Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Donald Trump Junior says his father
Speaker 1: has discussed banning mainstream journalists from the White House briefing room.
Speaker 1: It's going to be all one American News. We have
Speaker 1: a great show for you today. The Nation's Jeet here
Speaker 1: talks to us about how the Democratic Party rebuilds. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to Congresswoman Becca balland about how to push
Speaker 1: back against Trump's agenda.
Speaker 2: But first the news.
Speaker 3: So Molly, as usual, we have to talk about Elon
Speaker 3: Musk's unhinged tweeting. He's naming people by name who he's
Speaker 3: going to recommend get fired. Isn't that so nice of him?
Speaker 3: I think you should know this as somebody he wants
Speaker 3: to help docs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again, one of the things that happens when you go
Speaker 1: maga is that you have to tweet all the time.
Speaker 2: That's one of the laws of going back. I thought
Speaker 2: about it, but that's right, it's true. You have to
Speaker 2: just completely live online.
Speaker 1: And so just like we remember that in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: we spent all this time our news cycles were controlled
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump's tweets. Now we have another person to
Speaker 1: add to this attention economy, and that is the richest
Speaker 1: man in the world, Elon Musk. He is tweeting up
Speaker 1: a storm day night, left right all the time.
Speaker 3: I really liked the insight from his former friend podcast
Speaker 3: hosted author Sam Harris that said that he's staying up
Speaker 3: all night sniffing ketamine all day.
Speaker 1: His behavior is very erratic, and usually staying up all
Speaker 1: night as a sign that something else is going on.
Speaker 1: But who am I to judge not sleeping and spending
Speaker 1: your entire life online as someone who enjoys living online myself.
Speaker 1: But I think what is a little bit nefarious about this,
Speaker 1: besides the fact that he has this fan base that's
Speaker 1: similar to Donald Trump's fan base, is that there's.
Speaker 2: A real war.
Speaker 1: A lot of these government employees have become the targets,
Speaker 1: and so there he started doing this thing where he
Speaker 1: is posting their names online. So last week, in the
Speaker 1: midst of a fury of his daily mistives, mus reposted
Speaker 1: two x posts that revealed the names and titles of
Speaker 1: people holding four relatively obscure climate related government positions.
Speaker 2: Each post has been viewed.
Speaker 1: Now again, they do juice their numbers, but or at
Speaker 1: least we think they use their numbers.
Speaker 3: Who knows they juice their numbers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we want to be careful when we say
Speaker 1: something like that. But yes, so we think they used
Speaker 1: their numbers. But either way, a lot of angry people
Speaker 1: have seen the names of these obscure government climate officials
Speaker 1: who are now perhaps going to get a barrage of
Speaker 1: negative attention the way that I had when I had
Speaker 1: that experience with Elon. At least one of the four
Speaker 1: women has deleted her social media accounts, which is very
Speaker 1: much the way I'm sorry to tell you was posted.
Speaker 1: It's public information, but you know, no federal employee, I mean,
Speaker 1: these are not These are not billionaires. They don't have
Speaker 1: the wherewithal to have private security, and as we know
Speaker 1: from interviewing Lisa Page, being targeted by a MAGA changes
Speaker 1: the trajectory of your life in a million different ways.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, again, you know, maybe they're trying
Speaker 1: a lot of this MAGA stuff is trying to scare
Speaker 1: people into not being brave, into not standing up for themselves,
Speaker 1: into not standing up for what's right, into feeling that
Speaker 1: that there's no choices, that they have to go along
Speaker 1: with whatever Trump World wants them to. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what this is. It's a sort of bullying and
Speaker 1: it's really too bad, and it's really dark.
Speaker 2: Speaking of bullying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Molly allowed me to read one of mister
Speaker 3: Trump's quote unquote truths to you, a New York Times
Speaker 3: apologize to its readers for getting years of trun coverage
Speaker 3: so wrong. They write such phony quote unquote junk, knowing
Speaker 3: full well how incorrect. It is only meaning to demean
Speaker 3: Maggot Haberman, a third rate writer and fourth rate intellect. Right,
Speaker 3: story after story, always terrible, and yet I almost never
Speaker 3: speak to her. They do no fact checking because facts
Speaker 3: don't matter to them. I don't believe I've had a
Speaker 3: legitimately good story for The New York Times for years,
Speaker 3: and yet I won in record fashion, the most consequential
Speaker 3: presidential election of decades. Where is the apology?
Speaker 2: Mag is very into apologies.
Speaker 3: Yet they're not into ever apologizing themselves now well.
Speaker 1: And also, I mean, again, what did he get from
Speaker 1: Maggie apologizing to him?
Speaker 2: A bad stuff? That is correct?
Speaker 1: I just want to say two things here, New York
Speaker 1: Times again, people like to be mad at them, and
Speaker 1: I am guilty of this too.
Speaker 3: Gonna say, right, they.
Speaker 1: Do know that, you know, but they do some incredible reporting.
Speaker 1: And Maggie, I know a lot of people get mad
Speaker 1: at her, but she does incredible reporting. And also here
Speaker 1: we have Donald Trump calling her an anti semitic slur maggot,
Speaker 1: which is something that we've seen him do before. And
Speaker 1: I just want to point out that this is in
Speaker 1: response to a story. He appeared triggered by a story
Speaker 1: about an aide named Natalie Harp who serves as his
Speaker 1: gatekeeper with a creepy level of devotion. I just want
Speaker 1: to point out this coverage, even just the very simple
Speaker 1: stuff that actually happens, not you know, sort of opinion,
Speaker 1: but really just straight reporting. There is no way to
Speaker 1: report this stuff without ending up as the target. So
Speaker 1: I just want to say that, like, if we didn't
Speaker 1: have this information, we wouldn't know at all.
Speaker 2: What was happening. We would be so much worse off.
Speaker 1: And I am just grateful that we're getting this information
Speaker 1: so we can at least have some sense of what's
Speaker 1: happening behind the scenes and what maga's machination are. So
Speaker 1: I just think that it's really terrible that this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff is happening to journalists, and I hope it
Speaker 1: stops so I know it won't soar.
Speaker 3: In the past, it has been asked to be or
Speaker 3: not to be, that is the question. But if the
Speaker 3: Trump administration they're asking how much should we invade Mexico,
Speaker 3: that is the question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mexico for Mexico. I want to point out, are
Speaker 1: we going to go to Mexico?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: A senior Trump transition member said how much should we
Speaker 1: invade Mexico?
Speaker 2: That is the question.
Speaker 1: Look, it's very again, what's happening here is that this
Speaker 1: is about cartels, this is about fentanyl, and this is
Speaker 1: about needing an enemy for MAGA again. Will they go
Speaker 1: to war with Mexico or is this just blustered to
Speaker 1: try to get the base excited? Right? We don't know
Speaker 1: because a lot of times we've seen Trump World get
Speaker 1: excited say they're going to go to war with Mexico.
Speaker 1: They're definitely want to go to trade war with Mexico.
Speaker 1: But we don't know. And look, you know, here's the
Speaker 1: scary thought. I just think like we have to be
Speaker 1: so careful with Trump World because a lot of times
Speaker 1: they want you to get upset and to get hysterical,
Speaker 1: and then they're like, we were never going to invade
Speaker 1: Mexico anyway. That's a crazy lib lie. So I would
Speaker 1: just take this with a grain of salt. That said,
Speaker 1: the soon to be head of the DD said, if
Speaker 1: it takes military action, that's what it will take.
Speaker 2: It may take eventually, says Pete Hegsith.
Speaker 1: Obviously you're going to have to be smart about it,
Speaker 1: which is as good. It is good to be smart
Speaker 1: about things. Obviously the precision strikes. But if you put
Speaker 1: the fear in the minds of the drug lords at
Speaker 1: least as a start, and they can't operate in the
Speaker 1: open with impunity, it changes the way they operate. You
Speaker 1: combine that with an actual border security and now you're
Speaker 1: cooking with gas and you've got a chance. We're definitely
Speaker 1: going to war with Mexico.
Speaker 3: I like these bid games with the cartel. But then
Speaker 3: you have Senator Marco Rubio who's going to be Secretary
Speaker 3: of State hedjag and seg that will go to war
Speaker 3: with the drug cartels under condition that there's cooperation with
Speaker 3: the Mexican government. You know what I was thinking, with
Speaker 3: war with two countries, cooperation. That's usually the key word
Speaker 3: in war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't fucking know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think we should go to war
Speaker 1: with Mexico, but you know, I also don't think we
Speaker 1: should drink raw milk. That said, bird flu has been
Speaker 1: detected in raw milk, So it's possible that worlds will.
Speaker 2: In fact collide.
Speaker 1: Get Here is a contributor to the nation and the
Speaker 1: host of the time of monsters. Welcome back, too fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Your friend of mine, get.
Speaker 4: Here always get to be on the program wells, they
Speaker 4: said on Lord of the Rings. Happy to be with you,
Speaker 4: Wally John fast Here. At the end of all things.
Speaker 2: Yes, at the end of all things. I just want
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 1: My response to that when we were talking about it before,
Speaker 1: was you don't even fucking go here because you live
Speaker 1: in Canada.
Speaker 4: That's true, that's true. That is actually an advirtu of
Speaker 4: the thing I did. But it turned out to be
Speaker 4: a very smart thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I'll say now.
Speaker 4: It turns out. But Canada had its own trouble. That
Speaker 4: Trump is threatening twenty five percent terrorists unless we stopped
Speaker 4: people of illegal immigrants and drugs into the United States,
Speaker 4: And like I honestly don't know, okay, illegal immigrants. If
Speaker 4: you're talking about Canadians, you're basically talking about people like
Speaker 4: William Shatner who go down to Hollywood. In terms of drugs,
Speaker 4: I would actually say that I think that the foal
Speaker 4: is the other direction. My sense is like of all
Speaker 4: major drugs and actually gun crimes in Canada, it flows northward,
Speaker 4: not southwards.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My favorite is a Mexican president who's like, stop sending
Speaker 1: us all your guns, you fucking animals. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: this is the problem with be in America is we're
Speaker 1: like the capital of you know, every man, woman and
Speaker 1: child has fifteen ar fifteen.
Speaker 4: I mean in Canada as well, this is like a
Speaker 4: major problem because we do have gun laws, but you know,
Speaker 4: it's a porous border. We have not built the wall,
Speaker 4: but you're thinking about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep that William Shattner in.
Speaker 4: It is a case that with like all almost all
Speaker 4: gang violence, it turns out that there's a gun that's
Speaker 4: kind of traceable back to the United States. The flow
Speaker 4: of migrants, crime and guns is in the other direction.
Speaker 2: What I'm shocked.
Speaker 4: It is good to be in Canada. I do have
Speaker 4: extra rooms. So yeah, if you or anyone else needs space.
Speaker 1: Here fast forward to Jesse and I showing up on
Speaker 1: your doorstep. But let's talk really about the only war
Speaker 1: that is fun and easy to win. Do you remember
Speaker 1: when Trump tweeted that back in the early days.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, that's the fat.
Speaker 2: Trade wars are fun and to win. Our trade war's
Speaker 2: fun and easy to wind.
Speaker 4: Well in this case, I think with Trump, you kind
Speaker 4: of understand a lot of this is cafe be like
Speaker 4: he wants to, you know, like sort of do this
Speaker 4: sort of pretend thing, and that's you know, like twenty
Speaker 4: five percent tariffs stuff they covered kind of goes would
Speaker 4: be catastrophic for both countries. I think we have to
Speaker 4: be realistic that, Like, I think Trump likes to show
Speaker 4: victories to his supporters and then often involves bluster. And
Speaker 4: this is what he did in the first term. Actually
Speaker 4: with NAFTA. He basically said, we're gonna renegotiate NAFTA, gonna
Speaker 4: tear it up, and you know, like so, you know,
Speaker 4: the Canadians of Mexicans came in, they made a few
Speaker 4: small tinkerings around the edges, and then Trump was able
Speaker 4: to proclaim like I got rid of Thata, and I
Speaker 4: you know, I reade Trump da Trump, Right. I'm hoping
Speaker 4: it could well be that he has some more serious
Speaker 4: protectionist talks in his administration this time, and it could
Speaker 4: be more than just talk. But I am hoping that talk. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that is the kind of Trump and bluster. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think that with Trump the real danger a lot
Speaker 4: of liberals fall into. Maybe not so much anymore, but
Speaker 4: the first term was like taking too much of the rhetoric, like.
Speaker 2: Seriously swinging at every pitch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, so you have to kind of
Speaker 4: a big rule, you know, going forward, is watch what
Speaker 4: they do, not what they say, or at least compare
Speaker 4: what they do to what they say.
Speaker 1: Take him physically, but not literally just kidding, it's technically,
Speaker 1: but not emotionally.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, but not hysterically. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think we kind of have to like focus. I mean,
Speaker 4: these are very serious times. It's a very grim matteric
Speaker 4: that this man is returning to the White House, and
Speaker 4: that he is returning radicalized. I mean, he is very angry,
Speaker 4: and I think that he does have based on his
Speaker 4: Picks nominations. In the rhetoric that's coming through. I think
Speaker 4: there are a few areas where he's very serious on
Speaker 4: and one is revenge, really wants to use the legal
Speaker 4: system to get back at his enemies. The other I
Speaker 4: think is actually immigration, and that that is actually worrisome.
Speaker 4: I do actually think he has some commitment to the
Speaker 4: deportation agenda and has people like Stephen Miller who are
Speaker 4: hardcore idea logs. And on trade, I think there is
Speaker 4: a worry that he I think, but he with trade
Speaker 4: unlike the first two, they're real counterveiling things within the
Speaker 4: Republican Party. Like he wants these trade wars, but he
Speaker 4: also wants to keep Wall Street happy. I once saw
Speaker 4: with his nominations that there are a bunch of you know,
Speaker 4: like you George Soros.
Speaker 1: George Shurow's hedge front manager who had made billions.
Speaker 2: And billions of dollars and is also gay. So make
Speaker 2: that make sense?
Speaker 4: That's right. How's the family is? You know, gay people
Speaker 4: and straight proposts are wealthy allowed to do?
Speaker 2: Yes, families? Because why should gay people not have to
Speaker 2: be married like the rest of us.
Speaker 1: Yes, continue let them suffer too, That will show them.
Speaker 4: That's the fat. So on the trade, like I do
Speaker 4: think that, you know, like the fact that he has
Speaker 4: to keep Wall Street happy, or he likes to keep
Speaker 4: Wall Street happy.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the guardrail.
Speaker 1: If there's one guard rail, it's the Dow Jones Industrial average.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah. On both immigration and I
Speaker 4: think on the legal retribution, I think they are real
Speaker 4: causes to worry. And you know, I mean I think that,
Speaker 4: you know, people talk a lot about guardrails, and I
Speaker 4: think the real guardrail is only the stupidity and incompetence
Speaker 4: of Trump and the people around him, which which we
Speaker 4: also saw the first term that as compared to like
Speaker 4: Dick Cheney, who I think did a lot of more
Speaker 4: damage in some ways because he knew how the federal
Speaker 4: bureaucracy worked, He knew how to game the system to
Speaker 4: get what he wanted. Trump does not have that, and
Speaker 4: I think the people around him, you know, like my
Speaker 4: colleague at the Nation, like my style, likes to say, like,
Speaker 4: you know, well, there's some reassurance to someone who would
Speaker 4: make Matt Getz or Pam Bondy attorney general because these
Speaker 4: are these are not their best right, These are not
Speaker 4: people who can execute you.
Speaker 1: Ready for my hottest take, Yes, my hottest take is
Speaker 1: that Dick Cheney enentours Harris so that she would lose.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm just kidding. Maybe it's too soon for that
Speaker 1: kind of terrible joke.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it's an interesting because I think we
Speaker 4: talked about this on this podcast before, and I had,
Speaker 4: you know, accept.
Speaker 2: My lifelong hatred of the Chinese.
Speaker 4: Expressed great skepticism about the hugging and the Chinese strategy.
Speaker 4: But I did allow, you know, like, as far as
Speaker 4: I could figure out, the math did not work because
Speaker 4: I think the people that you alienate from this and demobilize,
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: Is everyone in the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, numbers the people that you gained. But then
Speaker 4: I also said, you know, like I did say, well,
Speaker 4: you know, the people were in the campaign. They have
Speaker 4: their own strategy and their own numbers, and I'm hoping
Speaker 4: that they knew what they were doing.
Speaker 1: We should not do circular firing squad as much as
Speaker 1: I want to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, But what was I will say coming
Speaker 4: out of all this, It is interesting. I mean, I
Speaker 4: don't want to do like recriminations on the show, but
Speaker 4: I think it is interesting that some of the stuff
Speaker 4: is coming out for me is a little bit vindicating,
Speaker 4: just in the sense that the stuff I had doubts
Speaker 4: about the people in the campaign. Now knowledge, yes, those
Speaker 4: are concerns, like they I did say that, Like, I
Speaker 4: think it's pretty clear from public opinion that if she
Speaker 4: made a cleaner break from Joe Biden. I really said
Speaker 4: how she'd be different than Joe Biden, that would pay off.
Speaker 4: And now the campaign basically just yes, that would have
Speaker 4: had some benefit. But Kamala Harris was not comfortable. She
Speaker 4: wants to show loyalty and you know, like the Biden
Speaker 4: bath expected loyalty, so.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly, I mean, there's real glass cliff stuff here.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You put a woman, a black woman, in a position
Speaker 1: where it's.
Speaker 2: Ninety nine point nine.
Speaker 1: Percent chance she's going to lose with that kind of headwinds.
Speaker 1: So I do think they're just a number of factors
Speaker 1: at play. But if we're going to talk about one
Speaker 1: thing that is really like, the thing that I want
Speaker 1: to talk about that makes me so furious is and
Speaker 1: I feel like you'll appreciate this, And I keep bringing
Speaker 1: this up and people keep telling me that I'm very
Speaker 1: sweet that they won't, you know, they can't even listen
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: But here's my hottest take.
Speaker 1: Republicans have a base right that is so radicalized that
Speaker 1: wants stuff that they you know, they put mass deportation
Speaker 1: now on signs. Okay, like that is how radicalized they are. Okay,
Speaker 1: mass deportation now is a chant?
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Democrats have a base that want like they want free
Speaker 1: glasses or they want you know, contexts to be covered
Speaker 1: by insurance, and they want Govy to be covered by insurance,
Speaker 1: and they want some kind of free pre k. I
Speaker 1: mean things that are like not very lefty. Democratic candidates
Speaker 1: run to the center. Republican candidates run to the right.
Speaker 4: Explain, my big thing is and I think this explies
Speaker 4: not just a selection but really every election since the
Speaker 4: Iraq War start to go bad, which is that the
Speaker 4: defining division in American politics is not left and right,
Speaker 4: moderate or radical even it's a pro system and anti system.
Speaker 4: Going back to the you know, basically, since Katrina and
Speaker 4: the Iraq War started to go bad, most Americans have
Speaker 4: felt that the country has been going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 4: And the first beneficiary of that was Barack Obama, who
Speaker 4: in two thousand and eight, you know, really was able
Speaker 4: to harvest the desire to make a clean break from
Speaker 4: the discredited Bush administration, and in twenty twelve, Obama was
Speaker 4: gifted with an opponent who was mister establishment incarnate, this
Speaker 4: you know, multi millionaire who, as Obama rightly said, made
Speaker 4: money by deindustrializing the Midwest and so on both twentyd
Speaker 4: and eight twenty twelve, Obama could run as I'm the
Speaker 4: agent of change against this discredited establishment. Now, once Trump emerged,
Speaker 4: and I think this is a big mistake that the
Speaker 4: Democrats made, was that they decided we will run as
Speaker 4: the party of the system that will bring together everyone
Speaker 4: discussed with Trump and once saw this even in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: where Hillary Clinton, you know, was welcoming the support of Republicans,
Speaker 4: was welcoming the support of the national security establishment, I
Speaker 4: was basically saying Trump is a dangerous interloper within the system.
Speaker 4: Which if you say that, that actually reinforces Trump's message
Speaker 4: because you were saying, yes, he is actually anti system
Speaker 4: and that we are the party of the system. Now,
Speaker 4: I think in twenty twenty, Trump was hurt because he
Speaker 4: was no longer fighting the man. He was the man,
Speaker 4: and he was the man at the time of COVID
Speaker 4: and at the time of the George Floyd uprising, and
Speaker 4: so there was a real mass popular anger, anti system politics,
Speaker 4: even though Joe Biden was the head and but Biden
Speaker 4: also co opted a lot of Bernie's message on economics,
Speaker 4: and so the Democrats were able to run as a
Speaker 4: party of change against the man. Now in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: I think, you know, I don't want to blame the candidate,
Speaker 4: because I actually think Kamala Harris was put in a
Speaker 4: very bad position, but because Biden was the incumbent, because
Speaker 4: people continue to feel that this country is going on
Speaker 4: the wrong track, and that's a seventy percent opinion right wrong, crack,
Speaker 4: right track. But Harris's campaign decided the only way that
Speaker 4: they could win is if they can appeal to moderate
Speaker 4: Republicans who are upset at Trump, and this way they
Speaker 4: could make up for some of the losses that they
Speaker 4: were seeing among young people, among people of color, and
Speaker 4: on working class voters. So they did this campaign where
Speaker 4: it was hugged the Chenese and not just like Liz Cheney,
Speaker 4: but Dick Cheney and my favorite Alberto Gonzalez, you know
Speaker 4: the memo, they welcome his support, but also you know,
Speaker 4: like Harris ion a glock.
Speaker 2: Does everyone own guns except me?
Speaker 4: Well, if you come up to Canada, there's there will
Speaker 4: be many fear guns. One of where chief surrogates was
Speaker 4: a former Republican billionaire Mark Cuban, who repeatedly undercut her
Speaker 4: economic message by saying, oh, you know she's talking about this,
Speaker 4: he doesn't really mean at yes, And this is a
Speaker 4: surrogate where the campaign and then also getting because they
Speaker 4: were in the hole financially, they needed a lot of
Speaker 4: donations and getting Wall Street owners to basically edit out
Speaker 4: their message. So the populist elements of the Harris's message
Speaker 4: in terms of going after price gouging, they had to
Speaker 4: tone that down and they couldn't name the specific companies
Speaker 4: that are going after.
Speaker 2: Well, they don't want to hurt their feelings.
Speaker 4: If you're running where you're saying, we have a coalition
Speaker 4: that includes Dick Cheney and Mark Cuban, and you know,
Speaker 4: like I own a gun and I'm a prosecutor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that she kept saying that.
Speaker 4: You're basically saying, I am the pro system person. I
Speaker 4: believe in the system at a time where seventy percent
Speaker 4: of the country takes the countries in the wrong direction.
Speaker 4: And then Trump and I think a lot of what
Speaker 4: the Democrats did strengthened Trump because even like you know,
Speaker 4: using the legal cases against Trump or they help support
Speaker 4: the idea that this guy's anti system, even though Trump
Speaker 4: himself is you know, like a rich guy surrounded by
Speaker 4: other rich guys. And also they did not never were
Speaker 4: willing to go after him for his own system ties.
Speaker 4: They were unwilling to say, this is a guy who's
Speaker 4: the pocket of billionaires. They never attacked Trump for being
Speaker 4: a plutocrat, in fact, because they had their own platocracy problem.
Speaker 4: So again, if you're running it's a change election country
Speaker 4: in the right direction, wrong direction, it's hard to be
Speaker 4: in incumbent. But they went out of their way, and
Speaker 4: I think also not criticizing Joe Biden and not making
Speaker 4: clear that you're going to break with Joe Biden as
Speaker 4: saying your only different with Joe Biden is you'll have
Speaker 4: a Republican in your cabinet. Again, the message of the
Speaker 4: Hairs campaign was the system is good. We're going to
Speaker 4: defend this system against this disruptive, unstable fellow, Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: And it's unfortunately the case that Americans of their position,
Speaker 4: where people hate the establishment so much that even people
Speaker 4: who don't otherwise like Donald Trump, will go with Donald
Speaker 4: Trump so I think that was the dynamic that they
Speaker 4: ran a pro system message in a time of deep
Speaker 4: anti system feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, I think that's a really interesting and
Speaker 1: important point, this idea that Democrats need to understand that
Speaker 1: being part of the system is not necessarily a winning
Speaker 1: message to anyone.
Speaker 4: No, no, it is not a winning message, and you
Speaker 4: have to actually offer people like real change that can
Speaker 4: affect their lives. And I think the one advantage that
Speaker 4: Democrats have is there are things in their message that
Speaker 4: they can emphasize in that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, the legislation is very very, very very good.
Speaker 1: The problem is that while the legislation is very good, Like,
Speaker 1: for example, if you had democratical legislation versus Republican legislation,
Speaker 1: you would want the democratic legislation, right, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: it's not even a question because the Republicans' ideas are like.
Speaker 2: We want to you know, make everything.
Speaker 1: More expensive and also take away all your rights and
Speaker 1: give billionaire's tax cuts.
Speaker 2: I mean, those are hard to sell.
Speaker 1: The problem is I feel like, for whatever reasons, Democrats
Speaker 1: are just have a very difficult time insmitting any of that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's a couple of things that
Speaker 4: did hurt them. I do think that they sort of
Speaker 4: mentioned cinema thingk hurt them just because it made them
Speaker 4: look a little bit ineffectual. But I mean, honestly, I think,
Speaker 4: like you know, having like a president who was not
Speaker 4: able to articulate his message. I think Biden had genuine
Speaker 4: achievements as a president and had stuff that he could
Speaker 4: tell people that he actually did for them, but he
Speaker 4: was not we have to be honest about this. He
Speaker 4: was not someone who.
Speaker 2: No, He's a terrible public speaker and has always, always,
Speaker 2: always been, and anyone who says otherwise is to completely
Speaker 2: fullish it.
Speaker 4: If you have a period where people are mad at
Speaker 4: the system and think that the country is in the
Speaker 4: wrong direction to have like, you know, like an eighty
Speaker 4: eighty one year old man as the face of your party.
Speaker 2: Wait, we have to pause.
Speaker 1: Jesse says that I said that I never I have
Speaker 1: always agreed that that Biden is a bad speaker.
Speaker 2: Okay, I may have been less, I mean, ch Anyway,
Speaker 2: we're out of time. We're not going to invite Jesse back.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank.
Speaker 4: You, thank you, thank you. Is is always great ed? Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, I hope in the coming American Canadian war.
Speaker 4: I do not have to like kill name at you
Speaker 4: and be a sniper. I will say that the last
Speaker 4: time our two country spots from where every we burned
Speaker 4: down the White House. We did it once and we'll
Speaker 4: do it again.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was very good. We did it once
Speaker 2: and we'll do it again.
Speaker 1: You're known for your for her, but you guys live
Speaker 1: ten miles.
Speaker 2: From the right, and you lived ten miles from our border.
Speaker 4: That's what I think the thing that people don't mention.
Speaker 4: I mean, the Canadians were able to fight very well
Speaker 4: in eighteen twelve, but it's because we had the indigenous allies.
Speaker 4: The walks were on our side, and there were there
Speaker 4: were they were the ones who actually, you know, like
Speaker 4: we're supposed to burn down of the White House. So
Speaker 4: maybe we can recruit them again. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure they're feeling very generous towards you.
Speaker 4: Guys.
Speaker 2: Should be fine.
Speaker 1: Becca Balance represents Vermont's Soul congressional district. Welcome back, too
Speaker 1: fast politics, my.
Speaker 2: Favorite Vermont congresswoman.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that was me because you are the only, yes,
Speaker 1: the only congress person at all from Vermont.
Speaker 2: Welcome Beaca.
Speaker 5: Thanks Mollie, very happy to be here.
Speaker 1: So here we are. It is December. No, it's still November,
Speaker 1: the world's longest month. Democrats failed to recapture the presidency,
Speaker 1: and Democrats have lost the United States Congress. They've lost
Speaker 1: the Senate, but picked up a few seats in Congress,
Speaker 1: or at least one. So explain to us what the
Speaker 1: one hundred and nineteenth Congress will look like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you're right, we did pick up a few seats,
Speaker 5: and actually, even right before I got on here, it
Speaker 5: looks like we're going to pick up Derek Tran as well,
Speaker 5: and so we're going to have a few more Democratic seats.
Speaker 5: The Republicans' majority will be even more narrow than the
Speaker 5: last session, and so they couldn't govern in the one
Speaker 5: hundred and eighteenth. They're not going to be able to
Speaker 5: govern in the one hundred and nineteenth. You've got extremists
Speaker 5: still driving driving the train, you've got apologists not speaking up.
Speaker 5: You know, it will be I think very similar, except
Speaker 5: of course we've lost the White House and the Senate.
Speaker 5: And you know you asked me right before we got on,
Speaker 5: I was feeling and I'm feeling ready because I know,
Speaker 5: I know what's coming. And I've been reading a lot
Speaker 5: of historian Timothy Snider talking about you know, what do
Speaker 5: we do when we're facing tyranny, reading a lot of
Speaker 5: Hannah arent who wrote a lot about totalitarianism, and so
Speaker 5: I feel like I understand the way that I need
Speaker 5: to show up. And it is so clear to me
Speaker 5: from talking with my constituents and my friends in Congress
Speaker 5: who whether they are women of color or part of
Speaker 5: the trans community. You know, you've got people who feel
Speaker 5: utterly kicked to the curb and just don't have the energy.
Speaker 5: They're trying to heal, they're trying to shore themselves up
Speaker 5: for what's coming. So the rest of us have to
Speaker 5: do the work we have to and we have to
Speaker 5: be as courageous as we possibly can. That's what's guiding
Speaker 5: me right now. And the comfort that I feel in
Speaker 5: looking at the clowns that the Republicans have as and
Speaker 5: I say they are they are a leader in their
Speaker 5: conference that you've got people like Nancy Mace and Margie
Speaker 5: Taylor Green. You know, those are the people they give
Speaker 5: permission to to have the mouthpiece, and they don't, they
Speaker 5: don't keep them in line.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that, because you know, we're in
Speaker 1: a quest to feel better here. Right here, we are
Speaker 1: just like in a moment, we're in the wilderness. We
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen. Right Trump has not
Speaker 1: taken office yet. It will be his second presidency. He
Speaker 1: is He ran for president to stay out of jail.
Speaker 1: It worked out extremely well for him. We should all.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a spiritual lesson here about swinging for
Speaker 1: the fences, and now we don't really know how it's
Speaker 1: going to play out. But I think something that makes
Speaker 1: me feel a lot better is when I look at
Speaker 1: the two hundred and eighteenth Congress, because Republicans had the majority,
Speaker 1: and tell us what happened in the two hundred and
Speaker 1: eighteenth Congress.
Speaker 5: They could not govern the way out of a paperbag.
Speaker 5: They got nothing done.
Speaker 2: Milly, you don't have.
Speaker 6: To take my work for you just have to google
Speaker 6: Chip Roy on the floor, he stood up and said
Speaker 6: the things that we had all been saying, which is
Speaker 6: you literally Republicans got nothing done. And you know you've
Speaker 6: got Mike Johnson, who is, you know, a terrible leader.
Speaker 6: He doesn't know how to steer his conference towards getting
Speaker 6: a anything done. So you've got a situation where you
Speaker 6: can't even make this stuff up because no one would
Speaker 6: believe it.
Speaker 5: Right, it would be on Siah life. So one of
Speaker 5: the bills we voted on this year was the Huha Act. Okay,
Speaker 5: hands off our household Appliance.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a favorite of mine.
Speaker 5: Continue a good one that literally came to the floor
Speaker 5: of the House of Repute. There were dozens and dozens
Speaker 5: of bills just like it. They don't know how to
Speaker 5: do anything except messaging. So it is I think they're
Speaker 5: going to realize that they have an even tougher job
Speaker 5: trying to get anything because actually, we have a lot
Speaker 5: of really smart, committed colleagues within the Democratic Caucus who
Speaker 5: are completely and totally paying attention, and a lot of
Speaker 5: folks within the Republican Conference are not. And so it
Speaker 5: is true that it is It is both terrifying this moment,
Speaker 5: and I think it is a moment that we knew
Speaker 5: we were moving towards right because we saw all of
Speaker 5: the indications in the first presidency and then in this
Speaker 5: election that truth meant nothing anymore. Right, So, when you
Speaker 5: can't distinguish between fact and fiction, when you can't distinguish
Speaker 5: between true and false. Right, then there is no organizing
Speaker 5: principle for the Republicans, And so we have to have
Speaker 5: that organizing principle. And I've been thinking about how Trump
Speaker 5: and all of his apologists are actually doing what every
Speaker 5: other demagogue has done before them. Right, So their messages
Speaker 5: are marked by extreme contempt for facts, and facts depend
Speaker 5: entirely on the power of the people who make them up. Right,
Speaker 5: So this is a time when we can't obey in advance.
Speaker 5: We have to be courageous. We have to defend the
Speaker 5: institutions and stand out and stand up. And it isn't
Speaker 5: wasted time. We have to draw action between those who
Speaker 5: believe that there actually are facts and the ideal candidate
Speaker 5: actually for Trump's cabinet. We can laugh they are it is.
Speaker 5: It is a clown car. But the organizing principle actually
Speaker 5: is not that they're committed anti semites, fascists, or racist,
Speaker 5: but that he's picking people who can no longer distinguish
Speaker 5: between fact and fiction and only have one organizing principle,
Speaker 5: and that's loyalty to try.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think he really cares about that stuff.
Speaker 1: I think he just wants his people in there in
Speaker 1: the hopes of being able to do what he wants to.
Speaker 5: Do right absolutely, and so you know, the bar's pre
Speaker 5: low right now, and so we have to have our
Speaker 5: initial organizing principle is standing up for everyone's rights and
Speaker 5: human dignity. That is the organizing principle that I build
Speaker 5: everything from.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: You have a congresswoman who is coming into this Congress
Speaker 1: from the state of Delaware, who is been targeted by
Speaker 1: Nancy Mace.
Speaker 2: Can we talk talk about that mercilessly.
Speaker 5: So Sarah McBride, who I might you know start by saying,
Speaker 5: is a really experienced and effective legislator. She came up
Speaker 5: through her legislature in Delaware. I was down campaigning for
Speaker 5: her a couple months ago. We've become friends over the
Speaker 5: last year and a half. Through the Equality Caucus.
Speaker 2: She's taken the seat of now Senator right.
Speaker 5: You got it, Lisa Blunt Rochester, you got it. And
Speaker 5: so Nancy Mays I think, tweeted three hundred times about
Speaker 5: trans people, bathroom Sarah McBride just horrible stuff last week.
Speaker 5: And there have been no voices of condemnation from the
Speaker 5: Republican Conference. None, absolutely none. Margie Taylor Green has even
Speaker 5: threatened violence against Sarah McBride if she were to ever
Speaker 5: use the women's bathroom. Now, keep in mind, she hasn't
Speaker 5: even been sworn in yet. Okay mcnide was on the
Speaker 5: Capitol last week for her orientation. Okay, doesn't even have
Speaker 5: the job yet. They are trying to make it an
Speaker 5: incredibly hostile work environment for her coming in, using fear mongering,
Speaker 5: hatred directed not just at her. Certainly she is the
Speaker 5: most visible target, But what I keep reminding people is
Speaker 5: that there are trans people who work on Capitol Hill,
Speaker 5: in offices for various legislators on the Hill, there are
Speaker 5: members of the press who identify as transfre non binary,
Speaker 5: and certainly our constituents who come to the Capitol be
Speaker 5: able to use the bathroom. So it is not just
Speaker 5: about her, But they've made it about her that somehow
Speaker 5: her very presence right is an exoustential crisis for them.
Speaker 2: It's somehow offensive to them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, somehow offensive. And you know, one of the things
Speaker 5: I have been resisting making this tweet, but I might
Speaker 5: do it this week if she keeps up her anticsays
Speaker 5: to sort of poke Nancy Mason, say, do you really
Speaker 5: think you haven't already been in a bathroom with a transplment,
Speaker 5: Like really, right, it's already happened, lady, and nothing to
Speaker 5: happen to you, and it won't. They're unserious people. They
Speaker 5: don't care about governing, they don't care about serving their constituents,
Speaker 5: so they just use these fear tactics to whip up
Speaker 5: their base. But also, let's face it, it's a crass
Speaker 5: play for eyeballs and money. She sent out. May sent
Speaker 5: out all of these fundraising things about how she was
Speaker 5: standing up, you know, for women, and of course the
Speaker 5: absurdity of it is the only way that this kind
Speaker 5: of band could be enforced is if you violate the
Speaker 5: privacy of everyone entering a bathroom. You know who's going
Speaker 5: to be determining whotinues it or not.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The Nancy May story, though, really is a redistricting story, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she is normal, talk to us about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she seemed to be team normal at least she
Speaker 5: you know, pretended right when you see what she tweeted
Speaker 5: and said in public in twenty twenty one, friend of
Speaker 5: the LGBTQ community, you know, not homophobic, not transphobic. You
Speaker 5: know these are her you know her own interviews, you know,
Speaker 5: indicated this, and then they're the district was redistrict to
Speaker 5: be much more read, much more maga. And now she
Speaker 5: is basically distancing herself from all of the more sane
Speaker 5: things that she said, and she has gone full on
Speaker 5: Maga to try to get in the good graces of
Speaker 5: the President and his apologists. And so we should be
Speaker 5: watching very carefully around issues about redistricting and jerrymandering, because
Speaker 5: this is what happens. You get a more highly distilled
Speaker 5: version of Maga when that happens.
Speaker 1: We're in the two hundred and eighteenth Congress and Trump
Speaker 1: has picked a number of Republican Congress.
Speaker 2: People to go and serve in his administration, right everyone
Speaker 2: from a leash stephanaic. So you know a lot of
Speaker 2: these people. Wow, So I'm hoping you could talk about
Speaker 2: a what that means, like taking all these members of
Speaker 2: Congress out because they already have such a slim majority
Speaker 2: and now they're going to have an even slimmer majority,
Speaker 2: and then be what they're like and who we should
Speaker 2: be watching in this cabinet.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, great, I love this question. So, yes, it's
Speaker 5: going to make the life of Mike Johnson much more
Speaker 5: uncomfortable and painful over the next year.
Speaker 2: I'm here for victimless crime, if whoever was right exactly.
Speaker 5: So, yes, they're picking off members of the House to
Speaker 5: come serve the administration. I just saw that. He now
Speaker 5: is also looking at some of the members who lost
Speaker 5: their seats, like laur Shaves Dreamer has been tapped.
Speaker 1: I would love you to talk about Lori Shavis Dreamer
Speaker 1: because she actually is very counterintuitive to Trump world.
Speaker 5: She is, and I am very intrigued by it. So
Speaker 5: I play on the bipartisan women's softball team, okay, which,
Speaker 5: as a queer woman, is on brand. I know, but
Speaker 5: it's an opportunity for.
Speaker 2: Me say that.
Speaker 5: I know, I said it.
Speaker 2: I said it.
Speaker 1: I own it.
Speaker 5: Lourie's on the team, okay, the softball team, not my team.
Speaker 5: So she has never given any indication of being a
Speaker 5: maga Republican or somebody who is enamored of Trump or
Speaker 5: the or the.
Speaker 1: Plan, and if anything right, she is very involved in
Speaker 1: organized labor.
Speaker 2: Yes, so make this make sense to me.
Speaker 5: It makes no sense to me. I can't. I scratched
Speaker 5: my head. I wonder how long she'll last. Honestly, because
Speaker 5: she is someone who I think has more of a
Speaker 5: sense of herself than someone like Alis Stephonic, who has
Speaker 5: done a complete, in total one point eighty from who
Speaker 5: she was in her prior life.
Speaker 1: Right, same as Nancy Mayce, right at least of exactly
Speaker 1: went to Harvard was a sort of normal quote unquote Republican,
Speaker 1: was incentifized, tad crazy.
Speaker 5: She has sold her soul. She knows better, she knows
Speaker 5: exactly what she's doing. It is a craven maneuver for power,
Speaker 5: it really is. And so folks like Elist Stephonic scare
Speaker 5: the hell out of me because they are willing to
Speaker 5: cancel out any of their previous beliefs in order for power.
Speaker 5: With Laurie Shautus Dreimer, I'm really curious again. I don't
Speaker 5: know how long she will last because she is someone
Speaker 5: who strikes me as having a sense of what working
Speaker 5: people need right now. And that's certainly not what.
Speaker 2: This Trumpism is based on, exactly.
Speaker 5: It's about propping up billionaires, right and turn you over
Speaker 5: the keys to the kingdom. So that's a curious one.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to what you said a
Speaker 1: minute ago about Alice Staphonic, because Alice Stavonic and Nancy
Speaker 1: Mayce have had the same transition that Jadie Vance has
Speaker 1: had right never Trump Republican to Maga.
Speaker 5: Yep, they are a very stark example of what it
Speaker 5: means when you prioritize power over principles.
Speaker 2: Right, and they have chosen also.
Speaker 5: Comfort for themselves over courage. When you look at Mace,
Speaker 5: when you look at Stephonic, when you look at Vance,
Speaker 5: there is no courage they have. They have turned in
Speaker 5: their courage for the comfort of cozying up to an
Speaker 5: autocrat so that they might benefit from that.
Speaker 2: And this is the thing I want you to make
Speaker 2: sense of.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'll try.
Speaker 1: Vance right knows better, very smart when to many Ivy
Speaker 1: League College's wife is very smart.
Speaker 2: He knows better.
Speaker 1: So is this because it quite and has written a
Speaker 1: very best selling book, which is more than I have.
Speaker 1: Is there a world in which Vance one day is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was not good, Like I'm gonna go back to
Speaker 1: being normal or does he never go back to normal.
Speaker 7: Only when it suits him, only when it suits him.
Speaker 7: Look at look at Nikki Haley. I mean, she's also
Speaker 7: an example of this. She's going to try to try
Speaker 7: to rehabilitate herself in the next presidential primary. You can
Speaker 7: that's what she's going to do, because it's never about
Speaker 7: the principles. It is about their own desire for power
Speaker 7: and control. It is as craven as that. And so yeah,
Speaker 7: I believe that jd. Vance will do whatever is advantageous
Speaker 7: to JD Vance, no question.
Speaker 5: And so we have to be have to be standing up.
Speaker 5: That's why I say, those of us who have the energy,
Speaker 5: who have the focus and the attention right now, we
Speaker 5: have to be as courageous as we can be and
Speaker 5: not give in to this cynicism that says, actually truth
Speaker 5: doesn't matter anymore, that principles don't matter anymore. I will
Speaker 5: remind you the thing that guides me in these moments
Speaker 5: is the fact that my grandfather was killed in the Holocaust.
Speaker 5: He was killed in the last few weeks of the war.
Speaker 5: I always think about how he never gave up his
Speaker 5: humanity in the midst of depravity. That's my goal is
Speaker 5: for me and for my colleagues, And I will tell
Speaker 5: you I am also reaching out as much as I
Speaker 5: can to the people that I'm friendly with across the
Speaker 5: aisle to say you have a responsibility to stand up
Speaker 5: to the depravity. You do in your own way. You
Speaker 5: gotta do it. It can't fall to us because look, Okay,
Speaker 5: I don't know if you and I talked about this,
Speaker 5: but the day after Biden had that terrible debate, okay,
Speaker 5: and everybody's wondering, what are we going to do? Okay.
Speaker 5: I was on the floor of the House. It was
Speaker 5: the very next day, and a Republican who I know,
Speaker 5: crossed over the aisle to talk to me and he said, so,
Speaker 5: what are you guys going to do? And I said, well,
Speaker 5: it's only been twelve hours. I'm not sure. We're gonna
Speaker 5: have to do some real soul searching. And he said, well,
Speaker 5: you have to get another candidate. And I said what
Speaker 5: he said, You have to get another candidate because we
Speaker 5: won't and Trump can't have a second term, so you
Speaker 5: have to do it. There's a real conversation long. So
Speaker 5: these are the people that I am trying to reach
Speaker 5: person to person and saying, if you hope to have
Speaker 5: a democracy for your children and your grandchildren, you can't
Speaker 5: keep going along to get along. You can't. And we'll
Speaker 5: see if any of them find the courage, but I
Speaker 5: fully anticipate that Jade Vance and Nikki Haley and you
Speaker 5: know Stephanic, you know, I believe that her principle's blowing
Speaker 5: the wind. What is advantage to her? And when you
Speaker 5: look at Mace, when you look at Stephanic, these people
Speaker 5: are not lightd within their conference, people don't have respect
Speaker 5: for them, and yet they will not they will not
Speaker 5: find the backbone to stand up. So I'm trying to
Speaker 5: figure out how to give them some courage to do that,
Speaker 5: because it can't only fall to the Democrat.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Becca, You're welcome.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 2: No Jesse Cannon Somali.
Speaker 3: One of the things I think people always forget as
Speaker 3: we get a new incoming freshman class of GOP congress
Speaker 3: people is one of them is going to be absolutely
Speaker 3: bad shit. And I think we found them.
Speaker 4: We found him.
Speaker 3: Naw, we got a nice new Florida representative coming in
Speaker 3: named Randy Fine. And I think he's what mister Trump
Speaker 3: meant when he said very fine people, because this is
Speaker 3: what he likes.
Speaker 2: Randy Fine. Let's talk about Randy Fine.
Speaker 1: He's from Florida. Need we say more? Oh Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: come on, man, I just read this and I'm like,
Speaker 1: as a Jew not excited the Hebrew hammer, Why do
Speaker 1: we do this context. So I'm reading fines tweet Randy Fine,
Speaker 1: Florida State senator now going to be a House Republican
Speaker 1: put on X. The Hebrew hammer is coming. Fine, who
Speaker 1: is Jewish? Though not like I'm Jewish?
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 1: Fine, The Hebrew hammer is coming. Rashida to leave and
Speaker 1: iohan Omar might consider leaving before I get there. And
Speaker 1: then there's a hashtag bombs away.
Speaker 2: Oh, not great for the Jews.
Speaker 3: I really don't like this tweet that he wrote earlier,
Speaker 3: which is throw rocks get shot one less Muslim terrorist
Speaker 3: fire away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not going to be good.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.