Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And the FDA may outlaw food dies
Speaker 1: within the.
Speaker 2: Next few weeks. I will be delighted and shocked if
Speaker 2: that happens.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 2: The Lincoln Projects.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson stops by to discuss the state of American
Speaker 1: democracy spoiler it's not great. And we'll talk to Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Democrats Chair Ben Wickler about.
Speaker 2: His run to head the DNC. But first the news Somali.
Speaker 3: Mister Trump did a little appearance on Meet the Press
Speaker 3: with Kristen Welker, and a lot of crazy shit was said.
Speaker 3: Mostly that alired to me is the idea that he's
Speaker 3: going to start dealing Congress people.
Speaker 2: Not good. Not good.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that we're trying to do
Speaker 1: here is protect norms and institutions, and one of the
Speaker 1: ways we do that is by not allowing the president
Speaker 1: to ail his political enemies.
Speaker 2: Now again, this is like always the.
Speaker 1: Problem when covering Trump is like he says a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, He talks a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: Some of that stuff he ends up doing. Some of
Speaker 2: that stuff.
Speaker 1: He doesn't end up doing some of that stuff he
Speaker 1: says so that people will get upset, and then his
Speaker 1: people will say, well, we never were going to do that,
Speaker 1: so again, and then sometimes he'll say stuff like I'm
Speaker 1: going to jail my political enemies. This is by any measure,
Speaker 1: absolutely one hundred percent not appropriate for a leader to
Speaker 1: be saying in a democracy.
Speaker 2: Now, maybe he's saying this because he.
Speaker 1: Wants reporters to report it and then him not to
Speaker 1: do it, and then them to look like they were overreacting,
Speaker 1: who knows, But the reality is he's saying it.
Speaker 2: It's bad, it should not happen.
Speaker 1: People need to push back against it because it's not
Speaker 1: what we do in a democracy and it's dangerous. And
Speaker 1: so he said the quote is everybody on that committee
Speaker 1: dot dot dot. Because this is Trump, so he never
Speaker 1: says things in grammatically correct ways for what they did. Yeah, honestly,
Speaker 1: they should go to jail.
Speaker 2: Again. Not good, not what we do in a democracy.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely flouting all the norms, breaking the norms,
Speaker 1: setting the norms on fire.
Speaker 2: Real important that none of this happens.
Speaker 1: But again, it's Trump, so he could be just saying
Speaker 1: stuff in the hopes of getting other people upset so
Speaker 1: that then he can say that people are overreacting. He
Speaker 1: said that Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, those are the
Speaker 1: former coheads of that committee, were behind his federal prosecutions.
Speaker 1: As we know, there's no connection between federal prosecutions and
Speaker 1: a congressional subcommittee, zero zip zulch. The Department of Justice
Speaker 1: is a completely its own thing, not connected to the presidency,
Speaker 1: not connected to Congress. And Trump then again said, however,
Speaker 1: they should go to jail for what they did again,
Speaker 1: and should go to jail for investigating a former president.
Speaker 1: And he even said, I think that everybody on the panel,
Speaker 1: that anyone who voted him favor should go to jail.
Speaker 2: That is wrong. That is a flouting of norms.
Speaker 1: The people on the panel, just for just to remind everyone,
Speaker 1: Benny Thompson, Zoe Lofgren, Adam Schiff, Pete Aguilar, Stephanie Murphy,
Speaker 1: Jamie Raskin, Representative Luria, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinsinger. So
Speaker 1: there'll be more, will definitely see more on this topic.
Speaker 1: But just remember again, we must protect norms and also
Speaker 1: two things can be true. We must protect norms and
Speaker 1: also Donald Trump says a lot of stuff. Some of
Speaker 1: it's true, some of it's not true. Some of it
Speaker 1: he wants to do, some of it he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to do. So just always remember that when you hear
Speaker 1: Trump say things.
Speaker 3: I have a third theory that he really just likes
Speaker 3: the sound of his own mouth yapping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's true, Liz Cheney responded. And really the
Speaker 1: important thing here when we're protecting norms and institutions is
Speaker 1: to stand up against Trump's trying to destroy them.
Speaker 2: So she responds.
Speaker 1: This morning, President elect Trump again lied about the January
Speaker 1: sixth elect Committee and said members of the committee should
Speaker 1: quote go to jail for carrying out our constitutional responsibilities.
Speaker 2: Here is the truth.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the twenty twenty election and
Speaker 1: seize power. He mobilized an angry mob and sent them
Speaker 1: to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers,
Speaker 1: invaded the building, and halted the official counting of electoral votes.
Speaker 1: Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten
Speaker 1: and the capital was assaulted, refusing.
Speaker 2: For hours to tell the mom to leave. This was the.
Speaker 1: Worst breach of our constitution by any president. In our
Speaker 1: nation's history. Donald Trump's suggestion that members of Congress who
Speaker 1: later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional action should be jailed
Speaker 1: is a continuation of his assault on the rule of
Speaker 1: law and the foundations of our republic. Yet again, this
Speaker 1: is why we have to stand up to Trump. We
Speaker 1: have to protect norms and institutions. And this Liz Cheney
Speaker 1: response is absolutely pitch perfect, good for Liz Cheney. Sorry,
Speaker 1: so I know every time I praise Liz Cheney, a
Speaker 1: little piece of you dies.
Speaker 3: But it's true. It's true. So I have an alternate
Speaker 3: theory about why mister Trump says all these things. It's
Speaker 3: more that he loves the side of his voice, that
Speaker 3: he loves the yep. But he continued to app beat
Speaker 3: the press about how he's going to repeal birthright citizenship.
Speaker 2: So birthright citizenship.
Speaker 1: This is like, I understand that Trump wants to repeal
Speaker 1: birthright citizenship, but he doesn't get to And I'm going
Speaker 1: to read you exactly this is it's actually, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. I know
Speaker 1: how much Trump and Republicans love textualism. It's Amendment fourteen,
Speaker 1: Section one point one point two citizenship Clause doctor in
Speaker 1: fourteenth Amendments, Section one.
Speaker 2: All persons born or.
Speaker 1: Naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction
Speaker 1: thereof are citizens of the United States and of the
Speaker 1: state where they reside. No State shall make or enforce
Speaker 1: any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of
Speaker 1: citizens of the United States, Nor shall any state deprive
Speaker 1: a person of life, liberty, or property do process to
Speaker 1: the law. So I'm just saying Trump, well, may he
Speaker 1: may want to strip birthright citizenship. He cannot do that.
Speaker 1: That is illegal. It's against the Constitution. And if the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court wants to be total hypocrites and it's just
Speaker 1: not okay. He cannot edit the Constitution. So this is
Speaker 1: a no go for Trump. He may try, but he can't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure America First Legal will be up fighting
Speaker 3: this battle thoroughly. So the last thing that he apped about,
Speaker 3: of course, was how much he loves the word tariffs.
Speaker 3: It seems that he's so in love with them that
Speaker 3: he's going to push this through.
Speaker 4: But it doesn't seem so confident about the BALI.
Speaker 1: I mean, remember when he was running for office, he
Speaker 1: said tariffs are going to make everything cheaper. His mandate,
Speaker 1: if he has a mandate, was to make things cheaper, right,
Speaker 1: That was the one thing voters really wanted from him.
Speaker 1: So he told Walker that he can't guarantee anything. He
Speaker 1: can't guarantee tomorrow, but I can say he can't guarantee
Speaker 1: that tariffs won't make things more expensive. Hauhu exactly what
Speaker 1: everyone said when he was running for office Somali.
Speaker 3: With the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, we've
Speaker 3: seen a reaction that I think has puzzled a lot
Speaker 3: of people because I think a lot of people did
Speaker 3: not see how mad everyday Americans are at the healthcare system.
Speaker 1: So you and I had to talk about this, and
Speaker 1: you were like really furious, and I didn't totally get it.
Speaker 3: I was furious at the healthcare system because I've had
Speaker 3: Obamacare until literally three months ago, for ten years, and
Speaker 3: I told you I would in I did the calculation,
Speaker 3: and every year I pay for worst care and I'm
Speaker 3: paid three times as much as I did a decade ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so we were talking about it, and I
Speaker 1: have health insurance and I it's not very good, but
Speaker 1: you know, I have come from a lot of privilege
Speaker 1: married to someone who is very privileged, and so you know,
Speaker 1: if I have problems with health insurance, I just pay
Speaker 1: for it myself and it ends up being thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. And so you were like, look, Mo,
Speaker 1: like people are fucking pissed about healthcare because it's just
Speaker 1: they are just being taken advantage of. And what we're
Speaker 1: seeing since this news cycle of this CEO who was
Speaker 1: murdered is that Americans are just enraged about.
Speaker 2: Their health care.
Speaker 1: And it's very hard to find people who are writing
Speaker 1: about this who can sort of separate the murder from
Speaker 1: their rage about health insurance.
Speaker 2: And look, it really is.
Speaker 1: So the comments online are people saying, you know, eat
Speaker 1: the rich. This needs to be the new norm, people
Speaker 1: expressing frustration about their healthcare. And even people like Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 1: who is on the right and who you wouldn't think
Speaker 1: would have followers who were so angry about their healthcare,
Speaker 1: which you should be angry obviously, but it's funny. Ben
Speaker 1: Shapiro said, you know, it's terrible to murder people, which
Speaker 1: is not you know, he's had certainly had worse takes.
Speaker 1: And then the comments are basically this is not a
Speaker 1: left or right issue. This is a working class versus
Speaker 1: a wealthy issue, which is shows really how far we've
Speaker 1: gotten because I'm pretty sure that the working class are
Speaker 1: largely supposed to be represented by the Democrats, even if
Speaker 1: that has not been clear, and maybe perhaps Democrats have
Speaker 1: not been representing the working cloud the way they're supposed to,
Speaker 1: but real interesting realignment.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that there's like a really interesting thing
Speaker 3: in these Ben Shapiro comments too, because like one of
Speaker 3: the highest voted things with thousands of up votes on
Speaker 3: the comment is this is the first time I've ever
Speaker 3: seen Ben get cooked by his own comment section. A
Speaker 3: lot of people saying it's not a non partis issue,
Speaker 3: and I think that that's one of the things is
Speaker 3: that when we look at the political views as just
Speaker 3: purely a left right issue and not an XY access,
Speaker 3: you ignore that almost every American who's not making enough
Speaker 3: money to be liquid has been victimized by some sort
Speaker 3: of thing where they didn't feel they had any say
Speaker 3: in what the health insurance company decided for them. They
Speaker 3: have no way of having reproach and having a say
Speaker 3: in life and death and often serious preventative health matters
Speaker 3: and that seems to me why a lot of people
Speaker 3: are not showing a lot of sympathy for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, this is a big story that
Speaker 1: we may get more and more from.
Speaker 2: And this rage that people.
Speaker 1: Have about the way they're being treated by their healthcore
Speaker 1: company and largely the way they're being taken advantage of,
Speaker 1: my guess is going to be a really big story
Speaker 1: and that this ground swell is real and we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about this for a long time, so
Speaker 1: stay tuned. Ben Wickler is the chairperson of Wisconsin Democrats.
Speaker 1: Welcome Back Too Fast Politics, Rick Wilson, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the United States Senate. I don't want to give them
Speaker 1: too much credit. And again, like, if I've learned anything
Speaker 1: from this cycle, it's that I am a cock eyed
Speaker 1: optimist in a horrible way. But doesn't it seem like
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, with the exception of maybe Tommy Tuberville,
Speaker 1: that there's some amount of advice and consent going on.
Speaker 5: I would say there seems to be a touch of
Speaker 5: advice and consent going on. I am not a cock
Speaker 5: eyed optimist about this, knowing these people for what.
Speaker 6: They are, but I will say this, there's a degree
Speaker 6: to which the automatic obedience to Trump that everyone is expecting,
Speaker 6: especially in Trump world, has not yet emerged, which is
Speaker 6: kind of nice.
Speaker 1: The other thing I think is that everyone is on
Speaker 1: each other and freaked out about this idea of obeying
Speaker 1: an advance. I want to talk about something here for
Speaker 1: a minute, because this is the Timothy Schneider, the idea
Speaker 1: that you're not supposed to obey in advance. But then
Speaker 1: there's also what all of us did in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: where you know, everything was a five alon fire, and
Speaker 1: that is also Trump is very easily manipulated and manipulative
Speaker 1: but manipulated, and he's very transactional, So there is as
Speaker 1: much as you don't want to obey an advance, Like
Speaker 1: when you see Bernie Sanders making overtures towards Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: Do I love that? Well? I think that he's trying
Speaker 1: to get Elon Musk to do what he wants. And
Speaker 1: Republicans have been a lot better at appealing to nefarious
Speaker 1: billionaires than Democrats have. But you know, if you could
Speaker 1: make the case.
Speaker 5: Are there farious billionaires lately?
Speaker 1: No? Yeah, exactly, talk me through this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Look, I think what we have right now is
Speaker 5: a moment in Washington, where there's a lot of there's
Speaker 5: a sense in the Senate. I talked to the Senate
Speaker 5: senior staff member the to day for a Republican who
Speaker 5: said to me, well, there's a kind of vibe right
Speaker 5: now that you know, the crazies are going to fall
Speaker 5: apart and he's going to end up nominating some regular people.
Speaker 5: They have a sort of twenty seventeen vibe going the
Speaker 5: way I'm looking at. I think that is an inaccurate assessment.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, some of the crazies are going
Speaker 5: to get knocked out gates already. Hexit is on thin ice.
Speaker 5: But I think they're being optimistic for reasons that are
Speaker 5: not as solid as they would like them to be.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense, Yeah, go say more.
Speaker 5: They're giving Donald Trump too much credit. We are seeing
Speaker 5: some of that. And again this has got a very
Speaker 5: strong rights previous twenty seventeen vibe. Oh, he'll have competence safe,
Speaker 5: the same people around him, and they'll make sure that
Speaker 5: he does the right thing. I don't know if I
Speaker 5: buy that. I really don't know.
Speaker 1: He's definitely not gonna do the right thing. I mean
Speaker 1: that I think we I am not real confident in
Speaker 1: that regard. Yeah, no, No, I mean I think the
Speaker 1: more optimistic case is these guys are just not that
Speaker 1: good at any of this, so it's going to fall apart.
Speaker 5: Yes, I think that is definitely. The more likely scenario
Speaker 5: is that is that a lot of them that are
Speaker 5: on the on the Trump list this time are much
Speaker 5: more extreme, much more crazy than the folks we saw
Speaker 5: in the first iteration. There was a there was a
Speaker 5: sense in the first administration of Okay, you still have
Speaker 5: a Rex Tiller Center, Jim Mattis or Gary Kohane and
Speaker 5: it's not all Steve Bannon and the cuckoo parade. I
Speaker 5: don't think you have that saying vibe this time. Even
Speaker 5: the ones who aren't overtly insane are still pretty bad.
Speaker 5: And I just think that that is a caution for
Speaker 5: people to process a little bit, even in this early going,
Speaker 5: not to get too optimistic about where this thing ends up.
Speaker 1: Yes, I also think that if you want to feel better,
Speaker 1: the way to feel better is to look at the
Speaker 1: Congress that is ending just now, this Mike Johnson Congress,
Speaker 1: where they had one seat more of a majority than
Speaker 1: they will have, and they are just terrible at governing,
Speaker 1: Like it's just a fucking disaster. Like they can't pass anything,
Speaker 1: they can't get together, they can't you know, they can't figure.
Speaker 5: Out well, they can barely order lunch at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so there is certainly a feeling if you
Speaker 1: want to feel better, the way to feel better is
Speaker 1: not that there are grown ups in the room. It's
Speaker 1: that these people are completely insane and do not get
Speaker 1: along and they really, you know, they just completely destroy
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think that's right. I think there's a there's a
Speaker 5: degree of that that kind of like the lunatics are
Speaker 5: in charge of the asylum in the house and that
Speaker 5: is not great. That is not as good for the
Speaker 5: house as they.
Speaker 1: Think it's right, exactly. And I also just think, like
Speaker 1: the thing that I always think about is, you know,
Speaker 1: will cash Battel go after us, Sure, but will he
Speaker 1: also go after Republican senators who displease him? Yes? Right?
Speaker 1: Trump Ism is not the same brand as Republicanism is discussed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Look, I mean, and here's the other part of
Speaker 5: what's happening in the Senate. The Senate is shifting from
Speaker 5: the McConnell era to the Thune era. That's not particularly great, honestly,
Speaker 5: for the Senate. It's not particularly great for how you
Speaker 5: you look at whether the Senate's going to be effective
Speaker 5: and whether it's going to be you know, manageable. There's
Speaker 5: a caucus in the Senate now of crazies. They're going
Speaker 5: to be you know, the Cidy Head Smith's, the Tommy
Speaker 5: Tubber bills, the Josh hall Is com Cotton, all those lunatics. Right,
Speaker 5: those people are a majority now in the in the
Speaker 5: in the caucus. It's not pretty. I think that or
Speaker 5: there are a plurality.
Speaker 4: Let you recraise that.
Speaker 1: It's not for you.
Speaker 5: It's not easy anymore for that caucus to be like
Speaker 5: it was under the McConnell era. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I do. But I also think that the
Speaker 1: McConnell is a gifted legislator. We don't know that Dune
Speaker 1: is going to be that.
Speaker 5: You are one hundred percent correct. We do not have
Speaker 5: a similar grasp of whether John Thune is going to
Speaker 5: have that persuasive power over the majority that he wants
Speaker 5: to and in fact, interestingly enough, the guy that ran
Speaker 5: very effectively, I may add, the Senate Leadership Fund Stephen
Speaker 5: law today announced that he was retired, which is very interesting.
Speaker 5: To me, because that is the organization that over the
Speaker 5: last two decades has raised a couple of billion dollars
Speaker 5: a couple billion dollars with a bee for Republican candidates.
Speaker 5: There's a very different vibe on the legislative acumen as
Speaker 5: well as the political activity. It's a real open question
Speaker 5: as to whether that is going to sustain itself. Makes
Speaker 5: hast Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also I would say, like the question is when
Speaker 1: we're talking about this, and we're talking about they are
Speaker 1: a couple of legislative things they really want to do
Speaker 1: when they get in power, and one is this is
Speaker 1: making these enormous tax cuts permanent, which is why so
Speaker 1: many rich people got so excited about this election. You know.
Speaker 1: The other thing I was struck by is so this
Speaker 1: week Andrew Ross Sorkin, who is really great, had this
Speaker 1: deal book a conference and he had one of the panelists.
Speaker 1: One of the guests was Ken Griffin, who's a huge
Speaker 1: billionaire hedge fun guy, big GOP donor, and he spent
Speaker 1: the time talking about how important it was that the
Speaker 1: FED be independent of the Trump administration. Right, So, like
Speaker 1: this is like in twenty sixteen, you would not have
Speaker 1: a billionaire donor of Donald Trump being like, here's what
Speaker 1: I want you to not do. Here's a guardrail I
Speaker 1: think is important. Don't screw up.
Speaker 5: The thing that has made stability in our markets possible
Speaker 5: over the last multiple decades. Please and thank you.
Speaker 1: Right, and like you had a deal book, you had
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos being like, Donald Trump is great hair feurer.
Speaker 1: I want to fight autocracy. I want American democracy to survive.
Speaker 1: In my mind, that is job one. That said, I
Speaker 1: understand exactly what Jeff Bezos is doing, and I think
Speaker 1: that if you want to do rockets, that's what you
Speaker 1: have to do right now.
Speaker 5: You have to strategically kiss ass with these people. It's
Speaker 5: not a great look, but it's a real thing.
Speaker 1: Well, it undermines his seriousness in every which way. But like,
Speaker 1: if he wants to launch rockets, and maybe he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to launch rockets, but like that's what it is, right, Like.
Speaker 5: Oh, he wants to launch rockets. He wants to compete
Speaker 5: with Elon in the rocket launching biz. A lot of
Speaker 5: ass kissing is going to be necessary to stay in
Speaker 5: the rocket game, which, as Humble famously said about that,
Speaker 5: no Bucks, no Buck Rogers, So you're gonna see those
Speaker 5: guys like like bezos come out and say, oh, you know,
Speaker 5: this was necessary. I had to. You know, you may
Speaker 5: think it's distasteful, but I had to. I had to
Speaker 5: make this distasteful move in order to serve the greater
Speaker 5: good and to fulfill a better mission. And so you know,
Speaker 5: And and I talked to somebody recently who I wouldn't
Speaker 5: say he's like super close to Jeff, but he's close
Speaker 5: enough where he said, you know, he hates Elon so
Speaker 5: fucking much, you'd be shocked how little heat, how little
Speaker 5: pride he has because he hates Elon so fucking much.
Speaker 5: Like what he'll do to fuck Ehon is it's an
Speaker 5: infinite number.
Speaker 1: Well, we're still sort of on this Elon Trump first
Speaker 1: buddy situation. How long does it last? And that there's
Speaker 1: we don't know, right, we don't know.
Speaker 5: But look, no human being has ever in the history
Speaker 5: of Trump interactions, Not one time ever has anyone survived
Speaker 5: the curse of Trump's disloyalty. It is the one constant
Speaker 5: in the Trump universe is his disloyalty. The one thing
Speaker 5: you can always count on is that he will screw
Speaker 5: over people he says are ascrits. It has never once failed.
Speaker 5: In the history of Maya and other observations of Donald Trump,
Speaker 5: it never fails. He will screw his own people. You're
Speaker 5: you're the greatest thing since prepared mustard. On day one,
Speaker 5: You're a goat, You're an idiot, you're a moron, you're
Speaker 5: a coffee boyed intern. On day five, you never. No
Speaker 5: one survives it.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, yeah, so we'll see what happens. But
Speaker 1: it does. It certainly seems like there is an absolute
Speaker 1: sense in which this does not seem like this relationship
Speaker 1: is forever.
Speaker 5: Now, as in all these things, you can count on
Speaker 5: Donald Trump to be inconstant and unfaithful in whatever interaction
Speaker 5: he is in, whether it is personal or whether it
Speaker 5: is financial. You can always count him to be shit.
Speaker 5: He's a highly technical.
Speaker 1: Term, right exactly. That's the that's the medical diagnosis. Let's
Speaker 1: just have another minute here to talk about what this
Speaker 1: all looks like. Now we have the House is done,
Speaker 1: Republicans lost a seat the Senate. Trump can only lose four.
Speaker 1: We have Hegsith trying to stay in it, and we
Speaker 1: have then like a number of completely crazy other nominees
Speaker 1: coming down the pike. I feel like the conventional wisdom
Speaker 1: is that Republicans will only let one get to committee.
Speaker 5: I think they're going to feel like they have to
Speaker 5: give him a couple They're going to say, you know,
Speaker 5: we can't just completely shut him out. Then he'll be
Speaker 5: angry with us. Then we'll have to do even more
Speaker 5: horrible things. And I don't disagree with that analysis on
Speaker 5: their part. They're not completely wrong about that. If they
Speaker 5: don't give him something, he's going to really get angry
Speaker 5: in that regard. You know, One, if you're a Republican,
Speaker 5: especially if you're John Thune, you don't want Trump to
Speaker 5: fuck up your primary season by saying, oh, a contrere,
Speaker 5: you thought you were going to get it off easy.
Speaker 5: I'm going to intervene in all the primaries to put
Speaker 5: in my people if you don't do what I want. Yeah,
Speaker 5: like Charlie kirk Out threatened people last night about that,
Speaker 5: if you don't put in Beata said, it's primary time
Speaker 5: for all of you. Okay.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing. It's funny because it's like
Speaker 1: it used to be in a time when things mattered
Speaker 1: if you were a purple state, a Republican who voted
Speaker 1: you know, in some insane way, it could be used
Speaker 1: against you when you're running for reelection. Is that still true?
Speaker 5: There is now a premium for insanity in the market,
Speaker 5: and so people can do crazier things than they used
Speaker 5: to do, and vote crazier ways than they used to
Speaker 5: and in fact they're kind of required a lot of
Speaker 5: the time to do that, which is not pretty. That's
Speaker 5: not the world we should live in as a serious country,
Speaker 5: but it is the world we do live in as
Speaker 5: a fairly unserious country. I look at this moment where
Speaker 5: in Molly with like the risk factors in these guys
Speaker 5: face are almost entirely on their right flock. They don't
Speaker 5: feel and correctly so, they don't feel like they wake
Speaker 5: up in the morning and go, oh man, if I
Speaker 5: get the Chamber of Commerce, mad, I'm going to have
Speaker 5: real problems. What they do get is, oh fuck, if
Speaker 5: I piss off some right wing video blogger, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: have a shit ton of problems. Oh no, Benny Johnson's
Speaker 5: coming to attack me or whatever it is. Right, You know,
Speaker 5: that stuff is really that has really become a very
Speaker 5: ugly element of the GOPS like day to day existence.
Speaker 5: Somebody resurfaced that clip yesterday, people walking after Lindsay Graham
Speaker 5: just after January sixth, screaming abuse of the guy which
Speaker 5: everyone loves to scream abuse at Lindy Graham. And he's certainly,
Speaker 5: I'm sure paid good money for the same kind of thing.
Speaker 5: But it's so not the kind of the kind of
Speaker 5: behavioral thing that makes sense if you're if you're or
Speaker 5: candidate or an elected official that do you want to
Speaker 5: take that or do you want to avoid that? You
Speaker 5: want to avoid it?
Speaker 1: You know, you got Elon and Vivak on Capitol Hill yesterday.
Speaker 1: Imagine how insane those meetings have to be.
Speaker 5: Oh bonkers, batshit, cuckoo town crazy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh fantastic, I mean fantastic. I don't want
Speaker 1: to feel bad for Mike Johnson, but I almost feel
Speaker 1: bad for Mike Johnson.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 5: I can constrain my desire to feel bad for Mike Johnson.
Speaker 5: This is you know, he bought the pony.
Speaker 1: It is amazing. Now like he's going to have to
Speaker 1: try to explain government to these guys.
Speaker 5: Well, look, I mean the scary ones that I think
Speaker 5: people need to pay more attention to, like the russ
Speaker 5: VOTs of the world and the other people that are
Speaker 5: decidedly insane. You know, we're going to have to We're
Speaker 5: gonna have to as a country recognize that, you know,
Speaker 5: people are going to be trying to destroy this nation.
Speaker 5: Inside the Trump administration, We're going to try to tear
Speaker 5: down every conceivable element of sane governance. And I you know,
Speaker 5: you kind of get that, you understand it. It's just
Speaker 5: not it's not pretty much you understand it if we
Speaker 5: don't put ourselves in a position I think you know
Speaker 5: pretty quickly to start thinking about like not just blocking
Speaker 5: or exposing or minimizing the impacts of the you know,
Speaker 5: Pete Hexit is one thing. Some of these other folks
Speaker 5: are truly as far out on the rim as you
Speaker 5: can get.
Speaker 1: I would say, Pete Hegsitt, if the limb is pretty far.
Speaker 5: Oh no, Pete hegg Sitt, this is completely like.
Speaker 1: Lack of doodle, yeah, but in insane, but with.
Speaker 5: A magnificent head of hair.
Speaker 1: And isn't that really what counts? Well? I think that
Speaker 1: that's you know, you running the DD is to eighty
Speaker 1: percent looks yeah, I'm it's eighty percent looks at a
Speaker 1: hundred percent sass exactly.
Speaker 5: Rick Wilson, Molly John Fast that's all, my friend.
Speaker 1: Good to talk to you. Rick Wilson is the founder
Speaker 1: of the Lincoln Project and host of the Enemy's List.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Ben, great to be back
Speaker 1: with you. Molly so famously like the best Wisconsin Democratic
Speaker 1: state chair ever, and now you're going to run for
Speaker 1: the big job.
Speaker 4: I'm running for national teen Treo Carey. Yes. So, Wisconsin
Speaker 4: is a state that kind of experienced a preview for
Speaker 4: what we might be about to experience nationwide. Wisconsin had
Speaker 4: a bunch of like really deep progressive history and traditions
Speaker 4: as a birthplace of the labor movement, of the progressive movement.
Speaker 4: The Republican Party started as an anti slavery party in Wisconsin,
Speaker 4: but it also had this far right strand in its
Speaker 4: history Joe McCarthy and the John Birch Society. And in
Speaker 4: twenty ten Republicans took over the state government and an
Speaker 4: election that was kind of a lot was happening in
Speaker 4: twenty ten, but it was not a year when the
Speaker 4: public was demanding that Republicans come in and totally rig
Speaker 4: the systems so they'd never lose, and then sell off
Speaker 4: the state government to Shovel Monu to the richest people,
Speaker 4: and that's what they did. They ask unions, they suppressed
Speaker 4: the vote, that jerrymandered the living daylights out of Wisconsin.
Speaker 4: They massively defunded public education, and it has been the
Speaker 4: work of years of thousands of people. And I've been
Speaker 4: proud to play a role working with everyone as our
Speaker 4: state party chair for these last six years to fight
Speaker 4: back through that and peace by peace to dismantle the
Speaker 4: systems Republicans used to stop Wisconsin from manion democracy. And
Speaker 4: we finally we defeated the gerrymandered maps because we won
Speaker 4: state Supreme Court races and stopped Republicans from doing an
Speaker 4: unconstitutional impeachment of a Supreme Court justice and had able
Speaker 4: to elect and re elect Governor Evers are amazing Democratic
Speaker 4: governor who's been a brick wall with these Republican attacks.
Speaker 4: We've fought in legislative races up and down the ballot,
Speaker 4: and this year, even though this was a national big
Speaker 4: red shift year six points across the country, in Wisconsin,
Speaker 4: we were the closest state in the presidential race in
Speaker 4: the whole country was less than one point, and we
Speaker 4: flipped fourteen state legislative seats this year. On the maps
Speaker 4: that are finally fair. We re elected Tammy Baldon this
Speaker 4: year in the US Senate, and what we found is
Speaker 4: that if you run a permanent, year round campaign, you're
Speaker 4: organizing everywhere and communicating everywhere, including reaching out to people
Speaker 4: who are not trying to tune into politics all day.
Speaker 4: You can punch above your weight. And the reason I
Speaker 4: work then C chair is that vision. Nationally, it's to
Speaker 4: unite the party around a vision of fighting in every state.
Speaker 4: A fifty state strategy means fifty states and a strategy
Speaker 4: in each state for what are the fights we need
Speaker 4: to take on to be able to unlation new era
Speaker 4: of progress and democracy and most critically, of delivery for
Speaker 4: working people instead of ringing the system for the ultro
Speaker 4: wealthy at the very top, which is Trump's actual goal
Speaker 4: that he is currently playing out in front of our eyes.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us a little bit about what
Speaker 1: a Democratic National Committee chairmanship, like, how does this election happen?
Speaker 1: Explain to people who are not totally read in here
Speaker 1: on what happens next?
Speaker 4: Totally This is like this weird combination of a big
Speaker 4: national story that has national significance and also it's four
Speaker 4: hundred and forty eight voters. So it's like, you know
Speaker 4: the size of a small town city council race, or
Speaker 4: a student council race, or a papal conclave or whatever
Speaker 4: whatever you want.
Speaker 1: To lave if you're yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: A group of people with no infallibility. It's a situation
Speaker 4: where there's a group of people. Every one of them
Speaker 4: is there either because they're appointed as an at large
Speaker 4: appointee by the current DNC chair Jamie Harrison, who is
Speaker 4: a great friend who worked with President Biden and appointed
Speaker 4: the seventy five appointees, or they are elected in their
Speaker 4: states either to become the chair or vice chair of
Speaker 4: their state party or committee man or a woman in
Speaker 4: their state party. Or they're there in a kind of
Speaker 4: institutional capacity as to senators, to governors, you know, the
Speaker 4: kind of roles that reflect the different parts of the
Speaker 4: Democratic Coalition, to mayors and municipal officials, and so everyone
Speaker 4: is there, you know, by dint of a role in
Speaker 4: how democratic politics works, and they all represent the interests
Speaker 4: of their state or the type of office that they
Speaker 4: that they are part of, but also share a kind
Speaker 4: of commit meant to the Democratic Party being strong and effective.
Speaker 4: And my job as a DNC chair candidate is to
Speaker 4: connect with each one of them individually. And if you're
Speaker 4: a DNC member and I haven't called you yet, you
Speaker 4: are on my list and I look forward to connecting
Speaker 4: with you soon. And if I've left your voicemail, there's
Speaker 4: no judgment. I just look forward to reaching you next
Speaker 4: time I call you. I both reach out to them.
Speaker 4: I also talk to folks in the press and talk
Speaker 4: to you today here ROLLI about the vision for what
Speaker 4: we want to do, because part of this job is
Speaker 4: to be a spokesperson for the party, and part of
Speaker 4: what DNC members are looking at is can someone explain
Speaker 4: the strategy in a way that can help to inspire
Speaker 4: people to volunteer and to donate and to get involved
Speaker 4: in these fights. And then the third part is really
Speaker 4: about the kind of vision for where the party needs
Speaker 4: to go and that ultimately, people choose who to vote
Speaker 4: for for a mix of those different reasons, but they
Speaker 4: want someone who is going to be able to work
Speaker 4: with them to empower DNC members and state parties. And
Speaker 4: we work with our elected official partners and candidates to
Speaker 4: win a ton more elections than we'd otherwise win because
Speaker 4: the stakes are so big for so many people, especially
Speaker 4: for working folks who are about to watch the kind
Speaker 4: of basic foundations of middle classic existence in this country
Speaker 4: get systematically dismantled or attempted to do by the billionaires
Speaker 4: running the Trump administration. We have to have a strong
Speaker 4: Democratic party to have a future for folks in all
Speaker 4: communities across this country economically and when it comes to
Speaker 4: their basic freedoms.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you. It strikes me that Biden
Speaker 1: did a lot of amazing legislation and they couldn't ever
Speaker 1: get it out right, Like, they couldn't ever transmit this
Speaker 1: information to voters, right, that was ultimately the big problem, Right,
Speaker 1: voters never knew what it was, you know, so many
Speaker 1: of these investments, like they just were not able to
Speaker 1: transmit them. And is it a messaging problem or is
Speaker 1: it like a messenger problem, or is it a not
Speaker 1: doing media problem or is it a need to create
Speaker 1: new media problem? I mean, what is the problem here?
Speaker 1: Because obviously the legislation is good.
Speaker 4: The legislation is great, and I think there's two big,
Speaker 4: big problems. So the first is that we've passed really
Speaker 4: good bills that are going to have a long term,
Speaker 4: giant impact on people's lives, and that, to me is
Speaker 4: the only true measure of our work is the impact
Speaker 4: that has on people's lives. How are we making a
Speaker 4: difference for working folks across the country. But the problem
Speaker 4: is we've passed a lot of COVID relief legislation democratic
Speaker 4: votes under Trump, and then the Democrats in the Democratics
Speaker 4: are effected at the beginning of the Biden administration that
Speaker 4: made a huge difference in people's lives and then went away.
Speaker 4: And so even though they successfully prevented the economy from
Speaker 4: melting down and kickstarted it, in the economy that is
Speaker 4: the envy of the world, with wage growth highest at
Speaker 4: the bottom, it's still the case that if you're making
Speaker 4: forty thousand dollars a year, the growth in your wages
Speaker 4: has not come close to the loss in support that
Speaker 4: you experienced when the child tare attax credit went away
Speaker 4: and expanded unemployment went away, and the stimulus texts, and
Speaker 4: so people actually experienced sharp drops and income in the
Speaker 4: bottom especially bottom half, bottom third of the economic letder
Speaker 4: and they also experienced rising prices and the sort of
Speaker 4: second half of the policy thing is a lot of
Speaker 4: the benefits from these major infrastructure and chips ACKed and
Speaker 4: these different bills they're going to come over years. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of work to do, and there's a big
Speaker 4: public discourse around abundance and the idea of like clearing
Speaker 4: the way to be able to move much more quickly
Speaker 4: on deliver around this stuff. But we're we're planting seeds
Speaker 4: that are going to turn into trees that the sapling
Speaker 4: or the sprout coming out of the ground. It doesn't
Speaker 4: move votes because it hasn't reshaped the kind of opportunities
Speaker 4: and communities already at the pace that it would have
Speaker 4: needed to. So when we look at the data in
Speaker 4: this election, the first thing we see is the people
Speaker 4: who said they were hit hardest by inflation, who felt
Speaker 4: that the things were toughest, and who didn't hear democratic
Speaker 4: or Republican messaging were the ones who are most likely
Speaker 4: to either not vote or shift towards shrump. And I
Speaker 4: think that is a situation where they lived reality of
Speaker 4: having that help and having it go away, having prices
Speaker 4: go up, and it doesn't feel like anyone that'd help you,
Speaker 4: that mose votes away from you, And that happened to
Speaker 4: every wealthy country government in the world. Left right and
Speaker 4: centered this election, and it happened here too. So there's
Speaker 4: things about policy design that suggests. But the other side
Speaker 4: of this is about message, which is right now, the
Speaker 4: places where the candidates campaigned the most and spent the
Speaker 4: most on ads and did the most, the shift towards
Speaker 4: Trump was the least. But even in those places, the
Speaker 4: shift was concentrated among the people who were not paying
Speaker 4: attention to what candidates were saying, and who don't watch TV,
Speaker 4: and who maybe get you know, information from totally different sources,
Speaker 4: like they're spending a lot of time watching you know,
Speaker 4: stream you know, twitch streams and video games. And as democrats,
Speaker 4: I think we need to better learn how to go
Speaker 4: to those places, and how to build up a kind
Speaker 4: of progressive media ecosystem and deploy messengers on conservative ground
Speaker 4: who can effectively convey a message even in really hostile territory.
Speaker 4: And we have to do all those things because and
Speaker 4: communicate in ways that people actually comprehend that makes sense.
Speaker 4: That are concrete, physical things that we're talking about, not
Speaker 4: just big abstractions. Because we are on people's side, and
Speaker 4: that is not landing with the people for whom it
Speaker 4: make a difference.
Speaker 1: It's insane, right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 4: We have to change how we communicate, where and who
Speaker 4: the communicators are and do that on a year round
Speaker 4: basis and really get into where are people learning about
Speaker 4: what's happening in the world, and go to those places.
Speaker 4: And at the same time you recognize that just as
Speaker 4: the prostration and the pain of hardship, of prices going up,
Speaker 4: of housing being unaffordable, especially, it's maybe the most central
Speaker 4: thing for so many people, groceries, all this stuff, prescription drugs,
Speaker 4: that pain. There's going to be a new version of that,
Speaker 4: which is Trump trying to smash the healthcare and supportful
Speaker 4: working people across the country in order to give giant
Speaker 4: tax cuts to the ultra rich. So is about to
Speaker 4: be on Trump's foot. His policies are so bad for
Speaker 4: so many people. And if we can narrate and explain
Speaker 4: what is going on when they try to sell off
Speaker 4: the kind of the public square for parts to the
Speaker 4: ultra rich, then I think we have a chance to
Speaker 4: demonstrate to folks that we are fighting for them against
Speaker 4: people trying to break the system from the top of
Speaker 4: their own benefit, and that allows us to then make
Speaker 4: a ton of gains that we then need to turn
Speaker 4: into policies that make a difference that actually build that
Speaker 4: trust that we are fighting for people. That's the long
Speaker 4: term play is for people to see that if they
Speaker 4: vote for Democrats, they get change that they want, and
Speaker 4: then you can build a positive loop. But this loop
Speaker 4: kind of happened in reverseless time and it's going to
Speaker 4: take a lot of fighting to come back out the
Speaker 4: other side.
Speaker 1: Like, there are a lot of people who are really
Speaker 1: despairing about where we are. Can you give them like
Speaker 1: a two minute pep talk? Absolutely so, and by them
Speaker 1: I mean me so on one hand.
Speaker 4: No sugarcoating it. This is a bleak, challenging moment. Republicans
Speaker 4: control the presidency, they control the House, they control the.
Speaker 1: Senate, but by one seat.
Speaker 4: Well that's the other side of the point. So the
Speaker 4: consequences of Republicans having power. Trump has appointed this fleet
Speaker 4: of mega billionaires with gigantic conflicts of interest to try
Speaker 4: to create this explosion of corruption at the very top.
Speaker 4: And Republicans in Congress are most likely to rubber stamp
Speaker 4: everything terrible Trump wants to do. And there's going to
Speaker 4: be bad stuff that we're going to have to fight against.
Speaker 4: And that's real and They're going to attack all kinds
Speaker 4: of communities and try to take away people's basic freedoms.
Speaker 4: And that is real, and that is scary. The other
Speaker 4: side of the coin is that their victory was minuscule.
Speaker 4: They have the smallest House majority. This was the closest
Speaker 4: presidential election this century since the two thousand election, one
Speaker 4: of the four closest in one hundred years. The public
Speaker 4: has not given up on the core values that make
Speaker 4: this country great. They've not given up on the idea
Speaker 4: that the government should be on the side of working people,
Speaker 4: or that people should have freedom and dignity and respect.
Speaker 4: Those things are still deeply popular. A lot of the
Speaker 4: people who shifted or didn't vote were the people who
Speaker 4: had the least sense of what Trump was about to
Speaker 4: try to do to the country or what Democrats wanted
Speaker 4: to do. So have courage and recognize that if we
Speaker 4: do this work, if we actually do show up and
Speaker 4: organize all over the country and communicate in every place,
Speaker 4: in every platform, we can win enormous games in twenty five, six, seven, eight.
Speaker 4: I'll give one example. Wisconsin right now is gearing up
Speaker 4: for a Supreme Court election on April first, that once again,
Speaker 4: like the one in twenty twenty three, it'll determine the
Speaker 4: majority in our state Supreme Court. And there's a far
Speaker 4: righta Republican who's the former right wing Attorney General, Brad Schimmel,
Speaker 4: who's running for that office and he's trying to sound
Speaker 4: just like Trump. And Susan Crawford is the the great
Speaker 4: judge who as in private practice, represented planned parent who
Speaker 4: she's running for the thatt seed. And Democrats can organize
Speaker 4: and fight and win that and prevent Democrats from Republicans
Speaker 4: from rejerymandering our state and open up or pass for
Speaker 4: freedom an opportunity in our state. That election is happening
Speaker 4: in just a few months, and we can fight on that.
Speaker 4: We can fight in New Jersey, in Virginia, and then
Speaker 4: in twenty six all over the country. There's a chance
Speaker 4: to make dramatic gains that can turn into real change
Speaker 4: in people's lives. And that fight. When we join together
Speaker 4: and do that fight based on our deepest values, people
Speaker 4: will respond. And we're going to win elections in a
Speaker 4: moment that feels like a crisis for democracy and for
Speaker 4: everything we care about, and we will find hope and
Speaker 4: energy that comes out of that work. So That is
Speaker 4: the good news in my mind, is that the bottom
Speaker 4: did not fall out. The Republicans speak in by a
Speaker 4: hairsbread and they're about to lose all that power. When
Speaker 4: the public sees what they want to do and they
Speaker 4: see how we are fighting for them, that is the
Speaker 4: next step, and that is what I want to do
Speaker 4: at the DNC, and that's what I hope we can
Speaker 4: bring everyone back together to wave those fights that really matter.
Speaker 1: Tell us what your idea of a fifty state solution
Speaker 1: would look like.
Speaker 4: So the fifty states, and it's a fifty seven state
Speaker 4: party strategy because there's the territories and Democrats abroad. The
Speaker 4: fifty seven state party strategy is in every state and
Speaker 4: every state party. You work with your elected officials and candidates,
Speaker 4: with the national committees, with your partners and allies and
Speaker 4: the labor movement and grasstrates organizations, and you look through
Speaker 4: across these next four years and beyond, what are the
Speaker 4: fights we're going to need to win in some in
Speaker 4: super red states, often that's municipal elections or state legislative
Speaker 4: races that would allow you to break a Republican and
Speaker 4: super majority. In really blue places, there's some there's going
Speaker 4: to be some areas where there's a right wing county
Speaker 4: sheriff for people running a school board who you can
Speaker 4: focus on making sure you can defeat and replace with
Speaker 4: someone who shares our values. And then there's a lot
Speaker 4: of states where everything's up for grabs, or there's major
Speaker 4: pieces up for grabs that if Democrats win a super
Speaker 4: majority in the state legislature, they can override the Republican
Speaker 4: governors be there, and of course they have a governor's
Speaker 4: race in two years. You build a plan based on
Speaker 4: what are the fights you are going to take on,
Speaker 4: and once you have that strategy, then the National Committee
Speaker 4: partners with all those states to find resources. You figure
Speaker 4: out all the different folks who have a stake in
Speaker 4: making sure that you can win those fights, and you
Speaker 4: build the kind of year round organizing and communications infrastructure
Speaker 4: that we built in Wisconsin and a few other states
Speaker 4: where you do that in every state, purpose built for
Speaker 4: the fights we have to take on. And when people
Speaker 4: get involved in something that can actually win and move
Speaker 4: the needle, it energizes them. You can raise more money,
Speaker 4: you can recruit more volunteers, you get candidates who to
Speaker 4: step up and jump into these races in a different
Speaker 4: way when you know that you're part of something bigger.
Speaker 4: And that to me is the fifty state strategy, the
Speaker 4: opportunity we have now because there's people are hungry for hope,
Speaker 4: and I get that. I feel that myself, and hope
Speaker 4: comes from actually seeing a path, even if it's a
Speaker 4: faint path, seeing a path something better that if you
Speaker 4: put your energy into it, you can actually move forward
Speaker 4: along that path and it. You know, they're all over
Speaker 4: the country right now. There are people who are dreaming
Speaker 4: of running for office or be involved in a campaign
Speaker 4: that they can make things a little bit better for
Speaker 4: the folks in their communities, and we want to give
Speaker 4: them a chance to be able to take action.
Speaker 1: And do that. Explain to us when you are doing this,
Speaker 1: what's the difference, Like your state party chair Wisconsin, you
Speaker 1: would be like DNC chair, What would that mean exactly?
Speaker 1: What does the job look like?
Speaker 4: So there'll need more time on the road, but instead
Speaker 4: of going to counting these across Wisconsin, they'll be going
Speaker 4: the states across the country. At the Washington d C
Speaker 4: still raising my family in Wisconsin. It's a whole different
Speaker 4: order of magnitude of complexity and intensity because every state
Speaker 4: has different complex challenges and relationships, and of course DC itself,
Speaker 4: the DNC, the building as they call it, and the
Speaker 4: web of the different networks of the House and the
Speaker 4: Governor's Association, attorney generals and lieutenant governors and state legislators
Speaker 4: and municipal officials and mayors, and all the different parts
Speaker 4: of this ecosystem, and our allies organized labor and the
Speaker 4: union movement and all the big grassroots organizations and civil
Speaker 4: rights groups and all the kind of big movement of
Speaker 4: people that share fundamentally this idea that this country should
Speaker 4: work for working people, and that every person, no matter
Speaker 4: what they look like or where they live, should have
Speaker 4: freedom and opportunity and dignity. Everyone involved in that work
Speaker 4: has a stake in what happens at the DNC, and
Speaker 4: so there's a political component to help to build a
Speaker 4: vision big enough that everyone has space in it and
Speaker 4: work with folks to define that. There's fund raising to
Speaker 4: make sure we can support the work to do it.
Speaker 4: There's management to make sure we have amazing people who
Speaker 4: are doing the best work of their lives in partnership
Speaker 4: with all the different allied groups to be able to
Speaker 4: do this there's communication to both go after Trump as
Speaker 4: he tries to pass themulti trillion dollar tax cut for
Speaker 4: billionaires and take on the GOP, but also to build
Speaker 4: up and support a ton of other communicators. Will have
Speaker 4: vice chairs of the DNC that will be criss crossing
Speaker 4: the country and communicating in every place, in every platform.
Speaker 4: And then there's the actual elections, and you need to
Speaker 4: mobilize huge numbers of people, hundreds of thousands and millions
Speaker 4: of people to get involved. And I think at heart,
Speaker 4: I think of this as an organizing challenge, because organizing
Speaker 4: is the art of getting a bunch of people to
Speaker 4: work together for a common goal. And there are so
Speaker 4: many people who want to do that, and there's so
Speaker 4: many big goals that we have to be able to win.
Speaker 4: And my campaign slogan is unite to fight Win. It
Speaker 4: is to unite the party around that vision, to fight
Speaker 4: in the fights in every state to be able to
Speaker 4: do this. And if we do all that, we can
Speaker 4: win and we can make a difference in people's lives.
Speaker 4: That's the reason I'm running for DNC chair. And it
Speaker 4: gets me fired up just they came about it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ben, thank you, Molly.
Speaker 4: Really grateful.
Speaker 2: There no moment. Jesse Cannon Somali.
Speaker 3: One of the things we knew when Trump on is
Speaker 3: that this would also be an emboldening moment for the
Speaker 3: right to try to take away women's reproductive health rights.
Speaker 3: And in Missouri, we're seeing that chicken come home to roost.
Speaker 1: Missouri lawmakers prefile over a dozen bills resolutions on abortion
Speaker 1: in response to Amendment three plassing. So Amendment three is
Speaker 1: what they were trying to enshrine abortion in the constitution,
Speaker 1: and they voted for it. So this was a real
Speaker 1: interesting thing that happened in this cycle was that people
Speaker 1: voted for abortion protection in their constitution, but then voted
Speaker 1: for Trump. So they said, we're going to have a
Speaker 1: Republican president, but we're going to protect abortion in our constitution.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, And I kept thinking about this and
Speaker 1: kept thinking, the legislators are never going to let this go.
Speaker 2: They're never going to enact these legislations.
Speaker 1: Because we even saw in Florida, Remember, voters voted to
Speaker 1: allow felons who had serve time to be put back
Speaker 1: on the voter rolls, and the Florida legislature made it
Speaker 1: so hard to do it, made it so expensive that
Speaker 1: it wasn't able to be enacted, and I sort of thought,
Speaker 1: this is what they're going to do with these abortion amendments,
Speaker 1: is that voters are going to vote for them, and
Speaker 1: then Republicans are going to not allow them to be enacted.
Speaker 1: This is incredibly shortsighted by Republicans, and if Republicans were smart,
Speaker 1: they would let these things be enacted, even if they
Speaker 1: were perhaps not in exactly the way they had been
Speaker 1: written in the text of the amendments. Because what's going
Speaker 1: to happen here is that here are these people. They
Speaker 1: voted for abortion rights, they're not going to get them.
Speaker 1: They voted for Trump. You know, whatever can be taken
Speaker 1: away when it comes to choice will be taken away,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to end up having a lot
Speaker 1: of really angry voters. All of this stuff that Republicans
Speaker 1: are doing works for them if there aren't more elections,
Speaker 1: but if there are more elections, I don't think.
Speaker 2: It's going to help them.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.