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 is now trying to
Speaker 1: walk back his comments on cutting Medicare and Social Security.
Speaker 1: We have an amazing show for you today. Congresswoman Debbie
Speaker 1: Murcisell Powell tells us how she plans on beating Senator
Speaker 1: Rick Scott to help Democrats keep the Senate.
Speaker 2: Then we'll talk to Mom's Demand.
Speaker 1: Actions founder Shannon Watts about what's moving the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four election. But first we have the illustrious James Carvill.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, James.
Speaker 3: Carvell, Hey having done, We're so.
Speaker 2: Happy to have you.
Speaker 1: So can you talk us through what you see in
Speaker 1: the political landscape right now?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I disatisfaction with the direction to country
Speaker 3: and meet the prevent bidener Trump popular sight Lee, But
Speaker 3: the really important thing is Democrats are winning elections everywhere. Whatever.
Speaker 3: We got to hope this carries through through November. Most
Speaker 3: hopeful there.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that for a second, because the
Speaker 1: thing I'm struck by is like Democrats keep winning elections
Speaker 1: and even with these primaries, like there was a lot
Speaker 1: of anxiety about this uncommitted vote, and yes, definitely people
Speaker 1: did express their displeasure. But also like, for example, immediately afterwards,
Speaker 1: you saw Ilhan Omar go on CNN and say.
Speaker 2: That she actually is supporting Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: So it did feel like progressives definitely have things they're
Speaker 1: upset about as well they should, honestly, but it seems
Speaker 1: like they're still very much on board with the coalition.
Speaker 1: And all of this negative Biden talk is almost entirely
Speaker 1: from polls, right, I mean, is it from anything else?
Speaker 3: Yeah, both lot, but they're part of our the lived experience,
Speaker 3: their foulso people talk to other people and they have
Speaker 3: a pretty good gauge of where things are. Enthusiastic people are.
Speaker 3: The under thirty in the black number was awful.
Speaker 1: If Democrats keep winning elections but the polls are wrong,
Speaker 1: then when do we start questioning the value of the polls?
Speaker 3: After the polls will kind of right. Even in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, no one wanted to read them. It could
Speaker 3: be off a couple of three points, but the idea
Speaker 3: idea that they massively off is.
Speaker 1: But they weren't right in twenty sixteen, right, they were
Speaker 1: closer in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: In forty six, and they were more right than you thought.
Speaker 3: The popular vote number they had were very close with
Speaker 3: their a point and a half. The in state Poland
Speaker 3: was off because they undersampled people, that's true, but the
Speaker 3: popular vote was if anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's talk about like what's happening in Florida,
Speaker 1: because I think this is pretty interesting. You have this
Speaker 1: governor who really used his governorship as an audition for
Speaker 1: a Republican primary that he did not win. I mean,
Speaker 1: is there an opportunity there for Democrats despite the weakness
Speaker 1: of the state party. I mean, is there an opportunity
Speaker 1: to pick.
Speaker 3: Up First of all, little crowds actually have a state
Speaker 3: poarder now before it was kind of dysfunctional thing. And
Speaker 3: we don't have primaries anymore. Sos MESSI messing primaries. We
Speaker 3: got our cadidy that they're not quite a good ronder.
Speaker 3: Santis is not popular anymore. He finds abandoning books that
Speaker 3: was misunderstood because they hate these got their books. But
Speaker 3: the abortion issues cutting like crazy. We want the managin's
Speaker 3: like Jacksonville run a state house race and he still
Speaker 3: had that is just cutting like and the other things
Speaker 3: almost as bes abortion insurance rate and people that just
Speaker 3: started spiking up and people are living about it. And
Speaker 3: then you got Rick Scott because if you look at
Speaker 3: him and you makes you forget how big an asshole
Speaker 3: Ted Cruise is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: And Rick Scott has designs if he can get in
Speaker 1: the majority and the leadership.
Speaker 3: Yes, he tried to knock macile roll. He's got that
Speaker 3: plan where lowwik also cutting people so security, medicaid, raising
Speaker 3: taxes on hotel mate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, real class.
Speaker 1: And then you have this Senate map where they have
Speaker 1: a lot of the Republican candidates are these carpetbagging billionaires
Speaker 1: who are coming into the state. You're seeing that in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: you're seeing that in Pennsylvania. Talk to us about that phenomenon.
Speaker 1: I mean, do those people win? Does that help you?
Speaker 3: Or? Now the guy in Wisconsin already getting himself into
Speaker 3: some trouble from the things he said, because they think,
Speaker 3: because I've made money, I've done one thing, I can
Speaker 3: do this thing. More often than not, it does not translate.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it does, but you've got to be pretty political.
Speaker 3: Yet they're pretty shortly politically and we'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I feel like this hasn't gotten quite
Speaker 1: as much coverage as Joe Biden's age.
Speaker 2: But Republicans have a real cash problem.
Speaker 3: She duty. If I said, Joe Biden, I'm putting my
Speaker 3: granddaughter to be the feet. We're moving the DNC to Wilmington,
Speaker 3: and every dollar to cout them down there, we'll take it.
Speaker 3: What would be the reaction of people, Well, just what
Speaker 3: he did. For some reason, I'm on their exchange, right,
Speaker 3: I won't opt out because it's like, hey, Patriot, I
Speaker 3: sent you and now we'll go to Ted Cruz money. Well,
Speaker 3: you get off your ass and get moving.
Speaker 1: Clearly, part of the cash crunch is this idea that
Speaker 1: if you run these billionaires, they'll win these Senate seats
Speaker 1: and then you don't have to give them money from
Speaker 1: the RNC, right, I mean that's some of the thinking here.
Speaker 1: Or they don't have to raise a lot of money
Speaker 1: because they already have the money.
Speaker 3: Well, appropriately it would be in RFC could give more.
Speaker 3: If you have a self funding guy in Wisconsin, you
Speaker 3: don't pay for that. That means you can give more
Speaker 3: off Pennsylvania a self puny guy, so you can what
Speaker 3: you need in the batter Race, Arizona Race, or higher
Speaker 3: race or anywhere else you are. It's a double benefit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the problems that trump Ism has is it
Speaker 1: relies on these low frequency voters. Those are the people
Speaker 1: who have been able to sort of push them over
Speaker 1: the top. So those people tend not to be the
Speaker 1: kind of voters who are really reliable down ticket voters.
Speaker 3: Right, No, I mean, I do what you're saying, but
Speaker 3: not that they're certainly not can produce small show on
Speaker 3: the top and take it as well a bottom, but
Speaker 3: it would lift the bottom.
Speaker 2: Right if they're out there.
Speaker 1: Right, So you have that the really good sentiment for
Speaker 1: Republicans filled with people who have their own money, so
Speaker 1: Trump can have the rest of it.
Speaker 2: And then you have the Republicans in the House.
Speaker 1: It strikes me, and again I'm curious what you think
Speaker 1: historically that the mess the Republicans are making in the
Speaker 1: House could have larger implications.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that.
Speaker 3: They have a complete mills in the House or take
Speaker 3: last week Nikki here it drops out, which yes, mister,
Speaker 3: we do just ware the Albay. I have a dollar.
Speaker 3: You have a great State of the Union. That haiti
Speaker 3: great thing. I knew it was bad when I saw it.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize how bad it was, so I saw it.
Speaker 2: It's really bad.
Speaker 3: At some point, you hope some things start to kick in.
Speaker 3: That's the great hope.
Speaker 2: She really embarrassed herself, though I think it.
Speaker 3: Should be having a big effect than the years having right.
Speaker 1: I mean again, though those are polls, but I'm hoping
Speaker 1: you could talk about the ken Buck dropping.
Speaker 2: Out this week.
Speaker 1: Now they have like a two vote majority, right.
Speaker 3: And Buck drops out. He announced he wasn't going to run,
Speaker 3: so so Boba said, I'm gonna move to the fourth
Speaker 3: that they have a better chance. So she starts running.
Speaker 3: So Buck announcis they put to me? All right? Law
Speaker 3: kicks in. They has to be a primate. They have
Speaker 3: to have an election before the elect before the general election.
Speaker 3: And if you remember Congress, you can't run. You'd have
Speaker 3: to resign. She don't lose in November where she has
Speaker 3: to resign her seat. That they are all of us
Speaker 3: staff down if she wants to be in a race,
Speaker 3: and what's she going to do the term where she
Speaker 3: makes the most money, which I'm probably staying in the race.
Speaker 3: I mean, she's no, she's not gonna win, but she
Speaker 3: gets hang on the sugar Tan till January next year.
Speaker 1: The thing that I'm so struck by is and then
Speaker 1: they have two impeachments that they're trying to get out
Speaker 1: of in the house right now. You have the Majorcus impeachment,
Speaker 1: which I guess they may keep going with, and then
Speaker 1: you have the Biden impeachment, which it seems like there's
Speaker 1: almost no way they can keep that going.
Speaker 3: These people are so incompetent. If we hit somebody downright
Speaker 3: dumb in the spector at homework, is thenle right, he's
Speaker 3: really dumb. We had one that game is comical of
Speaker 3: a response to the Union, K. But we would say
Speaker 3: something that stupid what we're doing, We'll put the person
Speaker 3: up there. We do we need dentwes how this has
Speaker 3: to happen. But yeah, they just fow ahead.
Speaker 1: Part of it is they just don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, like Katie Britt she's the.
Speaker 3: Youngest, Marsha Blackman and Cindy Hedge with maybe she's the
Speaker 3: best they got.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, she's definitely better than those two. I
Speaker 1: wonder if the house mess does ultimately really affect where
Speaker 1: this goes now? I mean, do they lose the house
Speaker 1: because they're just so incompetent and they can't pass anything.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of Republicans in the district's Biden carried
Speaker 3: and yeah, I mean it's not happy, it's just yes,
Speaker 3: it couldn't have the fact that the biggest one that
Speaker 3: we haven't talked about is Mark Robertson running the government.
Speaker 2: I'll cart, oh, yeah, let's talk about that.
Speaker 3: This guy says women, you shouldn't have the right to
Speaker 3: v big powercast denial. You can't believe the stuff that
Speaker 3: he said. And he is the Republican nominee for governor
Speaker 3: of Carolina? Who is giving him money? Is the r
Speaker 3: are you going to give him money? Is the RGA
Speaker 3: going to give him money? Is Glenn Yulkin going to
Speaker 3: endorse him and not indorse him? Is any candidate running
Speaker 3: with you a dark Holly? Would you vote for this guy?
Speaker 3: What they did do with George Sars and George Sars
Speaker 3: give him like a foundation and the foundation something that
Speaker 3: it ends up giving to something, and that's George soarrs
Speaker 3: is a lecture. Right, it's just right down running for
Speaker 3: government in you know, one of the largest states in
Speaker 3: the United States. Look at aoc LC just cooked to me,
Speaker 3: kind of Naiden. I've done more men not the vote.
Speaker 1: The guy who's running for governor of North Carolina, it's
Speaker 1: not the same as a progressive. I mean, he is
Speaker 1: a full on Facebook lunatic. Yeah, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: even think like it's comparable to anything on the left.
Speaker 1: But I am curious, like in that case, it does
Speaker 1: seem like that Democrats could theoretically keep that governorship.
Speaker 3: I think we will. I think this guy is so grotest.
Speaker 3: What I'm trying to do is before this is over,
Speaker 3: to have ramifications beyond that where they have to answer
Speaker 3: for these people, For George Satchel, I mean, make them
Speaker 3: put the mic in their pace. You know that the
Speaker 3: Republican National Committee is given money to this How do
Speaker 3: you approve of that? But you know that so and
Speaker 3: so gave money to Republican Governments Committee and they get anything.
Speaker 2: So interesting. James Carvell, what are the races are you watching?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean the Bobbysheed Tenate races, Pittspania, Michigan, Wisconsin,
Speaker 3: West Virginia. I must just see that.
Speaker 2: Isn't Don blanket Ship running as a Democrat.
Speaker 3: It's a really screwball thing. But see, you know the
Speaker 3: Battle of I'm watching more and more closer than most people.
Speaker 3: And also Texas, tell me why if we were to
Speaker 3: pick up a seat, that's our best hope. Our best
Speaker 3: hope is for Texas, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: But you think Dave McCormick, I mean, they're just going
Speaker 1: to keep running these guys right, again and again and again.
Speaker 3: They Inquiry had a devastating story on McCormick. I think
Speaker 3: it was mister Joville about how they're all around state. Timight.
Speaker 3: I was from the staateum as you love the sat
Speaker 3: and everything. And then at the end of the day
Speaker 3: got in his jet moved back to Connecticut. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They couldn't even move to like a fancy suburb in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: The guy's been running for Senate for like a year.
Speaker 1: I mean not even for a year. This is his
Speaker 1: second cycle of running for Senate and he didn't even
Speaker 1: think to like move there.
Speaker 4: It's so crazy, all right, Molly, I got I let it.
Speaker 2: Go, all right, thanks James.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Debbie Mercosol Powell represents Florida's twenty sixth district and
Speaker 1: is currently a Senate candidate in the Great State of Florida.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics. Debbie.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Mollie for having me. It's always
Speaker 4: such a pleasure.
Speaker 2: So you're running for senator in the great state of Florida.
Speaker 1: Would be a pickup for Democrats probably, as anyone who
Speaker 1: listens to podcast knows, we have a very tight, tight
Speaker 1: Senate map for Democrats, So it would be incredible to
Speaker 1: pick up a seat.
Speaker 2: Tell me what's happening in Florida and what it's like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Mollie, look like you said, we cannot keep the
Speaker 5: Senate majority without picking up Florida. This is going to
Speaker 5: be critical for us to be able to hold the majority,
Speaker 5: and I think more and more people are realizing it.
Speaker 5: And the great thing for me, for us, for the
Speaker 5: country is that there is no more vulnerable senator than
Speaker 5: Rick Scott. We just had a poll last week that
Speaker 5: Emily's List release that shows that Rick Scott and I
Speaker 5: are statistically tied, and after hearing more I I'm up
Speaker 5: by four points. The majority of Floridians are really just
Speaker 5: ready to elect someone new. They know who Rick Scott is,
Speaker 5: they know that he's someone that committed Medicare fraud. He
Speaker 5: oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the history of this country.
Speaker 5: They know that he wrote a plan to sunset social
Speaker 5: security and medicare. He's done nothing for our environment. Imagine.
Speaker 4: I mean, we have been ground zero for first too
Speaker 4: many things.
Speaker 5: I mean not only for attacks against our freedoms and
Speaker 5: liberties here in the state, but also for the effects
Speaker 5: of climate change. And he has denied that climate change exists.
Speaker 5: And so as I've been traveling Molly the state, what
Speaker 5: I've been hearing is the majority of people are organizing.
Speaker 5: They're really excited about my candidacy. They know that we
Speaker 5: have a really great opportunity to flip the state for
Speaker 5: the Senate seat. And I'm overwhelmed by the support. I
Speaker 5: wish you could come with me. We are traveling all
Speaker 5: over the state and I hear the same things that
Speaker 5: they're ready. They're rejecting all the extremism, and that's who
Speaker 5: we are in Florida. People tend to forget we are
Speaker 5: an independent state that when we have the information and
Speaker 5: we have the right investments right that we win.
Speaker 2: Yeah, talk to me about what you're seeing. You're in Florida.
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the things we don't see
Speaker 1: in the sort of pundit world is what voters are
Speaker 1: saying you on the ground, So what are they saying
Speaker 1: you in Florida.
Speaker 5: I can tell you that the top issue for us
Speaker 5: here in the state is the affordability issue. The high
Speaker 5: cost of living. Our inflation rate is much higher than
Speaker 5: the national average. The property insurance rates have not only doubled,
Speaker 5: but tripled for too many homeowners. Seniors are being priced
Speaker 5: out of their homes. Young adults can't afford to find
Speaker 5: their own place. They're still living with their parents because
Speaker 5: rents are so expensive, people can't buy a house. And so,
Speaker 5: of course, when you hear when you're in Florida and
Speaker 5: you hear that the economy is doing great in Florida,
Speaker 5: people are not feeling it. And this is because of
Speaker 5: the failure of the policies that have come out starting
Speaker 5: with Rick Scott, who created this insurance crisis that we
Speaker 5: have here in the state, but also under the current
Speaker 5: extreme politicians in Tallahassee in Florida, and so and also,
Speaker 5: I have to say a lot of what I've been hearing,
Speaker 5: MOLLI are professors, students, teachers, parents really concerned about the
Speaker 5: attacks on education.
Speaker 4: As you heard University of Florida.
Speaker 5: Let go over twelve employees that we're handling diversity, equity,
Speaker 5: and inclusion. Students are really upset about that. Teachers are frustrated.
Speaker 5: They feel like they don't have the freedom to teach.
Speaker 5: And these are places where academic institutions are places where
Speaker 5: our students should have the freedom of expression, the freedom
Speaker 5: to express their ideas without being targeted or attacked. And
Speaker 5: we are an extremely diverse state, MOLLI like, almost over
Speaker 5: forty percent of our state are Latinos, black voters, Asian
Speaker 5: Pacific Islanders. I mean, we're a very diverse state. And
Speaker 5: those attacks affecting us all over, and parents and teachers,
Speaker 5: professors are very concerned about that.
Speaker 1: What you're talking about here is the Ron DeSantis war
Speaker 1: on education. He called it the war on woke, but
Speaker 1: ultimately what it was was his dance gay legislation, which
Speaker 1: was making it so that teachers couldn't teach certain things
Speaker 1: that he considered or his people considered to be offensive.
Speaker 2: And then he also took over New College of Florida.
Speaker 2: So sort of the results of that you're seeing on
Speaker 2: the ground right.
Speaker 5: Well, yes, people are absolutely frustrated, but let's remember one thing.
Speaker 5: Rick Scott, Okay, he has become a poster child of
Speaker 5: the extremism that we're facing here in the state of Florida.
Speaker 5: He is siding with all of these politicians in Tallahassee
Speaker 5: who have all endorsed him.
Speaker 4: The people that actually.
Speaker 5: Wrote that bill that now has been found to be unconstitutional,
Speaker 5: has endorsed Rick Scott, and he proudly stands next to
Speaker 5: the most extreme legis here in the state of Florida.
Speaker 5: And so what we've seen across the country and what
Speaker 5: we're seeing here in the state is the same thing.
Speaker 5: They're rejecting that people in Florida they want to be
Speaker 5: left alone. What they want is economic opportunities. They want
Speaker 5: to make sure that they can have a job that
Speaker 5: pays for their bills, that their children can go to
Speaker 5: a school and be safe of gun violence. Again, and
Speaker 5: this is a state where they passed a permitless carry
Speaker 5: last year. People can carry a loaded gun and public
Speaker 5: concealed without a without a license, many times without a
Speaker 5: background check.
Speaker 4: What act doing standing with them?
Speaker 5: I think right now what we need to remember, especially
Speaker 5: for my Senate race, is that Rick Scott wants to
Speaker 5: run for leader. Okay, the arrogance of this man, because
Speaker 5: he used more than sixty million dollars of his money
Speaker 5: to win this Senate seat, and he barely won, by
Speaker 5: the way, and.
Speaker 4: It wasn't obstential election.
Speaker 5: But he's so arrogant thinking he has all the money
Speaker 5: in the world to run to buy this seat again
Speaker 5: and then become leader of the Senate. And what does
Speaker 5: that means that he is going to push this extreme agenda.
Speaker 5: That means that he will push for a national abortion man,
Speaker 5: he will sunset Medicare and social Security, and he will
Speaker 5: continue on this road of attacking education. He did that
Speaker 5: when he was governor. He made like on the first
Speaker 5: week that he was governor, he made major cuts to
Speaker 5: our education funding here, particularly to universities.
Speaker 4: I was working at FIU when he did that, so
Speaker 4: I remember clearly when that happened. So it's very dangerous.
Speaker 5: And Molly, I'm so glad you're putting an emphasis to
Speaker 5: my race and the importance of the Senate because too
Speaker 5: much we're hearing about the presidential But we're still in
Speaker 5: the United States of America. We have three branches of government.
Speaker 5: We have the executive, we have the legislative, and we
Speaker 5: have the judicial, and we can actually hold the line
Speaker 5: if all else goes. We need to be able to
Speaker 5: hold the line in the Senate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're not going to be able to have
Speaker 1: judges if you don't have the Senate. I'm just curious, like,
Speaker 1: when you look at this education issue on the ground,
Speaker 1: people they understand what's happening, they see it.
Speaker 2: Talk us through that a little bit.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'll give you a couple of examples.
Speaker 5: I've been traveling everywhere and I was just in Gainesville,
Speaker 5: for example, last week, and I had a grandmother, a
Speaker 5: woman who came to me and said, you know, my
Speaker 5: grandchild is a first grader and because of the tax
Speaker 5: on education, she has now had three different teachers this
Speaker 5: acad year. It's not even over yet. Because teachers are leaving.
Speaker 5: They're so frustrated, they don't know, they're worried that they're
Speaker 5: going to teach the wrong thing and there's going to
Speaker 5: be a retaliation. I had another teacher here in Miami
Speaker 5: where she said, look, we can't teach, we don't have books,
Speaker 5: our classrooms are empty, and we don't know what we
Speaker 5: can or cannot do, and we can't continue that way.
Speaker 4: And I've had parents.
Speaker 5: I had a mom telling me the same thing about
Speaker 5: her daughter. Her daughter loves to read. He'll give you
Speaker 5: a perfect example, Die of a Wimpy Kid. I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't know if you read that.
Speaker 2: Yes with my kids.
Speaker 4: Yes, my son loved that book.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: Teachers are worried for these fourth graders to be able
Speaker 5: to read that book, and now they have to have
Speaker 5: a permittion slip from their parent and it can read
Speaker 5: the book I mean to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 5: that's a story that I just heard from from this parent.
Speaker 5: Why you know, it has maybe some inappropriate language, but
Speaker 5: it's not inappropriate.
Speaker 1: But you know, part of this is that these people
Speaker 1: don't actually read, so you know, their anxiety about books
Speaker 1: is this larger anxiety that people have about education and
Speaker 1: educating people so they can think for themselves.
Speaker 2: Do you see any reverberations.
Speaker 1: From the New College thing, which is if you want
Speaker 1: to tell our listeners a little bit about what it is,
Speaker 1: that would be amazing too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So New College was one of the more liberal arts
Speaker 5: public universities here in the state of Florida.
Speaker 2: Kind of a gem.
Speaker 5: Yeah, incredible small here in this state. And two of
Speaker 5: my best best friends actually graduated from New College, and
Speaker 5: from one day to the next This was a little
Speaker 5: over a year ago. The governor fired the president and
Speaker 5: he replaced him with someone that's being paid between a
Speaker 5: salary and benefits close to a million dollars, someone that's streamiss,
Speaker 5: someone that's following this white Christian nationalist agenda.
Speaker 4: They fired faculty members, and a.
Speaker 5: Lot of the students retire, you know, a lot of
Speaker 5: the students organized protested. But Mollie, as I tell you
Speaker 5: about New College, and as I tell you about what's
Speaker 5: going on here in our state, we need to remember
Speaker 5: one thing right, and it's that the state of Florida
Speaker 5: is one of the most important states in the country.
Speaker 5: We have twenty million Americans living here in the state
Speaker 5: of Florida. It is one of the biggest economic contributors
Speaker 5: to our economy in the country.
Speaker 4: And we cannot leave Florida behind.
Speaker 5: And so as I'm telling you the story, what's hitting
Speaker 5: me is that what happened at New College, which was,
Speaker 5: like you said, set a gem, could be very well
Speaker 5: be happening very quickly to most universities across the country.
Speaker 5: If we lose our democracy, we have to do everything
Speaker 5: in our power for people to understand what's at sake.
Speaker 5: And this is what's happening here in Florida. But if
Speaker 5: we don't hold the Senate, if I don't win my
Speaker 5: Senate seat, if we don't hold the White House, this
Speaker 5: will be happening. This story will be the same all
Speaker 5: over the country. That's why it is so critical for
Speaker 5: people not to just look at Florida and say, wow,
Speaker 5: that's crazy, what's happening in Florida. No, no, no, there
Speaker 5: are many, many, many Floridians that reject that what's going
Speaker 5: on in Florida. But this state has been gerrymandered, there's
Speaker 5: voter suppression, it's been taken over by these extreme politicians
Speaker 5: that don't represent who we are or our values as Floridians.
Speaker 5: And it's the same thing that could happen if we
Speaker 5: don't win my Senate seat and we send Rick Scott
Speaker 5: back to the Senate, if we don't win the presidency,
Speaker 5: everything right now is on the line. So when you
Speaker 5: hear about Florida, everyone just think that this can be
Speaker 5: happening across America after the November election if you don't
Speaker 5: do everything in your power to support me to beat
Speaker 5: Rick Scott. This guy wants to be my majority leader.
Speaker 5: That's what he wants to do. He was with Donald
Speaker 5: Trump last week kissing the ring. That's what's happened.
Speaker 4: Pay attention. Don't leave Florida behind.
Speaker 1: I mean, he is an abject moron, so the one
Speaker 1: thing that would be good is that he's very stupid.
Speaker 1: But we're Democrats able to get abortion on the ballot
Speaker 1: or is it not decided yet?
Speaker 2: I know the Supreme Court was looking at it.
Speaker 5: It looks very very likely, Molly. But the decision will
Speaker 5: come at the end of March, is what we're hearing.
Speaker 4: So we were expecting.
Speaker 5: We also have an amendment that's going to be in
Speaker 5: the ballot legalizing recreational marijuana, so.
Speaker 2: That's also wildly popular.
Speaker 5: Well, that and abortion will drive millions and millions and
Speaker 5: millions of our voters out to the ballot box. And
Speaker 5: I really want you to come down and spend some
Speaker 5: time with me. Here you'll see who.
Speaker 4: Floridians really are. I just met with fishermen.
Speaker 5: A lot of them are Republicans and Independents, and they
Speaker 5: will vote for me. They want to help me because
Speaker 5: they know how terrible Rick Scott has been on the environment,
Speaker 5: and we depend on a clean and healthy environment for
Speaker 5: our economy, for our fisheries for coastal communities.
Speaker 1: Right, talk to me about what you've had with the algae,
Speaker 1: because that's a really interesting local issue.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So one of the things that I focused when I
Speaker 5: was in Congress is bringing a significant funding for Everglades
Speaker 5: rustoration because we need to have clean water flow south.
Speaker 5: The majority of Floridians get their water, like one out
Speaker 5: of three Floridians get their drinking and clean water.
Speaker 4: From the Everglades.
Speaker 5: And what we've seen is that because of overdevelopment for
Speaker 5: years and years and years and the farming, a lot
Speaker 5: of the toxins have come down into that water, and
Speaker 5: the water has been flowing instead of coming south and
Speaker 5: clean itself naturally through the Everglades through the marsh, it's
Speaker 5: been sent east and west and it's been filled with toxins.
Speaker 5: Is starting to happen right now again. They're sending that
Speaker 5: water east and west and that produces fishkills. And what
Speaker 5: did Rick Scott do when he was governor, He repealed
Speaker 5: some water protections here in our state, and that's what
Speaker 5: cost the largest fishkill that we had sin here in
Speaker 5: the state of Florida. So they call him Red Tide
Speaker 5: Rick because of the red tide, because of the fishkill,
Speaker 5: and so that's why these issues, you know, there are
Speaker 5: a little complex, and there's a lot that we need
Speaker 5: to do, including working very closely with the Army Corps
Speaker 5: of Engineers.
Speaker 4: But there are a lot of things that we can
Speaker 4: do and.
Speaker 5: That we should be doing that no one in Washington
Speaker 5: deceased doing from Florida, to make sure that we protect
Speaker 5: the everglades, to make sure that we have this water
Speaker 5: flowing south. We are now seeing a very disturbing trend
Speaker 5: in some of our coastal communities down close to Key
Speaker 5: West Marathon in the Florida Keys, we're seeing some large
Speaker 5: sawfish that are dying. We don't really know what's going on,
Speaker 5: and they're doing research. That's one of the things that
Speaker 5: I've been watching the Fish and Wildlife Commission do. They're
Speaker 5: doing some research now, but it's starting to be more
Speaker 5: and more reported, and that's a direct impact of the
Speaker 5: water is getting much much hotter. You know, we had
Speaker 5: a very very hot summer last summer, and the water
Speaker 5: temperature was over in the Florida Bay Area over one
Speaker 5: hundred degrees and now we're seeing the effects of that,
Speaker 5: and so the environment is key, and it is an
Speaker 5: issue that a lot of people vote on here in
Speaker 5: the state of Florida, and it's an issue that Rick
Speaker 5: Scott has failed time and time again.
Speaker 1: So it really does sound like these are regulation issues
Speaker 1: that some of what's happened with your water and the
Speaker 1: fishing staff is a lack of sensible government regulation, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And you know, the state has a lot of
Speaker 5: power in that as well. And it really did happen
Speaker 5: under Rick Scott, and that's why I keep bringing it
Speaker 5: back to him. He was he has been the politician
Speaker 5: in Florida as it relates to the environment. He, like
Speaker 5: I said, repealed protections on the water. He took away
Speaker 5: money from the Environmental Protection Agency. He banned the term
Speaker 5: climate change from being used in any of the state agencies.
Speaker 5: He's a climate denier and just one of the things. Also,
Speaker 5: you know, I don't know if you all remember, but
Speaker 5: this is something that affected the twenty twenty two election. Also,
Speaker 5: we had a huge hurricane that hit the West coast
Speaker 5: right before the election in September of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 5: and it really destroyed Santa Beel Captiva, a lot of
Speaker 5: the communities in the West coast of Florida. And what
Speaker 5: they were asking was Senator Rubio and Scott at the time,
Speaker 5: is for there to be this tax relief for a
Speaker 5: lot of the disaster hit communities.
Speaker 4: And they haven't done anything. And so you see Scott
Speaker 4: with the navy hat all over the place that he
Speaker 4: loves to use.
Speaker 5: But it's all a show. It's all a show. These
Speaker 5: families were telling me. This is what we've been asking
Speaker 5: them time and time again. They said that we're going
Speaker 5: to do something. They didn't do anything. So as we
Speaker 5: see more severe storms, and as we see these communities
Speaker 5: being completely devastated, small businesses being devastated by these storms,
Speaker 5: Rick Scott could care less what he wants his power
Speaker 5: and he wants to continue to use that Senate seat
Speaker 5: for his self enrichment. And we can't let him do
Speaker 5: that anymore, not for us, not for America.
Speaker 2: Jesus. It's such a tough situation and such an important seat.
Speaker 4: I hope you will come back, Thank you, Molly, anytime.
Speaker 4: I'm ready, and I want you to come with me
Speaker 4: and Florida come down and visit.
Speaker 2: Yes, before it gets too hot.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Dabby, thank you.
Speaker 1: Shannon Watts is the founder of Mom's Demand Action and
Speaker 1: a co founder of every Town USA.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Shannon.
Speaker 3: Watts, Hey, the how are you?
Speaker 1: I am good and very excited to have you tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about out what you've been doing.
Speaker 7: So I found in Mom's Demand Action back in twenty
Speaker 7: well believe it or not, and I was a full
Speaker 7: time volunteer for about eleven years, and I just decided
Speaker 7: that my role was finite. It made sense to hand
Speaker 7: the baton over to another leader, Angela Farrel Zabala, at
Speaker 7: the end of twenty twenty three, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 7: I'm going to take a little bit of a break.
Speaker 7: And then I got a call from my friend Ria Schreiber,
Speaker 7: who asked me to write a book about women and
Speaker 7: kind of women in leadership or or really how women
Speaker 7: can come alive.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: I started what is probably the world's largest field experiment
Speaker 7: for empowering women, and so I want to tell some
Speaker 7: of those stories so that other women can learn from that.
Speaker 1: The Vice president went to an abortion clinic a planned parenthood.
Speaker 1: There is a ton of talk about what it means
Speaker 1: to be a healthcare voter and just the importance of women.
Speaker 1: Women voters for so long. I always feel like women's
Speaker 1: issues like abortion, which is an everyone issue, have been
Speaker 1: sort of put on the side, But it seems like
Speaker 1: it really has been deciding elections.
Speaker 7: Oh absolutely. I mean, let's just talk about women over fifty.
Speaker 7: There's about sixty two million of us across the country
Speaker 7: and they turned out to vote right older women, which
Speaker 7: I guess you could call with it or fifty, but
Speaker 7: they cast about one third of the ballots in twenty
Speaker 7: twenty two and they only make up a quarter of
Speaker 7: the voting age population.
Speaker 2: Can you say that one more time? That's crazy.
Speaker 7: So women over fifty there's sixty two million of us
Speaker 7: and they cast one third of all the ballots in
Speaker 7: twenty twenty two, even though they only make up a
Speaker 7: quarter of the population of the voting age population. So
Speaker 7: the other piece of it is that they are pretty
Speaker 7: evenly divided by party and ideology, and they are incredibly diverse, right,
Speaker 7: So that is what makes this group of women such
Speaker 7: a key swing voting block, and they decide elections. And
Speaker 7: when a look at who will decide this election and
Speaker 7: you parse the data, it's really about one hundred thousand
Speaker 7: swing voting women who live in eleven counties in five states, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,
Speaker 7: and Arizona. It is really why you see, as you said,
Speaker 7: Vice President Harris talking about abortion today. And there's this
Speaker 7: other fascinating study that's out. I don't know if you
Speaker 7: saw it, but it shows that over a quarter of
Speaker 7: all female black voters are saying abortion is their top
Speaker 7: issue in the presidential election. Right, this used to be
Speaker 7: white women evangelicals who are making abortion their key issue,
Speaker 7: and now it is black women and they're on the
Speaker 7: opposite side because they know they will be most impacted
Speaker 7: by these bands or these draconian laws. I think that's amazing.
Speaker 1: It is amazing, and it really is absolutely just an incredible, an.
Speaker 2: Important group of voters.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a problem because Trump has said that
Speaker 1: Trump is worried, right, he's trying to back it off.
Speaker 1: He's saying now he'd like a fifteen week federal band,
Speaker 1: which would actually be more restrictive.
Speaker 2: But the way he's.
Speaker 1: Selling it, he's trying to sell it as he's a moderate,
Speaker 1: so he knows he's in trouble here.
Speaker 7: To be clear, these swing voters, these women we just
Speaker 7: talked about who come out in droves. They are on
Speaker 7: the fence on a lot of different issues. They could
Speaker 7: go either way. Now they've trended toward Joe Biden. As
Speaker 7: we know, it's white women who are always lagging based
Speaker 7: to white supremacy and patriarchy. But for the most part,
Speaker 7: women trent toward Joe Biden. But they are very worried
Speaker 7: about the economy and the sixty two million women over
Speaker 7: fifty that we talked about, they are very worried they
Speaker 7: won't be able to afford to retire. And so these
Speaker 7: are conversations that if you want to bring those women
Speaker 7: your way, those are the things.
Speaker 2: You have to be focusing on.
Speaker 1: It's such an insane thing to think that these women
Speaker 1: somehow think that Donald Trump, who is the other day
Speaker 1: complaining about entitlements, is somehow going to be better for
Speaker 1: the economy. Then Joe Biden knew, who has made our
Speaker 1: country have one of the best inflationary soft landings of
Speaker 1: any other wealthy country in the world.
Speaker 7: You're exactly right, and I think you could argue that
Speaker 7: the Biden administration could do a better job of championing
Speaker 7: their wins because it is an amazing economy. But when
Speaker 7: you look at the polling. When women say they're a
Speaker 7: bit of a for Donald Trump, it is because they
Speaker 7: think that he will be better for the economy. Now
Speaker 7: what they didn't learn the first time around. I'm not sure,
Speaker 7: but I think that Joe Biden can make that case,
Speaker 7: and if he can make it effectively, he can pull
Speaker 7: those women back over. And he needs to be talking
Speaker 7: about how they can.
Speaker 1: Afford to Yeah, to believe that Donald Trump will be
Speaker 1: better on the economy than Joe Biden is a pretty
Speaker 1: good sign that voters need more information.
Speaker 7: That's exactly right. And look, I do think that Joe
Speaker 7: Biden knows how to do this versus Donald Trump. There
Speaker 7: are a lot of different organizations. I've been called to
Speaker 7: be as street part of them, right that are going
Speaker 7: to be surrogates for the presidents who are going to
Speaker 7: start having conversations. But I really do think that's the
Speaker 7: piece of this. Right, You find the spark. What is
Speaker 7: it that is lighting women up. What are issues that
Speaker 7: they care about? We know, reproductive health, maternal health, abortion,
Speaker 7: the economy, children's safety, our own safety. And then you
Speaker 7: start the fire. You create spaces for women who are
Speaker 7: passionate to connect and encourage action and I'll just give
Speaker 7: you an anecdote, right, I mentioned that a few months
Speaker 7: to me an action, I started really the largest field
Speaker 7: experiment for having these conversations and when our volunteers decided
Speaker 7: to run for office, because if you spend any time
Speaker 7: at the state House at all, you realize these people
Speaker 7: aren't rocket scientem right when they knock the doors in
Speaker 7: rural areas, these are mostly damn women. Even Republicans are
Speaker 7: saying to them, put your signs in my yard because
Speaker 7: I am so afraid my kids aren't safe from their schools.
Speaker 7: And I think safety and freedom and rights that is
Speaker 7: a place where all, hopefully all women can meet and
Speaker 7: have agreements. And so that's what the Biden administration needs
Speaker 7: to tap.
Speaker 1: Into, right, And I think that the way to do
Speaker 1: that is with saraguts, Right, I mean advertising saragats and
Speaker 1: doing things like visiting a planned parenthood clinic in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: I mean, aren't these the things that will yes so
Speaker 1: talk to us about that?
Speaker 7: It is getting out there having these conversations. You know
Speaker 7: the other thing about the Biden administration, this is the
Speaker 7: youngest most diverse administration in history. And I understand their
Speaker 7: concerns or issues or whatever, The problem is with Joe Bynesage.
Speaker 7: I think his wisdom is an asset. But let's say
Speaker 7: that's your conc Not only does he needs surgates to
Speaker 7: be having these conversations, I think he needs to put
Speaker 7: the surrogates out front and center to show how young
Speaker 7: and how diverse they are and that they understand what
Speaker 7: women's concerns are.
Speaker 2: It is a very diverse cabinet. It's a very young cabinet.
Speaker 1: But the admin has also just done a lot of
Speaker 1: like really kind of smart things when it comes to
Speaker 1: infrastructure spending, when it comes to the Chips Act, when
Speaker 1: it comes to economic things, and now this new budget
Speaker 1: is really set up to protect social security and medicare.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of this idea that good policy makes good politics.
Speaker 7: That's exactly right. And the other thing, you know, you
Speaker 7: just jogged my memory about the fact that also this
Speaker 7: investment that the administration is about to make in a
Speaker 7: women's healthcare and research right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, talk about that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Jill Biden is working on legislation.
Speaker 3: MARYS.
Speaker 7: Shriiver has been a huge champion of it. And when
Speaker 7: you talk about systemic sexism, the fact that menopause, which
Speaker 7: is currently impact and tens of millions of women at
Speaker 7: any given trum It is so understudy, it is so underfunded,
Speaker 7: and women are winning so much longer. Do you go
Speaker 7: back to nineteen hundred, not that many women lived past
Speaker 7: the age of fifty, but now it's very likely you're
Speaker 7: going to live to eighty and beyond. And we know
Speaker 7: part of the reason that women struggle so much with
Speaker 7: things like Alzheimer's or bone fractures or heart disease, and
Speaker 7: because our shell moones go off a cliff at age fifty,
Speaker 7: and yet it isn't being studied. So I mean, for
Speaker 7: this legislation to be passed and signed into law by
Speaker 7: the president, I think would just be another example to
Speaker 7: these sixty two million women over the age of fifty
Speaker 7: that the president is listening and that he cares.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also, we talk so much about how this administration
Speaker 1: has trouble communicating. Do you think that part of it
Speaker 1: is the problem with just the fractured media ecosystem. I mean,
Speaker 1: the idea that Trump is better in the economy, and
Speaker 1: I've seen pauls that reflect this seems insane to me,
Speaker 1: especially because he did these tariffs that were very inflationary.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's not very smart.
Speaker 1: About the economy, and in fact, he had all of
Speaker 1: these personal bankruptcy and he still owes about half a
Speaker 1: billion dollars for a fraud judgment.
Speaker 2: So I'm just curious what you think about that.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, I before I started mompting in action,
Speaker 7: for twenty years, I was in corporate communication, So I
Speaker 7: know a thing or two about how to message. And
Speaker 7: the problem when you are up against an opponent like
Speaker 7: Donald Trump who has absolutely no guardrails or scruples, is
Speaker 7: that what he says people believe, and when you say
Speaker 7: it often enough, they believe it even more. We've talked
Speaker 7: about the fact that you know, this is cult like, right,
Speaker 7: that's the kind of messaging that he's propagating. It's very
Speaker 7: very effective, It's incredibly sticky, and sometimes you know, even
Speaker 7: very intelligent people have card time sorting back from fiction.
Speaker 7: It's understandable. So I think when you were up against
Speaker 7: someone like that, it's really incumbent on on the Biden
Speaker 7: Harrison administration and all of their s and all of
Speaker 7: the different democratic machinery to be going hard and to
Speaker 7: really tout fact that Joe Biden has done so much.
Speaker 7: I mean even just on the issue of gun safety. Right,
Speaker 7: he's the first president in a generation to get gun
Speaker 7: safety legislation through Congress, and it's saving so many lives.
Speaker 7: It's making a huge difference. And so I hope that
Speaker 7: what we will see is the administration you're using every
Speaker 7: tool at its disposal, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 7: they should have more tools than Donald Trump does because
Speaker 7: they are the incumbents to hammer this home over and
Speaker 7: over again with the right audiences. And I do think, look,
Speaker 7: I know that the State of the Union address would
Speaker 7: be forgotten, you know, in a week, but I do
Speaker 7: think it was a reset. I think it's an opportunity
Speaker 7: to kind of look at at what is effective and
Speaker 7: what isn't in terms of communications, at start over again,
Speaker 7: at spend the next however many months we have until
Speaker 7: the election, making sure that they are talking to again,
Speaker 7: undred thousand women in eleven counties in five states who
Speaker 7: will decide this election.
Speaker 1: So crazy, I mean, it's just, you know, we forget
Speaker 1: how small all these margins are. And it's funny because
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, I grew up in a time.
Speaker 1: I guess I kind of did. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a time, right, Florida. I mean, Florida decided that two
Speaker 1: thousand elections, so we shouldn't be so shocked at how
Speaker 1: small these margins are.
Speaker 2: But I'm still so shocked at how small these margins are.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, you know one thing I worry about.
Speaker 7: I'm teaching your class right now at USC, and you know,
Speaker 7: these are kids who are under twenty two years old,
Speaker 7: and they don't get the value of their vote. They
Speaker 7: only have grown up knowing sort of this dysfunction in
Speaker 7: our political system, and they feel tired and they feel
Speaker 7: like their vote doesn't matter. And I even talk to people,
Speaker 7: you know, in my own age group who feel tired.
Speaker 7: And we just can't afford to be tired, because, as
Speaker 7: you said, the margins are so small. We keep being
Speaker 7: told every election is the election of our lifetime. But
Speaker 7: it's true, the stakes keep getting higher. Isn't just for
Speaker 7: these federal elections. We have to be voting up and
Speaker 7: down the ballot in every single cycle. Our Volunteer Made
Speaker 7: Action volunteers run for office and sometimes win by less
Speaker 7: than one hundred votes. So that really means that your
Speaker 7: vote is incredibly powerful and you should be using it.
Speaker 1: What is the pipeline between Mom's demand and running for office.
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So, you know, what we realized a couple of years
Speaker 7: in was that as soon as you gave women the skills,
Speaker 7: women gun violence survivors and now students, it was just
Speaker 7: sort of intuitive, right that they would say, oh, I
Speaker 7: know how to advocate. Why wouldn't I do it from
Speaker 7: the other side of this desk? And especially, as I said,
Speaker 7: after you spend time at state houses where eighty five
Speaker 7: percent of the lawmakers, our men, most of them are
Speaker 7: white men, and again they are not rocket scientists. So
Speaker 7: our volunteers, I think we've had something like over two
Speaker 7: hundred win and hundreds of more run and you know,
Speaker 7: you don't always win the first time, so they run again.
Speaker 7: And so we have this program called Demand a Seat.
Speaker 7: It trains volunt tiers on how to run, what office
Speaker 7: to run for. And then because you are a months
Speaker 7: to inaction volunteer, you have really, you know, a built
Speaker 7: in kitchen table of door knockers and advocates and funders
Speaker 7: who can help you win. And you know, the saying
Speaker 7: is if you don't have a seat at the table,
Speaker 7: you're probably on the menu. And we are seeing women's
Speaker 7: rights and freedoms on the menu everywhere. So I think
Speaker 7: there is a moral imperative in this country for women
Speaker 7: to run for office. You don't have to do it
Speaker 7: at the career, you don't have to do it for
Speaker 7: a life toing, But I do think you should look
Speaker 7: around and think about where you can help make a difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mom's demand really did change the game when it
Speaker 1: comes to gun violence. Will you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what that looks like.
Speaker 7: Well, when I started a month to mean in action
Speaker 7: back in twenty twelve, about a quarter of all Democrats
Speaker 7: in Congress had an a rating for me in RA
Speaker 7: a quarter. So they were voting with the gun lobby.
Speaker 7: They were afraid to go up against them because what
Speaker 7: the gun lobby had where all of these grassroots supporters
Speaker 7: who were actually really just gun buyers, right, And when
Speaker 7: they had a bill up at the state House or
Speaker 7: at city council or even in Congress, gun extremists were
Speaker 7: the ones who were showing up. And I think in
Speaker 7: many ways the Sandy Hook school shooting was the straw
Speaker 7: that broke the camel's back. Now, shame on me and
Speaker 7: every other white woman who waited too long to get
Speaker 7: involved while black and brown children were being killed in
Speaker 7: their communities for decades, and you know, black women were
Speaker 7: advocating without much attention at all. But I do think
Speaker 7: that finally that was a watershed moment, and I felt
Speaker 7: like it was my job, it was our organization's job
Speaker 7: to teach white women when they came into the movement.
Speaker 7: You can't just advocate for the safety of your children
Speaker 7: and their schools. This is not just about an assault
Speaker 7: weapons ban. This is about unlocking dollars for community violence
Speaker 7: intervention programs. It's for background checks, it's for red flag laws.
Speaker 7: It's a whole host of things to try to look
Speaker 7: at a complex issue holistically, which is what the bipartisan
Speaker 7: Safer Communities Act that Joe Biden signed into law did.
Speaker 7: But the last twelve years, Monsterman Action is now twice
Speaker 7: as large as the NA was, over ten million supporters.
Speaker 7: And we did what we set out to do, which
Speaker 7: is to crush the NA. They are no lawer a
Speaker 7: political power. The problem is that we did not account
Speaker 7: for the fact that the right wing would absorb the
Speaker 7: dogma of the NRA and take it even further. Right
Speaker 7: guns are now an organizing principle for the right way,
Speaker 7: and I don't just mean around guns.
Speaker 4: So guns are a.
Speaker 7: Way to get new recruits in the door, to raise money,
Speaker 7: and to excite the base about a whole host of
Speaker 7: issues that have nothing to do with guns. That fever
Speaker 7: has to be broken before we start to see a
Speaker 7: real difference. But again, fifteen Republicans voted for the bipartisan
Speaker 7: Saper Communities Act. That is a seismic shift in American politics.
Speaker 7: Not a single Democrat has an a rating anymore from
Speaker 7: the NRA. They're very proud of their ass So I
Speaker 7: understand that it can be frustrating because it's incremental, but
Speaker 7: it is happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a real sea chain and a really important one.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Shannon wants, of course, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: And no moment.
Speaker 6: Jesse Cannon my young fast player from a few seasons ago.
Speaker 6: Mister Steve Minuchin, you may remember him as being part
Speaker 6: of the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: Posing with a giant sheet of money and being married.
Speaker 6: Sorry used to say, having a wife who made one
Speaker 6: of the most demented movies of all time and who
Speaker 6: is very young.
Speaker 2: Today on CNBC, Steve Minuchin.
Speaker 1: Lied about paying down the debt and he said he
Speaker 1: was starting to pay off the debt when he was
Speaker 1: in the Trump administration before COVID.
Speaker 2: Of course that was complete fiction because.
Speaker 1: They had recently passed an enormous tax cut and had
Speaker 1: no interest in paying off the debt. But this whole
Speaker 1: kind of weird fantasy about what the Trump economy was
Speaker 1: and not about the pandemic and the economic catastrophe that
Speaker 1: followed lying about the Trump economy.
Speaker 2: That is our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1: Steve Mnuchin doesn't just pose with money, He's also a liar.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.