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 a court following has revealed the
Speaker 1: Justice Department has released less than one percent of the
Speaker 1: Epstein files. We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: George Conway stops by to talk about his run for Congress.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to the Eurasia Groups Ian Brema about
Speaker 1: the destabilization Trump has brought to the world stage. But
Speaker 1: first the news.
Speaker 2: All right, Mai. We have a new congressional landscape because
Speaker 2: a lot of weird things happen since we last taped.
Speaker 2: We have Marjorie Taylor Green gone or see won't be
Speaker 2: filled till at least March. We have Congressman Doug LaMalfa
Speaker 2: who passed away, and Indiana Rep. Jim Baird and his
Speaker 2: wife were injured in a car accident that may prevent
Speaker 2: him from voting.
Speaker 1: By the way, in a month, a Democrat will take
Speaker 1: the Mikey Cheryl seat. So Johnson's majority to eighteen to
Speaker 1: two thirteen.
Speaker 2: Leaves a lot of room for a Thomas Massey to
Speaker 2: swing around his anti Trump feelings? Are they feelings?
Speaker 1: Look Mike Johnson got this job, he got this seat,
Speaker 1: He got to be Speaker of the House because Donald
Speaker 1: Trump wanted a yes man. He wanted someone who would
Speaker 1: do whatever he wanted. And while that is good for Trump,
Speaker 1: or at least it was, he didn't put in there
Speaker 1: someone who knew how to do it, like Tom Emmer
Speaker 1: or even Kevin McCarthy, who is no rocket scientist. Even
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy would have been a much better pick for
Speaker 1: this job. But you have Mike Johnson, who is not
Speaker 1: good at this job, and whenever he has trouble, he
Speaker 1: sends everyone home. So what's happened? At least I think
Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress are a little bit different than Democrats.
Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress are pretty demoralized, and that's why they
Speaker 1: keep leaving Congress. And part of the way to have
Speaker 1: a majority is to have a lot of people there.
Speaker 1: When people start leaving, you start losing people and your
Speaker 1: majority shrinks. So Mike Johnson right now has a majority
Speaker 1: that is two eighteen to two thirteen, and that is
Speaker 1: when you have people like Thomas Massey, and they're not
Speaker 1: a governorable majority. And that is why there are two
Speaker 1: different bills that have passed that are bills that Trump
Speaker 1: doesn't want. And you're going to see more of that
Speaker 1: because you've got discharge petitions and you've got a House
Speaker 1: that the Republicans control but really in name only, and
Speaker 1: so who knows what's happening behind the scenes, but we
Speaker 1: hope that Hikeem is out there trying to flip some
Speaker 1: members of Congress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a perilous time for Mike Johnson's rule.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Who could have seen it coming? Everyone?
Speaker 2: Yep, you know, these things can flip fast. As we
Speaker 2: saw last year the Democrats lost a couple different members
Speaker 2: due to death. So who knows where this plays out.
Speaker 1: It's good to not have really really old members of conqueror.
Speaker 2: Yep, you'll be shocked to hear that this situation in Venezuela,
Speaker 2: it's beginning to look a lot like Iraq. Trump says
Speaker 2: the US government may reimburse soil companies for rebuilding Venezuela's infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is not what anyone wants. There's a guest
Speaker 1: on this episode, Ian who talks about how he thinks
Speaker 1: this could go and I think, and this is a
Speaker 1: really good point. Wired has a really good article about
Speaker 1: this too, which is history shows us that the US
Speaker 1: is really good at coups, but they tend to be
Speaker 1: not so good at all the stuff that happens after coups.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really really really good point,
Speaker 1: Like it's easy to take a leader down. It is
Speaker 1: much harder, as we saw most recently in Afghanistan, but
Speaker 1: we've seen in other places to install a leader to
Speaker 1: follow up with that. And that's where we are right now,
Speaker 1: is there's not a plan and they're you know, Trump
Speaker 1: ran on end foreign wars, and so here we find
Speaker 1: ourselves in a completely you know, a situation where Trump
Speaker 1: is you know, it's the you break it, you bought
Speaker 1: it school of diplomacy. It's a pottery barn meet to
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and that's where we are. Fun stuff
Speaker 1: could be a problem.
Speaker 2: So some of the more shocking news in a week
Speaker 2: of shocking news was that Tim Walls decided not to
Speaker 2: run for another election as governor of Minnesota after some
Speaker 2: very very i would say, not good politics, very unfair
Speaker 2: play propaganda disguised as news, particularly this young lad. The
Speaker 2: right wing is latched onto Nick Shirley, who did a
Speaker 2: lot of bullshit journalism. He went to places pretended they
Speaker 2: weren't open, blocked out signs that showed they weren't open.
Speaker 2: And what we're seeing as estimates that more people watched
Speaker 2: this than all three news networks combined.
Speaker 1: Brought times like one hundred, right, I.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't say times one hundred, but times a lot. It
Speaker 2: was one of the most seismic. I even just tallied
Speaker 2: up numbers on YouTube and I got to twenty five million.
Speaker 1: So basically, what is happening here is that more than
Speaker 1: two years ago there was a case of corruption, fraud,
Speaker 1: thievery of public funds in Minnesota the Biden DOJ, which
Speaker 1: I have a lot of qualms about and a lot
Speaker 1: of complaints about, but they did in fact prosecute I
Speaker 1: don't know ten twelve thirty people. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people. People went to jail, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Fast forward Nick Shurly. There was a lot of reporting
Speaker 1: about it at the time. There was ten pieces in
Speaker 1: the New York Times. Fast forward Nick Shirley and his
Speaker 1: merry band of propagandas I was going to say, moronic billionaires,
Speaker 1: and that crew found that they decided that none of
Speaker 1: this had ever been covered and that they were breaking news.
Speaker 1: The point is there's been punishment, people have gone to jail,
Speaker 1: there has been investigations, there has been criminal charges, but
Speaker 1: it does not matter because these people are discovering for
Speaker 1: the first time. So basically the problem is this, when
Speaker 1: you are running for governor for a third term, that
Speaker 1: third term situation is complicated. We saw this with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: in New York when he ran for mayor. I mean
Speaker 1: it was different with Bloomberg because he had to change
Speaker 1: the rules to run for a third term. But governor's
Speaker 1: races are weird and the third one changes the context
Speaker 1: a little bit. And now with Klobashar in there, she
Speaker 1: really has a better shot. I think she's a real
Speaker 1: national candidate. And I think that probably what happened here
Speaker 1: is that Wall saw these polls and saw that he
Speaker 1: probably was not going to win, and so here we are.
Speaker 1: I think it's disappointing. I mean, I have always been
Speaker 1: a fan of his, but I also think, like, what's
Speaker 1: so interesting about Minnesota is they have such a good
Speaker 1: bench of Democratic candidates and like we will have on
Speaker 1: this podcast soon, Peggy Flan again, she's running for Senate.
Speaker 1: I think she's probably the first Lieutenant governor of Minnesota
Speaker 1: who is a Native woman. That's very cool. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of talented people and the Minnesota Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: I'll be interested to see now because this will mean
Speaker 1: if it works right, it means that Clomentum becomes governor.
Speaker 1: If she wins, she will then put someone in that
Speaker 1: Senate seat, and you'll have Peggy Flann again running for
Speaker 1: the other Senate seatret because Tina Smith is not going
Speaker 1: to run again, So you will have two new senators
Speaker 1: from Minnesota. Very interesting. I'll be curious to see who
Speaker 1: Clomentum picks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think just think we should say the
Speaker 2: other really disgusting part of the story is that Nick
Speaker 2: Shirley and his propagandist friends spread that Governor Walls helped
Speaker 2: get his dear friend Melissa Wortman killed, and then President
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's that as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot of horrible stuff, but the bright
Speaker 1: spot is that there's a lot of talent in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: So another thing that horrified many people as we walked
Speaker 2: into this new year is that the Trump administration is
Speaker 2: making deep cuts in the child vaccine schedule.
Speaker 1: Yes, not only are they making deep cuts, they're making
Speaker 1: really deep cuts. So, I mean, this is just absolute
Speaker 1: bad shitty and in fact, this is probably one of
Speaker 1: the dumbest. So now they're cutting rotavirus, COVID nineteen, influenza, meningitis,
Speaker 1: hepatitis A and B. It is absolutely insane, insane, insane, insane.
Speaker 1: Children will die, It is absolutely pointless. Kids are going
Speaker 1: to die, Adults are going to die. It's absolutely fucking unconsionable.
Speaker 1: We have exciting news over at our YouTube channel. The
Speaker 1: second episode from our Project twenty twenty nine series is
Speaker 1: out now. It's a reimagining where we examine what went
Speaker 1: wrong with democrats approach to politics and how we can
Speaker 1: correct it and deliver changes to help people's lives. The
Speaker 1: first episode dove into the very sexy topic of campaign
Speaker 1: finance reform, and our second episode deals with an even
Speaker 1: sexier topic, antitrust and regulation. We look at how antitrust
Speaker 1: and regulation can protect American citizens and make America thrive
Speaker 1: in an era of rampant corruption and predatory crony capitalism.
Speaker 1: We talk to the smartest names in the field like
Speaker 1: Lena Kahan, Elvero Bedoya, Elizabeth Wilkins, and Doha Mechi. Republicans
Speaker 1: were prepared for when they got the levers of power.
Speaker 1: We need democrats to be too, So please head over
Speaker 1: to YouTube and search Molli John Fast Project twenty twenty nine,
Speaker 1: or go to the Fast Politics YouTube channel and find
Speaker 1: it there and help us spread the word. George Conway
Speaker 1: is a candidate in the Democratic primary in New York's
Speaker 1: twelfth congressional district. George Conway, welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I know so I have
Speaker 3: me when some guest cancels on you, I know that.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's why I'm having you today. Was my other
Speaker 1: guest who was running for New York twelve canceled, so
Speaker 1: I thought I'd get you. You're you're a fill in,
Speaker 1: So tell me what you're up to.
Speaker 3: Well, I had I went to get some coffee this morning.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 3: It was great, and I had at me.
Speaker 1: Yes, I want you to talk about why you think
Speaker 1: why you would be the person to impeach President Trump.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm highly motivated, as you know. I mean we
Speaker 3: are at a crossroads. I mean we really are threatened here.
Speaker 3: We're threatened by a potential loss of democracy, a loss
Speaker 3: of a rule of law. When we see it every day,
Speaker 3: constitutional government and it's got to stop. And we need
Speaker 3: people who are going to meet in Congress who are
Speaker 3: not going to hold back we were basically just call
Speaker 3: it out as they see it. And we need lawyers
Speaker 3: in particular because the two things that we need to
Speaker 3: do with this guy, first of all, is to hold
Speaker 3: him accountable all his people accountable, which involves investigating and impeaching.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is we have to do things
Speaker 3: to make sure. We have to pass laws to make
Speaker 3: sure it never ever happens again. I mean, there's so
Speaker 3: many laws that you can think of, just off the top,
Speaker 3: you know, protecting the Justice Department from political interference. The
Speaker 3: twenty fifth Amendment is one of my favorites. You know,
Speaker 3: there was a bill that Nancy Pelosi introduced in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: I think Jamie Raskin had previously introduced it. That you know,
Speaker 3: under the twenty fifth Amendment, Section four, Congress can designate
Speaker 3: a body other than the Lex Bittle Alyxplittle Cabinet to
Speaker 3: figure out whether the president is mentally competent or physically competent.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's got to be done because we can't
Speaker 3: have what we have now again all sorts of things.
Speaker 3: The War Powers Act obviously we just learned this week.
Speaker 3: Really we need to figure out a way his strength
Speaker 3: make it more festive. Yeah, there's just so many, many things.
Speaker 3: And the thing that all of this is, yeah, it's Trump, Trump, Trump.
Speaker 3: And some people are going to say, well, what about
Speaker 3: everything else? And I don't get these democrats. I mean,
Speaker 3: I love so many Democrats get this. But there are
Speaker 3: a few who and they mean well, but they say, well,
Speaker 3: we want to talk about Trump. We want to talk
Speaker 3: about Trump too much. We got to talk about the
Speaker 3: kitchen table issues as if they were separate, and they're
Speaker 3: not separate. They're completely intertwined. Because we have a president
Speaker 3: we don't give a shit about anybody other than himself.
Speaker 3: He's running the government like a mob operation. He's running
Speaker 3: for his own benefit. He's running the government. We have
Speaker 3: government of the Boss, by the boss, and for the
Speaker 3: Boss and all of his friends. And that's the reason why,
Speaker 3: you know, he's focused on on shit like the arm
Speaker 3: invested at the Kennedy Center. Renaming the Kennedy Center is
Speaker 3: nice jed from Qatar. His uh, I mean, his his
Speaker 3: ballroom real. He'll throw his unconstitutional legal third in all
Speaker 3: year old and you know he doesn't care about anything
Speaker 3: that's happening to real people. He doesn't care about using
Speaker 3: the government to help people. He doesn't care.
Speaker 1: About Yes, okay, so I want you to explain to
Speaker 1: us why you're the person So like Jamie Raskin is
Speaker 1: a great example, because he is a lawyer. He has
Speaker 1: proven to be a really good member of the House,
Speaker 1: right and one of the reasons wingman right, and you come.
Speaker 1: I want you to talk about your experience at Walktau
Speaker 1: and why that is relevant to what you want to do.
Speaker 4: If he can elect all the.
Speaker 3: Things that you need to know how to do, you
Speaker 3: can learn how to do as a lawyer litigation. You
Speaker 3: learned how to cross examine witnesses, and I'm a great
Speaker 3: cross examiner. I mean, this is gonna be great for hearings.
Speaker 3: I know how to investigate. I know how to litigate.
Speaker 3: I know how to push all these buttons. And then
Speaker 3: of course the drafting and the knowledge of constitutional all
Speaker 3: that thing, all of that, this is all lawyery. We
Speaker 3: need good lawyers in Congress right now more than ever.
Speaker 3: And you know, I mean, Jamie, Jamie Raskin needs all
Speaker 3: the help you can get on that committee. And I'm
Speaker 3: you know, I want to be there and I want
Speaker 3: to help, and I think I'm the best person suited
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 1: Part of Trump is this psychological game, right like, And
Speaker 1: we saw this really clearly with Zoran. If he's easily played,
Speaker 1: he is easily So talk us through how that relates
Speaker 1: to your congressional Well. I think the thing is, he's
Speaker 1: easily to distract and to engage. I think one of
Speaker 1: the things I do well with him is to point
Speaker 1: out his psychological disorders and and make him manifest them.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: And this is the thing about this is this is
Speaker 3: central to who he is, and central to why he
Speaker 3: can't govern it, and central to why he is a
Speaker 3: danger to the world. He's a narcissist. He's a malignant narcissist.
Speaker 3: I've been talking about that, I write, I wrote an
Speaker 3: eleven thousand word piece in seven years ago about that
Speaker 3: in the Atlantic. You know again, he cares only about himself.
Speaker 3: He only cares about his ego. All everything he's doing
Speaker 3: is to gratify his ego, to make him feel strong,
Speaker 3: to make him, you know, to seek retribution against others.
Speaker 3: He can be easily distracted into showing how bad he is.
Speaker 3: And I think we need to draw him out on it.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what you know, could have happened
Speaker 3: more in the twenty four campaign. I think we're going
Speaker 3: it's going to happen here is well.
Speaker 1: Don Trump has kidnapped a president of Venezuela and his wife.
Speaker 1: He has brought them to New York to face drug
Speaker 1: trafficking charges. Because Donald Trump is very worried about drugs,
Speaker 1: except sometimes when he's partnering people who what the fuck
Speaker 1: is going on here? What do you think is going
Speaker 1: on here?
Speaker 3: Well, look, I mean all of the stated reasons, I
Speaker 3: have nothing to do with any figure. Right, he's talking
Speaker 3: about the drug running, the indictment in the Southern District
Speaker 3: of New York for money laundering and drug running. Like
Speaker 3: he pardoned the Honduran president let him go. So it's
Speaker 3: not really about that. It's about ego, and it's about oil.
Speaker 3: It's about conquest, it's about power, it's about all of that.
Speaker 3: And that's why they're talking now about Greenland. Okay, where's
Speaker 3: the dictator in Greenland? This is all just a giant
Speaker 3: power play. He actually should like Maduro. Maduro is a
Speaker 3: strong man, Maduro criminal Maduro is just like him.
Speaker 1: And Maduro has a great relationship with his buddy Putin
Speaker 1: does buddy Putin.
Speaker 3: They're all you know, they're all the same, and you
Speaker 3: know it's not it's not about anyway helping the United
Speaker 3: States in any way, shape or form. I mean, they've
Speaker 3: been lying about Venezuela for a long time, talking about fentanyl.
Speaker 3: There's no fentanyl that comes from there. The whole thing
Speaker 3: is elite lee. The boat strikes against people. They may
Speaker 3: have been drug running, but they weren't drug running in
Speaker 3: the United States, and they weren't drug running fentanyl they had.
Speaker 3: You know, those weren't even war crimes because they were
Speaker 3: just straight out crimes. And now you know Mduro is
Speaker 3: going to be guilty. He's a bad guy like Trump,
Speaker 3: but that's got nothing to do with why he's here.
Speaker 3: It's got nothing to do with why he's here. And
Speaker 3: the danger of the dangerous pressor that's being set by
Speaker 3: having the United States is going to take somebody out
Speaker 3: when it's not in their our national winterest being we
Speaker 3: have no basis in international law. That's going to come
Speaker 3: back to bite us because the next time some you know,
Speaker 3: we one of somebody we like somewhere that happens to them.
Speaker 3: I mean, who are we going to be this to object?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: And it also I mean there there's a nightmare scenario
Speaker 1: where Putin is like okay Ukraine, where she she is
Speaker 1: like okay Taiwan.
Speaker 3: We have to be clean as a whistle. We have
Speaker 3: to stand up for what is right because we you know,
Speaker 3: the turn the worm can turn on us too. And
Speaker 3: the thing about it too, iss like what what are
Speaker 3: we doing? We we are never good at regime change, right,
Speaker 3: We are never good at it, Like you can't create
Speaker 3: a new government that doesn't have support within its borders,
Speaker 3: and we're you know, we're we're not going to be
Speaker 3: able to do that. In fact, we basically take this
Speaker 3: guy out and all his cronies are in charge now.
Speaker 3: So what's what was what was the point of this?
Speaker 1: You know Trump, you know Kelly An, you know almost
Speaker 1: all these people who work in this White House.
Speaker 5: So what do you think the real point was? I
Speaker 5: think the real point was a show of strength. And
Speaker 5: I do think there's something about the oil. He's obsessed
Speaker 5: with that oil. He's talked about that oil.
Speaker 3: He said, we should have never could have taken the
Speaker 3: we should have taken the oil from Iraq.
Speaker 1: I think any of it was to distract from Epstein.
Speaker 1: Like people are saying.
Speaker 3: Sure, sure, I mean you know anything he's doing, he
Speaker 3: you know, he's become more and more manic because of
Speaker 3: the Epstein thing. Sure, absolutely, that's part of it. He's
Speaker 3: been panicking about the Epstein thing, so more manick he becomes.
Speaker 3: It's that's part of I think that's part of the
Speaker 3: Epstein fall out. But why why what do you mean why.
Speaker 1: Why is he panicked about Epstein?
Speaker 3: What's in the file?
Speaker 4: Some ian?
Speaker 3: We still haven't seen what's in the files. We have
Speaker 3: seen lots of reactions. I mean, he knows, he knows
Speaker 3: what he knows, he's got something to hide. I mean
Speaker 3: when he's talking about when you know that Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 3: did you see that? Wor?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: There are people? Are you gonna hurt my friends? Friends?
Speaker 3: Donald Trump doesn't have friends, right, Donald Trump care about friends.
Speaker 3: He's not trying to help anyone. There's only one person
Speaker 3: Donald Trump cares about helping, and who's that Donald Trump?
Speaker 3: So you can infer from that that he is concerned
Speaker 3: about something in the files, and he's concerned that has
Speaker 3: something to do with him. What that is no. I
Speaker 3: think we've I think we've seen enough. I think the
Speaker 3: birthday card we've seen enough. Right, Well, he why about
Speaker 3: the birthday card. It's the signature matches the signature of
Speaker 3: everything he's ever said. No, the United Kingdom had an ambassador,
Speaker 3: a very prominent labor politician, Lady or Mandelsson, who had
Speaker 3: a completely nondescript birthday card in that book, didn't have
Speaker 3: a picture of a naked woman.
Speaker 1: But guy was gay.
Speaker 6: In fact, I met at dinner with them, okay, and
Speaker 6: they out back.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, it's like the guy didn't do anything compared to
Speaker 3: what Trump did, right, you know.
Speaker 1: That's it's so let's talk through a little bit about
Speaker 1: what you know right now. The House of Representatives has
Speaker 1: it was just a member, a Republican who died in office,
Speaker 1: sixty seven, sixty five years old. Not that all died
Speaker 1: in office. So now the makeup is that they basically
Speaker 1: Republicans have a one seat majority, and you have Thomas Massey,
Speaker 1: who is already like if.
Speaker 3: You're lumbering off the reservation every day, if you were.
Speaker 1: In the House and Marjorie Taylor Green resigned today or yesterday,
Speaker 1: if you are in the House, right now would you
Speaker 1: be making an effort to try to flip more Republican votes?
Speaker 1: I mean, did you Why do you think that's not happening.
Speaker 3: I would hope that it's happening. We don't know that
Speaker 3: it's not happening, because this is not the kind of
Speaker 3: thing that's going to be happening out on Constant Tomorrow
Speaker 3: Avenue where everybody can see it. I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: know what the what the what the back rooms are
Speaker 3: like there, I don't know who talks to whom, But
Speaker 3: these people are starting to get it. They are starting
Speaker 3: to see the end of the Trump rope. The wheels,
Speaker 3: you know, pick the metaphor you like, the wheels are
Speaker 3: falling off the bus. And and you see more and
Speaker 3: more Republicans not running. They're scared, they know, they know
Speaker 3: the game is up. That being said, we can't take
Speaker 3: any of this for granted. We have to keep pushing
Speaker 3: until he's gone, because the worst thing you can do
Speaker 3: is kind of let up. And that's kind of what
Speaker 3: happened after the twenty twenty election. Everybody thought he was
Speaker 3: going to go away. Merrick Garland thought he was going.
Speaker 2: To go away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Americ Garland, what a disappointment. Do you will you
Speaker 1: make a case for why do you are you did?
Speaker 1: Why there needs to be a like a focus on
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened in twenty twenty was
Speaker 1: Democrats decided they needed to protect norms and institutions, and
Speaker 1: Republicans decided they needed to win, and Republicans won, And
Speaker 1: here we are, right.
Speaker 3: Well, the answer is the way you win is by
Speaker 3: showing these people are bad and the showing that they're
Speaker 3: self interested in showing that they're evil, all right, And
Speaker 3: that's how you win.
Speaker 5: That.
Speaker 3: You cannot just you cannot extract their their malfeasance and
Speaker 3: their depravity from the reasons why normal people should be elected,
Speaker 3: because that's what it's all about. That's that's what's causing
Speaker 3: all the pay that's what's causing the high prices. That right,
Speaker 3: high prices is because of tariffs and whatnot and people
Speaker 3: losing ACA subsidies. Like this is all because these people
Speaker 3: are depraved and evil and they don't give a fuck
Speaker 3: about anybody other than themselves. And so you have to
Speaker 3: talk about that all at once, and you have to
Speaker 3: be blunt about what's happening. It can't be afraid to
Speaker 3: say this guy is psycho. He can't be afraid to
Speaker 3: say that that he's a malignant, narcissist, associopath and an
Speaker 3: evil person. He's somebody that, you know, any normal person
Speaker 3: has all. He has all the characteristics you absolutely would
Speaker 3: tell your children not to emulate. Has no you know,
Speaker 3: can't tell the truth, has no empathy, has you know,
Speaker 3: all does nothing but set Avengage is completely self involved.
Speaker 3: He and his and takes for what belongs to others.
Speaker 3: You cannot you can't separate all that for why it
Speaker 3: is that things aren't going the way people want to go.
Speaker 3: It's all of a piece and you can't hold back,
Speaker 3: and you can't hope that they just go away. You
Speaker 3: can't hope that that, oh, the wheels are falling up,
Speaker 3: the bus, people are getting office. He's showing weakness because
Speaker 3: if you do that, I mean, you act complacently. You
Speaker 3: know he's going to be back.
Speaker 1: May Garland, I think Mayor Garland. I mean all you
Speaker 1: need to say is Mary Garland, Mary Garland, this is
Speaker 1: not this is not what I think you're trying to
Speaker 1: say is this is not a moment for This is
Speaker 1: not a moment for for norms and institution protection. This
Speaker 1: is a moment for for fixing.
Speaker 6: Well that's right now illegal. The way you s for
Speaker 6: norms is you fight, Okay, you fight, and you can't
Speaker 6: do the things that you normally do, conduct politics as
Speaker 6: usual because that you know, you're we're fighting for our
Speaker 6: lives here, we're fighting for our lives. We're fighting for
Speaker 6: the rule or fighting for constitutional democracy, and these aren't
Speaker 6: normal times, and you can't. You know, we need people
Speaker 6: who are going to come in. We don't necessarily want
Speaker 6: to be career politicians. Career politicians. It's like, well, we
Speaker 6: don't want to rock the boat.
Speaker 4: We are going to do this.
Speaker 7: We want to stick to our We want to stick
Speaker 7: to our And you didn't go forward and do that
Speaker 7: and you get elected to the same seat for decades. Right,
Speaker 7: we're going to do We're basically they're not afraid. They're
Speaker 7: not afraid to sort of make ways and take risks.
Speaker 3: And you know, look look at me, right, I'm sixty
Speaker 3: two years old. I never did it will tank you.
Speaker 3: So I never thought seriously about going into politics and
Speaker 3: running for public office until late in the morning or
Speaker 3: November tenth of this year, and when the idea was
Speaker 3: suggested me by somebody and you know, I can't do
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be able to do make a career of it.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think, and I think one of the
Speaker 1: problems we've seen is that there have been too many
Speaker 1: people who go into politics because they can't get a
Speaker 1: better job.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, I'm retired, I should be skiing,
Speaker 3: but I don't. I don't disagree with that. I don't,
Speaker 3: but I also don't need to. I don't want to
Speaker 3: be disparag There are a lot of there are some
Speaker 3: great public servants you know, who have spent their lives
Speaker 3: in politics.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of people you've never fun a.
Speaker 3: Lot of people who you know, there's there's a lot
Speaker 3: of people who you know, they got out of the state,
Speaker 3: some state legislature or somewhere they have trouble getting a job.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely true. We need people who've done things elsewhere,
Speaker 3: who have skills that can be applied to this circumstance,
Speaker 3: this moment. And that's that's my pitch.
Speaker 1: Yes, correct, George Conway, will you come back?
Speaker 3: I will always come back.
Speaker 1: Ian Bremmer is the president of the Eurasia Group. Welcome
Speaker 1: too fast politics.
Speaker 4: Ian, Hey, Molly, Yeah, I've seen you before.
Speaker 1: So there's so much to talk about. I am without words.
Speaker 1: How bad is kidnapping the president of another country and
Speaker 1: his wife and bringing them to New York to stand
Speaker 1: try How bad is it?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how destabilizing.
Speaker 8: Is that it's not like invading Ukraine where the president
Speaker 8: was democratically elected and trying to overthrow the country. And
Speaker 8: you know, it's not as if Trump has engaged in
Speaker 8: regime change because he's kept the regime in place and
Speaker 8: he's not sending troops, so it's not like any and
Speaker 8: no American men or women actually died during the military operation.
Speaker 8: So I mean, there's a lot of like, if we
Speaker 8: could just freeze the tape here, and if nothing else
Speaker 8: were to happen, you might be like, oh, okay, splendid
Speaker 8: little activity, right, feels like Grenada.
Speaker 4: But of course it's not that simple.
Speaker 8: It's that the United States now has some level of
Speaker 8: influence on ownership.
Speaker 4: Over what the politics are going to look like.
Speaker 8: And you know, there's a big question of whether a
Speaker 8: regime that is the same as the Maduro regime minus
Speaker 8: Maduro is really going to listen to the United States
Speaker 8: under you know, sort of dint of we will beat
Speaker 8: you up for a long time, and what it means
Speaker 8: if they don't, and how the Americans are going to
Speaker 8: have to continue to respond. So you've kind of put
Speaker 8: that marker in. And there is also the question of
Speaker 8: how Trump is going to respond, not just about an
Speaker 8: individual narco terrorist who should be out of power and
Speaker 8: stole a democratic election and should be in jail, but
Speaker 8: how he's going to now project his power having had
Speaker 8: that win, because he now embraces the Donroe doctrine, and
Speaker 8: there are lots of other places where he can cause
Speaker 8: a lot of damage and he can destroy a lot
Speaker 8: of relationships.
Speaker 1: Right, So I want you to explain to the people
Speaker 1: who are those of the podcasts who do not maybe
Speaker 1: know about the Dunrow doctrine, a newly created doctrine created
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump as a sort of parody of the
Speaker 1: Monroe doctrine, but explain what the sort of the net
Speaker 1: of it is.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think he thinks it's a parody.
Speaker 8: I think he believes that it is implies that America
Speaker 8: should have to should have a foreign policy priority over
Speaker 8: the political orientation and actions of everybody in its backyard
Speaker 8: as defined by the president. Historically, the Monroe doctrine was
Speaker 8: about the western hemisphere, so it was really about Latin America.
Speaker 4: Today it is more expansive than that.
Speaker 8: Certainly Trump would include Greenland in his discussion of the
Speaker 8: Donroe doctrine. I would also say pragmatically, I would say
Speaker 8: that last year Trump was really focused on tariffs and
Speaker 8: that that was his principal tool to get the outcomes
Speaker 8: he wanted not going to use tariffs as effectively this
Speaker 8: year because he's got problems with the economy, and he's
Speaker 8: got an election coming up, and he was also beaten
Speaker 8: and bloodied by the Chinese and reacting.
Speaker 4: To the tariffs he put on.
Speaker 8: He had the back down, but militarily he has much
Speaker 8: more capacity to act unilaterally without anyone hitting him back.
Speaker 8: And so that combination of my backyard and the military
Speaker 8: stick is what the down Roe doctrine is all about.
Speaker 8: I do think that it is leading a lot of
Speaker 8: countries around the world to say, we don't think we
Speaker 8: can rely on the United States going forward.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I hear from you in
Speaker 1: this moment, which seems really clear, is that it's all
Speaker 1: going to be about the second order effects, the things
Speaker 1: that happen next. Those are going to be the things.
Speaker 1: So Trump is talked to Joe Scarborough to I said,
Speaker 1: you know, very proud of what's happened so far. If
Speaker 1: you went back to Kuwait in the nineteen nineties, after
Speaker 1: the first military action by Bush Senior right in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, actually was a success. It was everything after
Speaker 1: that that was a disaster.
Speaker 9: I would say that that entire Iraqi operation was successful
Speaker 9: because Bush showed restraint, because he didn't actually go ahead
Speaker 9: to overthrow Saddam Hussein and take control of Iraq, even
Speaker 9: though the Kurds felt completely sold out by the Americans
Speaker 9: as a consequence.
Speaker 8: It's not the only time the Kurds have felt sold
Speaker 8: out historically. When I think about Trump, restraint is not
Speaker 8: the first word that comes.
Speaker 1: To my second or third, not usually, not usually.
Speaker 8: So I mean Trump is likely to double down on
Speaker 8: the basis of this just worked well for.
Speaker 4: Me, and it's going to keep working well for me.
Speaker 8: And the funny thing is, because so many people have
Speaker 8: been asking me the last forty eight hours, Molly, They're like, well,
Speaker 8: so is it about the oil, Is it about the drugs?
Speaker 4: Is it about you know, democracy? You know what Macro.
Speaker 1: Rubio does Anyone really think it's about democracy.
Speaker 8: Well, I mean for Marco, I mean absolutely, I mean,
Speaker 8: and for all the Venezuelans in exile, I mean, like
Speaker 8: they really want, like you know, to be able to
Speaker 8: run the country.
Speaker 1: But then they shouldn't have kept the regime a jar.
Speaker 8: Well, I mean even so, like you still wouldn't need
Speaker 8: an actual transition unless you're prepared to like literally send
Speaker 8: a proconsole down with all of the military support.
Speaker 4: And the Americans don't buy that.
Speaker 8: So, like I actually think I think Trump does not
Speaker 8: care about what kind of government there is as long
Speaker 8: as it supports the US. But I think that even
Speaker 8: if you wanted a democracy, which Marco does and Trump
Speaker 8: doesn't care, I think that you would actually work with
Speaker 8: the military first. You wouldn't just go in and blow
Speaker 8: them all up. So the first step was the right
Speaker 8: step in my view, if you were going to go
Speaker 8: about a regime change policy, if that was what you
Speaker 8: wanted to do, People ask me, is it oil?
Speaker 4: Is it drugs? At democracy?
Speaker 8: And the funny thing is it's about removing Maduro. And
Speaker 8: we need to remember that, Like Trump was really angry
Speaker 8: at Maduro. Maduro is dancing and he's making fun of him,
Speaker 8: and he gave him an ultimatum and he asked escalated, escalated,
Speaker 8: And you know, inside the White House you had Steven
Speaker 8: Miller telling Trump, you know, anything would be better than Maduro,
Speaker 8: any outcome, chaos, military dictators, anything would be better Madu.
Speaker 4: We just have to get rid of this guy.
Speaker 8: And Trump has now gotten rid of this guy with
Speaker 8: spectacular success.
Speaker 4: So a big part of what Trump wanted to do
Speaker 4: he has already.
Speaker 1: Done it again. The problem is everything else that.
Speaker 4: He is very likely to take it too far, yes.
Speaker 1: But also even if he doesn't take it too far,
Speaker 1: there's problems there too. I mean, if you look at right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you destabilize a region. You can't now put
Speaker 1: the genie back in.
Speaker 8: The bottle, having removed Maduro, with the military still there
Speaker 8: and weakened a bit and no Americans on the ground.
Speaker 8: If the demands you make of Venezuela are reasonable, and
Speaker 8: you've now got the former vice president acting president who
Speaker 8: is actually more of a pragmatist, and it comes with
Speaker 8: dealing with the private sector, for example, the possibility that
Speaker 8: the Venezuelan economy could start to actually turn around is meaningful.
Speaker 8: I mean Maduro was not jabez Jabez was like democratically elected.
Speaker 8: He was charismatic, he was a revolutionary, cared about the people.
Speaker 4: Maduro was like a thug and a criminal and.
Speaker 1: A drug guy, right, but wasn't part of the economy
Speaker 1: selling oil to Russia and China.
Speaker 8: Did you see Molly that right after the US took
Speaker 8: him out, that a whole bunch of tankers were allowed
Speaker 8: through the blockade by the United States, And that clearly
Speaker 8: was because the US is not trying. Number one, not
Speaker 8: trying to fight with China, so they're going to let
Speaker 8: them continue to export with China. Number two wants to
Speaker 8: show that they're engaging with the Venezuelan government, not trying
Speaker 8: to beat them up economically as long as they behave nicely.
Speaker 8: And number three, the Venezuelans actually don't have any more
Speaker 8: oil storage, so they need to get that oil like
Speaker 8: on the markets or it's going to damage the economy more.
Speaker 8: And if the US is going to try to help
Speaker 8: them rebuild and reinvest, then they don't want it to
Speaker 8: get any worse. So there are legitimate reasons for the
Speaker 8: US to allow that to happen.
Speaker 1: What would be the dream scenario here, they let them rebuild,
Speaker 1: they are able to run themselves they are able to
Speaker 1: have free and fair elections.
Speaker 8: Well, and that you would selectively use some pressure to
Speaker 8: get the opposition that are claimed to be criminals but
Speaker 8: aren't that are being held and get them released, and
Speaker 8: that you work over twelve eighteen months to try to
Speaker 8: have some level of power sharing agreement where the military
Speaker 8: is still going to be there and their interests will
Speaker 8: still be respected, but that a civilian government with opposition
Speaker 8: members could actually be allowed to run and win.
Speaker 4: But that is a process and it will.
Speaker 8: Require long term negotiations and engagement with this government.
Speaker 4: Is it possible. It's possible.
Speaker 1: In recent history, we have yet to be able to
Speaker 1: succeed doing that.
Speaker 8: Right, I mean Panama, Right is the example people point
Speaker 8: to where you get rid of Noriega after an American
Speaker 8: marine had been killed.
Speaker 1: But it's much smaller.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's very small.
Speaker 1: There's a number of reasons why it's not comparable.
Speaker 8: And the US had troops on the ground, and the
Speaker 8: United States had great intelligence and all the rest.
Speaker 1: And also had the Panama Canal.
Speaker 8: Right, But Venezuela is not going to be Iraq, right,
Speaker 8: Venezuela is not going to have a civil war. You
Speaker 8: don't have sectarian divides there, you have a recent history
Speaker 8: of democracy. There are lots of middle class educated Venezuelans
Speaker 8: that would love to come back and invest if the
Speaker 8: country actually could be well governed. But there is a
Speaker 8: level of building material there, and I'm talking like civic
Speaker 8: and human building material that you did not have in
Speaker 8: Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya. And that also matters. So
Speaker 8: we can't, you know, we can't like treat all of
Speaker 8: these countries as if they're just identical disasters.
Speaker 1: Right. But Trump, instead of focusing on sort of the
Speaker 1: success there, his admin has now started making overtures towards Greenland.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and you know that maybe we need to make
Speaker 8: a strike on Columbia and we.
Speaker 4: Hate Petro and that's a great idea. And you know
Speaker 4: what about Cuba and all the rest?
Speaker 1: And why why?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 8: Number one, because you can that it turns out that
Speaker 8: the norms that Americans believed contained their president are norms
Speaker 8: that can be broken and that no one is going
Speaker 8: to stand up and stop him. And he has proven
Speaker 8: that time and time again, and much more effectively in
Speaker 8: his second term, now that he has loyalists around him
Speaker 8: and he has some experience than anyone would have expected.
Speaker 8: So part of it is that, part of it is
Speaker 8: his desire for wins and to be the historic president.
Speaker 8: Because the thing about Greenland that upsets me, and I
Speaker 8: use that term advisedly. I rarely get upset about things,
Speaker 8: but I'm upset about this. The United States can achieve
Speaker 8: any policy goal it wants with Greenland negotiating with one
Speaker 8: of our most aligned tiny allies, Denmark. If we want
Speaker 8: to have more access for the American military to expand
Speaker 8: bases on territory which basically is unpopulated, they are more
Speaker 8: than happy to provide that. If we want intelligence and
Speaker 8: listening bases, absolutely no problem. We wanted to launch station
Speaker 8: for elon Musk and SpaceX, they will make that happen.
Speaker 4: You want to make sure that we have the ability to.
Speaker 8: Exploit natural resources, minerals, fish, they will negotiate that. The
Speaker 8: only thing they will not negotiate is that Greenland is
Speaker 8: a part of Denmark that is not up for negotiation,
Speaker 8: and that apparently is the single thing that Trump has
Speaker 8: decided that he absolutely has to have.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about this top risk support that
Speaker 1: you guys just publish, because ostensibly we're supposed to be
Speaker 1: talking about that, but so much has happened that you
Speaker 1: have just well, I mean.
Speaker 8: By the way, all of the stuff we're talking about
Speaker 8: is risk Number three is the Donro doctrine. It's there,
Speaker 8: and it's also the US political revolution, and it is
Speaker 8: this is the year where the United States is driving
Speaker 8: the majority of the geopolitical uncertainty.
Speaker 4: Around the world. So that is what we are talking
Speaker 4: about the top Vers report.
Speaker 1: There's no question which is insane. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think you're a little older than I, but like
Speaker 1: the way I grew up, the idea that America we
Speaker 1: are now the rogue actor is just insane to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know we've had moments where the country
Speaker 1: has seemed to make a wrong move, but this seems
Speaker 1: the sort of untetheredness of our leader seems completely crazy.
Speaker 4: In my mind.
Speaker 8: I described Trump as not the cause, but as a symptom,
Speaker 8: as a beneficiary, and as an accelerant, because I don't
Speaker 8: think this is new and I don't put it all
Speaker 8: on Trump at all. I think that for a long time,
Speaker 8: a growing number of Americans felt that the United States
Speaker 8: was acting as the global policeman, with its troops putting
Speaker 8: them in Harm's way at huge expense. The US was
Speaker 8: acting as the architect for free trade, but not paying
Speaker 8: attention to the hallowing out of jobs in the United States,
Speaker 8: not supporting the social contract, and the US was promoting
Speaker 8: democracy around the world at a time that the average
Speaker 8: American felt that the US system was not democratic for itself.
Speaker 8: And you know, one of the things that I find
Speaker 8: most interesting is that among Americans in the twenty twenty
Speaker 8: four election who say that democracy was an important reason
Speaker 8: that they voted, maybe not the most important reason, but
Speaker 8: an important reason. More of those Americans voted for Trump
Speaker 8: and commelaers because they believed that the country was already
Speaker 8: so unrepresentative and captured that they wanted someone that was
Speaker 8: willing to break the system.
Speaker 4: And Trump is that Trump is someone who was willing
Speaker 4: to break the system.
Speaker 1: But it's a year later, and if you check back
Speaker 1: in those people, none of them are happy.
Speaker 4: Oh that's not fair. Well, the magabase is the megabase
Speaker 4: is right.
Speaker 1: But the low frequency voters, if you look at his
Speaker 1: numbers with young people, the people who are the recent
Speaker 1: converts to trump Ism, a lot of those people have
Speaker 1: taken it back.
Speaker 8: Your point is correct, but a strong majority of the
Speaker 8: people that voted for Trump still support Trump and what
Speaker 8: they got it's exactly what they wanted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the magabase. You can't win with the magabase.
Speaker 8: Right, No, you can't win with any base in the
Speaker 8: United States. The country's incredibly, incredibly divided. But the fact
Speaker 8: that you have thirty thirty five percent of the United
Speaker 8: States that believes that the system is that broken implies
Speaker 8: that the system is probably reasonably close to that broken.
Speaker 1: I would add, the people who believe the system is
Speaker 1: broken is a different circle on the been diagram, because
Speaker 1: those are the people. Some of those people are Indies,
Speaker 1: some of those people are people of color who voted
Speaker 1: for Trump a year ago and who've changed it. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say the magabase is partially disruptors
Speaker 1: and partially just people who vote for a Republican no
Speaker 1: matter what.
Speaker 4: But I'm just saying that.
Speaker 8: I think that there is a structural move for the
Speaker 8: United States to say we don't support free trade, we
Speaker 8: want industrial policy period.
Speaker 4: I think there's a structural move for the.
Speaker 8: United States say we want to stop having these troops
Speaker 8: all over the world doing all this stuff for allies
Speaker 8: that are actually weaker and they're not growing and they're
Speaker 8: not productive and they're not spending period.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot a lot.
Speaker 8: Of people, there's a lot of support for people saying
Speaker 8: we will stop all that immigration because you've got to
Speaker 8: take care of us first before you bring in more
Speaker 8: immgrants done. Those are structural points, and they're playing out
Speaker 8: all over the world, right all over the world.
Speaker 1: For sure, I would say they were structural points, because
Speaker 1: I mean Venezuela. Trump has said any number of things,
Speaker 1: he's going to run it, he's going to send boots
Speaker 1: on the ground, he's going to do this, He's going
Speaker 1: to do that. None of those are America first.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 8: Well, he's been very very careful thus far, and again
Speaker 8: he can change his mind at any moment.
Speaker 4: But the twelve Day War in Iran splendid.
Speaker 8: Little war operation that we actually saw and experienced in Venezuela.
Speaker 4: Splendid little war. And by the way, it would not
Speaker 4: surprise me.
Speaker 8: I don't know if they've discussed this, but it wouldn't
Speaker 8: surprise me that if it turns out if he needed
Speaker 8: boots on the ground, wouldn't surprise me if at all.
Speaker 4: If he did.
Speaker 8: The Russian Wagner Group type thing, mercenaries private sector.
Speaker 4: Not sending Americans to die.
Speaker 8: Wouldn't shock me at all, because he's so focused on
Speaker 8: Americans want to stop doing this.
Speaker 4: I do think that's a real thing that he has.
Speaker 1: Again, who knows what he does. It's all completely nuts.
Speaker 4: But I'm not willing to go there.
Speaker 1: Right, we don't know what he's going to do, because
Speaker 1: that's the Madman theory, right, it's Nixon plus plus plus.
Speaker 1: I want you to talk about the real teriff right
Speaker 1: because I think really good reporting in the Times a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, the real tariff, right is not
Speaker 1: the terifrate that the Admin is selling it as. What
Speaker 1: is a real tiff rate?
Speaker 8: And why I think the real terif rate now right
Speaker 8: now blended is about what fifteen seventeen percent?
Speaker 4: It's something like.
Speaker 1: That, something like that.
Speaker 8: And it's like with the IEPA ruling with the Supreme Court,
Speaker 8: assuming some constraints, it's probably going to come down a
Speaker 8: bit and there's going to be more deals.
Speaker 4: Don't have the Indian deal yet, that's going to get done.
Speaker 8: Twenty twenty five was the year of talking about tariffs
Speaker 8: and that uncertainty. Two twenty six, Trump cannot continue to
Speaker 8: use tariffs in that way. He has to get prices down,
Speaker 8: he knows it. He has to get more deals signed
Speaker 8: with countries. He knows it. He can't fight with the Chinese.
Speaker 8: He understands that too. That's the other component of the
Speaker 8: Donroe doctrine is Economically, the world is globalized, it is interdependent,
Speaker 8: supply chains are sticky, and it is multipolar. Militarily, the
Speaker 8: world is unipolar militarily. The United States actually is by
Speaker 8: far the most important player and can determine outcomes to
Speaker 8: a much greater degree. And Trump is going to lean
Speaker 8: more into now the places where he has more influence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see what happens.
Speaker 4: Ian.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4: Sure moly, love you see Sue.
Speaker 2: A moment Sue.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon by junk Fast.
Speaker 2: So the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has dissolved after the
Speaker 2: federal funding cuts after six d years. This is going
Speaker 2: to be quite shitty.
Speaker 1: So the Corporation for Public Broadcasting again, Like, this is
Speaker 1: something we talk about a lot, which is what does
Speaker 1: your government important? Where did your tax dollars go? So
Speaker 1: we're seeing with Trump, we don't know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen yet, but they did kidnap the president and his wife,
Speaker 1: even Azuela. So let's talk about this. That's tax dollars, right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about these tax dollars. So these tax
Speaker 1: dollars are gone, the tax dollars that supported NPR, PBS
Speaker 1: and a lot of public radio stations, they're gone. That's
Speaker 1: over ended by a cabal that involved Elon Musk, but
Speaker 1: was always the plan comes from Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: The idea was, why should tax dollars go to subsidizing
Speaker 1: any kind of news? The thing I think is important
Speaker 1: and I want to go back to Nick Shalley for
Speaker 1: a minutes. Nick surely is a product of a world
Speaker 1: that good country, really, that prioritizes clickbait and big headlines
Speaker 1: and no reporting right. Because if Nick sually had a
Speaker 1: team or even a lawyer, right, or even any kind
Speaker 1: of accountability, he would have read the many, many, many
Speaker 1: articles about the story. But he didn't because there's no infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Because the rewards are for people who say things that
Speaker 1: are provocative and not for the truths. That's behind it.
Speaker 1: And so what we're seeing here is a culture that
Speaker 1: does not really give a fuck about the truth. And
Speaker 1: that is why we are going to see PBS and NPR.
Speaker 1: They have now gotten rid of that organization. It no
Speaker 1: longer exists. The public is no longer funding broadcasting. It's
Speaker 1: pretty shocking. Just like with the vaccines, it will cause
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things, and we talk about
Speaker 1: this in this Ian interview in Gremar, is that there
Speaker 1: are all all sorts of second order effects coming from this.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have reporting, you don't so you're
Speaker 1: not going to know what's happening. So you'll have more
Speaker 1: government corruption, you'll have more state level corruption, you'll have
Speaker 1: more of all of this stuff. You know, just like
Speaker 1: when you cut vaccines, you have more sick kids, When
Speaker 1: you cut reporting, you have more crime, you have more
Speaker 1: corruption that's not exposed. And that is what we'll see here.
Speaker 1: So just like when you kidnap the leader of a nation,
Speaker 1: you open the door to second order effects. That's what
Speaker 1: we're looking at here. That's it for this episode of
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday
Speaker 1: to hear the best minds and politics make sense of
Speaker 1: all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send
Speaker 1: it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening,