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 President Joe Biden said Trump didn't
Speaker 1: build a damn thing. Even though it's Infrastructure Week. We
Speaker 1: have such a fantastic show today. Congressman Maxwell Frost joins
Speaker 1: us to talk about.
Speaker 2: How Republicans want to shut down the government.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to tpm's Josh Marshall about President Biden's
Speaker 1: lowering of drug prices. But first we have the host
Speaker 1: of the Time of Monsters the Nations, Jeet here. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Geet here, good to be here. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about we're back. The holiday is over, the
Speaker 1: summer is over, Congress is coming back, and they have
Speaker 1: a very ambitious agenda which involves doing everything they can.
Speaker 2: To danger they're endangered. Republican Congress people discuss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is sort of strange that it looks like
Speaker 3: they're going ahead with impeaching Biden, And on one level,
Speaker 3: kind of makes sense that if you don't really have
Speaker 3: an agenda you can pass, and you have a fractured caucus,
Speaker 3: maybe one way to hold it together is to unify
Speaker 3: against an enemy. On another level, it doesn't make sense
Speaker 3: because there is like roughly eighteen or so seats where
Speaker 3: Biden won, and I don't think there are people who
Speaker 3: are whating in those seats who are Biden one end,
Speaker 3: they have a Republican representative. But I don't think in
Speaker 3: those seats they're going to like cutting up to the
Speaker 3: idea that that Biden should be impeached because his son
Speaker 3: Hunter has a giant hog. Then it seems like I
Speaker 3: don't think anything in the Constitution that justifies I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm excited about this impeachment because I mean you ask
Speaker 1: them like, well, why do you guys want to impeach Biden?
Speaker 1: And they're like the border fent and all Hunter something
Speaker 1: I saw on Fox News.
Speaker 3: That's it. That's it, right, Yeah, I mean it is
Speaker 3: a sort of a politics theater. And I mean in
Speaker 3: some ways, the Congress has become a sort of branch
Speaker 3: of Fox News. I mean, has a sort of symbiotic
Speaker 3: relationship of right.
Speaker 2: I think that's really true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where the hosts and the parasite have become one.
Speaker 3: I mean basically, like every Republican congressman like they're dream,
Speaker 3: they're fantasy. What they live for is to go on Fox,
Speaker 3: and they're also watching Fox all the time and getting
Speaker 3: their perception and reality from Fox, and so yeah, it
Speaker 3: leads to the kind of absurdity that we're seeing now.
Speaker 2: It is true.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to this idea that like
Speaker 1: the Republican Party now is just the congressional Republicans are
Speaker 1: so Fox News, ad Jason, that they are actually like
Speaker 1: part of Fox News. And I think about your friend
Speaker 1: of mine, Trey Gowdie, who is neither your friend nor mine,
Speaker 1: but who is on Fox News and who sort of
Speaker 1: shot to prominence using Benghazi to get himself a job
Speaker 1: at Fox News, And like, I think about that because
Speaker 1: when you watch Fox News, you know, it's sort of
Speaker 1: a revolving door of the craziest. And what I think
Speaker 1: is interesting about Fox News, which I think is also
Speaker 1: something we've seen with small dollar donations in the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: is that they incentivize crazy discuss.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, absolutely, I mean I think one way to
Speaker 3: maybe think about this is the lack of any sort
Speaker 3: of like governing agenda. And I mean they have things
Speaker 3: that they want which are wildly unpopular, not to privatize medicare,
Speaker 3: it's social security. Whereas I think that if they if
Speaker 3: you do sort of Benghazi type politics poll tics of
Speaker 3: pseudo scandal, like it's a way of riling up the
Speaker 3: base without actually having to make the kind of difficult
Speaker 3: decisions that you need to make about like taxes and spending.
Speaker 3: I sort of see this as partially a flight from responsibility.
Speaker 3: It's also, oh, I think sort of tied in with
Speaker 3: the sort of gerrymandering or the regional sorting that like
Speaker 3: Fox is on a grand scheme of things, a niche network,
Speaker 3: like at the best of times getting three four million viewers,
Speaker 3: but the niche that watches it is the hardcore Republican
Speaker 3: base people. You need to get out there to win primaries,
Speaker 3: and you need to be sending you like twenty bucks
Speaker 3: a month if you want to be viable. And just
Speaker 3: as like sort of Reroblicans have become a minority party,
Speaker 3: like they're trying to game the system so they can
Speaker 3: govern both in Congress, the Senate and the presidency with
Speaker 3: a minority of the vote. They sort of made this
Speaker 3: alliance with a kind of like you know, minority network, right,
Speaker 3: They're not like they're not like cv AS or ABC,
Speaker 3: which themselves are kind of not what they once were
Speaker 3: like when we were kids in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 3: where everyone watches those networks. So it is a sort
Speaker 3: of politics of niche casting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I would
Speaker 1: also add that it's partially this sort of knee she thing.
Speaker 1: But I do think like this idea that they have
Speaker 1: these wildly unpopular ideas and that the Republican Party has
Speaker 1: really run out of ideas, I think is really important.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about this Republican Party and the
Speaker 1: sort of like way they've gotten themselves into this, it
Speaker 1: was like one of the reasons why Trump won. If
Speaker 1: we have to go back I would love to never
Speaker 1: say that sentence again. One of the reasons why Trump won.
Speaker 1: But one of the reasons why Trump won was because
Speaker 1: he introduced some popular ideas, right, Like he said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna punish China for taking away your jobs, right because
Speaker 1: there were places where people had lost jobs because of
Speaker 1: factories had moved to Asia or wherever, and so he
Speaker 1: was sort of like, I'm going to be your vengeance, right,
Speaker 1: He's I'm going to.
Speaker 2: Get back at globalization for whatever.
Speaker 1: And so I do think like those few ideas that
Speaker 1: were at least pop you list were in some ways
Speaker 1: like the first time that party has ever offered anything,
Speaker 1: not the first, but one of the very few times
Speaker 1: when that party has offered it, because I mean think
Speaker 1: about like lower taxes for businesses, I mean, who is
Speaker 1: that for besides rich people?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? And then one side in like your twenty sixty
Speaker 3: nine years service seeing it now where like Trump was
Speaker 3: the guy who was saying like I'm not going to
Speaker 3: cut Medicare and Social Security? Who wants to do that?
Speaker 3: And even his critique ab Obamacare is kind of interesting
Speaker 3: that he lied, right, Like he basically to say something
Speaker 3: that's extremely popular, like well, Obamacare is out working, and
Speaker 3: I'll get you what Obamacare has but better, right, and
Speaker 3: how will you do that? I'll make a deal right now.
Speaker 3: On the one level, obviously a grift care at a
Speaker 3: combat But that's very different than the standard Republican message,
Speaker 3: which is like you get nothing right, We're gonna think
Speaker 3: this these things away from you. And it's interesting, I
Speaker 3: mean at the other remocns. I mean, this is there's
Speaker 3: many reasons why he's gonna be the nominee, but one
Speaker 3: of them is that, like if you look at the
Speaker 3: other people the alternative that they're offering is like sort
Speaker 3: of a return to austerity, right, like both like you know,
Speaker 3: Nicki Haley and the sad as, they're all saying like
Speaker 3: we gotta raise right, and that's really striking, Like Nicki
Speaker 3: Haley is the reasonable saying Republican. She says, well, people
Speaker 3: are living longer, that's.
Speaker 2: Not we got to pay for this.
Speaker 1: Well, luckily for Trump because of his incredible COVID response
Speaker 1: and the anti vax stuff, people are actually.
Speaker 2: Not living longer the good news. Yeah yeah, and at
Speaker 2: least in America.
Speaker 3: At a time where like life expected to see in
Speaker 3: America is going down. She wants to raise retirement age,
Speaker 3: which means like literally like youn have like just a
Speaker 3: butch smaller period of retimerity if she gets her way,
Speaker 3: and like I'm looking at them, like if the alternative
Speaker 3: is between that and Trump, who says he wants to
Speaker 3: want yeah, yeah, yeah, I have you ice cream and
Speaker 3: that won't make you bad, Like could have all the
Speaker 3: sex you want without venereal disease, like just gonna like
Speaker 3: apaily like high in the sky. But that's still more
Speaker 3: attractive than saying like you gotta work till you die.
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, which might be soon.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing I feel like the greatest trick
Speaker 1: the Republican Party ever played was not somehow being blamed
Speaker 1: for lowering the life expectancy in America. I mean, you
Speaker 1: have a party of anti vaxxers, right who have basically
Speaker 1: said that all public health messaging is wrong and that
Speaker 1: people should be taking or Steve warmers, and those people
Speaker 1: are not blamed for lowering and then like, surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: the American life expectancy goes down, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can't blame those guys. I mean I think you should.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, absolutely, I'd get to some more vigorous
Speaker 3: opposition party that would do that. But I mean there's
Speaker 3: obviously not what we have, but still, yeah, I have
Speaker 3: the policies that they have, like the actual policies up
Speaker 3: like Trump's pilots guy stuff. Actual policies that they have
Speaker 3: are just like wildly unpopular because they're basically like, let's
Speaker 3: give more money to Uncle Scrooge and Richie Rich and
Speaker 3: Tiburn's and everyone else. All you Homer Simpsons out there,
Speaker 3: you gotta work till you die. Like I would think
Speaker 3: that's a hard sell. So what's the alternative, Like it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: like Hunter Bidens, he's doing shady stuff, and the immigrants
Speaker 3: are crossing the border. There's a border crisis. These scandals
Speaker 3: at least have moret at least they have the appeal
Speaker 3: that you're not telling people that work till they die. Right,
Speaker 3: that's a better message all things considered.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, that's the work till you die message.
Speaker 1: Seems like not a winner. But again, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just this Republican Party. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about the GOP debate again because I think we
Speaker 1: have another one coming up and it's just going to
Speaker 1: be we're in this, like, I mean, the debate without
Speaker 1: the front runner.
Speaker 2: I just think is kind of a meaningless matrix.
Speaker 1: But I do I think it's ultimately kind of like
Speaker 1: we are finding ourselves with the Republican Party that has
Speaker 1: no ideas, right, it has these unpopular ideas, or it
Speaker 1: has these trumpy ideas. I think the thing that I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit interested in besides this Republican Party's problem
Speaker 1: is that there is a pretty interesting moment in American
Speaker 1: media right now which is a sort of underreported story,
Speaker 1: which is this idea that like a lot of us
Speaker 1: are pre depressed about the idea of having to do
Speaker 1: twenty twenty over again discuss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not great. I mean it looks like it's
Speaker 3: shaping up to be Biden and Trump. Having said that
Speaker 3: anything could happen, right, especially out of Trump and all
Speaker 3: these criminal cases, you got to think his health is
Speaker 3: not that great. But if it is Trump versus Biden,
Speaker 3: you feel like you're trumped in an endless loop, right,
Speaker 3: Like this is groundhog Day, but not fun at least
Speaker 3: Bill Verry in grandagg Day, you got to improve himself
Speaker 3: and he came better and escaped the loop. But like
Speaker 3: I imagine a groundhog Day where it's actually like actually
Speaker 3: things are getting worse and where you're reading yourself and
Speaker 3: it's getting worse and worse, and like in terms of psychology,
Speaker 3: I mean that is actually a bad mental health state
Speaker 3: to be in that sort of repetition compulsion, right, like
Speaker 3: where you have to do yet another I get speak
Speaker 3: for myself. I tried not to write about Trump because
Speaker 3: I just feel like I've sort of had my say
Speaker 3: and don't occupy the mental space where you have to
Speaker 3: be thinking about Trump and thinking about this like really monster,
Speaker 3: not just monstrous. Like he's not an interesting monster like Dracula, Right,
Speaker 3: He's just like this mean, petty, nasty little man. And
Speaker 3: like the fact that we have to be thinking about
Speaker 3: him is very depressing. And conversely, like, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think Biden has done a lot of good stuff. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think there's a serious argument if you've made that
Speaker 3: Biden is the best Democratic president on domestic policy, says
Speaker 3: like Linda Johnson, And he doesn't have the Vietnam War,
Speaker 3: which just makes it even better.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I'll go along with you on this.
Speaker 1: Like one of the things that I think is really
Speaker 1: important to talk about is like last week Biden started
Speaker 1: this prescription drug negotiation, which is the first time any
Speaker 1: president has done it since Medicare part dy right number one.
Speaker 1: Then we had this bilateral South Korea Japan meeting at
Speaker 1: Camp David the week before. I mean, the man is
Speaker 1: doing a lot of stuff. It's just that all we
Speaker 1: hear about is Desantus refusing to meet with him in Florida.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's right. I don't know like how Biden
Speaker 3: can overcome that sort of grip hold. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: part of the same story we're talking about how like
Speaker 3: Fox News and the GOP of breached as what and
Speaker 3: if that's the case, then Fox News is also setting
Speaker 3: the agenda for the rest of the media because if
Speaker 3: he has to pay attention to what the GOP's doing,
Speaker 3: he's one of the major parties. It is a real problem.
Speaker 3: I would say Biden has done a lot of great stuff.
Speaker 3: Whether I don't know, it's really his decision, and the
Speaker 3: party has decided like there's no one serious that's running
Speaker 3: against him, so there's nothing really no one could do.
Speaker 3: I would have actually thought that they could have gone
Speaker 3: a different way and just said by I was the
Speaker 3: guy who came in to defeat Trump, and now that
Speaker 3: I've done that, you know, the party can move on
Speaker 3: and we have to go in new direction because I
Speaker 3: actually think that the party has a lot of really
Speaker 3: good people. People are more kind of able to engage
Speaker 3: with the times.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, so let's talk about this, because I
Speaker 1: feel like this is a very common conversation that I
Speaker 1: hear a lot with Democrats is like Biden is old,
Speaker 1: we should have someone else, and like, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about this because I feel like, again, if you
Speaker 1: were running against Ron de Santis, you could say for sure,
Speaker 1: Ron De Santis is forty four years old. Biden is eighty.
Speaker 1: Not cool, but Biden is eighty. Trump is seventy seven.
Speaker 1: Biden defeated Trump before and again, like, yes, I agree,
Speaker 1: there is certainly a case to be made that he's
Speaker 1: too old. But from what I understand, right, he thought
Speaker 1: and again this is not sort of my sense of
Speaker 1: the case, and this is sort of my own suppositions,
Speaker 1: but my sense is that he felt that he was
Speaker 1: the most likely to be able to defeat another old
Speaker 1: white guy again. And remember the power of incumbency is humongous.
Speaker 3: It is true, that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is incalculable.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is that we have these
Speaker 1: polls like this poll today, this Washington Post poll, fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred people, six hundred of those polled were registered Republicans.
Speaker 2: It is a poll by Trump's favorite polster, Fabrizio. And again,
Speaker 2: is it an accurate poll? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a poll that asks is Biden too old?
Speaker 1: And that poll which is more than a third registered Republicans,
Speaker 1: which is Trump's base, and they're not even registered Republicans.
Speaker 1: They are primary voting Republicans, right, so they are the
Speaker 1: real Trumpey base. They you say Biden is too old,
Speaker 1: but Trump is not too old, So.
Speaker 2: Like do with that what you will?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I mean I think that Trump's
Speaker 3: baggage is so much greater than anything Biden has. I
Speaker 3: think that, like if it does come down to a
Speaker 3: Biden Trump thing, I think like aside from that GOP base,
Speaker 3: I don't think Trump gets the independence. I don't think
Speaker 3: anyone wants to go back who's not a hardcore Republican
Speaker 3: wants to go back to those Trump years. So I'm
Speaker 3: not that worried about Biden. And to be honest, like
Speaker 3: I know you're very sort of do me pessimistic. I
Speaker 3: think the Democrats are in good shape. More broadly, like
Speaker 3: I keep seeing all these special elections, and like you know,
Speaker 3: Democrats keep overperforming, like you know, what their base should be,
Speaker 3: and especially they're overperforming what they're doing like with a
Speaker 3: Democrat as a president. Right, but we should normally like
Speaker 3: bring out the root against and Democrats would be complacent
Speaker 3: to stay. Oh, but that's not happening, and it's not
Speaker 3: happening even like in Iowa. Right, So I think we
Speaker 3: would make a mistake to under some how motivated the
Speaker 3: Democrats are, And I think they're motivated in a very
Speaker 3: good way. They're not motivated a cultu personality way like
Speaker 3: Trump or death. Nobody's saying Biden or death. They're motivated
Speaker 3: by like an actual political agenda and buy an awareness
Speaker 3: that their party is what stands between America and the abyss.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's true.
Speaker 1: Again, there are a lot of things to happen in
Speaker 1: these four hundred days, and I think that we have
Speaker 1: what's four hundred days.
Speaker 2: November will be a year until this fucking election, So I.
Speaker 1: Mean, we do know that, like this is very early
Speaker 1: to sort of get quarterbacking. But it does certainly seem
Speaker 1: like since this trumpy Supreme Court overturned Row, they really
Speaker 1: have caught the car and made Americans very mad at
Speaker 1: them in ways I don't think they thought would happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, absolutely, Yeah. And that's the other thing at
Speaker 3: Dobbs effect. And then more broadly, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: that dobs have back is interestingly interacting with the fact
Speaker 3: that the GOP has decided to react to the fact
Speaker 3: that they've enraged fifty percent of the population by saying, like, well,
Speaker 3: we're just going to keep like pushing their buttons and
Speaker 3: going even farther. So if you look at like all
Speaker 3: the stuff, like the Republican media types are saying, like
Speaker 3: so much of it is sort of baiting single women, right,
Speaker 3: saying that like single women, these cat ladies, these losers,
Speaker 3: they're bad for America. I shouldn't even have the vote,
Speaker 3: and like I'm thinking, like, okay, okay, we took away
Speaker 3: their fundamental constitution, right, and we're going to keep badgering them.
Speaker 3: Like that's a pretty good formula, bir like getting out
Speaker 3: the voters that hate you the most and making sure
Speaker 3: that they will show up. So thank you, right wing media,
Speaker 3: I salute your service.
Speaker 1: Well it is, and it's funny because it's like one
Speaker 1: of the sort of over reported tropes of this summer
Speaker 1: was this idea that single women or younger women actually
Speaker 1: saved the economy this summer because you had this block
Speaker 1: combuster feminist movie, Barbie. If you don't think it was feminist,
Speaker 1: don't send me a message telling me you don't think
Speaker 1: it was feminist. I think it was feminist period paragraph
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry if you don't think it was feminist.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to the people who are gonna yell at
Speaker 1: me about this. This was the summer of women saving
Speaker 1: the economy. These three young women, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and
Speaker 1: Greta Garwegg are responsible for keeping America out of recession.
Speaker 1: So there is a sense in which do you target
Speaker 1: these women at your own peril?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, yeah, I'm like again, this sort of strategy
Speaker 3: of badgering and harassing the people that hate you the most,
Speaker 3: and Vicky sure that they understand everything that they could
Speaker 3: lose if you stay in power. Like to me, that
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like the smartest thing. But oh, I'm the
Speaker 3: guy who also thought that it's a bad idea to
Speaker 3: have like policies that kill off your base. Like, I'm
Speaker 3: just the very simple person. I don't have the strategic genius.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a simple Canadian man. Geet here. I hope you
Speaker 2: will come back.
Speaker 3: I will always come back. I will never leave. You
Speaker 3: will just stuck with me for life.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 5: Good.
Speaker 1: Congressman Maxwell Frost represents Florida's tenth district. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Congressman Maxwell.
Speaker 3: Frost, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1: We're so excited to have you on, because first I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about being back in Congress
Speaker 1: now with what we know Republicans are planning.
Speaker 2: What is happening?
Speaker 4: Well, that's a really good question. It seems like not
Speaker 4: many people have the answer. It's interesting because ever since
Speaker 4: I before I got sworn in, find myself going to
Speaker 4: members who have been there for a while, who have experience,
Speaker 4: ask them questions, Hey, what the hell is going on?
Speaker 3: And most of the time I met with I don't know.
Speaker 4: This hasn't never happened before, from when we couldn't elect
Speaker 4: a speaker to when the government was held hostage with
Speaker 4: the debt ceiling to now we're about to get into
Speaker 4: the budget season here and we have members of the
Speaker 4: ass representatives who are saying, hey, you know what, we're
Speaker 4: not going to vote on the budget of this country,
Speaker 4: the paramount job of Congress unless we can vote to
Speaker 4: impeach Joe Biden for winning the presidency. And that's what
Speaker 4: we're up again. So I don't really know what's going on. Well,
Speaker 4: I mean it's we'll see, you know. The It's really unfortunate.
Speaker 4: It's hard because it's not just like, oh, we're dealing
Speaker 4: with people we disagree with. We're dealing with conservatives kind
Speaker 4: of thing. That's part of it. The biggest part here
Speaker 4: is we're dealing with people who want to see chaos,
Speaker 4: like they will manufacture a bomb threatened to detonate it
Speaker 4: unless we do what they say. And oh also half
Speaker 4: of them actually kind of want to push the button,
Speaker 4: like they're curious to see what would happen.
Speaker 3: And that's what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you talked about this sort of unprecedentedness
Speaker 1: because it really is. This marthy Congress is really sort
Speaker 1: of the lunatics for running the asylum and every time
Speaker 1: McCarthy is able to I mean a lot of this
Speaker 1: is meant to be payback for the debt ceiling.
Speaker 2: Right, So the.
Speaker 1: Far right had decided they were going to use the
Speaker 1: dead ceiling to ruin the full faith and credit of
Speaker 1: the United States in the hopes of destroying the Biden presidency.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen, and now they have blamed Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, exactly. And the other thing too is Kevin
Speaker 4: McCarthy is the weakest speaker probably in.
Speaker 3: The history of our right.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, personally like him, I would argue him
Speaker 4: as a leader he's weak, but also just he's given
Speaker 4: up a lot of the institutional power that the speaker
Speaker 4: usually has because he was held hostage by members of
Speaker 4: his own caucus. And so these folks, I would argue
Speaker 4: to say, they're not bluffing a lot of the time.
Speaker 3: I mean they hold the.
Speaker 4: Tools that they were able to get. And so you're right,
Speaker 4: the speakers at a very tough spot. We can get
Speaker 4: into this and we'll see how many more Freedom Caucus
Speaker 4: members come up and say, hey, it's either a featured
Speaker 4: voter or no budget. And the Speaker will have well
Speaker 4: three options. One, he'll have to come to Leader Hawk
Speaker 4: Kim Jeffries and ask for Democratic votes. If that happens,
Speaker 4: Hakim Jefferies isn't just going to say, all right, here's
Speaker 4: some modern members, right, I mean, we're going to need
Speaker 4: some concessions in this budget and we're gonna get some
Speaker 4: stuff out of it. But the problem is if the
Speaker 4: Speaker does that, the next day, he'll probably wake up
Speaker 4: with a motion to vacate the chair out there and
Speaker 4: Democrats will vote with the Freedom Caucus on that. The
Speaker 4: other option is he moves forward and impeachment vote an inquiry,
Speaker 4: which I personally believe in many people would believe would
Speaker 4: really politically harm their Republican Party as we get into
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four. Or he can get his people in
Speaker 4: line and we can and they can pass it. I
Speaker 4: think that's the least likely thing to happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like we shouldn't be laughing because these
Speaker 1: people really do want to destroy the federal government, Like
Speaker 1: that is the goal, Like make it so that retirees
Speaker 1: don't get their checks, make it so that your roads
Speaker 1: don't get paved, and your public schools don't get books.
Speaker 1: And I mean this is a very dark vision they
Speaker 1: have for this country. But they are morons, thank god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: I mean it's I go between laughing about it, crying
Speaker 4: about it, and feeling them about it.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure everybody has a similar thing. It's just
Speaker 3: hard to figure out how to respond to it.
Speaker 4: Because you're right, I mean, they have no problem with
Speaker 4: blowing everything up in the federal government because they don't
Speaker 4: believe that government can be a force for good. They
Speaker 4: are in it to destroy it. And I'm not making
Speaker 4: this up. I'm not just like saying this for the
Speaker 4: podcast giggles and laughs, like they literally say this all
Speaker 4: the time. And so it's hard to figure out how
Speaker 4: to deal with folks like that when there isn't really
Speaker 4: a north star, right, there's not like a policy goal here.
Speaker 4: It's just let's blow it up and resist for the
Speaker 4: sake of resistance. And it makes it difficult to speculate
Speaker 4: all what can happen. It makes it difficult to strategize
Speaker 4: on how to deal with it. You kind of have
Speaker 4: to just do your best and hope and pray that
Speaker 4: they don't actually use the tools that they were able
Speaker 4: to get to really destroy a lot of the hard
Speaker 4: work that so many people have done for generations. And
Speaker 4: we have to work at these elections to get these
Speaker 4: people out of office.
Speaker 1: So history, if we were to look back at history,
Speaker 1: says that the party that shuts down the government for
Speaker 1: no reason tends to get punished. Kevin McCarthy the United
Speaker 1: States of amnesia. He has not seen history. So in
Speaker 1: some ways, I mean, they have a five seat majority.
Speaker 1: There are numerous Republicans sitting in Biden districts. I mean,
Speaker 1: this does seem like Kevin McCarthy's last best plan to
Speaker 1: give the House to Democrats.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I one hundred percent agree with you on this,
Speaker 4: and I mean, I think it's twofold. I think at
Speaker 4: number one, it does have consequence for the next election.
Speaker 4: I will say I do believe that it's important we
Speaker 4: always remember that not just voters, but just people have
Speaker 4: kind of short attention spans. We tend to forget things
Speaker 4: and move on pretty quickly. And a government shutdown is
Speaker 4: interesting because it is very bad and it impacts a
Speaker 4: lot of people. For the average person, though a lot
Speaker 4: of times they won't feel like a material chain. And
Speaker 4: I think because of that, and because it's it just
Speaker 4: happens all the time now and it's always hyped up,
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people are becoming a little
Speaker 4: bit more known to what a government shutdown.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: I think that's part of the reason why when we
Speaker 4: were knocking doors during the debt ceiling debate, we'd hear
Speaker 4: a lot of outrage of concern from our prime voters.
Speaker 4: Right like I could look in van, I could look
Speaker 4: on minivan and be like, all right, this is an
Speaker 4: MSNBC voter, right like they care about the debt ceiling.
Speaker 4: And then when we do our canvases that we do
Speaker 4: oftentimes off van canvas thing where it's kind of like
Speaker 4: we're not really knocking prime voter doors, or we're just
Speaker 4: out doing regular things. Like people will talk about it
Speaker 4: but they're not sure what it is, or they'll say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: this happens all the time. Then explain to that, well,
Speaker 4: this actually doesn't happen all the time. A government shutdown
Speaker 4: happens all the time. This is much worse and different.
Speaker 4: And so I feel like it's becoming the norm for
Speaker 4: the government to shut down and all this where people
Speaker 4: are feeling like, oh, well, I guess this is how
Speaker 4: this is just how it is, and it's very unfortunate.
Speaker 4: This is part of the reason why so many people
Speaker 4: have lost faith in government. And it's not like, oh,
Speaker 4: they've lost faith in Joe Biden. It's just they've lost
Speaker 4: faith in the institution, no matter who's in it. And
Speaker 4: part of it is because it's now.
Speaker 3: Normal, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you like at the past twenty years,
Speaker 4: it's become a normal thing for the government to shut
Speaker 4: down and for it to be used as a political tool,
Speaker 4: and it's really unfortunate, right.
Speaker 1: And more like dysfunction is sort of something that people
Speaker 1: have gotten really used to in this country.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the perfect way to put it. It's the
Speaker 4: normalization of dysfunction. And it's hard to because look, I mean,
Speaker 4: I think that when you're back's against the wall and
Speaker 4: you don't have many opportunities to implement the change that
Speaker 4: you want, a lot of times you'll look at the
Speaker 4: tools or I even say, all right, I mean the
Speaker 4: budget is what I have. How can we use the
Speaker 4: budget to further our beliefs. But the problem here is
Speaker 4: it's not like, oh, this is a group of people
Speaker 4: fighting for We're.
Speaker 3: Going to use this tool because we need to ensure.
Speaker 4: More people get healthcare, more people get food stands, more
Speaker 4: people get this. It's to say we want to use
Speaker 4: this tool to ensure less people get benefits, less people
Speaker 4: get this, and that the government is worse off. And
Speaker 4: I think there's just a fundamental difference there between those
Speaker 4: two things. I think oftentimes we try to draw parallel.
Speaker 4: You know, it's extremes on both sides and et cetera.
Speaker 4: And that's true, but when we talk about the people
Speaker 4: in government, nothing can be further from the truth. To
Speaker 4: draw a parallel between me saying like we need healthcare
Speaker 4: for everybody and someone from the other side saying we
Speaker 4: need to abolish the Department of education. I just like
Speaker 4: don't see that being the same side of it personally.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about Florida, because
Speaker 1: Florida is really a state that is like experiencing a
Speaker 1: lot of the climate change things that we saw coming
Speaker 1: very quickly, and you have a Republican governor with a
Speaker 1: lot of political aspirations who is very rejected the money
Speaker 1: from the Inflation Reduction Act for the state because he's
Speaker 1: auditioning to be the Trumpiest. So talk to me about
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like there's so much happening in
Speaker 1: your state. But you've got flooding, you've got hurricanes, you've
Speaker 1: got just climate, climate, climate, talk to me about and
Speaker 1: then you can't get flood insurance.
Speaker 2: So talk to me about all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, this is the result, like you said,
Speaker 4: this is the result of a governor who is more
Speaker 4: interested in running for president than running the state of Florida.
Speaker 3: And he is his campaign strategies to out Trump Trump.
Speaker 4: It's not working, and a lot of us here in
Speaker 4: Florida especially have been enjoying in front row seats the
Speaker 4: major flop of his presidential candidacy. But someone brought something
Speaker 4: up to me a few weeks ago. That really had
Speaker 4: me thinking, and he said, yeah, it's all funny and stuff,
Speaker 4: but I'm worried about what he's going to do when
Speaker 4: he gets back, because he's still governor for three more years.
Speaker 4: And that's very true. It's very true. And the fact
Speaker 4: of the matter is, even if he loses this race,
Speaker 4: which it looks like he's gonna not win the primary,
Speaker 4: but anything could happen.
Speaker 3: He's not an old guy, I mean, and even.
Speaker 4: Though his voters get to know him, they dislike him
Speaker 4: and they like other people more. If you look at
Speaker 4: the numbers, it's not like his favorability is super low.
Speaker 4: I mean, if Donald Trump weren't a factor be the
Speaker 4: front runner. I say this to say that we shouldn't
Speaker 4: just revel in the funniness and just kind of dismiss
Speaker 4: him as a threat, because this is it's more than
Speaker 4: just oh, twenty twenty four. We got to think about
Speaker 4: four years after that and the four years after that.
Speaker 4: And that's something that Republicans are really good at. They're
Speaker 4: good at looking at the landscape and looking at the
Speaker 4: next twenty years versus Democrats. We tend to look at
Speaker 4: things cycle by cycle. And I've noticed that from being
Speaker 4: a field organizer to now like being in a lot
Speaker 4: of the rooms, these conversations are not really based on
Speaker 4: long term power building, and I think it's to our detriment.
Speaker 4: So a word of caution here to everybody to laugh.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's hilarious, the putting all of it.
Speaker 3: I love it. But let's keep in mind that Let's think.
Speaker 4: About what happens after President Biden, right, And I mean,
Speaker 4: like after we win this reelection, because we're going to win,
Speaker 4: after we take back the House, after we retain the
Speaker 4: Senate and we have four years of great work, that's
Speaker 4: the goal. What happens after that, And I think we
Speaker 4: have to talk about it. I think it's it should
Speaker 4: deeply influence how we organize now. And this is the
Speaker 4: drum I've been beating on the youth vote, the youth
Speaker 4: vote and the way we interact with young people. It's
Speaker 4: really important because yes, it's about out the votes today,
Speaker 4: it's about winning now, but it's also about the realization
Speaker 4: that in eight years, like GENC, millennials make up a
Speaker 4: third of the electorate right now, one third of the
Speaker 4: electorate right now, in eight years, it will be much
Speaker 4: much much more than that. So when we pour our
Speaker 4: messaging and love and resources into young voters now, it
Speaker 4: helps us create lifelong voters. We might speak to a
Speaker 4: ton of young people who just won't vote in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four, and it doesn't mean it's money wasted, because
Speaker 4: that messaging and that love and those resources will yield
Speaker 4: results two years later, four years later. And that's really important,
Speaker 4: and that's how we can really we have an opportunity
Speaker 4: to change this country forever from an electoral point of view.
Speaker 4: But that work starts now, I mean, and it has
Speaker 4: to influence the work now. So either way, I kind
Speaker 4: of went on a tangent there outside of Florida, but
Speaker 4: it's important.
Speaker 1: It's a really but I think it's a really important
Speaker 1: point and something that Democrats do a lot of handering
Speaker 1: you about. And they happen to have in you someone
Speaker 1: who is young and also a person of color, and
Speaker 1: also someone who grew up in Florida, which is theoretically
Speaker 1: at least a swing state. I mean, you actually speak
Speaker 1: from really a place of knowing such things, if that
Speaker 1: makes any sense. You're not some like elderly white pollster
Speaker 1: telling me this. So I do think it's important. It
Speaker 1: is something that the Democratic Party. Really, I think both
Speaker 1: parties are really struggling with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, and it's less to do. I mean, we
Speaker 4: know for a fact that gen Z it's the most
Speaker 4: progressive generation in the history of our country, even when
Speaker 4: you look at gen z Ers who consider themselves to
Speaker 4: be conservative. And so that's great and it's good for us. Now,
Speaker 4: seventy percent of gen Zers voted for Democrats last cycle.
Speaker 4: Amazing good statistics and polling shows that, unlike a lot
Speaker 4: of other generations, it looks like we won't grow as
Speaker 4: conservative as we get older. There's still going to be
Speaker 4: some of that, but there won't be as much. So
Speaker 4: the question is how do we keep those numbers where
Speaker 4: they're at. And the way you do that is by
Speaker 4: continuing to put resources to not taking people for granted.
Speaker 4: If you want a story about taking people for granted,
Speaker 4: you don't have to look any further than South Florida
Speaker 4: and see that for the first time in a long time,
Speaker 4: even though it was close, Republicans won Miami date last year.
Speaker 4: Crazy And it's not like one year Democrats wanted by
Speaker 4: a ton and then this year Republicans want to buy
Speaker 4: a ton. No, it's little by little it's steady. It's
Speaker 4: a thirty year plan that is starting. We're starting to
Speaker 4: see the benefits.
Speaker 1: Of it, right, And I mean I do think like
Speaker 1: that is a really good point about how and I
Speaker 1: mean part of that is because the Democratic Party infrastructure
Speaker 1: in Florida has really had problems, right, Will you talk
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, yeah, the Democratic Party in Florida's had
Speaker 4: problems for a long time. I think oftentimes we try
Speaker 4: to pin it on one person, and people exacerbate problems,
Speaker 4: people especially who have a more like dogmatic way of thinking, well,
Speaker 4: continue the status quo. And that's the reason we're in
Speaker 4: this situation. I think our new chair, Nikki Freed, is
Speaker 4: showing a new path that has a lot of promise
Speaker 4: for people here. And the grassroots folks here in Florida
Speaker 4: are really excited about that new path. And I think
Speaker 4: we're seeing a new crop of electeds too, a lot
Speaker 4: of new people being elected.
Speaker 2: Who are like Anna who I interview the.
Speaker 4: Podcast exactly, Yeah, representative honest Kamani. Actually yeah, later today
Speaker 4: I'm going to her kickoff for her re election campaign,
Speaker 4: which is exciting. And so we have a lot of
Speaker 4: new people all across the state, not just in Central Florida,
Speaker 4: and we are all very active all the time on
Speaker 4: the campaign side, year round. And that's really what it's
Speaker 4: going to take. I mean, it can't just be up
Speaker 4: to the Florida Democratic Party. It has to be up
Speaker 4: to everybody, all the organizations, all the electeds thinking about this.
Speaker 4: And when we do that, it's how we build power.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm starting to do it here locally. I
Speaker 4: was looking. I'm a nerd, and I'll just read ballot
Speaker 4: Pedia for like an hour or two. So I was
Speaker 4: looking at PIA and I made the spreadsheet of all
Speaker 4: the city council and county commission elections here in Orlando
Speaker 4: and Central Florida. I realize, Wow, over the next eight years,
Speaker 4: the local government here will just completely change because of
Speaker 4: term limits, just and that will happen in two to
Speaker 4: three years. There'll be a two to three year period
Speaker 4: in my area where just everything changes. And then I
Speaker 4: took a step back and I was like, as a
Speaker 4: progressive movement, are we ready for that?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: I could think of maybe like a couple people that
Speaker 4: might run for something, but I can't think of like
Speaker 4: a whole apparatus. And so now I'm working on that
Speaker 4: and I think it's important that we do that across
Speaker 4: the country.
Speaker 3: It's really important.
Speaker 1: Maxwell Frost, I would love to run over, but Jesse
Speaker 1: is now sending me the dragon emoji, so I have
Speaker 1: to end.
Speaker 2: But I hope you will come back and talk more
Speaker 2: about this.
Speaker 3: Of course, of course, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Josh Marshall is the editor of Talking Points memo Welcome
Speaker 1: Too Fast Pump Tics.
Speaker 2: Josh Marshall, how are you?
Speaker 1: I am surviving to talk to you about last week?
Speaker 1: Biden did this blockbuster drug negotiation. Basically, no president has
Speaker 1: been able to do it since Medicare Party, since there
Speaker 1: was this sort of thing written into Medicare Party, which
Speaker 1: was that you can't negotiate drug prices. Now here we are,
Speaker 1: Biden has done this. We spent the whole weekend reading
Speaker 1: about DeSantis.
Speaker 6: Right, well, I don't have an answer for that exactly.
Speaker 6: These things don't play necessarily for the intended constituencies the
Speaker 6: way that we see them play out, right. I mean, yes,
Speaker 6: they've been trying to do this for about twenty years.
Speaker 6: What is it Medica Party I think was in two
Speaker 6: thousand and three, so this has been going on for
Speaker 6: twenty years. And it's been blocked for all this time.
Speaker 6: But that's not as exciting or impulse driving as what
Speaker 6: the latest descientists crash and burn stuff, or what Elon
Speaker 6: Musk is doing on Twitter. An extent, that doesn't surprise
Speaker 6: me that much. But yeah, I don't think we know
Speaker 6: necessarily how these things are playing politically. I know that
Speaker 6: there's a lot of people who say it's the press's fault.
Speaker 6: I do think there's a limited truth to that. Half
Speaker 6: the people in the country just listen to Fox News.
Speaker 6: I mean half are in the maybe thirty five or
Speaker 6: forty percent, or in the information stream that is generated
Speaker 6: by Fox News, even if they're not directly listening to
Speaker 6: Fox News.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think we need to talk about Elan.
Speaker 1: He's not not an anti semi discuss.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't really know what to say about him.
Speaker 6: I mean, people are really what they do, not what
Speaker 6: they think in their heart of hearts. There's this guy
Speaker 6: John Gantz who was reading something by him.
Speaker 2: Well, I love John Gants, He's really smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So he was saying something and he said he had
Speaker 6: this kind of good turn of phrase or way of
Speaker 6: turning a standard discussion. We get into that there's just
Speaker 6: not that much to be gained for thinking about what
Speaker 6: people really think.
Speaker 2: Right in their hearts.
Speaker 5: Well, most people are not thinking that much at all.
Speaker 6: And that was a very elegant way of saying something
Speaker 6: that I think a lot of us sense, even if
Speaker 6: we're not able to quite articulate it. That we live
Speaker 6: in an information world where people are picking up chunks
Speaker 6: of words and chunks of thought and repeating them back
Speaker 6: depending on what team they feel they are on, and
Speaker 6: so most people are not actually thinking that much at all.
Speaker 6: But kind of to go back to that famous onion story,
Speaker 6: some people end up always going in one direction. And
Speaker 6: with Elon Musk, you don't see him happening on to
Speaker 6: getting really excited about Medicare price negotiations or any number
Speaker 6: of other things. He always seems to get ginned up
Speaker 6: in the direction of the rights of very hateful and
Speaker 6: evil people. And yeah, things are very hard for them,
Speaker 6: and it's the company he keeps, and at some level
Speaker 6: it's obviously his sort of core drives the kind of
Speaker 6: thing thinks are unfair, the kind of people he thinks
Speaker 6: are bad and good, And that's just who he is.
Speaker 5: And if you see how he operates he largely.
Speaker 6: I think we can call him an influencer, right, a
Speaker 6: kind of a prominent person. He has one hundred and
Speaker 6: fifty five million followers on Twitter. He's the richest man
Speaker 6: in the world still despite having some shed some net worth.
Speaker 2: He'said some bad investment, Yeah.
Speaker 6: Made some bad investments, but he still has the dominant
Speaker 6: position in spaceflight and electric cars and even in its
Speaker 6: sort of degraded state Twitter or whatever. I don't really
Speaker 6: care what he calls it, but he he acts like
Speaker 6: any number of other middle aged guys who are kind
Speaker 6: of cranky and hateful. It's just that he has a
Speaker 6: rather larger mega phone, so it matters a lot more
Speaker 6: in a way what he's saying his whole shick isn't
Speaker 6: that surprising he is.
Speaker 1: I think there's this sort of interesting phenomenon which is
Speaker 1: discussed sometimes, which is this sort of idea that you
Speaker 1: have billions of dollars, You have more money than you
Speaker 1: or your heirs could ever spend. Right, you have incalculatable wealth. Right,
Speaker 1: you have fame, but you still all you really want
Speaker 1: is to be as powerful as a member of the
Speaker 1: New York Times editorial board. Like, what you really want
Speaker 1: is to be taken seriously as a thought leader, which
Speaker 1: I think is like a little bit. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is clearly what a lot of these guys want. And
Speaker 1: it's sort of like you think about David Rubinstein, like
Speaker 1: he has a Bloomberg show, Like, these guys want to
Speaker 1: not just be wildly and calculatively wealthy, but they also
Speaker 1: want to be famous. And they don't even just want
Speaker 1: to be famous. They don't want to be famous the
Speaker 1: way like a reality television stars famous.
Speaker 2: They want to be famous the.
Speaker 1: Way that And again I use this example with all
Speaker 1: the needed caveats, Henry Kissinger is famous.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: The way I would put that is they want respect.
Speaker 6: They want to be respected, and they want to be
Speaker 6: respected by people who they think have a lot of
Speaker 6: cultural capital to use the sort of the fancy way
Speaker 6: people put it, the people who have I don't know, yeah,
Speaker 6: cultural capital, whatever that means.
Speaker 5: And you see it with Musk.
Speaker 6: In some ways, it's been in a slightly different vein
Speaker 6: that this has been the story of Donald Trump. Right, Trump,
Speaker 6: despite his overstating his wealth, obviously a pretty wealthy guy. Right,
Speaker 6: He's a pretty powerful guy. But he's been driven in
Speaker 6: a lot of ways by not people always thought Donald
Speaker 6: Trump was a joke. They used to think he was
Speaker 6: more benign joke, kind of just a kind of clown
Speaker 6: character as opposed to a really dangerous or malevolent person.
Speaker 6: But he didn't get respect. And that with Musk is
Speaker 6: kind of the story too.
Speaker 5: So there's a.
Speaker 6: Huge amount of our public culture in this country that
Speaker 6: is about people's grievance about that, and it sort of
Speaker 6: it expresses itself as this kind of faux populism, and
Speaker 6: that has traction because there is some truth in that,
Speaker 6: in the sense of people with fancy degrees and fancy
Speaker 6: titles and who get published by fancy publishing houses have
Speaker 6: a lot of clout, and there's a lot of other
Speaker 6: people in this country who don't have that and who
Speaker 6: feel some like Ben Shapinia, our resentment about it.
Speaker 2: Well that's where I'm as.
Speaker 1: You're talking, I'm like, oh, you mean Ben Shapiro. I
Speaker 1: mean my favorite moment was that Barbie movie. He's like,
Speaker 1: it's gonna sink like a stone.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, But I would say that what I think
Speaker 6: of more is just everyday people, right who aren't particularly powerful, celebrities, wealthy,
Speaker 6: et cetera. But you have this weird Eddy in the
Speaker 6: public culture that someone like Ben Shapiro, who is must
Speaker 6: be a very wealthy man, is kind of ubiquitous in
Speaker 6: social media. He's everywhere, he's a celebrity, he's wealthy, he's powerful,
Speaker 6: and yet that kind of grievance essential to his whole shtick.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, he just wants to be published.
Speaker 1: By kanop Yeah. I mean, clearly what Elon wants is
Speaker 1: that same kind of acceptance of polite society. But I
Speaker 1: think what is so silly about it is like you
Speaker 1: have billions of dollars just build a new polite society,
Speaker 1: which actually they're doing outside of San Francisco, where billionaires
Speaker 1: are buying up land to start their own city because
Speaker 1: they don't need San Francisco. That is an incredible bit
Speaker 1: of sorcery.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's funny because the people who are involved in
Speaker 6: that are not all right, Elon must time. So you've
Speaker 6: got a lot of people.
Speaker 2: The quote unquote good guys.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it kind of you know, yeah, Riet Hoffman, the
Speaker 6: progressive billionaires, and in some ways kind of on its surface,
Speaker 6: a lot of it is it's going to be a
Speaker 6: walking based place and there's a light, it's going to
Speaker 6: be carbon neutral and Yeah, there's going to be solar
Speaker 6: panels and everything. So it's not just a kind of
Speaker 6: what is that thing they have whatever in coal where
Speaker 6: these guys soup up their pips and you know, all
Speaker 6: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But it is this idea which billionaires seem to be
Speaker 1: very hot on. And again I'm not saying they're wrong,
Speaker 1: though I think they're wrong that they can do government
Speaker 1: better than the little people. And I do think you'd
Speaker 1: be hard pressed to find a billionaire who doesn't think
Speaker 1: they can do government better than the government.
Speaker 5: I think that's unquestionably true.
Speaker 6: You have some exceptions, but billionaires are obviously very powerful.
Speaker 6: That's one of the issues with billionaire edom in our society,
Speaker 6: and particularly with Musk, who obviously it's not just that
Speaker 6: he's You've got various billionaires. You've got George Soros, You've
Speaker 6: got Rieed Hoffman, you've got Zuckerberg, and these people at
Speaker 6: least at some level, range across the political spectrum. But
Speaker 6: in Musk's case, I'm sure many of your listeners saw
Speaker 6: or saw that article, that big article very impressively put
Speaker 6: together in the Times. Oh that one too, But the
Speaker 6: one in the Times was about that, like something like
Speaker 6: more than half the act of satellites in the skies
Speaker 6: are controlled by Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of bad.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that actually has played into when the US
Speaker 6: is dealing with the Ukraine War, they needed to get
Speaker 6: Elon Musk sign off for the communications stuff to So
Speaker 6: there comes a question in any democratic society, or in
Speaker 6: a sort of a global society, when when are you
Speaker 6: just too powerful that an individual billionaire becomes so powerful
Speaker 6: everyone else's civic democratic freedom comes into question. And that
Speaker 6: is definitely something that is part of the sort of
Speaker 6: the issue of billionaireedom in our society today. But Musk
Speaker 6: is in a special category because he, for various reasons,
Speaker 6: kind of holds the commanding heights in several critical parts
Speaker 6: of the global economy. But yeah, it's sort of natural
Speaker 6: for billionaires to think they could do it better because
Speaker 6: they've look at every certainly every billionaire who didn't inherit
Speaker 6: their billions, and probably a lot of who yes, yeah,
Speaker 6: they've had a great run of luck. Now they wouldn't say, look,
Speaker 6: they would say it's skill and they're doing but sort
Speaker 6: of whichever it is, your rolling the dice, and they're
Speaker 6: always coming up in your favor and you sort of
Speaker 6: think you've got a knack for it. So again, it's
Speaker 6: sort of it would be surprising if it weren't the case.
Speaker 1: The one thing I want to sort of get back
Speaker 1: to here is there is a kind of like the
Speaker 1: federal government seeded these things to Musk, right, Like this
Speaker 1: musk has had so many advantages from tax rebates to
Speaker 1: I mean, to research that was funded by the government.
Speaker 2: I mean, and I'm not saying he's the only one.
Speaker 2: I mean. A great example is this drug negotiation right
Speaker 2: now that Biden is doing. So the pharma companies are
Speaker 2: pushing back and saying, if you negotiate the drug prices,
Speaker 2: you won't be able to get cancer drugs right, we
Speaker 2: won't be able to use this money that we need.
Speaker 2: That seven hundred and sixty four dollars a month it
Speaker 2: costs for your heart medicine, for your elderol or whatever
Speaker 2: it's called, for your heart medicine that you have to
Speaker 2: take for heart failure. If you don't pay seven hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty four dollars a month, we can't do the
Speaker 2: research we need to do to secure cancer. Now.
Speaker 6: A lot of this research, so the biggest thing is
Speaker 6: they're clearly underinvesting in drug names, right, exactly right, because
Speaker 6: if they're calling your heart failure drug elderoll, I mean,
Speaker 6: what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: I don't know if I can say that. I probably
Speaker 5: can't say no.
Speaker 2: You can absolutely say weakurse here all the time.
Speaker 1: But I think like, so, I mean, they're saying that,
Speaker 1: and then we look over and we see that actually
Speaker 1: the federal government is very involved in R and.
Speaker 2: D drug development.
Speaker 1: Not always, but certainly a lot of this money is
Speaker 1: actually just going to paying their executives and thinking about
Speaker 1: marketing and television ads. So I do think like there
Speaker 1: are many many people in this country who have gotten
Speaker 1: rich off tax money that should not be going to them.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, there's a lot of very interesting, funny, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of quizzical things about Elon Musk. One of them
Speaker 6: is that, you know, tech is built on software. Most
Speaker 6: much of tech, a lot of the tech that we
Speaker 6: know of is built on software and network effects. The
Speaker 6: one case where Musk has gotten involved in that is Twitter,
Speaker 6: and it's been a catastrophic failure in economic terms. And
Speaker 6: the irony is what Musk is really as a pretty
Speaker 6: strong record on is heavy industry, building cars, building spacecraft, right,
Speaker 6: that is not usually the thing. You know, Apple is
Speaker 6: sort of in some ways the exception of the in
Speaker 6: the big tech players being largely hardware based, as opposed
Speaker 6: to Facebook, Google, Amazon blabblah. Obviously Amazon has some footing
Speaker 6: in hardware. And with the electric cars thing, I mean, yes,
Speaker 6: he built that on public money, but we put public
Speaker 6: money there to help start an electric vehicle industry, so
Speaker 6: that was kind of the idea. And with certainly with SpaceX,
Speaker 6: he's built that entirely on government contracts, right that he
Speaker 6: got the NASA contract basically, that's how he built it.
Speaker 6: He beat out, rightly or wrongly, Jeff Bezos, who also
Speaker 6: has his own little space company that so certainly the
Speaker 6: point is that Elon Musk's money is entirely based on
Speaker 6: navigating the policies of the federal government and the money
Speaker 6: it puts behind things. Sort of the most generous thing
Speaker 6: you can say is that we're now able to send
Speaker 6: a lot more stuff into space because he's been successful
Speaker 6: at that, and how he's being able to get the
Speaker 6: price down for a freight to neuroth orbit and all
Speaker 6: that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: it is not a libertarian vision. It all comes from
Speaker 6: piggybacking on federal government spending. He's a product, ironically, he
Speaker 6: is a product of the Obama and Biden administrations.
Speaker 1: Right, So one last question exactly is a product of
Speaker 1: the administrations he's now trying to remove.
Speaker 2: One last question is Elon mus R Henry Ford.
Speaker 5: He really seems like to me.
Speaker 6: I just mentioned that in a post I did like
Speaker 6: earlier this morning, that Ford was a true innovator in
Speaker 6: this sort of the assembly you know, we don't think
Speaker 6: of that as high tech now, but the assembly line
Speaker 6: and all the different sort of management stuff that goes
Speaker 6: into it. And then he became kind of a virulent
Speaker 6: anti Semitic crank and he had his own little newspaper
Speaker 6: up there in Michigan and everything, and so yes, he
Speaker 6: really does seem like that. And his Shenanigans didn't seem
Speaker 6: to heard Ford Motor Company. They're still chugging along, so
Speaker 6: maybe it'll be the same. I don't know, but he
Speaker 6: really does seem similar, because that's the thing with it's
Speaker 6: not just luck with Musk. And I'm about as anti
Speaker 6: Musk as you can be. I don't think you manage
Speaker 6: SpaceX and Tesla without bringing some element to the equation
Speaker 6: that has enabled his success. And I say that as
Speaker 6: someone who really reviles the guy. But even when you
Speaker 6: make economic decisions that work out well for you great
Speaker 6: in our system, you make a ton of money, but
Speaker 6: you get the money you don't. It's it's always important
Speaker 6: for the republic, the state, the public to say you
Speaker 6: can get all your money, but you don't necessarily get
Speaker 6: to make all the decisions because you can't be more powerful.
Speaker 6: You can't become so powerful that everyone else's power becomes
Speaker 6: a footnote. And that's kind of in some ways where
Speaker 6: we are with us on some of these fronts.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I hope he'll come back.
Speaker 5: Well, thanks for having Me'd love to come back.
Speaker 2: No, Jesse Cannon, Malli Jong Fast that Ken Pexton. He's
Speaker 2: a real wallless guy, real model Trump mega guy. And
Speaker 2: what are you seeing here today?
Speaker 1: Is an incredible day. It is the beginning of Ken
Speaker 1: Paxton's impeachment trial. Ken Paxton is the attorney general. He's
Speaker 1: the most he considers himself to be the most conservative
Speaker 1: attorney general ever.
Speaker 2: He is. He's going to be impeached.
Speaker 1: He's being impeached again by a jury of his peers,
Speaker 1: a lot of very conservative Republicans. The netnet of this
Speaker 1: is he tried to hide his affair from his wife
Speaker 1: on his voters, and one of his one of his
Speaker 1: biggest donors, gave his mistress or his alleged mistress a job.
Speaker 1: I want to say that one of the really fun
Speaker 1: things about this trial is that Ken Paxton's lawyer is
Speaker 1: a guy called Tony Busby and he is completely orange
Speaker 1: a la Donald Trump, and he is totally hilarious and
Speaker 1: you can watch it live streamed and it's pretty great.
Speaker 1: So go to the Texas Senate and watch the guy
Speaker 1: who had the multiple indictments get impeached. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.