Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Vladimir Putin lives to Oligarch another day.
Speaker 1: What a show we have for you today. The New
Speaker 1: York Times David Leonhard gives a gut check on the
Speaker 1: volatility of the primaries and how fast they can turn.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to North Carolina State Senator Representative Rachel
Speaker 1: Hunt on her run for lieutenant governor in North Carolina
Speaker 1: and why that states Jerry Mander is so messed up.
Speaker 1: But first we have the host of the Next Level,
Speaker 1: the Bulwarks, Tim Miller. Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Tim Miller, Hey, good to be back, Molly. I'm just
Speaker 2: going for that gold jacket.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's right, I'm going for it.
Speaker 1: We have a special gift we give out two guests
Speaker 1: who come on the podcast numerous times. It's a gold
Speaker 1: jacket nine times.
Speaker 2: I'm going for that, right.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the Chris Christie presidential run. I
Speaker 1: feel like the Republican field it's like a messy bitch.
Speaker 2: It is a messy bitch. The party is messy bitch.
Speaker 2: I mean literally, MTG called Lauren Bobert a little bitch
Speaker 2: this way the house floors. If we're exaggerating.
Speaker 1: She was like, in my defense, she is a little bitch.
Speaker 2: The Republican campaign. I think we can break these groups
Speaker 2: down into a few categories. And there's the first category,
Speaker 2: which is people that are trying to get famous in Maga,
Speaker 2: in Maga world and maybe they'll get lucky and things
Speaker 2: will go their way. That's the vivek Ramaswami group, people
Speaker 2: of that nature that kind of overlaps with the grifting group.
Speaker 2: This mayor of Miami, you know, who seems to be
Speaker 2: a felon of like at least some alleged one.
Speaker 1: That's right, So maybe he's had some problems. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought he was going to running to be Trump's VP.
Speaker 2: We're getting into the tabinet, right, So like these people
Speaker 2: have some logical you know, the folks who are of
Speaker 2: Maga world. Then there's the category of delusional people, and
Speaker 2: that is I think the most dangerous category, depending on
Speaker 2: how delusional they are, and that's your Tim Scott's, Nicky Haley,
Speaker 2: Mike Pence will heard this group, I think because they're
Speaker 2: in this cloistered bubble of Wall Street Journal Republicans, they
Speaker 2: think the party is something there that it's not still.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they've been in a coma for
Speaker 2: eight years. I mean, these voters literally tried to kill
Speaker 2: Mike Pence, and yet he thinks that they're going to
Speaker 2: now nominate him.
Speaker 1: They were saying, elect Mike Pence, not hang Mike Pence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean maybe Tim Scott thinks he's going
Speaker 2: to be VP. But the other folks, I think really
Speaker 2: are just wishing for a party that doesn't exist. And
Speaker 2: the question is will they get out enough time to
Speaker 2: realize that or will they stay in and harm you know,
Speaker 2: whoever emerges as a more prominent anti Trump candidate. I
Speaker 2: think there's an open possibility that there's a like a
Speaker 2: literal Trump grift going with some of these people. And
Speaker 2: I don't have any evidence of this, so, you know,
Speaker 2: but conspiracy tims my goosebumps are starting to pop up
Speaker 2: a little bit on this with some of these candidates.
Speaker 2: It's like, is does Trump have a deal with you know,
Speaker 2: a little back room deal with some of these guys. Again,
Speaker 2: you know, no evidence, don't don't don't write any articles
Speaker 2: about this yet, but it's just that's something I think
Speaker 2: to keep an eye on.
Speaker 1: It seems very possible that there is. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have seen a lot of times in Trump world when
Speaker 1: you suspect something sketchy is going on, you're usually right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. The one person that doesn't
Speaker 2: fit that is Chris Christy, who you asked about. And
Speaker 2: I think that Chris christie situation is a little different,
Speaker 2: he said, Actually I quoted this in my book Osh
Speaker 2: I had it pulled up. But like he basically told
Speaker 2: in a podcast The Dispatch, like years ago, you know that,
Speaker 2: like when you leave the governor's mansion and the lights
Speaker 2: turn off, it's hard to replace that feeling right of
Speaker 2: being needed, of the media calling you. He's like, people
Speaker 2: stop calling you, People stop you. And I think Chris
Speaker 2: Christy is just really needy and that he's right now
Speaker 2: for at least a short period of time, I have
Speaker 2: my aware of needing this for good in order to
Speaker 2: go straight out Trump. I wish he done it eight
Speaker 2: years ago. I'm not going to go over the top
Speaker 2: and praising him, because who knows, he could end up
Speaker 2: starting to move into the delusional category and start attacking
Speaker 2: other candidates besides Trump. But for now he's been doing
Speaker 2: the right thing. He wants attention, He's getting attention.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I think he has a little bit an ego issue too.
Speaker 2: He wants to show that he's not actually Trump's beta
Speaker 2: bitch who just goes and fetches Hamburgers, that he's a
Speaker 2: man with dignity.
Speaker 1: I think that is certainly possible. I want to ask
Speaker 1: you with this situation with Christy. He has this incredible
Speaker 1: ABC contributorship deal where he makes like almost half a
Speaker 1: million dollars a year. So there is the good of
Speaker 1: he's attacking Trump, right, but then there's the bad of,
Speaker 1: like he's also just trying to stay irrelevant, Like if
Speaker 1: he doesn't run this cycle, he doesn't get that contributorship again.
Speaker 2: Correct. Yeah, I'm slogging away in the MSNBC salt mines
Speaker 2: over here, like you know, doing doing umpty hits a week.
Speaker 2: He shows up once a month, and ABC is gon
Speaker 2: half MILLI okay whatever, you know, It's it's just enough
Speaker 2: to make me go Bernie. Not really, but there is
Speaker 2: that motivation, for sure. There's a selfish motivation. And this
Speaker 2: is what I said, And me and Charlie got into
Speaker 2: a little bit of a heated back and forth. You
Speaker 2: know where Charlie is, I think, very from a good
Speaker 2: faith place, is impressed and excited that we have somebody
Speaker 2: actually saying the same things who's inner Republican primary that
Speaker 2: we've wanted Republicans to say for eight years. I see
Speaker 2: that perspective. I just know Chris Christy, and I'm skeptical
Speaker 2: of him. I mean, he is he has sees somebody
Speaker 2: that that basically tanked all the other candidates to help
Speaker 2: Trump in twenty sixteen. He's stuck with him, you know,
Speaker 2: literally through near death Trump. You know, so this is
Speaker 2: not a trustworthy guy. You know, he's somebody that I
Speaker 2: can trust as far as I can throw him. And
Speaker 2: so you can imagine how far that is I can
Speaker 2: can even nudge him. I don't think. And so, like
Speaker 2: I said, I have a weary eye. But I will
Speaker 2: say him being on Fox, him today's at the Faith
Speaker 2: and Freedom of Conference we're taving on Friday, him going
Speaker 2: into the lions Den and saying these true things about
Speaker 2: Donald Trump serves some value. And I have to tell you,
Speaker 2: I'll just say this, I loathe Chris Christy. I don't
Speaker 2: think I've given him a genuine compliment in about a decade,
Speaker 2: and so I want to give him just one right now.
Speaker 2: In this podcast, went on Fox and said about trans youth,
Speaker 2: you know, and finally said the actual small government thing,
Speaker 2: which is I don't get why Sarah Huckabee Sanders thinks
Speaker 2: that she knows better what should happen to teenagers than
Speaker 2: their parents and their doctor. And I'm like, man, that's
Speaker 2: actually a small government conservative sentence that you would have
Speaker 2: heard maybe ten years ago from certain types of Republicans.
Speaker 2: Not all they're always Bible bangers, but certain types. And
Speaker 2: no one is doing that now. If he's going to
Speaker 2: say these things in Fox and It conservative conferences, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm still cautious. I mean, I still think he might
Speaker 2: turn do a he'll turn and start working for evil again.
Speaker 2: But for the time being, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: that there's in a symmetry between him saying the right
Speaker 2: thing and him getting the attention that he craves.
Speaker 1: Right, it's useful if nothing else exactly, Primary field isn't
Speaker 1: even full, right, like Rick Scott is now toying wood
Speaker 1: jumping in. I mean, who is that for?
Speaker 2: Rick Scott is one of the people I was thinking
Speaker 2: of when I mentioned my little spidey sense tingling on.
Speaker 2: Is there some background Trump deal happening right now? Because
Speaker 2: that's for nobody. I mean, he has no constituency. The
Speaker 2: only thing I could possibly think of that's not, you know,
Speaker 2: some kind of dirty tricks happening, is that some of
Speaker 2: these guys are egomaniacs and are thinking Trump might actually
Speaker 2: be in jail, like this stuff might drive him so
Speaker 2: insane that he actually strokes out. And Desantas has looked
Speaker 2: pretty weak as a candidate, Yeah, weaker than we expected,
Speaker 2: and so why not just throw my hat in the
Speaker 2: ring and maybe the chips will come up? Rick Scott. Now,
Speaker 2: we all who are or not don't have narcissistic personality
Speaker 2: disorder can look at this and say, no matter what
Speaker 2: happens like like Trump. You know, Trump could be buried
Speaker 2: in the ground and Ron DeSantis could pee his pants
Speaker 2: on stage and Republicans will still not turn to Rick
Speaker 2: Scott as they're saying there's no situation. But I can
Speaker 2: I guess understand while somebody like him, who thinks he's
Speaker 2: the greatest thing ever you know, could think could look
Speaker 2: at the Trump and de Santas thing and say, who knows?
Speaker 2: I think that's I think basically that's one possibility, you know,
Speaker 2: super narcissism. The other possibility is that him and Trump
Speaker 2: have some deal going, and Trump knows that any one
Speaker 2: or two percent he can shave off at DeSantis, you know,
Speaker 2: makes his chances of winning it even higher.
Speaker 1: Right, this is still really Donald Trump's primary.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's very much in the driver's seat. I
Speaker 2: look at this with DeSantis. I've always been slightly more
Speaker 2: bullish on DeSantis than some of our friends who are
Speaker 2: like ready to say he's dead. It's like it's a
Speaker 2: long primary. There are plenty of times where Joe Biden
Speaker 2: looked like he was dead. I thinks has a lot
Speaker 2: of weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Flunny. I mean, I actually wrote a piece that I
Speaker 1: really regret where I said because you know, Biden lost
Speaker 1: the first two primaries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could go back and look what I wrote
Speaker 2: after New Hampshire. It wasn't pretty about old Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: It was not right either. So you know, I'm trying
Speaker 2: to learn from that be a little more cautious me too.
Speaker 2: I think that things could turn towards the Santas. Right
Speaker 2: that said, it does not look very good for him
Speaker 2: at all, and here's and here's what I'm seeing. Really,
Speaker 2: if you remember the Ted Cruz twenty sixteen, you know,
Speaker 2: Ted Cruz like really did well with the super evangelicals,
Speaker 2: the super ideological Republicans, right. That was enough to win
Speaker 2: the Iowa caucus where there's a lot of religious voters,
Speaker 2: and you know, fewer people show up to Caucasus because
Speaker 2: they're complicated. And then he goes to New Hampshire, which
Speaker 2: has a lot less ideological voters, open primary people who
Speaker 2: just kind of liked the the WrestleMania element of Trump, right,
Speaker 2: and Trump slaughters him. Go to South Carolina, Trump slaughnters him,
Speaker 2: goes to Nevada, which is a really good state for
Speaker 2: Trump either, there's something about the Vegas Trump connection. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm just looking at DeSantis and it's like, man,
Speaker 2: it just he feels like he's headed straight down the
Speaker 2: barrel for exactly what happened to Ted Cruz. And I
Speaker 2: don't know how he can get out of that and
Speaker 2: do a better job appealing to these mega voters. The
Speaker 2: sale is not going to be made for them by
Speaker 2: a laundry list of conservative policies. That's not why they
Speaker 2: like Trump. You know, they like Trump because of you know,
Speaker 2: how he makes the left crazy. Right, they like Trump
Speaker 2: because of his alpha demeanor. He not, you know, I
Speaker 2: think he's a puss, but you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: they say that at him, right, How does Desanta's get
Speaker 2: reached those folks. It's hard to see right now. And
Speaker 2: I think that's why he's a really big underdog.
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting because it's like when he came up,
Speaker 1: he was like the National Review favorite, and they were
Speaker 1: so excited and it was so cute. But I was like,
Speaker 1: you guys, this is totally this guy's a total fascist.
Speaker 1: Any worse for LGBTQ than Trump. I mean, there's nothing
Speaker 1: good about Trump. But Trump does not have an ideological,
Speaker 1: you know, obsession with hurting gay people, where as you
Speaker 1: really do see with DeSantis. I mean real or not real.
Speaker 1: The proof is in the state laws.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean it's very real. And this is
Speaker 2: something that I think a lot of people don't really
Speaker 2: understand about Trump that you're hitting on, is that in
Speaker 2: sixteen when I was doing the anti Trump Superpack, the
Speaker 2: thing that really was surprised and disappointed me that I
Speaker 2: didn't see coming was that Trump did extremely well with
Speaker 2: the least conservative Republicans in the primary. Ideologically speaking, like
Speaker 2: if you pull people on issues, it was him and Kasik.
Speaker 2: In my head, I was like, this doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: This guy wants to ban Muslims. This guy's insane. But
Speaker 2: those voters, they saw the apprentice Trump, you know, they
Speaker 2: saw the guy from New York City who isn't going
Speaker 2: to be a weird you know, kind of a religious weirdo.
Speaker 2: And so Trump ended up kind of having this this
Speaker 2: strange coalition of like super conservative people, you know, who
Speaker 2: liked the fact that he was going there on the
Speaker 2: Muslim ban and things like that, and then super moderate Republicans,
Speaker 2: working class, moderate, non church going Republicans who liked that
Speaker 2: he wasn't like a Ted Cruz, like, you know, wasn't
Speaker 2: going to put in place a six week abortion band
Speaker 2: with no exceptions like Granda Stantistad Right. He did well
Speaker 2: with both of those groups in the Republican primary, and
Speaker 2: he is right now doing And so that is why,
Speaker 2: in a weird way, de Santis is super far right.
Speaker 2: Policies in the legislature I don't think are helping him
Speaker 2: as much in this primary as he thinks they are.
Speaker 2: I think that they're actually hurting him with that more
Speaker 2: moderate group who stayed in the Republican Party who liked
Speaker 2: Trump and don't and see him as less ideological.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I also think part of the secret
Speaker 1: with Trump was that there were the people who believed
Speaker 1: he believed what they believed. I mean, he was Schrodinger's candidate, right,
Speaker 1: because he didn't really have any belief system, so you
Speaker 1: could put anything you wanted on him.
Speaker 2: Yes, and Desantas doesn't have that at all now, right, Like,
Speaker 2: you know exactly what he is. You know, he's going
Speaker 2: to be a far right culture warrior, and look, there's
Speaker 2: an appetite for that in the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the problem for Desantasy is if he's splitting that
Speaker 2: vote with Trump, you know, because some of those people
Speaker 2: like Trump too.
Speaker 1: Write no, all those people like Trump, yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so then Trump is crushing him with the other group.
Speaker 2: How does the math work? I think that's very student
Speaker 2: exactly right, that Trump was kind of what he needed
Speaker 2: to be for different people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, and I wonder again
Speaker 1: as we're going through this, I mean, there will be
Speaker 1: more and there's a debate in August, right, that's sort
Speaker 1: of the beginning of it. One of the things I
Speaker 1: love about this debate is that Rona Ronda McDaniel Romney,
Speaker 1: she has done this to herself. She deserves no pity.
Speaker 1: But she came up with this brilliant idea that she
Speaker 1: was going to make people sign this pledge. Nobody is
Speaker 1: going to sign this pledge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have no idea that and that we're he
Speaker 2: in Trump's favor.
Speaker 1: For everyone who's not completely read in on this, the
Speaker 1: pledge is that they will support whoever gets the nomination.
Speaker 1: Asa Hutchinson, Poor Asa Hutchinson, the one sane candidate, was like,
Speaker 1: can we make it so that we won't support the
Speaker 1: candidate they're guilty of a felony? And Rona's like, no, yeah.
Speaker 2: Poor Ronda, I'm not really I think that that's an
Speaker 2: ex epic thing happening there.
Speaker 1: Talk about report you so, yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing that I would love to be a fly
Speaker 2: on the wall for, you know, because I was part
Speaker 2: of this in twenty sixteen where I'm so mad at Rance,
Speaker 2: who is my old boss, and I was working for
Speaker 2: Jeb and he, you know, came out the stupid pledge
Speaker 2: idea and took the train up to Trump Tower. And
Speaker 2: Rans and Trump had a little PR conference and I'm
Speaker 2: calling him like, what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 1: Rights.
Speaker 2: I was like, you're helping this guy, like you're gonna
Speaker 2: make us sign this pledge. And he's like, no, I'm
Speaker 2: saving you because when Jeb wins the primary, then Trump
Speaker 2: won't be able to go third party. I'm like, you
Speaker 2: think that guy's gonna honor the pledge? The guy I
Speaker 2: spent his whole life stiffing people, This guy who spent
Speaker 2: his whole life breaking contracts, Like this is moronic, and
Speaker 2: yet Rona is now walking down that same path. And
Speaker 2: I would love to just be a fly on the
Speaker 2: wall of the like Chris Losovita Ronna McDaniel conversations about
Speaker 2: the debate, because the Trump doesn't want these people, right, Like,
Speaker 2: if Trump's going to participate, she's like camp between Trump
Speaker 2: and the other folks. So all the other folks want
Speaker 2: one thing, but Trump wants another thing. But she wants
Speaker 2: Trump to be on the stage. And so it's like,
Speaker 2: how do you create rules that bring Trump into the
Speaker 2: stage and then bring enough other people. I think that
Speaker 2: there's a lot of drama left between now and August
Speaker 2: twentieth or August is somewhere in the August twenties when
Speaker 2: the debate is to see how this shakes out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it seems completely crazy. And the problem
Speaker 1: for her is if for some reason he doesn't agree,
Speaker 1: then there's you have a Republican debate without the front runner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who wants it? It becomes the ratings go down,
Speaker 2: it becomes like, it's interesting that it comes to you
Speaker 2: against Trump. Trump obviously ends up doing some kind of
Speaker 2: counter programming, probably starts insulting the RNC, right, So, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: and they she finds herself in a very precarious situation
Speaker 2: with regards to this debate.
Speaker 1: What are you looking at this week? I mean we're
Speaker 1: in this sort of sleepy summer zone now, but I
Speaker 1: mean in August is going to be huge for this
Speaker 1: Republican primary field. What else are you looking at.
Speaker 2: Looking a week ahead? I'm just trying to survive every day.
Speaker 2: Molly jong Fast, Like, what is happening next week? The
Speaker 2: fourth of July? I hate Actually one thing I'm doing
Speaker 2: next week it's a little different. Republicans. You might want
Speaker 2: to use this with a podcast or not. Is I'm
Speaker 2: going to go try to see Presley who's running against
Speaker 2: team Oh yeah, we were in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Oh fantastic, Yes, talk about that for two seconds, because
Speaker 1: that's a Carvel's been talking to us about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Brandon Presley, it's an interesting race. So we've got
Speaker 2: it's the off year. So there's an election this November.
Speaker 2: And Mississippi Governor Brandon Presley, who is the Democrat, who's
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of Democrat that could win a Mississippi.
Speaker 1: He was a land commissioner, right, yep.
Speaker 2: And he's a little bit more he's a little bit
Speaker 2: more moderate. And I live New Orleans now and so
Speaker 2: he's ha an event about an hour away in South Mississippi,
Speaker 2: and so I kind of want to go check him out.
Speaker 2: Tate Reeves, who is like literally, if you were doing
Speaker 2: a parody of a Southern Republican governor and you had
Speaker 2: Tate Reeves, like, you know, Republicans would be like this
Speaker 2: is offensive, like this micro Republicans aren't the stereotypical.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of corruption stuff because of this scandal,
Speaker 1: the Medicare Tate Reeves sports stadium scandal.
Speaker 2: It's with Brett Farv. Yeah, so Tate Reeves and Brett
Speaker 2: Farv had this kind of insider deal to how literally too,
Speaker 2: because Brett Farr wanted to get his daughter a volleyball
Speaker 2: courts or something. It's like the stupidest thing ever. Brenton
Speaker 2: Presley is a cousin of Elvis related that is right,
Speaker 2: that's just an accident. So he's the cousin of Elvis.
Speaker 2: I'll probably write something for the book, so we'll check
Speaker 2: it out. But I want to get a sense for
Speaker 2: whether this is do this. There is the history of this,
Speaker 2: so losing it out. Where I live now has a
Speaker 2: kind of governor I'm less John Edwards, Sir John Bell Edwards.
Speaker 2: And you know in the South, in these governors races,
Speaker 2: you get these one party states where there's too much corruption.
Speaker 2: Candidates go a little bit too. You know, you can
Speaker 2: even go too far from Mississippi, that is possible.
Speaker 1: So I think that like Kansas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Kansas. So I wouldn't predict a brand impressive
Speaker 2: victory at this point, but he is. He's running a
Speaker 2: much stronger campaign than people expected. I'm excited to go
Speaker 2: say him next week.
Speaker 1: Oh fantastic. Thank you so much, Tim Miller. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back.
Speaker 2: Thanks by.
Speaker 1: David Leonhardt is a senior writer at the New York Times.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, David.
Speaker 3: It's great to be on the show.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you. So you write this newsletter,
Speaker 1: that is the newsletter, it's the New York Times newsletter,
Speaker 1: and you do have help with him, and you took
Speaker 1: a book leaves, but you write it many, many, many
Speaker 1: times a week.
Speaker 3: I write the lead item. I don't know, maybe four
Speaker 3: times a week. Sometimes this week I wrote it. I
Speaker 3: think every day. We've got a great team of people
Speaker 3: who including people in life who wake up before people
Speaker 3: in the US wake up, and they put the finishing
Speaker 3: touches on it. And the idea is, it's sort of
Speaker 3: want it. We want to give people an overview of
Speaker 3: everything that's in the New York Times, but we also
Speaker 3: want to focus on one story. So usually at the
Speaker 3: top I try to help people sort through the news
Speaker 3: on one major story, and then and then lower down
Speaker 3: we give them all the headlines and culture coverage and
Speaker 3: sports and all that, and so it's it's meant to
Speaker 3: be like a digital replacement for the old print newspaper.
Speaker 1: I'm curious you're read in on so much stuff. I
Speaker 1: have always this anxiety that I'm missing something you know,
Speaker 1: I do this podcast three times a week. I get
Speaker 1: to interview a lot of people. But I always feel
Speaker 1: like there's some really important essay I have missed reading.
Speaker 1: You know, that there's some piece of news that I
Speaker 1: have wrong. I mean, for example, I have a friend
Speaker 1: who writes on the Justice Department beat, and she's always
Speaker 1: telling me, like, you know, a certain story might not
Speaker 1: be quite right or this or that. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you have that anxiety? You must have that anxiety.
Speaker 3: I do have that anxiety.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think.
Speaker 1: But what I have I have.
Speaker 3: This great advantage, which is I can call anyone at
Speaker 3: the New York Times it is not bad, and I
Speaker 3: can ask for their help, and I can quote them,
Speaker 3: and I can also ask them to edit me. And
Speaker 3: so what I will typically do when I write a piece, say,
Speaker 3: you know, any piece I write about the Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: I'll send to Adam Looktech And usually what he does
Speaker 3: is he'll say, well, that's not quite right. Change that,
Speaker 3: change that. But it doesn't mean that I don't still
Speaker 3: sometimes get things slightly off. It's just really it's kind
Speaker 3: of a wonderful resource to be able to not only
Speaker 3: talk to my colleagues up front and make sure that
Speaker 3: I'm kind of getting really interesting information, but then also
Speaker 3: have them help me on the back end, because you know,
Speaker 3: I think your point is right on, which is a
Speaker 3: lot of times you can say something that is not
Speaker 3: a correctable error but is slightly off, and then look,
Speaker 3: other times you're going to say something that a source
Speaker 3: is going to say, well, that's not quite right, And
Speaker 3: what the source really means is I disagree with that
Speaker 3: a little bit, and they can disagree with that, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that what you wrote was necessarily wrong, right.
Speaker 1: And I do think though with so much of the stuff,
Speaker 1: like I mean, one of the fundamental anxieties of the
Speaker 1: Trump error is that if a mistake is made, like
Speaker 1: a good faith error, there's a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: is very complicated, especially when it comes to like stuff
Speaker 1: like the documents, right, Like let's even talk about like
Speaker 1: you know, there the Washington Post had this is a
Speaker 1: while ago, had had said that Trump had nuclear documents,
Speaker 1: but the Times did not say that because they couldn't
Speaker 1: run it down and they didn't want to take the chance.
Speaker 1: And then eventually it did turn out, but they were
Speaker 1: being super careful. Do you see that kind of thing?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you have that kind of anxiety, because
Speaker 1: I do feel like one of the things that Trump
Speaker 1: did and that trump iss did was that, you know,
Speaker 1: an error, they would sort of blow it up into
Speaker 1: some kind of conscious fake news, as opposed to like,
Speaker 1: people are fallible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people are fallible, and I think, I mean Trump
Speaker 3: would do that. Trump also lied constantly about almost eighty
Speaker 3: I once put together a list and I couldn't keep
Speaker 3: it updated. I mean I had hundreds of items. I mean,
Speaker 3: he just lied constantly. He doesn't seem to care whether
Speaker 3: what he's saying is the truth. If saying the truth
Speaker 3: benefits him, he'll say the truth, and if lying benefits him,
Speaker 3: he'll lie. And so I do think the Trump era
Speaker 3: made a lot of you know, made it harder sometimes
Speaker 3: to think about the idea of truth. I would encourage
Speaker 3: people on the other side of the political spectrum, progressives
Speaker 3: also to be careful with this, because I think we've
Speaker 3: gotten to the point where a lot of progressives will
Speaker 3: call a wide array of things that they disagree with misinformation.
Speaker 3: And I think you really want to use words like
Speaker 3: I just use lies to describe Donald Trump, because I
Speaker 3: do think but there are many things that I disagree
Speaker 3: with that. I don't think are misinformation, and I worry
Speaker 3: that while the Republican Party certainly lies more often than
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party in recent years, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: people on the left half of the political spectrum are infallible.
Speaker 3: And so, for example, to take an example from COVID,
Speaker 3: I think it's misinformation to say that vaccines don't work.
Speaker 3: I say, say, is a fair argument about whether mask
Speaker 3: mandates work or don't work. I have my own view
Speaker 3: of it, but I don't think either. I don't think
Speaker 3: it is misinformation to say mask mandates work, and I
Speaker 3: don't think it's misinformation to say mask mandates don't work.
Speaker 3: And I don't think we should take either philosophical debates
Speaker 3: or matters of opinion or cases where the ebbit and
Speaker 3: say that our opponents are engaging in misinformation. I think
Speaker 3: that's really dangerous.
Speaker 1: I agree. On the Internet, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: know about this thing the internet, people are still fighting
Speaker 1: about mask mandates and vaccine mandates. I was in the
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine trials. I am not an anti vaxxer by
Speaker 1: any stretch the imagination, but like you know, I'll probably
Speaker 1: have another shot in the fall when I get my
Speaker 1: flu shot. But you know, I'm perfectly healthy. I've had
Speaker 1: COVID twice. I've been totally fine. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: on some like a desperate quest to get vaccinated every
Speaker 1: four days. And yet there still is a section of
Speaker 1: the population that is like, I mean, are we just
Speaker 1: so traumatized from the experience of living through a pandemic
Speaker 1: that people just have to fight with each other about
Speaker 1: this or is there like some underlying thing.
Speaker 3: Well, I think there's a little bit of un our
Speaker 3: link thing. But I think you just hit the nail
Speaker 3: on the head. We are still traumatized by the pandemic,
Speaker 3: and that's to be expected. It has changed daily life
Speaker 3: in the way that nothing has, certainly since World War Two.
Speaker 3: And an example I use a lot is I'm a
Speaker 3: New Yorker. I was in New York on nine to eleven.
Speaker 3: It was worse than anything that I'd ever seen or
Speaker 3: going through. So in no way am I minimizing it.
Speaker 3: I'm just stating a fact, which is, for anyone who
Speaker 3: was not directly infected by it, if you did not
Speaker 3: have a relative who was killed, your life was back
Speaker 3: to something that looked like normal within I don't know.
Speaker 3: Two weeks, even in New York, three weeks you were
Speaker 3: going back to the office. Daily rituals were the same.
Speaker 3: COVID permanently, in all likelihood change our lives.
Speaker 1: We don't go to the office anymore. People don't go
Speaker 1: to the office anymore.
Speaker 3: Right, And not only that, but it killed vast numbers
Speaker 3: of people, and it had terrible side effects. I mean,
Speaker 3: we have never had as damaging an event to American
Speaker 3: education as COVID.
Speaker 4: And also life expectancies went down, and life expectance, So
Speaker 4: when you think about what COVID itself did in terms
Speaker 4: of the direct toll of the pandemic, and then whether
Speaker 4: you think that these were good policies or not, when
Speaker 4: you think about the horrible toll of our pandemic precautions
Speaker 4: like closing schools, we haven't been through anything this terrible
Speaker 4: or disruptive in our lives.
Speaker 3: And when you combine that with the terrible degree of
Speaker 3: political polarization that we have in society, I think that
Speaker 3: explains why. I mean, look, most people are just over COVID.
Speaker 3: They're like done with it, They're not going to write
Speaker 3: about it. But I think that explains why you still
Speaker 3: see some of this intensity around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because it's like, so after nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: I grew up in New York, and I was in
Speaker 1: New York at nine to eleven. I was twenty one,
Speaker 1: and right after I flew to do Oprah with my
Speaker 1: mom and we flew to Chicago over the smoldering It
Speaker 1: was October over the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just forever affected me, but it is
Speaker 1: true we did go back to normal life quite soon
Speaker 1: after that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, COVID really will shape I assume it'll shape our lives.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess at this one I should say
Speaker 3: I hope nothing else shapes our lives as much as COVID.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I remember around that time, I had
Speaker 1: Paul Krugman on the podcast, and I asked him if
Speaker 1: he thought that COVID would shape our economy because we
Speaker 1: lost a million people and then we have these untold
Speaker 1: numbers of people of long COVID. So, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess it's too soon to really know what those numbers are,
Speaker 1: but you could see that happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that explains why we still see some
Speaker 3: fights over it. But you know, look, we see fights
Speaker 3: over nearly every major subject in American life, so why
Speaker 3: should COVID be any different.
Speaker 1: It's true, it feels very real to me right now
Speaker 1: because since Fauci retired, this sort of anti vax crew,
Speaker 1: which has a lot of and I don't even know
Speaker 1: why they're anti vacs at this point, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: do it two years ago. But there are a lot
Speaker 1: of tech billionaires who are very involved in this whatever,
Speaker 1: and they're all sort of targeting Peter Hotez, who you know,
Speaker 1: is just a deer man. So it's gotten me very
Speaker 1: it feels very fresh right now. So I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about where we are right now with
Speaker 1: this Republican primary. I mean, I always feel like, because
Speaker 1: I'm on the opinion side, I'm really lucky because I
Speaker 1: never have to you know, I can just have an opinion.
Speaker 1: But like, to cover politics right now in such a
Speaker 1: fraud time in a straight way has to be really tricky.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I'm not out on the campaign trail.
Speaker 3: I may sometimes go out on it toward the end. Look,
Speaker 3: I think it's clearly changed. I mean, even setting aside Trump,
Speaker 3: you know, Ron DeSantis basically doesn't give interviews to anyone
Speaker 3: from whom he thinks he might get skeptical questions. You know,
Speaker 3: that's very different from the past, both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Speaker 3: I mean, I you know, I wrote something that the
Speaker 3: Bush administration didn't like. They asked me to come in
Speaker 3: and we had this you know, great this is years ago,
Speaker 3: and we had this kind of great debate about it,
Speaker 3: and they said some things that changed my view, and
Speaker 3: I told them that I still had continued up the
Speaker 3: basic view I have. And you know, I interviewed John
Speaker 3: McCain and Met Romney on the campaign trail in two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight, and so no, I mean, the polarization
Speaker 3: of society really has affected the way we cover presidential
Speaker 3: campaigns in and I think damaging ways. It's not the
Speaker 3: biggest problem in media. The biggest problem in media is
Speaker 3: the decline of local media. I think overall, our national
Speaker 3: media is relatively healthy, even if it's somewhat polarized, and
Speaker 3: even if the problem of the spread of actual misinformation
Speaker 3: is a problem.
Speaker 1: And it's not the same as sort of things that
Speaker 1: are not necessarily that feel incorrect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think where are we in the
Speaker 3: campaign at this point, like I really thought DeSantis, when
Speaker 3: Dessanta seemed to be closing the gap with the Trump
Speaker 3: I took that seriously. I think that could happen again.
Speaker 3: There's a long way to go. If you go back
Speaker 3: to the Obama Clinton primary, there were multiple times in
Speaker 3: the odd numbered year, which then was two thousand and
Speaker 3: seven and now is twenty twenty three week when it
Speaker 3: just looked like Obama was just done. I mean, you
Speaker 3: can go back and read people writing his political obituary.
Speaker 3: Why isn't he cutting into Clinton the lead and basically
Speaker 3: every major publication, including the New York Times, And the
Speaker 3: answer was, well, it's a long campaign and he wasn't
Speaker 3: destined to win, but he did. And I think similarly
Speaker 3: this time Trump really does have some weaknesses the legal cases.
Speaker 3: But at this point, I think you just have to
Speaker 3: say that Trump is the overwhelming favorite to get the
Speaker 3: Republican nomination, and although if he does, his odds of
Speaker 3: winning are serious, but you also would clearly go into
Speaker 3: it as the underdog against bind.
Speaker 1: But why do you think, DeSantis, Because you're the first
Speaker 1: person to say this to me. I mean, I certainly
Speaker 1: think it's a crowded field, but I'm just curious why
Speaker 1: you think that there might be more to DeSantis. I mean,
Speaker 1: he definitely is the favorite for people who are smart Trumpers,
Speaker 1: but I'm just curious. I mean, I think he entered
Speaker 1: in stronger than other Republicans, but I feel like the
Speaker 1: more we get to know him, the less he sort
Speaker 1: of has the appeal. But he does have. He is
Speaker 1: the Trumpiest.
Speaker 3: I think that he's still the strongest other than Trump,
Speaker 3: and the polls, he's still the strongest in terms of
Speaker 3: elite support, probably even stronger than in terms of sun raising.
Speaker 3: And so if you go back and you say, and
Speaker 3: I understand, history is not you know, is not guaranteed
Speaker 3: to repeat itself. There is never a candidate like Trump
Speaker 3: a good precedent, but it's a good precedent at this
Speaker 3: stage in the campaign. Is there anyone who looks like
Speaker 3: say Tim Scott or Nikky Haley or Mike Pence in
Speaker 3: terms of polling and money and endorsements And by all
Speaker 3: that I mean polling weakness, lack of money, lack of endorsement. Right, yes,
Speaker 3: ever gotten the nomination like maybe Jimmy Carter in seventy six.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. There wasn't either a Trump or a
Speaker 3: DeSantis in that race, and Dessantas still does look like
Speaker 3: some people who've kind of come back to get the nomination,
Speaker 3: like Obama, and just in terms of the polling and stuff. Again,
Speaker 3: I'm not predicting that. I think I do not think
Speaker 3: it most likely scenario.
Speaker 1: You think the most likely scenario is still Trump.
Speaker 3: I think the most likely scenario is still Trump. And
Speaker 3: quite frankly, if you told me that the nominee was
Speaker 3: neither Trump nor DeSantis, I gotta say I might pick someone.
Speaker 3: And you told me that I either had to pick
Speaker 3: one of the other people who's announced or pick the field.
Speaker 3: I take the field to me. It's something weird where
Speaker 3: like the indictments and the trials cause a whole big mess,
Speaker 3: and you know, someone like Glenn Youngkin gets in the
Speaker 3: race really late. I don't see Pence or Scott or
Speaker 3: Haley or help me Molly, who are all ruscer names.
Speaker 3: I don't see any of the promination yeah, or Rick Scott.
Speaker 1: Even it's funny because it's like if you were worried,
Speaker 1: and my anxiety is largely like because I have children,
Speaker 1: is like authoritarianism comes to the United States, right, So
Speaker 1: if that's your anxiety. Then the worst candidate is trump
Speaker 1: Ism without Trump, which would be obviously DeSantis. But it
Speaker 1: seems to me like just as we watch this process,
Speaker 1: then it's actually lesser. Trump Ism is not how it's
Speaker 1: gonna you know, it'll either be Trump or it'll be
Speaker 1: the party having some kind of seizure and deciding finally
Speaker 1: that that's not what they want.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, my colleague is Staid Herndon. He made
Speaker 3: this point that changed the way I think about it
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, and I hesitate to say this, but there's
Speaker 3: a fun aspect to him as a political candidate for
Speaker 3: people who don't focus so much on matters of substance,
Speaker 3: like if you don't care that much about politics, and
Speaker 3: many Americans do not like you know, he's a showman,
Speaker 3: like it's outrageous, you're never sure what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: And I do think for some number of voters they
Speaker 3: kind of like that. And I mean, Ron DeSantis is
Speaker 3: many things. I don't think. Fun is a work that
Speaker 3: almost anyone would use to describe him, including many of
Speaker 3: his fans. And I do think it's a little bit
Speaker 3: hard to completely unpack what makes Trump so appealing to
Speaker 3: Republicans and then put it back together in some incomplete way.
Speaker 1: We find ourselves in a situation of these. You know,
Speaker 1: is charismatic presidential candidate? I mean, as a Democrat, I
Speaker 1: have seen that my party run more than a few
Speaker 1: candidates where you know, every said, well, charisma. People don't
Speaker 1: really vote on charisma like obviously they do. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: if John Decaucus, if you're listening to this, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: and I treasure you as a friend. But your dad
Speaker 1: he couldn't be president because he just didn't have it. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I can't be mean to Mike Decaucus. There's a new
Speaker 1: rule on this podcast.
Speaker 3: Those things matter. I mean, it makes me wonder. Boy,
Speaker 3: the stakes are so high, shouldn't the parties probably be
Speaker 3: investing a little bit more in the personal side of
Speaker 3: candidate development. I mean, there's just a fascinating poll done
Speaker 3: by the Center for Working Class Politics in which they
Speaker 3: gave swingers a bunch of candidate profiles. And it's not
Speaker 3: exactly shocking, but people would rather have their candidates be
Speaker 3: teachers and nurses and warehouse workers and doctors, so it's
Speaker 3: not all, you know, blue collar stuff. They would rather
Speaker 3: not have them be lawyers or big company executives, and
Speaker 3: they're all kinds of things that people vote on, and
Speaker 3: it sort of feels like the political system hasn't yet
Speaker 3: optimized some of the ways in whichiving elections.
Speaker 2: It's not all about polpsy.
Speaker 1: David, thank you so much for joining us. It's so interesting.
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back.
Speaker 3: I definitely will.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Mollie.
Speaker 1: Hi, it's Mollie and I am wildly excited that for
Speaker 1: the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to
Speaker 1: right now, is going to have merch for sale over
Speaker 1: at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. You can now buy shirts, hats, hoodies,
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Speaker 1: at shop dot fast It takes pod dot com. Thanks
Speaker 1: for your support. Rachel Hunt is a member of the
Speaker 1: North Carolina State Senate and a candidate for Lieutenant governor. There.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, Rachel Hunt.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you. So you are a state
Speaker 1: Senator in North Carolina and you are running for lieutenant governor.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what that means and why you're
Speaker 1: doing that.
Speaker 5: Sure well, I was raised in North Carolina. I love
Speaker 5: the state, and I refuse to sit back and watch
Speaker 5: as extremists try to move the state I love backwards.
Speaker 5: I've spent my whole life serving here, both in and
Speaker 5: out of elected office. Before that, I ran a domestic
Speaker 5: violent shelter, I practiced family law, I served on the
Speaker 5: board of my son's public charter school. And I've had
Speaker 5: the honor of representing my community in the State House
Speaker 5: and now the State Senate.
Speaker 3: As a mother.
Speaker 5: I'm running to build a North Carolina that families want
Speaker 5: to raise their children in, one where an honest day
Speaker 5: of hard work pays off and there are good paying
Speaker 5: jobs that will keep our young people heal. We need
Speaker 5: a North Carolina where everyone can make their own decisions
Speaker 5: and kids can get a world class public education. I'm
Speaker 5: running to ensure that working North Carolinians from every part
Speaker 5: of the state have a seat at the table. So
Speaker 5: if you're with me, please join me at Rachel Hunt
Speaker 5: dot com.
Speaker 1: So right now you do have a democratic governor. That's correct,
Speaker 1: but you also have a very powerful Republican state government
Speaker 1: and that has led to a lot of stuff. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about the landscape of North Carolina.
Speaker 5: Yes, So we are unfortunately in the super minority in
Speaker 5: both the House and the Senate, which obviously makes the
Speaker 5: governor's vetos able to be over at which they have
Speaker 5: been and they will continue to be, which is making
Speaker 5: us into a completely republican state. And the issues that
Speaker 5: the Republicans are pushing, especially with regards to women's rights
Speaker 5: and the rights of children, are completely unacceptable and we
Speaker 5: have to fight against them.
Speaker 1: Those are like a statewide abortion ban, right, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and what else?
Speaker 5: So other things are partisan jerry mandarin that's a huge
Speaker 5: thing in our state. And we just lost our Supreme
Speaker 5: Court as well to the Republicans, so now they have
Speaker 5: ruled that jerrymandering is allowed in North Carolina. So we
Speaker 5: are going back in September to redraw all the districts,
Speaker 5: and we will lose all of the Democratic congressional seats
Speaker 5: that we had except for possibly two.
Speaker 3: So even though our state is basically fifty to.
Speaker 5: Fifty, we will end up with ten or eleven congressional Republicans.
Speaker 5: And it's the same for the State House and sidate strips.
Speaker 5: Wait why because they know, they meaning the Republicans know
Speaker 5: the only way they can continue to win is by cheating,
Speaker 5: and cheating is through gerrymandering. And they know that people
Speaker 5: are not behind the way they value things, especially this
Speaker 5: abortion ban, and that if people had one vote for
Speaker 5: each person that in a non gerrymandered situation, they would
Speaker 5: all lose their seats.
Speaker 1: So what happens now, I mean, is there anything to
Speaker 1: do with this gerrymandering or is it really unfitsable?
Speaker 5: Well, the gerrymandering situation is very difficult because you know,
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court is not up for re election this year.
Speaker 5: That's several more years until we can get those people
Speaker 5: out of office. What were you're going to have to
Speaker 5: do is fight like we've never fought before and make
Speaker 5: sure people overwhelmingly come out to vote.
Speaker 3: Because if we can.
Speaker 5: Get every single unaffiliated and Democrat to vote, we can
Speaker 5: be them. And that is what we have to do.
Speaker 5: We have to make sure people understand their lives are
Speaker 5: at stake and their livelihoods with things like the income
Speaker 5: tax being got rid of, the corporate income tax in
Speaker 5: North Carolina, people will pay for that. Women will die
Speaker 5: because of the abortion band and the things about trans
Speaker 5: children in sports and otherwise will also result in suicide
Speaker 5: rates of those children going by.
Speaker 1: And so tell me, how are you running in your
Speaker 1: state and what does that look like?
Speaker 5: So I, you know, started in twenty eighteen when I
Speaker 5: won a House district. I won one that was an
Speaker 5: R plus nine district Trump won by nine percentage points
Speaker 5: in twenty sixteen, and so I have been able to
Speaker 5: fight and.
Speaker 3: Win in districts like that.
Speaker 5: And the way I do it is going door to door,
Speaker 5: making sure I talk to every single person. And I
Speaker 5: got Republican votes that year too, and making sure we
Speaker 5: get our message out to this year, women especially in
Speaker 5: suburban areas are very very angry, and they are not
Speaker 5: going to take what is being done to them in
Speaker 5: North Carolina sitting down, and they will come out and vote.
Speaker 5: So we just have to make sure they know who
Speaker 5: to vote for, what the issues are besides abortion, and
Speaker 5: that they have to vote because we also have some
Speaker 5: issues that we just passed to make voting more difficult.
Speaker 1: Right, you talk to us about that.
Speaker 5: Yes, if you try to do a mail in ballot,
Speaker 5: which became extremely popular during the pandemic. They have cut
Speaker 5: off the number of days that they will allow it
Speaker 5: to be received. They are going to now have more
Speaker 5: stringent things with you know, signatures that have to match
Speaker 5: two factor authentication, which is not use anywhere else in
Speaker 5: the country. You know, they're also making it more difficult
Speaker 5: if you want to register and vote on the same day,
Speaker 5: which we know that is disproportionately affects minority people and
Speaker 5: students because they know the only way they can win
Speaker 5: is by cheating, and this is just another way to
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk to me about what that looks like with
Speaker 1: the voting, what will happen on the ground.
Speaker 5: So we have got to have people out right now.
Speaker 5: First of all, getting people their IDs that this is
Speaker 5: the first year that goes into effect having to have
Speaker 5: an ID. We have not given extra money to the
Speaker 5: Bory of Elections. We hope in the final budget they
Speaker 5: will get some extra money. But other people are going
Speaker 5: to have to pick up the slack, including campaigns to
Speaker 5: make sure people understand the rules. And we also just
Speaker 5: have to make sure people come out and vote in person.
Speaker 5: You know, we have early voting here, so that's what
Speaker 5: they need to do.
Speaker 1: So early voting is still okay, but mail in voting
Speaker 1: they've made it harder again.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's right. And if your mail in vote
Speaker 5: doesn't count and is turned into a provisional ballot, it
Speaker 5: will be much harder to cure that, especially if you're
Speaker 5: not able to drive or in some other situation like that.
Speaker 1: Right, while we're here, just a little bit more about
Speaker 1: what it would mean to have a democratic lieutenant governor
Speaker 1: in North Carolina.
Speaker 5: Having a Democratic governor and a female Democratic governor North
Speaker 5: Carolina would be great.
Speaker 1: We've only had.
Speaker 5: One other female Democratic lieutenant governor in history, and we
Speaker 5: know the value of having women at the decision making table.
Speaker 5: As lieutenant governor, i will preside over the state Senate
Speaker 5: and I'll be in the room with the governor helping
Speaker 5: to make critical decisions. We have to have a strong
Speaker 5: democratic governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general at the helm
Speaker 5: to fight for our rights and make sure that North
Speaker 5: Carolina's women and workers are at the forefront of our priorities.
Speaker 1: Why do you think North Carolina has been so beguiling
Speaker 1: for Democrats? I mean, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: would have said that it seemed more likely you'd see
Speaker 1: a slipped North Carolina. Before you'd see a flipped Georgia.
Speaker 1: But here we are. I mean, why do you think
Speaker 1: it's been so beguiling for us?
Speaker 5: I think the jerrymandering issue is one of the reasons.
Speaker 5: You know, we started that in North Carolina. We were
Speaker 5: the first state to really be very good at jerrymandering
Speaker 5: and to do it to an extreme degree. And so
Speaker 5: that's set up, you know, starting in twenty ten when
Speaker 5: the Republicans took over the state legislature. That has set
Speaker 5: up this entire time that they have been in control
Speaker 5: of the legislature over ten years now. And because they
Speaker 5: were able to control the district lines, you know, and
Speaker 5: make people's voats count less than they should fully in
Speaker 5: a democracy, they have been able to hold onto power.
Speaker 5: But you know, we are starting to chip away. We
Speaker 5: won a state House seat in an exurban county, which
Speaker 5: is exactly what we are going to work on.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: We know that in the counties that are right outside
Speaker 5: of the cities in North Carolina, people are ready to
Speaker 5: make changes. They may have moved here. We have one
Speaker 5: hundred people a day that move into Charlotte. They don't
Speaker 5: under stand that Republicans in North Carolina are not the
Speaker 5: same as Republicans in New York or Massachusetts, and once
Speaker 5: they find out, they are willing and ready to vote
Speaker 5: the right way for the Democrats.
Speaker 1: Here we are in this off year. What do you
Speaker 1: think the people in North Carolina are looking for for candidates,
Speaker 1: what do they want to see from Biden in this
Speaker 1: presidential What do you think the ethos is in your state?
Speaker 1: And how do you think Democrats could win in the
Speaker 1: twenty four Well.
Speaker 5: I think we win by meeting people where they are
Speaker 5: talking about issues that they care about. My dad was
Speaker 5: governor in the state for sixteen years. He had people
Speaker 5: from every background that supported him. He was able to
Speaker 5: get an incredible amount of things done by Republicans and
Speaker 5: Democrats working together. And that's because, you know, we talked
Speaker 5: about things that are that are important to us, things
Speaker 5: like quality and affordable health care, fully funding our public schools,
Speaker 5: supporting family farmers, bringing jobs to the state, keeping communities safe.
Speaker 5: None of these are partisan. They appeal to everyone, and
Speaker 5: those are the issues that should be a top priority
Speaker 5: for all of us. That is what my campaign is doing.
Speaker 5: We are building a grassroots movement in every single up
Speaker 5: the one hundred counties and it'll be a platform for
Speaker 5: the issues that North Carolinians care about. They do not
Speaker 5: care about these social issues that the Republicans are trying
Speaker 5: to push. Those are just red flags. They are meaningless.
Speaker 5: They are not what people care about. And we have
Speaker 5: to keep the attention on the issues people care about
Speaker 5: and make sure that they understand we are the party,
Speaker 5: we are the people, We are the candidates who are
Speaker 5: going to help them.
Speaker 1: Do you still think that Trump has a real kind
Speaker 1: of base in North Carolina?
Speaker 5: I would say he still has about thirty percent of
Speaker 5: the people that are Republican that support him.
Speaker 1: Yes, from what you're sort of seeing on the ground
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, do they seem angrier or do they
Speaker 1: seem like they've sort of are of living with the
Speaker 1: defeat of trump Ism? Or do you think they think
Speaker 1: their guy's going to win next time?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: No, they think their guy's going to win. They are
Speaker 5: fully in that world. They have all pledged allegiance to him.
Speaker 5: They think that they're going to be able to do
Speaker 5: exactly what they did last time when he won, and
Speaker 5: they think he's going to win.
Speaker 1: There's no moment of reflection or anything.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
Speaker 5: If they had a moment of reflection, they would not
Speaker 5: be able to pass these laws at their passing.
Speaker 1: When voters talk to you, I mean, what are the
Speaker 1: things they're the most concerned was.
Speaker 5: They are concerned with their children being safe at school,
Speaker 5: They are concerned with their children's education. They are concerned
Speaker 5: with healthcare. Women, as I've said before, women on the doorsteps.
Speaker 5: When I was knocking doors last year for my state
Speaker 5: senate race women over seventy would actually break down in
Speaker 5: tears to talk and talk to me about when they
Speaker 5: fought for the right to have abortion in the state
Speaker 5: and in this country, and how happy they were when
Speaker 5: Roby Waite was passed, and how devastated they are with
Speaker 5: the Dobbs decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I continue to think Dobbs is a much bigger
Speaker 1: deal than even now it's being painted as I do too.
Speaker 5: And you know, our ban goes into effect July first,
Speaker 5: and once that happens, people are really going to see
Speaker 5: this is not just about abortion. This is about health care.
Speaker 5: If you are pregnant and you have a very bad situation,
Speaker 5: you need to get kidder and the doctors are going
Speaker 5: to leave.
Speaker 3: They're going to leave the state.
Speaker 1: Well, and also the doctors don't want to lose their licenses,
Speaker 1: right exactly, and I don't blame them. Yeah, I'm so
Speaker 1: delighted to have you. So when is your tell us
Speaker 1: when your election is?
Speaker 5: So the primary is March eight. I do have one
Speaker 5: premier opponent. I hope that he drops out, but we'll see.
Speaker 5: We can do it either way. And then of course
Speaker 5: the election is in November.
Speaker 1: Great. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: We're so welcome.
Speaker 5: It was my pleasure. And anyone who us to go
Speaker 5: to about website Rachel Hunt dot com please do.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, Maley.
Speaker 2: Jung, Fast the Money Honey, Maria Barceromo, and Senator Marshall
Speaker 2: Blackburn there sounded like Alex Jones to me.
Speaker 1: It's all The idea here is that Biden orchestrated a
Speaker 1: coup was on Putin to distract from Hunter Biden's laptop.
Speaker 1: That's really what it is. And I just want to
Speaker 1: say that if Biden could organize a coup to remove
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin, I don't think he's gonna the dumbest people
Speaker 1: saying the dumbest things. Congratulations, Fox News, you've done it again.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics Tune in
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