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.
Speaker 2: And Senator Mitch McConnell has joined Donald Trump and Carry
Speaker 2: Lake by shying away from a national abortion band.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 2: Nina Jenkowitz stops Fight to tell us about our new organization,
Speaker 2: the American Sunlight Project, and how she is fighting disinformation.
Speaker 2: Then we'll talk to Boltz Magazines Daniel mcckanyan about state
Speaker 2: level politics. They can have a big impact on our future.
Speaker 2: But first we have the host of the Enemy's List,
Speaker 2: the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: Rick Wilson, Mollie John Fast, how are you?
Speaker 4: I am in Washington, d C. The District of Columbia,
Speaker 4: living the train.
Speaker 1: Not prom beckins it's right, but the only thing worse
Speaker 1: than being so talk to me about here we are?
Speaker 4: We are the Supreme Court. What did you think of that?
Speaker 5: Look?
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people are like, oh, they
Speaker 3: seem to be ready to restrict Trump's immunity. They were
Speaker 3: also seemingly okay with Trump's attorneys sitting there saying, well,
Speaker 3: you know, we could sort of assassinate people, and maybe
Speaker 3: not everybody, but they were talking about the president having
Speaker 3: the right to engage in any kind of criminality inside
Speaker 3: the quote ambit of his office. I'm sorry, folks, that's
Speaker 3: not how this works. That's not how any of this works.
Speaker 3: And I was I think as disappointed as anybody that
Speaker 3: supposed conservatives on the court, who are not, by the way,
Speaker 3: conservatives anymore. They're radical, and they're far, far, far outside
Speaker 3: of the traditional definition of conservatism. Were essentially on the
Speaker 3: present case, they're sort of lollygagging and bullshitting along whatever. Right,
Speaker 3: you know, we'll get to it when we get to it.
Speaker 3: I guess I'm talking about the future and also really
Speaker 3: describing an openness, you know, when there's.
Speaker 5: The things that the president must be able to.
Speaker 3: Take bold and effective action, and when they're describing it
Speaker 3: that way, all I can think of is, oh God,
Speaker 3: these little weasels are going to say, well, martial law
Speaker 3: is not bad, you know, I mean not bad per se, right,
Speaker 3: who among who among us has not wanted to declare
Speaker 3: martial law? The entire thing had a terrible feel to it.
Speaker 3: I'm not an attorney, as I have famously noted about
Speaker 3: a billion times. But I kept coming back to this
Speaker 3: thing that I do know about, and that's people, and
Speaker 3: the thing that I do know about, and that's politics.
Speaker 3: And I'm telling you the argument that we're making was, well,
Speaker 3: unless we give the president's immunity, they'll all transform into criminals.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Where the real worry that I think anybody who knows
Speaker 3: anything about human beings is if they don't have any restrictions,
Speaker 3: they will turn into criminals. This is what laws are for.
Speaker 3: And the idea that you just that you have to
Speaker 3: protect the president in such a massively sweeping, expansive way.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of trouble yesterday with a lot
Speaker 3: of my friends in on the right and the center
Speaker 3: right and the left who say things like, oh, don't worry,
Speaker 3: Trump will be restrained by the rule of law and
Speaker 3: the institutions in Washington. I'm like, where which ones? Just
Speaker 3: show me, Show me on the doll where the institutional
Speaker 3: protections are, because I don't see it. Show me where
Speaker 3: you think that Trump won't do the worst possible things
Speaker 3: because I don't see it.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I was so struck by
Speaker 1: was that what the Supreme Court is saying so it
Speaker 1: sounds like they're probably going to kick it back to
Speaker 1: the district court and give Trump the delay he wants.
Speaker 1: But what I was so struck by is like, what
Speaker 1: you have to realize about this is the institution not
Speaker 1: holding right, That's what this is.
Speaker 5: Correct, This is everything falling apart.
Speaker 1: Right, This is the three Trumpet justices going along to
Speaker 1: get along in a way that serves they're not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and for all of the idea that Amy Comy
Speaker 3: Barrett was the one Republican.
Speaker 1: Yesterday who at least asked questions, sort of kind.
Speaker 3: Of even giving a shit about about the question of
Speaker 3: whether or not there.
Speaker 5: Were restrictions and limits.
Speaker 3: If Amy Comy Barrett is your like rock star in
Speaker 3: this thing, and John Roberts the one that supposed to
Speaker 3: ignore me, I'm sorry, this is a.
Speaker 5: Bad spot to be at it this point. This is
Speaker 5: not great.
Speaker 4: I would say it is not great.
Speaker 1: You just have to realize that these are the institutions
Speaker 1: not holding and yep, and that know that no one
Speaker 1: is going to.
Speaker 3: Say, Nope, we have to vote him out, We have
Speaker 3: to vote at his minions in a scope and scale
Speaker 3: and degree that, to use a Trumpian metaphor has never
Speaker 3: been seen before, and you know, you have to beat
Speaker 3: the hell out of him. You have to beat the
Speaker 3: hell out of him, You have to destroy them in
Speaker 3: political terms.
Speaker 4: Right, Yes, important that you're supply.
Speaker 3: Yeah, these days I have to say politically, I'll get
Speaker 3: in trouble. Otherwise we saw the court make a very
Speaker 3: political The vibe space of that court was extremely political.
Speaker 3: And the nodding and the winking and the sort of
Speaker 3: snideness from Alito about well, we know prosecutors are crooked.
Speaker 4: Oh really, can I just say one thing about that?
Speaker 1: If Alito were a liberal and never were two insane
Speaker 1: liberal justices on the court, let's just place out for
Speaker 1: a minute. Okay, the thought experiment as much as anything
Speaker 1: a a duncan experiment. Yes, right, if there were two
Speaker 1: insane liberals on the court. You don't think the Republicans
Speaker 1: in the Senate would make their lives a misery like
Speaker 1: the Democrats you control the Senate. You know what Sheldon
Speaker 1: white House could do if Chuck Schumer would let him
Speaker 1: and let him, let Sheldon white House.
Speaker 4: I'm hearing this every day.
Speaker 1: If Justice Thomas doesn't want to come, fine, but let
Speaker 1: the American people.
Speaker 4: Know that these people are not you know, that they're
Speaker 4: not on the level.
Speaker 3: You know, I just wish yesterday that Katanji Brown Jackson
Speaker 3: had recused herself, given that her husband was so involved
Speaker 3: in planning the one sixth attack and the exactly and
Speaker 3: they are, oh wait, I'm sorry. That wasn't Katanji Brown Jackson.
Speaker 3: That was that was Clarence Thomas. But the idea that
Speaker 3: we have a sense of inevitability about the court letting
Speaker 3: Trump go, letting him off because they know very well
Speaker 3: if he doesn't get prosecuted now, it's not going to
Speaker 3: happen in time for the election. They get it, They're
Speaker 3: perfectly aware of it. And if we don't end up
Speaker 3: and I think pretty quickly following the Wilson rule from
Speaker 3: about a year and a half ago, where I kept
Speaker 3: telling people nothing is going to change in the courts,
Speaker 3: that's going to save you stuff.
Speaker 1: Thinking that way, you do have to admit that you
Speaker 1: are like a little bit impressed with how good then
Speaker 1: your a case has turned out.
Speaker 3: Listen, I will tell you flat out, I thought that
Speaker 3: case was the weakest, and it turns out they've built
Speaker 3: a pretty solid case here. And the reason I know
Speaker 3: it's a pretty solid case is that Donald Trump has
Speaker 3: kept his goddamn mouth shut.
Speaker 5: About David Tecker.
Speaker 4: Yeahs not trying.
Speaker 3: To go out there and cause the Trumpian Matte mob
Speaker 3: to go after David Pecker. He knows there is evidence
Speaker 3: being put out there that for most Americans feels new.
Speaker 3: They either forgot it or they didn't know it, or
Speaker 3: it was two on the margins in twenty sixteen. But
Speaker 3: now they're like porn star what they admitted it. I think, Look,
Speaker 3: it's still not the full game changer for the entire.
Speaker 4: Election, right, but nothing is but right because they did
Speaker 4: not hold.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't hurt to see Sleepy down there every
Speaker 3: day in his diaper, snoozing and grumpy.
Speaker 4: And I would also add what I think is very
Speaker 4: interesting about this case is again the pundon industrial complex.
Speaker 4: This is the weakest case. This is the case I
Speaker 4: would want this case to go first. It's terrible and
Speaker 4: the theory of the.
Speaker 1: Case basically was that Michael Cohen was a bad witness.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, Michael Cohen hasn't even been up there.
Speaker 1: In fact, we have David Pecker who turns out to
Speaker 1: be an incredible witness.
Speaker 3: Don't you think, I mean, don't you think he's been
Speaker 3: kind of shockingly great for the prosecution.
Speaker 1: I mean, he signed a non prosecution agreement, so they
Speaker 1: knew exactly what he was going to say because he
Speaker 1: didn't want to go to jail.
Speaker 5: It's not the worst incentive, no, you.
Speaker 4: Know, in this case, I think it's smart.
Speaker 1: And what I think is really interesting is he talks
Speaker 1: about I mean, there are you know, he says this
Speaker 1: wasn't about Millennia, was about the election. He said that
Speaker 1: he went to his general counsel and his general council
Speaker 1: said he shouldn't pay off Stormy Daniels because it'll look
Speaker 1: like an election interference and it'll be we don't know
Speaker 1: what he said to a special council because that's confidentiality,
Speaker 1: but clearly it's something that got him not to pay
Speaker 1: Stormy Daniels so and likely had election.
Speaker 4: You know that he knew what he was doing was
Speaker 4: the least.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 4: He is making the entire case right there.
Speaker 3: And I look, I do think that Pecker has been
Speaker 3: I mean, aside from all the puns that I've been
Speaker 3: able to make for the last several days, I do
Speaker 3: think that Pecker has been remarkably compelling and in validating
Speaker 3: the things that they're going to ask Michael Cohen about
Speaker 3: in a few days. Trump's going to say, Oh, Cohen's
Speaker 3: a liar. He's an adjudicated liar, just like Trump is
Speaker 3: an adjudicated rapist. Sorry, I mentioned that.
Speaker 1: A judge has rolled he's a racist, But yes, a
Speaker 1: jury I don't think.
Speaker 3: But long story short, all this testimony from Pecker is
Speaker 3: going to validate a lot of the things that Michael Cohen,
Speaker 3: who has cooperated extensively, is going to say in the
Speaker 3: course of the next few days. And I think I
Speaker 3: think people have undercounted what Michael will have to say
Speaker 3: that could be seem less credible because of the attack
Speaker 3: that Trump folks are going to bring in on the
Speaker 3: fact that my Michael went to prison for a line
Speaker 3: on Trump's behalf. But David has come across and basically said, Okay,
Speaker 3: you know what I did these things for him. I
Speaker 3: was doing him a favor. I was helping him because
Speaker 3: of the campaign. Michael's going to say, it's because of
Speaker 3: the campaign. We're going to we now end up knowing
Speaker 3: that you know, Trump also was talking to Hope Picks
Speaker 3: and Sarah Hucklefuck and that they were they knew it
Speaker 3: was about political motivation. The whole thing is just not
Speaker 3: going as for Trump as as smoothly as I think
Speaker 3: he might have hoped.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Sarah Hakabe and Hope Picks
Speaker 1: because they did this while working in the White House,
Speaker 1: so your tax dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's not forget they were a White House government
Speaker 3: paid staffers.
Speaker 1: I mean just in Saturday, like, the government paid those
Speaker 1: people to help Donald Trump cover up his affair with
Speaker 1: an adult film star.
Speaker 4: So I thought that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 3: Will die on the hill of the fact that this
Speaker 3: guy is a degenerate and that he has no moral
Speaker 3: sense whatsoever. But he had enough political sense to understand
Speaker 3: that the exposure of payoffs to Stormy Daniels was not
Speaker 3: bueno when it came to the political effect he would
Speaker 3: have on his campaign, on his prospects of being elected president.
Speaker 3: And because of that consciousness of the damage it could do.
Speaker 5: That's where we're at right now.
Speaker 3: That's where the situation, to my mind, is the most interesting,
Speaker 3: because he knew what was going to happen if it
Speaker 3: got out there. Further, he understood it. He's not Look,
Speaker 3: Trump is not a smart man, but he has a
Speaker 3: fairal cunning and a craftiness about him, and he picked
Speaker 3: it up.
Speaker 5: He read the room, and in.
Speaker 3: Doing so, that's sort of how he's put himself in
Speaker 3: this terrible box. Do you pretend that this was nothing?
Speaker 3: Do you deny it again? Get and get banged for perjury?
Speaker 3: The whole thing's just really ugly for him, and I'm
Speaker 3: here for it.
Speaker 1: What do you think would have happened had the dormy
Speaker 1: Daniels came forward before the election, Like what if the
Speaker 1: weekend of that excess Hollywood tape that had also burst?
Speaker 3: I do think it would have been a thing. It
Speaker 3: would have caused a ruckus. Now, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: can't say that some of the things Hillary should have
Speaker 3: been doing being in Wisconsin, et cetera, et cetera. I
Speaker 3: can't say that would have cost him the race completely,
Speaker 3: but it would have made it much more problematic. It
Speaker 3: would have changed the news cycle at the end there
Speaker 3: bit the presumption was that it had already killed him, right,
Speaker 3: And that's a presumption that people cannot afford to make again.
Speaker 3: Although I will say this that there's a lot of
Speaker 3: polling theory starting to come out now, and the way
Speaker 3: to move these voters is not as much like oh,
Speaker 3: we're going to find other Republicans to say, I what
Speaker 3: a bad Republican.
Speaker 5: He is or what anything of that.
Speaker 3: It is increasingly that voters need to be presented with
Speaker 3: new information and when they find that the new information
Speaker 3: or if it feels new, okay and man, they are
Speaker 3: much more likely to go, hold up, what am I
Speaker 3: doing here? Wait a second, what am I doing here?
Speaker 3: And so Stormy kind of feels new to a lot
Speaker 3: of people. She was not somebody who has been in
Speaker 3: the news flow every single minute of every single day
Speaker 3: since Trump left office. Now that she is, it's not
Speaker 3: great for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem as if these slatious characters coming
Speaker 1: back from twenty fifteen and newness is like seven years ago.
Speaker 3: Like I said, it feels new to most people. Look,
Speaker 3: there's a generation of young voters who are now like,
Speaker 3: who the fuck is that?
Speaker 5: What are you talking about?
Speaker 4: I mean, do you think there's a generation of young
Speaker 4: voters or.
Speaker 3: There's a cohort of younger voters? And you see this
Speaker 3: in some of the polling, like the younger voters like, oh,
Speaker 3: I guess Trump was pretty good economically, right, And it's
Speaker 3: because they weren't really fully politically.
Speaker 5: Conscious at that time.
Speaker 3: But man, I mean, this is a place where you
Speaker 3: really have you know, Trump in misery because he's trapped
Speaker 3: in a courtroom listening to this shit. He's trapped in
Speaker 3: a courtroom every day having to listen to this get
Speaker 3: recapitulated and look whatever. I mean, all kidding aside. Whatever
Speaker 3: they pay Milania to keep quiet, in the end, it's
Speaker 3: not enough because you know, she's got to sit there
Speaker 3: and eat this shit sandwich every day. She's got to
Speaker 3: sit there and eat this gigantic shit sandwich.
Speaker 1: One of the big anxieties. I think that we're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of Democrats people listen to this podcast and
Speaker 1: people who we you know, come into contact with is
Speaker 1: like our voters moved, Like can voters connect with some
Speaker 1: of the information that's out there. I mean, for example,
Speaker 1: like Biden World, they passed this humongous age aid package,
Speaker 1: which no one thought they would be able to do,
Speaker 1: including me. I was like, there's no way they're getting money.
Speaker 1: And they got this money. They got Mike Johnson to
Speaker 1: do it. I mean that was shocking to me. I
Speaker 1: thought it was over for Ukraine and they really disappointed
Speaker 1: in one blandamer Putin.
Speaker 3: I mean Putin had a bad day. There's no way
Speaker 3: to spin your way out of that one. You can't
Speaker 3: spin your way out of the fact that a guy
Speaker 3: you thought was in your pocket turned around and absolutely
Speaker 3: wreck your shit, and I'm here for it. I think
Speaker 3: that there is a degree to which the Biden administration
Speaker 3: and the Biden campaign are going to continue to face
Speaker 3: this sort of weird cross pressure. That they can do
Speaker 3: the right thing, they can do, they can do the
Speaker 3: right strategic things, they can do the right political and
Speaker 3: policy things, and yet people who should be with them
Speaker 3: are still like, not good enough. Fuck you, not good enough?
Speaker 3: Give me more, do better? I want something different.
Speaker 4: Is that a post pandemic syndrome? What do you think
Speaker 4: it is?
Speaker 3: I don't know, Mollie. We're gonna probably disagree on this
Speaker 3: a little bit. I think there are some progressives who
Speaker 3: are exceedingly grumpy about certain things and won't stop being
Speaker 3: grumpy even though it's hurting the team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's not a huge group. I mean aocs
Speaker 1: out there campaigning with him.
Speaker 3: No, no, I'm not talking about the legislative stuff. I'm talking
Speaker 3: about the protesters at universities.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 1: I hate poles, but like they say, two percent of
Speaker 1: all young people care about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know, but.
Speaker 3: Guess what one percent of Rupert Murdoch's audience sees those
Speaker 3: kids every night.
Speaker 4: Right, But those are not liberals.
Speaker 3: But I'm saying there are people broadly on the left
Speaker 3: who are like, yeah, those kids are speaking the truth,
Speaker 3: the power and blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: Don't be sentimental about this stuff. People.
Speaker 3: It's not a good look because every night on Fox
Speaker 3: Now the audience is being told the radicals are coming
Speaker 3: to kill you. Look, it's Antifa twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 3: that shit is not inconsiderable with working class Democratic voters.
Speaker 3: Do not undercount it. I spend a lot of time
Speaker 3: worrying about that.
Speaker 4: Rick Wilson, I hope you'll come back, you know, I will.
Speaker 5: I'm your huncle.
Speaker 1: Berry Spring is here, and I bet you are trying
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Speaker 4: So why not pick up some.
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Speaker 2: Nina Jankowitz is the founder of the American Sunlight Project
Speaker 2: and a former Department of Homeland Security official.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, Nina.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. Mollie.
Speaker 1: I feel like I need you to tell your origin
Speaker 1: story for our listen.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: First, I'm sorry, but I could tell your origin story,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't solve anyone's problems. I always feel like
Speaker 1: it's better to have people tell them, so to have
Speaker 1: the guest explain it.
Speaker 6: I'll try to tell you the short, short versions. Otherwise
Speaker 6: we'll be here all day. I have became with disinformation
Speaker 6: researcher a little bit by accident. I used to work
Speaker 6: in the democracy promotion space for the National Democratic Institute,
Speaker 6: which is a non partis an organization that kind of
Speaker 6: does democracy promotion abroad.
Speaker 4: And I was a Russia specialist. That's where I cut
Speaker 4: my teeth.
Speaker 6: I did work in the former Soviet space and around
Speaker 6: twenty thirteen, when the Year of my Don protests happened,
Speaker 6: like the first invasion of Ukraine, that's when I started noticing, Hey,
Speaker 6: like Russia is doing some scary shit with the Internet
Speaker 6: and we all need to.
Speaker 4: Wake up to it.
Speaker 6: And I was told a lot here in Washington like
Speaker 6: oh no, like everything's fine, you know that that's happening
Speaker 6: over there. In those countries, but we don't need to
Speaker 6: worry about it here. Fast forward a couple of years.
Speaker 6: We all know what happened with Russian interference in twenty
Speaker 6: sixteen and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: I actually happened to be in Kiev at the time.
Speaker 6: I was a advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Speaker 6: under a Fulbright grant that year, and so watching all
Speaker 6: of that happen from abroad, particularly from Ukraine, which had
Speaker 6: been living the realities of Russian disinformation for so long,
Speaker 6: really frustrated me. And I wrote a book about How
Speaker 6: to Lose the Information War. That was my first book,
Speaker 6: and then I did a lot more research on disinform
Speaker 6: not just of the Russian variety over the next couple
Speaker 6: of years.
Speaker 4: Fast forward to twenty twenty two.
Speaker 6: I get a call from the Biden administration asking me
Speaker 6: if I'd like to come serve my country, help advise
Speaker 6: the Department of Homeland Security on the disinformation problem and
Speaker 6: kind of craft this information policy that made sure it
Speaker 6: had respect for civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy.
Speaker 4: And of course I said yes right like I had
Speaker 4: always been.
Speaker 6: Working toward public service, and I thought that this was
Speaker 6: an urgent issue. That our government needed to solve. One
Speaker 6: of the first things I said to my boss as
Speaker 6: at DHS when I got there, was like, we need
Speaker 6: to announce this, and we need to do it soon,
Speaker 6: because I'm a public figure and people are wondering where
Speaker 6: I've gone. At the time, it was like right after
Speaker 6: the second invasion of Ukraine began, and so I suddenly
Speaker 6: disappeared from media as a Ukraine expert, which was suspicious,
Speaker 6: and they gobdled for like eight weeks, and then they
Speaker 6: finally announced it in a very opaque way, and the
Speaker 6: right wing went absolutely nut.
Speaker 4: Actually some on the far left as well.
Speaker 6: They claimed that my job leading the Disinformation Governance Board,
Speaker 6: which admittedly is a very bad name that I did
Speaker 6: not come up with. They said that I was going
Speaker 6: to be like America's chief censor, Tucker Carlson said that
Speaker 6: I had the power to send men with guns to
Speaker 6: the homes of Americans with whom I disagreed. People were
Speaker 6: accusing me of treason. At the time, Molly I was
Speaker 6: thirty seven weeks pregnant, and people were sending me and
Speaker 6: my family death threats.
Speaker 4: We were docs.
Speaker 6: It was a really, really nasty situation that unfortunately has
Speaker 6: become very normal in our politics today, and the administration
Speaker 6: did not have my back.
Speaker 4: They let me twist in the wind.
Speaker 6: I think there were other political priorities at the time,
Speaker 6: but it became clear to me that they weren't going
Speaker 6: to solve this issue, not just like my personal heart
Speaker 6: in the issue, but they weren't going to put their
Speaker 6: back into like a really muscular response to disinformation. And
Speaker 6: just to be clear, the board had nothing to do
Speaker 6: with censorship. It was a coordination and policy body. It
Speaker 6: didn't have the resources or were frankly the go ahead
Speaker 6: from any part of government to do any sort of
Speaker 6: censoring or arbitering of truth. And I wouldn't have approved
Speaker 6: that anyway. All of my research says that stuff doesn't work.
Speaker 6: But that didn't matter to the people who were lying
Speaker 6: about me for power and for profit, and.
Speaker 4: So I resigned. Three weeks later, I had my baby.
Speaker 6: He's now almost two, and as I have gone through
Speaker 6: the past two years, I realized I was the vanguard
Speaker 6: in this mostly conservative operation to really intimidate and harass
Speaker 6: disinformation researchers ahead of a twenty twenty four election. And
Speaker 6: the idea, of course, is to do this for political
Speaker 6: being they have been calling people before Congress, they have
Speaker 6: been suing them and frivolous last seas they want them
Speaker 6: not to talk exactly, and frankly, they're succeeding like these
Speaker 6: are the canaries in the coal mine, and those canaries
Speaker 6: are kind of getting snuffed out. Their funding has been
Speaker 6: in dangers, their families have been endangered. They're scared. Their
Speaker 6: institutions also don't have their backs in some cases similar
Speaker 6: to what I've gone through. And here we are in
Speaker 6: a situation where we've got AI supercharging disinformation.
Speaker 4: We have foreign actors who are just licking their lips
Speaker 4: at the polarization and problems that they see in our
Speaker 4: American politics because it gives them so much to work with.
Speaker 6: And we've got people who were happily spreading disinformation for
Speaker 6: profit and we haven't dealt with that at all. And
Speaker 6: social media platforms that have dropped the ball when it
Speaker 6: comes to not only disinformation, but like other online harms
Speaker 6: because they're worried about the political.
Speaker 4: Backlash of Trump should get into office.
Speaker 7: So we have a.
Speaker 6: Cocktail of a really potentially explosive situation come November to January,
Speaker 6: and I.
Speaker 4: Decided to put on my hand and say we need to.
Speaker 6: Do something about this because the worst has already happened
Speaker 6: to me, you know, safe from like physical altercation, which
Speaker 6: I hope, of course doesn't happen, but like I've gone
Speaker 6: through the shit. I'm tired of people harassing researchers under
Speaker 6: the guise of free speech.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, that's the short version of me.
Speaker 1: What do we think happened? I mean, I understand that
Speaker 1: you were sort of targeted by the disinformation you were
Speaker 1: trying to stop.
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, isn't that the story ultimately?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And is that has that kept going with other people?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Absolutely, it's kept going with other people, and still is
Speaker 6: happening to me. I mean, even before we announced our
Speaker 6: new project, the American Sunlight Project, I still get death
Speaker 6: threats regularly.
Speaker 4: I still get harassed regularly.
Speaker 6: It was to the point where, like Fox News was
Speaker 6: defaming me so much I decided to sue them because
Speaker 6: it was just ridiculous. They were mentioning me eight months
Speaker 6: after I resigned from government and I would get away
Speaker 6: for AFFMN and.
Speaker 1: Did it work?
Speaker 4: Well, we're waiting. Do you mean their their defamation or
Speaker 4: my lawsuit?
Speaker 1: Your lawsuit? Their defamation obviously worked, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, their defamation is extremely effective. The lawsuit, we're
Speaker 6: waiting to pee, and we're waiting for a judge to
Speaker 6: rule on the motion to dismiss, and then we'll see
Speaker 6: where where we go from there. But I was the vanguard, right,
Speaker 6: and they came after researchers who did critical work around
Speaker 6: the election in twenty twenty, we're looking at things like
Speaker 6: COVID disinformation, people who are looking at things like child
Speaker 6: sexual abuse material.
Speaker 4: We should all be able to get behind that. But no,
Speaker 4: they have now.
Speaker 6: Rebranded anybody who does information integrity research as somebody who
Speaker 6: is pro censorship, which is just not the definition of censorship.
Speaker 6: But it's so good for them, right, nobody wants to
Speaker 6: be in fair censorship, and so they're able to kind
Speaker 6: of context collapse and make this argument. And it's so
Speaker 6: politically beneficial for them because they've effectively silenced the people
Speaker 6: who were calling out their bs for many years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what happens? This sounds bad for November.
Speaker 6: I'm not particularly optimistic, especially because we've got AI in
Speaker 6: the mix. There was just a new report out today
Speaker 6: that said that despite open AI's promises about you know,
Speaker 6: lobbying and electioneering and you know making sure that nobody
Speaker 6: uses their technology to create chatbots that can do that.
Speaker 6: Open AI can be used to target Latino voters with
Speaker 6: misleading information. We know that population is extreme susceptible to it.
Speaker 6: We're more polarized than ever right, and we've got these
Speaker 6: foreign actors that are all too happy to prey on
Speaker 6: that polarization. And so that's where we hope the American
Speaker 6: Sunlight Project can at least bring these issues to the forefront,
Speaker 6: if not try to solve them.
Speaker 1: Explain to me what the American Sunlight Project is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we are an organization, a bipart is an
Speaker 6: organization that is going to be attempting to increase the
Speaker 6: cost of lies that undermine our democracy.
Speaker 4: We're going to do that through research.
Speaker 6: We've got old school OPO researchers on our team, and
Speaker 6: we've got some open source investigators as well, more from
Speaker 6: kind of the disinformation side of the spectrum, and we're
Speaker 6: going to be blowing open every link in the causal
Speaker 6: chain of disinformation, how it spreads, how it's financed, how
Speaker 6: it makes its way from Congress to Elon Musk to
Speaker 6: people like Steven Miller at American First Legal, who then
Speaker 6: you know, create these lawsuits. Right, So we're going to
Speaker 6: first focus on the the campaign against disinformation researchers, and
Speaker 6: then we're going to look at all of the other
Speaker 6: disinformation that will come between now and November. And there's
Speaker 6: going to be a lot. There's already been a ton
Speaker 6: since the beginning of the year. We're going to blow.
Speaker 7: All that open.
Speaker 6: We're going to do, you know, advocacy work talking to
Speaker 6: the American people. I think a lot of folks would
Speaker 6: be really scared to find out that we have modern
Speaker 6: day McCarthyism happening right now in America.
Speaker 4: So you have to say.
Speaker 9: More about that.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, my grandfather was put in jail by McCarthy. So
Speaker 1: this is not something I take lightly. So tell me
Speaker 1: what that means. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 6: So, we've got the subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee,
Speaker 6: the Subcommittee on Weaponization of Government, led by Jim Horgan,
Speaker 6: who has sent out dozens of letters and subpoenad researchers,
Speaker 6: including me. I had to go sit there for five
Speaker 6: hours and speak to some of those folks about my
Speaker 6: eleven weeks in government with the implication that somehow I'm
Speaker 6: in kahoots and all these other researchers are in kohoots
Speaker 6: with social media plots forms to censor conservatives, and that
Speaker 6: couldn't be farther from the truth that's been borne out
Speaker 6: by evidence, which again we'll be collecting on our website
Speaker 6: so anybody.
Speaker 4: Can look at it.
Speaker 6: But the idea here is, Okay, Congress is after you
Speaker 6: if you're in an academic institution and your institution's having
Speaker 6: to spend hundreds of thousands, if not upwards of a
Speaker 6: million dollars defending you, getting you legal representation, responding to
Speaker 6: document requests, like you don't have time to do your
Speaker 6: work anymore.
Speaker 4: You don't have time to do that research.
Speaker 1: Right, and they don't have people to protect them.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
Speaker 6: And so we want to make that case to the
Speaker 6: American people, but also tell people, you know, disinformation is
Speaker 6: not just some technical thing. It's not just mean words
Speaker 6: or words you disagree with online. It has effects on
Speaker 6: people's lives, normal Americans lives, and so we're going to
Speaker 6: be telling those stories as well.
Speaker 1: You're basically it sounds like a little bit like media Matters,
Speaker 1: but sort of with more of an emphasis on how
Speaker 1: the information gets there.
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Or yeah?
Speaker 6: I would say we're kind of a Media Matters for
Speaker 6: the disinformation age, the digital disinformation age, right, I want
Speaker 6: to put an emphasis on transparency and accessibility of this research.
Speaker 4: You know, we are a C four. We're keeping a
Speaker 4: close hold.
Speaker 6: On our donors because this is a really dangerous environment
Speaker 6: right now, as I know personally. But our investigations are
Speaker 6: all going to be open source, all going to be transparent.
Speaker 6: People can recreate them themselves if they like and follow
Speaker 6: kind of the trail, and I think that's really important
Speaker 6: in these days of kind of where people are making
Speaker 6: these allegations based on again context collapse, no nuance, a
Speaker 6: total kind of just illusions that they're involved in our
Speaker 6: politics on So that's really important to me.
Speaker 4: Not that Media Matters doesn't do that. They do great work, but.
Speaker 1: No, no, I mean, I'm just thinking of something.
Speaker 4: That's like it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think, I mean, and we consider Media Matters
Speaker 6: and folks like the Center for Countering Digital Hate and
Speaker 6: others in this ecosystem our allies in this fight.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping you could explain what the see chaininges at
Speaker 1: X and how different it is. Obviously I'm asking you
Speaker 1: a question. You know the answer to but I mean
Speaker 1: that we all know the answer too, but I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if you could just expand on it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's been such a sad thing to see X
Speaker 6: formerly Twitter kind of crumble into being this, you know,
Speaker 6: fringe hellhole, honestly because it used to be a place
Speaker 6: where you could have conversations and get good information and
Speaker 6: follow topics that were important to you and also find community.
Speaker 6: And I think that's a really important one that's been
Speaker 6: blown open since.
Speaker 4: Elon Musk took it over.
Speaker 6: I had never had a great experience on Twitter now
Speaker 6: X Like I had always had a lot of abuse
Speaker 6: and nasty content coming at me there because I'm a
Speaker 6: woman who deigned to open my mouth on the internet,
Speaker 6: but it got measurably worse since Elon Musk took over.
Speaker 4: He fired most of the trust and safety staff.
Speaker 6: He fired people who were looking at human rights abuses
Speaker 6: around the world and making sure that the platform was
Speaker 6: safe for dissidence and opposition figures around world. And he's
Speaker 6: incentivized the sort of outrageous behavior that was always again
Speaker 6: on the fringes. Now that's the stuff that people get
Speaker 6: paid for on the platform. And I've just kind of
Speaker 6: returned to Twitter to poke the bear in some ways,
Speaker 6: to kind of talk about what we're doing and show
Speaker 6: that you know, it's still a problem. And I'm shocked
Speaker 6: at how bad the platform is now. And there have
Speaker 6: been a lot of studies, including by ccdch who famously
Speaker 6: Musk tried to sue and got his wrist slapped, actually
Speaker 6: risk slapped, as.
Speaker 4: I think a little too nice for what happened to
Speaker 4: him in court.
Speaker 1: He tried to sue them, and he also tried to
Speaker 1: sue made matters.
Speaker 6: Right, yeah, exactly, and and he to my knowledge, did
Speaker 6: not prevail in either case. And in the CCD I
Speaker 6: really got his ass kicked, and rightly so, right like,
Speaker 6: these are researchers looking at the harmful effects of this
Speaker 6: platform online and he's tried to make it into a
Speaker 6: monetized hate braid and that's sad. However, I will say
Speaker 6: it's nice to have a little bit more in the
Speaker 6: in the social media space, like a lot of other
Speaker 6: places to try out these messages, places that are a little.
Speaker 4: Bit more civil.
Speaker 6: But these communities have broken up as a result of
Speaker 6: Twitter breaking up, right, So like now it's I would
Speaker 6: say it's not too far off from truth Social or
Speaker 6: some of the other kind of quote unquote free speech platforms.
Speaker 6: Of course, it's only free speech for people that Elon likes.
Speaker 6: If you try to be critical of him, you get
Speaker 6: blocked or kicked off.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about what everybody else is? Where is
Speaker 1: everyone else? Because like they're certainly not on Twitter anymore.
Speaker 1: As someone who's stayed on Twitter, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: by myself a lot of the time.
Speaker 4: You feel like a giant echo, like you get something out.
Speaker 7: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6: I mean I think people some people have gone to threads,
Speaker 6: which I think, you know, has potential but isn't really.
Speaker 4: Very hard to use.
Speaker 1: I say this as someone who doesn't have that much
Speaker 1: trouble using stuff. I have a lot of trouble using that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And it also doesn't have DMS, which for journalists, for
Speaker 6: you know, people we're doing work like the work we're doing.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a feature that's really missing.
Speaker 6: But I will say it's the more civil of kind
Speaker 6: of the alternative platforms. A lot of people are on
Speaker 6: Blue Sky. A lot of the very far left leaning
Speaker 6: folks are on Blue Sky.
Speaker 4: It's a bit weird on there.
Speaker 6: I've been on there a little bit, but I don't
Speaker 6: think they have the user stats that Friends does.
Speaker 4: And then there's a lot of.
Speaker 6: People, especially in kind of the public intellectual side of things,
Speaker 6: really trying hard to make Instagram and TikTok work for them,
Speaker 6: and it's just a really difficult transition to make. And
Speaker 6: I'm struggling with it too, right, like going from techs
Speaker 6: based platform that you fire off while you're standing in
Speaker 6: your kitchen dealing with your snotty toddler, to needing to
Speaker 6: make a fairly well produced video, like I'm not a
Speaker 6: video producer, right, and it takes me a while. So
Speaker 6: I think we've really not regrouped yet. There's hope that
Speaker 6: like little personal communities like what substock offers or other
Speaker 6: newsletters offer, can be a nicer, kinder, gentler Internet, But then,
Speaker 6: of course we hit the whole Nazi scandalack, so I'm
Speaker 6: not sure.
Speaker 4: I think we're still figuring that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true the far right. Are they somewhere where
Speaker 1: we don't know where they are? Or are they still
Speaker 1: on Twitter?
Speaker 4: I think a lot of them are still on Twitter.
Speaker 6: Obviously, Musk reinstated a lot of the accounts that had
Speaker 6: been banned or had strikes against them earlier on. So
Speaker 6: from what I've seen, there's plenty of far right gathering
Speaker 6: on Twitter, but there's also always been a kind of underground,
Speaker 6: sort of social media layer for fringe groups, not only
Speaker 6: in saying this, like you know the Four Chans and
Speaker 6: eight Coons of the world.
Speaker 4: There's you know, patriots dot Win.
Speaker 6: There's one particular forum that I tend to appear on
Speaker 6: a lot, but is for ops of AR Fifteen's right.
Speaker 4: So like all these little places, and they're they're quite violent.
Speaker 4: That's not where you want to be.
Speaker 6: No, No, that one's whenever I get a notification about that,
Speaker 6: I'm pretty worried. But but there's also kind of groups
Speaker 6: and Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups, And this is something
Speaker 6: I've been warning about for a couple of years, even
Speaker 6: before Twitter was imploding, and it's that we are driving
Speaker 6: people inadvertently into these closed groups and closed areas on
Speaker 6: the Internet where it is hard to understand what they're doing,
Speaker 6: where it is hard to monitor that stuff. And don't
Speaker 6: get me wrong, I believe everybody should have places for
Speaker 6: private communication. But because of this, I hate using this term,
Speaker 6: but Balkanization of the Internet it's making it a lot
Speaker 6: harder for not only researchers like me, but law enforcement
Speaker 6: to respond to this stuff. And I think that's part
Speaker 6: of the reason, you know, the January sixth response was
Speaker 6: not good enough, because we weren't really following to the
Speaker 6: extent that we needed to the conversation online. I mean,
Speaker 6: researchers were, but the government certainly is not up on
Speaker 6: the latest and greatest monitoring technology of this stuff and
Speaker 6: certainly doesn't know like the ebbs and flows of where
Speaker 6: these folks are congregating. So we see some of them
Speaker 6: on Twitter, but I think there's a lot of the
Speaker 6: most worrisome rhetoric is on other places on the Internet
Speaker 6: where it's a little bit more difficult to follow it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so interesting. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Daniel Nickinian is the editor in chief and founder of
Speaker 2: Boltz Magazine.
Speaker 1: Daniel, Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 7: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: There's so much interesting stuff going on, and every day
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about what's happening at
Speaker 1: the state level. So, Arizona is a swing state with
Speaker 1: a bunch of some real lunatic Republicans, still in office.
Speaker 1: That's what I know. At the federal level, right, like
Speaker 1: people like Paul Gosar, like real wackads. So I can
Speaker 1: only imagine. These are the people who put in place
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixty abortion law, right, so I can only
Speaker 1: imagine what's happening at the more granular state level.
Speaker 8: So continue, Well, it's interesting in Arizona because it's the
Speaker 8: state that is extraordinarily important for presidential politics, for federal politics,
Speaker 8: for the US said it, for the White House. The
Speaker 8: more you go down, it's like a nest doll situation
Speaker 8: where the more you go local state, you find more
Speaker 8: and more very important races that are stacking up together.
Speaker 8: I mean, arguably the most important electoral state this fall
Speaker 8: in that sense. And the abortion band that you were
Speaker 8: just mentioned in the eighteen sixty four law that was
Speaker 8: just revived two weeks ago now by the State's court
Speaker 8: has just dramatized that altogether. It's really brought tension around
Speaker 8: the judge races, these referendums, the races for the state Assembly,
Speaker 8: the state Senate, as well as racist for prosecutor, which
Speaker 8: is what I just wrote and wrote about a few
Speaker 8: days ago because I was interested in the people who
Speaker 8: actually would have authority to enforce the eighteen sixty four
Speaker 8: ban and potentially try and bring criminal charges against medical
Speaker 8: providers the state.
Speaker 7: What are their thoughts? Are they going to enforce this?
Speaker 8: And even there they're a huge contrast with prosecutors. Just
Speaker 8: to give you one example, Molly of the extreme on
Speaker 8: the right, there's one county attorney there, which is the
Speaker 8: title for prosecutors who have been part of this lawsuit
Speaker 8: to try and revive the law. And when I reached
Speaker 8: out to their office to ask whether they would prosecute
Speaker 8: individuals or doctors or women honor the law, they referred
Speaker 8: me for my questions to Alliance Defending Freedom, which is
Speaker 8: a religious nonprofit that is involved in all of these
Speaker 8: litigation around the country against abortion. They referred me to
Speaker 8: ADS four questions about whether they would prosecute me.
Speaker 4: What, yeah, explain that to Mary.
Speaker 8: That's a prosecutor's office in Arizona that is refusing to
Speaker 8: take questions from the media about about their policy would
Speaker 8: be about whether medical providers in the county should be concerned,
Speaker 8: and instead is asking me to ask the same question
Speaker 8: to religious organization. It's pretty extreme situation. A lot of
Speaker 8: prosecutors are trying todd of the question, which also is
Speaker 8: a problem, right Like this, this is a simple question,
Speaker 8: what is your approach going to be to this new
Speaker 8: law that is now potentially in your hands, And some
Speaker 8: prosecutors are saying, nope, we will never use this law
Speaker 8: to charge anyone in the state of.
Speaker 1: Arizona, right, which is a crazy place to be with
Speaker 1: the law. Like, I think that what's really important about
Speaker 1: this is it's good that they're not going to prosecute
Speaker 1: people for this because it's insane. But it's more important
Speaker 1: to realize, like this is because the Republicans in the
Speaker 1: judiciary in Arizona and in the State House in Arizona
Speaker 1: are out of their fucking minds.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 1: The decision not to prosecute is because they have to
Speaker 1: do it because this law is so insane. Now, supposedly
Speaker 1: they did just pass or repeal, right that they're going
Speaker 1: to go to the fifteen weeks.
Speaker 8: The state House has passed it at this moment. The
Speaker 8: State Senate hasn't yet, and so we'll see what happens.
Speaker 8: You're right, Even if that it can foreband is repealed,
Speaker 8: other restrictions would still be in placed, which also have
Speaker 8: criminal penalties in them, and so the same sort of
Speaker 8: question who's going to enforce how? I mean, there's just
Speaker 8: so many pieces of that puzzle. So the extent to
Speaker 8: which this has just put all of those decisions at
Speaker 8: the hand of these very, very county based officials is
Speaker 8: very extreme.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what does the election look like there? Who's up
Speaker 1: and how and where and discuss?
Speaker 8: Yeah, pretty much everyone is up in Arizona, just I
Speaker 8: said with the prosecutors. What I was finding in my
Speaker 8: reporting is that the biggest Arizona county Maricopa County, which
Speaker 8: is more than four million people. It's where Phoenix's has
Speaker 8: a prosecutor race with a Democrat who says she will
Speaker 8: never file charges on abortion cases and a Republican named
Speaker 8: Rachel Mitchell, who actually some of you may remember seeing
Speaker 8: on your TV because in twenty eighteen during the Brett
Speaker 8: Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, she was the person who replicans have
Speaker 8: to interrogate Kristen Ford. She was at the time, not
Speaker 8: not yet the county attorney she is now she's running
Speaker 8: for reelection and she's not answering questions on what she
Speaker 8: would do under the law. But then you know, it
Speaker 8: goes all the way, there's all the races for state
Speaker 8: Senate in the state House are up, and if there
Speaker 8: is going to ever be repeal of all of these
Speaker 8: abortion restrictions, it might have to go to the state
Speaker 8: and House and Senate. There also might be a referendum
Speaker 8: ballot that is still not not final, but organizers are
Speaker 8: trying to put a referendum on a ballot to codify
Speaker 8: abortion rates. Now, we have seen referendums like that succeed
Speaker 8: right we know Ohio last year, in many other states,
Speaker 8: so that would obviously be the defining election.
Speaker 7: I think in November in a Marico about.
Speaker 1: When do we know if the abortion referendum will make
Speaker 1: it on the ballot.
Speaker 7: We will know that in coming months.
Speaker 8: The organizers have already succeeded at collecting the required number
Speaker 8: of signatures, but my understanding is that they want to
Speaker 8: continue collecting them just to make sure they're Hey, there's
Speaker 8: a lot of surprises, but Mali. What's also super important
Speaker 8: is that there's always lawsuits around amendments initiatives in Arizona,
Speaker 8: and they often go to the state Supreme Court, and
Speaker 8: the state Supreme Court has struck down referendums in the past.
Speaker 7: As as not relevant.
Speaker 8: And the State Supreme Court obviously is the same state
Speaker 8: Supreme Court that just revived the eighteen sixty four man.
Speaker 8: And what's super important, two of the judges on the
Speaker 8: state Supreme Court are also on the ballot in November.
Speaker 8: They both actually voted to revive the eighteen sixty four man,
Speaker 8: and they will both be in the ballot in November.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 8: A final note, which is maybe the single craziest part,
Speaker 8: Republicans are also trying to pass a measure right now
Speaker 8: that would end elections for judges in Arizona and would
Speaker 8: apply to this year. So they're also trying to pass
Speaker 8: that right now.
Speaker 1: So they want to be kings, right, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the thinking here.
Speaker 8: That measure would also be put on the ballot if
Speaker 8: Republicans succeed, and it will be such such an intense
Speaker 8: election with not just abortion but also the re election
Speaker 8: of people who revived the abortion man and also this
Speaker 8: measure to end elections.
Speaker 7: It's really a state to watch throughout here.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's more than a state to watch. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an example of the Republicans' anti democratic leanings.
Speaker 8: Right to that point, there's a lot of other measures
Speaker 8: Republicans have already put on the ballot to limit voting
Speaker 8: rights in the state of Arizona and to make it
Speaker 8: harder for people to put bad initiatives and qualify them.
Speaker 7: That is already on the ballot. So there's already already these.
Speaker 8: Measures to restrict elections, restrict voting rights that are already
Speaker 8: being pushed through in Arizona right now, and it's all
Speaker 8: coming to a head. We have seen it in other states,
Speaker 8: like in North Carolina, in Wisconsin, how hard it can
Speaker 8: be for measures like that to be recovered from. It
Speaker 8: can take a very long time for the conditions to
Speaker 8: be right for some of that stuff to be rolled back.
Speaker 1: So voters really need to focus, right.
Speaker 8: I mean, there's going to be a lot on their ballots.
Speaker 8: I mean I just named four or five referendums that
Speaker 8: are that are going to be on their ballot, including
Speaker 8: potentially abortioning sot in voting rights. There's going to be
Speaker 8: so many local offices, some of which you know, the
Speaker 8: stakes are horrid, right Like when you see a prosecutor
Speaker 8: race as one of the twenty elections to vote for,
Speaker 8: or a judge race, you might not necessarily know what
Speaker 8: who these people are there isn't even a party that
Speaker 8: is going to be on the ballot. On the judge elections,
Speaker 8: you won't necessarily know that these are the people who
Speaker 8: voted to revue abortion bands. So there's just a lot
Speaker 8: of research to be done on any election by voters
Speaker 8: to get to the stakes.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what other states you're watching and
Speaker 1: one other stuff is happening besides Arizona, which now has
Speaker 1: given me an anxiety attack.
Speaker 8: Maybe let's talk about state courts for a moment, because
Speaker 8: obviously Arizona is responsible, the court is responsible for the ban,
Speaker 8: and then it's itself on the ballot. But that is
Speaker 8: also true in many states. You know, if at the
Speaker 8: federal level the Uspreme Court is not up for election,
Speaker 8: but at the state level in most states it is
Speaker 8: that we're seeing the majority of states have elections this
Speaker 8: year where their court. Often these are the most tricky
Speaker 8: elections to figure out because a judges record is not
Speaker 8: heavily reported, it's hard to piece together. So at both side,
Speaker 8: I did a guide to every state's court races. There's
Speaker 8: very important stakes in so many, so I will start
Speaker 8: with naming Ohio and Michigan as the two states where
Speaker 8: a partisan majority could flip, and that has very high
Speaker 8: implications if it does. For issues like abortion, issues like
Speaker 8: voting rights, it matters so much whether the majority on
Speaker 8: the court is republic on democratics. So in Ohio, Democrats
Speaker 8: have a shot at flipping the court, and in Michigan,
Speaker 8: Republicans are hoping to flip the court. Even beyond that,
Speaker 8: if you're in North Carolina, if you're in Mississippi, there's
Speaker 8: all these interesting judge elections that could shape the balance
Speaker 8: of power.
Speaker 7: And in fact, I'll end on Florida to.
Speaker 8: Say that, just as in Arizona, there are two to
Speaker 8: Supreme Court justices in Arizona who voted to ban abortion
Speaker 8: who are now on the ballot, the same is true
Speaker 8: in Florida. There are true justices who in March voted
Speaker 8: to uphold the abortion band who are now going to
Speaker 8: be also up for retention election in November. So you know,
Speaker 8: the stakes are actually quite similar. Abortion voting rets are
Speaker 8: coming up everywhere, and they're going to be under the
Speaker 8: radar of their presidential election, but they might also shape
Speaker 8: the presidential election because these are the people who will
Speaker 8: be called on to issue decisions in November and December.
Speaker 8: If Trump tries to contest an election, for instance, tell
Speaker 8: me what else to take what I was saying about
Speaker 8: Arizona elsewhere. There's going to be abortion referendums in a
Speaker 8: lot of places. Again, the most important probably is going
Speaker 8: to be Florida because of the conditions there and the
Speaker 8: abortion ban that is going into place. There's also a
Speaker 8: referendum in November to lift the abortion ban. Now, now,
Speaker 8: the issue in Florida for abortion rights proponents almost always
Speaker 8: win at the ballot box, right, This is there's not
Speaker 8: a controversial.
Speaker 4: Issue sixty percent.
Speaker 8: Is that there's a threshold of sixty percent, and that
Speaker 8: is not easy. That is not easy to meet, especially
Speaker 8: if there's any organized opposition. I mean, the fact that
Speaker 8: it's even possible, the fact that it's still a realistic
Speaker 8: possibility to abortion rights clear sixty percent in Florida just
Speaker 8: just gets just really captures the basic point that this
Speaker 8: is not a controversial position. These bands are extremely popular, right,
Speaker 8: and there's still a shot for bortion rights to get
Speaker 8: sixty percent for sure. There's also a measure in Florida
Speaker 8: to legalize weed in November, which is also an issue
Speaker 8: that has passed fairly easily around the country.
Speaker 1: There are these ballot initiatives, there are these judgeship races.
Speaker 1: What's happening in this sort of in the Ross belt
Speaker 1: in the Michigan Wisconsin area.
Speaker 4: Is there anything like that? Can you talk to us?
Speaker 8: The stakes really, I think in the rost Beelt in
Speaker 8: the Midwest, but also around the country when it comes
Speaker 8: to state politics is who is going to control Obviously
Speaker 8: the state governments, so you know, the state Senates and
Speaker 8: state houses in almost every state are on the ballot
Speaker 8: every two years, so they will be again on the
Speaker 8: ballot in November. So, for instance, let's take the state
Speaker 8: of Michigan that Democrats just won full control of Michigan
Speaker 8: for the first time since the eighties in twenty twenty
Speaker 8: two in the midterms, we know, which was already a huge,
Speaker 8: huge win for Democrats because it wasn't supposed to be
Speaker 8: a good year for them with the Democratic White House,
Speaker 8: and they gained full control of Michigan.
Speaker 7: And they've done actually a lot with that power.
Speaker 8: They've passed on an issue that I cover closely, They've
Speaker 8: passed a lot of voting rights bill to strengthen voting
Speaker 8: rights in Michigan, a lot of stuff that hadn't been
Speaker 8: able to pass for so long, and now the majorities
Speaker 8: that Democrats gained in twenty twenty two are are going
Speaker 8: to be up in twenty twenty four. Are Democrats going
Speaker 8: to be able to keep control of the state government
Speaker 8: in Michigan? You know, cool questions like that are primordial
Speaker 8: in Wisconsin. Oh, Wisconsin is so important because it's going
Speaker 8: to be the first election in so long for state
Speaker 8: Senate and State House that are not going to be
Speaker 8: under their gerrymanders because the state Supreme Court to connect
Speaker 8: all the dots what we're talking about. When Liberals gained
Speaker 8: the States Court in Wisconsin last year, they promptly struck
Speaker 8: down the gerrymandered maps that are locked in the GOP
Speaker 8: into power in Wisconsin for a long time. And this
Speaker 8: is going to be the first election in Wisconsin that
Speaker 8: is going to follow that that is going to have
Speaker 8: fairer maps. So are Democrats going to be able potentially
Speaker 8: to take back the State Senate ord the State House?
Speaker 8: At the very least, they should be able to make
Speaker 8: large gains in both chambers, which is going to also
Speaker 8: change the state a lot. That's you know, we're seeing
Speaker 8: that kind of dynamic everywhere. A last example in North Carolina.
Speaker 8: It's sort of an inverse situation. It's such an important state,
Speaker 8: it's a large state. So there's two things to watch there.
Speaker 8: I think one is the Republican nominee for God you know,
Speaker 8: is as fortunately.
Speaker 7: Right as you get at this typele of politics.
Speaker 8: He had made comments about whether women should have the
Speaker 8: right to vote.
Speaker 1: He is the lieutenant governor, right, he.
Speaker 8: Is right now, the lieutenant governor, correct, And he's running
Speaker 8: against the ag Josh Stein, who's a Democrat. So that's
Speaker 8: one right, that's who's going to occupy the governor's mentioned.
Speaker 7: The second is the State House and State Senate. Why
Speaker 7: because the sitt Supme Court actually flipped the GOP last
Speaker 7: year and blessed GOP jerry manders, and Republicans have passed
Speaker 7: new maps as well in North Carolina. For for Congress,
Speaker 7: Republicans are hoping to keep super majorities that they have
Speaker 7: in North Carolina. Again, huge huge impact on all sorts
Speaker 7: of issues, in footing abortion because Republicans just passed major
Speaker 7: restrictions on abortion in North Carolina over the veto of
Speaker 7: the current governor. It's so important to keep an eye
Speaker 7: on governor's races and State House state Senate races all
Speaker 7: over the country with all all of these states to watch, so.
Speaker 1: Really interesting staff, So the judgeships, the state houses, the
Speaker 1: state Senate. Is there any other state where we should
Speaker 1: be thinking about that's important? Besides, all the states are important,
Speaker 1: but where there's like small races that nobody is paying
Speaker 1: attention to, what I.
Speaker 8: Will throw on the radar of people is you know,
Speaker 8: I think earlier you said that I gave you an
Speaker 8: anxiety attack, So I'm gonna I'm going to lean back
Speaker 8: in that direction.
Speaker 1: No, that's okay, it's me.
Speaker 7: It's nice law enforcement offices, Molly.
Speaker 8: We don't necessarily think of them as like the center
Speaker 8: of all of these important left right struggles. But the
Speaker 8: Trump camp and the far right in general has found
Speaker 8: a lot of support among sheriff's offices around the country.
Speaker 8: There's a lot of our Right Connections conferences even that
Speaker 8: these officials attend, and they also are on the ballots.
Speaker 8: So in states like Arizona, again, in states like Kansas
Speaker 8: and states like Wisconsin, you know, we are watching there
Speaker 8: these elections at the county level for sheriff and whether
Speaker 8: some people who are affiliated with these far right groups
Speaker 8: are going to win reelection this year. You know, there's
Speaker 8: been more attention in recent years, I think on the
Speaker 8: left among Democrats around these offices, around sheriffs, and we
Speaker 8: have seen some very high profile people on the far
Speaker 8: right loose. But we're also seen a lot more attention
Speaker 8: I think on the right to connect the dots between
Speaker 8: these sheriffs and invite them to conferences and pluck up
Speaker 8: talk to them about investigating elections and investigating abortion.
Speaker 7: So we're also seeing a lot of that.
Speaker 4: Pretty scary.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 7: Us, Thank you so much for having me. It's always fun.
Speaker 1: No more.
Speaker 4: Jesse can drag fast.
Speaker 9: You know, Republicans have a long history of some dubious
Speaker 9: things with dogs coming up into presidential races, but this
Speaker 9: one is pretty disgusting this time. I think it tops
Speaker 9: the wall.
Speaker 10: Christy Nome makes Mitt Romney look like James Harriet. Oh boy,
Speaker 10: she wrote a memoir. She probably didn't actually write it.
Speaker 10: Someone wrote a memoir for her which included a story
Speaker 10: of her killing both a dog and a goat. She
Speaker 10: included these stories because she's a moron, and because she
Speaker 10: forgot that the American there's one thing the American people love,
Speaker 10: it's dogs.
Speaker 9: And also goats, and then would she decided to make
Speaker 9: her statement on it. She admitted to killing three horses.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she is our moment of fuck Ray. That's
Speaker 1: it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
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Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.