Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and President Biden has called for a
Speaker 1: ban on congressional stock trading. We have such a great
Speaker 1: show for you today, such a great show, the Al
Speaker 1: Franken Shows. Al Franken stops by to talk about how
Speaker 1: Trump's administration will be pretty bad for people who live
Speaker 1: on Earth. Then we will talk to Justice Alison Riggs
Speaker 1: about her contentious race in North Carolina and the many
Speaker 1: recounts that have followed. But first the news, Somalie.
Speaker 2: You know, many people are hoping that the TikTok band
Speaker 2: doesn't go through. Many people think that TikTok band should
Speaker 2: go through because they want their children to pay attention
Speaker 2: to them personally. I said it a group chat of
Speaker 2: people who discussed this last night that after I saw
Speaker 2: mister Trump met with show Chow at Marlago, He's going
Speaker 2: to repeal the TikTok ban after he gets sworn in,
Speaker 2: which will be two days after the ban. That's where
Speaker 2: my money is. I'm going to polymarket with it right now,
Speaker 2: like versus brain Dead.
Speaker 1: I have always been really highly skeptical that Trump was
Speaker 1: going to ban TikTok because of his transactional nature. And
Speaker 1: you'll remember that one of his st donors this season
Speaker 1: of Trump Destroys America was actually a big TikTok downer.
Speaker 3: And that was why he had reversed his plan.
Speaker 2: Let's not also forget his dear friend Kelly Anne was
Speaker 2: a lobbyist for them.
Speaker 1: Yes, but Joe Biden did sign a bill that would
Speaker 1: ban TikTok if its owner Byte Dance doesn't sell the
Speaker 1: app with a New Year look. The Chinese Communist Party,
Speaker 1: which a subsidiary of owns Bye Dance, which owns TikTok,
Speaker 1: does not want algorithmic transparency, which, by the way, I
Speaker 1: think is interesting to realize that no one will tell
Speaker 1: us how these algorithms were.
Speaker 2: Well, it is ip that is very valuable, right, but it.
Speaker 3: Is still like a little bit interesting Anyway.
Speaker 1: The point is, you know, it's a completely different TikTok
Speaker 1: in China is totally different than TikTok in the United States. Right,
Speaker 1: TikTok in China makes people smarter. TikTok in the United
Speaker 1: States doesn't necessarily do that. So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be banned on January nineteenth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: This would be amazing.
Speaker 1: Because Trump will then be sworn in on the twentieth,
Speaker 1: a day after the ban and could reverse it immediately. Look, yep,
Speaker 1: I think he's going to do that, but we will see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Supreme Court could also still intervened. But
Speaker 2: no one knows what those people are doing and how
Speaker 2: to predict anything they do. At this point, said say,
Speaker 2: that's so weird.
Speaker 1: See there's one a little bit interesting dynamic here, listeners,
Speaker 1: is that Jesse is very pro TikTok because he's a
Speaker 1: TikTok celebrity.
Speaker 2: Celebrity, I think TikTok should still be bad, even though
Speaker 2: I will lose.
Speaker 4: A lot from him.
Speaker 1: Oh you do, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I think it's silly when people don't think that the
Speaker 2: Chinese government can't manipulate favor here for listeners who don't know,
Speaker 2: I actually study marketing at the algorithms, and I know
Speaker 2: what the power is because I've manipulate them all day.
Speaker 2: For music artists anyway, speaking of young people versus old people,
Speaker 2: the Dems have decided we should put a seventy four
Speaker 2: year old guy with cancer in the leadership role for
Speaker 2: the oversych communic Molly, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1: Jerry Connolly, seventy four years old, has throw cancer, is
Speaker 1: now going to be the ranking member of oversight again.
Speaker 1: He won one hundred and thirty one to eighty four,
Speaker 1: so the votes were clearly not whipped for him. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that he won what I think they probably I
Speaker 1: mean Nancy Pelosi vote would have been two hundred to
Speaker 1: whatever fifteen, so she did actually much better than probably
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought. It's so stupid to do this.
Speaker 1: And here's why, because this is not about Jerry Connelly
Speaker 1: versus AOC.
Speaker 3: Right, It's not.
Speaker 1: This is about are you going to put someone who's
Speaker 1: thirty five as the face of oversight for the Dems?
Speaker 1: Are you going to put someone who's seventy four and
Speaker 1: has throw cancer?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: We know Jerry Connolly. I'm sure he's a great guy.
Speaker 1: I was actually texting with a member today he was like,
Speaker 1: you don't understand, Jerry Connolly was so good to me,
Speaker 1: So what who cares? This is not about people being friends.
Speaker 1: This is about the United States government. This is like,
Speaker 1: this is the thing that makes me so just disappointed,
Speaker 1: deeply disappointed with Democrats. It's like, I don't give a
Speaker 1: fuck if you guys are friends. This is not the
Speaker 1: place for friendship. Donald Trump is about to take a
Speaker 1: wrecking ball to American democracy and we got to have
Speaker 1: the guy that everybody likes head oversight. It's just preposterous
Speaker 1: and quite infuriating. And look, you know, Hakeem Jeffries is
Speaker 1: young and quite smart. In the Steering Committee, AOC did
Speaker 1: much better than anyone thought right. It was these are
Speaker 1: all secret ballots, so nobody knows who voted for what.
Speaker 1: But Connoley got thirty four, she got twenty seven, so
Speaker 1: clearly there's a real recommendation here. And I think that
Speaker 1: it's just very fucking annoying because this is not about
Speaker 1: people being friends. This is about messaging. And you have
Speaker 1: the choice between a woman who is a very good messenger,
Speaker 1: who has millions of followers in different platforms, who can
Speaker 1: talk to people, who inspires young people, and a seventy
Speaker 1: four year old who has throw cancer.
Speaker 3: And like, as much as I'm not this is.
Speaker 1: The thing this and again people are going to say
Speaker 1: I'm being agist, and I'm going to say to them,
Speaker 1: this is not about how old you are. This is
Speaker 1: about the party, not about the people. So if you
Speaker 1: are thinking to yourself, how can I serve the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party best, Well, let's vote for my friend because he's nice.
Speaker 1: Oh no, let's vote for the person who can fucking
Speaker 1: message because we're about to go into one of the
Speaker 1: darkest periods in American history.
Speaker 2: You know, I seem to called just a week ago,
Speaker 2: the Democrats insisted that one represent Jerry Nadler, shouldn't lead
Speaker 2: the judiciary for sixty two year old chievy. You're asking
Speaker 2: him because he's a better messenger. And then I noticed
Speaker 2: they've went a different way. And really, I have no
Speaker 2: conflict of interest to your saying any of this.
Speaker 1: This whole thing is fucking annoying, and it hits us
Speaker 1: to our next story here, which is bipartisan legislation to
Speaker 1: officially make the Bald eagle to the American bird. First
Speaker 1: of all, what the fuck, man, what the actual fuck? Okay,
Speaker 1: you can't no, no, no, no, no, I'm so agitated.
Speaker 3: I just want two seconds here.
Speaker 1: You tell us American democracy is on the ticket. Right,
Speaker 1: you say Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy,
Speaker 1: You still have the Senate. You still have the presidency
Speaker 1: for another few days. You could spend that time just
Speaker 1: pushing through judges. Right, you could be the Southern District.
Speaker 1: There are two seats, two judge ships in New York.
Speaker 1: You could be killing yourself to put in judges, and
Speaker 1: instead the bald eagle is a symptom of a fucking problem.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, the bald eagle is a symbol
Speaker 1: of our country's freedman strength. In Minnesota, we take bride
Speaker 1: and our egles. Our state is home to one of
Speaker 1: the largest populations of bald eagles in the nation.
Speaker 3: What the fuck?
Speaker 2: Sorry, go on, Yeah, it's almost like Senator Kobashar doesn't
Speaker 2: really have much riding on the line.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just.
Speaker 1: I have no words except to say, first of all,
Speaker 1: isn't the bald eagle already the eagle?
Speaker 3: Like, already the bird of this fucking country.
Speaker 2: My wife turned to me yesterday and she said, there's
Speaker 2: no way it's not already the bird, right, I said,
Speaker 2: this not a thing I've ever fact checked.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the point here is that if damaguards are
Speaker 1: going to tell us that this is the end of
Speaker 1: American democracy, then I think that we should fucking act
Speaker 1: like it and not have the goddamn bald eagle be
Speaker 1: legislatd on.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of other things that seem like we should
Speaker 2: be taking it pretty seriously Donald Trump. For a reason
Speaker 2: I can not figure out once the end, the FDIC
Speaker 2: like one of the most successful monetary policies we've ever
Speaker 2: had in preventing to an absolute degree a problem that
Speaker 2: used to occur from preventing again.
Speaker 4: What the fuck, Molly, what in the fuck.
Speaker 1: This is why Democrats should not be naming birds, but
Speaker 1: instead focusing on protecting all of the many things that
Speaker 1: Trump is trying to disassemble. The FDIC and so it
Speaker 1: ensures deposit systems so they can't be around on the banks. Basically,
Speaker 1: everything Trump is doing is trying to get America back
Speaker 1: to like nineteen twenty nine. But nothing bad happened in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine, so it should be fine. So is
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of vaccines. But ensuring deposits is
Speaker 1: something that America has been doing for ninety years. It
Speaker 1: works really well. It keeps the banks from running out
Speaker 1: of money. It is completely crazy to want to get
Speaker 1: rid of it.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, we don't want to have bank runs.
Speaker 1: Like we don't want to have the dust ball, we
Speaker 1: don't want to have anti vacts, we don't want to
Speaker 1: have you know, all this stuff. It's like even Trump's
Speaker 1: people I don't think voted for bank runs.
Speaker 3: Although it doesn't even know.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure why he wants to do it.
Speaker 1: Like it's so many of the things that are just stupid,
Speaker 1: and that, my friends, is so stupid.
Speaker 3: We're all going to die.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of stupid things, I have to play you something.
Speaker 2: Steve Bedden said that the New York Young Republicans did
Speaker 2: her right after one of Trump's advisors passed out and
Speaker 2: fell off the stage.
Speaker 6: Donald John Trump is going to raise his hand on
Speaker 6: a King James Bible and take the Oath of avas
Speaker 6: his third victory, his third victory and his second term.
Speaker 6: And the Viceroy Mike Davis tells me he doesn't actually
Speaker 6: say consecutive that.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Maybe we do it again in twenty eight, Are you.
Speaker 1: Guys not for that.
Speaker 4: Trump twenty eight?
Speaker 1: Come on, man, In twenty twenty eight, Donald Trump will
Speaker 1: be eighty three. Look, this is a band in troll, right.
Speaker 1: He's doing two things. This is a thing Trump World does.
Speaker 1: He's trolling to see if people will get upset so
Speaker 1: that he can say he was just kidding, but he's
Speaker 1: also trolling to see if it could work. I think
Speaker 1: that it is pretty scary and bad. But I also
Speaker 1: think I'm not taking the fucking bait right like they
Speaker 1: want everyone to be apoplectic. The law is the law,
Speaker 1: period paragraph. He cannot run for another term.
Speaker 3: That is it. We are done.
Speaker 1: Al Frankett is a former United States Senator and the
Speaker 1: host of the Al Franklin Show. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Al Franken.
Speaker 4: Always great to be on, Molly, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You know what's nice is we started talking when this
Speaker 1: just started, and I said how are you and you
Speaker 1: said depressed. I'd say, really fucking depressed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it is really hard right now to
Speaker 4: even get it up to follow what's going on. I mean,
Speaker 4: he's so confident now Trump we're talking about Donald Trump
Speaker 4: and that he was elected president. He's going to have
Speaker 4: another term, and he's picking all these horrible people and
Speaker 4: he's confident that they're going to get through, even like hegseath.
Speaker 1: Now, so let's talk about how great things are going.
Speaker 1: What is going on here?
Speaker 4: Well, it just seems that unlike his first term, where
Speaker 4: I think he was shaken that he won. I don't
Speaker 4: think he thought he would win. And you saw that,
Speaker 4: and you saw that with his meeting Obama, I mean
Speaker 4: very nervous there. Yeah, And he looked totally comfortable with
Speaker 4: Biden to the extent that he goes to Greek totally
Speaker 4: comfortable with each other. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 4: he has four years under his belt and he's going
Speaker 4: to do it differently this time. And he is. And
Speaker 4: he started by picking people that are not just you know,
Speaker 4: normal nominees, but people that have disqualifiers in the headlines
Speaker 4: and exclamation points hanging over their heads. And it's Tulsey
Speaker 4: Gabbard and it's head seth and it's Kennedy, and it's
Speaker 4: people I think are going to get through.
Speaker 1: We don't know, right because there are going to be
Speaker 1: Senate hearings, just like you. Actually the first Trump admin,
Speaker 1: you were in the Senate for these hearings.
Speaker 3: How'd they go?
Speaker 4: You know, I was on health, education, labor, and pension.
Speaker 1: All things Trump wants to destroy health, education and pension.
Speaker 3: It's like a hit list for that admin.
Speaker 4: So we had hearings for the new Secretary of Education,
Speaker 4: which was the voce. And she really was not qualified
Speaker 4: at all. I don't think she'd ever been to a
Speaker 4: public school.
Speaker 1: No, she actually not a public school fan, but very
Speaker 1: involved in education.
Speaker 4: She's education, but in trying to privatize it and trying
Speaker 4: to get religious.
Speaker 3: Very into religious schools.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and also but mainly didn't know anything about education.
Speaker 4: Issuest large for public schools, and she didn't know the
Speaker 4: difference between growth and proficiency.
Speaker 3: Not a fan of public schools. None of her kids
Speaker 3: went to public schools.
Speaker 4: Well that's fair. I mean it's fair than none of
Speaker 4: her kidsmen, But if you're going to be Secretary of Education,
Speaker 4: you have to have some knowledge of this. And so
Speaker 4: I enjoyed that hearing.
Speaker 1: I would postulate that Trump's new Secretary of Education wrestling
Speaker 1: aficionado and Trump megadonor may actually be worse.
Speaker 4: I doubt it. I don't think she'll be worse.
Speaker 1: You don't think so. Trump has now moved on to
Speaker 1: that he just wants to get rid of the Department
Speaker 1: of Education.
Speaker 4: That's true. I don't know how proud you are to
Speaker 4: be selected as a secretary or something he's getting rid of.
Speaker 4: And I guess you know, it's going to be a
Speaker 4: big deal getting rid of that Department of Education. I
Speaker 4: mean they do all the finances.
Speaker 1: Tel grants, federal funding for education. Linda McMahon though, has
Speaker 1: a lot of experience with pro wrestling.
Speaker 4: Well she does. But they're billionaires, right. That is Another
Speaker 4: thing is how many billionaires have been selected.
Speaker 3: Let's even go a step further.
Speaker 1: How much of the government is Elon Mosk running.
Speaker 4: What is this fortune? Now? Two hundred billions?
Speaker 1: I think he's the richest person in the world, right,
Speaker 1: well he is.
Speaker 4: He is the richest person in the world. But some
Speaker 4: wayson his I thought it was worth his four hundred
Speaker 4: that he increased two hundred this year he increased to
Speaker 4: two hundred or increased two hundred.
Speaker 1: Poor Jesse has to get involved. Things are problematic.
Speaker 2: Going Trump's a US combinat billionaires worth find three hundred
Speaker 2: and forty billion.
Speaker 4: Well, that means that he can't be more than probably
Speaker 4: two hundred. I guess he could be three hundred and thirty.
Speaker 2: The sad thing is that's the Guardian and then we
Speaker 2: have courts in the Washington posting four hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 4: This is all between all the billions when all the cabinet. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and of course the first tax cut will help people
Speaker 4: at the very top the most. And he's going to
Speaker 4: lower the tax rate even more than he did last
Speaker 4: time for the top.
Speaker 3: Well, that's why he's doing it in the first place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And to think about what he who is people are?
Speaker 4: Who is the maga people? They are not. They are
Speaker 4: people that are working people, and that's who won the
Speaker 4: election for him. Yeah, and they will get almost nothing
Speaker 4: in this tax cut, and we'll go to the people
Speaker 4: at the very top.
Speaker 3: That's why they did it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And this is why I'm depressed, because he's getting
Speaker 4: away with what he's getting away with the.
Speaker 1: Thing that I'm struck by is he's going to want
Speaker 1: to cut Social Security and Medicare and the DOGE. So
Speaker 1: DOGE exists to save money so that Trump's tax cuts
Speaker 1: won't expire. And the way they want to save money
Speaker 1: is by what they.
Speaker 4: Have threatened to cut it by how much now two
Speaker 4: hundred billion or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you don't understand how anything works, but
Speaker 1: it does seem like there's a non zero chance that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is like, why are we paying all of
Speaker 1: our debt? Oh?
Speaker 4: Well, he says that we're going to pay down our debt.
Speaker 1: Well, no, I mean, when you look at America's debt numbers, right,
Speaker 1: a lot of the spend, the yearly spend that the
Speaker 1: country does, is servicing the debt, right, paying interest on
Speaker 1: the debt. So there are certain things you can cut
Speaker 1: the federal budget by cutting the debt, cutting the payment
Speaker 1: on the debt because you owe that money. And if
Speaker 1: you default on the debt, your dollar becomes valueless and
Speaker 1: you crush your economy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then the world goes into a huge recession.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has historically, in his own purview, not paid
Speaker 1: his debt.
Speaker 4: Right, the elist government, by law, has to pay a debt.
Speaker 4: It's not so big a secret is that. What's going
Speaker 4: to happen with Trump is that the death that's going
Speaker 4: to explode.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: He said that it's going to be easy to pay
Speaker 4: it off, and he's going to remember when he was
Speaker 4: going to pay it off with tariffs. When we said.
Speaker 1: That, that was like three weeks ago.
Speaker 4: This was three weeks ago. Well, you know, obviously.
Speaker 3: We've all aged decade since then.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he basically was telling the American people
Speaker 4: that when you have a tariff on something and China
Speaker 4: has it. We put a tariff on Chinese cars that
Speaker 4: the tariff goes to the treasury, and it doesn't we
Speaker 4: pay the tariff. Best Buy is importing Chinese TVs. They
Speaker 4: have to pay a tariff on each TV. That's best Buy.
Speaker 4: I hasked to pay it, and then they passed on
Speaker 4: the cost to So they pass on the cost to
Speaker 4: their customers, you know, or they can take you or
Speaker 4: completely comes out of their profit and they don't sell
Speaker 4: Chinese TVs anymore. That's what happened. So the way he
Speaker 4: describes terroris is like a tax on products coming in.
Speaker 4: And I know he's been disabused of that by his people,
Speaker 4: but he doesn't seem to want to do that. So
Speaker 4: our debt is going to just shoot up, especially if
Speaker 4: he lowers a tax on So he's talking about lowering
Speaker 4: the tax rate on very top.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's exactly what we said was going to happen, right,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know his people I don't. I mean,
Speaker 4: they're getting information from it totally different. They're not listening
Speaker 4: to us right now. I'll just spurt that way.
Speaker 1: But what I think is interesting about this, what I
Speaker 1: think is relevant is that we've been here before with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right, Like even that soft Bank announcement yesterday,
Speaker 1: and Trump announced the toft Bank was going to invest
Speaker 1: you know whatever.
Speaker 4: He said two hundred millions.
Speaker 1: He had done the exact same thing before with the
Speaker 1: soft Bank thing.
Speaker 3: So it was like we were literally living this.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many callbacks to season one,
Speaker 1: it's kind of amazing. But then also things have gotten
Speaker 1: much much darker, right, So part of it is we
Speaker 1: have these callbacks to season one, but then we also
Speaker 1: have like the first time, we didn't have all of
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. We didn't know, at least I did not
Speaker 1: know that all of Silicon Valley was filled with nefarious billionaires.
Speaker 1: I thought there were a few good billionaires.
Speaker 4: You thought there were a few well, I mean Bezos
Speaker 4: is given a million dollars to the Inaugural Fund.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Trump said yesterday at Mara a Lago with the
Speaker 1: CEO of SoftBank that the SoftBank will invest one hundred
Speaker 1: billion in United States projects over the next four years
Speaker 1: in season one of this Trump thing. I'm reading you
Speaker 1: a piece of politics here term one. On December six,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, Trump says soft Bank will invest fifty billion
Speaker 1: in US aiming to create fifty thousand jobs.
Speaker 4: Did they actually come through?
Speaker 1: Let's go to Jesse Canon Jesse, did SoftBank actually do that?
Speaker 4: I don't believe. So I think they didn't. And I
Speaker 4: think this one hundred billion that they're talking about this
Speaker 4: time will include other investors that they have coming in.
Speaker 1: Look if it happens, great, but you know it is
Speaker 1: a callback to the first season. And this keeps happening,
Speaker 1: right that we keep seeing Trump kind of recycle the
Speaker 1: same trout.
Speaker 4: Except that this time is so much worse because if
Speaker 4: you look at just the caneate picks, these are people
Speaker 4: who have will have complete loyalty to them. And these
Speaker 4: are people, I mean, Hegseth is not going to resist
Speaker 4: anything Trump wants right as Defense secretary.
Speaker 3: So let me just read this to you.
Speaker 1: Standing behind SoftBank's chief executive is mar A Lago Estate,
Speaker 1: Trump announced the pledge that echoed a fifty billion dollar
Speaker 1: commitment SoftBank made after his victory in twenty sixteen. That
Speaker 1: promise was followed up by investments in a host of
Speaker 1: fledgling startups, some that surged, others that ran into trouble,
Speaker 1: including the coworking company you may remember it.
Speaker 4: We were We worked down and.
Speaker 1: A company called Zumi that used robots to make pizza.
Speaker 4: Okay, that one didn't work.
Speaker 1: See when I'm making pizza, I think, why can't a
Speaker 1: robot make this pizza?
Speaker 3: That's what I think. I think, Why am I bothering.
Speaker 1: With this pizza when I too could be making I
Speaker 1: could have a robot doing it.
Speaker 4: Isn't most people's pizza just taking of the freezer and
Speaker 4: putting in the oven?
Speaker 1: I mean that's they obviously don't have robots. If SoftBank
Speaker 1: had given them robots, think of what would have happened,
Speaker 1: we'd all be living in we Works right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we Work was a place where you go
Speaker 4: and have an office. Was that it?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: What Jesse tell us? What happened when we work?
Speaker 2: Well, you see the CEO was a Jeckuss and they
Speaker 2: overspent their money. The one thing is they do still exist.
Speaker 2: But the leadership wasn't considered Theorranose level of like bullshitting,
Speaker 2: but it was of the kind of bullshitting of Theranose.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they bought a lot of real estate.
Speaker 4: Right it is now mostly someone else's. Right.
Speaker 1: In the end, the robots couldn't make the pizza.
Speaker 3: There was no pizza robots.
Speaker 2: The dog walking startup had a lot of complaints about
Speaker 2: lost dogs on walks. Really, yes, yes, he invested in
Speaker 2: a dog walking startup that lost dogs. You know, was
Speaker 2: beabs like, you have one job. Well, there we go.
Speaker 3: I don't want to laugh because it's so dark.
Speaker 1: And if anything happened to Boussephalos, Spartacus and Leonidas, we
Speaker 1: would be devastated. But it is pretty funny.
Speaker 2: I was waiting for you to not nab one of
Speaker 2: the dogs so that we were going to see your
Speaker 2: true colors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not good.
Speaker 1: You should not If you have a dog walking company,
Speaker 1: you should not lose any dogs.
Speaker 4: That'd be rule one.
Speaker 3: I have a question for you, So do you think that.
Speaker 1: Like obviously, voters are very mad at incumbents. They were
Speaker 1: mad at Biden. They were Matda Harris.
Speaker 4: That's what the election was about. The election was about
Speaker 4: inflation as much as anything, and more than anything, I
Speaker 4: think it was all non inflation, and.
Speaker 1: So they were quite mad, and they were really mad.
Speaker 1: They were so mad that when a CEO got murdered,
Speaker 1: they couldn't stop clapping. So here's my question for you.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like any of the legislation, and I
Speaker 1: don't think it's going to be a lot of legislation,
Speaker 1: but any of the executive order said Trump World are
Speaker 1: going to put into practice will help people who feel disenfranchised.
Speaker 1: So what happens like play this.
Speaker 4: Out for me, Well, they're in such a different information world,
Speaker 4: then I'm not sure those people will be understanding what's happening.
Speaker 4: That they will understand that their taxes, their taxes will
Speaker 4: go down slightly, but just slightly compared to what the
Speaker 4: billionaires are going to Well yours, Okay.
Speaker 1: I'm not a billionaire, but I mean wealthy people will
Speaker 1: have their.
Speaker 3: Taxes go Now.
Speaker 4: Now you think they're going to get rid of the
Speaker 4: thing on that how much you.
Speaker 3: Can carry interest loophole? Now I do not.
Speaker 4: Well, how about the cap on how much you can deduct?
Speaker 1: The salt deduction? Maybe the state and local income tax deduction.
Speaker 1: Perhaps there's a lot of New Yorkers in that cabinet.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about something that Jesse hates talking about,
Speaker 1: which is that in blue states you used to be
Speaker 1: able to deduct your state taxes off your taxes, so
Speaker 1: you weren't taxed twice.
Speaker 4: Now there's a ceiling to that, yes.
Speaker 1: Which affects wealthy people and makes them very angry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was really aimed at blue.
Speaker 3: Skates, punishing Democratic donors.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Democratic donors in California and New York, Illinois.
Speaker 1: And they're so punished that a lot of them just
Speaker 1: decided to support.
Speaker 4: From But you know, like Florida has no basil income tax, right,
Speaker 4: no state income tax.
Speaker 3: I think there are some, but it's low.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing with state income taxes, So what
Speaker 1: I think is interesting and upsetting is that state income
Speaker 1: taxes largely go to schools, right, public schools. There's other
Speaker 1: stuff they go to, but public schools are a big
Speaker 1: part of it. So blue states tend to have better
Speaker 1: schools because they have more money for schools. Trump wants
Speaker 1: to get rid of the Department of Education, which provides
Speaker 1: grants added grants to public schools in red states.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and forces things like you know, you know, people
Speaker 4: get what is it title two of the title two?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they get grants and then also pel grants, federal
Speaker 1: grants for.
Speaker 3: Education, etc.
Speaker 4: Somebody's got to administer that stuff. Where would that go?
Speaker 3: It will go to nowhere. They're not going to do it.
Speaker 4: So McMahon, she volunteered to be the secretary of a
Speaker 4: department that he's going to get rid of.
Speaker 1: She couldn't get commerce right because here was what happened.
Speaker 1: Howard Lutnik and Linda McMahon co chaired the transition. Howard
Speaker 1: Lutnik wanted to be the Treasury secretary. They actually got
Speaker 1: a real guy as the Treasury Secretary who knew how
Speaker 1: to do stuff, which bumped Howard Lutnick to Secretary of Commerce,
Speaker 1: which is what Linda McMahon had wanted. Linda McMahon, not
Speaker 1: wanting to be without a shair, said she'd take the
Speaker 1: department no one wanted.
Speaker 4: Which is education, which is when he's getting rid of. Yeah,
Speaker 4: well it says he's getting rid of Yeah.
Speaker 1: He wants to get rid of.
Speaker 3: I don't think he will get rid of it because
Speaker 3: all of this is too much.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I just think that getting right of education,
Speaker 4: where does all that stuff go? You might as well
Speaker 4: have an education department. I think it'll stay, it'll stick.
Speaker 1: So much of this stuff is just too much work
Speaker 1: for him and annoying.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, we have to remember what Trump was like
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: He was like not that effective. Yeah, thank god.
Speaker 4: But he was scared and I think and also he
Speaker 4: had people around him knew didn't obey him and countered
Speaker 4: him and thought he was an.
Speaker 1: Idiot, right right, and we don't have that this time.
Speaker 4: And said so right, Tillerson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, rerex On. So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: But we're not depressed because we are just going to
Speaker 1: keep going because the only way through is through.
Speaker 4: That's right. So keep up the good work, Alfragan, Thanks.
Speaker 1: Molly, thank you. Justice Allison Riggs is running to be
Speaker 1: a justice in North Carolina. Welcome back, too fast politics.
Speaker 5: Justice Riggs, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I want you to give us the whole story, just
Speaker 1: for everyone, give us the whole backstory everything.
Speaker 5: I appreciate the opportunity to tell folks what's happening here
Speaker 5: in North Carolina. So I was a former civil rights attorney.
Speaker 5: I was appointed to first the North Carolina Court of
Speaker 5: Appeals and then the North Carolina State Supreme Court in
Speaker 5: September of twenty three. State supreme courts are even more
Speaker 5: important than they've ever been because of rulings from the
Speaker 5: US Supreme Court kicking jerry mandering in reproductive freedom back
Speaker 5: to the state level. So I served on the Court
Speaker 5: of Appeals and the Supreme Court for two years. I
Speaker 5: stood for election this past November six weeks ago, and
Speaker 5: was elected by the voters in North Carolina to serve
Speaker 5: a full eight year term on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: I won by seven hundred and thirty four votes out
Speaker 5: of over five point five million cast, so every vote
Speaker 5: mattered here in North Carolina. Since then, there have been
Speaker 5: two recounts, one full machine statewide and then a sample
Speaker 5: hand eye recount. Both confirmed my victory, and my opponent
Speaker 5: has filed what we call here in North Carolina election protests,
Speaker 5: and he is seeking something very extreme and I think
Speaker 5: people need to know about it. He's seeking to toss
Speaker 5: sixty thousand ballots cast by eligible North Carolina voters this
Speaker 5: past election, including both of my parents. That's how extreme
Speaker 5: we've gotten.
Speaker 1: Basically, you won, and now he wants to throw out
Speaker 1: the vote.
Speaker 5: Right. I think in the past few years we've seen
Speaker 5: this troubling trend of people not wanting to concede when
Speaker 5: they lose. And it's not everyone, but it's certainly a
Speaker 5: playbook that we're seeing nationally and across certain states. We
Speaker 5: saw it in Arizona in twenty two, all over the
Speaker 5: place in twenty when the President Trump didn't want to concede,
Speaker 5: he lost. And now it's come home to roost here
Speaker 5: in North Carolina. But it ought to be very troubling
Speaker 5: for anyone who cares about in respects the rule of
Speaker 5: law and how our democracy works. You can't change the
Speaker 5: rules of a game after an election. My father went
Speaker 5: to register to vote using his military ID and proof
Speaker 5: of residency. That was acceptable. Those were the rules, and
Speaker 5: he'd been voting, just like many of these sixty thousand
Speaker 5: voters have been voting for years and years and years,
Speaker 5: and they include Democratic and Republican elected officials. So there
Speaker 5: are some things that are just too far. And that's
Speaker 5: where we are here in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: What happens now.
Speaker 5: So last week the state Board of Elections ruled that
Speaker 5: the vast majority of the elections, they didn't get all
Speaker 5: of the election protests in front of them at once,
Speaker 5: but they ruled that the majority of them had no merit,
Speaker 5: and so they issued a forty page written order on
Speaker 5: Friday saying, look, they sent postcards to some of the
Speaker 5: challenged voters. So for example, my mom got one, my
Speaker 5: dad didn't. It said your vote may be affected by
Speaker 5: a protest, Scan this QR code to find out if
Speaker 5: you're on the list, and then you had to jump
Speaker 5: through a bunch of hoops to find out if you
Speaker 5: were on the list. The State Board of Election says
Speaker 5: that doesn't constitute notice. If you're going to try and
Speaker 5: disenfranchise someone, you have to at least tell them. And
Speaker 5: my dad, like many people of that generation, one doesn't
Speaker 5: know how to use a QR code, but told my
Speaker 5: mom not to scan the QR code because her phone
Speaker 5: could get a virus. So I just warm this inside
Speaker 5: glimpse of what is happening in so many North Carolina
Speaker 5: homes across the state. And now that we're on pins
Speaker 5: and needles waiting to see the North Carolina Republican Party
Speaker 5: has said my opponent intends to appeal that state board order.
Speaker 5: We're waiting for it. There's also ongoing, not through me,
Speaker 5: but through other parties. There's federal litigation already trying to
Speaker 5: ensure that every vote counts. I put my hand on
Speaker 5: a Bible and swore to uphold and defend the North
Speaker 5: Carolina and US constitutions. So did my opponent, who's a
Speaker 5: sitting North Carolina Appeals Court judge. We as constitutional officers
Speaker 5: have to walk the walk. We have to live what
Speaker 5: we preach, and that is commitment to the constitution.
Speaker 1: Even when you don't like.
Speaker 5: The rules right, you have to follow them. And it's
Speaker 5: just so important that people see what's happening in North
Speaker 5: Carolina and understand the undercurrent that is running across all
Speaker 5: of this nation in political elections, political spaces, is that
Speaker 5: we need to be worried about the damage that has
Speaker 5: already been done to our democracy and trust in our institutions.
Speaker 5: Our democracy doesn't defend itself, and we need people of
Speaker 5: strong constitutional conviction to stand up and say this is wrong.
Speaker 3: I mean, what do you do?
Speaker 5: I mean right now, I am in a waiting game.
Speaker 5: I am waiting to see when the appeal will be filed.
Speaker 5: We're getting just tons and tons of emails from voters.
Speaker 5: So as this continues to get coverage and voters get
Speaker 5: some help finding if they're on the list or not,
Speaker 5: they're mad. They think it's ridiculous. My sense is a
Speaker 5: very small fraction of them that are challenged even realize
Speaker 5: they're on that list. But my opponent's attorney in the
Speaker 5: State Board of Elections last week said he couldn't name
Speaker 5: one person out of that sixty thousand that he believed
Speaker 5: to be ineligible to vote. So they are fussing about
Speaker 5: some data being allegedly missing from the voter.
Speaker 3: File, right, so they're just full of shed.
Speaker 5: Well, I think what we need to do is call
Speaker 5: out what is wrong when it is wrong, if we
Speaker 5: ever have any hope of move moving on from this.
Speaker 5: I mean, people want to move on from elections when
Speaker 5: it's over. If you put yourself out there to run
Speaker 5: for political office, means if you take the L, you
Speaker 5: take the L and you walk on with life.
Speaker 3: Will there be more lawsuits, etc.
Speaker 5: What we're expecting to be filed will look like a
Speaker 5: state court lawsuit. It's technically an appeal of an administrative
Speaker 5: decision from the State Board of Elections, but it's in
Speaker 5: the form of a civil action filed in state court.
Speaker 5: So you know, the short is is, if what the
Speaker 5: North Carolina GOP says is going to happen, it happens,
Speaker 5: then yes, we'll see more litigation. And you know, I'm
Speaker 5: just trying to make sure that every eligible vote counts.
Speaker 5: It's critically important if we want to have elections conduct elections,
Speaker 5: have nice things. We have to respect democracy even when
Speaker 5: it breaks your heart. And I think you've seen a
Speaker 5: lot of folks, you know, not happy with the election
Speaker 5: results this year and not trying to overturn an election either.
Speaker 1: So what can people do if they want to support
Speaker 1: you in this situation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we are really encouraging folks to look at
Speaker 5: follow me on social media. We're circulating regular updates so
Speaker 5: that folks will know what's happening when it's happening. We
Speaker 5: want folks to find out if their name is on
Speaker 5: that list, if they have been challenged, and we encourage
Speaker 5: them to share their stories. So if you go on Instagram,
Speaker 5: I'm at Rigs for our courts, if you go to
Speaker 5: x I'm at Alice and Jay Riggs, there's step by
Speaker 5: step ways instructions on how to find out if your
Speaker 5: name is on that list. And then we're encouraging people
Speaker 5: to use the hashtag count don't cancel. Make sure that
Speaker 5: their stories are heard because we're just we really want
Speaker 5: people to know that these sixty thousand voters, it's not
Speaker 5: just a number, It is a ton of people who
Speaker 5: took the time and effort to get registered, turn out
Speaker 5: and vote, and they deserve better than this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So these elections are small elections that generally fly
Speaker 1: under the radar. Do you think it speaks to a
Speaker 1: sort of larger Republican interest in the judiciary and why.
Speaker 5: I think we've seen deep Republican investment in federal and
Speaker 5: state courts for years and years and years, And I
Speaker 5: think that progressive counterparts are doing the work now, but
Speaker 5: the counter voice wasn't as quick to be heard. But
Speaker 5: since Justice Protozelitz was elected in Wisconsin, since I was
Speaker 5: elected this year, I think we're starting to understand that.
Speaker 5: Because judicial elections are down ballot, because a lot of
Speaker 5: people may not understand what judges do their lower information votes,
Speaker 5: and so we have to do extra work to educate
Speaker 5: people not only about what our core do, but what
Speaker 5: does a judge who you can trust with your rights
Speaker 5: do like, what do they look like, what do they
Speaker 5: sound like? How do you get to know them? And
Speaker 5: then ultimately how do you hold them accountable? And so
Speaker 5: over the last two years, I have been working tirelessly
Speaker 5: to ensure that voters know who I am. There's the
Speaker 5: only other Democrat on our North Carolina Supreme Court Justice
Speaker 5: Anita Earls. She's up in twenty twenty six, and so
Speaker 5: we're you know, we're going to be working to make
Speaker 5: sure that North Carolina voters have more information understand how
Speaker 5: important our state courts are. If you care about democracy,
Speaker 5: if you care about reproductive freedom, if you care about
Speaker 5: the environment, and you know, engage in this long term
Speaker 5: accountability project where we it's not just about pushing money
Speaker 5: into down ballot races. It's about empowering voters to understand
Speaker 5: how important these seats are and how they can vote
Speaker 5: us out if they don't like what the judges and
Speaker 5: justices that they have are doing. And I think you know,
Speaker 5: certainly in North Carolina, I want all voters to hold
Speaker 5: our courts accountable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you explain to us sort of some of
Speaker 1: the case like state jerrymandering will come to that court,
Speaker 1: right besides like state laws.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you know, we're not going to redistrict here
Speaker 5: in this state again until after the twenty thirty census.
Speaker 5: But who gets elected in the twenty twenty eight election,
Speaker 5: we'll sit on the court when jerrymandering cases make their
Speaker 5: way up. And you know, the federal courts, the US
Speaker 5: Supreme Court, they don't want parties in jerrymandering cases that
Speaker 5: they decided that there wasn't an avenue in federal court
Speaker 5: to address those. So you know, we know that in
Speaker 5: North Carolina the history of jerry mandering is highly contested.
Speaker 5: And what Justice Earles and I are doing is working
Speaker 5: to make sure that we're very present in communities across
Speaker 5: this large state. Talk about our past experience. I was
Speaker 5: a former voting rights attorney. I worked on cases seeking
Speaker 5: to make sure that voters picked their politicians, not the
Speaker 5: politicians deciding what voters they got to keep or shed.
Speaker 5: And we need people who care about our democracy on
Speaker 5: the bench. And I've described it as we here in
Speaker 5: North Carolina have dominoes that we need to knock over
Speaker 5: in order to have a majority on the bench of
Speaker 5: people who are justice minded, who care about a functioning,
Speaker 5: healthy democracy. And we have the chance to do that.
Speaker 5: In twenty twenty eight. We had to keep me and
Speaker 5: my seat in twenty twenty four. We have to keep
Speaker 5: Justice Anita Earles in her seat in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 5: and then in twenty twenty eight before the next round
Speaker 5: of regular redistricting, three Republicans terms are up, and that's
Speaker 5: control of the court before a really important process that
Speaker 5: the state courts have been involved in. So that's what's
Speaker 5: on the line line here, and you know, my job
Speaker 5: is to make sure that voters understand that and don't
Speaker 5: just say, oh, well, that's you know, years down the road.
Speaker 5: I mean, we're making decisions now. We're building infrastructure, we're
Speaker 5: recruiting candidates, we're doing all the work that the right
Speaker 5: has done for much longer. We have to do that now.
Speaker 5: And it's not a one election cycle task. It's multi
Speaker 5: cycle work. It's about building infrastructure and educating voters about
Speaker 5: what's at stake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you feel on the state level that you're
Speaker 1: able to connect with voters in a way that at
Speaker 1: the national level Democrats might not be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, i mean North Carolina is, as I'm sure you
Speaker 5: could tell, it's a bit of a quirky state. There's
Speaker 5: a lot of ballots splitting, so Democrats won half the
Speaker 5: council's state seats and Republicans one half. You know, it's
Speaker 5: just it's a very quirky state. But that means that voters,
Speaker 5: if they get to know you, will vote for you.
Speaker 5: And so it makes it a lot of it makes
Speaker 5: it hard work, and I think we continue to get polarized.
Speaker 5: And so the number of voters who are who are
Speaker 5: willing to if they get to know you and like you,
Speaker 5: vote for you like that number isn't enormous, but it
Speaker 5: is significant because of what we see. You know, it's
Speaker 5: a decent sized number. So I think with a lot
Speaker 5: of work and a lot of connection on a human level,
Speaker 5: you know, I tell people my story. I told people
Speaker 5: this election cycle that I'm a forty three year old
Speaker 5: woman who hopes to start a family, but my ability
Speaker 5: to do so may depend on decisions that our own
Speaker 5: court makes. And I want women to know that they
Speaker 5: have someone in me who shares their experience and understands
Speaker 5: what it's like to, you know, need access to IVF
Speaker 5: for fertility treatments to start their family and the interplay
Speaker 5: between those personal realities and state court proceedings. And so
Speaker 5: I think we have to do the work to recruit
Speaker 5: great candidates who can resonate with different voters. And it's
Speaker 5: a lot of work to get out across the state
Speaker 5: this big and that's just the reality of choosing to
Speaker 5: run in North Carolina. But I'm very encouraged that we
Speaker 5: can do this. Even in a red wave election, we
Speaker 5: were able to hold onto this seat and that speaks
Speaker 5: to me to a lot of the work that's been
Speaker 5: done from the North Carolina Democratic Party and folks just
Speaker 5: working to raise awareness of the importance of state court races.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really important.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Justice Riggs, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: No moment coxectly, Jesse Cannon smile.
Speaker 2: When I think of all the stupid things that Trump
Speaker 2: likes to sue people for, you know, Bill Maher for
Speaker 2: saying his mother was a baboon and a joke, one
Speaker 2: of the stupider ones. But suing Anne Seltzer for her
Speaker 2: poll being off pretty fucking dumb.
Speaker 1: It's dumb. But Donald Trump wants to send and Se
Speaker 1: to get Mo for being wrong about her poll, and I,
Speaker 1: for one, am here for it. No, I'm just kidding. No, obviously,
Speaker 1: you can't send An.
Speaker 3: Seltzer to Gitmo for having her poll be off.
Speaker 1: Trump is going to experiment with trying to intimidate the media.
Speaker 3: That's what's happening here. That's what he did with ABC.
Speaker 3: It worked for him with.
Speaker 1: ABC, so now he's going to try it with the
Speaker 1: des Moines Register again, you know, Okay, I mean it
Speaker 1: sucks and I hope that the Des Moines Register will
Speaker 1: not fold and donate fifteen million dollars to the Trump
Speaker 1: Presidential Library, which will never happen. But there we are.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.