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 Donald Trump says, I'm allowed to
Speaker 1: do whatever I want with classified info. I'm shocked we
Speaker 1: have such an interesting show. Today, Senator Bob Casey talks
Speaker 1: to us about his run for reelection in this critical
Speaker 1: swing state of Pennsylvania. Then we'll talk to New York
Speaker 1: Times columnist and close personal friend of mine, Lydia Paul Green,
Speaker 1: about her travel to Chad and how she covers the
Speaker 1: story that haunt us. But first we have the Good
Speaker 1: Liars Jason Selgvig, who has a live show on the
Speaker 1: fifteenth of September in Brooklyn. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Jason, thanks for having me appreciate it.
Speaker 1: You are a good liar. You are one of the
Speaker 1: two good liars. Are you a good liar? Does everyone
Speaker 1: ask you that? That's annoying? Never mind, don't answer that.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe I am a good liar. We came up with
Speaker 2: a name about ten years ago, and it's there and
Speaker 2: so it's got to stay. So yes, I am a
Speaker 2: good liar. Technically, I don't know. If I am a
Speaker 2: good liar technically though.
Speaker 1: As someone who has the name of my mother's second
Speaker 1: husband who I never met, I can speak to what
Speaker 1: it's like to have a name that nobody realized would
Speaker 1: haunt you forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like the name of the Good Liars to
Speaker 2: be honest, But yeah, it kind of changed. We've changed
Speaker 2: kind of what we've done over the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: You know, in twenty sixteen, we were exclusively pranking presidential candidates.
Speaker 2: That was what we did for our movie Undecided. We've
Speaker 2: kind of moved from where we started, which was like
Speaker 2: basically acting like we were investment bankers at Occupy Wall
Speaker 2: Street was the first thing to Rob and I did together.
Speaker 1: That's perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a movement called Occupy Occupy Wall Street.
Speaker 2: We thought we were doing a sketch, but investment bankers
Speaker 2: thought it was real and came down in actually protested
Speaker 2: with us as we were making fun of them to
Speaker 2: their face. So it's kind of evolved over time, and
Speaker 2: now you're seeing more of these interviews that we've done.
Speaker 2: We're still doing some prank sons of politicians. So nobody
Speaker 2: should feel too safe in these primaries.
Speaker 1: I don't think let me ask you, who do you
Speaker 1: think is the most prankable politician right now?
Speaker 2: Ooh, that's a good question. That's a good question of
Speaker 2: avik Ramaswami is he's very smooth.
Speaker 1: Hitting the head by truth, Yeah.
Speaker 2: By true. And that was I saw that video. You
Speaker 2: posted that video yesterday getting hit in the head with truth.
Speaker 2: It's just beautiful symbolism, beautiful symbolism truth.
Speaker 1: I would say that if you have a setup as
Speaker 1: a politician that looks like something that comes from veep right,
Speaker 1: you can pretty much guarantee that what will happen is
Speaker 1: something that would happen on veep right.
Speaker 2: You could almost hear the viep music playing underneath it
Speaker 2: as it happened. I think he's funny though, I mean,
Speaker 2: he's just it's so funny that he wants to raise
Speaker 2: the voting age to twenty five. I mean, it's not funny,
Speaker 2: it's like scary. But he like did that Eminem impression
Speaker 2: or like a performance.
Speaker 1: And then Eminem was like stop.
Speaker 2: Right, but he did it, and it like the performance
Speaker 2: was like he was really committed to it and it
Speaker 2: kind of felt like a high school talent show when
Speaker 2: he was doing it. And it's funny that he wants
Speaker 2: to raise the voting age when he's actually acting like
Speaker 2: an eighteen year old right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his whole energy is this like and I say,
Speaker 1: this is the mother of one debate kid and one
Speaker 1: model u N kid, Like the worst of high school
Speaker 1: debate is the vague.
Speaker 2: Right, He's got the smarminess to him too, And it's funny.
Speaker 2: We talked to We went to the debate in Milwaukee,
Speaker 2: and it was very hot. It was very hot. There
Speaker 2: was one hundred and fifteen feet index. That's really has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about.
Speaker 1: But as in middle aged too, I really do want
Speaker 1: to know about the weather, and also what you ate
Speaker 1: and where you stayed. Continue.
Speaker 2: Okay, well I'll get to my meals and lodging in
Speaker 2: a second. But we talked to one of his supporters.
Speaker 2: I talked to this guy who was in like a
Speaker 2: it was like a colonial revel lutionary war style marching
Speaker 2: band that was like for him. And I talked to
Speaker 2: this guy and we found it like talking to Trump supporters,
Speaker 2: that sometimes they kind of sound like Trump a little bit,
Speaker 2: and this guy kind of sounded like Ramaswami, like he
Speaker 2: sounded like he like was kind of sticking his nose
Speaker 2: up at me. And I asked him about raising the
Speaker 2: voting age to eighteen. I made the point that like
Speaker 2: people you know believe they are sixty believe JFK. Junior
Speaker 2: is currently the vice president, Like that doesn't mean you're informed.
Speaker 2: And he said there are low like low information voting happens,
Speaker 2: and some eighteen year olds you know, are not informed.
Speaker 2: But I was very informed when I was eighteen. He
Speaker 2: had to like throw in that. He was, like, I
Speaker 2: am the exception of the rule because I am very smart,
Speaker 2: just like my candidate. It was interesting to see them
Speaker 2: body of the candidate.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. What I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: are interested in is who was there and who were
Speaker 1: they excited about.
Speaker 2: The biggest crowd of people were for Trump. There was
Speaker 2: like a group of like forty to sixty people that
Speaker 2: were kind of standing outside and they didn't move, you know,
Speaker 2: they didn't go inside. They were just Trump spores that
Speaker 2: made the trek there to support Donald Trump. But they
Speaker 2: they were there, you know, not only to support Trump,
Speaker 2: but to make fun of Ron DeSantis, which I thought
Speaker 2: was kind of It was kind of nice to find
Speaker 2: some common ground because they were making fun of him,
Speaker 2: and some of that was kind.
Speaker 1: Of funny for those who have somehow managed to blank
Speaker 1: this from their brains.
Speaker 2: And good for you. If that's good for you, I
Speaker 2: wish I was you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. Trump was not there.
Speaker 2: He was not there. Not only was he not there,
Speaker 2: he ran counter programming to the people on the day.
Speaker 2: He showed such a lack of respect for the people
Speaker 2: on the debate stage that he ran counter programming to
Speaker 2: the debate. His own interview with Tucker Carlson on Twitter
Speaker 2: on Twitter on X excuse me, it's X. Let's get
Speaker 2: it right. Let's get it right.
Speaker 1: Really, what am I doing?
Speaker 2: They were the Trump supporters there making fun of Ronda Santis.
Speaker 2: But you know, we kind of expected that there would
Speaker 2: be kind of groups of people holding signs for their
Speaker 2: man or woman running for president, but we really didn't
Speaker 2: see a lot of support for the other candidates. Outward support.
Speaker 2: There were a couple of Rondastanti's shirts, some Nicky Haley stuff,
Speaker 2: but I literally I don't think de rometer. I saw
Speaker 2: or talked to one person who was like, I'm so
Speaker 2: excited about Mike Pence.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like a statement that you say that
Speaker 1: sounds like.
Speaker 2: You're being iron No, but it literally literally not one person.
Speaker 2: So it was it was interesting because it really did
Speaker 2: feel like it was the B Team debate because it was.
Speaker 2: And I was just shocked that people were still even
Speaker 2: the people that were four other candidates that we talked to,
Speaker 2: they still were like, well, I still would support Donald
Speaker 2: Trump if he was the nominee. And it's just he's
Speaker 2: just the lack of respect he's showing for all these
Speaker 2: candidates running counter programming. His whole game is just making
Speaker 2: fun of everybody, and they're still like, he would be
Speaker 2: my guy. Nicky Haley doesn't make it, he'd he'd be
Speaker 2: my guy. If Rondo Santis didn't make it, he'd be
Speaker 2: my guy.
Speaker 1: What I like about Trump is that there are people
Speaker 1: on the right who are now making the case that
Speaker 1: the indicts, because they help him with his base who
Speaker 1: live on earth too, that they will somehow help him
Speaker 1: with swing voters.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I look, I don't want to make any predictions.
Speaker 2: I've it's so wrong about stuff so wrong at twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe maybe who knows, because you talk
Speaker 2: to talk to some people, you know, we talk to
Speaker 2: people at Trump arow is who basically get their news
Speaker 2: from Donald Trump, not from news sources like actually from
Speaker 2: Donald Trump his social media and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, and also Newsmax right.
Speaker 2: And Newsmax and uh Oa n which has kind of
Speaker 2: fallen off, I think, but Newsmax is a big one now.
Speaker 1: And the Epoch Times.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and what is it right side right Side broadcasting.
Speaker 1: Broadcasting Epoch Times though is fascinating because uh owned by
Speaker 1: a Chinese cult. Jason, my next question for you, is
Speaker 1: it the stupidest time to be alive?
Speaker 2: Yes? Well, yes, yeah, it must be. It must be me.
Speaker 2: It definitely feels that way. You know, we were at
Speaker 2: January sixth, We were there. What happened that day, the
Speaker 2: culination of just a guy, not a being able to
Speaker 2: admit that he lost an election and just breaking him psychologically,
Speaker 2: and it ended with like the storming of the US capital.
Speaker 2: And now here we are, you know, three almost three
Speaker 2: years later, and he is the leading candidate president. That
Speaker 2: doesn't get much stupider than that, in my opinion, like
Speaker 2: that is just the stupidest end result and the fact
Speaker 2: that he's like neck and neck with Biden in these polls.
Speaker 2: I just don't. I don't get it. There's part of it.
Speaker 2: I just want to pull my hair out thinking about it,
Speaker 2: like why is this happening? How is this happening in
Speaker 2: the US. To answer your question, yes, this has to
Speaker 2: be the stupidest timeline. We must have gotten off of
Speaker 2: reality at some point, like there was like something happened,
Speaker 2: there was like a glitch in the matrix or something,
Speaker 2: and we've gone on this path that is just like
Speaker 2: whatever the dumbest thing that could possibly happen happens. And yes,
Speaker 2: so this is the stupidest timeline.
Speaker 1: So let's just do two seconds here. Speaking of stupid
Speaker 1: we are here talking about what's happening right now. Trump
Speaker 1: has said he's allowed to do whatever he wants is
Speaker 1: classified info. He's extremely excited to testify in the federal
Speaker 1: government's case against him.
Speaker 2: Okay, you think that's actually gonna happen. You think he's
Speaker 2: actually going to testify. I don't think that's going to happen.
Speaker 2: He also said he was going to show all the
Speaker 2: voter fraud on that Monday. He was going to show
Speaker 2: it all weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two weeks.
Speaker 2: Also, he was gonna have a healthcare plan.
Speaker 1: I don't know it's better than Obamacare. It's happening right now.
Speaker 2: I don't want to, like, I don't really don't want to,
Speaker 2: you know, put my food in my mouth here. But
Speaker 2: I think maybe he might be lying. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no history of him lying about everything ever,
Speaker 2: so I don't know. I don't think his lawyers are
Speaker 2: going to be like, you're not getting on the stamp.
Speaker 1: They'd be like, we we don't want to get murdered.
Speaker 1: Day three on the Ken Paxton impeachment trial. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is must see TV discuss.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting that everyone kind of came together
Speaker 2: in Texas to like compeach it. It's just you've got
Speaker 2: Marjorie Taylor Green sticking up for him, which is just
Speaker 2: I don't know if you want someone to endorse you
Speaker 2: like I think. She tweeted about it last week. Two
Speaker 2: days later, she was on Alex Jones show. Literally, okay,
Speaker 2: back to the dumbest timeline. Yes, this is the dumbest timeline.
Speaker 1: Do you see the video of Alex Jones mad at
Speaker 1: Trump about the vaccines? No, right, I'll find that it's
Speaker 1: something to you, But I mean it does seem like
Speaker 1: Alex Jones is very much in this political milieu right now.
Speaker 1: We have the sort of thought leaders of the Republican
Speaker 1: Party Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ken Paxton.
Speaker 2: This is another figure where it's you'd think, if the
Speaker 2: Republican Party had any decency, like the fact that he's
Speaker 2: said that the Sandy Hook bass shooting was fake, there
Speaker 2: were actors, you'd think that's it.
Speaker 1: Did you just say the sentence, if the Republican Party
Speaker 1: had any decency, you enjoy two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: That's funny because I was watching the RFK documentary, not
Speaker 2: Junior money. The RFK documentary is on Netflix, came out
Speaker 2: years ago, and I just watched it because you.
Speaker 1: Know, Junior is actually going to be the vice president.
Speaker 2: No, that's JFK Junior. Sorry, I hate fact check. You
Speaker 2: here JFK Junior, And he's not going to be the
Speaker 2: vice president. He is currently the vice president and the
Speaker 2: president right now. According to my sources. These are my sources,
Speaker 2: that is is actually JFK Senior. I'm not even kidding,
Speaker 2: like this sounds like I'm like making something up, but
Speaker 2: this is something we have heard from multiple people. The
Speaker 2: JFK Senior who would be I think one hundred.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: I asked the guy, it's like, would he be like
Speaker 2: one hundred and five right now? And he was like
Speaker 2: one hundred and three, and I was like, I'm so
Speaker 2: all right, I got it.
Speaker 1: Mess that up. The people who think Biden is too
Speaker 1: old to run are quite happy with their real president
Speaker 1: who was one hundred and three years old and also dead.
Speaker 2: Right, currently dead, currently dead JFK. And it's not like
Speaker 2: it's like there's a question. This isn't like, you know,
Speaker 2: like JFK senior or junior, excuse me. They're like, well,
Speaker 2: maybe the plane didn't crash. He knew about it, so
Speaker 2: he escaped it and all this stuff like there's a
Speaker 2: video of like some pretty gruesome stuff like brains and stuff,
Speaker 2: like we know that this happened.
Speaker 1: Oliver Stone made movies about it, so we know it's true.
Speaker 2: That's true. You know. I tried to watch that recently
Speaker 2: and I couldn't believe that this was like the movie
Speaker 2: that everyone loved so much years ago.
Speaker 1: Are you younger than we are?
Speaker 2: I was born in the eighties. That's all. I'll say.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 1: I'll say. That's not good, all right, We're never having
Speaker 1: you back.
Speaker 2: Thanks, because we should.
Speaker 1: That's all right. Anyone younger than us is out.
Speaker 2: This is like a little bit sounding like a Republican
Speaker 2: presidential candidate and how baby, Yeah, it's a little odd
Speaker 2: only fascist and we're raising the guesting age.
Speaker 1: But I have to say, like here we are watching this,
Speaker 1: I truly believe that we're in a moment where the
Speaker 1: mainstream media and again, like I don't want to be
Speaker 1: one of those people who talks about the mainstream media
Speaker 1: and doesn't admit to be a member of it. I
Speaker 1: am a member of it. I write for mainstream media organizations.
Speaker 1: I go on. But it does seem like we're in
Speaker 1: a moment where the mainstream media is so incredibly despondent
Speaker 1: about having to do twenty nineteen again.
Speaker 2: Just like it's a rerun and we're like the last
Speaker 2: thing people want to do is is live again.
Speaker 1: This yeah, yea yeah, I mean, do you think that's right?
Speaker 1: Do you see that?
Speaker 2: I mean, are you excited for this election?
Speaker 1: I'm resigned to reality, and I you know, look what
Speaker 1: I love it for Republicans to be like, you know,
Speaker 1: didn't you say something hilarious about Republicans choosing decency? You know,
Speaker 1: maybe we shouldn't nominate this guy who has been impeached
Speaker 1: twice and has all the indictments. Perhaps he might not
Speaker 1: be the big winner we think he is. But I
Speaker 1: just can't imagine that happens.
Speaker 2: It's like they've lost control of the train, really, because
Speaker 2: it's the people for better or worse in democracy. The
Speaker 2: people are behind him solidly. What can you do? Lots
Speaker 2: of mainstream Republicans tried in twenty sixteen. You remember Mitt
Speaker 2: Romney's speech, and other people were speaking up like, this
Speaker 2: is not where we want the party to go. This
Speaker 2: is where the party is. It is the Trump Party.
Speaker 2: There isn't a Republican party. It's not the same. It's
Speaker 2: definitely not. You know, you hear Mike Pence saying, you
Speaker 2: gave a good, big speech in New Hampshire. I want
Speaker 2: to go back a big speech meeting, like no one
Speaker 2: talked about it. It happened two days ago, but it
Speaker 2: was like supposed to be his big speech. You want
Speaker 2: to go back to the Reagan Republicans. But those people
Speaker 2: don't exist anymore. I don't think like there might be
Speaker 2: it might be those, you know, the middle class suburban
Speaker 2: voters that swing an election. Maybe that resonates with them, maybe,
Speaker 2: but definitely not enough to like derail the Trump train
Speaker 2: that is out of control has literally no one is
Speaker 2: controlling again but Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: And it's yeah, Jason, we might let you come back. Really,
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know, no, Okay, fine.
Speaker 1: Bob Casey is the senior Senator from Pennsylvania. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Senator Casey Polly.
Speaker 3: Great to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's such a weird political moment. I feel like I
Speaker 1: don't even know where to begin. You're running for reelection.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're in a race that we began in April,
Speaker 3: but we're awaiting an opponent.
Speaker 1: Your dad was governor and your mom just passed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you come from a family that is deep Pennsylvania. Talk
Speaker 1: about that, and I'm sorry about your mom.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks. No, just first and foremost parents. They had
Speaker 3: eight children. I'm number four in that list, and we
Speaker 3: were really blessed by their constant love and support. And
Speaker 3: I don't know how they did it, because my father
Speaker 3: was a public official and a politician running for office,
Speaker 3: stay wide office numerous times over the course of the
Speaker 3: mid sixties, really into the mid eighties and beyond, and
Speaker 3: my mother somehow was able to hold our family together
Speaker 3: and do all the important jobs that you hope a
Speaker 3: parent would be able to do, to raise a family,
Speaker 3: to participate in the work that her husband's doing. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: she had to become more of a public face when
Speaker 3: he was elected, but we were blessed by her love
Speaker 3: and she died at ninety one. I hope I'm half
Speaker 3: the parent and half the spouse that she was.
Speaker 1: True. I'm glad I don't have to raise eight children
Speaker 1: while my husband is a campaigning that sounds really bad.
Speaker 1: I have to say there's too many. I mean I
Speaker 1: say this as the mother of three. Eight is too many.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about labor. You had to tweet the
Speaker 1: labor fees should be deductible. Let's talk about I think,
Speaker 1: like one of the quiet underreported stories of the Biden administration,
Speaker 1: and this is true in Pennsylvania too, democratic politics is
Speaker 1: trying to get unions back into a place where they
Speaker 1: really have negotiating power. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: First, I think if you look at where we are
Speaker 3: today in our political culture, a good bit of the
Speaker 3: anger and frustration that people have has its origins not
Speaker 3: just in the political divisions generally, but we have forty
Speaker 3: years of the tax code being rigged for big corporations
Speaker 3: and very wealthy Americans. Plus over that same time period,
Speaker 3: a precipitous decline in the number of Americans who are
Speaker 3: part of the labor union, and because of that, the
Speaker 3: economic power of workers and families has declined significantly. So
Speaker 3: you're going to have any at the end of that
Speaker 3: forty or so years, you go back even further, I think,
Speaker 3: but you're going to have a lot of economic trauma
Speaker 3: that people are experiencing, and that's created a lot of divisions.
Speaker 3: So one of the ways not just to lift up
Speaker 3: workers in their families, but to breach some of the
Speaker 3: divides in society is to get more people unionized. When
Speaker 3: you're part of a union where you can bargain collectively
Speaker 3: for wages and benefits, you're more likely to have a
Speaker 3: good wage, good healthcare, and a pension of some kind.
Speaker 3: So the pro Act is kind of the I think
Speaker 3: the test for any public official, are you in favor
Speaker 3: of passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or not?
Speaker 3: I and so many of our Democratic colleagues are been
Speaker 3: co sponsors for years, and Republicans are unilaterally unanimously opposed
Speaker 3: to that. One of the parts of our tax code
Speaker 3: that a lot of people don't realize is if a
Speaker 3: union or if a corporation spends money to bust a union,
Speaker 3: guess what, they receive a tax benefit from that. And
Speaker 3: so one of the things I'm trying to do with
Speaker 3: legislation is to end that tax benefit to corporations. We'll
Speaker 3: get a tax break for busting unions.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, I want to talk to you about China.
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to begin with this. Conservatives
Speaker 1: are at you about China. They're mad at Biden about China.
Speaker 1: They're also mad that the Biden administration is working to
Speaker 1: build chips A semiconductor factories in the United States so
Speaker 1: that they're not as relying on China. Can China be
Speaker 1: the boogeyman for all things?
Speaker 3: Look, there's no question when you look at recent history,
Speaker 3: especially under a new leader President she for relevably new.
Speaker 3: They've taken China's taken as a nation, taken a turn
Speaker 3: in a different direction. He's an autocrat, and he's not
Speaker 3: good to his own people, but he's also leading an
Speaker 3: effort to kind of crush any kind of economic competition,
Speaker 3: including ours. So I always say, and I think it's true.
Speaker 3: I think the evidence is overwhelming. When China cheats on
Speaker 3: the world stage, Pennsylvania workers lose jobs. They've been cheating
Speaker 3: as the Communist government for years, but they also have
Speaker 3: been stealing our technology, and often the rise of China
Speaker 3: has been fueled by decisions and actions taken by Corporate America.
Speaker 3: So my effort and actually work with John Corner Texas
Speaker 3: is no, he's no liberal.
Speaker 1: Democrat, but he's certainly not.
Speaker 3: He gives you a sense of the scope of the
Speaker 3: problem that when Corporate America is out making investments in China,
Speaker 3: including investments that involve our security military technology, there's almost
Speaker 3: no constraints on them, some limited constraints by export controls.
Speaker 3: So we introduced a bill to have that have a
Speaker 3: review of that outbound investment. We finally got a version
Speaker 3: of that past this summer and it passed ninety one
Speaker 3: to six, despite the unilateral opposition of the US Chamber
Speaker 3: of Commerce in Corporate America. So that what we're trying
Speaker 3: to do is to say, look, US corporation, if you're
Speaker 3: going to send our military technology, the benefits of our
Speaker 3: innovation to China and benefit President she and his regime.
Speaker 3: The federal government needs to be notified about that so
Speaker 3: we can make an assessment whether or not our national
Speaker 3: security is underminable. That's why I got ninety one votes,
Speaker 3: even though Corporate America held it up for more than
Speaker 3: a year and a half.
Speaker 1: Republicans seem like they have some real problems as a
Speaker 1: party in their leadership right. Their leader is basically Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell is really the brains behind the organization, though
Speaker 1: they're furious with Mitch McConnell and he's been plagued with
Speaker 1: health problems. Is this an opportunity for Democrats?
Speaker 2: Certainly.
Speaker 3: I think I'd much rather be our party in this
Speaker 3: difficult divide we have in the country than be on
Speaker 3: their side, because Molly, I think you hit the nail
Speaker 3: on the head. I think it's not simply that you
Speaker 3: have a group of extremists in the corner and the
Speaker 3: rest of the party leadership is somehow rational and not extreme.
Speaker 3: I think it's become at the national level, a member
Speaker 3: of Congress level and leadership level and extreme party. I
Speaker 3: think it was extreme even before he shut up, So
Speaker 3: it's not just Maga Republicans, it's leaders in Congress that
Speaker 3: accommodate that mega part of their party. So in essence,
Speaker 3: it's as you said, it's pretty much the Trump Party,
Speaker 3: and that makes it very difficult for them to work
Speaker 3: with this. Now, every once in a while we can
Speaker 3: break through that I did with John Corner and China
Speaker 3: it passed a bill with build Cassidy on to protect
Speaker 3: workers who are pregnant in the workforce. But it is
Speaker 3: exceedingly difficult to get through that extremism that we're seeing
Speaker 3: all across their party at the political level.
Speaker 1: This Chips Act explain to us what it does to
Speaker 1: protect workers in Pennsylvania and how that works.
Speaker 3: In particular, what we're trying to do there is to
Speaker 3: say if the United States has lost its edge as
Speaker 3: it has in a very substantial way on producing semiconductors,
Speaker 3: which everything we use, our smartphones, our refrigerators, every appliance, automobiles,
Speaker 3: everything we use needs those chips we used to produce
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety. We're producing more than a third of
Speaker 3: the semiconductors in the world today will only produced twelve
Speaker 3: produce about twelve percent. So to regain our edge, we
Speaker 3: have to invest in research, and that means the federal
Speaker 3: government investing in private sector companies that can produce these chips,
Speaker 3: and we run ahead of China or any other country
Speaker 3: that would be competing with us. So it's a critically
Speaker 3: important piece of legislation to reach gain our edge and
Speaker 3: something as fundamental as a semiconductor, just like we have
Speaker 3: to do in a whole series of other parts of
Speaker 3: our manufacturing economy. And a lot of corporate CEOs are
Speaker 3: finally recognizing that what President Biden did and Democrats did
Speaker 3: on a whole host difference, not just on the Chips bill,
Speaker 3: is leading to a manufacturing renaissance in the country. But
Speaker 3: you even have some Republicans who have supported some of
Speaker 3: these bills like chips starting to run away from it
Speaker 3: because they're getting getting eat from the right. But I'm
Speaker 3: hoping that because we have them in place right now,
Speaker 3: whether it's chips or the Inflation Reduction Act to invest
Speaker 3: in a clean energy economy, we're going to be able
Speaker 3: to make the stride to give Americans more control of
Speaker 3: our over economic future and more control over our climate
Speaker 3: future as well.
Speaker 1: It does seem to me that clean energy is getting
Speaker 1: cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, and Republicans are pushing pretty
Speaker 1: hard to try to undermine that by incentivizing drilling and coal.
Speaker 1: You see, in state like Texas is a red state.
Speaker 1: Their grid barely survived and it was able to survive
Speaker 1: this summer largely by green energy. What can Democrats do
Speaker 1: to help this green revolution? It's happening anyway, It seems
Speaker 1: like I think.
Speaker 3: First and foremost one of the leading priorities has to
Speaker 3: be to protect the Inflation Reduction Act. The Republicans, as
Speaker 3: you know, want to wipe it out completely. So they
Speaker 3: want to wipe out all of the tax credits for
Speaker 3: that clean energy economy helping us combat climate change, reducing
Speaker 3: carbon emissions, you know, forty by thirty forty percent reduction
Speaker 3: by twenty thirty. They want to wipe out by getting
Speaker 3: rid of the Glacier Reduction Act, get rid of all
Speaker 3: the power that was granted to medicare, to negotiate the
Speaker 3: cost of prescription drugs, and to lower the cost of
Speaker 3: bents on for seniors, so many other benefits from the bill.
Speaker 3: So we have to stop them from doing that. But
Speaker 3: I think we also have to make sure that voters
Speaker 3: know before election day in twenty twenty four. What this
Speaker 3: means for their communities isn't simply that we're trying to
Speaker 3: create and it's already happening at clean energy economy, but
Speaker 3: it's also creating lots of jobs. I mean, I can
Speaker 3: stand up and say as a candidate for reelection that
Speaker 3: just the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Bill, just
Speaker 3: those two bills alone are going to lead to the
Speaker 3: creation of fifty thousand jobs in Pennsylvania each and every
Speaker 3: year for the next decade. It's a job benefit, an
Speaker 3: economic boost for communities as we're investing in clean energy
Speaker 3: economy in the future. So I think articulating as forcefully
Speaker 3: as we can what these benefits mean to communities, but
Speaker 3: also making sure we're stopping the corporate extremists from wiping
Speaker 3: out the legislation. And look, for me, it's pretty simple.
Speaker 3: The same crowd that tried to stop my bill to
Speaker 3: prevent our technology from going to China, the same crowd
Speaker 3: that's opposing me in the selection, is the same corporate
Speaker 3: crowd trying to wipe out the Inflationial Reduction Act. And
Speaker 3: so if you want to stop them, I'd ask your
Speaker 3: listeners to go to Bobcasey dot com and help us.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to me about this Special Committee on Age.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's been a committee that's been around for decades,
Speaker 3: but because it's not an authorizing committee, doesn't often get
Speaker 3: a lot of attention. But it gives us a chance,
Speaker 3: and I'm been the chair and then before that, the
Speaker 3: leading Democrat for years to put a spotlight on big
Speaker 3: issues that relate to seniors. And I've also used it
Speaker 3: as a platform to focus on Americans who have a
Speaker 3: disability as well. Because those Americans, sixty one million of them,
Speaker 3: don't get a lot of attention. It's allowed us to
Speaker 3: put a spotlight on issues that affect seniors and their families.
Speaker 3: For example, in the grip of the opioid and substance
Speaker 3: use disorder crisis, which is still with us obviously, but
Speaker 3: was most prominent in the news just a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago, we were able to focus on grand families.
Speaker 3: These heroic grandparents are raising grandchildren. In fact, I even
Speaker 3: met a woman from my faith Lewis her name was
Speaker 3: it from my home county, who was a great grandmother
Speaker 3: raising a young child. So it's a committee that allows
Speaker 3: us to put a spotlight on those issues on arsenal issues,
Speaker 3: on issues that relate to how seniors get to become
Speaker 3: the targets for scam artists and purveyors or fraud to
Speaker 3: rip them west. So it's a great committee and we're
Speaker 3: lucky to have the chance to be able to put
Speaker 3: us potlight on those issues relate to seniors.
Speaker 1: Senator Tuberville has held up all of these appointments in
Speaker 1: the military and made it so that there are now
Speaker 1: various members of military leadership missing. Tell me what you think, Well.
Speaker 3: It's at outrage. You don't have to be a military
Speaker 3: leader of the Marine Corps, of the Army or any
Speaker 3: other branch of our military to know that it is
Speaker 3: not only an outrage, but it's an abuse of a
Speaker 3: Senate rule or tradition. And I think it focuses our
Speaker 3: attention again on the need for reform in the Senate,
Speaker 3: not only that we need to get rid of the
Speaker 3: so called filibuster role, but I call it the sixty
Speaker 3: vote rule because that's the effectively you need sixty votes
Speaker 3: to pass virtually anything, and that rule has been abused
Speaker 3: by Republicans for years, stopping us from passing voting rights
Speaker 3: legislation or legislation reduced gun violence. So I think we
Speaker 3: should also reform the rule about holds that one senator
Speaker 3: can put a hold on one nomination or, in the
Speaker 3: case of Senator Tuberville, hundreds and hundreds of nominations and
Speaker 3: promotions and actions that we could take to lift up
Speaker 3: our men and women who serve in the military. So
Speaker 3: it should be a clarion call. Not just to force
Speaker 3: Senator Tourville to cancel a hold into stuff is extreme
Speaker 3: behavior in the Senate, but to reform these damn rules
Speaker 3: that are getting in the way of progress and preventing
Speaker 3: us from making progress to the American people.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Senator. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3: Molly, thank you. I honored to be on with you today.
Speaker 1: Lydia Poegreen is a New York Times columnist and host
Speaker 1: of the podcast Matter of Opinion. Welcome to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Lydia Poegreen.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's so great to be back.
Speaker 1: Mollie. Well, it's great to have you. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: You are an opinion columnist at the New York Times.
Speaker 1: You have written a lot of really gut wrenching reporting
Speaker 1: from places around the world that need to be seen.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about how you've decided to go to
Speaker 1: these places and what the experience has been like and
Speaker 1: where has affected you the most. This is not so
Speaker 1: usual for an opinion columnist to use this platform in
Speaker 1: this way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, thank you Mollie for being such an
Speaker 5: enthusiastic reader of my work. I know a lot of
Speaker 5: people would rather not think about some of the terrible
Speaker 5: things that are happening in the world.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 5: One of the wonderful things about opinion columnists at the
Speaker 5: New York Times, and it's really truly like the greatest
Speaker 5: job in all of journalism, I think selfishly, is that,
Speaker 5: you know, there's just a ton of support for kind
Speaker 5: of going out into the world and figuring out what's happening.
Speaker 5: Of course, there are a lot of great columnists who
Speaker 5: write sort of based on their interests and their you know,
Speaker 5: kind of the ideas that they have in their heads.
Speaker 5: What I find is like I have to sort of
Speaker 5: go out into the world pretty frequently in order to
Speaker 5: figure out what I think about things. It's very hard
Speaker 5: for me, maybe because I'm I mean, look, I'm opinionated
Speaker 5: about a lot of things like diet coke versus PEPSI
Speaker 5: you know what's the best Indigo Girls song? Like, I
Speaker 5: have very strong opinions about these matters.
Speaker 1: Diet coke and also Galileo.
Speaker 5: Yeah right, going, wow, Okay, that's for separate podcast. We'll
Speaker 5: be talking about your Indigo Girls choice. I mean truly
Speaker 5: that there's no wrong answers because they're the best. Okay, good,
Speaker 5: but yes, you're correct on dietzodas diet coke is really
Speaker 5: the only one word I prefer. The tiny can. I
Speaker 5: don't know about you, but I just love those little
Speaker 5: eaty bitty cans that they have now as you drink one,
Speaker 5: and it's small enough that it never gets warm or
Speaker 5: ghost flat.
Speaker 1: Right, The tiny cans are very fancy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very fancy.
Speaker 5: So I think, like, because I'm a person who doesn't
Speaker 5: necessarily have a lot of fixed opinions about things, it's
Speaker 5: just really important for me to kind of go out
Speaker 5: into the world and see what's happening. And I particularly
Speaker 5: like to go to places that are that are difficult,
Speaker 5: you know, and that that maybe don't get visited quite
Speaker 5: as often, you know. So to my last big reporting trip,
Speaker 5: I went to Eastern Chad. Chad is a big country
Speaker 5: in central Africa and it borders Sudan. In particular, it
Speaker 5: borders the Darfur region of Sudan. And as your listeners,
Speaker 5: I'm sure know, there's been a huge conflict that's been
Speaker 5: going on in Sudan for months now.
Speaker 2: There was a coup.
Speaker 5: There are two military leaders who are kind of battling
Speaker 5: it out. It's been very hard to report from within Sudan.
Speaker 5: But what we were seeing was that there were a
Speaker 5: lot of people who were fleeing over the border from
Speaker 5: the Darfur region of Sudan to eastern Chad. And so
Speaker 5: I thought, I really need to go and see for
Speaker 5: myself what's happening there. And this is like a really
Speaker 5: remote and difficult place to reach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you get there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just going to say it.
Speaker 1: Just always fascinated with how people got there.
Speaker 2: I love rude talk.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The fastest way to get to Chad, it turns out,
Speaker 5: from New York City is actually to fly to Paris,
Speaker 5: and then from Paris to Enjemino, which is the capital
Speaker 5: of Chad, and then from there you have to try
Speaker 5: and figure out how to get on one of these
Speaker 5: kind of un charter flights that take aid workers out
Speaker 5: to the border, which is a very kind of remote
Speaker 5: region of Chad. And you know, this is a sort
Speaker 5: of dry, dusty part of the world called the Sahel.
Speaker 5: That was the beginning of the rainy season when I
Speaker 5: was going. And when those rains come in, it's you know,
Speaker 5: I mean, obviously we've been dealing with our.
Speaker 2: Own issues with rain in the United States.
Speaker 5: And flooding and things like that, but it is an
Speaker 5: incredibly difficult journey to sort of move things around in
Speaker 5: that part of the world. And so you have hundreds
Speaker 5: of thousands of people who are crossing the border of
Speaker 5: Trum Sudan with literally the clothes on their back, and
Speaker 5: they're going to settle and set up kind of like
Speaker 5: makeshift shelters for themselves, fleeing horrific violence, you know, rape
Speaker 5: and want and killing and burning down houses and things
Speaker 5: like that. And they're coming with almost nothing, and they're
Speaker 5: setting up these tents made out of sticks and leaves
Speaker 5: and whatever bits of plastic that they can find, and
Speaker 5: there is a desperate race on to try and get
Speaker 5: humanitarian supplies to these people and getting to eastern Chad.
Speaker 5: Even if you have access to an airplane, that's fine,
Speaker 5: But when you talk about bringing huge amounts of food,
Speaker 5: of tents of cooking materials and things like that. You
Speaker 5: have to take these these roads that are really just
Speaker 5: kind of dusty tracks through dry scrub, and then the
Speaker 5: rains come and these huge, huge, huge rivers form that
Speaker 5: are usually dry riverbeds, and so I'd hired a kind
Speaker 5: of a four wheel drive jep type of thing, and
Speaker 5: then there was a security car that was following me,
Speaker 5: which was also a pickup truck, and you know, we
Speaker 5: were able to get through these flooded riverbeds, but you
Speaker 5: would see these trucks that were laden with stuff that
Speaker 5: was like literally to help people survive and not starve
Speaker 5: to death that would just get bogged down in these
Speaker 5: river beds. And I just thought, my god, these poor people,
Speaker 5: like how are they going to survive this rainy season.
Speaker 5: They've left their crops behind, they've left their lives behind,
Speaker 5: They're traumatized, and so yeah, I mean, of course, I'm
Speaker 5: going I'm going to go to these places. I'm going
Speaker 5: to talk to these people, and I'm going to try
Speaker 5: and tell their stories.
Speaker 1: You highlight these people and their harold. What can we
Speaker 1: do to help them?
Speaker 2: That's a very big question. I think a very good one.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think the first thing that these people
Speaker 5: need is act us to just the basic materials to
Speaker 5: help them survive, and the humanitarian appeals to provide the
Speaker 5: basics of survival to these folks are like woefully and underfunded,
Speaker 5: and people there's a lot of fatigue, right, people are like, oh,
Speaker 5: you know, we're supporting people in Ukraine, or you know,
Speaker 5: we're worried about the folks in Maui who've been burnt
Speaker 5: out of their homes, and so there's so much terrible
Speaker 5: stuff going on in the world, but those humanitarian.
Speaker 2: Appeals are you know, woefully, woefully underfunded.
Speaker 5: The big thing that the people of Sudan need is peace, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, they need an end to this terrible conflict.
Speaker 5: So I think putting pressure on the combatants to lace
Speaker 5: on their arms.
Speaker 1: So who are the combatants? Just I think, I know,
Speaker 1: but again, it would be really helpful for the people
Speaker 1: who are listening here just to hear like who are
Speaker 1: the combatants and why is this war going on?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a fascinating story, and you know, Sudan has
Speaker 5: been in some turmoil for some time. Basically, you have
Speaker 5: the head of the official army, the Sudanese armed forces
Speaker 5: and a General Borhan who's in charge of that. And
Speaker 5: there was another armed group that was at the center
Speaker 5: of the big genocide that had happened in Dark four
Speaker 5: and had been happening for about twenty years that was
Speaker 5: then absorbed into the military, and that was sort of
Speaker 5: a rival paramilitary group that is led by a general
Speaker 5: who goes by the nom de guerre Hemiti, and the
Speaker 5: two of them were essentially, you know, kind of uneasy rivals,
Speaker 5: and they together decided that they were going to topple
Speaker 5: the civilian government and then a fight broke out between
Speaker 5: the two of them. So you have these like armed
Speaker 5: guys who are essentially like engaging in urban warfare in
Speaker 5: the streets of Khartum, the capital of Sudan. Huge amounts
Speaker 5: of people have been killed, people are desperate.
Speaker 2: To get out.
Speaker 5: At the same time, this is an incredibly complicated global
Speaker 5: conflict because you have Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
Speaker 5: the Russians, the Chinese you know there, and then of
Speaker 5: course the United States and others, and you know, they're
Speaker 5: all these different players that are trying to kind of
Speaker 5: influence it. So it is i think one of the
Speaker 5: messiest and most complicated situations on a very messy and
Speaker 5: complicated global chessboard right now, and for ordinary people, the
Speaker 5: best thing you can do is to support the humanitarian effort,
Speaker 5: because obviously helping the people who are struggling through this
Speaker 5: is the you know, sort of most immediate need. But gosh,
Speaker 5: you know, I would love to see the United States
Speaker 5: step up and take a more muscular role in trying
Speaker 5: to find a diplomatic settlement to this conflict. I think
Speaker 5: a lot of people just look at the difficulties of
Speaker 5: the world and just sort of throw up their hands
Speaker 5: and say, there's nothing we can do about it. But
Speaker 5: you know, my work is really driven by a strong
Speaker 5: sense that, you know, we're we're all in this together,
Speaker 5: and that we have to take care of one another.
Speaker 5: And you know, we have we have all these conversations
Speaker 5: about the quote unquote migrant crisis, why are there so
Speaker 5: many people trying to get to Europe or trying to
Speaker 5: get to the United States, And you know, look around
Speaker 5: the world and see what's happening and having some sort
Speaker 5: of kind of humanitarian commitment I think is absolutely essential
Speaker 5: to creating a world in which people can live in
Speaker 5: the places that they want to be.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I also think with the crisis again,
Speaker 1: I don't even want to call it a crisis, because
Speaker 1: it's not a crisis. These are people who are suffering,
Speaker 1: whose countries have been made uninhabitable by the oil and
Speaker 1: gas we in America have used, and are now scrambling
Speaker 1: to find a place they can grow their crops. People
Speaker 1: that we need for our economy. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: like one of these situations where like, we desperately need
Speaker 1: people for our economy, they desperately want to come here,
Speaker 1: and yet Republicans ideologically don't like them.
Speaker 5: So yeah, to me, this is one of the defining
Speaker 5: moral issues of our time. I mean, I think you're
Speaker 5: very right to point to the environmental degradation that rich
Speaker 5: countries have kind of rieked on the rest of the world.
Speaker 5: But I think there's even another thing that never really
Speaker 5: gets talked about, which is we talk about migrants as
Speaker 5: being sort of you know, we I mean, I certainly don't,
Speaker 5: but there's this language about, you know, we're being invaded
Speaker 5: and these people are are coming to like take over
Speaker 5: our territory, you know. But like, let's back up and
Speaker 5: think about you know what the history of the world is,
Speaker 5: and the history of the world is one of Europeans
Speaker 5: invading the world and settling the territory and exterminating the
Speaker 5: indigenous people who lived there. And so you know, if
Speaker 5: you are an Indian person who goes to the United Kingdom,
Speaker 5: you're doing a version of what the kind of second
Speaker 5: born sons of English nobles who weren't going to inherit
Speaker 5: any property did in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. You know,
Speaker 5: you're going to find your fortune at the place where
Speaker 5: there's a fortune to be made. And so I think
Speaker 5: there is this kind of global reparations thing that needs
Speaker 5: to happen with thinking about people moving around the world,
Speaker 5: because people have always moved around the world. This is
Speaker 5: not a new phenomenon. And it used to be that,
Speaker 5: you know, it was white Europeans who moved around the
Speaker 5: world in order to find a place to make a
Speaker 5: better life for themselves. And now that the shoes on
Speaker 5: the other foot were like whoa, WHOA hold up a minute,
Speaker 5: you know, can't have that well.
Speaker 1: And I also think, I mean it is this, you know,
Speaker 1: if we're going to talk about moral imperative here, we
Speaker 1: have people coming in this country who you know, are
Speaker 1: trying to escape climate change that we cost and also
Speaker 1: violence and drug trade, drugs that we buy in our country,
Speaker 1: all made possible, right, they are trying to flee the
Speaker 1: effects of living so close to America basically, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are other issues a place, for sure, but it
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting that this is where we are. And
Speaker 1: so what's happening right now is that we have this
Speaker 1: very tight labor market. So we're seeing Republican governors in
Speaker 1: Red states past legislation making it easier for them to
Speaker 1: employ children children. We con they will let these children
Speaker 1: who cross the border by themselves work in the factory
Speaker 1: is because they don't have to pay them as much.
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about moral crisis.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I know, I know you've had my colleague
Speaker 5: on the newsroom side, Hannah Dryer on and she's done
Speaker 5: just some incredible reporting. And you know, the idea of children,
Speaker 5: regardless of their citizenship's testus, doing dangerous work in slaughter
Speaker 5: houses in factory I mean, this is like stuff from
Speaker 5: Upton Sinclair, you know, like this is it's yeah, I
Speaker 5: mean these are Dickenzie and exactly, I think that there
Speaker 5: is this kind of bizarre kind of hypocritical. We must
Speaker 5: protect children vibe going on in quote unquote red states what,
Speaker 5: in fact, what people really want is just to treat
Speaker 5: children like property and exploit them for their own ends
Speaker 5: and their own uses, and that is incredibly tragic.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, let's talk about your podcast and what it
Speaker 1: looks like and what it is and what you're doing
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, thanks, thanks for asking, Mollie. Now, I also
Speaker 5: am a podcaster like you. I mean, I have a
Speaker 5: little bit less experience, but you know, but you.
Speaker 1: Also ran I think an important data point here is
Speaker 1: that you also ran a podcasting companies. You have experienced
Speaker 1: from a lot of different angles a podcast I do.
Speaker 5: It's true, and I really enjoyed that experience.
Speaker 1: Besides, after you were the editor in chief of the
Speaker 1: Huffna Post, you have not just been hanging out.
Speaker 5: I have sort of a strange and variegated resume. I've
Speaker 5: done a lot of different things. It turns out my
Speaker 5: first love has always been reporting and writing, so it's
Speaker 5: great to be back doing it. So I have a podcast.
Speaker 5: It's called a Matter of Opinion. We refer to it
Speaker 5: as MOO for short. I'm hoping that'll catch on and
Speaker 5: it's a conversational podcast that I do with my colleagues,
Speaker 5: Michelle Coddle, who's a brilliant and member of the editorial
Speaker 5: board at the New York Times. My fellow columnist Ross Douthitt,
Speaker 5: who I think is one of the smartest and most
Speaker 5: engaging voices on the right. I often don't agree with him,
Speaker 5: but I always appreciate his intelligence and thoughtfulness and care.
Speaker 1: Husband Matt Greenfield, is not a fan, but we appreciate
Speaker 1: it hearing many different, many different perspectives. Yes.
Speaker 5: And then rounding out the quartet is Carlos Lozada, who
Speaker 5: is a pretty new addition to The New York Times.
Speaker 5: He joined about a year ago. He was a long
Speaker 5: time book critic at The Washington Post and also wrote
Speaker 5: long en you know, writes long essays about books.
Speaker 1: Yes, really, he's.
Speaker 5: Truly a genius, really smart, reads and reads and reads
Speaker 5: and writes these like, you know, fascinating and brilliant essays
Speaker 5: about big ideas and topics that are sort of adjacent
Speaker 5: to the news but kind of reach back much further.
Speaker 5: I highly highly recommend his work, and so you know,
Speaker 5: and it's not one of these like we're going to
Speaker 5: argue and slug it out from different ideological perspectives. I
Speaker 5: think all of us have pretty heterodox views, and even Ross,
Speaker 5: who's sort of, you know, an out conservative, has a
Speaker 5: lot of interesting and heterodox perspectives, and so it's really great.
Speaker 2: It's a fun listen.
Speaker 5: It's a fun group of people, you know, just trying
Speaker 5: to come to grips with this crazy time in which
Speaker 5: we're living. And we cover a lot of different subjects,
Speaker 5: not just politics, although of course we are coming into
Speaker 5: a presidential election year, so we are all stuck talking
Speaker 5: about it NonStop.
Speaker 1: I can hear the sort of sadness in your voice.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I feel like I would do a
Speaker 1: show where I like screamed at Ben Shapiro for an hour,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like I could do it. I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it, and I was like, you know, we're
Speaker 1: always like, well, we don't at each other. But then
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll go on these like far right news. I
Speaker 1: went on gb News and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I could just sit here for forty minutes and argue
Speaker 1: with you, like I'm fine with that, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I don't know that hearts and minds get changed
Speaker 1: by that, But I don't mind watching it. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe people don't like to watch it.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it is.
Speaker 5: Interesting, right, because I do think that, like, I have
Speaker 5: a visceral dislike of kind of like conversation as blood sport,
Speaker 5: where it's like just for the entertainment value of like
Speaker 5: seeing people demolish one another. And there have been like
Speaker 5: Hannity and Calms, and it's like, I mean, poor poor
Speaker 5: Culms was like so overmatched by Sean Hannity. These classic
Speaker 5: kind of battles, you know, whether it's you know, Gore
Speaker 5: Vidal versus William F.
Speaker 2: Buckley or William F.
Speaker 5: Buckley and James Baldwin, the Bloody town Hall conversation with
Speaker 5: Dorman Mahler and all the things. You know, these are
Speaker 5: iconic moments in our culture, and they're iconic for a reason.
Speaker 5: So I think that there is something about this idea
Speaker 5: of like, you know, real passionate argument. And I think
Speaker 5: that that's not necessarily what we're trying to do with
Speaker 5: the show, because we're I think, you know, we're all
Speaker 5: kind of a little bit all over the map in
Speaker 5: terms of our politics. But I do think that kind
Speaker 5: of passionate discussion about things that really matter rather than
Speaker 5: you know, what often substitutes for that is a kind
Speaker 5: of play by play of like the sport or the style,
Speaker 5: you know, So it's either you're talking about the outfits
Speaker 5: or the tactics or And I think that as long
Speaker 5: as the conversation is happening on the level of substance,
Speaker 5: and that's important. The other thing that I do really
Speaker 5: enjoy and I think you and I were talking about
Speaker 5: this when we had lunch the other day, but is
Speaker 5: you know, really seeing someone just like wipe the floor
Speaker 5: with an opponent on a substantive matter. You know, Like,
Speaker 5: I'm no fan of Nikki Haley. I think she's actually
Speaker 5: a huge hypocrite. And my colleague Frank Bruney wrote a
Speaker 5: great piece recently just sort of like taking her apart
Speaker 5: because everyone.
Speaker 2: Was like, oh, she did so great in the debate.
Speaker 5: But all of that being said, I mean, how fun
Speaker 5: was it to watch her just like dismantle vivek Ramaswami.
Speaker 5: You know, every middle aged woman that I know was
Speaker 5: like watching that and just being like, uh huh, we
Speaker 5: know that little twerp.
Speaker 2: You know that guy at the.
Speaker 5: Office that you know who just is so smug and
Speaker 5: so sure of himself and just talks out his ass
Speaker 5: and she just like clean his clocket and that's always
Speaker 5: nice to.
Speaker 1: See, Lydia. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure.
Speaker 6: Mollie Jesse Cannon, my junk Fast, fresh off of getting
Speaker 6: fully embarrassed by MSNBC's Meddi Hassan Vivek has been embarrassed again.
Speaker 1: I'm so shocked the vic and rhymes with cake or fake.
Speaker 1: He's standing in front of a sign that says truth
Speaker 1: and it falls over and hits him in the head.
Speaker 1: If that isn't on the nose, I don't know what is.
Speaker 1: And so for everyone's favorite climate denier, the truth hurts.
Speaker 1: That's it for this EPA Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics
Speaker 1: makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what
Speaker 1: you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep
Speaker 1: the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.