Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Malli John Fast, and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
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Speaker 1: first we have the Nation contributor ged here on the
Speaker 1: chaos inside the Trump administration and the perils of being
Speaker 1: a Canadian. Then we'll talk to former NFL punter Chris
Speaker 1: Kluey about his protests against pro discrimination Republicans.
Speaker 2: But first the news.
Speaker 3: Somalie. I got to say the Republicans every day, another
Speaker 3: bad poll comes out, but they're about to blow ahead
Speaker 3: with a budget that would slash medicaid and food benefits
Speaker 3: for millions.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, it's.
Speaker 1: Called one big beautiful bill, and it's big, it's beautiful,
Speaker 1: and it's going to make a lot of people suffer
Speaker 1: quite a lot. So this beautiful bell will be an
Speaker 1: eight hundred and eighty billion dollar cut for Medicaid over
Speaker 1: ten years. Eight hundred and eighty billion dollars. So think
Speaker 1: about that. That means that we will see last money
Speaker 1: for rural hospitals, less money for rural berths. Right, think
Speaker 1: about all the people who will have berths covered by Medicaid.
Speaker 1: This will be painful. This will be the stuff that
Speaker 1: Elon Musk was talking about. This will be the pain
Speaker 1: that will affect the people. A lot of these people did,
Speaker 1: in fact bue for Donald Trump. It will affect a
Speaker 1: lot of Red state people painful cuts to Medicaid. It
Speaker 1: will also include that not covered under this eight hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty billion but a different silo will see cuts
Speaker 1: to SNAP that is food stamps for kids. And we
Speaker 1: will see just stripping away tens of millions, actually hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions and ultimately billions of dollars from the very
Speaker 1: needy so that very very rich people can have their
Speaker 1: tax cut.
Speaker 2: And that's where we are here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sounds like it's going to go very well.
Speaker 2: I think it should be very power popular.
Speaker 1: People really like to give tax cuts to very very
Speaker 1: wealthy people, and wealthy people shouldn't have to pay taxes.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I really had some hope when they started admitting that
Speaker 3: it doesn't trickle down. But nope, nope, not happening. So
Speaker 3: seventy one percent of Trump's voters opposed these medicaid cuts,
Speaker 3: according to a recent pull from Heart Research.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you're going to be shocked to hear this,
Speaker 1: but this whole castle is built on sand. Trump's voters
Speaker 1: do not want this. These are not popular ideas. We
Speaker 1: got Republicans wanting to cut spending, save money for their
Speaker 1: donor class.
Speaker 2: You know, they got.
Speaker 1: Elected to make bananas less expensive, right because of the
Speaker 1: cost of eggs. They were elected because voters were upset
Speaker 1: about inflation. Well, now they've solved inflation by making it
Speaker 1: so that voters won't have any money for food stamps
Speaker 1: and make it make sense. We're going to see now.
Speaker 1: So again, this one beautiful bill is in the House.
Speaker 1: There are two beautiful bills in the Senate. None of
Speaker 1: these bills do anything that's going to make anyone happy.
Speaker 1: We are barreling towards the government shutdown. Deep SNAP would
Speaker 1: worsend food and security, hurt local businesses, weekend snap's ability
Speaker 1: to boost jobs in every state. Remember, SNAP both gives
Speaker 1: money to needy people to buy food, but it also
Speaker 1: helps farmers, right, Like, those people have money and they
Speaker 1: use it to buy things in rural areas, right to
Speaker 1: buy things that then are produced by farmers. So what
Speaker 1: you're doing when you're cutting things like SNAP is you're
Speaker 1: also hurting the economy around these people, besides hurting the
Speaker 1: people themselves. So all of these things have both intended
Speaker 1: consequences and unintended consequences.
Speaker 3: Fun times. And you know, one of the really fun
Speaker 3: things is those claims to be cutting fraud. A lot
Speaker 3: of what they seem to be doing to us all
Speaker 3: seems to be fraud in that it's a bunch of bullshit.
Speaker 3: It's nearly forty percent of contracts kittled by DOJER expected
Speaker 3: to produce no savings, yet they're claiming otherwise.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's important to remember that fraud doesn't
Speaker 1: in this case. There's a sort of maga double speak here.
Speaker 1: Fraud doesn't mean fraud here, it means things that Elon
Speaker 1: doesn't agree with so fraud. They'll say, well, there's fraud,
Speaker 1: but what they mean is NIH funding for laboratories.
Speaker 2: That's not fraud.
Speaker 1: Like you may not like that NIH funding has this
Speaker 1: indirect payment towards your labs or the university that houses you,
Speaker 1: But that's not fraud. That's just not liking the way
Speaker 1: it's set up. So I think it is important to
Speaker 1: realize that Elon himself has taken a sort of Orwellian
Speaker 1: overview of language in a way that is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: If this were about cutting spending, they would have auditors.
Speaker 1: This is not about and spending. This was never about
Speaker 1: cutting spending.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: Jeed here as a contributor to the nation and the
Speaker 1: host of the Time of Monsters. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: my buddy, Jeed Here.
Speaker 5: Always good to be on the program.
Speaker 1: It really is like living over a mac lab, isn't it.
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: No, I mean it's it's quite amazing. And Donald Tremp
Speaker 5: was responsible for something I actually never thought I would see,
Speaker 5: which is the birth of a robust Canadian nationalism. You're
Speaker 5: seeing people at supermarkets are like closely looking at labels
Speaker 5: to see if things are American made or not, and
Speaker 5: actually not supermarkets are like putting on big maple leafs
Speaker 5: on as many products as they can to try to
Speaker 5: sell them because there's an active boycott of American made good.
Speaker 5: So I never thought i'd see it.
Speaker 2: I never thought, Oh my god, you.
Speaker 5: Money takes to make Canadians nationalistic.
Speaker 2: Takes a lot.
Speaker 5: It takes a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my god. So so I.
Speaker 1: Want to have another second on this talk to me
Speaker 1: about Canada, because it does seem like from what I
Speaker 1: understand about Canada, it's always struck me that you guys
Speaker 1: are pretty chill and not nationalists. Was it the attempted
Speaker 1: annexation that did it?
Speaker 2: Or was it something else?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think having the American president every
Speaker 5: day talk about what you want Canada to be the
Speaker 5: fifty first state and referring to the Prime Minister of
Speaker 5: Canada as Governor Crudeau is quite a wake up call
Speaker 5: for a lot of people. And it's actually really upcurring
Speaker 5: to the politics. I mean, you've actually seen, just like in
Speaker 5: a matter of weeks, like the Conservative Party, you know,
Speaker 5: because the Liberals are the incumbent, it looked like the
Speaker 5: Liberals are lagging behind by double digits. Just a few
Speaker 5: weeks ago, and the Conservatory We're going to be win
Speaker 5: like a strong majority. That is no longer happening. The
Speaker 5: Liberals and the Conservatives were neck and neck was just
Speaker 5: before they have a new leader selected. It has actively
Speaker 5: up here and politics in a way that I've never
Speaker 5: seen before. And obviously, like I always caution people, a
Speaker 5: lot of what Trump says this k fabe. It's like
Speaker 5: professional wrestling bragging or whatever. But still like, you know,
Speaker 5: like I think most normal people, like they realize that
Speaker 5: what Trump is saying is not normal to talk about
Speaker 5: taking over Canada, taking over Greenland, taking over the Panama
Speaker 5: I mean, and it is like I think people like
Speaker 5: underestimate like how radical it is because what Trump and
Speaker 5: I think Musk in particular are pursuing is a policy
Speaker 5: of global regime change. And it's interesting because I mean,
Speaker 5: like the usual mag Trump actually started off at TELTI
Speaker 5: Gabbert took me dead as a critic of what they
Speaker 5: call regime change wars, and they, you know, there's a
Speaker 5: critique especially of George W. Bush's foreign policy, how they
Speaker 5: pursued regime change wars and cause all this chaos and released.
Speaker 5: But Trump has like just basically inverted everything so it's like,
Speaker 5: no longer regime change wars against perceived enemies, it's regime
Speaker 5: change wars against allies. Yes, yes, they clearly want regime
Speaker 5: change in Ukraine. Try to have regime change in Germany
Speaker 5: and failed. Trump calls me the King, Charles, the King
Speaker 5: of England to like hold elections. We're in an age
Speaker 5: where the United States has subtenly decided that all its
Speaker 5: allies our enemies, and all its enemies our friends. Amazing.
Speaker 1: Yes, I want to talk about this for another minute
Speaker 1: because a congratulations Canadian liberals because honestly, good for them,
Speaker 1: because the whole idea here when Trumps them started. And
Speaker 1: again I use idea and scare quotes because really this
Speaker 1: is all like the vaguest concept of governing quote unquote.
Speaker 1: But you know, the idea was America first, which was
Speaker 1: this homage to this race is very nationalist, anti Semitic.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest here, as a Jew isolationists, we're not
Speaker 1: going to fight the Nazis. And besides, they have some
Speaker 1: pretty good idea Slindberg right, that guy was not saying
Speaker 1: Nazis are bad.
Speaker 2: He was saying, like Nazis they have some good ideas.
Speaker 1: The idea now is that nationalism or that isolationism has
Speaker 1: faded away. And now because the mega donor who is
Speaker 1: ban growing this whole thing is a technocrat and also
Speaker 1: really very involved in other countries, he's decided that he's
Speaker 1: going to try and win elections for the far right
Speaker 1: in pretty much every country, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I absolutely, or at least every former American ally,
Speaker 5: I mean that is I think that's an important point
Speaker 5: to underscore that, like part of this reversal of foreign
Speaker 5: policy is that Trump doesn't believe that America has allies,
Speaker 5: if Alisa has these countries that have taken advantage of America,
Speaker 5: like trading with it. Because Trump always talks about McKinley,
Speaker 5: and I sort of feel like somebody, maybe it was Bannon,
Speaker 5: maybe it was Trump didn't read a book about McKinley,
Speaker 5: but just told them there was his president McKinley. He
Speaker 5: was great, He had tariffs, and he annexed territory. He
Speaker 5: annexed the Philippines and Puerto Rico. And then Trump thought, oh,
Speaker 5: are going to be like the new McKinley. So if
Speaker 5: there's an idea behind that, it is this. So let's
Speaker 5: go back to the eighteen nineties. Trump's repeatedly said that's
Speaker 5: what America was at its richest, which I gotta tell you,
Speaker 5: back then people were living to age forty five. It
Speaker 5: was not you know, you were getting here. Your basic
Speaker 5: energy policy was a children in coal mines, pressing ful
Speaker 5: talk to.
Speaker 1: Me about McKinley, because you know, you actually know a
Speaker 1: lot more history than I do, so talk to me
Speaker 1: about what it was like.
Speaker 5: I think it was called the Gilded Age because it
Speaker 5: was the age of rubberbs. There's the age where it
Speaker 5: was like a Republican president, but not just regular Republicans.
Speaker 5: I mean, at that point, the Republicans had given up,
Speaker 5: you know, their one redeeming aspect as a party, which
Speaker 5: is that they were the party of abolition and later
Speaker 5: the party of reconstruction and of black civil rights. And
Speaker 5: then it became purely a party of the business class.
Speaker 5: And McKinley, through his like his Carl Rove figure, which
Speaker 5: is a Markana really wanted to you know, like it's
Speaker 5: like sort of like Wall Street dominance over everything in
Speaker 5: a period of the age of imperialism, of social Darwinism,
Speaker 5: right like dogg eat dog. So we're gonna let the
Speaker 5: business class be unregulated to whatever the hell they want,
Speaker 5: kill strikers. And also America will be an imperial power
Speaker 5: like the Kaiser and the King of England, and we're
Speaker 5: gonna like gobble up all this territory. And I gotta say, like,
Speaker 5: to me, that doesn't sound good. And actually, if I
Speaker 5: wanted to like underscore, like on a more broad philosophical level,
Speaker 5: like it's important to understand that this age of interimperial rivalry, right,
Speaker 5: this idea that you know, American foreign policy should be
Speaker 5: just about expansion and rivalry with other imperial powers. That's
Speaker 5: the motto that actually was in place before World War One,
Speaker 5: and that is actually what led to the First World
Speaker 5: War and all the disasters of the twentieth century. That is,
Speaker 5: the decision of the elite to pursue imperial warfare, and
Speaker 5: that led to the most catastrophic war humanity had ever
Speaker 5: seen at that point, and also the sort of destruction
Speaker 5: of the old order that led to the rise of
Speaker 5: fascism and stalinism. So I personally think that's not good.
Speaker 5: So I don't know why you would hold that up
Speaker 5: as a model for how you want to build an
Speaker 5: international order. But you know, like obviously, you know they're there,
Speaker 5: I mean, and not just obviously like like these guys
Speaker 5: are pretty blunted, but it p you feel, like Peter
Speaker 5: til and Elon Musk, that is the golden age of capitalism.
Speaker 5: And I think, you know, like if one one step
Speaker 5: of materialist analysis, the McKinley Gilded Age was built up
Speaker 5: because you know, America had this huge burst of growth
Speaker 5: but which was not equal, which was yeah, when you
Speaker 5: had people like Rockefeller and Carnegie and JP Morgan gobble
Speaker 5: up all the wealth and led to a social darwin
Speaker 5: And society. And what we're seeing now is a replication
Speaker 5: of that with Silicon Valley, where we've seen like you know,
Speaker 5: this enormous theoretical growth of wealth, but it's all being
Speaker 5: held by these like you know, super billionaires, like you know,
Speaker 5: like not just a billion dollars, like tens of billions.
Speaker 5: And I think, you know, the glothes are like Musk
Speaker 5: is to become the first trillionaire. Right, if you have
Speaker 5: that level of economic inequality and these sort of predatory
Speaker 5: types in charge of the economy, they will also have
Speaker 5: a huge sway over politics. And you know, just as
Speaker 5: like sort of like Rockefeller and Carnegie, you know, we're
Speaker 5: basically gave first to McKinley. You know, Musk and Peter
Speaker 5: TiO and I have to say Mark Zuckerberg have driven
Speaker 5: birth to Donald Rum.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to criticize Mark Zuckerbrok just because he's not
Speaker 1: quite as fascist as the other guys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, but he's willing to join up when he
Speaker 5: would it's necessary.
Speaker 1: Right, And by the way, I mean I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: say that he's not as fascist as those other guys.
Speaker 1: I would say earlier he was slightly less terrible except
Speaker 1: for the ruhingen jen aside, which perhaps you.
Speaker 5: Know, yeah, but maybe even I mean you look at Zeckenberg,
Speaker 5: I mean, like, do you remember the period where he's
Speaker 5: getting his haircut to look like the emperor or Augustus
Speaker 5: or these busts of the Emperor Agusta, And that was
Speaker 5: his ideal, like I'm going to be like the Emperor
Speaker 5: Augustus is ancient Roman. And you know that's not too
Speaker 5: far from like Mussolini saying, you know, we're going to
Speaker 5: be the new Rome. And I actually like Musk himself.
Speaker 5: I mean I have to say, because we talked about Canada,
Speaker 5: Musk has Canadian roots and this was some interesting writing
Speaker 5: about this. His family, you know, had been back in
Speaker 5: Canada in the thirties and then went to South Africa
Speaker 5: and then came back to Canada in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 5: But my grandfather was involved in this Canadian movement in
Speaker 5: the nineteen thirties called technocracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, talk to us about technocracy.
Speaker 5: So it was the idea that, like it's a great depression.
Speaker 5: Things weren't working, and so the idea was that the
Speaker 5: problem with society is there's too much democracy. Yeah, that's
Speaker 5: what that, you know, like you had these ignorant pez
Speaker 5: and you know who had voted for stuff, and what
Speaker 5: you need is to have like the engineers and the
Speaker 5: experts in charge of everything.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: It is was a North American counterpart to fascism of
Speaker 5: having an idea of like, you know, explicitly anti democratic.
Speaker 5: And you know, I have to say they had a
Speaker 5: certain problem with people who celebrate Hanakah. Let's say, yes
Speaker 5: but to Tese restaurant. Yes, I go to Chinese restris
Speaker 5: at Christmas.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've heard of these people. Yes, I may be
Speaker 2: one of them. Yes, continue it's.
Speaker 5: Also anti Semitic, that is, like el must grandfather normally
Speaker 5: I would say, like you know, like you're not responsible
Speaker 5: for your grandparents, although your grandfather was a cool guy
Speaker 5: who wrote smartacas. In the case of Elon Musk, I
Speaker 5: mean the fact that he replicates the politics of his
Speaker 5: grandfather quite closely in one of your kind of technocratic
Speaker 5: stuffs and actually doing what conservatives are now you specifically
Speaker 5: calling the stiff armed salute. Yeah, because like you don't
Speaker 5: see island like you know, like the Nazi salute.
Speaker 1: But no, yes, yes, the stiff arm salute. I'm learning
Speaker 1: so much on this interview, the stiff arm salute and
Speaker 1: also this idea of this sort.
Speaker 2: Of technocratic fascism.
Speaker 1: So talk to us a little bit about this idea
Speaker 1: that you think perhaps Elon is going back to these tropes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I think that this is a case where
Speaker 5: you know, Shakespeare says the dog returns to his vomit.
Speaker 5: Must's idea is that there, you know, people like him,
Speaker 5: the high IQ people, the people who should repopulate the
Speaker 5: earth by sending their sperm through FedEx to every woman
Speaker 5: they meet, but not paytons of word. People like that
Speaker 5: should be the ones in charge. And this is the
Speaker 5: whole idea of like those you can't have Congress, you know,
Speaker 5: the traditional arm of government that dispenses funds and sets
Speaker 5: of government agencies. They shouldn't set the rules. They should
Speaker 5: be Musk and his team of teenage Stanford super geniuses,
Speaker 5: who are gonna be like mucking around. I mean, this
Speaker 5: is an attempt to impose a kind of technocracy on
Speaker 5: the United States. And I think, you know, like classical fascism,
Speaker 5: it has this problem of creating chaos more than anything.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think that people have a stereotypical view
Speaker 5: which is wrong, which is that the idea that Weissalini
Speaker 5: made the trains run on time, you had this efficient
Speaker 5: war machine. And no, no, I gotta tell you, like historians,
Speaker 5: you know, there's a reason why those guys lost the war.
Speaker 5: Right Under classical fascism, what you have is a culture
Speaker 5: personality around the leader, and then various factions competing to
Speaker 5: please the leader and often fighting against each other. So
Speaker 5: one of the reasons why the Nazi screwed up so much,
Speaker 5: thank God, was that like like every faction, like you know,
Speaker 5: the Gestapo, the ass him, where has scoring all the
Speaker 5: fun guys? They were all finding each other all the time.
Speaker 5: And what we see is in the Trump administration as well,
Speaker 5: because Musk has set up this technocratic pseudo government within
Speaker 5: a government, and like it's asking all the employees to
Speaker 5: send their messages every week of what they're doing. And
Speaker 5: then all these Trump cabinet members are saying to their
Speaker 5: own staff like, you know, like no, you don't have
Speaker 5: to do that. And so so you have this these
Speaker 5: competing government factions but totally conflicting claims because Musk is saying,
Speaker 5: if you don't send me these emails, you will get fired.
Speaker 5: And what you're gonna get is a real period I
Speaker 5: think of government breakdown and government chaos, you know, which
Speaker 5: leaves I think up to the opposition to explain what's
Speaker 5: going on, explain that this is all being done on
Speaker 5: the behalf of Musk and his billionaire friends as basically
Speaker 5: a cash grab.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: I mean I think Bernie, you know, like there's other
Speaker 5: people that are doing this. I mentioned Chris Murphy as well,
Speaker 5: but you know there's a few Democrats and Allied people
Speaker 5: that are doing it. I mean, like Bernie is going
Speaker 5: out there to Omaha, going out there to like Nebraska,
Speaker 5: and like you know, like going to Iowa explaining to
Speaker 5: people like what's going on and drawing huge, huge crowds, right, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean my only question is why where Democrats are
Speaker 5: doing this? Like I actually think that is the way forward,
Speaker 5: Like just explain to people what's going on. There's a
Speaker 5: lot of people are angry about this. And if you
Speaker 5: go as Brittie's doing, to these like you know, purplish
Speaker 5: districts that are kind of swinging that people in Congress there,
Speaker 5: you know, they're going to get nervous. And I think
Speaker 5: that I think that's the way forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I agree, And I think when you're talking
Speaker 1: about this, it's important to remember that there is a
Speaker 1: lot of chaos happening here, and the chaos is the point.
Speaker 1: The thing that I keep thinking about is like they
Speaker 1: are radicalizing a pretty significant portion of the federal government.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing I'm thinking about that's really like sticking my
Speaker 1: head is this idea that Elon's telling everyone they have
Speaker 1: to respond to c emol or they're going to get fired.
Speaker 1: Trump is saying Elon needs to go harder, and then
Speaker 1: people like Cash Patel are telling the people he works
Speaker 1: for not to respond to the email. So in a sense,
Speaker 1: there is no authority. They've squandered any kind of authority
Speaker 1: they've had, right, because do you work for Cashpital or
Speaker 1: do you work for Elon Musk or do you work
Speaker 1: for Trump?
Speaker 2: Or do you not work for any of those people?
Speaker 5: Yeah? No, absolutely, I absolutely I think that we're going
Speaker 5: to get I mean, a period of chaos. And I
Speaker 5: have reached a big worry for me because you know
Speaker 5: that a lot of the functions of the federal government
Speaker 5: are actually essential. I mean, there's the reason why we
Speaker 5: have air traffic controllers, and so it's like created chaos
Speaker 5: within the you know, functioning of the basic government. I
Speaker 5: don't think it's gonna it's going to end well, but
Speaker 5: I don't think we could do at this point is
Speaker 5: to set up an opposition that's ready to take advantage
Speaker 5: of the crisis and to like, you know, push forward.
Speaker 1: I do think that the issue here is just Democrats
Speaker 1: being brave and that they need to put themselves out
Speaker 1: there and not worry about the sort of norms and
Speaker 1: politeness that they love to self destruct.
Speaker 2: And do you agree, Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, absolutely, absolutely, Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean it
Speaker 5: is a very serious existential crisis for American democracy. I
Speaker 5: think it's good to go to bedrock principles and just like,
Speaker 5: you know, explain very clearly what is happening. And I
Speaker 5: have to say, like you, just looking at Bernie's recent tour,
Speaker 5: You're going to find a big audience. You know, You're
Speaker 5: going to find a lot of people that respond to that.
Speaker 5: And that's the beginning of you know, sort of change
Speaker 5: and regeneration. Just start organizing people.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you all.
Speaker 5: It's great to be on.
Speaker 1: Chris Kluey is a writer and former professional football player
Speaker 1: who was a punter in the NFL.
Speaker 2: So excited to have you.
Speaker 6: Welcome Chris, Yeah, thank you for having me on. I
Speaker 6: really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: So I want you to talk about how your political
Speaker 1: awakening happened.
Speaker 6: I'd say my political awakening happened in why. I can't
Speaker 6: really point to a specific date.
Speaker 7: It's been, you know, I think as for most people,
Speaker 7: it's been kind of an evolution over time because like
Speaker 7: I grew up in southern California that you I was
Speaker 7: born in nineteen eighty one, so so the California kid
Speaker 7: in your late eighties, early nineties, Like I'm not going
Speaker 7: to lie, I told book the language like I you know,
Speaker 7: I did not have the best views because that was
Speaker 7: the culture at the time. But as I grew older,
Speaker 7: I realized, hey, wait a minute, why am I saying
Speaker 7: things that hurt other people? And I don't want to
Speaker 7: hurt other people. So I make a conscious decision to change,
Speaker 7: and then that just kind of continued. I met my wife,
Speaker 7: You know that that helped a lot too, because obviously
Speaker 7: she's smarter than I am.
Speaker 6: So trying to make sure I listened to her.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I'd say the real big part would be
Speaker 7: the first time I spoke out in favor of LGBTQ
Speaker 7: rights back when I was playing for the Vikings. That
Speaker 7: really kind of catapulted me into I guess the public
Speaker 7: knowledge sphere.
Speaker 6: And yeah, that was a real interesting experience.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, if you know there's so much pressure
Speaker 1: for professional athletes to not get involved in politics, you know,
Speaker 1: speaking out for people who are LGBTQ that strikes me
Speaker 1: as like a moral decision.
Speaker 2: Talk me through how you got there.
Speaker 6: Sure.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So at that point, I've been prettiest published as
Speaker 7: the Viking's punner, had set most of the team records
Speaker 7: for punning, and you know, I was feeling pretty pretty
Speaker 7: good in my position there. During the off season, I
Speaker 7: had been approached by a group called Minnesotans for Marriage
Speaker 7: Quality and they were working to overturn the state was
Speaker 7: attempting to pass a state amendment that would have banned
Speaker 7: same sex marriage. And so they had seen my Twitter account,
Speaker 7: you know, where I posted like things I agreed with,
Speaker 7: things they disagreed with, and they're like, hey, you know,
Speaker 7: we think this guy might help us out. So they
Speaker 7: got in contact with me and said, would you be
Speaker 7: interested in helping us try to defeat this amendment. I
Speaker 7: was like, well, yeah, of course I'll help you. I
Speaker 7: don't think states should be in the business of entraining
Speaker 7: discrimination into the state constitution. That seems somewhat Unamerican or
Speaker 7: very American if you know.
Speaker 2: Your history right exactly.
Speaker 6: So anyway, so started working with them.
Speaker 7: It was pretty low key at first, like it was,
Speaker 7: you know, a couple of radio appearances, doing talks, you know,
Speaker 7: just meeting people, trying to get them to understand that like, hey,
Speaker 7: gay people, they don't want to ruin your life.
Speaker 6: They just want to be free to live their own. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So so they continued that way for the most part,
Speaker 7: and I made sure to talk with the team's legal
Speaker 7: department beforehand. I'm like, hey, like, you know, what are
Speaker 7: the rules on this? From your perspective?
Speaker 6: What can I do? What can I not do?
Speaker 7: Like, as long as you're on your own time, you
Speaker 7: can do whatever you want, you know, just just don't
Speaker 7: do it like at a you know, team facility, or
Speaker 7: like during a game or something like that.
Speaker 6: I'm like, that's fair, I can do that.
Speaker 7: All my advocating was on my own time as a
Speaker 7: private citizen, which everyone should be able to do. Right,
Speaker 7: We're all human beings, we're all American citizens. We should
Speaker 7: all be able to advocate for the society that we
Speaker 7: want to live in. But then I went super viral
Speaker 7: when I wrote a letter called they Won't Magically turn
Speaker 7: you into a lustful cock monster, and somehow that picked
Speaker 7: up some attention. From that point there was like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 7: now the national organizations they're interested, you know, feeling calls
Speaker 7: from all over and the yeah, that's that's what it
Speaker 7: became a big deal.
Speaker 1: What I think is so important about being a professional
Speaker 1: athlete who speaks out, you know, against discrimination, because that's
Speaker 1: really all you're doing here, right, is saying it's bad
Speaker 1: to discriminate against.
Speaker 2: People for who they love.
Speaker 1: As a professional athlete, you really do have a lot
Speaker 1: of power in American society. So I mean, did you
Speaker 1: feel like the other athletes, did you feel supported by them,
Speaker 1: or did you get criticism or did nobody notice in
Speaker 1: your work world?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So in the locker room, it was a really
Speaker 7: interesting mix because I had about like sixty percent of
Speaker 7: the guys came up to me and said, you know,
Speaker 7: we fully support you, like, you know, we support everything
Speaker 7: you're standing for, And then about forty percent were like,
Speaker 7: you know, we don't really agree with you on the
Speaker 7: same sex marriage issue, but you know, we appreciate you
Speaker 7: speaking out for first amendments, like, you know, everyone should have.
Speaker 6: The freedom to speak.
Speaker 7: And what I thought was interesting was that that breakdown
Speaker 7: kind of mirrored the public support breakdown for same sex
Speaker 7: marriage at the time. It was, you know, it was
Speaker 7: pretty close to sixty forty at the time in favor
Speaker 7: of allowing same sex marriage. I think what it goes
Speaker 7: to illustrate is that, rightly or wrongly, people put athletes
Speaker 7: on this pedestal. Right, you know, we do have a
Speaker 7: large platform, we do have a large voice, But at
Speaker 7: the end of the day. We're people just like everybody else,
Speaker 7: and we come from a very broad array of backgrounds,
Speaker 7: especially the NFL, like the you know, you get guys
Speaker 7: from all over the country. Sometimes you get guys from
Speaker 7: outside the country, and so a locker room is not
Speaker 7: this homogeneous thing. It is a very diverse workspace. Hopefully
Speaker 7: President Trump doesn't try to get rid of it because
Speaker 7: it's a divis workspace, because that might negatively influence the NFL.
Speaker 7: But I don't think he's a fan of the NFL anyway,
Speaker 7: So we'll see what happens there.
Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernack was so incredibly careful about the way he
Speaker 1: focused on Neil laying and you know, every single bit
Speaker 1: of resistance he picked was set up in a way
Speaker 1: to be as respectful as possible while still being political.
Speaker 1: I noticed you doing some of that in your most
Speaker 1: recent speech to talk about that and then also what
Speaker 1: that means to you, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So obviously, from my personal perspective, I believe Colin
Speaker 7: Kaepernick got blacklisted from league. I'm not going to say
Speaker 7: he's the best quarterback that was playing at the time,
Speaker 7: but he certainly was one of the thirty two that
Speaker 7: should have been on the tee. There's no question about that,
Speaker 7: and that is my professional opinion as a former football player,
Speaker 7: like he deserved the r team. The problem with the
Speaker 7: NFL is the majority of the owners are old, rich,
Speaker 7: white guys who donate to Donald Trump and vote for
Speaker 7: Donald Trump, believe a lot of the same things as
Speaker 7: Donald Trump, and they're the ones who signed the checks.
Speaker 6: So until management makes a decision that things are going
Speaker 6: to be different, labor can't really do a whole lot
Speaker 6: because labors at risk of losing their job. So I
Speaker 6: think what Kaepernick did was very brave, very necessary because
Speaker 6: obviously it sparked a conversation that we still haven't finished
Speaker 6: having right. Police brutality is still a problem in the
Speaker 6: United States, but you know, at least it's higher in
Speaker 6: the level of the social conscious than it was before.
Speaker 6: But yeah, my wife and I were talking about how
Speaker 6: if I hadn't been blacklisted for LGBTQ rights, I definitely
Speaker 6: would have been for taking any I would have been
Speaker 6: right there with him, because again, like I think that's
Speaker 6: an important thing to talk about because if in our society,
Speaker 6: if one person isn't free, then none of us are free,
Speaker 6: because eventually they're going to come for you, and like
Speaker 6: we're seeing that right now with the Trump administration, Like
Speaker 6: trans people are just the start. He's trying to erase
Speaker 6: trans people. Then he's gonna move on to the rest
Speaker 6: of the LGBTQ community. Then he's going to move on
Speaker 6: to the people that support them.
Speaker 7: And so if you want to keep that from happening,
Speaker 7: you've got to speak up for trans people.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: So when you spoke up at this meeting, talk to
Speaker 1: me about sort of how you pick that place and
Speaker 1: what that was like, and also sort of how that
Speaker 1: reflects your activism.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 7: Basically for me, this isn't my first city council meeting
Speaker 7: with the hunting Commut City Council.
Speaker 2: Yeah, clearly.
Speaker 7: Yes, I've been showing up to these meetings for I
Speaker 7: think over like two two and a half years now,
Speaker 7: because they've been trying to mess with the library for
Speaker 7: about two and a half years now, And it started
Speaker 7: with one of our council members at Gracie Vandermark. She
Speaker 7: wanted to ban a bunch of books from the children's section.
Speaker 7: They were all LGBTQ books, and so the community was like, hey,
Speaker 7: wait a minute, that's that's a book ban can't do that.
Speaker 7: And so then she came back and tried to install
Speaker 7: an oversight panel. They would judge the you know, the
Speaker 7: content of all books in the library, and the bad
Speaker 7: ones would go to their own special place and you know,
Speaker 7: you need permission to check them out. And then the
Speaker 7: community is like, that's just a book banning, Like you're
Speaker 7: just talk about banning books again. So we started a
Speaker 7: community petition, got well over like fifteen or sixteen thousand signatures.
Speaker 7: Then she tried to privatize the library, and the community
Speaker 7: is like, no, we don't want our library privatisa you
Speaker 7: can take control, We want you to leave the library alone.
Speaker 7: Started another petition that one got over fifteen or sixteen
Speaker 7: thousand signatures. By the way, the council meeting where I
Speaker 7: got arrested, both of those petitions were on the agenda
Speaker 7: as well, and the council is trying to ignore them
Speaker 7: because they don't care about our community. All they care
Speaker 7: about is accumulating power for themselves. So then that brings
Speaker 7: us to the Maga flat, which is where I was
Speaker 7: like at this point, I'm like, okay that these people
Speaker 7: clearly don't care about us as a community. They don't
Speaker 7: care about what the community wants. And so I was like, Okay, well,
Speaker 7: if your intent is to put MAGA front and center
Speaker 7: on this public library, which public library supposed to be
Speaker 7: a political anyone should be able to go in. If
Speaker 7: that's your intent, I am going to tell you exactly
Speaker 7: what MAGA stands for, because I'm a history and police
Speaker 7: ion ager, and the parallels are really clear.
Speaker 6: So but I also.
Speaker 7: Knew they have a habit of tuning us out and
Speaker 7: like just ignoring everything that he does, So I knew
Speaker 7: it needed to be something more. And Huntington Beach is
Speaker 7: kind of a microcosm of what's happening in our nation,
Speaker 7: and that this is what it looks like when MEGA
Speaker 7: gets controlled. They don't care about the community, They don't
Speaker 7: care about people. They care about what they can do,
Speaker 7: what power they can wield, and how they can get
Speaker 7: more of it. And that's what we're seeing play out
Speaker 7: right now on the national level. So the point of
Speaker 7: my protest, the peaceful civil dos obediance was twofold. It
Speaker 7: was one, Hey, this is a local matter that you know,
Speaker 7: I really care strongly about, but two, this is also
Speaker 7: a national matter, and this is what I want to
Speaker 7: see our democratically elected officials doing like they they should
Speaker 7: be the ones leading the charge in this. And I
Speaker 7: think it really feels like there's a giant round swell
Speaker 7: of anger towards our elected officials that why aren't you
Speaker 7: doing anything? Like we can see what's happening. We know
Speaker 7: you can see what's happening. Why aren't you stepping up?
Speaker 7: Like where is John Lewis?
Speaker 6: Like? Right, who's causing good trouble?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean what you're talking about is the same thing
Speaker 1: that Jane Fonda was talking about at the.
Speaker 2: SAG Awards, right that this is the moment? Are you
Speaker 2: going to be brave?
Speaker 6: Right? Yeah, we're living in a documentary right now, like
Speaker 6: you don't get a second chance.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My grandfather was jailed for the House and an American activities.
Speaker 1: And I often think, you know, who's blacklisted under McCarthy,
Speaker 1: And I often think about, like what do you do
Speaker 1: when this is the only choice? So I'm wondering, do
Speaker 1: you think that you'll run for office? I mean I
Speaker 1: think you should. No, I'm sorry I did tell you.
Speaker 1: I know how fun that is, and I just had
Speaker 1: my own problems with it.
Speaker 2: But talk to me about that, right, yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So I've had a ton of people ask me
Speaker 7: that I've had local Democratic clubs reach out and you know,
Speaker 7: I've spoken at a couple of them, just you know, kind
Speaker 7: of to like help transpire people. And my main concern
Speaker 7: is being as effective as I could be, Like, you know,
Speaker 7: I don't want to be a figurehead that runs for
Speaker 7: some office that already has a Democratic official in it,
Speaker 7: and then I'm just taking someone's job who's already doing
Speaker 7: it well.
Speaker 6: Because for the most part, aside from our local city council,
Speaker 6: I'm fairly happy with our representatives. Like I wish, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 7: They were doing a bit more, but on the whole,
Speaker 7: like they've been pretty good, and I'm not going to
Speaker 7: take someone's job that a I don't want to do.
Speaker 6: That they're already doing well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So yeah, So I'm still in the sort of, I
Speaker 6: guess exploration phase of trying to figure out what will
Speaker 6: be the most effective way to go forward and help
Speaker 6: people become aware that we are in an existential crisis,
Speaker 6: like our country is in a crisis, and that we
Speaker 6: need to decide whether we are Americans or we are
Speaker 6: someone who bends the need to a king, because those
Speaker 6: two things cannot coexist.
Speaker 1: What do you say to people who are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Democrats are always hysterical. This is just meant to be.
Speaker 1: You know, this isn't as bad as they're saying. It
Speaker 1: is in my mind. I you know, did a YouTube
Speaker 1: series on Project twenty twenty five, so all this, you know,
Speaker 1: I knew they wanted to expand executive power, strip the
Speaker 1: federal government of any sort of autonomy it had, and
Speaker 1: made it make it an arm of the presidency. So
Speaker 1: what they're doing to me is not so surprising. But
Speaker 1: when you talk to people who are low news consumption people,
Speaker 1: how do you explain it.
Speaker 7: One good resource actually that just came out recently, I
Speaker 7: would say the watch Governor Pritzker's speech, because he does
Speaker 7: a really good job of playing out beat by beat,
Speaker 7: you know what, here's what Nazi Germany did.
Speaker 6: Guess what, here's what we're doing.
Speaker 7: And I think for me, one thing I found that
Speaker 7: that helps get a lot at traction is asking people like,
Speaker 7: you know, as an American, are you okay with a king?
Speaker 6: And most people will tell you.
Speaker 7: No, right like, because a you know, we all learn
Speaker 7: in like first or second grade the founding of America.
Speaker 7: You know, that the founding father is fucking George, like like,
Speaker 7: we don't, we don't have a king, and so then
Speaker 7: you you know, then you tell them, Hey, the official
Speaker 7: White House government account posted a picture of an American
Speaker 7: president with crown on his head and referred to him
Speaker 7: as a king, like that's frankly the most Unamerican thing
Speaker 7: I can think of. And it regardless of your political affiliation.
Speaker 7: We have to be able to come together as American
Speaker 7: citizens that say no kinks because other way, like I said,
Speaker 7: we're not America anymore. It can be tough to make
Speaker 7: people care about it, but if you can get them
Speaker 7: to understand that, like, really, this is about who you
Speaker 7: are as a country, I think that goes a long
Speaker 7: way towards getting them interested and sort of been nitty
Speaker 7: gritty of like, okay, what do these individual actions mean,
Speaker 7: because because let's be frank firing the three JG's like,
Speaker 7: that's a really bad sign.
Speaker 6: That's what you do when you're preparing to order the
Speaker 6: military to take illegal action.
Speaker 1: It does feel like there are so many people who
Speaker 1: are not standing up for us. There are so many
Speaker 1: people in our government on the right, but also some
Speaker 1: on the left who are not being brave you have
Speaker 1: been really if you got arrested, you went to jail,
Speaker 1: right like Jane Fondo who went to jail all these
Speaker 1: times and is eighty seven years old, right, I mean
Speaker 1: pretty good. But like when you think about it, how
Speaker 1: are you brave? Like what is it? And you were?
Speaker 1: Do you ever like freak out?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Well so, I mean I was.
Speaker 7: I was nervous going up to the podium right, like,
Speaker 7: like it wasn't the most nervous I've been. That was
Speaker 7: probably my first NFL game, Like it's probably the most
Speaker 7: nervous I've been. But yeah, this one, I was like okay,
Speaker 7: like yeah, this because again you're you're preparing to break
Speaker 7: the law because what you feel is so strongly, like
Speaker 7: you feel so strongly about it that you're willing to
Speaker 7: break the law to show other people that this is important.
Speaker 7: And for me, a big inspiration along those lines is
Speaker 7: you know, the mainteen sixties American civil rights protest Like
Speaker 7: this this was where we as a nation, you know,
Speaker 7: kind of had to decide like are we are we
Speaker 7: a segregated nation or are we a nation that like
Speaker 7: truly is freedom for all? You know, equality for everyone.
Speaker 7: The Vietnam protest. That's another one, right, Like, that's again,
Speaker 7: this is an unjust war that's killing tons of our
Speaker 7: young people. Why are we doing this?
Speaker 6: Right? And you have a bunch of brave people standing
Speaker 6: up to that and not fighting, but showing that they
Speaker 6: won't comply and that this means so much to them
Speaker 6: that they're willing to break the law to make that statement.
Speaker 6: So for me personally, it's not so much a matter
Speaker 6: of bravery, but it's what would I want someone else
Speaker 6: to do if I was in the position of being oppressed,
Speaker 6: And so if I want someone else to speak out
Speaker 6: for me, I have to speak out for them. If
Speaker 6: I want someone to get arrested for me, I got
Speaker 6: to get arrested for them.
Speaker 7: Otherwise the whole thing doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's more of this kind of bravery
Speaker 1: in sports world now or do you think now?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, we'll see, right.
Speaker 7: I know there are a lot of well educated football players,
Speaker 7: you know, stereotypes to the contrary. I know there's a
Speaker 7: lot of guys who care about their communities and care
Speaker 7: about what happens in this country.
Speaker 6: The question is is are you willing to give up
Speaker 6: one of like the dream jobs in the world in
Speaker 6: order to take that stands, and that's a really tough
Speaker 6: ask and it's a really tough decision to make within
Speaker 6: yourself because you've got to provide for your family, right
Speaker 6: like you got to provide for kids. And on the
Speaker 6: other hand, if society starts falling apart, well it doesn't
Speaker 6: matter that you're going to play in the NFL. It's
Speaker 6: going to become really hard to provide for your family
Speaker 6: and kids. So yeah, I think I think a lot
Speaker 6: of guys are probably.
Speaker 7: Having that internal question right now, and I would hope
Speaker 7: to see more people speak out and call out what's
Speaker 7: happening because they do have the platform and they can
Speaker 7: make people aware because again, I think that's another thing
Speaker 7: that a lot of people don't understand. Donald Trump won
Speaker 7: with a plurality and half the country didn't vote, So
Speaker 7: that means whatever mandate they're claiming is twenty five percent
Speaker 7: of the population, and that's not a mandate. That's okay. Yeah,
Speaker 7: we had a lot of disinterested people in this election.
Speaker 7: We need to find a way to get them interested
Speaker 7: because obviously this is what happens when you're not interested
Speaker 7: in your country. But to say that, like this is
Speaker 7: what the people want. No, this is not what the
Speaker 7: people want. This is what a very racist my minority of
Speaker 7: the country wants, most of the rest of the countries, like,
Speaker 7: just leave me alone so I could live my life
Speaker 7: and hopefully my Medicare covers my hospital bills.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're a hero, But do you regret
Speaker 1: opening the door to this as someone who, like I
Speaker 1: grew up with a mom who wrote about me all
Speaker 1: the time, so I never you know, I never knew
Speaker 1: what it was like to be normal, so I never
Speaker 1: had the chance to like not be this.
Speaker 2: But I wonder, like, do you ever want to like
Speaker 2: undo it?
Speaker 7: So the thing is like, yeah, obviously I wish I
Speaker 7: didn't have to be the one to do this because
Speaker 7: the people in power aka are elected officials, and I
Speaker 7: know I complain about our democratic elected officials a lot,
Speaker 7: but like, the Republicans are just being treason thiss cowards
Speaker 7: right now. The whole purpose of our separation of powers
Speaker 7: is so that when you have a president wants to
Speaker 7: be a king, Congress shuts him down. And right now
Speaker 7: Congress is abdicating that duty. And it is solely on
Speaker 7: the shoulders of the Republicans because they hold a majority
Speaker 7: in both houses. That being said, I don't want to
Speaker 7: have to do this, but the problem is I have
Speaker 7: to do this because otherwise the country I want to
Speaker 7: live in will cease to exist. Like I was happily
Speaker 7: retired up to this point, like my life was pretty quiet.
Speaker 6: I was a day with it. I would rather be
Speaker 6: home playing video games. Yeah, that's what I want to do.
Speaker 7: But because this is where we're at, I need to
Speaker 7: step up and do something because if we keep going
Speaker 7: down this path, things will start getting worse and worse
Speaker 7: and worse.
Speaker 6: And I do not want things to reach that point.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And I think, as much as I hate to say
Speaker 1: this to you, because I feel like it's really mean,
Speaker 1: you should run for office.
Speaker 6: I.
Speaker 2: Know no one does. That's the problem, is it. That's
Speaker 2: how we're here, you know, right?
Speaker 6: So yeah, I mean, like I said, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to figure out what the most effective way
Speaker 7: forward is because again it's it's going to take all
Speaker 7: of us to get through this and survive.
Speaker 6: I'm not being hyperbolic about that. It really will take
Speaker 6: all of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Chris, Yeah, thank you for having me on
Speaker 6: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And now we have a special bonus excerpt from our
Speaker 1: interview with former Vice presidential and Minnesota governor Tim Walls,
Speaker 1: where he talks candidly about what went wrong and what
Speaker 1: went right. I feel like you and I have been
Speaker 1: through it, not together, but the twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: Cycle serendipitous in a very strange way. Like I met you,
Speaker 4: I was, you know, like forty eighth out of fifty
Speaker 4: governors if people knew or something, and you had me out.
Speaker 4: We went to correspondence dinner.
Speaker 8: Yes for me, that was really fun, big deal.
Speaker 4: And we have watched this evolution and the heartbreak of
Speaker 4: not finishing this damn job. And I think you and
Speaker 4: I and certainly the Vice president and others knew what
Speaker 4: the result of not winning was going to be.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it is when we talked through this and
Speaker 1: we talk about what it looks like the sort of
Speaker 1: federalist I mean, you guys have a lot more power.
Speaker 1: Like one of the things that I always fault Democrats
Speaker 1: for is that, or at least I looked at Republicans,
Speaker 1: you know, during Biden's we saw Texas really and Florida
Speaker 1: really just be like we're doing our own thing now,
Speaker 1: and Democrats can do that to a certain extent, right,
Speaker 1: I mean they may be punished. Yeah, So talk us
Speaker 1: through that, yes.
Speaker 4: And look, I hear the thing out there is is
Speaker 4: that when we get back, which we will, we'll fight.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you what people are gonna expect is they're
Speaker 4: not going to expect us to tinkle around the edge
Speaker 4: with the ACA. They're going to expect universal health care.
Speaker 4: And if there's a lesson here, I always said this.
Speaker 4: We had a one vote majority in Minnesota. When we
Speaker 4: move clean energy, we move reproductive rights. We moved, We
Speaker 4: moved a whole slew of progressive very popular including things
Speaker 4: around guns and gun safety, very popular thing. We moved
Speaker 4: it with a one vote majority. And people ask, well,
Speaker 4: what do you call a one vote majority a majority?
Speaker 4: Simple as that these guys have learned that lesson and
Speaker 4: governors have that ability. I'm in Europe trying to foster
Speaker 4: what I can on the trade.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 4: Look, if they cut our funding, it's two billion nine,
Speaker 4: you know, out of a roughly thirty billion dollars state budget,
Speaker 4: So in a hole that we can't fill alone. But
Speaker 4: there are things that we can do. There are things
Speaker 4: that we can push back on. There are things that
Speaker 4: we can separate. Now. The irony of this is Republicans
Speaker 4: being all about state rights until they're not about state rights.
Speaker 4: Of course, you're still establishing ourselves. You know, we're sub
Speaker 4: federal level of government, but we have a lot of autonomy.
Speaker 4: Like I can be invited to the Netherlands to speak,
Speaker 4: and I said this, Molly, that I'm a rule follower.
Speaker 4: That used to be politics ends at water's edge means
Speaker 4: right with the unified voice to that. I recognize that
Speaker 4: the position right now, official position of the federal government
Speaker 4: is that we're not going to support Ukraine. That's not
Speaker 4: the major of Americans. And you can walk that line.
Speaker 4: And I think that's what we need to do more of.
Speaker 4: We need to push back. And again, I hope everybody,
Speaker 4: and I hope Republicans know this. You are teaching us
Speaker 4: a lot of what happens when we get back and
Speaker 4: control these You know that we need to we need
Speaker 4: to deliver for people because and that's their downfall in
Speaker 4: this Where are they delivering for people other than just
Speaker 4: angst and anger and taking it out on immigrants or whatever.
Speaker 4: No egg price is down right, folks, that lost their jobs.
Speaker 4: Now you've got confusion with our neighbors. So I have
Speaker 4: to tell you a saying I always said was is
Speaker 4: do you lead with good policy and good politics will
Speaker 4: follow that. And the inverse of that is true, bad
Speaker 4: policy will lead to bad politics. And I think Democrats
Speaker 4: got caught in the wilderness that our policies are popular,
Speaker 4: but for whatever reason, we didn't articulate it in a
Speaker 4: way that turned to good politics.
Speaker 8: So I have a theory of the case that I've
Speaker 8: shared with Biden World, and they're very mad at me
Speaker 8: that the thing they did wrong was this cautiousness, this
Speaker 8: fearfulness about interfacing with media, social media, mainstream media. You know,
Speaker 8: if it's scary, shut it down, if it's too popular,
Speaker 8: like calling someone weird, shut it down. Talk to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And look, it far be it from me to
Speaker 4: critique because I own you know, I own this, that
Speaker 4: it was my responsibility to help get this thing one
Speaker 4: and so I'll take my shortcomings on this. But I
Speaker 4: do think there is a cautiousness around that. I think
Speaker 4: that we should be more willing to speak to people
Speaker 4: where they're at. I don't think we should be so
Speaker 4: worried about are we putting ourselves out there and going
Speaker 4: to be asked hard questions. We should be asked hard
Speaker 4: questions right then we should lead and talk about the
Speaker 4: things that make a difference in people's lives. And I
Speaker 4: think people did not know how much better our economy
Speaker 4: was because they weren't feeling it. I think we left
Speaker 4: avoid that they're going to fail.
Speaker 1: To hear more of this interview, please head to our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, Fast Politics by Mollie Jong Fast.
Speaker 2: And a Moment Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 5: Miley Jung Fast.
Speaker 3: Earlier in the show, we discussed that Doge is not
Speaker 3: really about spending and that a lot of the cuts
Speaker 3: they're claiming they're doing are not real and they're not
Speaker 3: really adding up to the math they've said they're doing.
Speaker 3: And now he's made an admission about the productivity email
Speaker 3: his group sent to federal workers.
Speaker 1: You'll be shocked to know that all of this is
Speaker 1: a big smoke show. So Elon says that the productivity
Speaker 1: email his group sent to federal workers he wanted to
Speaker 1: test whether they were capable of replying to an email.
Speaker 1: You'll remember that, like a lot of other Trump officials,
Speaker 1: actually said not to respond to the emails. So this email,
Speaker 1: what did you do last week? Failure reply would be
Speaker 1: taken as a resignation. Well twenty four hours before the deadline.
Speaker 1: Musk hinted that the emails were simply a ruse to
Speaker 1: ensure federal employees were capable of responding to his correspondence
Speaker 1: in the early hours of Monday morning, which when everyone
Speaker 1: should be tweeting as opposed to sleeping must reply to
Speaker 1: American venture capitalist Gary tan On x that he shared
Speaker 1: a post claiming that Doge wouldn't be capable of reading
Speaker 1: all of the federal workers' responses, calling the initiative stupid
Speaker 1: and performance hard.
Speaker 2: Okay again, sure.
Speaker 1: This seems like a huge waste of everyone's time and
Speaker 1: I feel like instead of doing this, Elon should be.
Speaker 2: Hanging out with his many children.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.