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 Donald Trump says there could be
Speaker 1: a little economic disruption. We have such a great show
Speaker 1: for you today. We have the Lincoln Projects own Rick
Speaker 1: Wilson talking about the infighting in Trump's White House.
Speaker 2: Plus we'll have a bonus from our YouTube channel where
Speaker 2: Molly interviews American Federation with Teachers President Randy Weingarten about
Speaker 2: Trump's attacks on teachers.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Amanda Zarowski about the consequences, the
Speaker 1: life threatening consequences of Texas's strict abortion bans, even in
Speaker 1: the case of an inevitable miscarriage.
Speaker 2: But first the news, So Malli, Trump will not resume
Speaker 2: Ukraine military aid after just signing an order to send
Speaker 2: many billions more of military aid to Israel. So this
Speaker 2: whole Trump's a peaceful president compared to the Democrats. It's
Speaker 2: a little silly, I think again.
Speaker 1: The point here is that he did not use Congress.
Speaker 1: Congress is supposed to do this, right. Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: not supposed to decide where the money goes. He's not
Speaker 1: a king, right, Kings decide where the money goes. He
Speaker 1: and his top aids are claiming credit for a massive
Speaker 1: weapon deal with the Biden administration's approval in its final days.
Speaker 1: They're saying that that was them. In announcing the latest
Speaker 1: deal that skirted congressional review, the Secretary of State Marco
Speaker 1: Rubio claimed that the US administration had approved nearly twelve
Speaker 1: billion in new weapons to Israel just six weeks into
Speaker 1: Trump's second term. Now look again with all of this,
Speaker 1: what you see is Donald Trump not using the channels
Speaker 1: he's supposed to, right, not legislating, picking the winners and
Speaker 1: the losers, right, deciding that weapons will go to Israel
Speaker 1: and weapons won't go to Ukraine. This is not how
Speaker 1: any of this is supposed to work. Congress is supposed
Speaker 1: to allocate funds, Congress is suppose to decide where weapons go.
Speaker 1: Congress should have the power of the purse, not Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: What Donald Trump has done, and this was part of
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five, We talked about this a lot.
Speaker 1: What he did was he decided that, you know, the
Speaker 1: brain trust, and some of these people are quite smart,
Speaker 1: which is how we got here in the Heritage Foundation universe,
Speaker 1: decided that they would use this congressional impoundment, and they
Speaker 1: would dole out the dollars, not as how Congress tells
Speaker 1: them to do it, but how they wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: And this was something Nixon did and there was legislation
Speaker 1: passed after Nixon to prevent this from happening again. And
Speaker 1: Donald Trump would really like to bring this to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court because he can do math and he thinks
Speaker 1: that he has a six to three Supreme Court, which
Speaker 1: on a lot of things he has. And the question
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see more of is does
Speaker 1: he have a six to three Supreme Court, which he
Speaker 1: very much might, or does he have more of a
Speaker 1: five to four Supreme Court. Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett.
Speaker 1: Are they maybe knocking a rubber stamp everything Donald Trump does,
Speaker 1: because we know Gorsicic and keg stand Kavanaugh will sign
Speaker 1: out on anything. Alito and Thomas they're basically Fox News
Speaker 1: hosts at this point. So the question really is will
Speaker 1: the sort of two sane conservatives and that, by the way,
Speaker 1: it's all relative, will they say that Donald Trump cannot
Speaker 1: be a king? And the answer is none of.
Speaker 3: Us know, nope.
Speaker 2: Speaking of his king like aggressions of silence, saying everyone
Speaker 2: he disagrees with CBS is pushing back against him in
Speaker 2: a lawsuit.
Speaker 1: We should all be thrilled that there are some iota
Speaker 1: of bravery. One of the worse things to happen to
Speaker 1: American democracy since Jim Crow is the billionaires who immediately
Speaker 1: when Trump came into office again just rolled over and
Speaker 1: decided they were going to do whatever he said. Were
Speaker 1: some media outlets that did that too. But the good news,
Speaker 1: and this is actually really important because every time someone
Speaker 1: stands up to Trump, Trump gets weaker, and every time
Speaker 1: someone rolls over to Trump, Trump gets stronger. And so
Speaker 1: here we have Paramount CBS's para company filing two motions
Speaker 1: on Thursday. By the way, part of these lawsuits is
Speaker 1: just to scare people, to silence them, to get them afraid,
Speaker 1: to make them think that somehow they are going to
Speaker 1: be able to control the media, control the narrative. So
Speaker 1: this is very good. They're going to push back. They're
Speaker 1: probably going to win, because this is how the first
Speaker 1: amenent works, unless they repeal the New York Times VI Sullivant,
Speaker 1: which we're not going to talk about right now.
Speaker 2: No, but I will tell you what we will talk
Speaker 2: about two weeks ago, we had Governor Walls on our
Speaker 2: debut on YouTube and started a conversation about some of
Speaker 2: the things that he did not think We're done well
Speaker 2: on the presidential campaign he was part of. And he's
Speaker 2: continued that conversation as some interesting things to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Walls, I really like Walls, and we have
Speaker 1: been a bit friendly and I've talked to him and
Speaker 1: I think that he is in the most genteel way
Speaker 1: he possibly can, trying to push back against some of
Speaker 1: the things that made Harris and again Harris one hundred days.
Speaker 1: None of this is on Harris, and a lot of
Speaker 1: this is the legacy of Biden world and made Biden
Speaker 1: lose and made Biden's pulling so bad. Part of it
Speaker 1: was the consulting class around Biden and later Harris is
Speaker 1: terrified of doing anything because they are incentivized to just
Speaker 1: do nothing, which is why they lose. So Walls said
Speaker 1: something hardly controversial, We shouldn't have played this thing so safe,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent true. Anyone in the world would say this.
Speaker 1: In fact, they were scared of their own shadow. They
Speaker 1: didn't push back against any of the lies. And so
Speaker 1: while Donald Trump was running these ads that said crazy
Speaker 1: stuff that wasn't true. Voters were you know, they didn't.
Speaker 1: There was no pushback, so they just went along with it.
Speaker 1: They believed it. But I think the worst part of
Speaker 1: this story is that in a statement, a Harris advisor
Speaker 1: granted anonymity to speak candidly. Okay, this person is given anonymity, okay,
Speaker 1: so they are not identified to speak candidly in their
Speaker 1: candid speaking, they say, And by the way, no one
Speaker 1: should get fucking anonymity for something that stupid. It's like
Speaker 1: a press release. In the shortest presidential campaign and modern history,
Speaker 1: Vice President Harrison Governor Walls put forward a vision of
Speaker 1: the future that prioritized the health, safety, and prosperity of
Speaker 1: the American people. She is proud to have chosen Governor
Speaker 1: Walls as her running mate and earned the vote of
Speaker 1: seventy five million Americans. This is why Democrats lose. Why
Speaker 1: would you need anonymity for this? Sign your fucking name. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I think I could tell you why they need anonimity
Speaker 2: for it, because this is exactly the type of shit
Speaker 2: that made them and not have a good message.
Speaker 3: Yeah, weak, bullshit.
Speaker 1: Week, bullshit baby week, bullshit. You don't need anonymity for
Speaker 1: a press release. You're welcome, Somali.
Speaker 2: If I was the editor of a news organization, one
Speaker 2: of the first things I would just do is, as
Speaker 2: I would listen to Trump to a State of the
Speaker 2: Union speech, I would just assign a fact check to
Speaker 2: each of his things, because you're just gonna win the day.
Speaker 2: Would you dig a little deeper on the bullshit examples
Speaker 2: they use of all the things that are rotting America
Speaker 2: that mister Trump complains about. And I'm going to shock you,
Speaker 2: but where there's smoke, there's fire.
Speaker 1: Speak for yourself. Baby. This is like when I saw
Speaker 1: that poor kid with cancer and they were like, this
Speaker 1: is DJ Daniel. DJ Daniels, a thirteen year old from
Speaker 1: Texas with diagnosed with brain cancer. By the way, and
Speaker 1: this is like my thing with Elon right. They're cut
Speaker 1: letting children's cancer research. This is what they're doing. So
Speaker 1: here we go. Trump honored a cancer survivor. You'll be
Speaker 1: shocked to hear the boys doctors now face his budget cuts. Okay,
Speaker 1: the medical school faculty that helped treat him facing potentially
Speaker 1: devastating federal funding cuts. Of course they are, because that
Speaker 1: is like peque Donald Trump, right, they honor the kid,
Speaker 1: They're like, we want to honor you DJ and also
Speaker 1: make it impossible for kids here. So this is Baylor
Speaker 1: College of Medicine, famous Texas University. They are cutting Texas
Speaker 1: Children's Hospital. That the hematology center is going to face
Speaker 1: budget cuts. By the way, you'll be shocked to hear that.
Speaker 1: They are also cutting EPA right, the Environmental defense right.
Speaker 1: So they are cutting the government agencies that keep cancer
Speaker 1: causing chemicals out of the water. They're cutting that too.
Speaker 1: So here's what's going to happen. More childhood cancer, you know,
Speaker 1: more kids getting cancer, less kids getting treatment for cancer,
Speaker 1: and all to pay for a tax cut for Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and
Speaker 1: the host of the Enemy's List, Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Rick Wilson, Lollie junk Fast. How are you this fine day?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Just live in the dream. So I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the recession.
Speaker 3: That we're now.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it was a tumultuous week.
Speaker 3: For the Could you speak more precise please, It's the
Speaker 3: Biden session. It was all his fault. He secretly still
Speaker 3: controls every aspect of government and Joe Biden launched an
Speaker 3: insane trade war. I mean, and no one would have
Speaker 3: thought to do that except the demonic mastermind of the
Speaker 3: deep state, Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: I mean, We're down such a fucking rabbit hole. I
Speaker 1: don't even know. Like, I feel like the one bright
Speaker 1: spot is Marco fighting with Elon fighting Wisdy Bannon. Like
Speaker 1: everything is bad except that that is kind of fun.
Speaker 3: You know, stupid people do stupid things to other stupid people.
Speaker 1: I don't think Steve Bannon is stupid.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, no. What I'm saying is right now.
Speaker 3: Trump has a symbol a cabinet of people who are not,
Speaker 3: as they say, being sent by the best. Yes, and
Speaker 3: most of these people. Look, I will say this having
Speaker 3: known Marco, Marco is not stupid now, but he has
Speaker 3: put himself in a situation where he is governed by
Speaker 3: a stupid man.
Speaker 1: And it's unwinnable.
Speaker 3: Right. There is no circumstance where Marco wakes up in
Speaker 3: the morning and says, Okay, I have control over my department.
Speaker 3: If Elon wakes up with a heart on one day
Speaker 3: goes I'm going to cut out all you know, all
Speaker 3: diplomatic efforts in Africa or whatever, he says. You know, yeah,
Speaker 3: the stupidity level is is rocking. I want you to
Speaker 3: have only air trafficking is only from my tea, their genesus.
Speaker 1: So basically what we have here is big reporting from
Speaker 1: the New York Times on Thursday. By the way, like
Speaker 1: I understand that a lot of people are mad at
Speaker 1: the New York Times for any number of reasons, and
Speaker 1: I get it, and I'm not saying that you can't
Speaker 1: be mad at them, but this reporting is unrecking believable,
Speaker 1: and we wouldn't have it if it weren't for people
Speaker 1: like Maggie and Swann who know how to do this.
Speaker 3: Look, the idea that every story in The New York
Speaker 3: Times has to conform to the fantasy of the resistance
Speaker 3: is wrong, And the fact is that vital reporting is
Speaker 3: going to come out.
Speaker 1: And we need this right in part.
Speaker 3: Because people like Jonathan and Maggie and others from the
Speaker 3: Times and elsewhere go and do the ass kissing and
Speaker 3: the sucking up and the horrible shit you have to
Speaker 3: do to function in that world. And while I don't
Speaker 3: love all of it.
Speaker 1: It's keeping democracy going. Knowing what's happening in the government.
Speaker 3: Now. We might not know that as much with Jeff
Speaker 3: Bezos's Weekly, you know, Tiger Beat for Donald Trump stuff.
Speaker 1: But the Washington Post still does really good at reporting
Speaker 1: and pro publica.
Speaker 3: Oh look, listen, listen. I will say this, and I
Speaker 3: say there's literally a couple hours ago to somebody. Look,
Speaker 3: the Post still has a lot of good reporters. Is
Speaker 3: in a bad spot right now.
Speaker 1: But they're doing good reporting. I mean, it's just the
Speaker 1: editorial page is going to be I mean, this is
Speaker 1: like the problem with the Wall Street Journal too, right.
Speaker 1: The reporting in the Wall Street Journal is second to none.
Speaker 1: The editorial page has brainworms, and that's what we're going
Speaker 1: to have at the Washington Post.
Speaker 3: Probably, yes, brainworms, is it?
Speaker 1: The thing that's interesting about the Wall Street Journal editorial
Speaker 1: page is when they don't rubber stand trump Ism, you're
Speaker 1: kind of shocked, right, So when they're like, maybe we
Speaker 1: shouldn't go to war with Canada, I think this is
Speaker 1: a very kind of scary moment. I mean, in my mind,
Speaker 1: like one party is completely untethered to reality and is
Speaker 1: just going along with whatever Donald Trump wants. And you know,
Speaker 1: he is an Autocrat, and what he wants is no
Speaker 1: checks and balances for him, and you know he's being
Speaker 1: aided by the richest man of the world. It's not
Speaker 1: a great moment.
Speaker 3: No, it's not a great moment. There are tensions in
Speaker 3: that moment. There are uglinesses in that moment. And do
Speaker 3: I wish we had more people who could fight it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: of course, but right now we really don't, and so
Speaker 3: we have to fight with the army we've got, not
Speaker 3: the one we want at the.
Speaker 1: Moment, right I mean, the good news is if we're
Speaker 1: gonna like go for good news, which I happen to have.
Speaker 1: You know, I always think about, like what are my biases,
Speaker 1: And one of my biases is that I like good news.
Speaker 1: One of the pieces of good news that we have
Speaker 1: is that this crew does not get along super well
Speaker 1: with each other.
Speaker 3: Imagine how that could have been.
Speaker 1: And we saw this in trump one point. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: part of trump Ism is making the people around you fight.
Speaker 1: The good news is that that is an unsustainable model.
Speaker 3: Look the degree to which Trump's people have always eaten
Speaker 3: one another. It occurs not only because he picks terrible people,
Speaker 3: but because that's what he wants. He enjoys watching them
Speaker 3: carry other part right, he loves Fight Club, he loves
Speaker 3: he loves Marco and Elon Scrapping and Sean Duffy and
Speaker 3: Elon Scrapping. Elon's problems at the moment are going to
Speaker 3: grow more pronounced over time, in part because he has
Speaker 3: been the pet for the last few months. But you
Speaker 3: can only be the pet with Trump for so long.
Speaker 3: And as rich as Elon is, Trump is beginning to
Speaker 3: sense that Elon is costing him money and political capital,
Speaker 3: and that political capital has got to be restored somehow.
Speaker 3: And Trump, as we know in the past, will sell
Speaker 3: down anybody up to and including family members.
Speaker 1: Yes, we've seen.
Speaker 3: And if you think Elon is going to get a
Speaker 3: free pass, when when? When When Jared Devaka did, Don
Speaker 3: Jingior didn't. I just I think that's a misapprehension. Now. Look,
Speaker 3: is Elon tremendously powerful inside the Trump organization and government
Speaker 3: run absolutely does does anything last forever with Trump? No,
Speaker 3: and often he often he finds people who are doing
Speaker 3: a good job and knocks them down a notch just
Speaker 3: to show them that he can.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I think that's right, and I think we're
Speaker 1: going to probably see a fair amount of that as
Speaker 1: we go through this and look, if you look at
Speaker 1: I always say, like, the most useful indicator of Trump
Speaker 1: two point oh is Trump one point oh. Right, so
Speaker 1: Trump one point oh. We saw a lot of things
Speaker 1: like Steve Bannon was in the Trump White House, remember.
Speaker 3: That, and then he became sloppy Steve or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: And there will be a day where Trump decides one
Speaker 3: of these guys has to go. It will be a
Speaker 3: day where where that person suddenly and Elon may be
Speaker 3: the hardest of these to do, but suddenly it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: they weren't really important. I barely knew so and so
Speaker 3: he was a coffee boy. He I guess he did
Speaker 3: a couple things in the campaign. The verb I believe
Speaker 3: is to Papadopolis.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, we all remember him from season one.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's so bizarre about the sad
Speaker 1: Man is that Trump has has this rule that he
Speaker 1: won't put people in the jobs they had last time,
Speaker 1: because I guess it's boring for the studio audience, But
Speaker 1: there are a ton of really competent people dying to
Speaker 1: go into that White House anyway.
Speaker 3: Well, and even some of the people that they thought
Speaker 3: were going to be normies to wit Scott Bessant have
Speaker 3: turned out to not be normies. And you know, I
Speaker 3: think best and I think that statement last week, like
Speaker 3: inexpensive goods are not part of the American dream, Well,
Speaker 3: they need to be part of the American dream. But
Speaker 3: you want to go and tell that to a middle
Speaker 3: class mom who's in Target shopping for groceries for a kid,
Speaker 3: or some are closed for a kid.
Speaker 1: What's why they elected him, right? I mean, it may
Speaker 1: not be the American dream, but it was as much
Speaker 1: as the man had a mandate, it was that to
Speaker 1: make egg prices.
Speaker 3: Cheaper exactly, and none of that stuff has transpired, and
Speaker 3: people are legitimately even in mango world. Look, it's not
Speaker 3: that they're sick of Trump. I don't think they can
Speaker 3: get sick of Trump. I think that's genetically wired into
Speaker 3: them now. But they are tired of the chaos. They
Speaker 3: don't like the noise and the uncertainty, and they don't
Speaker 3: like the sense. And I think it's a correct sense
Speaker 3: that Trump and Elon are doing things that are hurting veterans,
Speaker 3: that are hurting people out in the States, that are
Speaker 3: leading to people losing their jobs, and for all of
Speaker 3: the government is this large and complicated thing. There's a
Speaker 3: part of this that comes down to a simple fact
Speaker 3: that a certain percentage of people in government are going
Speaker 3: to be maga voters. And the idea that nobody gets
Speaker 3: hurt in.
Speaker 1: This is absurd, right, No, And the idea and I
Speaker 1: mean I don't want to like harken back to things
Speaker 1: that actually happened, but this Congress, right, we're like careening
Speaker 1: towards the government shutdown that no one seems interested in,
Speaker 1: but still is imminent, right unless they figure it out.
Speaker 1: What's happening in this government shutdown world is that they
Speaker 1: we signed a resolution that said that they're going to
Speaker 1: cut eight hundred and eighty billion dollars. The whole idea
Speaker 1: of dog is that somehow they're going to find eight
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars of fraud somewhere and not have to
Speaker 1: cut any programs. But the reality is there's no world
Speaker 1: in which that's true.
Speaker 3: There is a fantasy in which there's eight hundred billion
Speaker 3: dollars of fraud wasted abuse hidden away in government, and
Speaker 3: those eight hundred billion dollars of fraud wasted abuse are
Speaker 3: somehow just waiting there for the taking, And it's just
Speaker 3: a lie, it's just a fantasy world.
Speaker 1: But they know this, right. I mean, like there is
Speaker 1: no way that Mike Johnson doesn't understand that there's not
Speaker 1: eight hundred billion dollars in fraud, waste and abuse. So
Speaker 1: I mean this is just a setup to be able
Speaker 1: to cut medicaid.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, look all of it, All of this is
Speaker 3: about cutting medicaid. Every bit of this is about cutting
Speaker 3: cutting Medicaid. And look, there is a really ugly underpinning
Speaker 3: to a lot of the stuff with Elon and all
Speaker 3: these weirdos of we're going to take out the useless
Speaker 3: eaters and we're going to restore government so we can
Speaker 3: pay for our tax cut, which will be a wonderland
Speaker 3: of infinite pleasures. And the problem is every day that
Speaker 3: passes with DOGE, we're learning more and more that they're
Speaker 3: not finding tens of billions of dollars of fraud. They're
Speaker 3: finding a handful of programs here and there, a.
Speaker 1: Lot of which have been cut under Bush that.
Speaker 3: Were already cut or canceled as long as ten or
Speaker 3: twelve years ago. And programs then as much as you
Speaker 3: can get like a breathless little news hit on Fox
Speaker 3: or something that mostly these things are pretty popular, or
Speaker 3: they do things that are not what the Trump world
Speaker 3: claims that they do. I mean the transgenic mice thing,
Speaker 3: you know, where I don't want to blabor it because
Speaker 3: it was so stupid. But a lot of the things
Speaker 3: that they can get, like a little microscopic Fox News
Speaker 3: outrage hit, just aren't meaningful. They just aren't real.
Speaker 1: Premise of doge is that you're going to to find
Speaker 1: this fraud, waste and abuse, right, and that in itself
Speaker 1: is not unpopular. But the problem is there isn't fraud,
Speaker 1: waste and abuse at the scale in order to make
Speaker 1: it cutting it a game changer. Now that said, if
Speaker 1: you define fraud, waste and abuse as social programs you
Speaker 1: don't like, well that's a different story, right.
Speaker 3: And look what is it they don't like. You know,
Speaker 3: we've talked about it before. It's the Willly Sutton rule.
Speaker 3: You got to go where the money is. And if
Speaker 3: they really want to have this massive set of cuts
Speaker 3: in government that lead them to the ability to fund
Speaker 3: even a fraction of this ten trillion dollar tax cut, okay,
Speaker 3: they are going to have to cut Medicare, Medicaid or
Speaker 3: social security or disability. Those are the ones where there
Speaker 3: is real money, where there is real capital to be had.
Speaker 3: But I have a feeling we may have already lost
Speaker 3: the ability on the Trump side of the equation to
Speaker 3: actually drive this giant tax cut through like they did
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen. Oh. Interesting, people are increasingly nervous. People
Speaker 3: aren't increasingly unhappy. They are increasingly feeling like elected electeds. Yes,
Speaker 3: they're worried that they're going to go home to their
Speaker 3: district and have to say, yeah, by the way, sorry
Speaker 3: about the fact that I cut the National Park Service
Speaker 3: and there's dysentery breaking out because we've killed HHS, and
Speaker 3: there's a measles epidemic. And by the way, we're now
Speaker 3: in a recession because Trump didn't think what would happen
Speaker 3: when Elon fired five hundred thousand government employees in the Washington,
Speaker 3: DC metro area. Sorry about all that. By the way,
Speaker 3: can I just let you know I'm getting Elon, Bezos
Speaker 3: and Zuckerberg a massive tax cut because they really need it.
Speaker 3: Our struggling mom and pop billionaires really.
Speaker 1: Need But here's the question. Right, certainly we've seen some
Speaker 1: evidence this, Right, we saw this Republican last week from
Speaker 1: the NRCC saying that maybe you shouldn't hold in person
Speaker 1: town halls. And we've seen people protesting TESLA dealerships, but
Speaker 1: we haven't actually seen any set which I mean, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing protests, but we haven't actually seen trump World
Speaker 1: sort of pivot at all. Right, Like it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like Trump understands that none of this is popular.
Speaker 3: Welly, I don't think he can. I think he is
Speaker 3: mentally incapable of changing course now. And I think he
Speaker 3: is mentally incapable of even recognizing that he is on
Speaker 3: a path that can't be sustained. Everybody knows this mentally
Speaker 3: or intellectually. But Donald Trump is not engaged in actual
Speaker 3: negotiations on anything, not on budget stuff, not on the
Speaker 3: tax cut, not on DOGE, not with Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 3: It's all just whatever is in front of his head
Speaker 3: that moment. It's all whatever whatever is going on in
Speaker 3: Trump's brain at that second is what happens. There's nothing
Speaker 3: else there that is based on some sort of sensibility
Speaker 3: or some sort of logic or reasoning. It's just he's
Speaker 3: just making mouth noises.
Speaker 1: We talked about this in one point zero, so then
Speaker 1: game this out for me. What happens here.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I think he's already driven us into a
Speaker 3: recession or a incipient recession. I think the Mark's going
Speaker 3: to punish the last few days brutally. I think the
Speaker 3: markets they're sick of the talk about tariffs. They're sick
Speaker 3: of all the chaos. They don't love the fact that Europe,
Speaker 3: which is a stable, big, nice market for most people,
Speaker 3: is now in the shitter. They don't love the fact
Speaker 3: that we have had a huge breakdown of America's global
Speaker 3: status in the world. They don't like the fact that
Speaker 3: all this stuff in Europe is actually destabilizing the Asian markets,
Speaker 3: which are important for both supply chain and exports out.
Speaker 3: All of it is leading to the point where this
Speaker 3: long sought correction is about to pop us. And when
Speaker 3: it does, I think Trump is going to have a
Speaker 3: hard time again. I was joking about the Biden recession
Speaker 3: in the beginning of this thing, But he's going to
Speaker 3: have a hard time blaming Joe Biden and the Democrats
Speaker 3: for this, given that the last few weeks have been enough.
Speaker 4: Thing.
Speaker 3: But I am God, I am superpowered. No one can
Speaker 3: oppose me.
Speaker 1: But so do you think he backs off on tariff's.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, He's already backed off on tariff. He's already
Speaker 3: given up on tariffs. He may make mouth noises about tariffs,
Speaker 3: he may say things about tariffs, but the reality of
Speaker 3: tariffs is that every time he gets close to the
Speaker 3: ledge with those tariffs, what happens the market's going and
Speaker 3: dump off eight, nine, ten percent of their value. And
Speaker 3: that is something I don't think he can mentally or
Speaker 3: politically afford, and certainly the country can't afford.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Rick Wilson Pally, John fass A pleasure as always.
Speaker 1: Amanda Zarowski is a reproductive rights activist known for her
Speaker 1: role in ensuing the State of Texas in Zorowski versus
Speaker 1: State of Texas. Welcome to Fast Politics, Amanda.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you because I have I watched
Speaker 1: you throughout the campaign talk about your incredibly just traumatic.
Speaker 1: I think traumatic is the only word. Experience that was
Speaker 1: made ten times worse by the abortion bands. Can you,
Speaker 1: in the way that you feel the most comfortable, just
Speaker 1: sort of get us up to speed for the people
Speaker 1: who don't know your story in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: just continually traumatize you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I appreciate you using the word trauma. That's
Speaker 4: exactly what it was, and it was completely preventable and avoidable.
Speaker 4: I mean, at the heart of this, what the experience
Speaker 4: should have been is just the loss of my pregnancy
Speaker 4: that my husband and I desperately wanted. At eighteen weeks
Speaker 4: I was miscarrying. That in and of itself is heartbreaking enough.
Speaker 4: This was a baby we wanted so badly. But her
Speaker 4: heart was still beating. So in Texas, ending the pregnancy,
Speaker 4: even though I was miscarrying and was going to certainly
Speaker 4: lose the baby, she wouldn't be able to survive. My
Speaker 4: doctor couldn't end the pregnancy because it would have been
Speaker 4: considered an abortion, which is illegal in Texas. So I
Speaker 4: had to wait until either her heart stopped beating or
Speaker 4: I met the medical exception in Texas, which is life
Speaker 4: of the mother, And so we had to wait until
Speaker 4: my life was considered at risk, which is what happened
Speaker 4: three days later when I went into septic shock. Fortunately
Speaker 4: I survived, but I spent about a week in the
Speaker 4: hospital and my reproductive organs are permanently compromised as a result.
Speaker 4: And again all of this was avoidable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's funny because you know, I listened
Speaker 1: to your story and I have three children who are
Speaker 1: all very old now. But you know, when you're of
Speaker 1: child bearing age, you go through it right like I mean,
Speaker 1: I had. You know, I had these pregnancies that involved
Speaker 1: all sorts of tests that could have meant this, and
Speaker 1: you know a lot of stuff like that, and you know,
Speaker 1: everyone you know has these just stories about it, and
Speaker 1: I did IVF. But what I'm struck by is like,
Speaker 1: it's actually quite scary to be pregnant. And I found
Speaker 1: it quite scary. I nearly bled out with my twins.
Speaker 1: And so to me, the idea that had you been
Speaker 1: in a normal state, they would have said, you're having
Speaker 1: a miscarriage, let's get this done. Treat you with the DNC, Like,
Speaker 1: this is not a Bible pregnancy, you're eighteen weeks. There's
Speaker 1: no world in which eighteen weeks means that there's going
Speaker 1: to be a baby. So but instead, because of the
Speaker 1: religious beliefs, so that the legislators in Texas, you were
Speaker 1: sent home to get sicker.
Speaker 4: Yep, that's exactly right. And you know they say that
Speaker 4: they're pro life, but I always ask, what about this
Speaker 4: is pro life?
Speaker 1: What about my life?
Speaker 4: They want to take care of the baby when it's
Speaker 4: in the womb, but they don't want to do anything
Speaker 4: once it's born. And that's just where I really struggle
Speaker 4: is this is not pro life, but that's the language
Speaker 4: that they use to get people fired up in and
Speaker 4: really activated. And it's so frustrating because when you look
Speaker 4: at the facts about this is pro life.
Speaker 1: First of all, I want you to explain to us,
Speaker 1: like I understand how traumatic this was. Explain to me
Speaker 1: why you decided to come out, because I imagine that
Speaker 1: none of this was fun.
Speaker 4: No, I don't enjoy reliving it. I don't enjoy retelling it.
Speaker 4: You know, It's gotten easier to talk about just with
Speaker 4: time and the processing that I've done, But every time
Speaker 4: I talk about it, I'm back there in the hospital.
Speaker 4: I'm back there with the loss, I'm back there with
Speaker 4: the fear. But I think it's so important to tell
Speaker 4: these types of stories because when we talk about our
Speaker 4: trauma and when we talk about what's really going on,
Speaker 4: that's when people can really start to relate and understand
Speaker 4: what these bands mean. And So I was actually still
Speaker 4: in the hospital. I was recovered, but I was still
Speaker 4: in the hospital when my husband, Josh, and I decided,
Speaker 4: you know, this is something we need to warn people about.
Speaker 4: And it was really out of terror for what was
Speaker 4: going to happen to my fellow Texans and Americans across
Speaker 4: the country, and we wanted to warn them of what
Speaker 4: was going on. And we know the power of storytelling,
Speaker 4: and so we just thought, you know what, we've got
Speaker 4: to do this and we didn't look back.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised that Rowe was not a more motivating factor,
Speaker 1: because you do have women in this country now who
Speaker 1: are treated basically like second class citizens when it comes
Speaker 1: to Madison.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think what that tells me is that we still
Speaker 4: have a lot more work to do in educating the
Speaker 4: American population on what these bands mean and how they
Speaker 4: impact everyone and not just women. Right, my husband was affected,
Speaker 4: my terents were affected, my siblings, my friends. I mean,
Speaker 4: these restrictions and bands impact every single American. This is
Speaker 4: a human rights issue, and so what that tells me
Speaker 4: is that we have more work to do in helping
Speaker 4: people see that and connect those dots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's my feeling too. But Texas has
Speaker 1: had the ban a year more than the rest of
Speaker 1: the country, right, because they did unconstitutional SBAID. So there's
Speaker 1: more results coming out of Texas and they're pretty horrific.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's terrifying. And you know, we're seeing cases that
Speaker 4: are even worse than mine. I mean, people are dying,
Speaker 4: and not just in Texas, across the country. And these
Speaker 4: are just the stories we know about, right, There's so
Speaker 4: many more just like it that we don't know about
Speaker 4: because people still don't want to talk about this. Understandably,
Speaker 4: we should not be in a position where we have
Speaker 4: to talk about this on a public stage in order
Speaker 4: for people to care. But you know, that's where we're at.
Speaker 4: And I think what's happening in Texas and some of
Speaker 4: the other states where there are similar bands is indicative
Speaker 4: of what could and what might what likely will happen
Speaker 4: across the country.
Speaker 1: There's more, right, So, for example, in Texas right now,
Speaker 1: this abortion ban is a rejection of science, right, It's
Speaker 1: a rejection of like the larger ethos here is that
Speaker 1: life begins a conception, right, that's the play here. The
Speaker 1: Republicans want to say that anything after conception is abortion,
Speaker 1: and we've seen that in all this legislation. So it's
Speaker 1: a kind of rejection of science. Now in another part
Speaker 1: of Texas. We have and I'm sure you know about this,
Speaker 1: a measles outbreak, and now these measles are also in
Speaker 1: New Mexico because measles are very contagious. So do you
Speaker 1: see your in Texas? You live in Texas, do you
Speaker 1: see this rejection of science playing out in other parts
Speaker 1: of Texas? And also can you sort of spread the
Speaker 1: needle here?
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know if I can thread the needle.
Speaker 4: I don't know if anyone can throw the needle, but
Speaker 4: you know, I do see the rejection of science. And
Speaker 4: for me, it's very personal to fertility right and to
Speaker 4: reproductive care, which you probably understand. You shared that you
Speaker 4: went through IVF. That's something that I will have to
Speaker 4: rely on in order to have kids in the future.
Speaker 4: And we saw that ruling in Alabama of embryonic personhood, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: this is telling us that embryos are now people. And
Speaker 4: if you just break that down and think about it
Speaker 4: at the most basic level, it's insane. Like it's absolutely insane.
Speaker 4: And so I just struggle to understand the folks that
Speaker 4: are getting on board with some of these arguments, because
Speaker 4: to your point, it is a blatant rejection of science,
Speaker 4: and I think it must be people baring their heads
Speaker 4: in the sand because it's so obviously wrong.
Speaker 1: Right when you went out and did the campaign, how
Speaker 1: was it and were you glad you did it? And
Speaker 1: did you and sort of I just wonder if you
Speaker 1: could talk about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm very glad I did it. I have no
Speaker 4: regrets at all. I wanted to leave everything on the
Speaker 4: table to do everything I could to prevent Donald Trump
Speaker 4: from being re elected. Unfortunately, we didn't see that go
Speaker 4: the way we wanted. But it also taught me a
Speaker 4: lot about people's concerns across the country. And this is
Speaker 4: a real fear for a lot of people. Even in
Speaker 4: states where they have abortion enshrined in their state constitutions
Speaker 4: right or in states where it's still accessible, people are
Speaker 4: still very scared, but they're very, very motivated, and I
Speaker 4: think since the election, we have seen a lot of
Speaker 4: folks sort of give up hope. I've heard a lot
Speaker 4: of people say, you know, I'm just not going to
Speaker 4: read the news for four years. And my message, as
Speaker 4: somebody who's been at this for a decent amount of
Speaker 4: time now, is we can't. That's exactly what they want.
Speaker 4: They want us to feel hopeless, They want us to
Speaker 4: feel defeated. We think things are bad now, they can
Speaker 4: get worse, and they will get worse if we stop
Speaker 4: paying attention. And so I saw so much activation across
Speaker 4: the country during the election cycle, and so much mobilization,
Speaker 4: and we just have to keep doing that, and we
Speaker 4: have to continue to fight back and resist and stay vigilant,
Speaker 4: because otherwise things are just going to get worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it definitely seems like that's true when you
Speaker 1: sort of talk about the anxiety. I mean, how do
Speaker 1: you feel about being pregnant in Texas? Like, do you
Speaker 1: have friends who are pregnant in Texas? How is it
Speaker 1: is there any feeling that there's sort of any safe
Speaker 1: places in Texas to be pregnant.
Speaker 4: You know what's interesting is most of my friends who
Speaker 4: want children have left Texas. And it's exactly for that reason.
Speaker 4: They don't want to be pregnant in a state with
Speaker 4: these restrictions. They don't want to raise their families in
Speaker 4: states with these restrictions. And I won't be able to
Speaker 4: carry again because of the trauma that my body went through.
Speaker 4: I'll have to use a surrogate. And when my doctor
Speaker 4: told me that I honestly was a little bit relieved,
Speaker 4: because to be pregnant again would be absolutely terrifying. I
Speaker 4: don't know that I could could stay in Texas and
Speaker 4: be pregnant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems right, and Texas is a humongous state.
Speaker 1: So they're just moving to blue states yep, exactly.
Speaker 4: Or they're getting their reproductive organs removed because they're so
Speaker 4: scared to become pregnant. That's how bad it is. As
Speaker 4: people are changing the trajectory of their family planning because
Speaker 4: of politicians, and that's just not the way that it
Speaker 4: should be.
Speaker 1: We all saw these horrifying videos and people not understanding
Speaker 1: that Roe wasn't caused by Biden. Do you think there's
Speaker 1: still misinformation like that or do you think people are
Speaker 1: getting the message that Republican politicians are doing this.
Speaker 4: It's unfortunate to say this, but I think what it's
Speaker 4: going to take is for people to be affected personally.
Speaker 4: And I don't just mean that with reproductive care. It's
Speaker 4: also you know, the price increases that we're seeing as
Speaker 4: a result of the tariffs. It's people's kids or their kids'
Speaker 4: best friends getting sick with measles because they're unvaccinated because
Speaker 4: they were fed misinformation, right, And unfortunately, I don't want
Speaker 4: the pain and suffering that's going to happen across the
Speaker 4: country to happen. But I think it's inevitable. And I
Speaker 4: think when you experience these things firsthand, there's no denying
Speaker 4: the impacts, right, And I think that's what we're going
Speaker 4: to see. I would like to prevent that as much
Speaker 4: as possible by sharing the stories that we already have
Speaker 4: rather than creating new ones. But with what I see
Speaker 4: happening in Washington, I think it's inevitable that people are
Speaker 4: going to experience these pains on a very personal level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too. It's just so so dark.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Amanda.
Speaker 4: Of course, thank you so much for having me. I
Speaker 4: really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: And now we have a clip from our YouTube channel
Speaker 2: where Molly interviews Randy Winegarden, the President of the American
Speaker 2: Federation of Teachers.
Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to Fast Politics Today. I'm lucky enough
Speaker 1: to be joined by Randy Winegarden, the President of the
Speaker 1: American Federation of Teachers, to discuss why fascists attack teachers
Speaker 1: and how we can push back against Trump's aggressions. Welcome back, Randy.
Speaker 5: It's always great to see and to talk to you, Molly.
Speaker 5: It kind of is one of the highlights of my
Speaker 5: week or month.
Speaker 1: Wow, the feeling is so mut all and here we
Speaker 1: are in this post constitutional America. So tell me what
Speaker 1: you guys are doing to protect teachers and to try
Speaker 1: and protect what little of the guardrails we have left.
Speaker 5: Let me start with the most immediate, which is this
Speaker 5: week we are actually having a national Day of Action
Speaker 5: locally and at this point hundreds of different places, and
Speaker 5: it is very focused on what the public and the
Speaker 5: community really wants, which is they want our kids to
Speaker 5: have a decent education. They want our schools to prepare
Speaker 5: our kids for success. They want the strivers and the
Speaker 5: strugglers amongst us to have opportunity. That's part of what
Speaker 5: I think, you know, regardless of whether somebody was a
Speaker 5: Trump voter or Harris voter, they want to better life
Speaker 5: for themselves and for their families. So March for our kids,
Speaker 5: and we are protecting our kids on March fourth, and
Speaker 5: we are focused on making sure that that federal education
Speaker 5: dollar that goes for kids with disabilities, that goes for
Speaker 5: kids who are poor that goes for kids who you know,
Speaker 5: are the first in their families to go to college.
Speaker 5: That goes for kids for career tech edge, that goes
Speaker 5: for kids who are English language learners. All of these
Speaker 5: funding streams are specific to kids all throughout the country.
Speaker 5: We're fighting to protect our kids and protect that funding
Speaker 5: and not let Donald Trump or Elon Musk blomb it
Speaker 5: off for tax cuts for billionaires or for block grants
Speaker 5: for vouchers. That's number one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is this war on the federal Department of
Speaker 1: Education too going on.
Speaker 5: So we have to do a lot more, or regardless
Speaker 5: of whether you're a Democrat or Republican and independent, we
Speaker 5: all have to do it a lot more to help
Speaker 5: make sure that families in America have what they need
Speaker 5: for a quality of life, for entry into the middle class,
Speaker 5: whichever way you want to say it, for the American dream,
Speaker 5: and it kind of comes down to the economic opportunity
Speaker 5: and the education opportunity. And so what our members are
Speaker 5: doing is we're tying in all these actions that Musk
Speaker 5: or Trump or the others are doing to create chaos
Speaker 5: and confusion and using that for tax cuts for the rich.
Speaker 5: We're basically saying let's get back to first principles, which
Speaker 5: is we need the funding for opportunity for kids and
Speaker 5: or the medicaid funding. Don't take Medicaid away, don't make
Speaker 5: things worse. So what we're trying to do is say
Speaker 5: we got to make things better. You are elected to
Speaker 5: make things better, not to make things worse. And we're
Speaker 5: going to fight against making things worse, and then we're
Speaker 5: going to fight for making things better. So we're not
Speaker 5: doing the you know, they do five thousand eos every
Speaker 5: day and each one of them. We're much more about
Speaker 5: the music of the fight for a quality of life,
Speaker 5: the fight for the middle class, and the fight against
Speaker 5: the cruelty, the chaos, the confusion and hurting people.
Speaker 1: Right, so you're less anti Trump and more pro working people.
Speaker 5: Correct and ultimately creating the contrast because think about eggs.
Speaker 5: They were supposed to do something about the price of eggs.
Speaker 5: We have a digital billboard in Times Square right now.
Speaker 5: The price of eggs, commodity price of eggs on January
Speaker 5: twentieth was six dollars and fifty five cents. Commodity price
Speaker 5: of eggs right now, yesterday eight dollars and five cents.
Speaker 5: We're not talking about the grocery store price. And you know,
Speaker 5: somebody now is saying, oh, yeah, there's bird flu. Well
Speaker 5: it wasn't always bird flu. But also think about bird flu?
Speaker 5: What is HHS? What is Robert Kennedy? What are they
Speaker 5: all doing about bird flu? Nothing that I can see.
Speaker 1: As we look at this kind of the trajectory right now.
Speaker 1: I was talking to someone else earlier at this on
Speaker 1: this podcast who was talking about how so many of
Speaker 1: the billionaires just bowed down to Trump and we're like, fine,
Speaker 1: let's do it. I don't care. We want to get
Speaker 1: our spaceships into space. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: were our tax cuts, right, or our tax cuts or whatever.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I think is interesting
Speaker 1: is that's not what we're seeing from normal people.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: You explain to us how normal people are feeling right now?
Speaker 5: Sure, and look, you know one of the things union members. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so I've been talking to our members about because they're
Speaker 5: really frustrated and they're really scared, and they're thinking about,
Speaker 5: oh my god, how do we fight back. We just
Speaker 5: we want a better life for our people. We don't
Speaker 5: we want a better life for our families. We don't
Speaker 5: want the our life to be worse. We don't want
Speaker 5: to lose our democracy and we don't want this you know,
Speaker 5: wrecking ball because people are so are so tired of
Speaker 5: the status quo. This wrecking ball makes things worse. So
Speaker 5: what normal people or I would say non wealthy people
Speaker 5: are thinking about is how do we decrease costs, how
Speaker 5: do we increase wages? How do we protect and expand healthcare?
Speaker 5: And how do we protect and expand retirement security? And
Speaker 5: how do we make sure our streets are safe, our
Speaker 5: schools are safe, and you know we're we're taking care
Speaker 5: of our kids. So normal people are thinking writ large
Speaker 5: about how they have opportunity and how they see a
Speaker 5: better life and what does any of this chaos do
Speaker 5: to them. That's what normal people are thinking about. And
Speaker 5: for example, one of the things we've did in the
Speaker 5: last couple of days is we questioned why the asset managers.
Speaker 1: Yes, the next question I was going to ask.
Speaker 2: To hear the rest of the interview, head over to
Speaker 2: YouTube and search from Fast Politics with Molly Jung Fast.
Speaker 3: No Fu, Rick Wilson, Mulli Jung Fast.
Speaker 1: I'm going to play you the moment of fuckery because
Speaker 1: it's so incredible, and I want to get your hottest take.
Speaker 1: This is one of Trump's most amazing advisors. And I
Speaker 1: don't mean amazing in a good way. Kevin has it?
Speaker 1: Are you ready go?
Speaker 4: Or is the fairness issues less?
Speaker 3: Let's just be fair whatever you do, the US will
Speaker 3: did you.
Speaker 6: That's what he's asking for an April and that's not
Speaker 6: a radical idea at all.
Speaker 1: But let me ask.
Speaker 6: I am confused now, but what you're saying about this
Speaker 6: being a drug war and on his trade war solutely.
Speaker 1: Let's just take Canada.
Speaker 6: I mean you said Canada shipping fentanyl into the United States.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't think that's happening.
Speaker 6: I mean one percent of fentanyl is being smuggled at Frost,
Speaker 6: the Morner one percent. I mean, Canada is not a
Speaker 6: major source that all of fentanyl in the United States.
Speaker 3: Part so Molly, the idea that fentanyl is being secretly
Speaker 3: covered up by Canada. You know what they're doing. They're
Speaker 3: using the hollow Earth to travel to the Denver Airport
Speaker 3: dimensional Portal, Yes, to bring in the fentanyl that was
Speaker 3: manufactured on the on the lunar hologram. This is like
Speaker 3: Reptilian overlord conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Horseshit speak for yourself, man.
Speaker 3: I know they want to make this into the maple
Speaker 3: peril up there snow Mexico is poisoning au chrodran. But
Speaker 3: it's it's so pathetic and at some point, like the
Speaker 3: fentanyl driver as a major element of trump Ism, has
Speaker 3: to collide with some reality. Fentanyl is a very very
Speaker 3: very very bad product, is a very deadly thing. We
Speaker 3: don't want it. But we're apparently going to do nothing
Speaker 3: on the demand side about fentanyl. That's that's just where
Speaker 3: we're just we just imagine in this country that are
Speaker 3: incredibly successful previous wars on drugs are going to be
Speaker 3: just successful with fente.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't want to cast aspersions here,
Speaker 1: but that guy's either very dumb or very dishonest, because
Speaker 1: there could be right, but they're they're not hiding fentanyl
Speaker 1: and the maple syrup. That's not how any of this
Speaker 1: is going.
Speaker 3: It's not how any of this works. And the idea
Speaker 3: that the fentanyl problem is going to be addressed by
Speaker 3: Donald Trump imposing tariffs on Canada is a bank Shots
Speaker 3: rarely work in life or politics, and this is like
Speaker 3: a triple bank shot. So but it's just one more
Speaker 3: conspiracy to feed the crazies I think.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: You are welcome as always, my friend. I'll talk to
Speaker 3: you later.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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