1: an elected office there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and this was one of the reasons that they
Speaker 5: didn't want Rory Cooper was getting when he was considered
Speaker 5: right for vice president. He couldn't step aside because nobody
Speaker 5: wanted to give this guy a bigger platform. Yes, and
Speaker 5: he should resign again, because we've lived a lifetime in
Speaker 5: just less than a decade. But in the before times,
Speaker 5: in the beforetimes, something like this would be ruinous for
Speaker 5: any candidate, but especially a character counts, morality based GOP candidate.
Speaker 5: But today it's just you know, it's Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly, It's Tuesday if you're listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure euro listeners have the same real anxiet
Speaker 1: about this fucking election.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I was actually with someone earlier who is from
Speaker 1: Biden world, and they were talking about their path and
Speaker 1: how they thought they would win. But they felt that
Speaker 1: it was a much narrower path than what she has
Speaker 1: and that she has actually opened up the map in
Speaker 1: certain ways.
Speaker 2: Where do you see this election happening?
Speaker 5: So one of the things about North Carolina, North Carolina
Speaker 5: wasn't even on my list of states to play in.
Speaker 5: She put it in contention in a meaningful way that said,
Speaker 5: I still like I don't sit around being like, oh
Speaker 5: my god, what if she doesn't win North Carolina. I
Speaker 5: never thought Democrats were going to win North Carolina, and
Speaker 5: so I've been like, it is Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska too,
Speaker 5: that's your path. Part of it is like she's over
Speaker 5: performing with white voters, like she's doing well with white voters.
Speaker 5: I think there was maybe some concern. I know I
Speaker 5: had some concern demographically with Biden dropping out, like Biden
Speaker 5: was doing very well with older white people that was
Speaker 5: who he was working for, and I was like, oh.
Speaker 2: Man, because he's an older white person.
Speaker 5: Yes he is. But she continues to do well with
Speaker 5: those voters. And I think that she's been sort of
Speaker 5: putting the coalition back together in terms of Hispanics and
Speaker 5: in terms of black voters that had been kind of
Speaker 5: sliding away from Joe Biden. And she's still under where
Speaker 5: Biden was in terms of what he finally hit in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty, and so she's got more work to do.
Speaker 5: But I do think that that those industrial kind of
Speaker 5: Midwest states are still the path.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what you're seeing in focus groups.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I talked to Tim Miller
Speaker 1: about and I assume Tim Miller and you are seeing
Speaker 1: the same focus group stuff.
Speaker 5: Tim is seeing my focus groups. Yes, that's what it means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I assume Tim is seeing your focus groups.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 2: What he said to me before she jumped out was
Speaker 2: that she had more of an upside than he did.
Speaker 5: Yes, Well, so you're saying that Tim was surprised by that,
Speaker 5: or that's something he said before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that he said, well, you know, she has more
Speaker 1: of an upside, she has more of a path that
Speaker 1: she can win these people that he couldn't.
Speaker 5: Maybe nod, yes, So that is a one hundred percent
Speaker 5: sure in the focus groups. And this is when we
Speaker 5: were in that weird interregnum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the three weeks from how.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I was a you know, I was allowed
Speaker 5: Joe Biden's got to drop out, and primarily because of
Speaker 5: what I was seeing in the focus groups, Like, yeah,
Speaker 5: they were just a center left voters, like soft Biden voters,
Speaker 5: young people, they were just he's too old. They felt
Speaker 5: like it was irresponsible to vote for him. He was
Speaker 5: never going to finish out his term. They weren't going
Speaker 5: to vote for Trump, but they were. I'm so mad
Speaker 5: about Biden. I love my Midwestern governors my Josh Shapiro's
Speaker 5: and Gretchen Whitmer's, and I was concerned. I'd spent years
Speaker 5: listening to people talk about their negative impressions of Harris. However,
Speaker 5: when I started to look harder at it, when it
Speaker 5: got you know, starting to get down to like this
Speaker 5: might really happen, it did start to become pretty clear
Speaker 5: that it needed to be Kamala Harris from a logistical standpoint,
Speaker 5: and I was just like, you know what, she's got upside.
Speaker 5: She's got upside because when you listen to the voters
Speaker 5: who were saying they have a negative impression of her,
Speaker 5: the impression was so loose and it was so rooted
Speaker 5: in I don't see her, I don't know or I
Speaker 5: don't know what she's doing. And so that was the upside.
Speaker 5: I was like, Okay, well let's see her, let's meet her,
Speaker 5: let's know what she's doing, and like if they like her,
Speaker 5: then good. And this is where what she has done
Speaker 5: has when people look back, I mean, her favorables are
Speaker 5: through the room. Like she's made like a twenty point gain.
Speaker 2: In favorability she's w after nine to eleven. Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 5: She's completely reversed the enthusiasm advantage that Republicans had. I mean,
Speaker 5: people like get a. I think the polling is one thing,
Speaker 5: but like, look at all the other indices, Look at
Speaker 5: the small dollar donors, look at how many people are new,
Speaker 5: look at registrations, look at volunteering, like the people who
Speaker 5: are coming out, and like if you talk to anybody
Speaker 5: who's running a precinct or is in a state, like
Speaker 5: they can't handle the volume of volunteers. Now, those things
Speaker 5: aren't votes, but I do think that they speak to
Speaker 5: something bigger than just vibes and what I see from
Speaker 5: swing voters. So she had I think we could see
Speaker 5: that she had upside back then. I don't think any
Speaker 5: of us anticipated she'd had the kind of upside that
Speaker 5: she's had. And that is to give her just an
Speaker 5: enormous amount of credit. So that is based on her performance,
Speaker 5: you know, I think that all of us got a
Speaker 5: little bit. We just seen one too many supercuts of
Speaker 5: her kind of word salading, and we thought, like, oh man,
Speaker 5: she doesn't have it. But like whatever she was doing
Speaker 5: right as vice president, where she was getting her reps in,
Speaker 5: like she came out the other side good better, like
Speaker 5: a better politician, you know, and I wish there's a
Speaker 5: couple of things. Obviously, I wish we were seeing from her.
Speaker 5: I wish she was just more forthright about the fact that,
Speaker 5: you know, three and a half years as vice president
Speaker 5: allowed her to understand more about how she had to
Speaker 5: leave California politics behind and focus on how you govern
Speaker 5: for the entire country. And that's why she's moved to
Speaker 5: the center on certain things like just give people like
Speaker 5: and people understand, Okay, you changed your mind, you got
Speaker 5: more information as opposed to just changing positions. I also
Speaker 5: think the thing that I see in focus groups that's
Speaker 5: so interesting is I've known for a long time that
Speaker 5: the more people see of Donald Trump, the less they
Speaker 5: like him. When like Donald Trump is high salience, when
Speaker 5: he is in people's faces, you see his numbers go
Speaker 5: down in terms of favorability because people don't like him
Speaker 5: when they see him. She and Tim, the more people
Speaker 5: see them, the more they like them. Kamala, if you're listening,
Speaker 5: get him out there, Get him out there, I mean
Speaker 5: as much of a breakneck pace as their significantly younger
Speaker 5: statuses can handle, Like Tim Walls, get put him everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 5: So that would be my only kind of complaint is
Speaker 5: that I sometimes think this team has a little like
Speaker 5: Biden PTSD or like you couldn't put this guy anywhere,
Speaker 5: and like these people need to be everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are like out there a lot though. I mean,
Speaker 2: but I agree.
Speaker 1: And Tim Walls, I think is really a good surrogaate,
Speaker 1: Like he really has that Midwestern thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean when he talks about gutters and gutter maintenance. Yes,
Speaker 5: I just feel like, you know, when he's feeding a
Speaker 5: baby cow with a model and he's talking to it, Like,
Speaker 5: put that guy everywhere in central Pennsylvania, in the big
Speaker 5: vast ocean where I grew up, between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Speaker 5: Just send him in, send him to the arm show.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a really good point. That's why
Speaker 1: I was saying that I thought he was a smart pick.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting to me because I had interviewed her
Speaker 1: a couple times, Harris, and I had thought, you know,
Speaker 1: she's really good and everybody hates her and I can't
Speaker 1: figure out why this is, Like in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I've interviewed a lot of politicians
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are like some.
Speaker 2: Of them are just so careful, like Corey Booker. Corey
Speaker 2: Booker is.
Speaker 1: So careful, like you could like him or not like him,
Speaker 1: but he's so careful it's almost impossible to interview him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand, But like with her, she is not even
Speaker 1: that careful.
Speaker 2: She's just really good.
Speaker 1: And I was like, she's really good, and I kept saying,
Speaker 1: you know, she's really good, and finally got to a
Speaker 1: place where I was like, I guess that America is
Speaker 1: just so racist and sexist that they can't see that
Speaker 1: she's actually really good. And so when she got up
Speaker 1: there and she was really good, I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I was actually right. I always sort of
Speaker 1: believed in my heart that she was really good, and
Speaker 1: I've been really grad to see that. But I also
Speaker 1: I thought Wallas was the pick. But again, if they
Speaker 1: lose Pennsylvania, I will not have thought Wallas was the pick.
Speaker 5: I was realizing.
Speaker 1: I was like, if they lose Pennsylvania, then Josh Shapiro
Speaker 1: would have been a better back.
Speaker 5: That's right, we're not going to know. We're not gonna
Speaker 5: be able to run the counterfactual on that unless I
Speaker 5: think we can all ye assume if she loses Pennsylvania
Speaker 5: by ten thousand votes. We will have wished she picked Joshpia,
Speaker 5: But obviously I'm a Pennsylvania person. I'm a Shapiro person.
Speaker 5: But I like Tim Walls a ton. I want more
Speaker 5: Tim Walls so that he can do the thing that
Speaker 5: I think he was supposed to do.
Speaker 2: I think that's smart.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's really interesting that we're seeing
Speaker 1: out of Donald Trump is Donald Trump clearly is seeing
Speaker 1: that women don't like him.
Speaker 5: I do think he's catching on to that, yes, which
Speaker 5: is why he wos them in all caps.
Speaker 2: So I laugh to keep from crying.
Speaker 1: But women will be safer, they'll no longer think about abortion.
Speaker 2: Who is giving him this advice?
Speaker 5: If I had to lame money, I'd say it's Kelly
Speaker 5: and Conway. Oh really, yeah, because I think she's probably
Speaker 5: the only Polster that he has who like tells him
Speaker 5: to try with women. I think the rest of his team,
Speaker 5: like clearly the JD Vance pick and everything else, up
Speaker 5: until this point, has been trying to run up numbers
Speaker 5: with men. And my guess is because she is not
Speaker 5: Kelly and Conway is not stupid. She is a smart person,
Speaker 5: and she understands these numbers, and I think she went
Speaker 5: in there and was like, yes, you are leading by
Speaker 5: this much with men, but you are cratering with women,
Speaker 5: and like you have got to do something to lose
Speaker 5: less badly here. And that was his response. That's how
Speaker 5: he interpreted that, probably perfectly, saying advice.
Speaker 1: The all caps and this sort of menacing way he's
Speaker 1: mentioning it seemed to have really threaded the needle.
Speaker 5: I don't know how you would do this, but there
Speaker 5: is part of me that wants to go interview women
Speaker 5: who've like survived abusive relationships and ask how similar this
Speaker 5: kind of gaslighting is, because this like the way that
Speaker 5: Trump because he's a predator himself right when he actually
Speaker 5: he's the protector. Like you can feel the predator all
Speaker 5: over it. I just have to imagine people who sort
Speaker 5: of deal with men who are predators like this, like
Speaker 5: would recognize the behavior pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: It feels like very menacing, yeah, you know, and like
Speaker 1: a little bit of a thread.
Speaker 5: And low key menace has always been part of the
Speaker 5: Trump experience that I do think we under talk about.
Speaker 5: He's sort of using it here broadly, just like aimed
Speaker 5: like idiotically at women, but like This is how he
Speaker 5: gets Republicans to be in line right as by you know,
Speaker 5: sort of turning. But he like tries to be like
Speaker 5: he'll turn on the charm, turn on the be like
Speaker 5: sort of obsequious and stuck up to people, kind of
Speaker 5: the way he talks about.
Speaker 2: Putin now his favorite.
Speaker 5: And then on the other side he'll kind of do
Speaker 5: a yeah, my followers. You know, can't control those guys.
Speaker 5: He knows if I send a tweet, break run. And
Speaker 5: you know when Lindsey Graham turned on him after the insurrection,
Speaker 5: he got right back on board after a bunch of
Speaker 5: Trump's followers came and screamed at him at an airport.
Speaker 2: Oh God, I remember that.
Speaker 5: This is how it works. This is how they keep
Speaker 5: these guys on side.
Speaker 1: Just explain to our listeners why people like Dick Cheney
Speaker 1: aren't important endorsement.
Speaker 5: Are or are not? Are are a couple reasons number
Speaker 5: one Right now, we're in a space of persuasion around
Speaker 5: low information voters. And it's the kind of like super
Speaker 5: weird news item that makes a low information voter be like,
Speaker 5: wait a minute, that Dick Cheney is endorsing Kamala Harris.
Speaker 5: It is the kind of thing that breaks through. And
Speaker 5: so I would say that's number one because I think
Speaker 5: for a lot of other people, like Jeff Duncan, who's
Speaker 5: a wonderful person and a wonderful Republican, is not a
Speaker 5: household name, and so him endorsing is different than like
Speaker 5: Dick Cheney, who people have a very fixed understanding of
Speaker 5: and no one thinks is like a rhino, right, And
Speaker 5: so I think as part of it, I also think
Speaker 5: that for a certain Washington set that we still need
Speaker 5: to come speak out. There is a weird permission structure
Speaker 5: being built by other folks that says, oh, we can
Speaker 5: just keep our hands clean, we can just step back
Speaker 5: and do nothing. I can say, oh, I'm not going
Speaker 5: to vote for Trump. This is kind of the Mike
Speaker 5: Pence way. I'm not going to vote for Trump. You know.
Speaker 5: Brett Stevens is on HBO, is on Bill Maher being like,
Speaker 5: but how could I vote for Harris? Like, you know? So,
Speaker 5: And I think that there's something in Dick Cheney being like,
Speaker 5: don't be idiots, just vote for this normal person over
Speaker 5: this psychopath is like helpful with that set.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so interesting, so smart, so important. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Sarah longle Hey thanks for having me always fun.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right
Speaker 1: now we have us release the final episode of this
Speaker 1: five episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly
Speaker 1: Jong Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if
Speaker 1: you are more of a podcast person and not say
Speaker 1: a YouTuber, you can hit play and put your phone
Speaker 1: in the lock screen and it will play back just
Speaker 1: like a podcast. All five episodes are online now. We
Speaker 1: need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term would
Speaker 1: or could do to this country, so please watch it
Speaker 1: and spread the word. Paula Ramos is an MSNBC contributor
Speaker 1: and the author of Defectors, The Rise of the Latino
Speaker 1: Far Right and What it Means for America.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: So first, let's start by talking about this book, because
Speaker 1: I feel like it's very much what we're all kind
Speaker 1: of thinking about in this election. Is this sort of
Speaker 1: interesting moment in the culture and also in this Latino
Speaker 1: voting base, explain to us where we are, what it
Speaker 1: looks like.
Speaker 2: And again, Latino voters are not a monolith.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different subgroups in there, so kind
Speaker 1: of talk to.
Speaker 6: Us about that definitely, so defector. So the idea kind
Speaker 6: of like sub cautiously started in twenty sixteen. So in
Speaker 6: twenty sixteen, I'm like working in the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Speaker 6: Back then I had the stancy title of like deputy
Speaker 6: director of Hispanic Press and so like so much of
Speaker 6: the theory of challenge in that moment with that, like
Speaker 6: in the face of someone like Donald Trump, right, like
Speaker 6: the skuy I was insulting immigrants, Mexicans, like in the
Speaker 6: face of someone like him. The theory in the formula
Speaker 6: was that Latinos would sort of rise in these unprecedented numbers,
Speaker 6: right and I mean literally like until the very last
Speaker 6: day of that campaign, Like that's what people were holding
Speaker 6: onto I'll never forget, like the morning of the election,
Speaker 6: and then fast forward to that ninth in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 6: It's not just a Donald Trump points, it's that less
Speaker 6: than fifty percent of Latinos actually show up to the polls.
Speaker 6: And then sort of fast forward to where we were
Speaker 6: than in November twenty twenty, and you see that Donald Trump, right, like,
Speaker 6: after four years of this administration, after four years of
Speaker 6: family like separation, zero tolerance policy, all the insults, you
Speaker 6: suddenly see that here goes Trump and he does between
Speaker 6: eight to ten points better with Latino voters. So we're
Speaker 6: talking about like thirty percent of forty percent of the
Speaker 6: of the Latino vote, Like pure research had him a
Speaker 6: forty percent. So that what that you just said, Molly, Like,
Speaker 6: that's what sort of is at the heart of what
Speaker 6: drove me to write this book, Like, how do you explain?
Speaker 6: And I always want to correct my Like it is
Speaker 6: we're talking about like a small but a growing number
Speaker 6: of latinos as finds something appealing in trump Ism, right,
Speaker 6: and it the far right, and that slippery slope towards
Speaker 6: extremism is so much kind of easier and seamless than
Speaker 6: what we thought our entire lives.
Speaker 1: There are Latino voters who are absolutely not moving in
Speaker 1: that direction. So explain to sort of the subgroup that
Speaker 1: because like Cuban voters have been conservative forever, right, So
Speaker 1: explain does who it is who's.
Speaker 2: Who's moving in that direction?
Speaker 6: Right, So for sure, and I think that's that's really important. Rightly.
Speaker 6: I think come this November, you will not hear the
Speaker 6: story that Donald Trump wins the Latino vote. And I think,
Speaker 6: I think that's that's not the story. The story is
Speaker 6: why is he making such inbros?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: Like why is this voting block that is so like
Speaker 6: it's the antithesis of Trump? Isn't like what are they seeing?
Speaker 6: So I think that movement is happening who exactly? So
Speaker 6: it's adding in many different directions. You have one block,
Speaker 6: which is the way that this like anti immigrant sentiment
Speaker 6: is really getting into people's psyche's right. So now you
Speaker 6: see that the that the number of Latinos that are
Speaker 6: warming up to mass deportations and warming up to the wall,
Speaker 6: like that's increasing.
Speaker 2: Right, But those are not Mexican Latinos.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
Speaker 6: Really In the book, like I spend so much time
Speaker 6: with like with Mexican Americans. I mean I just gone
Speaker 6: back from Arizona and I was talking to Mexican Americans
Speaker 6: that in conversation you sort of start to to hear,
Speaker 6: know these the verious subtle references to like those immigrants
Speaker 6: and those criminals. And I think part of what I'm
Speaker 6: trying to do in the book is so people understand
Speaker 6: that like to be Latino doesn't make you immune to
Speaker 6: the anti imbgrant sentiment. In fact, that it actually makes
Speaker 6: a lot of sense, right because we're talking about a
Speaker 6: Latino liketriy that is so different from what it was
Speaker 6: thirty years ago. Like right now, it is third generation
Speaker 6: Latinos that are the fastest great segment within their voting
Speaker 6: black And so we're talking about a segment of people
Speaker 6: that right now are born in the United States, are
Speaker 6: super young, and prefer to speak English and Spanish. And
Speaker 6: so when you taught to them, perhaps the country sees
Speaker 6: them as immigrants or as Latinos, they see themselves as
Speaker 6: fully American, and sort of the key in the heart
Speaker 6: of what makes it such a complicated conversation is that
Speaker 6: there is this sort of amongst them, no, but there's
Speaker 6: this sort of subtle like fear, this unconscious fear that America,
Speaker 6: particularly white America, will always look at them as these
Speaker 6: like perpetual foreigners. Right because that anti immigrant sentiment is
Speaker 6: so strong, Like study after study after study showed you
Speaker 6: that like I just phrase like as Mexican emigrant increases
Speaker 6: in some counties, white people's attitudes towards their black neighbors
Speaker 6: become more positive, but their attitudes towards their Latino neighbors
Speaker 6: become more negative. I mean, you've talked about this so
Speaker 6: many times, like the anti immigrant sentiment that cenophobia can
Speaker 6: at times subdue like anti blackness. But so here you
Speaker 6: have like a growing group of Latinos that that wants
Speaker 6: to feel like they belong, and not only that, they
Speaker 6: have to prove that they belong even though they're folio Americans.
Speaker 6: So you know, so it's it's that's the hard part
Speaker 6: to understand, like where it all comes from. And so yeah,
Speaker 6: you have like Mexican Americans and other Latinos across the
Speaker 6: board that are buying into the anti Morgant sentiment as
Speaker 6: well as some Latinos that are buying into the like
Speaker 6: anti blackness. There's a reason why Donald Trump went to
Speaker 6: the Bronx, right, we were all laughing, but their racial
Speaker 6: grievance totally.
Speaker 2: And he had huge numbers in the Bronx.
Speaker 1: The thing that I always think about Trump is that
Speaker 1: one of the things Trump does very smart like is
Speaker 1: that he offers people who are being offered nothing something exactly.
Speaker 6: That's exactly right. It's so smart. Like one of the
Speaker 6: things that he did in this campaign is in twenty
Speaker 6: sixteen or in twenty twenty, the label was Latinos for Trump, right,
Speaker 6: and then in twenty twenty four he's changed it to
Speaker 6: Latino Americans for Trump, the emphasis on Americans.
Speaker 5: And I think that's like he is.
Speaker 6: So convinced that at this point there's a segment of
Speaker 6: Latinos that have become so assimilated or or that want
Speaker 6: to assimilate so much that they too will buy into
Speaker 6: the nativism and the anti emergan sentiments and the anti
Speaker 6: blackness and the sort of you know, trans cultural words,
Speaker 6: and like that's it. Now, make those people believe that
Speaker 6: they to are American, even though fundamentally Trump is completely
Speaker 6: like you know, neglects them and fundamentally disavows them. But
Speaker 6: make them believe that they're American, and it works.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's right, And I think that that is
Speaker 1: a good point. He can't quite square the circle though
Speaker 1: in this election.
Speaker 2: You think or now, no.
Speaker 5: And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 6: Like I think, like we said, like, we will not
Speaker 6: hear a story where Donald Trump wins the election with
Speaker 6: Latinos part of the reason why. And I just I
Speaker 6: just got back from Arizona and one of the things
Speaker 6: that I was doing in Arizona was talking to mixed
Speaker 6: status families. And so we're talking about, you know, moms
Speaker 6: that are dreamers that have been here for over twenty
Speaker 6: years that now have US citizen children.
Speaker 1: And FYI, almost all families are mixed status families one
Speaker 1: hundred percent.
Speaker 6: And I think that's that's such an important point to
Speaker 6: put out there because when we're talking about like the
Speaker 6: Latina voting blockber immigration, like now we can say that
Speaker 6: like everyone's impacted, right, Like there's over ten million US
Speaker 6: citizens that live within and among mix status families, right,
Speaker 6: and so there's millions and millions of Americans that like,
Speaker 6: you know, this is what they have to to face.
Speaker 6: And so my point is, as we speak and as
Speaker 6: we approach the election, there are thousands of mixed status families,
Speaker 6: particularly in a battle bread state like Arizona, that are
Speaker 6: literally thinking about what self deportation plans will look like
Speaker 6: if Donald Trump wins the election. And like I was
Speaker 6: having conversations with them, we're literally a mom had to
Speaker 6: figure out who would have custody of her US children
Speaker 6: if Trump wins, right, because they're thinking back to just
Speaker 6: a couple of years, back to the years of Sheriff
Speaker 6: jor Pyo, where racial profiling happened, where people were knocking
Speaker 6: on their doors. And so it's real. And I think
Speaker 6: precisely because of what we learned from Arizona, which is
Speaker 6: that as our Pio heard of his rise, so too
Speaker 6: were the number of Latino voters and that created a backlash.
Speaker 6: And so there is this mobilizing force in places like
Speaker 6: Arizona that are being energized when they hear this antimager
Speaker 6: rhetoric and they're going to go vote right, Like these
Speaker 6: kids that saw their parents being deported and detained and
Speaker 6: racial and profiled. They did it one time in Arizona
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty. That's one of the reasons why Joe
Speaker 6: Biden won, but by almost less than one percent, but
Speaker 6: he won, and they're going to do it again. And
Speaker 6: I still think that will carry more weight than than
Speaker 6: the sort of of like write worship that is also happening.
Speaker 6: You know, think true stories can be real out once,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 1: I agree, and I think that's probably right. The polls
Speaker 1: have been really tight from Arizona. But they've been really
Speaker 1: tight at the top of the ticket, and they show Rubin,
Speaker 1: you know, just absolutely crushing carry like at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the ticket. I think she will yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: make it make sense. Are the Ruben Trump voters? I
Speaker 1: mean that seems insane to me. But Rubin is Latino too.
Speaker 6: He is Latino. He has something that's so interesting. Like
Speaker 6: I was having a conversation with the sheriff in Penell County.
Speaker 6: He's a Trump supporter, and he, you know, even though
Speaker 6: he's conservative, he's a Trump supporter. She's pro you know,
Speaker 6: mass reportations. But in Rubin, he sort of sees his
Speaker 6: military and background, you know, and she sees his toughness,
Speaker 6: and she sees the Democrat that we have to recognize
Speaker 6: it is no longer going to the left when it
Speaker 6: comes to e regration. But just like you know, the
Speaker 6: Vice president, they're going center right, and so that is
Speaker 6: making a huge difference. No, now we're suddenly these demo
Speaker 6: at in a place I maybe four years ago you
Speaker 6: heard of Joe Biden promised comprehensive immigration reform and a
Speaker 6: more humane asylum system and you know, humanity at the border.
Speaker 6: Those sigging points are gone. It's that's really helping a
Speaker 6: Ruben Diego. And I think it'll it'll come down to
Speaker 6: that formula that I think the Democrats are are sort
Speaker 6: of leaning into, no, leaning to the center right on immigration,
Speaker 6: try and remember and try and get people to understand
Speaker 6: how cruel these like dehumanizing language is. But I think
Speaker 6: that center right approach is what everyone's counting on. And
Speaker 6: activists aren't happy about that. I'll tell you that, No, I'm.
Speaker 2: Not even that happy about it.
Speaker 6: But it's the way to win, that's right exactly.
Speaker 1: So you do think that there are Diego Trump voters.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to think of those people and know that
Speaker 6: that would do something like that, that those like a
Speaker 6: Latino voter that would go for a Ruben Diego and
Speaker 6: not for a you know, Diego Harris ticket. Yeah, And
Speaker 6: I think they would come down to like the miss
Speaker 6: and disinformation around now, if you're sort of a Ladina,
Speaker 6: you know, support that's curious around Trump, and what really
Speaker 6: resonates with you is the missing disinformation about her being
Speaker 6: a communist now, about her being like the borders zar.
Speaker 6: What really really resonates with you is sort of depicting
Speaker 6: her as someone that is really aligned with like the
Speaker 6: LGBTQ queer like trans community. There's certain talking points that
Speaker 6: I think, you know, the right is trying really really
Speaker 6: hard to associate with her that I think a guy
Speaker 6: will to sort of distance himself from that now because
Speaker 6: he's local, he knows the border, he's a military guy,
Speaker 6: he's a tough guy. But I think that's where like
Speaker 6: a lot of the miss and disinformation like works. Now
Speaker 6: there's a distance with her, in a sort of discomfort
Speaker 6: with her, again among a small group, but it does work. No,
Speaker 6: I mean I think about the fact all the time,
Speaker 6: Like in twenty twenty more Latinas believe that Democrats were
Speaker 6: headed towards communism, then they believed that Republicans were headed
Speaker 6: towards fascism. No, and that's where you see it. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's crazy, but that's where they're so good at. No,
Speaker 6: it's the narrative that like the mas and the disinformation,
Speaker 6: it's on the radio, it's on What's Up, it's on Facebook,
Speaker 6: Like that's where they do really well.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the radio stuff, because that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what that looks like. Because there
Speaker 1: are these Spanish language radio stations they're a big deal.
Speaker 2: What does that landscape look like?
Speaker 6: It's so different, you know, the same way that we
Speaker 6: say that Latinos are a monolith, like the Spanish language
Speaker 6: media ecosystem is changing so much, and it looks so
Speaker 6: different from state of stateium. You go to a place
Speaker 6: like South Florida and Miami, obviously Miami Daye County, the
Speaker 6: heart know of a state like Florida, more often than not,
Speaker 6: you will hear conservative radio hosts spreading the big lie
Speaker 6: and still doubling down on the communist talking point, like
Speaker 6: that is still happening right now. And if you go
Speaker 6: to like Arizona that has a larger population of like
Speaker 6: immigrant families and mixed status families, you there see some
Speaker 6: small radio stations that are like long like historically associated
Speaker 6: for instance, with the like Ceasar of Tatler's movement, that
Speaker 6: are trying so hard day and day out so sort
Speaker 6: of put the politics aside and keep the immigrant community informed.
Speaker 6: Knowing that's and and if you tune in, it's like
Speaker 6: most most of these like small Latino led organizations that
Speaker 6: are like trying really hard to like cut through that noise.
Speaker 6: But I think what I will say is that in
Speaker 6: since twenty twenty until now, there has been a concerted
Speaker 6: effort by some Republicans to change the direction of Spanish
Speaker 6: language media for it to be more conservative. When we're
Speaker 6: talking about television, I've talked to so many different business folks,
Speaker 6: like Republican Latino business folks that tell me one thing,
Speaker 6: and that is, I don't want to create the Spanish
Speaker 6: language fosslings. And they're trying, you know, and they're and
Speaker 6: they're doing it at small scale like you see in
Speaker 6: like in Texas, like there's there's people that are already
Speaker 6: trying to do that, like partnering with like Christian Television
Speaker 6: that work to make sure that like Christian City has
Speaker 6: Spanish language content. And so I think that, you know,
Speaker 6: there's the shift is happening everywhere now what used to
Speaker 6: be Spanish language CV and radio like twenty thirty years ago,
Speaker 6: like back in the day where like people would like
Speaker 6: listen to my dad, tune into a newscast and just
Speaker 6: believe the host.
Speaker 5: Like that's gone.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 6: It's so different right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, so interesting. What groups are Republicans really unable
Speaker 1: to get?
Speaker 6: I mean, I think what's interesting now is that there's
Speaker 6: sort of like the two forces and not on the left.
Speaker 6: You have this sort of Republican right word shift happening
Speaker 6: not just about produce your Republican folks, but about many
Speaker 6: Latinos that are now more assimilated americanizing that are curious.
Speaker 6: But then, and this is where I think it's more interesting,
Speaker 6: then you have the youth vote. Now, then you have
Speaker 6: the third generation Latinos that if you start to doom in,
Speaker 6: you know, you understand that like among all the millennial generation,
Speaker 6: it is Latinos that are more likely to identify themselves
Speaker 6: as queer. No, you have a generation that doesn't speak
Speaker 6: in Spanish or in English, but in Spanish, you have
Speaker 6: a generation that's not scared to lean into being like
Speaker 6: after Latino and indigenous and queer. And so what happens
Speaker 6: with that block is not only do they feel more
Speaker 6: freedom to be themselves, which is like such a beautiful
Speaker 6: thing and distinguishes themselves from the older generations of Latinos
Speaker 6: that sort of had to like fit into stereotypes, but
Speaker 6: they feel more empowered to challenge the Democratic Party, to
Speaker 6: hold the Democratic more accountable, to ask for champaigns to
Speaker 6: be there not just a month before, but a year, two,
Speaker 6: three before, and it's happening like the way that the
Speaker 6: Vice President and Joe Biden's team was campaigning and trying
Speaker 6: to get the Latino vote this year, it happened way
Speaker 6: before any other years now. So I think that's the difference.
Speaker 6: So there's this progressive rising young Latina vote. They're leanings
Speaker 6: being Democrats, but they're independent in the sense that they
Speaker 6: know that people now have to fight for their vote
Speaker 6: in a way that perhaps they didn't have to do
Speaker 6: it for their grand turns or their pain.
Speaker 1: It's also part of it, though, is that they're not religious,
Speaker 1: like Latinos are becoming less religious.
Speaker 6: Sure, and that's again it's like everything's always I always
Speaker 6: go back to like two things are always happening at
Speaker 6: the same time. It's like the rate of Latinos that
Speaker 6: are athlic is like plummeting, but there's always a butt.
Speaker 6: But the amount of Latinas that are converting to evangelicalism
Speaker 6: is writing in this moment, Latinos are the fastest spring
Speaker 6: group of the American evangelicals, right, They're outpacing white evangelicals
Speaker 6: in their ray. So part of that why so part
Speaker 6: of that is because and you're right, like as we
Speaker 6: are becoming less religious, there's this sort of new phenomenon happening,
Speaker 6: and part of that is linked to Latin America. So
Speaker 6: many of the asylum seekers, in the migrants that have
Speaker 6: come to this country in the last ten years, I've
Speaker 6: been carrying these evangelical beliefs. Think of a country like Guatemala,
Speaker 6: and Guatemala right now is forty percent evangelical.
Speaker 5: I saw the door.
Speaker 6: Brazil thirty percent evangelical. And so there's this evangelical boom
Speaker 6: that's happening in Latin America. A lot of people are
Speaker 6: cheering that with them, with them here for years, they've
Speaker 6: been stepping into these evangelical churches that were not political.
Speaker 6: Now that we're sort of this like sense of refuge
Speaker 6: in the safe place and a sort of sanctuary place
Speaker 6: for many people, while in the last five years they're
Speaker 6: becoming more politicized. I mean Donald Trump started his Evangelicals
Speaker 6: for Trump, his national Evangelicals for Trump campaign in twenty twenty.
Speaker 6: Not in Ohio, not in Wisconsin, out in Pennsylvania. He
Speaker 6: started it in Miami Dade County, targetting Latinos because they
Speaker 6: understand and that's kind of what's happening. You know, Republicans
Speaker 6: have understood the same way that the Christian wright has
Speaker 6: understood the same way that like evangelicals have understood. Trump
Speaker 6: isam has understood that they cannot survive without some portion
Speaker 6: of the Latino bol right, and that's what they're going into.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for letting me talk about this.
Speaker 4: Nose canon Molly junk Fast. So Job mcintee, who you
Speaker 4: may remember from Project twenty twenty five, being Trump's deputy president.
Speaker 4: I'm going to shock you here. Guy from the Trump administration.
Speaker 4: Not a good guy.
Speaker 1: So he's one of the architects of Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: He is also, I might add, a person who works
Speaker 1: at the Peter Tiel back to dating app the right stuff.
Speaker 1: So today Wire Magazine reported that he was talking on
Speaker 1: that he was texting with two different eighteen year old
Speaker 1: college freshmen and they both said that they felt that
Speaker 1: he was inappropriate with them in online conversations.
Speaker 2: Often this is not a one off.
Speaker 1: But we'll see, right, we'll see if this is just
Speaker 1: how he behaved with two people in complete isolation and
Speaker 1: never again.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 1: But that my friend, the guy who worked on Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. He's also the guy who did the
Speaker 1: video where he said that Harris was lying when she
Speaker 1: talked about a woman bleeding out in a parking lot.
Speaker 2: Remember that TikTok video?
Speaker 3: I sure do.
Speaker 4: I also remember the one where he talks about giving
Speaker 4: fake money the homeless.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that guy. Shockingly, that guy is not a good guy.
Speaker 3: Never would have guessed it.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear 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.