Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie 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 Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen
Speaker 1: Minnesota Governor Tim Walls as her next vice president. We
Speaker 1: have such a great show for you today. Former Speaker
Speaker 1: of the House Nancy Pelosi joins us to talk about
Speaker 1: her new book, The Art of Power. Then we'll talk
Speaker 1: to historian Heather Cox Richardson about rural voters and the
Speaker 1: history there. And as a special Fancy exclusive bonus, we
Speaker 1: are re airing my famous interview with Tim Walls where
Speaker 1: he and I really became friends. But first we have
Speaker 1: the host of Talking Fed's former US attorney Harry Littman.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our weird Fast Politics, Talking Feds Mashup. I'm
Speaker 1: Mollie John Fest, and here is Talking fed's host Terry Lipman.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another what we call at Talking Fed's land
Speaker 2: Molly mash up with Molly John Fast, special correspondent for
Speaker 2: Vandy Fair, host of the podcast Fast Politics, and man,
Speaker 2: what a propitious time to be talking to her. There's
Speaker 2: been a thing or two happened since we last convened Molly,
Speaker 2: you can give me your little legal questions, but then
Speaker 2: I get to throw my politics. But they're gonna be
Speaker 2: what's going to tune me out and tune you in?
Speaker 3: And that's just fine.
Speaker 1: What do you got, Well, that's not necessarily true, Okay,
Speaker 1: So explain to us what legal jeopardy does Trump face
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: Still a lot depending right now, depending on whether he
Speaker 2: wins the election, if he loses the election, kind of
Speaker 2: everything that there's been this clock about the clock's gone.
Speaker 2: We lost that battle, but other cases still remain, with
Speaker 2: the exception of that Fulton County case that I'm not
Speaker 2: sure will ever be revived and see the light of day.
Speaker 2: But the January sixth case, it's gonna be trimmed down
Speaker 2: because of immunity. The mar Lago case it's gonna go,
Speaker 2: and maybe probably not without cannon. And just yesterday, Molly,
Speaker 2: you had Jenna Ls plead guilty in an Arizona case.
Speaker 2: So there are these state elector cases. Trump is in
Speaker 2: charge there, but he's co conspirator number one in the indictment.
Speaker 2: So that and also the civil case in New York,
Speaker 2: those things, for the most part are not going away.
Speaker 2: So everything with the exception of the trim down January
Speaker 2: sixth and Fulton County's anybody's bet that's again if he loses.
Speaker 1: So why is Fulton County gone?
Speaker 3: Well, it's just such a mess.
Speaker 2: It's not clear that Humpty Dumpty can put the pieces
Speaker 2: back together again.
Speaker 3: In theory, there's going to be an appeal.
Speaker 1: This is her off the case, whether.
Speaker 2: To kick her off not just her, but it would
Speaker 2: be her whole office. It's this big, sprawling case and
Speaker 2: I don't know. People that I talked to in Georgia
Speaker 2: tended to use the word moribund. There's no reason you
Speaker 2: could try to revive it, but it has this feel
Speaker 2: of being pretty mothballed.
Speaker 3: But it could come back.
Speaker 2: In the Arizona case that Jenna Ellis just agreed to
Speaker 2: plead very very very bad news for Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani,
Speaker 2: Boris Epstein. That's some of the same kind of conduct
Speaker 2: and could still ensnare Donald Trump because guys like Meadows
Speaker 2: and Julianna, if they're looking to get a good deal
Speaker 2: like Jenna Elis just got, they got one person to
Speaker 2: give up.
Speaker 3: That would be the former president of the United States.
Speaker 1: My turn, my turn, My turn.
Speaker 2: As we speak, the ticket is set. Tim Wallas's Kama
Speaker 2: Harris VP pick. You know you talked on Rick Wilson's
Speaker 2: podcast about well, a lot of things about Kamala Like
Speaker 2: a lot of people, I haven't really seen Walls, but
Speaker 2: you know, until he's he came to the fore calling JB.
Speaker 2: Vance and the Republican Party weird, which is a separate
Speaker 2: thing to ask you about. But what I've heard is
Speaker 2: relative to the other finalists, maybe a little Minnesota bland. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so let's hear about Tim Walls.
Speaker 1: Okay, So first of all, Tim Walls, the two things
Speaker 1: that people have been saying, which neither of which are true.
Speaker 1: One is that he's some wild leftist, which he's not,
Speaker 1: and two is that he is not interesting. So what
Speaker 1: I would say about him is this Tim Walls. Why
Speaker 1: he came on my radar was two things. One, he
Speaker 1: was the head of the governors the Democratic Governors Association,
Speaker 1: which is something that you get when you're popular with
Speaker 1: other governors and you're good at raising money, two things
Speaker 1: you want in a vice presidential candidate. And if you
Speaker 1: look at j Events like popular or Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 3: Like in the first line, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, you're already ahead of the game. Then the other
Speaker 1: thing about him is that he's famous for being able
Speaker 1: to enact really and I don't even want to say
Speaker 1: progressive legislation because I think it under sells what it is.
Speaker 1: But free breakfasts and lunch is six weeks paid leave,
Speaker 1: you know, sickly more. You know, he had a real
Speaker 1: relationship with the union.
Speaker 3: Yeah, unions love him.
Speaker 1: And he was a teacher and he was also an
Speaker 1: enlisted man, so he wasn't an officer. He was really
Speaker 1: in it the way Reuben Diego was. And I think
Speaker 1: that if you look at him, he's a very kind
Speaker 1: of Midwestern guy. Right. He was born in Kansas, he
Speaker 1: grew up there. He had a father who had misfortune.
Speaker 1: He enlisted to save his family and make money, so
Speaker 1: it's a really relatable story. I also just find him
Speaker 1: to be a pretty charismatic guy.
Speaker 3: You do, Okay, we'll be learning that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's very Midwestern and his affect is full Midwest.
Speaker 1: But you know, he hunts, he fishes, he has guns.
Speaker 1: He's all about gun safety. But he doesn't take money
Speaker 1: from the NRA like he's a really I think he's
Speaker 1: a really impressive guy.
Speaker 3: Okay, cool.
Speaker 2: I got much more on him, but you go next,
Speaker 2: and now I'll come back on the walls too, question.
Speaker 1: Jenna Alice tell us everything on Jen Alice.
Speaker 2: Her qualifications for getting where she got, and it was
Speaker 2: pretty high up and pretty visible, were only that she
Speaker 2: would say whatever crap Trump wanted her to say.
Speaker 3: She puffed about her resume.
Speaker 2: She never had really any credentials, but at that time
Speaker 2: in the Trump land, that got you in the room
Speaker 2: your ticket, I want debated her on Fox and she
Speaker 2: they gave her the last word and she just like
Speaker 2: lied flagrantly, you know. So she would say, now she got,
Speaker 2: you know, works her way there, and she's one of
Speaker 2: the team with especially Rudy, who she's really close to,
Speaker 2: you know, and it totally thick the whole especially false
Speaker 2: Elector's part of the scheme.
Speaker 3: So she goes. So now Arizona.
Speaker 2: And I mentioned this only in passing Molly, that's a
Speaker 2: part of the overall liability picture for Trump and team Trump,
Speaker 2: all the President's men. Trump, they go to Arizona. They
Speaker 2: do the whole three way deal. First, they try to
Speaker 2: badger the legislature into saying the you know, withdrawing certification
Speaker 2: because falsely they make up all these lives about why
Speaker 2: it's not accurate. Legislature says goodbye anyway. Second, they go
Speaker 2: on the phony elector plan and they literally have the
Speaker 2: co defendants in that case. You know, I am the
Speaker 2: actual elector for Donald Trump. Just a flagrant lie. And
Speaker 2: then third they on January sixth try to pressure Mike
Speaker 2: Pence into breaking the law. So you got the classic
Speaker 2: full case in Arizona. It was brought only recently, but
Speaker 2: it's now one of four or five state cases. And
Speaker 2: Jenna Ellis was subject to nine charges like all the
Speaker 2: rest of the gang here, Boris Epstein, mark Man Is,
Speaker 2: Rudy Giuliani. They're giving her a full walk, no charges
Speaker 2: at all, if but only if she testifies truthfully in
Speaker 2: yanked at any time. And she It really is interesting
Speaker 2: because they have put her out in the cold, did
Speaker 2: Team Trump? They didn't pay her legal fees. She tried
Speaker 2: to do a gofund me and kind of got nowhere.
Speaker 2: And she's just a kid without any you know, she
Speaker 2: was in the cold. So she's always I had pointed
Speaker 2: to her repeatedly she was just a dangerous figure. She
Speaker 2: is right now state witness number one and she is
Speaker 2: absolutely in the middle of it all. She could kill
Speaker 2: Juliani in particular, but also Epstein, maybe Meadows, And of
Speaker 2: course there is co conspirator number one in that indictment,
Speaker 2: being Trump and those guys that could put pressure on them.
Speaker 3: One last thing.
Speaker 2: I assume if Trump becomes president, he can make enough
Speaker 2: mischief that even the state law cases go away or
Speaker 2: get put on hold. But Mark Meadows can't, Boris Epstein
Speaker 2: can't rudy Giuliani Camp. This is now set, this case
Speaker 2: will happen. She'll go forward as the star witness, and
Speaker 2: you know Meadows in particular, who's kind of known the
Speaker 2: most but has kept out in trouble with very good lawyering.
Speaker 2: He really is looking at serious time in state prison
Speaker 2: in Arizona. This is a real deal, and it dovetails
Speaker 2: precisely with Trump saying, you know, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: pay your bills.
Speaker 3: I'm not.
Speaker 2: So she was this loaded weapon and Arizona prosecutors picked
Speaker 2: her up.
Speaker 3: It's a real thing.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is wild stuff. Yeah, it's wild stuff. All right.
Speaker 2: Back to Tim, so you mentioned, I do think that
Speaker 2: the contrasts with juven not very funny and totally stupid,
Speaker 2: snarky JD. Vans will be distinct, but you know they'll
Speaker 2: have one debate, so they're looking in general. They talked
Speaker 2: about could Shapiro give them Pennsylvania? Could Kelly give him Arizona.
Speaker 2: The hope here, supposedly is he's such a solid Midwesterner
Speaker 2: that he actually helps with Michigan. Other than what you've said,
Speaker 2: what does he sort of do for them? Do they
Speaker 2: hope in this razor sharp election?
Speaker 1: Historically vice presidents have not delivered their states. And if
Speaker 1: you look at like John Edwards in North Carolina, and
Speaker 1: really the last vice president to deliver a state was LBJ.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of not how it moves. I would say,
Speaker 1: if you're just looking at him superficially, he reads like
Speaker 1: a Midwestern guy. He didn't go to an Ivy League college.
Speaker 1: He went to school on the gi Bell. He is
Speaker 1: a Midwestern guy, whereas Trump's vice president went to very
Speaker 1: fancy schools, worked in Valley. It's just a different look.
Speaker 1: A lot of people wanted Shapiro to be picked. I
Speaker 1: think that Shapiro is a very good governor. But people
Speaker 1: got very involved in the Shapiro Walls matchup.
Speaker 3: Including shooting him down. Shapiro drew a lot of flat right.
Speaker 1: Right, and I'm not convinced they are so different. I mean,
Speaker 1: Shapiro was an attorneys general, more like Kamala Harris's record,
Speaker 1: whereas Walls was a member of Congress and then a governor.
Speaker 1: I mean, the reason why I thought Walls was a
Speaker 1: better pick was just because he had military experience, which
Speaker 1: again he's the highest ranking governor who was an enlisted man,
Speaker 1: so that is like, you know, he really was. He
Speaker 1: was in the National Guard for twenty years, so he
Speaker 1: knows the Guard. And then I would say also, I
Speaker 1: think he worked well with the legislature that was very
Speaker 1: split to get a lot of things past. Now the
Speaker 1: same has really been true for Shapiro. But I mean
Speaker 1: I think that that was ultimately what it was. I
Speaker 1: don't think, I mean, people on the right are going
Speaker 1: to say it was because Shapiro is Jewish. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's true as a Jew myself, but I do
Speaker 1: think Shapiro looks more like someone who would come from
Speaker 1: an urban area, and Walls, you know, with the ice
Speaker 1: fishing and the hunting and the guys, looks like someone
Speaker 1: who would come from a rural area.
Speaker 2: Looking more generally Shapiro Planet place Ferns up a little
Speaker 2: to the right, especially on Israel, and Walls a little
Speaker 2: to the left. So it does suggest she was worried
Speaker 2: about her left wing.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, not really. There's almost no daylight between Walls
Speaker 1: and Shapiro and Israel, except that Shapiro is Jewish. You know,
Speaker 1: they're almost the same. And in fact, the thing is
Speaker 1: this idea that one is more right than the other.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're really so close the free breakfast, They're
Speaker 1: doing so many of the same things legislatively. It's really
Speaker 1: like a style question.
Speaker 3: I think bipartisan too.
Speaker 2: I mean it's put down in the middle of Minnesota,
Speaker 2: kind of leaning red, and they've gotten to life.
Speaker 1: Okay, your turn, So just explain to me what the
Speaker 1: document's case. What happens now with the documents case. You
Speaker 1: had this Aileen kNN and the trumpy judge, and she
Speaker 1: basically kicked it out right.
Speaker 2: She not only kicked it out she like there's just
Speaker 2: no way around it. She was in the tank for Trump.
Speaker 2: You know, you had Merrick Garland. The DJ is not
Speaker 2: in the business normally of personally insulting judges, and if
Speaker 2: they were. Merrick Garland, would it be but you know
Speaker 2: the case, what I the way I wrote about him always,
Speaker 2: it doesn't even make sense to analyze, oh the weakness
Speaker 2: of this argument, or that it's just a total favor
Speaker 2: to throw Trump. But it's her last favor, I think,
Speaker 2: and it's a big one because it means he's got
Speaker 2: the talking point now until the election of that's been
Speaker 2: thrown out.
Speaker 3: But it's going to be reversed.
Speaker 2: I think they're going to probably move to bounce her,
Speaker 2: I think, and that would that would get her done.
Speaker 2: Here's the interesting point about it. You know, she said
Speaker 2: there's no constitutional legal authority to use the Special Council,
Speaker 2: and the next day, if they were really worried about time,
Speaker 2: the DOJ could have filed it again with a regular
Speaker 2: US attorney. Everyone recognized that a lot of people were
Speaker 2: urging it. But this is a really punctilious DOJ under
Speaker 2: Merrick Garland. They liked the Special Council rag and they
Speaker 2: want to be able if they prosecute a Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: for the public to have confidence. So they don't want
Speaker 2: to do it with the US attorney. They want to
Speaker 2: vindicate their right to bring it with a special Council,
Speaker 2: which you know, if you're actually prosecuting the former president
Speaker 2: deputative opponent, then your boss, the president.
Speaker 3: That's when you need it for.
Speaker 2: So they could have just at five screw you and
Speaker 2: refiled it but not not challenged her legal ruling. It
Speaker 2: would have hung out there, but you know it wouldn't
Speaker 2: have gone anywhere. But instead doj acting in its institutional
Speaker 2: interests and taking time. Now it's going to go to
Speaker 2: eleven Circuit has set a schedule. It's going to be
Speaker 2: the normal plotting schedule. But I'd say around February March,
Speaker 2: her ruling's been reversed fifty to fifty or better. She's
Speaker 2: off the case, and now she's done all the damage
Speaker 2: for Trump she can do in that case, which by
Speaker 2: the way, is the strongest and the most cut and
Speaker 2: dried where they really have him dead to write will rezoom.
Speaker 1: And it will go to a new judge.
Speaker 2: Probably it'll stay in that district, and there'll be a
Speaker 2: strategic call of trying whether to bounce Cannon. But I
Speaker 2: think everybody, even the judges, wants to and this is
Speaker 2: it's a good opportunity. It's a hard thing to do
Speaker 2: in the eleventh Circuit, but I think it'll happen. So
Speaker 2: that's what we'll see.
Speaker 1: If Trump loses, Trump goes in jail.
Speaker 2: You know, I think I've said this, I said, appreciable
Speaker 2: chance he spends for the rest of his life.
Speaker 3: In jail, and people are, oh, it's just the.
Speaker 1: Math, right, isn't that a federal world?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the penalties are severe, not to mention all
Speaker 2: the other cases, not to mention January sixth. You know,
Speaker 2: we could have had a whole different history here where
Speaker 2: years ago we cut some big deal with Philosopher Kings
Speaker 2: of like, all right, you don't have to go to jail,
Speaker 2: but get out of here and don't come back. But
Speaker 2: we've been so determined to treat him like others that
Speaker 2: that's what it means if he doesn't win. Yeah, I think, Mollie,
Speaker 2: I think he's going to jail and maybe dying in jail.
Speaker 1: Because those federal charges, they have a sentencing structure that
Speaker 1: is very punitive.
Speaker 2: Right, depends what you say. It's a serious fucking crime.
Speaker 2: He took national see wait, yeah there. I mean, he's
Speaker 2: looking at big at real time, and he's pretty old.
Speaker 2: And again, if he loses, but we've been thinking by November.
Speaker 2: By November, but that's beyond now, but we're back to
Speaker 2: a serious as a heart attack series of charges against him.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: All right, I want to fold walls into this, but
Speaker 2: I just want to talk about Harris. When we could
Speaker 2: see the writing on the wall, it just seemed like, well,
Speaker 2: Biden's got to go.
Speaker 3: But it can't be Harris. It has to be Harris.
Speaker 2: But it can't be Harris because of her lackluster campaign
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty and her not being very focused and
Speaker 2: like the woman's she hasn't made a false move yet.
Speaker 2: She's like like like made a deal with the devils.
Speaker 3: She's the kid.
Speaker 2: She's energized, everybody electrified. She's got joy and vigor and
Speaker 2: makes Trump look old and grumpy.
Speaker 3: What happened? And what is she doing so right? And
Speaker 3: how long can it last?
Speaker 1: So I would say a few things. One is the
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom that told us Harris shouldn't be the candidate.
Speaker 1: It's the same conventional wisdom that's telling us that Shapiro
Speaker 1: must be the vice president, right, which is that this
Speaker 1: is the election where nobody knows anything, just nobody knows, right.
Speaker 1: There were some anxiety about Harris. She came out of
Speaker 1: the gate incredible she. I mean, I would say a
Speaker 1: few things I think helped her. I had written about
Speaker 1: her a ton and interviewed her, and I had always
Speaker 1: thought that two years into the Biden president presidency she
Speaker 1: became a much better orator, like a real Obama lever speaker.
Speaker 1: Now that said, she had spoke very very well when
Speaker 1: she announced her candidacy. You'll remember in California she actually
Speaker 1: gave an incredible speech and she had it in her
Speaker 1: but she didn't start like hitting. She didn't start hitting
Speaker 1: home runs every time she got at bat until she
Speaker 1: was about two years into it. She also got a
Speaker 1: new chief of staff around then who is very very good,
Speaker 1: and there were.
Speaker 2: Raps on the old one that it was just chaotic
Speaker 2: and not happy place yet.
Speaker 1: Right, and then in the last two years you've seen
Speaker 1: much less turnover and much less you know, and the
Speaker 1: office is like a machine in that way. So that
Speaker 1: was one thing. I think the three weeks that took
Speaker 1: Biden to come to that decision were huge help to
Speaker 1: her because it didn't feel like she was taking him out.
Speaker 1: Her office also was super careful never to make it
Speaker 1: sound like she you know, So that was another thing.
Speaker 1: And in fact, someone an insider told me that she
Speaker 1: believed he should stay in, So the way it came
Speaker 1: out was just exactly right. And then the third thing
Speaker 1: was that he had to see he was losing in
Speaker 1: the polls, which he started to see, and the base
Speaker 1: needed to see he was losing in the polls, because
Speaker 1: until the base saw it, you know, people would come
Speaker 1: over to me and they'd say, are they going to
Speaker 1: take away my candidate? Like, until they could see it,
Speaker 1: it was you couldn't explain to people. And the truth
Speaker 1: was none of us knew, I mean, back to this hole.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows what's going to happen election. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing was that he really couldn't do the campaign schedule.
Speaker 1: That said, since he's dropped out, I mean, he's done
Speaker 1: incredible stuff. For example, the day he dropped out was
Speaker 1: the day he secured this enormous, very complicated, multi country
Speaker 1: a prisoner release package that was incredible, the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that would make a presidency for anyone else. And also,
Speaker 1: I would like to add real proof that he's not
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter, because you'll remember that Donald Trump had said
Speaker 1: that Putin was going to hold Evan Gershkowitz until he
Speaker 1: became president and then release him then just like Reagan,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe got those kidnap victims released when he
Speaker 1: So I did think that it was you know, Biden
Speaker 1: is really a good president. I mean, he's an old guy,
Speaker 1: and he can't crisscross the country and he has some
Speaker 1: speech issues, but he's done really well and so I
Speaker 1: think that really helped her too. But she's really become
Speaker 1: a next level order. And then the one other thing
Speaker 1: that I think is really important in this story is
Speaker 1: that he the message from his campaign and the message
Speaker 1: from people in his campaign, and the message from him
Speaker 1: and his people was if you want to honor me,
Speaker 1: you will help her. And that is such a staunch
Speaker 1: contrast too. You'll remember the other time a president stepped
Speaker 1: down to elevate his VP, he was much more on
Speaker 1: the fence about the whole thing. So I do think
Speaker 1: that was very helpful too.
Speaker 2: So Thursday night he now gets to play a great
Speaker 2: role because he doesn't have to bring you know, when
Speaker 2: it comes through Thursday night, the rafters a rock in Chicago,
Speaker 2: I think we'll both be there. I'll hope to see you.
Speaker 2: But man, if as much happens between this month and
Speaker 2: next month, We're gonna have a lot of match and
Speaker 2: to do always a pleasure. Molly, thanks so much for
Speaker 2: being here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having.
Speaker 4: Did you know Molly, John Fast and Rick Wilson are
Speaker 4: heading out on tour together to bring you a Knight
Speaker 4: of Last, to bring some lightness to our dark political landscape.
Speaker 4: Join us on August twenty sixth in San Francisco at
Speaker 4: the Swedish American Hall. We're in la on August twenty
Speaker 4: seventh at the Region Theater. Then we'll hit the Midwest
Speaker 4: at the Bavariam in Milwaukee on the twenty first of September,
Speaker 4: and the twenty second will be in Chicago at City Winery.
Speaker 4: That will be on the East Coast September thirtieth and
Speaker 4: at the Armory the first of October, and Philly at
Speaker 4: City Winery, and then DC on the second at the
Speaker 4: Miracle Theater, with a few more dates to come. If
Speaker 4: you need to laugh as we get through this selection
Speaker 4: and hopefully never hear from this guy who lives in
Speaker 4: a golf club again, we got you covered. Join us
Speaker 4: along with some surprise guests to help you laugh instead
Speaker 4: of cry your way through this selection season and get
Speaker 4: the inside analysis of what's.
Speaker 5: Really going on right now.
Speaker 4: Buy your tickets now by heading to Politics as Unusual
Speaker 4: dot bio. That's Politics as Unusual dot bio.
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi is the former Speaker of the House and
Speaker 1: represents California's eleventh district. Welcome Speaker Pelosi.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mollie.
Speaker 1: Nice to be with you, Nice to have you. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about this book. I want you to sort
Speaker 1: of explain to us because this book is not a memoir,
Speaker 1: So explain to us what it is.
Speaker 6: This is a book about decisions, decisions relating to China,
Speaker 6: what happened in the in the room where it happened
Speaker 6: on the economic downturn in two thousand and eight. It's
Speaker 6: about important decisions where I was present to tell them
Speaker 6: what we saw at the time. I could have written
Speaker 6: this book any number of times that didn't really have
Speaker 6: time with the book. Now when I was no longer
Speaker 6: leader or Speaker and had the time to write it.
Speaker 6: It's coming out now and we're in an election, but
Speaker 6: that's when the book was ready, and that's the timetable
Speaker 6: of it. But it's about several decisions, whether it was
Speaker 6: the Tarba Act in terms of saving our country from
Speaker 6: the Wall Street meltdown that happened there, about the decision
Speaker 6: to go Intoto, the Iraq War, which I completely opposed
Speaker 6: and thought was wrong for our country, our attitude towards
Speaker 6: China in terms of security, trade, and human rights. It's
Speaker 6: about what happened on January sixth, It's about what happened
Speaker 6: in my home to my husband, to go into that
Speaker 6: a little bit about that, And it's about the leadership.
Speaker 1: You know, it's about.
Speaker 5: Power, and that's what it's called the art of power.
Speaker 1: So we had all of that.
Speaker 6: And again my China is from Taiwan, from tay Channaman
Speaker 6: to Taiwan, and I have different phrases. For example, when
Speaker 6: we talk about the Iraq War, my statement at the
Speaker 6: time was the intelligence does not support the threat. About
Speaker 6: what happened to the economy in September two thousand and eight,
Speaker 6: the statement from the Chairman of the Fed, we won't
Speaker 6: have an economy by Monday. The pat of the healthcare bill,
Speaker 6: which is so transformative for our country but took so
Speaker 6: much courage on the part of our members, that healthcare
Speaker 6: is a right, not a privilege. And again about patriotism
Speaker 6: for our country as it relates to January sixth, and
Speaker 6: then just some thoughts about why I love the house.
Speaker 6: People always ask me why, and you run for something
Speaker 6: else when you're appointed to something.
Speaker 5: I know I love the house.
Speaker 6: So it's about my service and leadership there, demonstrated by
Speaker 6: a few specific events and major pieces of legislation that
Speaker 6: I was a part of.
Speaker 1: Can we talk for a minute about the horrible attack
Speaker 1: on your husband, Paul Pelosi, who was at home. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, no offense, but he's not a young guy,
Speaker 1: and a physical attack is much worse on someone who's older.
Speaker 1: Will you talk about that? And also your decision to
Speaker 1: write about it.
Speaker 6: But I thought it was very important to write about
Speaker 6: it because people asked about it. So I want the
Speaker 6: horror of it all to be clear for the purpose
Speaker 6: of trying to eliminate that kind of action, political violence
Speaker 6: from our society. Here it was in our very own home,
Speaker 6: an assault on our home, making our home a crime scene,
Speaker 6: an attack on my husband, who is not even that political.
Speaker 6: Actually the guilt I have for his paying the price
Speaker 6: for my activism, and again what it has come to,
Speaker 6: what it meant to my children and meant to my grandchildren.
Speaker 6: With something I thought it was important to write something,
Speaker 6: and I didn't write everything about it because frankly, Molly
Speaker 6: Paul and I have never discussed it. The doctors tell
Speaker 6: him to revisit it, and he doesn't want me to
Speaker 6: suffer it undergo it. So what I had written about
Speaker 6: is somewhat of what is in the public domain and
Speaker 6: our individual experiences, but not his because now what I
Speaker 6: know about it from him is what he testified in court.
Speaker 6: But we've never had that discussion. So it's that still
Speaker 6: traumatic for us, and the trauma will live on. He's
Speaker 6: getting better, but he's not there yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean that when you have an older
Speaker 1: person have an injury like that, it's a completely different
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Can you explain to us about the
Speaker 1: horrible way that the right treated him? You know?
Speaker 6: It's so interesting thing is what's next. When this happened,
Speaker 6: it was really painful for my children, my grandchildren, to
Speaker 6: see former President of the United States, his family, sitting
Speaker 6: governors make fun of what happened, to laugh at it,
Speaker 6: to make it a joke. That was so painful. It
Speaker 6: was so painful that someone was done civilized we would
Speaker 6: never do that to somebody else, of course, but that
Speaker 6: is nature of what provoked it in the first place,
Speaker 6: in terms of their rhetoric, their political nasty rhetoric, and
Speaker 6: how they reacted to it. Can you imagine making jokes
Speaker 6: about somebody getting over that hit over the head with
Speaker 6: the hammer three times a centimeter from death? Elder abuse
Speaker 6: as you described that. We think of him as vigorous
Speaker 6: in all the rest, But of course a lot of
Speaker 6: his physical well being was affected by what happened that day.
Speaker 6: But you know what, let me compare it to something else.
Speaker 6: On January sixth, when these people made an assault on
Speaker 6: the Capitol, on our constitution and on our democracy, and
Speaker 6: it was all over, and they saw the danger and
Speaker 6: the threat and all the rest. Overwhelmingly the Republicans voted
Speaker 6: against accepting the electoral College vote peaceful transfer of power.
Speaker 6: So I was like, what you're voting against this? In
Speaker 6: large numbers, all of your leadership, we have an assault
Speaker 6: which they see the danger of that they were all in,
Speaker 6: mostly all of them were in. Not the leadership because
Speaker 6: they had security, but that their stats were in that
Speaker 6: the maintenance people in the capital and the custodians that
Speaker 6: keep the capital beautiful had to clean up the poo
Speaker 6: poo of these people actual theiration, but also their foul
Speaker 6: language criticizing these people and derogatory and discriminatory terms. So
Speaker 6: there's a sort of a lack of respect that you
Speaker 6: see in both cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's right, But I also
Speaker 1: think you have experiences, both in your work and in
Speaker 1: your home the sort of real cruelty of the right.
Speaker 1: And I think like the McCarthy slash Johnson's speakerships have
Speaker 1: shown us very clearly how talented a vote whipper you
Speaker 1: are were. I mean, I feel like people respected you,
Speaker 1: but because you made it look so easy, a lot
Speaker 1: of people just assumed it was easy. And then those
Speaker 1: two knuckleheads they lose rules votes. They're not able to
Speaker 1: vote whip the way you are. Do you get a
Speaker 1: quiet satisfaction out of this.
Speaker 6: No, I don't think so. I mean, I would rather
Speaker 6: see the Congress function in a way that is respectful
Speaker 6: and try to bring people together. But I take great
Speaker 6: pride in my legislative skills and my leadership, so I
Speaker 6: don't I won't diminish that. And it all springs from
Speaker 6: the courage of the members. Right to be respectful of
Speaker 6: the members because it's their vote, their job, title, and
Speaker 6: their jump description are one in the same representative. So
Speaker 6: we had beautiful diversity, regional, generational, gender, gender id ethnically,
Speaker 6: we have beautiful diversity and our caucus and so they
Speaker 6: have different points of view, and I always say, our
Speaker 6: diversity is our strength, our unity is our power. One point,
Speaker 6: we were two votes. We were only two votes because
Speaker 6: a couple of people ran for all left to one
Speaker 6: run for governor, to join a community action group and
Speaker 6: you know different things. We lost three and so we
Speaker 6: had five, were down to two. But we still had
Speaker 6: our shared values. We listened to each other and saw
Speaker 6: where we could find our common ground and if we couldn't,
Speaker 6: sometimes we had some Republican votes to take us over
Speaker 6: the top. I was just determined that we would get
Speaker 6: it done. And that determination their courage, our values and
Speaker 6: again respect, respect, respect for everybody in the Congress, but
Speaker 6: also knowing what our members were willing to take a
Speaker 6: risk on.
Speaker 1: It's respect, but it's also an ability to get people
Speaker 1: to do things. And as someone who was quite good
Speaker 1: at getting people to do things, I have a lot
Speaker 1: of respect for you. I have to tell you, because
Speaker 1: when you see how hard it is to get people
Speaker 1: to vote for things, even it's not you know, some
Speaker 1: of this stuff. It's just a question of being able
Speaker 1: to get people to say they're going to do something
Speaker 1: and do it. I mean, it's actually a really hard job.
Speaker 6: Well, I'd say this one of the hardest things I
Speaker 6: had to do, and I say this in the book,
Speaker 6: the hardest thing I had to do.
Speaker 1: When we had a.
Speaker 6: Democratic president, Barack Obama, and we were doing the Affordable
Speaker 6: Care Act. It was hard because the other side was
Speaker 6: putting out negative false information. They were there for the
Speaker 6: insurance industry, they were there for the pharmaceutical industry, they
Speaker 6: were there for the anti governance croud and the rest
Speaker 6: of that.
Speaker 1: But we knew that what we believed in.
Speaker 6: We worked together to craft our priorities and we prevailed.
Speaker 6: But when we lost the House, and people said it
Speaker 6: was because of the Affordable Character, I don't even think that.
Speaker 6: I think we lost it because of what happened on
Speaker 6: Wall Street and the Republicans renaveed on their promise of
Speaker 6: votes and we had to bail it out. And that
Speaker 6: was attributed to us, even though it wasn't about Wall Street,
Speaker 6: it was about our economy.
Speaker 5: Anyway.
Speaker 6: A lot of things came to bear in that election,
Speaker 6: including the fact that because of the Supreme Court deciding
Speaker 6: for Citizen Ju nine, it so called Citizen ju nine.
Speaker 6: It The amount of money that was spent in two
Speaker 6: thousand and nine was that's a non election year, but
Speaker 6: one million dollars of dark this dark money and twenty
Speaker 6: ten over one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: At least we were going to win.
Speaker 6: We had the candidates, we had the resources, we had
Speaker 6: the ideas, all of it. And then in June boom
Speaker 6: they just put in tons of money. And again unemployment
Speaker 6: was high, like nine percent. You know, there are other
Speaker 6: factors about it, but nonetheless, nonetheless, when we lost and
Speaker 6: they came in, there were Republicans would put up these
Speaker 6: things that sound like motherhood in apple Pie when motherhood
Speaker 6: and pie used to be popular, right. They put up
Speaker 6: these propositions about the Affordable Care Act, And so my
Speaker 6: members would say, well, that sounds good. They're advertising that
Speaker 6: in my district. I can vote for that, And I
Speaker 6: said they can't. Now this is when I say to
Speaker 6: you the hardest part, Molly, Now you can't because it
Speaker 6: undermines the Affordable Care Act. And they would say, well,
Speaker 6: I know my district better than you do. I said, well,
Speaker 6: I certainly so, but I know the Affordable Care back
Speaker 6: better than you do ye and not vote for. So
Speaker 6: I'm having to say to these lovely members of Congress Democrats,
Speaker 6: some of them weren't even there when we did the
Speaker 6: Affordable Care acts.
Speaker 1: You know. They came later, you know, in the.
Speaker 6: Next election, and I said, you just have to vote
Speaker 6: with the president. But they didn't want to, and I
Speaker 6: had to have shull. We say the friendship in my
Speaker 6: voice a little less friendly.
Speaker 1: Did helping a million kids prepare you for this job?
Speaker 5: Not quite a million, but some days it might have
Speaker 5: felt like that I did.
Speaker 1: But I have a lot of kids. I mean I
Speaker 1: only have three of you have five. I feel like
Speaker 1: there are certain skills you've got as a mother, of
Speaker 1: just like of dealing with people and helping people deal
Speaker 1: with each other that are actually weirdly relevant to dealing
Speaker 1: with members of Congress.
Speaker 6: Now let us praise mothers. Others are what are domestic engineers.
Speaker 6: There are coachspers, they're diplomats. They have to resolve differences
Speaker 6: of opinion, all the rest that say, chauffeur you, religious advisors,
Speaker 6: all the rests. Mothers are everything I have to say
Speaker 6: that when I talk to women, and I said, well,
Speaker 6: I'm just a housewive.
Speaker 5: How can I run?
Speaker 6: I said, don't ever say to me, you're just a housewif,
Speaker 6: being a mom, being a housewif. Put that in the
Speaker 6: plus column. Give yourself a gold star for that. So, yeah,
Speaker 6: just in terms of respecting different views, and there are
Speaker 6: different views and families, you know, that's for sure. It
Speaker 6: probably was helpful. But what was helpful too, is I
Speaker 6: never even washed my face someday. I mean, you don't
Speaker 6: have any time for anything. You know, time is the
Speaker 6: most valuable commodity and it is finite. And so how
Speaker 6: you manage your time, how you multitask, how you respect
Speaker 6: different views and try to resolve differences among the children
Speaker 6: and that. But the most important thing about it for
Speaker 6: me was that having the five children just drove home
Speaker 6: the message to me that one in five children in
Speaker 6: America lives in poverty. And anything motivated me to go
Speaker 6: from housewife to house speaker. It was the one in
Speaker 6: five children that in America lives in poverty. That was
Speaker 6: my why. That's why I left home. I had no
Speaker 6: interest in running for congress. Shy and bashful as I was,
Speaker 6: I loved being the chair of the California Democratic Party
Speaker 6: because I was a volunteer and I could work behind
Speaker 6: the scenes to promote other candidates and our position, our candidates,
Speaker 6: our agenda and the rest.
Speaker 7: And that was great.
Speaker 6: Then when people came and said you should be running
Speaker 6: for Congress, I thought, why me. I've never even wanted
Speaker 6: to thought about or anything, And then I did. And
Speaker 6: then again, being a mom being bringing family together, that
Speaker 6: can be a very challenging task. That's anybody who's had
Speaker 6: Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you think Democrats can win the House this cycle? Definitely.
Speaker 6: I thought we were going to hold it last time, Mollie.
Speaker 6: Everybody was sitting in thirty forty seats, and I said,
Speaker 6: we're not. I don't know why these pundits are saying this.
Speaker 6: They don't talk about because we had great candidates. They
Speaker 6: had a very good contrast in terms of their position
Speaker 6: versus the Republicans in terms of women. Was ready to
Speaker 6: choose climate, gun violence protection, fairness in our economy, and
Speaker 6: what worked in their district. And I thought we were
Speaker 6: going to I thought we could hold it. While they
Speaker 6: were saying we're losing thirty we can all but in
Speaker 6: losing five seats in New York, which was stunning, but
Speaker 6: we'll win those back in haw Keen will be speaker,
Speaker 6: so we will win. I'm no doubt we will win
Speaker 6: the House of Representatives and hopefully hold or grow in
Speaker 6: the Senate. But I don't I don't know the number.
Speaker 6: I'm not I'm data district or district on the ground
Speaker 6: in terms of the House, so I can speak with
Speaker 6: some authority there.
Speaker 5: And of course the.
Speaker 6: Most important thing we have to do is to make
Speaker 6: sure that, under no circumstance whatsoever, that Donald Trump comes
Speaker 6: within a mile of the White House.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's certainly true. Are there any congressional seats that
Speaker 1: you're thinking about that you're sort of watching to flip
Speaker 1: that you are excited about.
Speaker 6: Well, we have a couple in California that we think
Speaker 6: that we should be able to get. I mean, we
Speaker 6: have a big majority in California. They're fifty two members.
Speaker 6: We have forty. They have twelve. I like to jump
Speaker 6: down to single digits now that's there. And in New York,
Speaker 6: for example, we can I think get the five bat
Speaker 6: we already have one back in terms of Swazi or
Speaker 6: and we can get a chunk of those, But in
Speaker 6: between the coast, there are so many great candidates who
Speaker 6: are courageous enough to put their name forth, knowledgeable enough
Speaker 6: to speak to their vision and their values and their priorities,
Speaker 6: and clever enough to be strategic in how to present
Speaker 6: it and get the job done, and compassionate enough to
Speaker 6: show people what is in their hearts. So we have
Speaker 6: a great not only My goal is not to just win,
Speaker 6: it's to win with more. You know, they win the five. Yeah,
Speaker 6: we're can win the four, but I want more than that.
Speaker 6: And Susan Delbeny our chier. She's fabulous. He's just fabulous.
Speaker 6: And I just take my leads from her and from
Speaker 6: Hakim and our leadership. And Hakeem will be the Speaker
Speaker 6: of the House. When I stepped aside, I was hoping
Speaker 6: that it would be that he would be the speaker
Speaker 6: at that time.
Speaker 1: He's really really talented. You picked her. It's great, you
Speaker 1: did a great job, and I continue to believe that
Speaker 1: you have real incredible powers of persuasion and picking and
Speaker 1: et cetera that almost no one else in the world has.
Speaker 1: So thank you, Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 6: I get better to our caucus that he's their choice
Speaker 6: and I take my lead from him, and his strength
Speaker 6: springs from the respect he commands in the caucus. Katherine
Speaker 6: Clark and Pete Apolar sed Lou, I mean, we're in
Speaker 6: really good shape with our leadership. And Susan Bella, she's wonderful.
Speaker 6: I used to say of her. The one place I
Speaker 6: love to go in the campaign is to Washington State
Speaker 6: because I don't have to do anything. Sometimes I think
Speaker 6: I have to do the floors and windows and cook
Speaker 6: the food and set table and raise the money. With her,
Speaker 6: you just walk in the door because she commands so
Speaker 6: much respect and people love her, and you know it's
Speaker 6: going to be worth your time to go.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be, Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed with iHeart to make a
Speaker 1: limited series with the experts on what a disaster Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five would be for America's future right now.
Speaker 1: The first four episodes, with the final episode coming next week,
Speaker 1: are available by looking up Molly john Fast Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five on YouTube. If you are thinking you are
Speaker 1: more of a podcast person and not a YouTuber, you
Speaker 1: can hit play when you get to the video, put
Speaker 1: the phone on lockscreen and it will play back. New
Speaker 1: episodes are dropping in the next week as well. We
Speaker 1: need to educate America on what Trump's second term would
Speaker 1: do to this country. Please watch and help us spread
Speaker 1: the word. Heather Cox Richardson is a historian and author
Speaker 1: of probably the most popular substack in the entire world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, Heather. First things first, I think is, you know,
Speaker 1: Democrats do have a rural voter. I don't even want
Speaker 1: to say it's a problem, because it's always not been
Speaker 1: the Democratic sweet spot. But you know, a couple months ago,
Speaker 1: I was at a dinner talking to the sort of
Speaker 1: most the member of Congress, a guy called Jared He's
Speaker 1: probably not far from you, Jared Golden. He's actually upstate. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a main he's a rural main congressman. And he
Speaker 1: was talking about how hard it is to speak to
Speaker 1: rural voters as a Democrat you live in a rural area.
Speaker 1: Tim Walls is in some ways a rural pick because
Speaker 1: he can speak to a lot of rural American activities.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about what this divided country looks like,
Speaker 1: not even you know, divided on many levels, right.
Speaker 7: Well, right, I will say that coming from an area
Speaker 7: that is rural, you know, we always laugh a little
Speaker 7: bit at the idea that we're some kind of zoo animal,
Speaker 7: that you know, what's wrong with rural America, because in fact,
Speaker 7: you know, we're just people here and in many ways,
Speaker 7: you know, we always joke that it's people in the
Speaker 7: big cities who are more provincial than us because they
Speaker 7: think they can have everything right where they are, whereas
Speaker 7: we recognize that we need to have ideas from outside
Speaker 7: and people from outside. So that is a start for
Speaker 7: looking at the rural urban divide. There's also the issue
Speaker 7: of the fact that quite deliberately, during the Nixon administration,
Speaker 7: his advisor at the time, Pat Buchanan, made it a
Speaker 7: real point to try and divide the country along that
Speaker 7: fissure by saying that the you know, the elites don't
Speaker 7: like people like us.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 7: That was this very deliberate straw man. And the other
Speaker 7: thing that I would say about this moment is that
Speaker 7: as I look around me, the difference between people who
Speaker 7: are died in the Wolmagga Republicans in rural my part
Speaker 7: of rural America and the ones who are not is
Speaker 7: really the people who consume right wing media. And that's
Speaker 7: a place I think that Democrats really did fall but
Speaker 7: fall behind is on not combating the rise of the
Speaker 7: Fox News Channel in the nineteen nineties and talk radio
Speaker 7: as well. So I'm not entirely sure that there's a
Speaker 7: huge difference between people who live in small towns versus
Speaker 7: people who live in cities so much as those particular lines.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that Jared said, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, my question to everybody always is how to
Speaker 1: hear people get their news? And he said radio. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot about right after radio host shock
Speaker 1: jock Rush Limbad died, he had been the greatest get
Speaker 1: out the vote turnout machine for Republicans ever, And I
Speaker 1: just wonder if you could talk a little more about
Speaker 1: Democrats seating the airways on radio.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 7: So it's very interesting what has happened since Limbad died
Speaker 7: in twenty twenty one, and that is not only was
Speaker 7: he a person who got at the vote, he was
Speaker 7: also the person who established what the talking points of
Speaker 7: the Republicans were going to be. So with his laws,
Speaker 7: you'll you see the Republican Party really splintering, especially as
Speaker 7: people are trying to get airtime by going on farther
Speaker 7: and farther right wing podcasts and splitting the vote up
Speaker 7: that way between you know, people taking their their own
Speaker 7: little issue to some right wing person and people who
Speaker 7: are more established in the party and who are trying
Speaker 7: to attract more moderate voters sort of saying no, I
Speaker 7: don't want any part of that, and yet being harnessed
Speaker 7: to it. So Limbaugh's loss was a big one for
Speaker 7: the Republicans. So I think was the settlement, the seven
Speaker 7: hundred and eighty seven million dollars settlement that the Fox
Speaker 7: News Channel had to pay for pushing the big lie
Speaker 7: that Trumpet won in twenty twenty because they too backed
Speaker 7: off on the idea of there being this one line
Speaker 7: that the Republicans were all going to adhere to in
Speaker 7: the face of you know, reality, in the face of opposition,
Speaker 7: in the face of anything. And since then, I think,
Speaker 7: since twenty twenty one, you've really seen the Republican Party
Speaker 7: absolutely fall apart. And that's something that we have not
Speaker 7: really seen reflected in the coverage of the party. So
Speaker 7: much is that splintering now The Democrats, in contrast, as
Speaker 7: I say, I don't think they were as quick as
Speaker 7: they should have been off the mark in terms of
Speaker 7: making sure that they countered the Fox new Channel. Though
Speaker 7: remember the Fox News Channel never paid for itself. It
Speaker 7: was where it was because of the cable fees. And
Speaker 7: what I think you have seen really since the rise
Speaker 7: of the Internet, and since the rise of zoom during
Speaker 7: the pandemic, and since the rise of things like newsletters
Speaker 7: is the ability of people with a much more progressive
Speaker 7: position to get their message out into more rural communities.
Speaker 7: And you know, I think of somebody like Jess Piper
Speaker 7: and Missouri, who you know, has been really out there
Speaker 7: in front on issues that rural people really care about,
Speaker 7: like public education. This whole idea of the vouchers that
Speaker 7: concentrate public tax money in private schools might work for
Speaker 7: you know, right wing voters in urban areas, but you're
Speaker 7: if you're in a small community, you're going to lose
Speaker 7: your public school. And she's been out there in front,
Speaker 7: through social media, through a newsletter, and in so many
Speaker 7: different ways, reaching the people who previously might not have
Speaker 7: been able to voice their content of believing in progressive
Speaker 7: causes in rural communities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's a really good point and
Speaker 1: public schools are such an important element of rural community,
Speaker 1: but so are hospitals. And as we both know right now,
Speaker 1: states are getting money from Medicare expansion, Medicare Medicaid expansion,
Speaker 1: and that money can save rural hospitals. And some of
Speaker 1: these red staate governors are rejecting this money.
Speaker 7: Yes, and the terror of having a desperately ill child
Speaker 7: at two or three o'clock in the morning and not
Speaker 7: being able to get medical care. You know, that's something
Speaker 7: that has nothing to do with your political position. It
Speaker 7: has to do with sort of our fundamental beliefs as
Speaker 7: human beings that we should sup each other in a community.
Speaker 7: And those, by the way, are not values that I
Speaker 7: think rural America ever walked away from. It's just that
Speaker 7: it has been hard to find people to articulate those
Speaker 7: in the past forty years for various reasons, both in
Speaker 7: terms of the degree to which Republicans have flooded the airwaves,
Speaker 7: but also in the degrees to which Democrats always seem
Speaker 7: to be on the back foot. And one of the
Speaker 7: things that's so interesting about the now vice presidential Democratic
Speaker 7: nominee Tim Waltz is that he's been out in front saying, yeah,
Speaker 7: you know, call me a monster. I'm making sure kids
Speaker 7: get fed and get medical care and get educations. You know,
Speaker 7: do you really want to say that this is partisan
Speaker 7: because it's not. These are community values in the United
Speaker 7: States of America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really are. And I think you know, with
Speaker 1: this framing that somehow Walls is this very lefty guy,
Speaker 1: when in fact much of the policy is actually just popular,
Speaker 1: is kind of nutty. I'm wondering if you could talk
Speaker 1: to us just a little bit about the sort of
Speaker 1: this is a moment that's very without historical president, but
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you were to figure out a president
Speaker 1: what it might be.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, one of the things that I'd like
Speaker 7: to say to people is, although we focus on the
Speaker 7: Donald Trump moment and what that has meant, both in
Speaker 7: terms of its continuity from the Republican Party and of
Speaker 7: its new authoritarianism, that's a crisis. But at the same
Speaker 7: time we I think we are also looking at I'm sorry,
Speaker 7: I'm going to go all country on you here a
Speaker 7: title change. That is, for forty years, we have operated
Speaker 7: largely under the idea of neoliberalism, the idea of letting
Speaker 7: markets determine the way societies work, and you know all
Speaker 7: the things that that that came with that, and we
Speaker 7: could break that down by party and by who was
Speaker 7: involved in all and all the different aspects of it,
Speaker 7: but that clearly has failed. And what the Biden Harris
Speaker 7: administration did is it reminded us that in fact, the
Speaker 7: previous system, the one we had between nineteen thirty three
Speaker 7: and nineteen eighty one, actually worked. That if you invested
Speaker 7: in ordinary Americans, the economy group people did better, The
Speaker 7: radicalism declined, all the things that people had said in
Speaker 7: those years from thirty three to eighty one, and of
Speaker 7: course they tried to expand it so that they weren't
Speaker 7: centering basically white nuclear families. They tried to expand their
Speaker 7: idea of protecting ordinary Americans to center around children and
Speaker 7: their caregivers. But what we're seeing, I think, is this
Speaker 7: moment in which we are leaving the past behind and
Speaker 7: creating something new. And what that new looks like is
Speaker 7: not yet articulated. And it's one of the reasons I
Speaker 7: find this moment so exciting is that there are new voices,
Speaker 7: and there's new ways of looking at things, and there's
Speaker 7: new ideas, and there's new literature, and there's new art,
Speaker 7: and there's new music, and that excitement is of course
Speaker 7: terrifying for people who just want to cling to the old.
Speaker 7: But it's also a moment in which we don't really
Speaker 7: know what the future is going to look like. So
Speaker 7: one of the things that I'm watching is this is
Speaker 7: precedented in the sense that this this is very much
Speaker 7: like the eighteen fifties and eighteen sixties looked like. It's
Speaker 7: very much what the eighteen nineties and nineteen oughts looked like.
Speaker 7: What I'm interested in is the breakdown of the old
Speaker 7: lines of partisan politics into this very simple dichotomy of
Speaker 7: are you in favor of democracy or a dictatorship? And
Speaker 7: then on the other side of that, you know, I'm
Speaker 7: watching especially Republicans for Harris, and I think there's a
Speaker 7: great deal of discomfort there as you know, well, I'm
Speaker 7: not a Democrat, and the answer to that is no,
Speaker 7: you're not. But in ten years, I don't think we
Speaker 7: know what either either party's going to look like or
Speaker 7: who's going to be on which side of which divides,
Speaker 7: so that in the eighteen sixties, for example, there are
Speaker 7: people who went into the Lincoln administration who were fervent
Speaker 7: pro slavery Democrats who simply believed in defending the Union.
Speaker 7: And you know, five or six years later, they tended
Speaker 7: to be the you know, the more radical people, and
Speaker 7: you know, you just didn't know which way people were
Speaker 7: going to jump. And I think we're looking at something
Speaker 7: very similar now. I actually find it really exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I find it terrifying. But maybe that's
Speaker 1: our difference in worldviews. I'm trying not to go too
Speaker 1: dark because anytime I run into someone who listens to
Speaker 1: the podcast, they're like, you're very dark. But when we
Speaker 1: talk about this kind of problem in the Republican party, right,
Speaker 1: we have this Republican party that no longer believes really
Speaker 1: in our system of democracy. And I actually think what
Speaker 1: we were talking was a little bit you know, with Nixon,
Speaker 1: this was a slow progression, right, anti democracy make it
Speaker 1: harder to vote. I mean, there certainly it harkens back
Speaker 1: to Jim Crow, but the Republicans sort of got on board,
Speaker 1: and then Trump was sort of the coup de grass.
Speaker 1: Now a large percentage of this country is banking on
Speaker 1: the idea that if Republicans are defeated at the ballot box,
Speaker 1: these anti democratic impulses or really it's sort of an
Speaker 1: illness will go away. I worry that they won't.
Speaker 7: Well, they never have in the past, for sure. I mean,
Speaker 7: we always have those people. But at their highest a
Speaker 7: reactionary right wing movement never gets more than thirty three percent,
Speaker 7: and that's its ceiling of support in any society, and
Speaker 7: certainly in the United States. I would suggest that it
Speaker 7: would be possible for us finally to grip or to
Speaker 7: come to grips with the idea that we're never going
Speaker 7: to get rid of it fully unless we make sure
Speaker 7: our guard rails are very very strong. What tends to
Speaker 7: happen is we tend to support democracy in the United
Speaker 7: States and then think, oh, we're done, everything's good now,
Speaker 7: and then of course those reactionary forces gain momentum and
Speaker 7: go forward again. And you know, we don't have to
Speaker 7: live that way. We don't have to have this pendulum
Speaker 7: going back and forth. Other countries don't. We don't have
Speaker 7: to do that. I will say. In terms of the darkness,
Speaker 7: I think I've got some years on you. And one
Speaker 7: of the things that I know a lot of people
Speaker 7: who are terrified of the new faces in government and
Speaker 7: the new ideas and so on. And you know, one
Speaker 7: of the things that I find very comforting, first of all,
Speaker 7: is I find new stuff very exciting. But I mean,
Speaker 7: I don't know how to say this without sounding a
Speaker 7: bit dark, but if you look at the past many years,
Speaker 7: it would be hard to do worse than some of
Speaker 7: the people who are looked upon as being legitimate American leaders.
Speaker 7: And I really don't want to call out individual names,
Speaker 7: but it's hard to imagine that you couldn't swing a
Speaker 7: cat in a barroom and do better than you know,
Speaker 7: Chad Wolf or do better than you know and that
Speaker 7: list is not short. Yeah, there you go, Tommy Tupper, Like, literally,
Speaker 7: I could cross the street to my ninety some year
Speaker 7: old neighbor and he would do a better job than
Speaker 7: Tommy Tupperville.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not saying much, but yeah, for sure, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean I think that's a good point.
Speaker 1: Republicans have been doing this for a long time.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, so, am I going to agree with
Speaker 7: everything that the next generation of politicians does? Absolutely not,
Speaker 7: But you know what, let's take it out for spin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree. And the reality is, I mean,
Speaker 1: even Richard Nixon, who were really hearkening back to another
Speaker 1: time he was terrible. So there have been a lot
Speaker 1: of terrible Republicans. You did this interview with Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden seems to have a real interest in academics
Speaker 1: and historians. Can you talk to me about interviewing him
Speaker 1: and also about that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think he does have an interest in history.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure in historians, except as the one reflects
Speaker 7: the other, and that is that I think he recognizes
Speaker 7: that he has lived through a lot of crucial years
Speaker 7: in the United States and has been an actor in
Speaker 7: a lot of them. And one of the things that
Speaker 7: I have found fascinating about him two things. Actually, one
Speaker 7: I have found fascinating is that he is having lived
Speaker 7: through the changes he lived through and having to work
Speaker 7: with people like strom Thurmond, he has become a really
Speaker 7: masterful negotiator, which you know, that's not rocket science. Everybody
Speaker 7: says that about him, but you know, it's really astonishing.
Speaker 1: He just negotiated the largest multi country prisoner deal. I
Speaker 1: think there's some historical president for this, but not much.
Speaker 7: That's correct, and I would I mean, that is obviously huge.
Speaker 7: His focus and his great strength has always been in
Speaker 7: foreign affairs. But the one that got me was the
Speaker 7: fact that he managed to get through the House of
Speaker 7: Representatives under House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana,
Speaker 7: a National security supplemental bill to give money to Ukraine, and.
Speaker 1: A lot of people thought would never get passed.
Speaker 7: I thought it would never have get passed, and I
Speaker 7: would have lost it months before Biden did. And he
Speaker 7: just kept scratching away at it, and you know, through
Speaker 7: one person and through another until he got it done,
Speaker 7: which I just that has just been astonishing to watch.
Speaker 7: The other thing that I think is interesting about Biden,
Speaker 7: to go back to where we are in this moment
Speaker 7: today with the naming of Walsa, the governor of Minnesota,
Speaker 7: as the vice presidential nominee, is I think there is
Speaker 7: level at which Biden has always held himself or has
Speaker 7: been held I'm not going to attribute blame to either
Speaker 7: side here from what has been accepted as inside the Beltway,
Speaker 7: being part of the in crowd, or maybe not the Beltway,
Speaker 7: maybe in the sort of eastern political circles. And I
Speaker 7: think he's very aware of that, and I think that
Speaker 7: it may in fact have influenced not only his presentation
Speaker 7: by the media, but also the way he approached politics.
Speaker 7: That is, he is exceedingly warm. He is very aware
Speaker 7: of what it means to have to take care of
Speaker 7: an ill child or have to put food on the table.
Speaker 7: He's very in tune with the kind of world that
Speaker 7: is not always represented in, for example, the New York Times,
Speaker 7: and that embrace on his part of what could be
Speaker 7: characterized as sort of the down home rural experience. I
Speaker 7: think it's actually mattered a lot. It's mattered a lot
Speaker 7: in the way he has shown in the media, it
Speaker 7: matters a lot in the way people interpret him, and
Speaker 7: I think it's mattered a lot in the way that
Speaker 7: he has governed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has also just lived through an incredible tragedy.
Speaker 1: It's very hard as a Democrat not to look at
Speaker 1: the incredible momentum that Harris has and to not feel
Speaker 1: that it was the right thing for Joe Biden to
Speaker 1: drop out. But I also think that the way it
Speaker 1: happened ultimately, you know that those three weeks were critical
Speaker 1: in her being able to rally support among the base,
Speaker 1: that it really was a sort of seamless process. What's
Speaker 1: your thinking.
Speaker 7: I think that's right, and I think he managed it
Speaker 7: actually simply beautifully. I was terribly concerned that if he
Speaker 7: stepped out that we would get the kind of disarray
Speaker 7: and infighting that we saw after nineteen sixty eight, for example,
Speaker 7: or in the nineteen sixty eight campaign. And you know,
Speaker 7: it was thirty two hours from him announcing after the
Speaker 7: talk shows were over on Sunday that he would not
Speaker 7: accept the Democratic nomination to her being the presumptive nominee
Speaker 7: because she had ironed out all the number of delegates
Speaker 7: that she needed. That was absolutely masterful. And I will
Speaker 7: also point out that one of the things that he
Speaker 7: has always been really good at is taking a bad
Speaker 7: situation and in my mind, I see him almost as
Speaker 7: if he is stepping on it to something else. What
Speaker 7: he did in the way that he tapped Harris for
Speaker 7: the nomination was he vaulted himself into the position of
Speaker 7: being a statesman. And you know, we haven't had a
Speaker 7: real statesman in a very long time in politics. I mean,
Speaker 7: we have people like Jimmy Carter, of course, who really
Speaker 7: excelled in human rights, but in American politics to be
Speaker 7: able to stand above the fray, It's been a long
Speaker 7: time since somebody could stand above the and we need
Speaker 7: that in this election because somebody's going to have to
Speaker 7: be protecting the sanctity of the vote and the ability
Speaker 7: to count the vote. And of course that falls under
Speaker 7: Biden's Article two powers. So it's going to be hard
Speaker 7: for the Supreme Court at that point if he feels
Speaker 7: the need to do anything, to say he can't do it.
Speaker 7: And similarly, also in his Article two powers are the
Speaker 7: ability to conduct foreign affairs. And I will point out
Speaker 7: there's one or two little things, and of course I'm
Speaker 7: being facetious and not meaning to denigrate anything that are
Speaker 7: hanging out there right now that I suspect he would
Speaker 7: like to be able to do without being accused of
Speaker 7: being partisan if he does them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us, Heather.
Speaker 7: It's always a pleasure, Molly.
Speaker 1: Tim Walls is the governor of Minnesota and the presumptive
Speaker 1: Democratic vice presidential nominee. Welcome Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 5: Governor Laws, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: You know, Jesse and I have long wanted to have
Speaker 1: you on this podcast because some of the progressive legislation
Speaker 1: you have passed has become sort of like the wish
Speaker 1: list of all liberals. So you're kind of a big deal.
Speaker 5: It's like the new Deal. We did the new Deal
Speaker 5: out here.
Speaker 1: So yes, you and Governor Pritzker are sort of two
Speaker 1: of our people where you've done the impossible. So you
Speaker 1: shot to fame in my mind when I saw that
Speaker 1: picture of you and the children.
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so talk to me about some of this progressive legislation,
Speaker 1: how you've done it. And also can we talk about
Speaker 1: that photo of the children when you've signed the free breakfast.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well thanks for bringing it up, Molly. I can
Speaker 5: die a happy man after that. And look, I've got
Speaker 5: a great comms team and everything. And people were writing
Speaker 5: them saying this was the most brilliant thing, and they're
Speaker 5: also very humble. They said, look, this was organic. We
Speaker 5: in Minnesota passed free breakfast and lunch for all of
Speaker 5: our kids. No more meal shaming, no more different colored ticket,
Speaker 5: no more families having to worry about filling out all
Speaker 5: the paperwork whatever. For goodness sake, we can feed our children.
Speaker 5: So we went out to Webster Elementary School to sign that,
Speaker 5: and I did a signing and we had all the
Speaker 5: advocates in the legislator, but we were in a school
Speaker 5: with these kids and they were kind of just all
Speaker 5: setting around. These are elementary school kids, and they were
Speaker 5: into this. And I remember my signing statement. I said,
Speaker 5: and now all your classmates can eat. And these kids,
Speaker 5: they're pure joy of understanding what it means to be
Speaker 5: a decent human being, just sprung up and they just
Speaker 5: kind of mobbed me. It was this happy grandfather photo
Speaker 5: type of thing, but just symbolic of what we can do.
Speaker 5: So and I think that, you know, going back to
Speaker 5: why do we get this done? Because how do you
Speaker 5: argue about that? It's just a smart thing. Look, these
Speaker 5: are also markets for our farmers out here, or a
Speaker 5: big agricultural state. I always try and drop troop bombs
Speaker 5: on all of you. We produce more turkeys than any
Speaker 5: other state, so just so you know, we're the turkey
Speaker 5: capital of the world world, and so we have all this.
Speaker 5: We produce a ton of food and our kids can eat.
Speaker 5: And I think we went into this session saying, look,
Speaker 5: there has been a pent up desire and people ask
Speaker 5: me what, you know, what are you most proud of?
Speaker 5: There is a list of things here that is really awesome.
Speaker 5: It's things that we fought for decades over I think
Speaker 5: For me, it was changing this attitude progressives by nature
Speaker 5: are you know, we're progressive and we're hopeful, but we
Speaker 5: can also be pessimistic. People, Oh it's a nice day,
Speaker 5: but it may snow tomorrow type of thing. Very minispotent
Speaker 5: about that. But I said, we were conditioned that bad
Speaker 5: things happened. Pasting good things took decades, because twenty years
Speaker 5: to get driver's licenses for folks who are undocumented, that
Speaker 5: is absolutely ridiculous. They're here, they're working, they're doing stuff.
Speaker 5: Get them a driver's license. Keep people say we did
Speaker 5: all those things at once. So for me, it changed
Speaker 5: people's attitude, and especially with young people. I had a
Speaker 5: young eighteen year old who worked on a lot of
Speaker 5: this stuff, was in turning at first and working and said,
Speaker 5: you know, I worked on your campaign governor. We won,
Speaker 5: and five months later we have paid family medically, eat
Speaker 5: free breakfast and wat is legal. This stuff's not that hard,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, oh my god, we've created monsters here,
Speaker 5: but in a good way. So that's how that came about,
Speaker 5: and that I think that photo was just accumulation of
Speaker 5: what kind of progressive dreams is. Look when our people,
Speaker 5: you know, they want to make it like we have
Speaker 5: an extreme agenda. Yep, it's just crazy. We want these
Speaker 5: elementary kids to eat. That is just really wild, and
Speaker 5: it really just stuck. It was pretty hard to push
Speaker 5: back against that photo.
Speaker 1: When you watch Republicans argue about free mails and those
Speaker 1: like we don't want you know, some middle class kid
Speaker 1: getting a free breakfast, and you really do see how
Speaker 1: little this whole thing makes any sense, right Like you
Speaker 1: are a wealthy country.
Speaker 5: That's where they're stuck right now. They don't have anything Molly,
Speaker 5: And on this one they actually said this to me, Look,
Speaker 5: there's going to be people that don't need this tax break.
Speaker 5: When have they ever talked about wealthy people that they're
Speaker 5: worried that somebody's going to need it who doesn't need it?
Speaker 5: And I'm telling you what I heard on this problem
Speaker 5: was for those families who did not qualify for free
Speaker 5: and produced lunch, whose kids wanted to eat at school
Speaker 5: and now could and because of the way our country
Speaker 5: still you know, the division of labor still falls heavily
Speaker 5: on women. Eric mothers date, Thank god, I don't have
Speaker 5: to make breakfast in the morning. It's like my life
Speaker 5: so much better. That was the thank you like, look,
Speaker 5: we can afford it and everything, but this is just
Speaker 5: so much easier. So I agree, they got no pushback
Speaker 5: on it. That's your pushback. We can't afford to feed
Speaker 5: our kids.
Speaker 1: So one of the stark contrasts I think of between
Speaker 1: blue state and red steak governors is in Arkansas and
Speaker 1: a lot of other states, you have a red steak
Speaker 1: governors signing legislation that makes it easier for companies when
Speaker 1: they have underage children working, to not have to pay
Speaker 1: the same kind of fines because likely they have underage
Speaker 1: children working. That has been real movement in these red
Speaker 1: states to make the fines lesser for child labor. Talk
Speaker 1: to me about what it looks like to be a
Speaker 1: blue state governor in that kind of America.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it feels like Victorian England. David Copperfielders. It was
Speaker 5: a really great when showed the contrast. I think it
Speaker 5: was the same week I signed the breakfast, I think
Speaker 5: the governor of Arkansas signed you know, child labor laws,
Speaker 5: and I'll tell you what, her picture did not look
Speaker 5: as happy as the kids in my picture who were
Speaker 5: organically thrilled. Look that's what they're doing, and unfortunately this
Speaker 5: is in very dangerous business. We also are you know,
Speaker 5: protein backing states from meatpacking plans. These are dangerous places.
Speaker 5: There are no places for kids and trying to look,
Speaker 5: we're all dealing with, you know, labor shortages that we're
Speaker 5: trying to get. We simply take a different approach and
Speaker 5: said we're going to protect union workers and we're going
Speaker 5: to pay people more and lo and behold. When you
Speaker 5: pay people more and give them worker protections, people move
Speaker 5: to your state and start working in those businesses. So
Speaker 5: this truly is the race to the bottom versus the
Speaker 5: idea of lifting up and building. And again we're making
Speaker 5: the case out here. We did all of these things
Speaker 5: and for the first time on the CNBC they do
Speaker 5: their survey of the best states for the business climate.
Speaker 5: We moved into the top five, replacing Texas. Because it
Speaker 5: works when your workers are well paid, they have paid timumitically,
Speaker 5: they have healthcare, their children have daycare, they have and
Speaker 5: you have an education level. Look, we made college free
Speaker 5: to folks that are making less than eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: Those are those working families that we need to participate
Speaker 5: in our economy. So I agree with you. The contrast
Speaker 5: could not be greater. And when we start measuring this,
Speaker 5: you really start to see it. And I don't know
Speaker 5: where the end state is for them. I don't know
Speaker 5: how telling people forcing your kids, Oh it'll teach them
Speaker 5: character whatever, as they lose an arm and you know
Speaker 5: in the equipment it makes no sense.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean part of that is there's no paths
Speaker 1: as citizenships. So these children are smuggled over and they
Speaker 1: go get jobs and send all their money home. I
Speaker 1: mean it's just as unfair.
Speaker 5: Exactly right. And and here for twenty years, we tried
Speaker 5: to make the case, you know, post nine to eleven. Oh,
Speaker 5: they could be terrified. We didn't give them driver's licenses.
Speaker 5: All they wanted to do was drive to work and
Speaker 5: then drive over to the school and pick their kid
Speaker 5: up and go home. And they're here processing those turkeys
Speaker 5: that I talk to you about doing the work is
Speaker 5: necessarily paying their taxes. And we made the case here
Speaker 5: in Minnesota is look, it is a moral imperative that
Speaker 5: people be safe, that they be protected, and we provide
Speaker 5: healthcare for those children.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk to me about healthcare, and then just talk
Speaker 1: to me about what you're doing on a local level
Speaker 1: for healthcare.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, we have no system that makes any
Speaker 5: sense in this country. We spend twice as much as
Speaker 5: the next country in terms of that, and yet we
Speaker 5: rank what thirty eighth in maternal mortality rates. It's just
Speaker 5: a shame and it really comes home to press here.
Speaker 5: We've got more people ensured than I think almost any
Speaker 5: other state, and of course we're home to like the
Speaker 5: Mayo Clinic. So these are just recognized as the best
Speaker 5: healthcare system in the world, which is great if you
Speaker 5: can get in. And so what we've done is we
Speaker 5: have Minnesota Care, which you know, folks can buy in
Speaker 5: and need it. We expanded that to folks regardless of
Speaker 5: their documentation status because once again, you know, the basic
Speaker 5: human rights of being able to take care of folks
Speaker 5: on These are folks that are here working in proceeds
Speaker 5: that they're waiting for a legal system that is again
Speaker 5: takes seven to nine years to get your asylum claim process.
Speaker 5: Would have been nice if Congress would have passed the
Speaker 5: legislation that would make that ninety days and put money
Speaker 5: into it, but.
Speaker 1: You know, Trump didn't want them to, so of course they.
Speaker 5: Don't want to because they want to complain about this
Speaker 5: and these are in our communities. So I think for
Speaker 5: us here, what really is interesting about this Molly, it
Speaker 5: becomes harder and harder. What you know, we asked asking
Speaker 5: Republicans and those who don't look at this this way,
Speaker 5: is what's your complaint and what's the alternative? You know,
Speaker 5: where's this workforce going to come? And I think there's
Speaker 5: a real dynamic shift happening and we'll see if it
Speaker 5: happens fast enough. The business community. The business community understands
Speaker 5: that we need to have immigration reform. The business community
Speaker 5: needs to believe and they know that we need childcare.
Speaker 5: That's a big issue for parents that can't find working
Speaker 5: out of the workforce. They get all these things, but
Speaker 5: there since so conditioned that many of these chambers of
Speaker 5: commerce are just they think it's the old Republican Party.
Speaker 5: This is not where elected officials in the Republican Party
Speaker 5: are at today. So I'm actually somewhat hopeful that we're
Speaker 5: making the case that, look, not only can we take
Speaker 5: care of people and do the right thing and these
Speaker 5: progressive ideas about you should have health care and food
Speaker 5: in a safe place to live, and you should be educated.
Speaker 5: In the long run, that's how you grow the economy,
Speaker 5: and I think in minnesota's starting to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that's a really good point. And Paul
Speaker 1: Krugman had a really good piece on the idea that
Speaker 1: maybe that this migrant served is actually maybe one of
Speaker 1: the things that saved us from having a recession, which
Speaker 1: is kind of an incredible idea. So talk to me
Speaker 1: about what you are doing with the DGA to bring
Speaker 1: this idea of abundance national a.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, and I'm really proud of the DGA. You
Speaker 5: mentioned that you've got folks like Baby Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer,
Speaker 5: You've got, of course Gavin Newsom, but you've got folks
Speaker 5: Roy Cooper, you got Basher Andy Basheer at in Kentucky.
Speaker 5: And on Saturday, this last Saturday, I was at the
Speaker 5: Democratic dinner in Topeka, Kansas with Democratic Governor Laura Kelly.
Speaker 5: These ideas work everywhere, and I think one of the
Speaker 5: things the DGA does is we're out there to make
Speaker 5: the case that governors are the front lines of protection
Speaker 5: on all of these things, certainly on reproductive care in
Speaker 5: vitro and voting rights and protections of our children and
Speaker 5: food and all this, and that as Congress becomes more
Speaker 5: gridlock and paralyzed, it becomes more important than ever to
Speaker 5: elect these governors. It's super inspirational. See Lord Kelly, Andy
Speaker 5: Pasher win. But now we've got to win down in
Speaker 5: North Carolina. And so what the DGA does is it
Speaker 5: goes out there, it supports, and we're super successful. We've
Speaker 5: defended twenty three of twenty four of our incumbent governors
Speaker 5: over the last three cycles. This year, we have no
Speaker 5: incomebent governors, but we've got as I said, in North Carolina.
Speaker 5: After Rui Cooper's term limited, Jay Insley up in Washington State,
Speaker 5: John Carney and Delaware, we had an open seat in
Speaker 5: New Hampshire. The DGA goes out and helps these local candidates.
Speaker 5: They know their best message, they know what stands, but
Speaker 5: we raise the money, have some of the technical expertise
Speaker 5: and try and provide the support to get them elected.
Speaker 5: Because you said it, mind, you just want to start
Speaker 5: comparing life expectancies, healthcare. Heck, compare happiness. They've got to think.
Speaker 5: Happiness in Minnesota, by the way, usually ranked second in
Speaker 5: this and I'm okay with that because we're behind Hawaii
Speaker 5: in the happiest.
Speaker 1: Right and you guys have some weather issues.
Speaker 5: Yeah, COVID brought this to the front. It's statistically provable.
Speaker 5: If you lived in a red state, your chances survived
Speaker 5: I think COVID was greater.
Speaker 1: Was lesser. If you lived in a blue state, your
Speaker 1: chances of surviving COVID were greater.
Speaker 5: You shoot me, Yeah, exactly right, and that these red
Speaker 5: state governors put you that's exactly right. We're very proud. We're.
Speaker 5: One of the things we had is we're one of
Speaker 5: the ten states with the lowest death rates on that
Speaker 5: and lo and behold, our economy recovered pastor and we
Speaker 5: had surpluses. So I think we're out there making the
Speaker 5: case that if you want to see your personal life improve,
Speaker 5: elect a democratic governor. So if your listeners, Molly, I'll
Speaker 5: put in a shameless plug for the DGA on that
Speaker 5: if they want more information on these great governors, and
Speaker 5: trust me. Like in North Carolina with Josh Stein, he
Speaker 5: is literally running against the guy as central casting of
Speaker 5: a marble villain. This guy is demonized the survivors of
Speaker 5: school shootings. He's called school teachers the most evil thing
Speaker 5: on the planet. He said, when you're pregnant, it's not
Speaker 5: your baby, it's all baby now just insanity.
Speaker 1: So he doesn't think women should vote correct.
Speaker 5: I mean, the guy is on every front. So if
Speaker 5: they want more information on these this, if you want
Speaker 5: to know where your impact makes a difference, these state
Speaker 5: ride races make everything. We're able to codifire abortion rights,
Speaker 5: were able to make sure that we're a trans sanctuary
Speaker 5: state here in Minnesota. And be clear, I ran against
Speaker 5: a guy who had the absolute opposite opinion and all that,
Speaker 5: and in states where those type of guys won, life
Speaker 5: is hell. Women's life is put at risk. The vice
Speaker 5: president was out of here last week. For the first
Speaker 5: time in American history, is setting vice president or president
Speaker 5: stood in an abortion clinic. Abortion clinics are healthcare clinics,
Speaker 5: by the way, that's what they're referred to, and stood
Speaker 5: in there and talked to a young woman from Idaho
Speaker 5: who had to travel from Idaho to Minneapolis figure out
Speaker 5: how to do that. Luckily she had the resources and everything.
Speaker 5: But it's just unacceptable. Democratic governors protect that. So if
Speaker 5: they want to text me here it is Molly, It's
Speaker 5: Tim at three zero two zero one. And what they'll
Speaker 5: do is get information on these races.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things I've been really struck by
Speaker 1: is the Medicare expansion. One of the things Democrats have
Speaker 1: done when they've been in red states is they've been
Speaker 1: able and again it depends on the state legislature, but
Speaker 1: they've been able to pass these expansions. Explain to us
Speaker 1: why it happens when they do that.
Speaker 5: For example, and there's two things that are the most
Speaker 5: despicable things in the world. Using Medicare expansion, using federal dollars.
Speaker 5: And you know, many of the cases of Minnesota is
Speaker 5: a payer state, we get far less back from the
Speaker 5: federal government to give a lot of these red states
Speaker 5: get an awful lot of federal dollars back. But in
Speaker 5: the case of Medicare expansion, you're able to expand it
Speaker 5: to more people, make the eligibility there. And from a
Speaker 5: person's on the most basic level of this is it
Speaker 5: means somebody who couldn't get access to affordable health care
Speaker 5: does in the easiest way, and it comes with the
Speaker 5: federal money that helps. You've got to put in a
Speaker 5: little bit on state. But there's two things that I
Speaker 5: find the most despicable thing in the world. They turn
Speaker 5: this down, they being Republican governors, turn it down and
Speaker 5: there's been a new program that is an absolute godsend
Speaker 5: is the Summer EBT program, the Summer SNAP and I
Speaker 5: believe it's fifteen of these states have turned it down. Now,
Speaker 5: these are folks that my bed is is. I bet
Speaker 5: in their businesses they took PPP loans for themselves. I
Speaker 5: bet you, they take upsity payments. I bet you they
Speaker 5: take other breaks, but on them. The governor of Nebraska
Speaker 5: said this just creates dependency, and the governor of Iowa said,
Speaker 5: we don't have hunger here, which you all know is crazy.
Speaker 5: So I think tying back to this, having Roy Cooper
Speaker 5: in North Carolina meant eight hundred thousand more North Carolinians
Speaker 5: were able to access Medicare at affordable healthcare, which, again,
Speaker 5: even if you're a cruel not caring about human beings
Speaker 5: getting this, it means they're healthier, they spend less money
Speaker 5: in the long run. At the end, more people are
Speaker 5: able to work and take fewer days off work, and
Speaker 5: your economy growth. When people are healthier, your economy does better.
Speaker 5: So no, they turn it down, and it's because we
Speaker 5: don't want the iman. You know, they don't want socialism.
Speaker 5: It's their message. It is the most despicable and those
Speaker 5: two programs the most damaging things they can do. But
Speaker 5: it apparently appeals to their base. I don't know, I
Speaker 5: don't get it.
Speaker 1: Just cruel, right, and it's also I mean more likely
Speaker 1: the base doesn't know that it's available to them, right,
Speaker 1: because nobody is going.
Speaker 5: To turn down good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and nobody's going to turn that down. And by
Speaker 1: the way, they when they turn this money down, it's
Speaker 1: not like they get the money first, so they just don't.
Speaker 5: Get No, they don't get it, and then apparently they
Speaker 5: don't care. That's what this thing with the summary BD program.
Speaker 5: You know, these are the worst time for kids in
Speaker 5: hunger is the weekends and breaks, as you will, well,
Speaker 5: that's why they have to pack, backpack, send food home.
Speaker 5: We were at school last year before we were you know,
Speaker 5: got through our school meals program, and there's a teacher
Speaker 5: talking about that she's had some of her children eating
Speaker 5: crayon because they couldn't get enough. They didn't know, and
Speaker 5: people are assuming, oh, there's there's charity things out there. Whatever.
Speaker 5: These are parents that are just trying to make ends meet,
Speaker 5: working hard, and it's hard enough to navigate government when
Speaker 5: you're not in that situation your child's hungry, or you're
Speaker 5: worrying about homelessness or whatever. I just the cruelness of
Speaker 5: it is what really strikes me. And I'll tell you
Speaker 5: I'm going to make one more plug for what I
Speaker 5: would encourage states to do and elect democratic governors. During
Speaker 5: the pandemic, the federal government at the child tax credit,
Speaker 5: we saw the big reduction in childhood poverty in our
Speaker 5: nation's history. Well, we took that and put it on steroids.
Speaker 5: In Minnesota, we have the most aggressive and generous child
Speaker 5: tax credit, seventeen hundred and fifty dollars every child, no
Speaker 5: limit on that. Whether you have to file taxes or not,
Speaker 5: you get that. We have seen over three hundred thousand
Speaker 5: children qualified. We have returned four hundred million dollars. And
Speaker 5: what it basically assures is in those families for the
Speaker 5: first time, they have a guaranteed income source to take
Speaker 5: care of those children. It is estimated by all measures
Speaker 5: that that will reduce Minnesota's childhood poverty rate by a third.
Speaker 5: We're already the third lowest in the country. We will
Speaker 5: be by far the lowest of childhood poverty in the country.
Speaker 5: And again, what I would say is they'll go to school,
Speaker 5: they'll have good childcare, their parents will pay femin medically.
Speaker 5: But imagine that mom and dad can take time off
Speaker 5: after they have the baby to bond with that child.
Speaker 5: We're going to have a better, healthier, well qualified workforce
Speaker 5: for jobs of the future. So I come back to
Speaker 5: this again, Even if you don't want to add the
Speaker 5: humanity side of doing this, it's just smart to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jesus fundamentally, you know, I spend all day talking
Speaker 1: about politics, and the thing that I'm struck by is
Speaker 1: that Republicans have terrible policies. Yes, Like there's just not
Speaker 1: a single policy where you're like, oh, that's actually kind
Speaker 1: of God.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I don't know, maybe it's we're bad at
Speaker 5: this year listeners saying this too. For God's sakes, how
Speaker 5: do you argue against these things that were making the
Speaker 5: case and in the long run, you can save money,
Speaker 5: you can have a better economy. Look, if if their
Speaker 5: stuff worked, I don't disagree with them because they're Republicans.
Speaker 5: I disagree because their ideas don't work and they're weird.
Speaker 5: In a lot of cases, you think it you go
Speaker 5: was that it worked. I don't have an ideological dog
Speaker 5: in the fight that I'm going to ram this thing
Speaker 5: through just because I like it. On some things, I am,
Speaker 5: but none of the big ones. On most of them,
Speaker 5: we just wanted to work and they don't really have
Speaker 5: a response to it. Hell, they're fighting here. One of
Speaker 5: the things Minnesota, you know, we're proud we set troops
Speaker 5: to defend the nation, you know, but we had a
Speaker 5: flag year that was pretty racist. It showed you know,
Speaker 5: indigenous being driven out. You know, it's manifest destiny time,
Speaker 5: and they did it. So we got a new flag
Speaker 5: that included everybody. But oh, you'd have thought the world
Speaker 5: ended for Republicans. Now that's their big thing. They need
Speaker 5: to be elected this year so they can overturn the
Speaker 5: flag and put back up the racist eighteen hundred flag.
Speaker 5: That's the whole we can party right now. It's like
Speaker 5: a ven diagram of you know, Gadson play some of that.
Speaker 5: I don't get it, but I think what we need
Speaker 5: to do, we need to do a better job of
Speaker 5: telling people. Look, I'm a regular dude who hates politics.
Speaker 5: If you're that guy that's out there, well, here's how
Speaker 5: that's going to save you money. Here's how this's going
Speaker 5: to do this. Oh and by the way, we've got
Speaker 5: background checks and you know, red flag laws around the guns,
Speaker 5: but you can still own a firearm, no problem. We
Speaker 5: just don't want you shooting kids in our schools, and
Speaker 5: we're going to try new things so you don't. It's
Speaker 5: really not that controversial. And I don't think we've done
Speaker 5: a great job. Apparently we haven't. My God, my wife.
Speaker 5: My wife and I are public school teachers, and she said,
Speaker 5: we don't need standardized testing to show we're failing. They're
Speaker 5: still not voting for us on these things, which I
Speaker 5: think we have to do a better job of educating.
Speaker 1: All right, you can be her governor next. Thank you governor.
Speaker 5: Yes, thanks Bali, you're the best.
Speaker 1: No moment full Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 5: By John Fast.
Speaker 4: I feel like previously the derangement syndromes take a little
Speaker 4: while to develop, but Walls derangement syndrome went zero to
Speaker 4: one hundred in about two minutes.
Speaker 1: I think we should have expected walls derangement syndrome. I
Speaker 1: think we should have been waiting for walls derangement syndrome.
Speaker 1: Turns out that Republicans are very, very, very very mad
Speaker 1: about walls. I just want to point out, like, this
Speaker 1: is a man who carved butter into the shape of
Speaker 1: a school bus. Okay, he's a very sort of folksy
Speaker 1: Midwestern guy, and the right wants you to believe he's
Speaker 1: a member of Antifa.
Speaker 5: Would you say he's driving them up the walls?
Speaker 1: Thank you, friend, He's not going to build the walls.
Speaker 4: He's not.
Speaker 1: Governor Walls most famous for giving poor kids free breakfast.
Speaker 1: We did a great interview with him a couple months ago.
Speaker 5: Find it they're very mad that he gave students tampons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he gave students tampons. He is a really great educator.
Speaker 1: He is a really great serviceman. I think he's a
Speaker 1: really good candidate who connects with the Middle West. So online, right,
Speaker 1: not very happy thoughts, prayers, whatever. And as a special,
Speaker 1: fancy exclusive bonus for those of you who will continue listening,
Speaker 1: we are re airing my famous interview with Tim Walls
Speaker 1: where he and I really became friends. Tim Walls is
Speaker 1: the governor of Minnesota and the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.