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 Donald Trump has lost four billion
Speaker 1: dollars in quote unquote wealth from Trump's media and technology
Speaker 1: groups stock Crash. Oh well, we have such a great
Speaker 1: show for you today. Randy Weingarden, president of the American
Speaker 1: Federation of Teachers, robutts Jadie Vance's attacks on her character
Speaker 1: and her lack of biological children. Run for Something, as
Speaker 1: Amanda Littman tells us about the down ballot races to
Speaker 1: focus on to ensure DEM's win in November. But first
Speaker 1: we have talking points memos. Josh Marshall, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Josh Marshall, thanks for having me again.
Speaker 1: So I think of you as like the voice of Saturday. Okay,
Speaker 1: and sorry, I apologize. And so you have written for
Speaker 1: such a long time and covered views craziest election cycles?
Speaker 1: Is this one the craziest?
Speaker 2: I think so crazy? Is highly subjective and I had
Speaker 2: to kind of go back through the elections that I've
Speaker 2: sort of followed in some sort of adult professional sense,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I think it has to be. And there
Speaker 2: are just certain like objective ways. I mean, you've never
Speaker 2: had a candidate drop out in the middle of the race.
Speaker 2: People talk about the LBJ thing, but the system was
Speaker 2: different then. He was really dropping out before the primary
Speaker 2: race really started. It's different.
Speaker 1: You haven't having a candidate running to stay out of jail.
Speaker 2: I mean, those are the relatively normal things. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was gonna I was going to say that, I
Speaker 2: can't think of the last time you've had a you know,
Speaker 2: a serious assassination attempt during a campaign, let alone at all.
Speaker 2: So there's just all of these things that are just
Speaker 2: I would say almost any of those things are kind
Speaker 2: of so off the charts they would make it the
Speaker 2: sort of the craziest. So I don't think there's any question,
Speaker 2: I mean, sort of any any campaign with Trump in
Speaker 2: it has to be in the sort of the first
Speaker 2: t right, So yeah, I don't think there's much question.
Speaker 2: This is off the charts craziness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the craziness of it keeps getting badded down by
Speaker 1: the conventional framing. I think something that really bores our
Speaker 1: listeners is media criticism. But it does seem to me
Speaker 1: that people are anxious to cover Trump as crazy as
Speaker 1: he is because they're worried it'll make them look partisan, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's two things going on. One
Speaker 2: is that it's hard to know how to deal with
Speaker 2: Trump because if you just deal with him in a
Speaker 2: common sense sort of like you're coming to after being
Speaker 2: knocked out and you want to sound sane, you're gonna
Speaker 2: sound kind of partisan. And that's difficult for a journalists
Speaker 2: for all the reasons. We know about our friend Aaron
Speaker 2: Rupar has this thing. I think he calls it, saye washing,
Speaker 2: you know Trump's comments, And part of that is that
Speaker 2: you have a certain toolkit when you're a campaign journalist,
Speaker 2: and beyond the wanting to sound partisan, things like you've
Speaker 2: got a toolkit and you know, you've got a Phillips
Speaker 2: head screwdriver and a flathead screwdriver and those kind of
Speaker 2: kind of weird multi prong ones they sell nowadays, and
Speaker 2: you've got a tool for each one of those. But
Speaker 2: if something is just like a kind of a piece
Speaker 2: of protoplasm, what do you do with it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: You don't have any tool for it. And so there's
Speaker 2: another thing, which is an effort to like you need
Speaker 2: to get it down to something that can be handled
Speaker 2: with the journalism tool set. If someone is saying something
Speaker 2: about like batteries and shark or you know, kind of
Speaker 2: like putting new boards against the wall and executing them.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just you're kind of like, Okay, he
Speaker 2: said something pretty anti abortion, because what else are you
Speaker 2: going to say? Right, You're you're kind of you've got
Speaker 2: to break it down into one of those, like I said,
Speaker 2: sort of the things you can handle with the tool set.
Speaker 2: And so there's that too.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Mary Garland has been busy
Speaker 1: this week and he's found, you know, a bunch of
Speaker 1: pro Trump influencers, Tim Poole, Dave Rubin, really the dumbest
Speaker 1: of the dumb and maybe you know, and by the way,
Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro's defense of them was like, how can you
Speaker 1: be mean to them for not knowing that they were
Speaker 1: just being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for making
Speaker 1: one dumb video a week. But this is one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: normalization about the Russia collusion stuff, and you know, the
Speaker 1: right is pretty much just four hundred k per month.
Speaker 1: Jesse's it's quite a lot really per month.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, apparently you know, I was in a meeting
Speaker 2: earlier today with some of my colleagues and I guess
Speaker 2: it was like a hundred K show for weekly shows.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they're like Seinfeld, Yeah exactly. This isn't just
Speaker 2: like kind of like, wow, you were making some good money.
Speaker 2: This is like totally totally that's like in the ballpark
Speaker 2: of like what the sort of the prestige national TV
Speaker 2: anchors get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean if it were me, I would
Speaker 1: be like, why does this weird company I've never heard
Speaker 1: of want to pay me one hundred thousand dollars in interview?
Speaker 1: And but not these people, as Ben Shapiro has said,
Speaker 1: they just were tricked and it's very unfair and they're
Speaker 1: the real victims.
Speaker 2: Well, it's sort of like, you know, the cookie jar
Speaker 2: snuck up on my hand and like grabbed onto my hand.
Speaker 2: On a more sort of substance level. I was again
Speaker 2: talking to my colleagues who are very good at this,
Speaker 2: and from reading through the indictments, you know, the influencers,
Speaker 2: the whatever you want to call them, have all been
Speaker 2: out there saying, well, the Justice Department made clear we
Speaker 2: are the victims. And actually what it says is that
Speaker 2: some of them were victims, right, and some of them
Speaker 2: were not. And so everybody's trying to kind of get
Speaker 2: into that victim bucket. And you know is I've I've
Speaker 2: run a digital journalism company for almost twenty five years,
Speaker 2: and you've got to be pretty dumb to be that
Speaker 2: outwitted by like, you know, the Russians, Like the Russians
Speaker 2: tricked me into being paid by Russia. Like okay, and
Speaker 2: as you say, those are just absurd sums. I was
Speaker 2: stunned this morning when I was talking to my colleagues
Speaker 2: about this, that I didn't realize that it was at
Speaker 2: that scale. As you say, that's like for a TV
Speaker 2: episode per episode.
Speaker 1: Most people in our business do not make four hundred
Speaker 1: k per year, let alone per.
Speaker 2: Month, certainly not from podcasting alone. Podcasting is often a
Speaker 2: lost leader for other you know, kind of you've got
Speaker 2: a mix of stuff, Nick Koutremont, It's absurd, it's absurd,
Speaker 2: it's absurd amounts of money.
Speaker 1: So elon Mosk who sits on a pile of government contracts,
Speaker 1: who is about to rescue to astronauts that Boeing left
Speaker 1: in space basically right, that guy has engaged with all
Speaker 1: of these pundits a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets back to that thing you mentioned about
Speaker 2: how we kind of treat this as a given now.
Speaker 2: You know, we have a thing about like when do
Speaker 2: the primary start? When of the first debates? You say, well,
Speaker 2: when is the first Russian information operation happen in the cycle?
Speaker 2: I tweeted about this a couple of days ago. It's
Speaker 2: remarkable how we all treat this as a given.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: The Republicans may like, oh, Russia. If they know what's happening,
Speaker 2: they may say I think if you got them to
Speaker 2: talk honestly, they would say, okay, look, yeah, that's happening,
Speaker 2: but it's a bunch of fake news nonsense. It's not
Speaker 2: really affecting anything, and who knows the impact. But we
Speaker 2: just treat it as a given that. Of course they're
Speaker 2: on Trump's side, and that's how it works.
Speaker 1: Right, And it is kind of incredible that you have
Speaker 1: people like Elon who has this security clearance and you know,
Speaker 1: is very involved with national security in all different ways,
Speaker 1: which all right, but it's very ideologically right wing and
Speaker 1: has already endorsed Donald Trump. And then you have sort
Speaker 1: of these other billionaires who really want a tax cut.
Speaker 1: You know, some of them say it's about anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: But I think that's bullshit. I don't think the guy
Speaker 1: who has dinner with Nick Flantaz really gives a shit
Speaker 1: about anti semitism.
Speaker 2: You think not, I think not. Yeah. The Times actually
Speaker 2: had a great feature maybe a year ago, and one
Speaker 2: of the things I was shocked to learn from them
Speaker 2: is that Elon Musk's company controls and owns about half
Speaker 2: the working satellites around the globe. That's stunning, not half
Speaker 2: of the US, half of all of them. And even
Speaker 2: normally we frown on like defense contractors being really kind
Speaker 2: of tight with Russia, but there are even other things
Speaker 2: that maybe shouldn't be such a big deal, but are.
Speaker 2: You can't have those clearances and stuff and be like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, snorting ketamine with like the Girl of
Speaker 2: the week and stuff. You can't do that, all the
Speaker 2: drug use and stuff for normal people. You're out when
Speaker 2: that happens. Yeah, that's just and maybe that shouldn't be
Speaker 2: the case, but it is the case.
Speaker 1: No, And in fact, I know people, not a lot,
Speaker 1: but some people work in New Mexico in the labs,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you get a DUI, you lose
Speaker 1: your clearance. If you get a DUI, you lose your
Speaker 1: security cleaner. So here's a guy. None of us have
Speaker 1: seen him snort katamine, but it was alleged in the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and
Speaker 1: you know, I mean they did alleg it, so you
Speaker 1: would think that would be enough.
Speaker 2: He's very open and bragging about his drug use, and
Speaker 2: I think more than just poddle of that's obviously his
Speaker 2: kind of his brand. But even those things, I don't
Speaker 2: know if they've loosened that a bit since since marijuana not. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think they do either. It's still there's this thing,
Speaker 2: you know Biden did with the relisting. But the point
Speaker 2: is that he on a million different fronts, he is,
Speaker 2: you know, totally off the rails in terms of what
Speaker 2: you are allowed to do if you are a government
Speaker 2: contractor in the national security space. And I think part
Speaker 2: of it is they don't know how to deal with him.
Speaker 1: But it's the same as Trump, right, I mean, Trump
Speaker 1: has You'll remember that Trump gets away with stuff that
Speaker 1: nobody else gets away with.
Speaker 2: Of course, well that's you know, kind of birds of
Speaker 2: a feather, you know, when when you're a billy, you
Speaker 2: know they let you do it right, right, And I
Speaker 2: think we've learned this. And even that's the funny thing
Speaker 2: with Trump, even when you say you're a billionaire, they
Speaker 2: let you do it most of the time.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: It's a branding thing more than a net worth thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or anything. As we go into the season, we're
Speaker 1: in this sixty days run to the selection, where is
Speaker 1: traditional punditry failing? For example, everyone in the world is
Speaker 1: saying that this debate really matters, that this debate is
Speaker 1: it now? Last week I was told that the interview
Speaker 1: really mattered. I mean, do you think that that is right?
Speaker 1: And also are you seeing this kind of like Solizit
Speaker 1: style punditry other places? And what are you watching for?
Speaker 2: Punditry has always been pretty bad. If anything, I would
Speaker 2: say it's somewhat better now than it was maybe twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, because twenty years ago you had the people
Speaker 2: on the panel shows and everybody else just yelling at
Speaker 2: their TV, right, especially before the Internet. Now, obviously there
Speaker 2: is endless crap on the internet in all the ways
Speaker 2: we know, but it is I think somewhat better. I
Speaker 2: don't know, you have a lot of people who just
Speaker 2: repeat the same things they've heard and basically are kind
Speaker 2: of taking and repackaging things they hear from the opposition
Speaker 2: party and having that be the sort of the conventional wisdom.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing about the interview and stuff. This
Speaker 2: is something that we've actually talked about inside our organization
Speaker 2: kind of because we have seen not like we sit
Speaker 2: around doing media criticism, but it becomes a practical issue
Speaker 2: for us because you need to have everybody on the
Speaker 2: team looking at the actual campaign as opposed to the
Speaker 2: other punditry, right, because you get pulled along with it.
Speaker 2: And I do think there's some ways that something has shifted,
Speaker 2: maybe even in this election cycle, where it is just
Speaker 2: more superficial than it was in the past, notwithstanding what
Speaker 2: I said a moment ago. And one of the things
Speaker 2: I have come up with is that, you know, journalism
Speaker 2: is like any other profession. You're kind of acculturated in
Speaker 2: your first years in the line of work, and then
Speaker 2: you kind of carry that with you largely through your career.
Speaker 2: And a couple things have happened in the last twenty
Speaker 2: five years. One is that if you are kind of
Speaker 2: early mid career journalists, now your kind of a culturation
Speaker 2: period is like the early Politico era when that was
Speaker 2: the dominant thing, and I think that makes a difference now.
Speaker 1: Tiger beat on the Potoma.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was more It was actually more like
Speaker 2: that than it is now. Politico is in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways better than it was then, but that was
Speaker 2: the hot new thing.
Speaker 1: And the magazine is very very good. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of good stuff there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are lots of really talented people and a
Speaker 2: lot of good stuff produced by Political I mean there's
Speaker 2: a lot of fluff too, but that was in the
Speaker 2: very early hardcore winning the morning kind of you know thing.
Speaker 2: And so in some ways the ballast of a news
Speaker 2: or organization is the editors and more senior reporters who
Speaker 2: have that kind of longer experience can kind of keep
Speaker 2: things on the rails. And I think that the people
Speaker 2: now in those positions are people who, again that was
Speaker 2: their formative experience. So that's one thing. Another thing is
Speaker 2: is that we have been in a long term era
Speaker 2: of buyouts, right, so a lot of more senior people
Speaker 2: are no longer at these organizations, and so you have
Speaker 2: a situation where I'm fifty five, where at a lot
Speaker 2: of these organizations there aren't a lot of people older
Speaker 2: than I am. One other thing I think that plays
Speaker 2: in there is that because you no longer have many
Speaker 2: people employed by the big regional papers or the DC
Speaker 2: bureaus of the big regional papers, you don't have that
Speaker 2: kind of training space. And what that means is you
Speaker 2: have a lot of people at the big national publications,
Speaker 2: the Times, the Post, whatever, who have gone right to
Speaker 2: the big leagues without that kind of training. All those
Speaker 2: things come together and they play into what you're seeing,
Speaker 2: which is a very thin kind of political commentary, which
Speaker 2: is complicated by the fact that you have a politics
Speaker 2: that is, you know, hard to get your head around.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: It just is, Yeah, I mean it's super interesting and
Speaker 1: that's right. And also those mid level papers don't even
Speaker 1: really exist anymore, right, you know, the stop between like
Speaker 1: hyper local, which also doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's it's absolutely true. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: most of them exist notionally, and in many cases there's
Speaker 2: still people doing real journalism and good journalism there, but
Speaker 2: they're so much smaller. When I was thinking about this
Speaker 2: a little while ago, it occurred to me elite media
Speaker 2: is much more elite than it used to be. And
Speaker 2: what I mean by that is, if you were at
Speaker 2: the New York Times, a Washington Post, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: thirty years ago you would look at someone at the
Speaker 2: Plane Dealer or the Boston Globe or Mimmy Harold and
Speaker 2: you say, I'm a little higher on the totem P,
Speaker 2: you know, than they are. But now it's just you guys.
Speaker 2: Those places employ huge numbers of journalists and as you say,
Speaker 2: the other the other places don't really employ very many
Speaker 2: journalists anymore. So all of those things are different in
Speaker 2: ways that shows up on the page as it were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting and so important. Thank you, Josh Marshall.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me.
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Speaker 1: Randy Winegarden is the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Randy Winegarden.
Speaker 3: I am always so joyful and honored to be with you,
Speaker 3: Bally so thankful.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm always delighted to have you. It's funny because
Speaker 1: it's like I'm one of those people that those people
Speaker 1: hate too, So whenever I see them going after you,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I both relate and also am like, you
Speaker 1: got to be doing something right. So first we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. I want
Speaker 1: to just say before we talk about this, that we
Speaker 1: live in a city or I live in New York.
Speaker 1: You live, Ink Jesse lives in New York. We live
Speaker 1: in a city where there is the only really successful
Speaker 1: local paper is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 1: So tell us about your experience with him.
Speaker 3: And what's said about that is that New York City
Speaker 3: used to be a place where a lot of newspapers
Speaker 3: were out there, and we should really at another time
Speaker 3: talk about the importance of local journalism. But the reason
Speaker 3: that the Post is so successful in the New York
Speaker 3: Post is because of his sports pages. That's why people
Speaker 3: actually buy the Post. And frankly, it's more successful because
Speaker 3: the New York Times has actually walked away from doing
Speaker 3: any coverage of local news. So it's not successful because
Speaker 3: of Rupert's headlines. But what he does is he uses
Speaker 3: it to actually, just like Musk is now doing, to
Speaker 3: actually try to instead of engaging with people who have
Speaker 3: a different perspective just to try to bully them and
Speaker 3: silence them into submission. But I mean, I'm used to
Speaker 3: him for I don't know, the last twenty years, thirty years,
Speaker 3: bullying teachers, and I'm used to them ying. But this
Speaker 3: time they went too far.
Speaker 1: Tell us what they did.
Speaker 3: We're going to sue them for defamation if they don't
Speaker 3: retract what they did. That's the bottom line. But what
Speaker 3: they did was these six hostages that were murdered by Hamas.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of us who know and are very
Speaker 3: involved with obviously what's going on in Israel and Gaza
Speaker 3: and who have been fighting for the release of these hostages,
Speaker 3: and these young people were murdered by Hamas this weekend.
Speaker 3: And so what happened was I, like so many others
Speaker 3: who have been involved in tried to get to a
Speaker 3: peace agreement, trying to get to a ceasefire, trying to
Speaker 3: end the war, trying to get humanitarian aid for gosins,
Speaker 3: trying to bring the hostages home. You know, I said
Speaker 3: how heartbroken I was in a tweet that Hamas murdered
Speaker 3: these hostages, and then said, but you know, anger also
Speaker 3: must be placed at Nettunahu's footsteps for not conservating a
Speaker 3: peace deal and a hostage release.
Speaker 1: Right which he has had months and months and months
Speaker 1: and months and months to work on.
Speaker 3: Yes, and the Israeli public is on the streets for
Speaker 3: the last five days. There's like two hundred and three
Speaker 3: hundred thousand people who have been on the streets of
Speaker 3: Tel Aviv and a Jerusalem, And I thaught it's the
Speaker 3: equivalent of a fifteen million people in America were on
Speaker 3: the streets. That's what the equivalent is given who's on
Speaker 3: the streets, basically saying the whole thing, and the military
Speaker 3: oparatus said the whole thing. They said that all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, there's this new demand by Neptunahu, and once
Speaker 3: he made that new demand and refused to consummate a deal,
Speaker 3: this happened to the to the hostages. Now Hamas is
Speaker 3: an evil terrorist orioization, but this is what happened. But
Speaker 3: instead of actually saying and putting pleasure, I'm both the
Speaker 3: loss Aaron Etchinau who to get to a deal, what
Speaker 3: the New York Post decided to do is to say
Speaker 3: that I was insane and I was appeasing Tomas. Now
Speaker 3: not only was that defamatory, but what was the intent?
Speaker 3: The intent is the same intent as jd Vance's intent
Speaker 3: when he bullies people. It's the same intent as Trump's intent.
Speaker 3: When they bully people. They're trying to separate out people.
Speaker 3: They're trying to create fear, they're trying to create incitement.
Speaker 3: So I just said this was too much, and yesterday
Speaker 3: I sent them a letter, or my lawyer sent them
Speaker 3: a letter saying, apologize and retract, or we're going to
Speaker 3: sue you for recklessness and defamation.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to just add here, like we've
Speaker 1: seen this playbook again and again. Right we've seen people
Speaker 1: in the right wing media like Grouper Moroc, like the
Speaker 1: New York posts, like Fox News. This hasn't happened as much,
Speaker 1: but you know, you would see during the days, these
Speaker 1: salad days of when Fox was getting five six seven
Speaker 1: million people a night, which it's not getting anymore, you
Speaker 1: could get targeted by them, and you would see your
Speaker 1: inbox would fill up with You're a whore, you're a slide,
Speaker 1: you're a you know, just the worst most misogynistic kind
Speaker 1: of over sexualized attacks. Because Tucker Carlson had had called
Speaker 1: you out or whatever. So you know, the goal is
Speaker 1: to quiet the public discourse.
Speaker 3: Right, that's part of the reason. Why would Pompeo, a
Speaker 3: secretary of former Secretary State, someone who is the head
Speaker 3: of the CIA, why would he added nowhere say I
Speaker 3: was the most dangerous person in the world. Why would
Speaker 3: band say, well, whatever she does, she's childless, and you know,
Speaker 3: it just disgusts me or it makes me feel weird
Speaker 3: or something like that. All of this is intended when
Speaker 3: it comes to education. It's intended to try to signal
Speaker 3: to parents, oh, you should fear those teachers or those
Speaker 3: people who represent teachers. It's intended to disconnect the teacher
Speaker 3: parent relationship, and in the bigger discourse, it's intended to
Speaker 3: do exactly what you said to silence someone who they
Speaker 3: actually want to say, no, mister Musk, you're wrong, No,
Speaker 3: mister Murdoch, you're wrong, And instead of engaging, they just
Speaker 3: smear and bully and do it in a way that
Speaker 3: you just then get death threats and do it in
Speaker 3: a way that is very much misogynistic issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about the childless cat lady insult.
Speaker 1: That was. You know, the idea was that you could
Speaker 1: not be a good educator if you didn't have biological
Speaker 1: children and you are a stepmother, ergo, you are lesser
Speaker 1: in some way than someone who has had their own children.
Speaker 1: I have had many, many children, two of whom almost
Speaker 1: killed me with a very dicey delivery. And the idea
Speaker 1: is preposterous. But I also feel like it has roots
Speaker 1: in both misogyny and in some ways in a kind
Speaker 1: of anti LGBTQ. So talk to me about that.
Speaker 3: So initially, I think when Vance said it, you know,
Speaker 3: you had Van, and you had Hot and you had youngkin.
Speaker 3: They were all trying for the anti lgbt wrote. They
Speaker 3: were looking to see which ways they could try to
Speaker 3: polarize and divide, and you saw that in terms of
Speaker 3: the book bands, and you saw that in terms of
Speaker 3: what they were saying, and they did it very much
Speaker 3: about educators and using terms like groomers and pedophiles and
Speaker 3: things like that, and really re upping what we had
Speaker 3: seen in the nineteen fifties to try to create this
Speaker 3: division between people who are LGBTQ and people who are not.
Speaker 3: They hadn't even started their transphobic media. And yet so
Speaker 3: I say it this way, Molly, because there is an
Speaker 3: intentionality behind everything that they do. And so when he
Speaker 3: said it initially, you know, he just was really gross
Speaker 3: about it because he said, oh, you know, if you
Speaker 3: listen to the tone, and he does it in front
Speaker 3: of what he thinks as a conservative Christian audience, and
Speaker 3: he says, you know, how can anybody teach who's childless?
Speaker 3: The tone is really really negative. What's been interesting to
Speaker 3: me is that he reupted it when he's running for
Speaker 3: vice president at the beginning of a new school year,
Speaker 3: and how the reaction now has been completely different, because
Speaker 3: the reaction now is it gets this.
Speaker 6: Man out of his mind because like, think about in
Speaker 6: the Catholic Church, how many nuns. The nuns are the
Speaker 6: backbone of the parochial Catholic school system.
Speaker 3: And last I heard, I thought they were all childless.
Speaker 3: So and then you have all these new teachers who
Speaker 3: kind of want to you know, they want to have children.
Speaker 3: But you know, you try to recruit all sorts of
Speaker 3: new teachers right at college.
Speaker 1: They don't want it because it's too expensive, they can't
Speaker 1: afford it.
Speaker 3: We got to deal with childcare, We got to deal
Speaker 3: with all of that. But it's like, if you look
Speaker 3: at any schools. Every single student has had someone who's
Speaker 3: a teacher.
Speaker 7: Who knows they have kids. I mean, it's like it's
Speaker 7: so people kept saying, Okay, this is really crazy. So
Speaker 7: what I said was I don't really care what he
Speaker 7: says about me. And you know, I corrected the record
Speaker 7: because I do have amazing grandchildren and amazing children. You know,
Speaker 7: I am a mother by marriage, and great and amazing
Speaker 7: nieces and nephews and great nieces and efforts. But it's
Speaker 7: besides the point. The point is it's the beginning of
Speaker 7: the damn school year. You want parents and teachers to connect.
Speaker 7: You want them to connect to ensure that our kids
Speaker 7: have a great school year.
Speaker 3: So the home deafness of him, you know, re upping
Speaker 3: or redoubling the attack, just showed how disconnected he is
Speaker 3: from what regular parents and regular teachers and people across
Speaker 3: America are doing right this month, last month, and deaths
Speaker 3: about So that's how disconnected they are that they don't
Speaker 3: even think politically, Oh, we're trying to get parents to
Speaker 3: vote for us, let's do it by fear instead of
Speaker 3: actually rooting for their kid's success.
Speaker 1: But it's also like part of the larger issue, and
Speaker 1: I think I'm particularly cognizant of this because Jesse and
Speaker 1: I did this big project twenty twenty five YouTube series.
Speaker 3: Which was great, Oh thank you, Just some props to
Speaker 3: the two of you. I think your series was one
Speaker 3: of the first ways that became accessible to people to say, oh,
Speaker 3: this is really bad, So props to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh well, thank you. But such a fundamental part
Speaker 1: of it is their war on the Department of Education.
Speaker 1: And right again, because you have public schools in the
Speaker 1: Red States get less money because you know, the state
Speaker 1: taxes are lower, so they need more federal money to
Speaker 1: even it out. And even still it doesn't necessarily work
Speaker 1: like that, and it tends to be that the states
Speaker 1: with the lower property taxes have less money for education.
Speaker 1: So you really do see this like larger war on
Speaker 1: public schools. And also the underlying thing here is a
Speaker 1: push towards you know, homeschooling and religious schooling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say it's three things. It's a push
Speaker 3: towards the fragmentation of society, the Balkanization of society because
Speaker 3: if you think about the public school as a public square,
Speaker 3: like think about everywhere in America, not just in New
Speaker 3: York City, but everywhere in America. What other institution, what
Speaker 3: other entity, what other organization is everywhere in America where
Speaker 3: people gather it's the public school. It's now kind of
Speaker 3: become public square. So if you basically say, oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: that shouldn't be, we're gonna undermine it. We're going to
Speaker 3: create distrust about it. We're going to defund it. What
Speaker 3: other public square do you have? What other place do
Speaker 3: you have that everybody convenes together, particularly particularly in rural areas.
Speaker 3: Think about Friday night lights, particularly in rural areas. So
Speaker 3: Number one is there. They are going against not just diversity,
Speaker 3: but democracy, the pluralism that undergirds America. They're trying to
Speaker 3: tear at it. And the second thing they're trying to
Speaker 3: do is they're trying to tear at the funding. And
Speaker 3: they do that with bouchers and charters and saying to people,
Speaker 3: you have better options, and then the money gets taken out.
Speaker 3: And then they did the same thing in terms of
Speaker 3: saying and Project twenty twenty five and by the way,
Speaker 3: we're not going to fund all these things like Headstart
Speaker 3: and Title IE and IDA, which is for kids with
Speaker 3: disabilities or kids who need extra funding. But the third
Speaker 3: thing they do is they actually have a war against knowledge.
Speaker 3: If you think about all of this stuff, this is basically,
Speaker 3: let's get rid of the ladder of opportunity for poor
Speaker 3: and middle class kids. Because if you look at and
Speaker 3: Steve Rattner did this on Morning Joe this.
Speaker 1: Week, Yeah, he's really good. I'm kind of obsessed with
Speaker 1: Steve Rattner.
Speaker 3: Gone, yeah, me too, I'm obsessed with his charts. His
Speaker 3: charts were Oh my god. The red states get more
Speaker 3: federal money for education than the Blue states. But this
Speaker 3: is my last point.
Speaker 8: They are fearful of our kids, and particularly their kids,
Speaker 8: having real knowledge and being critical thinkers, and being able
Speaker 8: to understand context and having friends who.
Speaker 3: Are diverse friends of theirs. There is such a fear.
Speaker 3: Not regular parent. I'm talking about the people who wrote
Speaker 3: Project twenty twenty five. I'm talking about the billionaire crowd
Speaker 3: who is trying to push this like the devices and
Speaker 3: the assets. They are really afraid of children having real
Speaker 3: knowledge and having the relational skills and the critical thinking
Speaker 3: and skills to be able to navigate the world. In
Speaker 3: fact less fact, the states that have been so aggressive
Speaker 3: about universal vouchers, many of them are the same states
Speaker 3: who have actually relaxed child labor laws at the same time.
Speaker 1: Right, there are states where you can't get an abortion,
Speaker 1: but you can have a young child working in a
Speaker 1: factory and you know, and you can't get that kid
Speaker 1: a free breakfast. But you know, the idea here of
Speaker 1: pro life is pretty wild. I'm curious, now we're in
Speaker 1: this sort of home stretchy selection, what do you think
Speaker 1: of what sort of role teachers play. Tim Walls is
Speaker 1: a great example. He's a teacher, Gwen is a teacher.
Speaker 1: And I think the way he got into politics is
Speaker 1: really interesting too. You know, he was in the Guard,
Speaker 1: very upset about the Iraq War, decides to run for
Speaker 1: office in a very red district, has his students like
Speaker 1: canvassing for him. Talk to me about like the teacher
Speaker 1: to politician pipeline and how in some ways people are
Speaker 1: just sort of discovering that teachers make good politicians.
Speaker 4: You know, it reminded me, and I've never told this
Speaker 4: story publicly, but it reminded me of when the students
Speaker 4: canvassing for him that when I was in high school,
Speaker 4: you know, there were budget cuts.
Speaker 3: I grew up outside of New York City, and my
Speaker 3: beloved teacher was our head of stage crew, but he
Speaker 3: was also a shop teacher and a driver's head teacher,
Speaker 3: and there were many of us who can this the
Speaker 3: public during that period of time. To try to save
Speaker 3: his job and try to save several other people's jobs,
Speaker 3: we went out, we can this, We did other things
Speaker 3: because we didn't want our beloved teachers to be laid on.
Speaker 3: And when I saw them talk about how the student
Speaker 3: sudents were canvassing for me, I just remembered mister Munson
Speaker 3: and how what the effect of mister Munson at on
Speaker 3: my life and on the dozens of us that were
Speaker 3: out there canvassing for him and or to try to
Speaker 3: save his job. And that's the effect that, in some
Speaker 3: ways teachers have on us as we're growing up. The
Speaker 3: sense that Tim Walls was both the coach of the
Speaker 3: football team as well as the coach of the Gay
Speaker 3: Straight Alliance, The sense that teachers become our sounding boards.
Speaker 3: They create a safe and welcoming environment so that kids
Speaker 3: can be who they are and so that kids can thrive.
Speaker 3: There's no linear direct relationship between you know, page and thriving.
Speaker 3: We all go through lots of different bumps in the road.
Speaker 3: And so teachers like when and like Tim and you know,
Speaker 3: and high school, not just high school teachers, teachers throughout
Speaker 3: there's a sense of how you help not only mold minds,
Speaker 3: but how you nurture kids. And I love when he says,
Speaker 3: you know, if I could do the lunch room, then
Speaker 3: I can deal with the Senate. And he's absolutely right,
Speaker 3: because think about it, how to manage I mean, in
Speaker 3: a lunch room, by the way, claireboardon high school, you're
Speaker 3: managing one hundred and fifty to two hundred kids. At
Speaker 3: the same time, in a classroom you're managing fifteen to
Speaker 3: thirty kids. So the fact that he wears his being
Speaker 3: a teacher so proudly, what it's done throughout the country
Speaker 3: is it's two things. It has. I've seen teachers just
Speaker 3: sit up stronger and higher and more solemnly and say,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm proud to be a teacher. And what
Speaker 3: I'm also saying is that this parent teacher connection, which
Speaker 3: is absolutely critical with the team that has to be
Speaker 3: there for kids, it's getting closer again because it says
Speaker 3: this is valuable and valiant work. And that's what both
Speaker 3: Tim and Gwen bring to this ticket that that kind
Speaker 3: of or the caring professions, the ways in which we
Speaker 3: nurture children, that's on the ticket that sends a message
Speaker 3: to Americans that nurturing the next generation, looking at the
Speaker 3: future is really important to this.
Speaker 1: Ticket, so important, and thank you so much. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back soon.
Speaker 3: Thank you, marth.
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 up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 1: episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly John
Speaker 1: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
Speaker 1: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 1: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now.
Speaker 2: We need to educate.
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
Speaker 1: to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 1: Amanda Littman is the co founder of Run for Something.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 9: Amanda Lipman always happy to chat. Molly.
Speaker 1: I would love you to just talk us through this
Speaker 1: last bunch of primaries. I would love you to just
Speaker 1: give a two second because a lot of people know
Speaker 1: who you are and love you. Some people don't. Just
Speaker 1: two second state of what your organization does and then
Speaker 1: tell us how you guys did in that last batch
Speaker 1: of primaries or in the whole primary season.
Speaker 9: Run for Something recruits and supports young, diverse leaders running.
Speaker 1: For local office.
Speaker 9: We work exclusively with millennials and gen zs running for
Speaker 9: things like state house, state senate, city council, school board,
Speaker 9: library board, and that kind of stuff. And it's worth naming.
Speaker 9: There actually are a few more primaries this week. People
Speaker 9: keep forgetting this, but we've got Rhode Island, Delaware and
Speaker 9: actually run for something because a few special elections and
Speaker 9: new I'm sure coming up on the tenth. So along
Speaker 9: with being debate day, it is as every Tuesday is
Speaker 9: election day, which is really exciting.
Speaker 1: Wait are those primaries or are they special elections?
Speaker 9: They are primaries. We've got primary folks, in particular the
Speaker 9: Rhode Island State Legislature, and then Delaware has primaries. That's
Speaker 9: how we're going to get our first trans member of
Speaker 9: Congress or likely transmember of Congress and run for Something
Speaker 9: Alongsiah McBride.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah, tell us how the primaries have gone.
Speaker 1: And also I'm hoping you could talk to us about
Speaker 1: the school board.
Speaker 9: Yes, so our primary season has been incredible. You know,
Speaker 9: Run for Something does endorsements both before and after primaries
Speaker 9: this year at any given point, so it's hard to
Speaker 9: say exactly what our win number has been over the
Speaker 9: course of the year, but we still have more than
Speaker 9: four hundred candidates who are going to be on the
Speaker 9: ballot this fall out of more than five hundred we've
Speaker 9: been working with over the course of the cycle, which
Speaker 9: is so exciting. We've also already had about six percent
Speaker 9: of our folks just be done. Like a thirty two
Speaker 9: people are elected. They have won their election. There you
Speaker 9: take office. I'm particularly pumped about some of the primaries
Speaker 9: we had in Florida earlier this summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, will you talk to us about that, because Florida
Speaker 1: had a lot of Ron Desanta's school board candidates.
Speaker 3: Right, that's exactly.
Speaker 9: Right, and I think it was a big moment to
Speaker 9: really hammer home one They're not going anywhere, but two.
Speaker 9: They're not winning anywhere either. So Run for Something had
Speaker 9: eleven school board candidates on the ballot in Florida. Ron
Speaker 9: de Santas some Moms for Liberty had about twenty three.
Speaker 9: Seven of our eleven either outright one or moving on
Speaker 9: to the general election, because in Florida, if you don't
Speaker 9: get fifty percent in these nonpartisan primaries, you move on
Speaker 9: to the general and then it's a runoff. Ron de Santas,
Speaker 9: I believe only six of them won outright and maybe
Speaker 9: a couple more six five or six more are moving
Speaker 9: onto the runoff for the general election. That is not great.
Speaker 9: That is barely a fifty percent win rate. That's like
Speaker 9: the equivalent of flip and a coin a bunch of times.
Speaker 9: And Run for Something in particular, had some of these
Speaker 9: candidates meet Moms for liber folks really meaningfully, especially down
Speaker 9: in Sarasota where we had Liz Barker take on and
Speaker 9: beat a Moms for Liberty candidate in a place that
Speaker 9: they've been calling the Home for the mag American Dream
Speaker 9: terrifying name, and it's really indicative of the fact that
Speaker 9: when voters are given a choice, which they're not always
Speaker 9: I think this is something we've talked about over the
Speaker 9: years that you and I've been doing these conversations. We
Speaker 9: don't always fight for these offices because it's not where
Speaker 9: the Democratic Party has historically invested a ton of ton
Speaker 9: kind of resources. But when we do, you know, as
Speaker 9: Kamala says, when we fight, we win, and when we
Speaker 9: run for office in these places.
Speaker 3: We can win.
Speaker 9: We're seeing that in Florida and we're going to see
Speaker 9: it elsewhere across the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want you to talk about So it seems
Speaker 1: to me, and again this is you are way more
Speaker 1: read in on these local school board races, especially in Florida.
Speaker 1: Let me rephrase this. You know what you're talking about
Speaker 1: and I don't in this topic. But it seems to
Speaker 1: me from what I understand that the candidates don't the
Speaker 1: Moms for Liberty candidates, the Disantis candidates, these school board
Speaker 1: candidates don't do well in h normal districts. They only
Speaker 1: really do well in like bright Red Maga districts.
Speaker 9: And even in those, they're not as universally loved as
Speaker 9: you might expect. I mean, Sarasota, for example, is a
Speaker 9: pretty Republican area. Yeah, but they weren't able to win
Speaker 9: you know, Republican candidates in in Indian River County and Florida,
Speaker 9: Republicans have a two to one advantage, but the two
Speaker 9: school board candidates that were backed by disandas and Moms
Speaker 9: Liberty fell pretty far short.
Speaker 3: They only won maybe I think a ten percent of
Speaker 3: the county's precincts.
Speaker 9: Last I recall, these are not what Republican voters generally want.
Speaker 9: They want sane functioning school boards and governments. You know,
Speaker 9: the Moms for Liberty extremists who are talking about you know,
Speaker 9: teachers performing gender transitsert schools and banning books like that
Speaker 9: is such a waste of time and I think something
Speaker 9: that they're Run for Something. Candidates and other incredible organizations
Speaker 9: on the ground have been pushing We're not asking for
Speaker 9: extreme things. We're asking for sanity. We're asking to make
Speaker 9: boring again, and that the candidates who can really connect
Speaker 9: on that are able to win.
Speaker 1: I mean, does Run for Something have candidates in some
Speaker 1: of these very red districts.
Speaker 3: We absolutely do.
Speaker 9: You know, we are going to have candidates in November
Speaker 9: on this ballet, and I think forty eight different states,
Speaker 9: basically everywhere that there is a state or local election
Speaker 9: we're only missing a couple That includes in deep red
Speaker 9: areas in Mississippi, in Nebraska, in rural Georgia, in Utah,
Speaker 9: in Idaho, in Oklahoma, as well as of course dozens
Speaker 9: and dozens of folks running in the core battleground states
Speaker 9: who will hopefully gin up turnout for the top of
Speaker 9: the ticket. You know, our candidates in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona,
Speaker 9: North Carolina, and Georgia, as well as, of course are
Speaker 9: some of our candidates in Nebraska who can help make
Speaker 9: sure that we win thattical electoral College vote.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 3: All of them are.
Speaker 9: Going to spur turnout for the top of the ticket
Speaker 9: in a way that I think is completely meaningful, especially
Speaker 9: knowing that the Commonlay campaign you had to get a
Speaker 9: little bit of a late start with some of this
Speaker 9: volunteer enthusiasm, whereas our folks have been knocking doors in
Speaker 9: some cases for over a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk to me about this idea. I truly believe
Speaker 1: you're the first person to have talked about this, but
Speaker 1: maybe not that running people at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: ballot help the top of the ticket.
Speaker 9: Reverse courte tales is definitely an older idea than us
Speaker 9: but we were the first one say thing, to really
Speaker 9: popularize it in the last couple of years, and especially
Speaker 9: to implement it as a strategy. At least the first
Speaker 9: one's on the left, and I think that's worth naming
Speaker 9: because the right has one hundred percent been using reverse codetails.
Speaker 9: So reverse coat tales is the idea that when you
Speaker 9: can test local elections and when you have candidates on
Speaker 9: the ballot who are knocking doors talking to voters about
Speaker 9: the issues they care about in a hyper local way,
Speaker 9: it can increase turnout for the top of the ticket
Speaker 9: anywhere from point four to two point three percent, especially
Speaker 9: compared to a district where the Republican candidate ran unopposed.
Speaker 9: That margin of victory can make up the difference in
Speaker 9: a state like Georgia, in Wisconsin, in Nevada, all over
Speaker 9: the country. This can really be the difference maker because
Speaker 9: we know, even with all this enthusiasm, it is going
Speaker 9: to be, unfortunately and infuriatingly, a very close election. So
Speaker 9: these local candidates who've been knocking doors talking to voters,
Speaker 9: they're the ones who are going to make sure that
Speaker 9: we're not leaving any door unknocked, that we are leaving
Speaker 9: every voter and giving every voter an invitation to show
Speaker 9: up this fall.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about candidates that people don't know
Speaker 1: about that we should know about.
Speaker 9: Oh I could do this for hours. I'm excited about
Speaker 9: folks like Christina Hines, who is running from a Come
Speaker 9: County prosecutor in Michigan. She's a community advocate, a lawyer,
Speaker 9: a parent who's running against a Republican incumbent who is
Speaker 9: aggressively anti abortion and also has a long history of
Speaker 9: ethics allegations against him, sexual harassment, and sold allegations against him.
Speaker 9: And she been knocking doors and talking to voters in
Speaker 9: a really powerful way. I'm really excited about Alie Phillips
Speaker 9: down in Tennessee, who's running for state House, really making
Speaker 9: the case that her personal experience needing to leave the
Speaker 9: state to get the abortion care she needed is what
Speaker 9: helped her decide to run to take office. I'm excited
Speaker 9: about Anna Thomas down in Pennsylvanians running in a very
Speaker 9: competitive state house race. She has been an incredible candidate,
Speaker 9: knocking doors and making her way through this cycle in
Speaker 9: a way that will really, I think, move the needle
Speaker 9: for the top of the ticket there. I had my
Speaker 9: doubt Florida who's running for Allison. She used to be
Speaker 9: at an escort for people seeking abortion care and a
Speaker 9: great race there and was ready to be an advocate
Speaker 9: for victims of sexual assault in the state legislative chamber
Speaker 9: if she gets to.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about some of your success stories
Speaker 1: and sort of how their candidacy has made a difference.
Speaker 1: Just explain to us a little bit about like one
Speaker 1: or two people like that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So one of my favorite examples here in twenty
Speaker 9: twenty three. Most recently we worked where we recruited again
Speaker 9: named Justin Douglas to run for Dolphin County Commission. Justin
Speaker 9: was a former pastor.
Speaker 1: Where's Dolphin.
Speaker 10: It's like Harrisburg, It's around Harrisbony And he was running
Speaker 10: in part because when we were reaching out to find
Speaker 10: people to run for this position, which does things like
Speaker 10: oversee election administration, you know, control the county.
Speaker 9: Jail system, he was like pretty wary at first. He
Speaker 9: wasn't sure he was the right person. But as we
Speaker 9: kept talking to him, we really encouraged him. No, you
Speaker 9: like deeply care about the members of her community. He
Speaker 9: was actually fired for being pastor of his church because
Speaker 9: he was too welcoming to LGBTQ congregants. Gives you a
Speaker 9: sense to the kind of person he is. He ran
Speaker 9: this incredible campaign. He was outspent I think close to
Speaker 9: ten to one. He knocked thousands and thousands of doors.
Speaker 9: He really hammered home both the issues around democracy which
Speaker 9: the County Commission had done. He had really dragged their feet
Speaker 9: on things like ballat drop boxes. At some point, some
Speaker 9: of them were accused of like harvesting things.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 9: It was one of those types of counties, and in
Speaker 9: particular in the county jail system, a number of inmates
Speaker 9: had died under the care of the jail system imparted
Speaker 9: you to neglect. So justin on this really strong campaign
Speaker 9: whose outspend ten to one and knocked tens of thousands
Speaker 9: of doors, and on election night he ended up winning,
Speaker 9: but I think the final margin was maybe about one
Speaker 9: hundred and fifty votes. His victory flipped control of the
Speaker 9: County Commission for the first time in over one hundred years.
Speaker 9: And one of the first things he did when he
Speaker 9: took office was one begin to hold people accountable for
Speaker 9: what was going on in the jail system, but two
Speaker 9: expanded the number of dropboxes available for people to drop
Speaker 9: off their ballots, and expanded the number of languages that
Speaker 9: ballots were available in. And when I think about what
Speaker 9: the importance of a state like Pennsylvania will be for Kamala,
Speaker 9: this here having Justin and Democrats in control of a
Speaker 9: county commission that is willing to make it more available
Speaker 9: for people to cast their ballots. You know, if maybe
Speaker 9: a couple hundred or a thousand people vote in Dauphin
Speaker 9: County who weren't able to vote before, maybe didn't have
Speaker 9: as much accessibility to the polls before, that could be
Speaker 9: the margin of victory We're going to win in Pennsylvania
Speaker 9: this year is because people like Justin Douglas won last year.
Speaker 1: So important and interesting, I mean, and I think that
Speaker 1: really is the sense where if you elect someone that
Speaker 1: there really are huge consequences to these little races, right.
Speaker 9: That's the whole idea that you know, the way to
Speaker 9: win the big elections is to win the small ones
Speaker 9: over and over and over again. You know, I'm thinking
Speaker 9: as well about the white folks who've worked with in Arizona.
Speaker 9: You know, Gabriela Cassares Kelly, who's the Pima county recorder.
Speaker 9: We helped her elect her in twenty eighteen, she became
Speaker 9: one of the first Indigenous women elected county wide in
Speaker 9: the state. She's an incredible election administrator and one of
Speaker 9: the things that she fought for over the last couple
Speaker 9: of years and when she was re elected in twenty
Speaker 9: twenty two, has continued to do is make it easier
Speaker 9: for people living on the reservations to cast their bats.
Speaker 9: Before they had to go two or three hours drive
Speaker 9: away to vote early. She changed that and that again
Speaker 9: could be the margin of victory both for Cola but
Speaker 9: also for people like Reuben Diego running statewide.
Speaker 1: Right. And also you'll remember that like in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Native people were really you know, they got Democrats over
Speaker 1: the finish line in a bunch of states.
Speaker 9: Absolutely right. And I think she in particular really embodies
Speaker 9: the thing that we have kept talking about over the years,
Speaker 9: which is that her lived experience as a woman who
Speaker 9: grew up on the reservation as an Indigenous person, you know,
Speaker 9: it shapes the way that she governs and shapes the
Speaker 9: way that she leads. I means she's fighting for a
Speaker 9: community maybe hasn't had a voice for them in power
Speaker 9: it is so meaningful, and she's like, she's just an
Speaker 9: incredible leader.
Speaker 2: I love her.
Speaker 9: I think she's really fun. She's these cool stickers where
Speaker 9: she's like riding on a scooter. Anyway, she's great, and
Speaker 9: I think it's doing an incredible job to expand access
Speaker 9: to the polls.
Speaker 1: As we talk about this, one of the candidates, you know,
Speaker 1: we have the first Native woman governor if Tim Walls
Speaker 1: gets elected.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 9: Peggy Flanagan out in Minnesota, I think really embodies what
Speaker 9: we've been talking about, you know, generally, which is that
Speaker 9: you build the bench both because it matters today, because
Speaker 9: great leaders need to take office in these local positions.
Speaker 9: Peggy Flannagan got her starter on the Minneapolis school board,
Speaker 9: which she was maybe twenty four to twenty five years
Speaker 9: old fifteen twenty years ago, and now she could be
Speaker 9: the next governor of Minnesota, the first Indigenous woman governor.
Speaker 9: You build a bench for moments like this where they
Speaker 9: can really rise and be transformative leaders.
Speaker 1: We're seeing with Tim Walls that teachers make really good candidates.
Speaker 1: We have these very hot school board races. You know,
Speaker 1: education has become a central conservative fight. You know, this
Speaker 1: is sort of their Passion Project right now. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of teachers in the mix here and
Speaker 1: also are you still recruiting candidates and talk to us
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so rounder something has worked on this year with
Speaker 9: a couple dozen teachers. We've always work with teachers. There are
Speaker 9: some of our favorite candidates. I'm really excited about Max
Speaker 9: Tuckman down in Miami Dade, who's running for a school
Speaker 9: board there. I'm really excited about No One Knowstrom, who's
Speaker 9: a Spanish language teacher in Tennessee who's running for a
Speaker 9: state house. I'm really pumped about Camilla Bywaters, who's running
Speaker 9: against a mom's for a liberty candidate for school board
Speaker 9: in Nevada. I think it's Clark County. She's amazing. Selina
Speaker 9: LaRue Hatch, she's a member of the Nevada State Legislature.
Speaker 9: We've been working with for a while and we're working
Speaker 9: with her in her re election. She's one of the
Speaker 9: top targets for the Republican governor to kick out of office.
Speaker 9: She's an former educator herself. I think former teachers, especially
Speaker 9: in these positions that directly oversee elections or that oversee
Speaker 9: the education system, like Kristen Christensen in Nebraska running for
Speaker 9: state Board of Education. They are most connected to the community.
Speaker 9: They know the parents, they know the kids, they know
Speaker 9: their neighbors, they know the problems, and they also know
Speaker 9: the solutions and they've lived the impact of government. And
Speaker 9: you see that now with Governor Tim Walls on the
Speaker 9: national state. Now they are able to communicate. If you've
Speaker 9: ever had to manage a classroom of thirty screaming eight
Speaker 9: year olds or eighteen year olds, you know how to
Speaker 9: deal with a rally or a political opponent or a
Speaker 9: crazy Trump Republican like, there's basically the same maturity level.
Speaker 9: So I think that it gives us a sense of
Speaker 9: the kind of quality of Canada. And we are absolutely
Speaker 9: still recruiting folks to run for office. And Ally, I'm
Speaker 9: really glad you asked this because people, I think, and
Speaker 9: then especially on the Democrats, get a little excited amp
Speaker 9: pumped for election day and then forget that there's work
Speaker 9: that happens after. Like the file of lens for some
Speaker 9: of these races for twenty twenty five are going to
Speaker 9: come as soon as December and January, so we're already
Speaker 9: talking to candidates we're going to be running next year
Speaker 9: for school boards down in Texas and municipal elections in
Speaker 9: Wisconsin and elsewhere. And is the thing that I really hope,
Speaker 9: especially the Democratic funding universe, doesn't forget and get complacent,
Speaker 9: because the only reason that we are in this moment
Speaker 9: now is because we kept our foot on the gas
Speaker 9: for the last eight years. We cannot let it up now.
Speaker 1: I was hoping you could talk to me because you
Speaker 1: have been in this race. How Harris has changed the
Speaker 1: calculus of the race.
Speaker 9: If she has, oh, I absolutely she has. I think
Speaker 9: she has given people a sense of energy and excitement
Speaker 9: and a vision for what the future can be. We
Speaker 9: often say, you can totally run a campaign on fear.
Speaker 9: It's absolutely doable, and I think that's what we sort
Speaker 9: of had to do under a Biden at the top
Speaker 9: of the ticket. You had to make it about against Trump.
Speaker 9: But a campaign on hope, a campaign on excitement, a
Speaker 9: campaign that is built on what a better future could be.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 9: Hope is a non renewable resource. We can sustain itself.
Speaker 9: It can keep going and going and going. You joy
Speaker 9: can keeping fueled for a much longer period of time
Speaker 9: than anger can. And I think the thing that we
Speaker 9: have seen nationally. It's also the thing that our local
Speaker 9: candidates are experiencing. They're knocking doors and talking to voters
Speaker 9: who pay Maybe weren't that excited to go vote this fall,
Speaker 9: but we're gonna do it anyway for the school board
Speaker 9: race because they knew that was important, and now they're
Speaker 9: really excited to vote this fall and also really eager
Speaker 9: to vote the full ballot. That is a really big
Speaker 9: change and makes those conversations in that canvassing experience much
Speaker 9: more joyful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's right and it's super important.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us always.
Speaker 9: You know, one of my favorite things about going on
Speaker 9: your show is every time I do, we hear from
Speaker 9: so many folks who say, I never thought about running
Speaker 9: for office before, but kel yes, yes, or i'd never
Speaker 9: wear to run for something, and I want to give
Speaker 9: you some money. So we're for folks who are able
Speaker 9: to go to run for something that net and ship in,
Speaker 9: sign up to run, volunteer, find a candidate. It all
Speaker 9: helps and it's never been more important. So thanks to you,
Speaker 9: and thanks to your entire community.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I definitely think it's one of those places where a
Speaker 1: little money could make a big difference, and you know,
Speaker 1: these downballot races are so important and you're just so
Speaker 1: right and I really appreciate you, so thank you.
Speaker 9: Thanks Smiley.
Speaker 1: No More went on Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 5: By Jack So Trump spoke to the Economic Club of
Speaker 5: New York and they asked them policy questions.
Speaker 2: How do you think it went?
Speaker 1: So, I think it's really an important moment here is
Speaker 1: you really do see why asking specific policy questions is
Speaker 1: so important and also why following up if a candidate
Speaker 1: doesn't answer them is even more important. So Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and again like the fact that we are so late
Speaker 1: into this election cycle and that Trump has no policy
Speaker 1: positions is not abundantly clear to everyone in the world.
Speaker 1: Is a shanda, as my people say. So they asked
Speaker 1: Donald Trump how he was going to make childcare more affordable,
Speaker 1: and he said a word salad, which involved Marco Rubio,
Speaker 1: Avanka and not much else. So it just is kind
Speaker 1: of amazing. And there were other things, you know, he
Speaker 1: said about the economy, why don't we have a wealth fund?
Speaker 1: Other countries have wealth funds, We have nothing, right, We're
Speaker 1: going to have a sovereign wealth fund. We're going to
Speaker 1: put tremendous amounts of money in it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff shows that he doesn't really
Speaker 1: understand how the economy works. And this is the guy
Speaker 1: that a lot of rich people want back in office
Speaker 1: because he'll give them tax cuts, and he can't understand
Speaker 1: how any of this works. And he was president already
Speaker 1: for four years and he still doesn't understand it. So
Speaker 1: that is our moment of Fuckeray. That's it for this
Speaker 1: episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and
Speaker 1: Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense
Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.