Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Congressman Chuck Edwards has dropped his
Speaker 1: reelection bid after being censured. We have such a great
Speaker 1: show for you today. Democracy Docket's own Mark Elias stops
Speaker 1: by to talk about Trump's lawless plans for the midterms.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to the New York Times own Shamee
Speaker 1: Goldmocker about how the primaries are shaken out and a
Speaker 1: little trouble at the DNC. But first the news.
Speaker 2: Smillie, big big night of elections last night. I think
Speaker 2: there's some pretty interesting things here that will really actually
Speaker 2: be consequential come both November and the shape of the
Speaker 2: party here. I'm curious, though. I think the most interesting
Speaker 2: one is what happened in Kansas. Since you and I
Speaker 2: have been talking about how much this is going to
Speaker 2: be an election about data centers, we saw a massive,
Speaker 2: massive clitical up so lustily.
Speaker 1: Yes, so let's talk about this data centers. Are You
Speaker 1: and I both know we have traveled this country, or
Speaker 1: at least I went to Arizona and I'm planning to
Speaker 1: go to New Orleans. So I've been to places and
Speaker 1: people are not happy with data centers. And you know
Speaker 1: why they're not happy with them because they're terrible. They
Speaker 1: use water, they use electricity, they make noise, they're huge,
Speaker 1: they don't employ that many people. Voters hate them, and
Speaker 1: they make your electricity more expensive. I mean, there's literally
Speaker 1: no case for data centers. And the woman who ran
Speaker 1: for the Democratic nomination of the Kansas governor, and I
Speaker 1: want to add that, you know, you think Kansas is
Speaker 1: a red state, but the governor they have now is
Speaker 1: also a Democrat. So having a Democratic governor in Kansas
Speaker 1: is not unheard of. In fact, it may repeat. But
Speaker 1: this woman is called Cindy Holscher, and she is a
Speaker 1: state senator, and she is endorsed by the current Democratic governor,
Speaker 1: Laura Kelly. So data centers are an eighty twenty issue
Speaker 1: and really really just the pine of thing. Democrats can
Speaker 1: win on data centers.
Speaker 2: Well, I think last night showed that they can win
Speaker 2: on saying we're going to put money back into your
Speaker 2: community and not send it to farm wares. One of
Speaker 2: the lessons of this primary, though, is I think better
Speaker 2: care for all is one and the same with we're
Speaker 2: going to put the money back. Intor cree. It's that
Speaker 2: we're not sending your money to you getting denied care
Speaker 2: that you should get just so that there could be
Speaker 2: higher corporate board earnings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, exactly.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of the other big shakeup truth outed, our
Speaker 2: long time US congressman lost their seat, and of course
Speaker 2: doctor abdel l said won the Michigan setup by much
Speaker 2: less than we expected, but did have a victory that
Speaker 2: I think is going to really shake things up. He's
Speaker 2: already said he will not support Chuck Schumer as majority
Speaker 2: leader and will support Chris van Holland. And he seems
Speaker 2: very contrary to what some people say, he seems very
Speaker 2: very well suited to beat Mike Rogers in the general
Speaker 2: since Mike Rogers ran nine hundred thousand votes behind Donald
Speaker 2: Trump in the last election.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm more anxious about doctor l sayid, because I
Speaker 1: think that it's just a hard road. But there is
Speaker 1: a question of, like, you know, whether running a center's
Speaker 1: candidate is in a swing state works better than running
Speaker 1: a progressive in a swing state, Like that's a real
Speaker 1: question is like do you lose crossover voters if you
Speaker 1: do that? And do you suppress your left base, because
Speaker 1: the reality is like in Michigan in twenty sixteen, Bernie one, right,
Speaker 1: so that is a real thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should correct myself. I'm sorry Rogers ran one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty two thousand votes behind. But to your
Speaker 2: point with Bernie one, Abdul has a very interesting thing
Speaker 2: where he's talked about the trend in Michigan has been
Speaker 2: to vote for somebody who will do change. And one
Speaker 2: of the reasons that many people have observed that Kamala
Speaker 2: didn't do as well in Michigan as people would have
Speaker 2: thought is that on the ground there, they thought it
Speaker 2: was gonna be a continuation of Biden, and they had
Speaker 2: grown very, very very tired of Biden's policies in Michigan. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it seems that also they did not buy rogers
Speaker 2: bullshit by a much bigger margin than they did buy
Speaker 2: Trump's bullshit. And I don't think that that's gotten any better,
Speaker 2: as he's just sold himself to whoever will pay for him,
Speaker 2: which is he's done throughout his career and helped cause
Speaker 2: the opioid crisis.
Speaker 1: Yes, he was very involved in pharmaceutical companies, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this. I'm sure we'll talk about
Speaker 1: Michigan endlessly, and it's his sendency. The Democrats that desperately
Speaker 1: need to hold publicans are in so much trouble here.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I saw last night,
Speaker 1: which I would actually like to read you, Amy Walter
Speaker 1: from the Cook Political Report, very smart. She says, if
Speaker 1: you went through the two thousand and six cycle, this
Speaker 1: year feels like deja vu. In two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: at this point, w Bush had thirty seven percent approval rating.
Speaker 1: Trump is about there. The generic ballot in September of
Speaker 1: six was a D plus six point five. That's about
Speaker 1: the same, though it might be what in both yours
Speaker 1: unpopular WARS members in sex scandals. So I just think
Speaker 1: it's a good that's a real thing. And speak of
Speaker 1: sex scandals, we have it's not a sex scandal, but
Speaker 1: it's many times Wars. These abuse allegations against Max Miller.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not good. Apparently he's saying Mike Johnson has
Speaker 2: his back.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Max Miller, member of Congress from Ohio, married
Speaker 1: the order of the Senator from Ohio called Bernie Moreno,
Speaker 1: they're getting divorced. There are allegations he abused tour. There
Speaker 1: are allegations he broke the two year old daughter's collarbone. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: he was on all of the different news stations. He
Speaker 1: talked to Tapper, he went on Newsmax. He said that
Speaker 1: his daughter couldn't speak a sentence. Then he said that
Speaker 1: his daughter said he was scared of the mother. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of contradicting each other. There was a
Speaker 1: question of why he had needles. He said he takes testonstone.
Speaker 1: It was a really good example of why when you're
Speaker 1: defending yourself, you're losing. And he also said during this
Speaker 1: time that Mike Johnson had his back. Well, Mike Johnson,
Speaker 1: well not brave, does not necessarily have Max Miller's back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's the thing is this is
Speaker 2: the albatross hanging on their neck for this cycle. Everybody's
Speaker 2: going to tie the Republican's refusal to have him step down.
Speaker 1: To this and tomorrow is the deadline. So if he
Speaker 1: doesn't drop out by tomorrow, he cannot be replaced on
Speaker 1: the ballot.
Speaker 2: Yep. And it's already looking like they're going to lose
Speaker 2: that seat pretty badly if he stays it. I think
Speaker 2: I saw fourteen points behind. He's running so well deserved. Also,
Speaker 2: it's dragging down Bernie Marino in this Miller insinuated yesterday
Speaker 2: what has been reported and George Santos said on the
Speaker 2: congressional four before, which is Marino as a closeted homosexual.
Speaker 1: Wait, when he was still in Congress.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, keep in mind, he said in the halls
Speaker 2: of Congress in an interview. I watched it yesterday.
Speaker 1: I mean again, George Santos, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: George Santos. He's not in Congress. He is the bravo
Speaker 1: congressman from the state of dismay and despair.
Speaker 2: Molly, you know you're getting out the shirt for your birthday,
Speaker 2: that says George Santos warned us.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about this anymore. Speaking of things that
Speaker 1: people don't want to talk about, Let's talk about Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's Great American Fair sponsors.
Speaker 2: Great American State Fair sponsors. He hid millions of donations
Speaker 2: for of Yes, I want.
Speaker 1: To point out that this summer we celebrated the two
Speaker 1: hundred and fiftieth anniversary of America. And what did we
Speaker 1: get for that, Well, Donald Trump got a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll be shocked. To hear that every time there's
Speaker 2: something that he can find a way to smuggle some
Speaker 2: money in, he takes the opportunity.
Speaker 1: I just want to talk about the companies involved, because
Speaker 1: it's like a who's who of everyone who's bad. Palent Here,
Speaker 1: Bowen Excellent Mobile, perhaps you remember them from Killing our Planet,
Speaker 1: United Healthcare Group, and more defense contractors Lockheed Martin, ge Aerospace.
Speaker 1: What I think is the most important part here, and
Speaker 1: this is reporting from notice, is that a lot of
Speaker 1: people did not disclose the money they gave, which is
Speaker 1: a violation of the Federal Lobbying Disclosure Act. And I
Speaker 1: know you're surprised to hear that people were doing illegal
Speaker 1: stuff in the Trump White House, but they were. So
Speaker 1: there's influenced. At best, it's influence trading. Ed worst, it's bribery.
Speaker 1: And here it is the question of freedom to fifty.
Speaker 1: The answer is it was bribery. Mark Elias is the
Speaker 1: founder of Democracy Docket. Welcome, Welcome, Mark.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Let mether.
Speaker 3: Whether it's terribly oppressive.
Speaker 1: Yes, how do you think? So let's talk about the midterms,
Speaker 1: where we just are cruising into the midterms. There's so
Speaker 1: much anxiety, like Donald Trump is clearly worried about the midterms,
Speaker 1: which is why he wants always to say to pass
Speaker 1: the Save Act because he's worried that too many people
Speaker 1: will vote. I saw these Michigan numbers from last night.
Speaker 1: Republican primary voters are like very at a low ebb
Speaker 1: in Michigan. Like, what is Donald Trump's plan for the midterms?
Speaker 3: So first of all, we are ninety days from the
Speaker 3: mid elections, so this is a critical date for reasons
Speaker 3: that we can get into legally, it will become harder
Speaker 3: for Donald Trump to pull off what he's trying to
Speaker 3: pull off. But I think if you, if you want
Speaker 3: to know, like what the macro plan is, Donald Trump
Speaker 3: is not doing the things a president would do if
Speaker 3: they thought they could improve their popularity. He's not doing
Speaker 3: the things that you would do even if you didn't
Speaker 3: think you could improve your popularity, but you were trying
Speaker 3: to motivate your own base voters. So I think it's
Speaker 3: pretty clear what he is doing is he is putting
Speaker 3: all of his eggs in the voter suppression and election
Speaker 3: subversion basket, which is why, rather than prioritizing legislation that might,
Speaker 3: for example, you know, improve his popularity, or even be
Speaker 3: a sugar rush, like a tax cut, right, something like that. Right,
Speaker 3: he is prioritizing things like the Same Act because he's
Speaker 3: figured out that they're that the voters have figured the
Speaker 3: voters know who he is, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 3: I was thinking about this the other day, Molly, because
Speaker 3: I was talking to our mutual friend Nicole Wallace, and like,
Speaker 3: there got to be a point, like in two thousand
Speaker 3: and six, or people had just figured out who George
Speaker 3: Bush was and they weren't going to move off of them.
Speaker 3: And I think, like that's where Donald Trump is. So
Speaker 3: he has figured out that his only effort, his only chance,
Speaker 3: is to try to make it harder for people to vote,
Speaker 3: an easier for him to cheat.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that, because I think that is
Speaker 1: so important. Harder to vote, easier to cheat. What's he
Speaker 1: doing to make it harder to vote? So the harder
Speaker 1: the vote.
Speaker 3: Portion of the program has a few components. The first
Speaker 3: is obviously him trying to enact the Save Act. Right,
Speaker 3: the Save Act would make it dramatically harder for certain
Speaker 3: voters to vote, and in particular, it would impact black
Speaker 3: voters who have lower rates of passport ownership. Than white voters. Right,
Speaker 3: So proving citizenship just for people to keep in mind,
Speaker 3: only two documents do that number. One is a US passport,
Speaker 3: the other is an original burst certificate. So black voters
Speaker 3: would be negatively impacted on passports. Married women would be
Speaker 3: negatively impacted on birth certificates because seventy percent of married
Speaker 3: women have changed their last name at marriage, and so
Speaker 3: there is a mismatch between that birth certificate surname and
Speaker 3: the surname they currently have. So a birth certificate alone
Speaker 3: won't actually prove citizenship for the vast majority of women
Speaker 3: who are married. And before people say, yeah, but isn't
Speaker 3: it mostly Republican women. Don't more Republican women change their
Speaker 3: last name than Democratic married women. The answer is probably,
Speaker 3: But the truth is seventy percent of.
Speaker 1: Right, it's humanous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's like just it's a big pool. And
Speaker 3: when you look at the gender gap between men and women,
Speaker 3: like you start to see how this all holds together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about the other part. So there's
Speaker 1: maying it harder to vote, but then there's the other part,
Speaker 1: which is trying to sort of subvert the elections to
Speaker 1: dirty tricks. How worried are you about that and talk
Speaker 1: us through what you think. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I think that the most abnormal of all of
Speaker 3: the abnormalness of the way Donald Trump is going out
Speaker 3: this election is how direct he is being about the
Speaker 3: second right, Like you and I could have done this
Speaker 3: podcast in two thousand and fifteen, for example, twenty sixteen
Speaker 3: and said, okay, Republicans have a plan to suppress voting rates, right,
Speaker 3: and like we would have we would have said, okay,
Speaker 3: this is what they were doing. We you and I talked,
Speaker 3: you know, in twenty twenty one after the voter suppression
Speaker 3: laws that Republicans trumpeted about voter suppression. So like, in
Speaker 3: some ways voter suppression has been a Republican tool that
Speaker 3: they trod out that they are constantly trying to use.
Speaker 3: But what's really alarming is that Donald Trump is being
Speaker 3: pretty direct on the second part of this, which is
Speaker 3: like trying to subvert the outcome of the election, trying
Speaker 3: to overturn the will of the voters. And that is
Speaker 3: molly a historic. I mean, obviously he did it after
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, but you don't really see historically Republicans like saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: our plan is.
Speaker 1: To subvert the outcome.
Speaker 3: So I'm quite worried because it is so much more
Speaker 3: baked into the atmosphere of the Republican Party. And so
Speaker 3: it's not just like it's not just Donald Trump like
Speaker 3: wandering the halls of the White House at night, adding
Speaker 3: you know, fake gold to the to various parts saying
Speaker 3: I need to subvert the election on social media. It's
Speaker 3: actually an entire infrastructure that includes the Department of Justice,
Speaker 3: includes the Republican Party, includes down ballot Republican candidates, includes
Speaker 3: election officials who have been put in place since the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty elections. So I'm quite worried about it. It
Speaker 3: doesn't mean I'm hopeless about it. It doesn't mean I'm
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I am resigned to it. We're going
Speaker 3: to fight against it, and I think will win. But
Speaker 3: people need to unders this is a genuine threat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the lawlessness that Donald Trump has. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I'm a little bit obsessed with is a
Speaker 1: reflecting pool, because it's one of those things where Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has come up against reality in a way that
Speaker 1: now has messed up his relationship with Judge Piro. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if you know, because basically he said it
Speaker 1: was vandalism. His director of the interior, Doug Bergham, also
Speaker 1: agreed vandalism, but the court said no, no vandalism, shoddy construction,
Speaker 1: and Judge box of wine has come up against reality. Right,
Speaker 1: So talk us through, like why I think of this
Speaker 1: as just such an interesting case for this moment.
Speaker 3: It is, and I wrote about this actually for Democracy Docket,
Speaker 3: and the analogy I drew was Rudy Giuliani. You know
Speaker 3: it is if you remember on November seventh, twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: he stands in the parking lot of the Four Seasons
Speaker 3: Landscaping Company, the victim of an advancer who apparently must
Speaker 3: have thought that the Four Seasons is the Fourth Seasons
Speaker 3: is the Fourth Seasons. But nevertheless, suffering the indignity of
Speaker 3: standing in the parking lot did not stop Rudy Giuliani,
Speaker 3: and he told a series of preposterous lies about the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty election in Pennsylvania. A few days later, he
Speaker 3: finds himself in a sutin tie, sitting in a courtroom
Speaker 3: with a federal judge who is questioning him about the
Speaker 3: claims that they are asserting. And Rudy Giuliani famously and
Speaker 3: firstly says this is not a fraud case. We are
Speaker 3: not alleging fraud, okay. And that is the dichotomy that
Speaker 3: I think has overtaken the Republican Party ever since. It
Speaker 3: is the lying in the parking lot and then confronted
Speaker 3: by federal judges in the courtroom having to concede that
Speaker 3: the things that are being said in the parking lot
Speaker 3: are not actually part of legal cases. And this periodically
Speaker 3: flares up, and you're exactly right. This flared up with
Speaker 3: the reflecting pool, which is that you had Janine Pierro
Speaker 3: who initially is telling the same lies. Right, She's like,
Speaker 3: you know, she's like on board with the whole you know,
Speaker 3: this is vandalism. They wrongfully charge an innocent man with
Speaker 3: a crime.
Speaker 1: Who happens to be an Olympian.
Speaker 3: Who happens to be an olympian, And then you know,
Speaker 3: when the rubber meets the road, and now they're going
Speaker 3: to like have to like show up in federal courtrooms,
Speaker 3: right because what people need to understand to indict someone,
Speaker 3: there's no judge really involved in that process. It is
Speaker 3: just a prosecutor in a grand jury room alone with
Speaker 3: the grand jurors. But now this is going to be
Speaker 3: like contested proceedings and a judge is going to look
Speaker 3: at this, and all of a sudden, Jeaneine Pierro or
Speaker 3: lawyers under her, you know, are like, wait a second,
Speaker 3: we like can't go forward this thing because it's like
Speaker 3: it's demonstrably not true. But Molly, I want to turn
Speaker 3: it back on you for a second because I think
Speaker 3: the other really interesting thing that has not been commented
Speaker 3: on about this reflecting pool is that wasn't Doug Burgham
Speaker 3: supposed to be the normal one in the cabinet, Like
Speaker 3: remember he was the moderate governor of I think North Dakota.
Speaker 3: He's like a self made man and a billionaire and
Speaker 3: like right, right, And like the theory was, well, maybe
Speaker 3: he's going into the Interior Department because he's from North Dakota,
Speaker 3: but he's not really going to be one of the
Speaker 3: Maga crazies. And now oddly he is to the crazy
Speaker 3: side of Janine Piro, who is one of the crazies.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I actually know some people who had
Speaker 1: who worked with Doug Burgham who told me that he
Speaker 1: is not as bad as even like a Christino, right,
Speaker 1: And they both come from Dakota's and I think the
Speaker 1: story here that should be the top line, and is
Speaker 1: I think a cautionary tale for all is that Trump
Speaker 1: is an infects. Right. You get if you are an
Speaker 1: insecure person in any which way and you get in
Speaker 1: a room with that guy, sooner or later, you're doing
Speaker 1: the unconscionable in the hopes of getting him to love you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, I think that that is exactly the
Speaker 3: tale of this era is people who have sacrificed their
Speaker 3: dignity and reputations simply to be in Donald Trump's good graces.
Speaker 3: And you know, I mentioned Giuliani, but let's you know,
Speaker 3: we could we could start with him. I mean, people forget,
Speaker 3: really Giuliani after nine to eleven was a extremely popular
Speaker 3: figure in this country. And when people talked about him
Speaker 3: running for president, like it was not as a joke,
Speaker 3: Like people thought, this guy could run for president and
Speaker 3: be the president the United States. And you know, he
Speaker 3: could have a successful law practice, he had a successful
Speaker 3: consulting practice, whatever it is, and he literally just gave
Speaker 3: that all away, like and I use the word gave
Speaker 3: on purpose, like literally gave it away, gave it away
Speaker 3: to Donald Trump, and now look at him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean I think that's exactly the right phrase.
Speaker 1: He gave it away, and he and he gave it away.
Speaker 1: And even like Piro is a more complicated figure, but
Speaker 1: she did, she was actually she did have a real job.
Speaker 1: And even Todd Blanche, you know, I was talking to
Speaker 1: someone from the DJ like he was the serious I mean,
Speaker 1: you know this story, Todd Blanche was the serious guy. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Todd Blanche is another example, absolutely as a great
Speaker 3: a great example. I mean, Todd Blanche was a federal
Speaker 3: prosecutor in the southern gustry of New York I think
Speaker 3: actually hired by pre Perarra was by all accounts, a
Speaker 3: very well respected federal prosecutor, someone who you know, understood
Speaker 3: the proper role of federal proscuers. He then goes and
Speaker 3: comes a partner at one of the most prestigious law
Speaker 3: firms in New York City, like you know, like, let
Speaker 3: I'll say this as someone who has been a partner
Speaker 3: at a big firm in Washington, d c. And now
Speaker 3: has my own law firm, Like being a partner at
Speaker 3: a big firm in New York City is kind of
Speaker 3: the top of the.
Speaker 1: Top, but it's like millions of dollars.
Speaker 3: You make millions of dollars. But you're also you're in
Speaker 3: the circles of finance, and you know, New York's a
Speaker 3: very dynamic as you know, since you get invited to
Speaker 3: all the fancy people dinner parties, like.
Speaker 1: It's at the record show. I'm making a face in
Speaker 1: a ridiculous face.
Speaker 3: Continue, right, But it can be a very like when
Speaker 3: you're in that echelon, you get to meet a lot
Speaker 3: of really interesting people in addition to making, as you say,
Speaker 3: a lot of money. And he gave all of that away,
Speaker 3: gave all of that away, and for what to be
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's attorney general? Like answer this, which of Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's former attorney generals are better off for having done it?
Speaker 2: Session?
Speaker 3: Body right, let's starr with Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions gave
Speaker 3: up a Senate seat, wound up attacked by Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Bill Barr could have been retired as George Bush's attorney general,
Speaker 3: came back and winds up being deposed by the January
Speaker 3: sixth Commission, like basically saying this was all a bunch
Speaker 3: of fucking bullshit. Then you have Pam Bondy, Right, look
Speaker 3: what happened to her? Like does he really think this
Speaker 3: is going to end up any better.
Speaker 1: No, And the thing that I think is really important
Speaker 1: when you think about this time is sooner or later,
Speaker 1: the rule of law will come back, right like, and
Speaker 1: there will be just like the courts have held, there
Speaker 1: will be like maybe Donald Trump will never go to jail.
Speaker 1: Probably he won't, and maybe his kids will. But there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people doing a lot of really
Speaker 1: illegal stuff, making money, doing self dealing. Those people are
Speaker 1: going to go to jail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So two things I'd say. Number one, Donald Trump
Speaker 3: is an old man, Like Donald Trump is an old man.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, by the time he has done with his
Speaker 3: presidency will be in his mid mid eighties. And so
Speaker 3: you're right, like I think Donald Trump will live out
Speaker 3: the rest of his days as the former president, you know,
Speaker 3: barking at paintings in Marlacco and that'll be it. And
Speaker 3: maybe you're right in the end he pardons his kids,
Speaker 3: who knows, you know, but maybe he does that and
Speaker 3: they and they wind up being okay. Although remember federal
Speaker 3: partons don't affect state crimes, right.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, there's so much stuff that this crew
Speaker 1: is doing right now, right, So, like, whether.
Speaker 3: It's the kids or someone else, like, like, none of
Speaker 3: these people will be covered by from state prosecutions, and
Speaker 3: that includes, by the way, state tax violence. Right, we
Speaker 3: talk about the immunity that they got that Donald Trump
Speaker 3: got with the federal taxes doesn't affect state taxes. But
Speaker 3: for everyone else, I would ask them three questions. Number One,
Speaker 3: are you really so sure Donald Trump is going to
Speaker 3: issue a pardon at the end? I mean Donald Trump
Speaker 3: told people who was going to pardon at the end
Speaker 3: of his first term, and there were all of these
Speaker 3: examples of people asking him for pardons and he didn't
Speaker 3: issue any. Okay. Number one. Number Two, again, if you're
Speaker 3: Todd Blanche or you're Doug Bergham, like, is that how
Speaker 3: you want to go out? You want to go out
Speaker 3: as a sort of a disgraced figure for a disgraced
Speaker 3: administration that got pardoned, Like, are you really then better
Speaker 3: off than you were like before going into this? And
Speaker 3: then finally, and this is the one, Molly that I
Speaker 3: have a really hard time with. And you know, you
Speaker 3: have kids and I have kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I in the.
Speaker 3: End, you know, want my children and my children's children
Speaker 3: and others to look back on this era as they
Speaker 3: will and feel like, you know, what I did the
Speaker 3: best I could and was I perfect?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Did I get it all right?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: But but fundamentally for the big fight of this time,
Speaker 3: which is what this is going to be, like which
Speaker 3: side would ion? And I think people and my kids
Speaker 3: will say, I always on the right side. And I
Speaker 3: don't understand how for Todd Blanche or Doug Bergham or
Speaker 3: any of these folks Pam Bondy, like, history's not going
Speaker 3: to remember like the details of like oh you opened
Speaker 3: this public land or closed this public land or even
Speaker 3: the reflecting pool, but they will generally know whether when
Speaker 3: democracy was at stake, you know, you were working for
Speaker 3: Like I said, the good guys are the bad guys
Speaker 3: like you, you know, like today Molly, Like if someone
Speaker 3: says this person worked with doctor King, right, this person
Speaker 3: worked with bull Connor, Like it doesn't really matter what
Speaker 3: they were doing for bull Connor. It doesn't even matter
Speaker 3: so much what they were doing for doctor King, Like
Speaker 3: history has a way of fuzzing that over. And I
Speaker 3: just don't understand why these people want to be remembered
Speaker 3: for being on the side of authoritarianism when that will
Speaker 3: be the big historical marker.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely just totally baffling and strange.
Speaker 3: And I think that, but then ply you look, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm going to take this sort of into the New
Speaker 3: York City world. You know, we've been talking about the
Speaker 3: DC world, which is where I live. And we could
Speaker 3: say the same thing about John Thune. We could say
Speaker 3: the same thing about a lot of the senators, the
Speaker 3: Republican senators. But you know, I also I look at
Speaker 3: the business titans, the people who have all of the
Speaker 3: money in the world, all of the money in the world.
Speaker 3: You know, they're running Amazon, They're running they're shooting things
Speaker 3: into space, They're they're running investment banks or big publicly
Speaker 3: traded companies. They've got everything they could possibly want and don't.
Speaker 3: And you would think they too are facing this choice,
Speaker 3: and wouldn't they want to be on the right side.
Speaker 3: And yet I continuously read on X or read about
Speaker 3: on X them writing these long, embarrassing screeds, and I
Speaker 3: just don't get what they think they're doing.
Speaker 1: It's also just so at a moment when in a
Speaker 1: quality wealth inequality is the highest has ever been, and
Speaker 1: we're clearly heading towards the reckoning, why these people can't
Speaker 1: just make a slightly less disgusting decision at this moment
Speaker 1: is sort of shocking.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: Mark, Thank you, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well, Molly, I love your podcast. I'm glad you invited
Speaker 3: me back. It's been a while.
Speaker 1: Will you come back? I will.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, I'm going to do this
Speaker 3: on the air so that Molly has to have me back.
Speaker 1: Oh, We'll always have you back. I'm a fan.
Speaker 4: All right, Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: Shane Goldmacher is a national political correspondent for The Nearing Times. Welcome, Welcome, Shane,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Okay, so you have many things
Speaker 1: that you need to talk to us about, because you
Speaker 1: have a really big story that I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about. But first I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about the Michigan primaries that you have been covering.
Speaker 1: Talk us through the polling was like doctor elsaid is
Speaker 1: going to win by I saw twelve, I saw eighteen.
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 4: I mean, we don't yet know what happened with the
Speaker 4: polling other than it was wildly inaccurate and like not
Speaker 4: for the first time this year. In fact, that you know,
Speaker 4: I was thinking this morning, the two most expensive primaries
Speaker 4: in the country were this one and the Texas Republican
Speaker 4: primary at the beginning of this year. And you'll remember
Speaker 4: that the polling totally blew that race too. The expectations
Speaker 4: had been that was going to run away with the
Speaker 4: very first round against John Cornyn, and again Cornyn received
Speaker 4: tens of millions of dollars more television ads, and the
Speaker 4: final result was a heck of a lot closer than
Speaker 4: the pre election polls. And same as Michigan. You know,
Speaker 4: you saw I think it was, you know, an average
Speaker 4: of fifteen points up. Bell say ed was in the
Speaker 4: final sets of polls, some of which were at leased
Speaker 4: by people supporting him to potentially drive narrative. And you
Speaker 4: see today what amounts to currently less than one percentage
Speaker 4: point victory, less than fifteen thousand votes of one point
Speaker 4: five million caps. Is it that polls are missing people
Speaker 4: who are less engaged but swayed by TV ads. That's
Speaker 4: certainly an hypothesis, But it's a question I think the
Speaker 4: polling industry is going to have to answer. But I mean,
Speaker 4: I think this race is a big deal. Regardless margin
Speaker 4: of his victory. It's the fact of his victory that
Speaker 4: is so important in democratic politics.
Speaker 1: I want you to talk about candidate quality for a minute,
Speaker 1: but I also want you to talk about he did
Speaker 1: have an elected position in Michigan that was in public health,
Speaker 1: which he did try to run on I think pretty effectively.
Speaker 4: I think it was an appointed position, but you know,
Speaker 4: he definitely held a public office. Or Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: if you watch him on the campaign trail and you
Speaker 4: watch Hailey Stevens on the campaign trail, there is a
Speaker 4: gap there. Right. He is a skilled communicator. He talks
Speaker 4: very quickly. Politics is complicated, but also it's simple, and
Speaker 4: he had a slogan and it was something that people
Speaker 4: remembered by the end to the campaign. It was, you know,
Speaker 4: Medicare for all. It was a call and response, get
Speaker 4: money out of politics, right and get money in your pocket.
Speaker 4: If you can boil your message down the simple things
Speaker 4: that people can both repeat and like, that's pretty important. Right.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter if you're running is a right wing conservative,
Speaker 4: eleft wing progressive, as a centrist. If you have ideas
Speaker 4: that appeal to people that they can remember you buy,
Speaker 4: that's really valuable. You know, we looked in New York
Speaker 4: City at the mayor's race last year, Right, these were
Speaker 4: the kinds of things that Mom Donny had, and it
Speaker 4: was a different list of items, but it was things
Speaker 4: that resonated with the voters he needed to vote for him,
Speaker 4: and it was things that they could remember. And I
Speaker 4: think that if you were to try to boil down
Speaker 4: Alie stevens candidacy, there isn't a call and response. There
Speaker 4: was an argument about electability, and there was a familiar
Speaker 4: case that she is more moderate, traditional fit for Michigan
Speaker 4: and frankly a safer pick the Democratic Party to make
Speaker 4: in a year where many Democrats feel they have to
Speaker 4: win in in a state where everybody knows the Democrats
Speaker 4: have to win, And so she didn't have that same
Speaker 4: kind of energy and message.
Speaker 1: That he developed. I was reading a very smart piece
Speaker 1: about moderates. But one of the cases for a more
Speaker 1: progressive candidate is that when Democrats are having an enthusiasm problem,
Speaker 1: as which they are right now, candidates like doctor Elside
Speaker 1: have real enthusiasm right in a way that maybe a
Speaker 1: Hailey Stevens doesn't. He has assroops enthusiasm. Did you see that,
Speaker 1: and if so, do you think like the Democrats have
Speaker 1: alienated them by the establishment has alienated them by going
Speaker 1: so firmly behind Stevens.
Speaker 4: I think in general, primaries are primaries, and it's actually
Speaker 4: pretty rare that somebody feels so alienated for primary to
Speaker 4: completely opposed the other person based on how the primary
Speaker 4: is run. I do think that there are people who
Speaker 4: are supportive of Hailey Stevens who are unlikely to end
Speaker 4: up dual LSA ED voters in the general. And I
Speaker 4: think the biggest question is not just voters but for
Speaker 4: financial supporters, which is that this is among the single
Speaker 4: biggest investments Apack has ever made in a race. He
Speaker 4: would be the first ever Muslim US senator and does
Speaker 4: a pack bend against him in the general election. And
Speaker 4: for Mike Rogers, they haven't said what they're going to do,
Speaker 4: But that's a question as well. It's a question on
Speaker 4: individual voters, and it's a question of individual spending by
Speaker 4: groups that have been heavily involved in this race that
Speaker 4: spent directly something like thirty million dollars through super PACs
Speaker 4: that are linked to Apack.
Speaker 1: In Michigan, Bernie Sanders did win the primary in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: so there clearly is an appetite for populism, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he lost in twenty twenty though, when he ran
Speaker 4: against Joe Biden. I was looking at the map lack
Speaker 4: as the results came in, of what did Bernie's results
Speaker 4: look like against Hilary Clinton and what does l s
Speaker 4: Aide's results look like against Hilly Seams And they don't
Speaker 4: match up. You know, sometimes you see these sort of
Speaker 4: progressive and centrist matchups and the maps look the same
Speaker 4: six years later, eight years later, two years later. This
Speaker 4: is a very different map. You know, Bernie Sanders had
Speaker 4: an appeal among white rural voters in that election where
Speaker 4: he was winning a lot of counties that Hillary Clinton
Speaker 4: was not, and it with Stevens who was picking up
Speaker 4: some of those counties. The margins on the other hand,
Speaker 4: that you saw a sad run up in the college
Speaker 4: areas in Grand Rapids, in ann Arbor, and those counties
Speaker 4: that contain them were pretty huge. In some places you
Speaker 4: could zoom in on, like particular precincts around colleges. You know,
Speaker 4: he really mobilized younger voters. It appears and appears to be,
Speaker 4: at least at a first glance, more educated political coalition.
Speaker 1: And so it's not the.
Speaker 4: Same coalition that Bernie Sanders won with. But yeah, and look,
Speaker 4: I think the results in Michigan, right is important this year. Right,
Speaker 4: this is the biggest win that the left has had.
Speaker 4: They've won a bunch of primaries in a bunch of
Speaker 4: House districts, but it's been in Philly, in Brooklyn, in
Speaker 4: Manhattan and Denver. This is not small cities. This is
Speaker 4: a state, and it's a battleground state, and it's a
Speaker 4: state that the Democratic Party just put at the very
Speaker 4: front of the calendar in twenty twenty eight to pick
Speaker 4: the next presidential nominee. So you better believe that this
Speaker 4: map is going to get studied. But everybody who runs
Speaker 4: for how you can potentially build a coalition because it's
Speaker 4: i think now the fifth state that it is going
Speaker 4: to vote in the twenty twenty eight election. So it's
Speaker 4: not gonna be the first. There's not gonna be seventeen candidates.
Speaker 4: There might be two, there might be three. And so
Speaker 4: what we are looking at here is both how this
Speaker 4: race unfolded and how the results came in like very
Speaker 4: much a roadmap or a preview of what we could
Speaker 4: be looking at in twenty twenty eight, which is frankly
Speaker 4: what scares a lot of Democrats because this was a
Speaker 4: pretty ugly primary. The kind of tenor that came through
Speaker 4: at the end was bitter. I mean, it's like bitter
Speaker 4: maybe a dramatic understatement.
Speaker 1: When you look at that Republican primary in Texas. Is
Speaker 1: this a story of money in politics working better? Like?
Speaker 1: I mean, because with the deal with the Republican primary,
Speaker 1: the money actually did almost save Cornin and the money
Speaker 1: did actually almost save Haley Stevens.
Speaker 4: If you think that money doesn't matter in Paul, I
Speaker 4: think the results this year should tell you that it matters.
Speaker 4: It also tells you that it's not enough, right that like,
Speaker 4: having more money does not get you a victory in
Speaker 4: a race, but it buys you table stakes.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: If you are a struggling candidate and you get fifty
Speaker 4: million dollars, well, guess what, you might be a little
Speaker 4: bit more competitive of a candidate. But all of that
Speaker 4: money brings more attention, It brings more questions of voters, googling,
Speaker 4: voters looking bill up, voters paying attention to the debates,
Speaker 4: and so you know, it does crystallize the choice that
Speaker 4: voters have. And I think it's worth noting those two
Speaker 4: states have the biggest polling error of the year, which
Speaker 4: is what made me think about maybe the money has
Speaker 4: a over lot by you know, something I have to
Speaker 4: look into. But yeah, it wasn't decisive in either of
Speaker 4: these cases, even if it directly impacted the result. You know,
Speaker 4: the person who was on the losing end of the
Speaker 4: money race was on the winning end of the elections.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you got this missing chapter from the DNC autopsy.
Speaker 1: I mean, this story is just such a bad story.
Speaker 1: But give us the setup here because it's just bizarre.
Speaker 4: When Ken Martin, who's the DNC chairman, won his election
Speaker 4: last year, one of the very first promises he made
Speaker 4: was euro study of what went wrong in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four so the party would never make those mistakes again.
Speaker 4: And this was going to be pretty widely anticipated. Donors
Speaker 4: wanted the party to whole to account what went wrong.
Speaker 4: The whole idea was there were lessons to be learned
Speaker 4: in defeat. And then this sort of report kept missing
Speaker 4: deadlines and it leaked, and by last December, mart re
Speaker 4: Verus himself said, Okay, we're winning again. We won the
Speaker 4: governor's races in New Jersey, we won the races in Virginia.
Speaker 4: We're not releasing a report, thinking maybe this would be
Speaker 4: the end of it, and it was very much not
Speaker 4: the end of it, because he spent the next five
Speaker 4: months fielding questions about what was he hiding, what was
Speaker 4: in this secret report, And so that in May he
Speaker 4: released a report and said, this isn't really a report.
Speaker 4: This is like a rough draft that was turned in
Speaker 4: by an author, and the draft is kind of crappy,
Speaker 4: and they annotated it on every single page. They said
Speaker 4: there wasn't source material provided and that this is disavowed
Speaker 4: and incorrect. And so for the first time, the author
Speaker 4: of that draft, the person that Ken Martin had empowered
Speaker 4: to write this critical report, spoke to me and told
Speaker 4: me what had happened from his perspective, and he said
Speaker 4: that rough draft, which they should have released, they didn't
Speaker 4: even release everything. He said there was an entire different
Speaker 4: chat that he had personally handed in to Ken Martin
Speaker 4: in a binder in January, and the party never released.
Speaker 4: And so the story from this week was, well, what
Speaker 4: was in that chapter and how did this even come
Speaker 4: to be? The chapter itself contained some of the things
Speaker 4: that were sort of conspicuously missing from the report that
Speaker 4: they did put out, like should Joe Biden have run?
Speaker 4: And it was like, this is a real problem and
Speaker 4: a key decision point in the entire election. Obviously that
Speaker 4: had been sort of missing from the chapter. I ashould
Speaker 4: say the chapter's title was what happened right, the kind
Speaker 4: of thing that you would expect an autopsy to be covering.
Speaker 4: It also really took on the consultant class and said
Speaker 4: that there are people who had gotten generationally wealthy about
Speaker 4: working in politics, and that those who wanted to make
Speaker 4: change were banging their head against that system.
Speaker 1: Which seems pretty clearly obviously Joe.
Speaker 4: And a real frustration for like a lot of people
Speaker 4: in the party. So but here's the twist. Ken Martin says, no, Dice,
Speaker 4: this is not true that this man who he had
Speaker 4: empowered tote this autopsy, who was his friend, had not
Speaker 4: in fact handed him this chapter, had not put it
Speaker 4: in a binder, and that he had never seen it,
Speaker 4: and party officials had never seen it, and that this
Speaker 4: is not some unreleased chapter, but this is something that
Speaker 4: didn't exist at all. And so the story that I
Speaker 4: wrote sort of went through the back and forth of
Speaker 4: what they both said had happened, as well as the
Speaker 4: contents of this chapter. And I think for Ken Martin
Speaker 4: This just comes at a moment where he's really already
Speaker 4: under fire in his role as party chairman. And we
Speaker 4: just talked about the importance of money the DNC has
Speaker 4: broke compared to the Republican Party right now, and the
Speaker 4: most recent telling, the DNC had negative two million dollars
Speaker 4: cash on hand, two million dollars more in debt than money.
Speaker 4: The Republican National Committee has like one hundred and twenty
Speaker 4: eight point five million dollars. One hundred and thirty million
Speaker 4: dollars is an awfully large gap to have with less
Speaker 4: than one hundred days into the election, and so Ken
Speaker 4: Martin's been facing a lot of questions about that, he
Speaker 4: says to other issues as well, and so this dispute
Speaker 4: over this autopsy from the person he had entrusted to
Speaker 4: write it is just sort of another headache for him
Speaker 4: on an issue that he really hoped to put in
Speaker 4: his past last December and yet continues to drive on.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is interesting about
Speaker 1: this autopsy is that it is not supposed to be
Speaker 1: a thing that blocks the sun right Like at every point,
Speaker 1: what Martin did actually made the problem worse, Like had
Speaker 1: he just released the autopsy and people had read it,
Speaker 1: even if they didn't love it. Pushing back was probably
Speaker 1: the worst part of it. This friend of Martin's, the
Speaker 1: guy who wrote the autopsy, whose name is Paul Rivera.
Speaker 1: Paul Rivera said that he printed out that chapter and
Speaker 1: put it in the binder because when he saw Ken Martin,
Speaker 1: Ken Martin said he hadn't read it, right, Is that right?
Speaker 4: And Paul said that and basically gave him feedback that
Speaker 4: I was disappointing this report. And his version is that
Speaker 4: he's saying, you didn't cover this, You didn't cover this,
Speaker 4: and Paul's like, I did, you haven't really read this
Speaker 4: whole thing. I'm going to print a copy, including this
Speaker 4: chapter that I finished, and I'm going to hand it
Speaker 4: to you and like, I'd like you to read it.
Speaker 4: And he says, not only did you read it, he
Speaker 4: like marked it up with annotations and post it notes
Speaker 4: and put it back in an overnight binder, you know,
Speaker 4: overnighted the binder back n So that yeah, that's the
Speaker 4: origins of this binder. And of course this binder. Now
Speaker 4: the DNC said they searched for the binder, they couldn't
Speaker 4: find it. Ken Martin gainst ten binders a week. Why
Speaker 4: would they keep this binder months later? So it's a real,
Speaker 4: you know, a real saga that has continued.
Speaker 1: He said, He said, binder saga. We have one more
Speaker 1: set of primaries, right at.
Speaker 4: Least, I mean, there's there's a bunch more primaries this year,
Speaker 4: most of them are done. But the next one is
Speaker 4: Wisconsin where the governor's race, where there is another left
Speaker 4: wing candidate, a Democratic socialist Francesca Hall, who is currently
Speaker 4: the favorite in polling. Of course, now we have even
Speaker 4: more questions than we already did about polling, but certainly
Speaker 4: is the public polling front runner and again a critical
Speaker 4: ground swing state of Wisconsin, and.
Speaker 1: She's running against Tom Tiffany, who is very trumpy and
Speaker 1: all sorts of.
Speaker 4: Thanks you for a current mainline Republicant.
Speaker 1: This yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you, Shane, thank you.
Speaker 1: No moment, Jesse Cannon, my jun Fast Sue.
Speaker 2: We're seeing a letter from a bunch of people in
Speaker 2: Congress that is saying that they want the Pentagon to
Speaker 2: probe Trump family backed companies because you'll be shocked here,
Speaker 2: there's a little bit of fucker going on with the money.
Speaker 1: No, come on. The letter to the Pentagon Inspector General
Speaker 1: was prompted by the Post reporting its startups affiliated with
Speaker 1: the president's sons. Oh really, the president's sons.
Speaker 2: Never would guess I have one more.
Speaker 1: Than three point two billion in defense contract. That can't
Speaker 1: be right. A group of Democratic lawmakers have asked the
Speaker 1: Pentagon's official watchdog to open an investigation after The Watching
Speaker 1: Post revealed that fifteen copanies with investments from President Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's sons have garnered three point two billion dollars in
Speaker 1: federal contract. It's called nepotism, team, and it's happening in
Speaker 1: our federal government. As someone who has benefited by nepotism myself,
Speaker 1: it's not good. It's real bad. That's it for this
Speaker 1: episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday
Speaker 1: and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.