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 Elon Musk has lifted Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: Twitter van. We have a wild show for you today.
Speaker 1: Congresson Mondair Jones stops by to talk to us about
Speaker 1: the changes the New York political machine needs to make
Speaker 1: to ensure the Democrats future dominance. Then we talked to
Speaker 1: ABC News political director Rick Kleine about the mid terms
Speaker 1: unexpected outcomes. But first we have the host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Okay Computer on the tape and market Watch, who
Speaker 1: all is a squawk Box contributor, Dan Nathan. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Dan Nathan, Molly John Fast, Thanks for having
Speaker 1: me back. Well, it's always a delight and there's so
Speaker 1: much to talk about. And first I think we should
Speaker 1: talk about even though the mid terms are a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks in the rear view, we are still in
Speaker 1: this interesting period when a lot of people thought Americans
Speaker 1: would vote on the economy or their you know, their
Speaker 1: fantasy of the economy or whatever that was. They didn't
Speaker 1: And I'm curious to know are you surprised? And furthermore,
Speaker 1: what is happening right now with the economy. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, I mean, I think that there was so
Speaker 1: much concern over the prices of just kind of goods
Speaker 1: and services and just the increase kind of year over year, right,
Speaker 1: So that would be the term inflation that a lot
Speaker 1: of Americans have been feeling, you know, in the aftermath
Speaker 1: I guess of the pandemic. And if you think about UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of what our government did, whether it be UM, Congress,
Speaker 1: the White House, the US Federal Reserve during the pandemic
Speaker 1: is they kind of flooded the zone with monetary and
Speaker 1: fiscal stimulus. They wanted to make sure companies didn't go
Speaker 1: out of business so they could keep people employed, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to make sure that households were okay, right,
Speaker 1: And so they got through the pandemic for the most
Speaker 1: art I think, pretty decently. But then we kind of
Speaker 1: hit the kind of pedal to the metal again last
Speaker 1: year with some more fiscal stimulus, and that really caused
Speaker 1: an increase in UM inflationary pressures. But that was also
Speaker 1: caused by China zero COVID policy, by broken supply chains,
Speaker 1: and then obviously the war UM in Europe. So I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, when we have this kind of numbers, we
Speaker 1: had forty year high readings and inflation, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people thinking about how mid term elections usually
Speaker 1: go right for a first term president, do you have
Speaker 1: about economy? It's usually lights out right, And I think
Speaker 1: that was kind of overtaking a lot of the kind
Speaker 1: of you know, thoughts about you know, what's going to
Speaker 1: dominate at least voters interest, and so in the aftermath,
Speaker 1: I think what's really important to kind of recognize the
Speaker 1: fact is that, yes, we have forty year high inflation readings.
Speaker 1: I think everybody economists and I think just a lot
Speaker 1: of market strategists and people who just kind of follow
Speaker 1: this stuff politically. Also, we're pretty safe to kind of
Speaker 1: guess that inflation readings were going to peak sometime soon, right,
Speaker 1: And so here we are. That's what we're seeing, um
Speaker 1: right now. And so I guess the point is is
Speaker 1: that this could actually set up really nicely Molly, if
Speaker 1: you think about it, if all of these rate increases
Speaker 1: to battle inflation. Right, So we've had mortgage prices go up, um,
Speaker 1: and that could be a near term phenomenon. The economy
Speaker 1: could be setting up Okay, if we get through let's say,
Speaker 1: the second half of into four for this incumbent president
Speaker 1: and because this this kind of red wave never materialized here,
Speaker 1: so again, the economy might be doing okay, or at
Speaker 1: least a lot better than I think a lot of
Speaker 1: politicians or voters thought as they headed into the midterm.
Speaker 1: Part of that is anxiety. It's I want to say,
Speaker 1: it's like Carter anxiety right the seventies world period with
Speaker 1: a lot of inflation, and you know, it ended up
Speaker 1: ending the Carter presidency. And I feel like every time
Speaker 1: people talk about inflation, or at least me in my mind,
Speaker 1: I go right back to Carter and I feel like
Speaker 1: that angs it kind of permeated the narrative to a
Speaker 1: certain extent totally because we had this oil crisis right
Speaker 1: there was so much focus on oil because that's the
Speaker 1: thing that most um, you know, individual consumers, they feel
Speaker 1: the pinchet. But I also say, this is really important
Speaker 1: part of this is that you know, we had unemployment
Speaker 1: down to three and a half percent. This was before
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and where is it unemployment right now? It's
Speaker 1: only at three point seven percent. It just picked up
Speaker 1: a little bit. So after we saw unemployment shoot up
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, it came right back down to those
Speaker 1: pre pandemic levels. So I guess the good news for
Speaker 1: the economy is that we had a pretty decent savings
Speaker 1: rate for consumers, so their balance sheets were in good
Speaker 1: order coming out of the pandemic, and we didn't see unemployment,
Speaker 1: you know, shoot up very dramatically right now, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of the last piece of the puzzle that the
Speaker 1: US FED is kind of focused on as they think
Speaker 1: about their battle with inflation. They've raised interest rates dramatically,
Speaker 1: so FED fund futures. This is the interest rate, the
Speaker 1: short term interest rate that the US Federal Reserve controls.
Speaker 1: They've raised it basically three percent over the last four meetings,
Speaker 1: is the fastest increase ever. And that's why you've seen
Speaker 1: mortgage rates go up pretty dramatically. But you've also seen
Speaker 1: a lot of housing data come in, so they wanted
Speaker 1: to cool off some of these asset bubbles a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I guess the silver lining is if they can
Speaker 1: do this without the like, without unemployment going up meaningfully,
Speaker 1: then that would be again a good situation for the economy.
Speaker 1: As we get into let's say the backside of the
Speaker 1: one thing I think is probably a near certainty there
Speaker 1: will be a recession. But I guess the point is
Speaker 1: that that happens at some point at least the things
Speaker 1: that I look at this stuff through the lens of
Speaker 1: the markets, they will have already discounted that at some point,
Speaker 1: right So we could be in a recession right now
Speaker 1: and not know it, and by the time we realize
Speaker 1: that we could be out of it correct and then
Speaker 1: also if we're able to do that in a manner
Speaker 1: where unemployment doesn't go up meaningfully. But I guess the
Speaker 1: next part of this, you know equation is is that
Speaker 1: notion of stagflation you just mentioned Carter in the late
Speaker 1: seventies and what that did for his presidency. Stagflation is
Speaker 1: a situation where prices of goods and services have gone up.
Speaker 1: They can come off their highs, which I expect that
Speaker 1: to happen with this situation, but you have lower growth, right,
Speaker 1: and so if you have higher prices and lower growth,
Speaker 1: it makes for a really, like the name says, just
Speaker 1: a stagnant environment. So um, again, it's not like we're
Speaker 1: gonna come out of this pandemic and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: this rip oring economy which a lot of people thought
Speaker 1: we were gonna have. We might go back to the
Speaker 1: pre pandemic growth GDP growth domestic the product was averaging
Speaker 1: about two point two percent, which is not great, it's
Speaker 1: not bad or whatever, but it was also in and
Speaker 1: around where inflation wasn't about two percent, and so at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, we just might be in
Speaker 1: an economy that saddled with a lot of debt that
Speaker 1: was there to help, um, you know, kind of make
Speaker 1: sure we could stay afloat during the pandemic. Then we
Speaker 1: had inflationary pressures on the way out of it. That
Speaker 1: seems very likely if you put so much you know,
Speaker 1: capital to a problem like this, you're gonna have an
Speaker 1: increase in prices. So, you know, we juste is not
Speaker 1: going to be a great year for the economy. It's
Speaker 1: not probably gonna be a great year for markets, but
Speaker 1: it could also be a really good digestion year considering
Speaker 1: the prior three years that we've been in with also
Speaker 1: the dismantling of some major forces. If you think about
Speaker 1: this whole deglobalization and our reliance on cheap foreign labor
Speaker 1: and supply chains oriented around China, that's coming apart right now,
Speaker 1: and that's also inflationary well. And also it's going to
Speaker 1: be less bad than we thought it would be, which
Speaker 1: I think is the important data point. Right. But you know,
Speaker 1: the US government, the US consumer, US manufacturing, we made
Speaker 1: a deal with if you can call it, the devil
Speaker 1: you know, forty fifty years ago about focused on cheap labor,
Speaker 1: about jobs that supposedly Americans did want to do. And
Speaker 1: what did that do well? That we got cheaper goods, right,
Speaker 1: And so that's something that's been going on um for
Speaker 1: a long time now. If you think about it's not
Speaker 1: just supply chains, but it's also energy as as a
Speaker 1: point of national security. I think that's something that we're
Speaker 1: going to come out of this period and think, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's right. And I will tell you this.
Speaker 1: You probably haven't heard me compliment um the prior president
Speaker 1: too much. I mean, I don't think the way in
Speaker 1: which they put the trade war in place with China.
Speaker 1: I didn't like how they did that, okay, but I
Speaker 1: think they were right on a lot of issues there,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think that if you just think
Speaker 1: about the Biden administration, they have not kind of backed
Speaker 1: off a lot of those tariffs that we've had and
Speaker 1: some of the issues that we've had, they've been much tougher.
Speaker 1: I know that you spent some time talking about this
Speaker 1: in your podcast, but the export band of advanced chips,
Speaker 1: you know, from the US to China. I mean that
Speaker 1: was like a major, major shot across the bottle, right.
Speaker 1: And also they're bringing manufacturing back to the United States
Speaker 1: right there, building the you know, factories they're encouraging. So
Speaker 1: the Chips Act was a great example. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is fifty plus billion dollars. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people think it was corporate welfare. They wanted to incentivize
Speaker 1: US chip makers to kind of make those factories here,
Speaker 1: employee workers here. Again, the problem is is that if
Speaker 1: you make iPhones that already cost about a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to consumers, you make them here and you reorient your
Speaker 1: supply chains here. Okay, in the West, those iPhones they're
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot more expensive. And then the last
Speaker 1: part of this whole inflation piece is that once wages
Speaker 1: start to go up, which is really what's happened here
Speaker 1: over because we have a shortage right now and obviously
Speaker 1: there's a huge immigration issue. So we have a shortage
Speaker 1: of workers, and if we have a shortage of skilled workers,
Speaker 1: I mean demand for them is going to go up
Speaker 1: and then those wages are gonna stick. And that's a
Speaker 1: really difficult scenario for corporation, especially US multinationals who have
Speaker 1: actually gotten really used to cheap foreign labor. Matt green Field,
Speaker 1: my long surferings past, was talking about in an inverse
Speaker 1: yield curve and I pretended I know, I knew what
Speaker 1: he was talking about. Pain. Yeah, So so we just
Speaker 1: talked about how quickly the US Federal Reserve is raising
Speaker 1: interest rates. And one of the things they're trying to
Speaker 1: do there is kind of tamped down asset bubble. So
Speaker 1: if rates are higher, the cost of money is higher,
Speaker 1: and therefore, you know, valuations on assets should be lower
Speaker 1: in that scenario. So they were unusually low to battle
Speaker 1: the pandemic, right we just talked about, so they've raised
Speaker 1: them kind of quickly. So if you look at inverted
Speaker 1: yield curve, really what it's signaling is the two year
Speaker 1: US Treasury yield is above the tenure yield, and that
Speaker 1: shouldn't be Shorter term money should not have a higher
Speaker 1: interest rate than longer term money. Just just think about it.
Speaker 1: Really simply, ten years is a lot more time for
Speaker 1: things that you're wrong and maybe you don't pay that
Speaker 1: um that debt instrument back two years is a shorter
Speaker 1: period of time. But the two year is reflecting what
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve has done and what they're saying about
Speaker 1: how they're going to battle inflation. And therefore the ten
Speaker 1: year yield is more reflective of potential growth in the
Speaker 1: in the future. So the two ten spread that's inverted
Speaker 1: to the tune of the two year treasury yield being
Speaker 1: higher than the ten is saying stag inflation. And I
Speaker 1: know that may seem like a lot maybe that kind
Speaker 1: of puts together the conversation and we just had. But basically,
Speaker 1: lower long term growth is what the two ten spread
Speaker 1: inverted means. And the two year being higher right now
Speaker 1: is just suggesting that, um, you know, the FET is
Speaker 1: going to stay the course on higher interest rates. And
Speaker 1: I guess the point that also makes is that inverted
Speaker 1: yield curve like this, to Matt's point, has almost every
Speaker 1: single time that's happened resulted in a recession, or excuse me,
Speaker 1: put differently, every recession that we have had in the
Speaker 1: last call it sixty years or show has been preceded
Speaker 1: by a two ten yield curve inverting. Right. That was
Speaker 1: when we were talking about whether or not there was
Speaker 1: going to be a recession. He said, well, the yield
Speaker 1: curve is inverted. And I wanted to ask him but
Speaker 1: lost interest. But I'm glad you answered that question and
Speaker 1: now our listeners can know all about the inverseil curve.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about my favorite subject, and it's actually quickly
Speaker 1: not becoming my favorite subject. To the death of Twitter.
Speaker 1: I never thought he would go through with it. Now
Speaker 1: he's gone through with it. Now he seems I mean,
Speaker 1: he seems like he's just desperate to destroy it unless
Speaker 1: you can explain to me, I mean, explain to me
Speaker 1: what's happening here. Well, it's from my point of view,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think he the guy tried to fix
Speaker 1: the Ukraine. Um, you know, warred in Russia. He's not
Speaker 1: a political science He scientists. He claims that, you know,
Speaker 1: he's a rocket scientist. He's not one of that. He's
Speaker 1: not that either, right, So here he is now, you know,
Speaker 1: he's like you've been following all this stuff about all
Speaker 1: this coding and stuff. He's not. He's not a he's
Speaker 1: not a computer scientist. Yeah, it's just really kind of funny, right.
Speaker 1: I think he really thinks he's got a god complex.
Speaker 1: I really think he thinks he can fix this thing.
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing is that Jack Dorsey,
Speaker 1: who was the founder of this company, two time CEO,
Speaker 1: who was CEO a little more than a year ago, Okay,
Speaker 1: before he gave up the reins of that, he was
Speaker 1: running this company into the ground, being the CEO of
Speaker 1: two companies, Square which was one of them, and then
Speaker 1: Twitter was the other. So so this company monetizes their
Speaker 1: user base at at a much you know, worse rate
Speaker 1: to some of their competitors and social media, they're audience
Speaker 1: or the users are growing much slower. Okay, that was
Speaker 1: the case. So he thought he could come in here
Speaker 1: and get rid of all these bots that he thinks
Speaker 1: is this massive problem here um and and making just
Speaker 1: a better places, this kind of what digital town squarely calls,
Speaker 1: um you know what would be great for humanity. But
Speaker 1: in doing so, he's really and again I know you're
Speaker 1: following this because I'm following you on Twitter, which is
Speaker 1: kind of metic here. I mean, he really is putting
Speaker 1: this platform on the brank. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: really smart people who like to sound smart on Twitter
Speaker 1: say it's much harder, you know, to have something like this.
Speaker 1: These these systems are much more resilient. So if you
Speaker 1: even get rid of thousands of people on a employee base,
Speaker 1: it won't matter because this thing has been built for
Speaker 1: all these years. Um, I don't know the things that
Speaker 1: you're focused on, trust and safety and all those other
Speaker 1: issues about disinformation and battling those sorts of things. You
Speaker 1: think that people are really important to those processes, right,
Speaker 1: and so all of those people are gone. Most of
Speaker 1: the people what it sounds like, who had real important
Speaker 1: jobs there about the direction of the platform are all
Speaker 1: gone there. You know, maybe there's some hardcore libertarian browe
Speaker 1: tech people who are sticking around because they're just like
Speaker 1: always been Elon fans. But but again, I just don't
Speaker 1: think it's the sort of place that people are gonna
Speaker 1: go on to go work. And I think what's really
Speaker 1: clear is that advertisers right now don't want to be there.
Speaker 1: And this is a company that's reliant on big advertisers.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very different over at Facebook or Meta
Speaker 1: they have like lots of small medium businesses that are local.
Speaker 1: Twitter relies on large companies to advertise. And then you
Speaker 1: also saw over the weekend that CBS News, so they're
Speaker 1: gonna stop tweeting, you know, just think about that, right,
Speaker 1: Think about you. You take your a million followers, right,
Speaker 1: and you all the content that you're putting out there
Speaker 1: throughout the day. Let's say it goes somewhere else. And
Speaker 1: maybe that's this post thing. I've seen you and Kara
Speaker 1: switch your tweet about. I just signed up for it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna follow you first thing tomorrow. But there could
Speaker 1: be an alternative. And again, I don't think he wants
Speaker 1: to kill it now. I do think though, that he
Speaker 1: has a situation where and you and I've talked about
Speaker 1: this before. I mean, he bought this thing for forty
Speaker 1: four billion dollars. He got a bunch of banks to
Speaker 1: give him nearly thirteen billion dollars in debt, right and
Speaker 1: that debt is training at like sixty cents on the
Speaker 1: dollar right now. They haven't even been able to place it.
Speaker 1: He also has been selling his test Less stock to
Speaker 1: fund the purchase. He's also probably pledged a lot of
Speaker 1: test Less stock okay to kind of be part of
Speaker 1: the equity. He also had a lot of other equity
Speaker 1: people come into it who held equity in the public
Speaker 1: company rolled it into the private But there's a scenario
Speaker 1: where you know, he probably paid um, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: five billion more than it's worth and um, you know,
Speaker 1: So he's got a scenario where it's not a great
Speaker 1: financial setup, Like it will really be hard for him
Speaker 1: to make money anytime soon in the next three to
Speaker 1: five years on this thing, which is usually what you
Speaker 1: would hope to do if you were going to take
Speaker 1: a public company private. You're gonna lever it up with debt,
Speaker 1: You're gonna cut costs, and you're gonna try to get
Speaker 1: faster growth and then rebring it back to the public
Speaker 1: markets at a higher valuation to make money on that.
Speaker 1: It seems very unlikely he's gonna be able to do that.
Speaker 1: It seems to me like even if he just has
Speaker 1: thirty and billion dollars of his personal wealth in it,
Speaker 1: that seems like a lot of money. But maybe I'm stupid.
Speaker 1: Can he just afford to do this? Well, it sounds
Speaker 1: like he's got a lot more than than thirteen billions,
Speaker 1: So if he paid forty four billion, he's got thirteen
Speaker 1: billion in debt on it. Okay, that that that basically
Speaker 1: you know he's on the hook for he owns it,
Speaker 1: right and then you know, so then all the equity
Speaker 1: he has been selling stock in Teslas share, So think
Speaker 1: about where he gets his money, right, So he was like,
Speaker 1: he's supposedly the richest man in the world. Um, a
Speaker 1: lot of his wealth has been tied up in Tesla,
Speaker 1: which a publicly traded stock. It has a six billion
Speaker 1: dollar market cap, which is one of the largest market
Speaker 1: cap companies in the US, just to be really clear,
Speaker 1: but it's also down fifty percent from where it was
Speaker 1: trading a year ago, all right, And he also has
Speaker 1: a lot of his wealth tied up in SpaceX that's
Speaker 1: the rocket company, right, But that is a private company,
Speaker 1: so he doesn't have liquidity there. So if he wants
Speaker 1: to go out and spend millions or billions, he's as
Speaker 1: he either has to sell stock in those companies or
Speaker 1: pledge shares of that okay, to to basically get the
Speaker 1: money to do things. But the Teslas stock goes much
Speaker 1: lower than the value of the of his assets goes
Speaker 1: much lower, So he's really tied to the markets. He's
Speaker 1: really levered here. And just you know, if you think
Speaker 1: about everything that's going on right now, when you have
Speaker 1: interest rates go up as quickly as they've had, why
Speaker 1: has crypto and bitcoin all this stuff just created? Why
Speaker 1: How are we starting to see some of this corporate
Speaker 1: mouthfeasans this stuff where people weren't I'm sure, I'm sure
Speaker 1: Back Reenfield spent a lot of time talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: this FTX situation in the crypto world right right now,
Speaker 1: there was no really good due diligence done on a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, and the cult of personality of some
Speaker 1: of these founders, people like Elon, people like this SPF
Speaker 1: and f t X, people like this woman homes from
Speaker 1: their knows where you have really smart people just throwing
Speaker 1: money at them and not asking the hard questions. In
Speaker 1: periods like this, you know what I mean, This is
Speaker 1: when you see a lot of the frauds, the phonies,
Speaker 1: and and you know, you see it exposed. And I
Speaker 1: think we're seeing that. There's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: think that Ellen, while he's not a fraud like some
Speaker 1: of these other financial frauds, his company is very overvalued. Well,
Speaker 1: they think, well, the company has ever valued. And the
Speaker 1: reason in which people are willing to value the company
Speaker 1: Tesla in particular, is because they think he's the smartest
Speaker 1: guy in the world and he's going to do something fabulous.
Speaker 1: And he's already done something fabulous. Okay, he's moved the
Speaker 1: electric vehicle business, and I don't compliment them too frequently.
Speaker 1: You know, he's moved all of these incumbents, whether it
Speaker 1: be Detroit, whether it be the Germans, whether it be
Speaker 1: the Japanese or the Koreans, they've moved them. He's moved
Speaker 1: them to a place where they probably wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: on their own, moving cars to you know, to be
Speaker 1: you know, fully electric fleets at some point. I don't
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys say by you know, twenty
Speaker 1: thirty or something like that. So he's done that. But
Speaker 1: does this company deserve to have a six und a
Speaker 1: billion dollar market cap because I don't really think so.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it's just going to
Speaker 1: be a car company when every other company is just
Speaker 1: making electric vehicles. Yeah, that's what I think too, Dan Nathan,
Speaker 1: please come back. I will, Thanks, Mom, I appreciate you
Speaker 1: having me. Congressman made Jones represents New York sevent Congressional District.
Speaker 1: Welcome too Fast Politics, Congressman Mondair, It's good to be back.
Speaker 1: We're so happy to have you for any number of reasons,
Speaker 1: but the first of which is, so, do you want
Speaker 1: to tell listeners for the people who are not like
Speaker 1: extreme congressional junkies, what the midterms have brought to you.
Speaker 1: The midterms have resulted in the salvaging of our democracy
Speaker 1: at least for a few more years. Yes, that is
Speaker 1: the good news. But in New York it's been kind
Speaker 1: of what we say on this podcast, because we can
Speaker 1: curse a ship show. Oh I'm so glad, I concurse
Speaker 1: New York's ree district. Thing has been a disaster, and
Speaker 1: no one wants to take responsibility for the margin that Republicans,
Speaker 1: the Anti Democratic Party, the Anti Democracy Party has in
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives can be explained by the number
Speaker 1: of seats that flipped Republican in the state of New
Speaker 1: York because of a gerrymander that was struck down by
Speaker 1: the New York Court of Appeals. We had an independent
Speaker 1: reditioning commission here that could have handled things far better
Speaker 1: than what the Democratic legislature did, and of course, the
Speaker 1: fact that the lines had to change at all was
Speaker 1: the result of Andrew Cuomo, a deal he cut in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve when many of us were still in high school.
Speaker 1: I mean, not May and maybe not you, but many
Speaker 1: other men. You know. Anyway, so go on, yes, well,
Speaker 1: Andrew Cuomo is the reason why we even had to
Speaker 1: lose a congressional seat in the state of New York,
Speaker 1: because we only lost it by eighty nine folks who
Speaker 1: simply did not complete the census. And that was can
Speaker 1: be explained by the fact that he did not disperse
Speaker 1: many millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars for
Speaker 1: purposes of census collection. So there's a lot of blame
Speaker 1: to go around. So anyway, what happened with the redistricting
Speaker 1: was Sean Patrick Maloney, who was the chair of the
Speaker 1: D Triple C right, yes, um, he decided he would
Speaker 1: take what was half of your district and run there.
Speaker 1: He lost. The district that he ran in is a
Speaker 1: district that I currently represent seventy percent of. And I
Speaker 1: had a choice, as you know, Molly, I could have
Speaker 1: run against the chair of the D. Trip will see
Speaker 1: the the guy whose primary job responsibility it is to
Speaker 1: help us keep our majority in the House and and
Speaker 1: defeat fadgism in this country. And I never imagined that
Speaker 1: after taking one for the team, that the gentleman from
Speaker 1: New York's eighteenth Congressional district would lose in New York seventeenth,
Speaker 1: a district that I would have won. Um, so you
Speaker 1: can imagine how I feel right now. But you know,
Speaker 1: the good news is we did keep the center. Wait,
Speaker 1: how do you feel right now? Because I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: it and I was thinking how what I feel? I
Speaker 1: don't know. How do you feel? Do you feel like
Speaker 1: vindicated or do you just feel devastated? No, vindicated feels petty, right.
Speaker 1: I never imagined, after having been a leading, highly effective
Speaker 1: member in the United States Congress for the past two years,
Speaker 1: that I would wake up one morning and because of
Speaker 1: the incompetence of so many people, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: blame to go around be made, uh, to you know,
Speaker 1: make this impossible choice and not be allowed to continue
Speaker 1: serving the community that raised me and that I have
Speaker 1: been delivering for. And so I'm just sad, frankly by
Speaker 1: the outcome and by the knowledge that Democrats would have
Speaker 1: the majority in the House of Representatives, and we would
Speaker 1: still be able to pass legislation for the next two
Speaker 1: years were it not for the former governor of the
Speaker 1: State of New York, leaders and the state legislature, the
Speaker 1: chair of the D Triple c and some other federal
Speaker 1: legislators who coordinated with the Chair of the D Triple
Speaker 1: City in terms of pushing a blatantly illegal partisan jerrymander
Speaker 1: that was ultimately struck down by the Court of Appeals.
Speaker 1: I would have much preferred the maps that were drawn
Speaker 1: by the Independent Redistricting Commission. It certainly would have avoided
Speaker 1: the impossible choice that I had to make. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about ja Jacobs. J Jacobs is the chair of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party of the State of New York. Talk
Speaker 1: to me about J Jacobs. I don't know the guy.
Speaker 1: He's the chair of the New York State Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: He runs summer camps. Yes what he that's I think
Speaker 1: that's what he's busy doing. Okay, yes, well, much has
Speaker 1: been made of his failure of leadership when it comes
Speaker 1: to not investing in an infrastructure that could have helped
Speaker 1: Democrats hold onto and win seats in those seats that
Speaker 1: were flipped. I mean four seats went were flipped to
Speaker 1: Republican this cycle in the state of New York that
Speaker 1: could have been avoided, which is, by the way, will
Speaker 1: probably be the difference between a Democratic Congress and Republican Congress.
Speaker 1: Kathy Hokel performed much worse than she should have. I mean,
Speaker 1: she lost in you know, my hometown county of Rockland,
Speaker 1: which is a county that Joe Biden won and that
Speaker 1: I won quite handily in two thousand twenty. You know,
Speaker 1: one wonders why, given this track record, which by the way,
Speaker 1: extends well beyond what just happened this cycle, that someone
Speaker 1: would be allowed to continue in this role. Right I've
Speaker 1: worked in corporate America, I've worked in government. It is
Speaker 1: extraordinary because, as State Senator zonn orm I re mentioned
Speaker 1: to political a few weeks ago, by what metric are
Speaker 1: we just success? Certainly not in terms of electoral victories, certainly,
Speaker 1: not in terms of fundraising, certainly, not in terms of infrastructure, certainly,
Speaker 1: not in terms of cultivating a new generation. That is
Speaker 1: really where a lot of the energy and the party
Speaker 1: is right now. Because what we've got is not just
Speaker 1: Mr Jacobs, Because I really do think that focusing on
Speaker 1: him has distracted from a broader reckoning throughout the leadership
Speaker 1: of the party that needs to take place. It is
Speaker 1: certainly the case that many of these people are more
Speaker 1: hostile to progressive than they are focused on defeating Republicans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. We're in this position. What
Speaker 1: can people in New York do? Is there a way
Speaker 1: to sort of unravel this disaster in New York. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because the two states where Democrats did the worst,
Speaker 1: our New York State, which has a very problematic Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: and Florida, which has almost no Democratic party structure infrastructure. First,
Speaker 1: I hope that there is an opportunity for the independent
Speaker 1: Redistricting Commission to which job and redrawing the assembly maps.
Speaker 1: The court has ordered that the assembly maps in the state,
Speaker 1: but we've redrawn. I continue to believe in this independent
Speaker 1: reditioning commission rather than what we saw take place in
Speaker 1: the state legislature this year, which got struck down by
Speaker 1: the Court of Appeals. There also has to be new
Speaker 1: leadership at the at the level of party chair in
Speaker 1: New York State. And again I regret that, you know,
Speaker 1: people feel personally attacked, but what this is really about
Speaker 1: is making sure that we have competency going into two
Speaker 1: thousand twenty four. I also think that the leader needs
Speaker 1: to be someone who brings people together. We have a
Speaker 1: beautifully diverse Democratic Party, uh and that includes ideologically. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of folks who could bring people together. We've
Speaker 1: We've got a big tent. And I understand that what
Speaker 1: works up state doesn't always work in Brooklyn, for example.
Speaker 1: I know that well. But the fact is we have
Speaker 1: to create room for the talent that tends to be
Speaker 1: younger and oftentimes, though not always, is progressive in this party.
Speaker 1: There has to be room for everybody if we are
Speaker 1: to defend and strengthen our democracy, protect fundamental rights, and
Speaker 1: build an economy that works for everybody. But that means
Speaker 1: winning elections. It does not mean Eric Adams validating the
Speaker 1: hysteria over crime that exists. I live in the Hudson
Speaker 1: Valley right so, Rockland County is the third safest county
Speaker 1: in the entire United States. According to the US News,
Speaker 1: Westchester is the fourth safest county in the entire United
Speaker 1: States of America. You would never know it based on
Speaker 1: the campaigns that Hudson Valley Republicans are running. By the way. Platinum,
Speaker 1: I think is number twelve, twelfth safest county in the
Speaker 1: entire United States. So we can talk about the problem
Speaker 1: of crime, which is a problem, without being reactionary and
Speaker 1: validating the misinformation and disinformation that we see Republicans pushing. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we don't see that from Eric Adams and others who
Speaker 1: are afraid to lead on this subject. So talk to
Speaker 1: me about this lame duck because there's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do a bunch of really important things in the lame duck.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what you think will happen in
Speaker 1: order to prevent the government from shutting down or to
Speaker 1: make that less likely. And Congress, which will take shape
Speaker 1: in early January next year, we've got to raise the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling. We cannot continue to allow Republicans who are
Speaker 1: not interested in and I don't think of government they
Speaker 1: wanted to right which they luckily they don't, from taking
Speaker 1: the government hostage. And so we can do that through reconciliation,
Speaker 1: which is a process that may be familiar to folks.
Speaker 1: That's how we were going to pass Build Back Better
Speaker 1: through the Senate. It's it's how we pass the Inflation
Speaker 1: Reduction Act. This year in August that historic legislation to
Speaker 1: lower costs for our seniors on Medicare and to invest
Speaker 1: in climate action. And we still got an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do that, and there's an appetite to do that, so
Speaker 1: I hope that we take care of that. There's also
Speaker 1: a lot of discussion about things that we can include
Speaker 1: in the n d a A, which is something we
Speaker 1: pass on a on an annual basis. Can we put
Speaker 1: voting rights in there? Can we put Supreme Court reforms
Speaker 1: in there? Like ethics reforms. That's what I'm pushing for
Speaker 1: right now. Right, No, that makes sense. Where are you
Speaker 1: on this leadership election? Talked to me. I get to
Speaker 1: sit in the chair and just observe so so many
Speaker 1: of these races I have already been decided as of
Speaker 1: you know, a few hours ago, deals were being struck.
Speaker 1: I think Nancy Pelosi and I know that there are
Speaker 1: some leftists who are who are going to be upset
Speaker 1: with me. Is the most effective Speaker of the House
Speaker 1: in modern history and quite possibly in the history of
Speaker 1: this country. I say that as someone who has had
Speaker 1: a very good seat at the table as the youngest
Speaker 1: member of House leadership and has seen how she has
Speaker 1: pushed through the president's broadly popular economic agenda and has
Speaker 1: done battle with some of the most conservative obstructionist voices
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party. It is interesting to me that
Speaker 1: so many folks on Twitter are and have been calling
Speaker 1: for her to step down and to turn things over
Speaker 1: over to a new generation. I wonder how those people
Speaker 1: will feel if her successor is not as accommodating of
Speaker 1: progressive voices as she has been. That's a really interesting point.
Speaker 1: That is the thing we saw a lot was that,
Speaker 1: you know, she tried very hard to bring people together
Speaker 1: from different parts of the Democratic Party. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And it's been tough, and it's been frustrating. And I
Speaker 1: had not agreed with every decision policy wise and tactically
Speaker 1: that the Speaker has made. But I have seen her
Speaker 1: push for broad reforms in the child care space and
Speaker 1: in other spaces. When we had that major debate over
Speaker 1: built Back Better and the bipartisan in for extra bill
Speaker 1: almost a year ago to the day. You know, she
Speaker 1: also when Rob Emmanuel, the former chief of staff for
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, you know, was trying to move on from
Speaker 1: or or or pivot away from Obamacare, and then tried
Speaker 1: to water it down. I mean, she was the one
Speaker 1: who pushed for an aggressive piece of legislation that would
Speaker 1: really expand healthcare to tens of millions of people in
Speaker 1: this country. I'm a student of history, so I'm aware
Speaker 1: of these things even before having served in Congress for myself,
Speaker 1: and I encourage people to educate themselves. That's a really
Speaker 1: good point, you know. I'm sure you've read that article
Speaker 1: about her whipping votes and having the person's cousin called
Speaker 1: them and the ed secretary. You know that's a certain
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, I don't know, there's a certain
Speaker 1: thing about her, Molly that isn't that's nothing. I read
Speaker 1: that too, and I'm like that that's the best story
Speaker 1: you've got. Really, you saw, You've seen more persuasive persuading
Speaker 1: from Nancy Pelosi. Please share. I would just say that
Speaker 1: the Speaker knows where all the bodies are buried, right,
Speaker 1: and she's got she's got relationships with so many members
Speaker 1: of our caucus spanning decades, and so what Tom Parry
Speaker 1: Yellow was described in that article as having experienced was
Speaker 1: one of the more muted persuasion. That's amazing. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us man, dare I just build
Speaker 1: water all over my desk, as I often do during
Speaker 1: this podcast. But you were great and I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you coming on. Thanks for having me on. Rick Klein
Speaker 1: is ABC news is political director. Welcome to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Rick Clyde, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
Speaker 1: We're thrilled to have you. The thing I really want
Speaker 1: to talk about, which I feel like we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about it enough, if that makes any sense, is are
Speaker 1: you were you shocked by those midterm results? No? I
Speaker 1: was surprised, I would say, not shocked. One reason I
Speaker 1: wasn't shocked is that only was actually kind of right
Speaker 1: this time. And okay, so talk about that, Mark, Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I mean we we did pulling it at ABC News
Speaker 1: with the Washington Post showed it to be I think
Speaker 1: a one point edge for Republicans on the generic ballot,
Speaker 1: leaned heavily into state polling, and you know, the out
Speaker 1: of partners at five thirty eight. We're doing a lot
Speaker 1: of work on this and they basically had it as
Speaker 1: a coin flip for the Senate with a lot of
Speaker 1: coin flip races. Ultimately, Republicans did get a little bit
Speaker 1: of an edge in the generic ballot and a slight
Speaker 1: edge that puts them over the top to win the House,
Speaker 1: and then the Senate came down about what we thought.
Speaker 1: So there were individual results that certainly surprised me, maybe
Speaker 1: even shocked me. I was. I was extremely surprised that
Speaker 1: she saw Patrick Maloney lose in New York. I was
Speaker 1: very surprised, frankly that Catherine cortest Masto pulled it out
Speaker 1: in Nevada because she had been down. But John Rosten,
Speaker 1: I know, I should have learned the lessons. So so,
Speaker 1: you know, way back in, way back in two when
Speaker 1: everyone thought that Harry Reid was was definitely gonna lose,
Speaker 1: I remember making a bet with my friend John Berman
Speaker 1: as part of our digital coverage. I just said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with Ralston. I don't care what anyone else says.
Speaker 1: And he was one of the only people that said
Speaker 1: that Reid would hang on, and he did. So I
Speaker 1: should have learned that lesson. People got it right. It
Speaker 1: just you know, in the aggregate, I think that we
Speaker 1: we were expecting something different for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: One is inflation. Yeah, every historical indicator for president's first
Speaker 1: midterm with inflation double digits, with the president approval rating
Speaker 1: in the high thirties, lower forties. It's a wipeout. And
Speaker 1: the other thing, frankly, is I don't think we fully
Speaker 1: believe the polls because we knew that they had been
Speaker 1: wrong before. So I think in our heads, even if
Speaker 1: it wasn't explicit, I think in our heads, we saw
Speaker 1: forty eight in the race and thought, okay, tie goes
Speaker 1: to the runner. You know, Republicans are gonna win that
Speaker 1: by a couple of points. And we thought that across
Speaker 1: the board. And so again that's that's why, you know,
Speaker 1: surprised but not shocked. I think we were pretty honest
Speaker 1: with our audience about the fact that this was a
Speaker 1: very close race and it could go either way, and
Speaker 1: there were extraordinary forces in both sides. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: inflation and the president's first midterm. You had Rovy Wade
Speaker 1: being overturned. You had the insurrection and democracy being on
Speaker 1: the ballot, and all of those things factored in different
Speaker 1: ways in different places. I wonder how much the lesson is. Like,
Speaker 1: so we're talking about John Rawlstad. I think his paper
Speaker 1: is called The New Nevada Independent. Yeah, that's right, Independent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Nevada, because Nevada, we had
Speaker 1: actually Cortez Masto on this podcast, and everyone I know,
Speaker 1: and remember I know many more Democrats than Republicans, was like,
Speaker 1: she is not going to win, and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about that because Roasted said she's gonna win. And
Speaker 1: then when the votes came in, he said, people are
Speaker 1: not voting in person. These numbers are just have to
Speaker 1: be wrong. There has to be a huge number of
Speaker 1: mail ins. And again all of us were like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe there is, maybe there isn't. And what I think
Speaker 1: is interesting is like, in the end, it were it
Speaker 1: was a couple of unions, right, who pushed her over
Speaker 1: the top, right, the food worker yeah, and the red machine. Right,
Speaker 1: it was you know, from the grave, Harry Reid's machine
Speaker 1: is still operational, and they put together away to win elections.
Speaker 1: And they took advantage of the fact that you can
Speaker 1: bank a lot of votes before election day and focus
Speaker 1: your organizing on election day on the most smaller, smaller universe,
Speaker 1: I think Republicans. I talked to a bunch of Republicans
Speaker 1: and the run up to the election who were very
Speaker 1: heavy in their expectations. I asked one prominent Republican. I said,
Speaker 1: what's your fear not what could go along? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: our voters have to vote on election day. We think
Speaker 1: they're gonna, but they have to. And the Democrats have
Speaker 1: long since adopted the strategy of of trying to bank
Speaker 1: as maybe votes as possible and to organize. And I
Speaker 1: think that's in the Vada and elsewhere. Bank what you
Speaker 1: can get it done and then focus on the rest.
Speaker 1: And Republicans have they have been doing that really up
Speaker 1: until Trump and Trump I think trashing the idea of
Speaker 1: really voting has set them back pretty considerably in terms
Speaker 1: of that organizing. Yeah, I want to talk about that too,
Speaker 1: because that is such an interesting situation and it has
Speaker 1: so it is so continually backfired for Trump. So Trump
Speaker 1: only believed in the same day voting. He had this
Speaker 1: sort of anti voting bent in a way, right like
Speaker 1: mail and voting in sped You know, got to make
Speaker 1: sure don't trust the system. But I do think ultimately
Speaker 1: like this message don't trust the system, it leads people
Speaker 1: to not trust the system. The problem is if you
Speaker 1: don't trust the system, you don't vote. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: we saw it directly in Georgia and the runoffs early
Speaker 1: last year. And I think in this case, you had
Speaker 1: a lot of states that have even before COVID made
Speaker 1: it a lot easier to vote early vote that since
Speaker 1: he there's other ways to do it. We had long
Speaker 1: since been just a purely election day society, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it was something like a third of the
Speaker 1: vote was early even before COVID, And then COVID accelerated
Speaker 1: a lot of those trends, and states changed their laws
Speaker 1: and made available other options. And people want to vote
Speaker 1: when it's convenient to vote. And if you're banking everything
Speaker 1: on you know, I'm old enough to remember when you
Speaker 1: know that the seventy two hour program that the Republicans
Speaker 1: had in two thousand four, which was all about getting
Speaker 1: people out on election day, and Karl Rove had this
Speaker 1: system and he was able to get it done and
Speaker 1: get George W. Bush over the top with people voting
Speaker 1: on election day. That's great for its time, but the
Speaker 1: laws have moved on, people's customs have moved on, and
Speaker 1: lots of states there's a huge amount of the vote
Speaker 1: that happens early. Take Arizona, nine or so of the
Speaker 1: vote they're going into election that we expected it to
Speaker 1: be early or mail in or some version of of absentee,
Speaker 1: and you had a can that didn't carry Lake, who
Speaker 1: was trashing the idea of of early voting, even though
Speaker 1: she said, you know, vote however you want. She said
Speaker 1: that she wants to have an election day society. They
Speaker 1: were banking on people to vote on election day, and
Speaker 1: they did, and that's one reason it took so long,
Speaker 1: but not enough for them, didn't, right, I know that
Speaker 1: was and now you have carry Lake going. These people
Speaker 1: had to wait for hours and hours on election day.
Speaker 1: But why you know, right exactly? I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: I think, and you're seeing it in some of the
Speaker 1: statements that Republicans are putting out after the fact, the
Speaker 1: ones who are losing, including Blake Masters in Arizona saying,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got to wake up to the way
Speaker 1: that the system is built. Either change the system or
Speaker 1: catch up to the way that people are living their
Speaker 1: lives and are actually voting right now. And you know what,
Speaker 1: in Florida, Rhonda Santis banked a huge amount of early vote.
Speaker 1: He didn't care about the Trump trashing of it. They
Speaker 1: banked it and they you could see it in the
Speaker 1: numbers early on that it was going to be a blowout,
Speaker 1: and in fact it was. There are ways to do this,
Speaker 1: it's just Trump has made it hard. Yeah, Blake Masters
Speaker 1: is terrifying racist, and I think the reason why he
Speaker 1: didn't win was he was a terrible candidate. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just think with Blake Masters, like he had had
Speaker 1: all these ads that were like him shooting guns. I
Speaker 1: don't know that that is a relatable swing state message,
Speaker 1: like you know, civil war. And I think what I
Speaker 1: thought was so interesting about Blake Masters. And I say
Speaker 1: this as someone who was married to a VC so
Speaker 1: even though we're on the East Coast, I have lived
Speaker 1: in a world where I've always thought of technology as
Speaker 1: like a thing that we'll solve our problems. But what
Speaker 1: I saw with Blake Masters was this is a person
Speaker 1: with a you know, some of these Silicon Valley people
Speaker 1: have very dark visions for this country. We live in
Speaker 1: a fifty fifty country and a lot of fifty fifty states,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of voters that just vote Team
Speaker 1: Read or Team Blue, and they look beyond the individual
Speaker 1: candidates and do that now at the margins, it makes
Speaker 1: a difference, and that's where I think. Look, Arizona I
Speaker 1: think was a winnable race for Republicans at the Senate level. Man,
Speaker 1: I think Georgia was definitely a winnable race for Republicans
Speaker 1: at the at level. Look at how many people voted
Speaker 1: for their candidate for governor. At the same time, I'm
Speaker 1: not convinced that voters simply rejected the Republican candidates. In
Speaker 1: some part they did, but I think also the tactics
Speaker 1: of getting people to vote early and getting people to
Speaker 1: engage in this election had to happen as well. People.
Speaker 1: This is a self evident statement, but people have to
Speaker 1: vote for any of that stuff that you just said
Speaker 1: to matter, right, even if someone is an awful human
Speaker 1: being in every conceivable way, election day and and it's
Speaker 1: run up has to feature people actually voting against that
Speaker 1: person for that person to lose. That's how the system works.
Speaker 1: And that's that's where the tactics I think are. You know,
Speaker 1: Republicans are now fighting with the hand tied behind their
Speaker 1: backs if they're not able to encourage people to vote early,
Speaker 1: because it just plane works as a as an organizing strategy,
Speaker 1: and you go into election day with with less less
Speaker 1: ground to make up. And I and we can rerun
Speaker 1: the election a million times and come up with different,
Speaker 1: different outcomes. But even if everything you say about Blake
Speaker 1: Masters is true, voters had to actually do something about it,
Speaker 1: and they do it by voting, and they're vote in
Speaker 1: different ways than they used to and Donald Trump's vision
Speaker 1: of the world than they right now, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess, I don't know. I still think like if
Speaker 1: you run someone who's not terribly creepy, people will vote
Speaker 1: for them. There was a fundamental disconnect there. I want
Speaker 1: to get into this idea of what the House looks
Speaker 1: like now because we have this really, I mean, historically,
Speaker 1: this is the narrowest house margin in modern political history, yes,
Speaker 1: or now likely to be. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: we have it at to eighteen to to twenty range
Speaker 1: from the majority and the Democrats just you know, they're
Speaker 1: out going Congress was thirteen, so it's not going to
Speaker 1: be that much different from that. But but it's gonna
Speaker 1: be pretty pretty garny close. And for you know, party
Speaker 1: coming in and for all of the expectations you know,
Speaker 1: as you know, politics is often a game of expectations,
Speaker 1: and they really fell short on the expectations piece of it.
Speaker 1: And we know the nature of what this majority is.
Speaker 1: And we know that that Kevin McCarthy is the presumptive leader,
Speaker 1: who doesn't even have the votes as of now to
Speaker 1: get to become the House Speaker, and he's going to have,
Speaker 1: you know, so little margin for maneuvering that he could
Speaker 1: be potentially ousted anytime. So a Democrats said to me
Speaker 1: the other day, you know, it might be that becoming
Speaker 1: the Republican House Speakers like being a British Prime minister
Speaker 1: these days, revolving door is going to start. It's gonna
Speaker 1: start swinging. That would be really really fun. Think about
Speaker 1: what a two twenty or two nineteen majority means. I mean,
Speaker 1: members of Congress find other jobs, they pass away like
Speaker 1: it's possible that sometime in the next Congress the power
Speaker 1: control shifts. As crazy as that is, And actually Jesse
Speaker 1: and I were talking about this, every special election could
Speaker 1: shift the power of the House. Yeah, that's why, I mean,
Speaker 1: they're going to do everything they can to convince people
Speaker 1: not to not to leave. I think that's actually one
Speaker 1: reason that Pelosi, Horrier and Library are all sticking around.
Speaker 1: They don't want to give Recarthia extra votes. Right, It's
Speaker 1: it is that close but how McCarthy governs in that
Speaker 1: I mean, being in the minority, you can do a
Speaker 1: lot just with investigations and with you know, just being
Speaker 1: what the other guys aren't. But ultimately he's going to
Speaker 1: have to get teen votes for things, and sometimes that's
Speaker 1: gonna be things that not everyone likes on the Republican side.
Speaker 1: And that's gonna be where you see the real power
Speaker 1: of a small band, which could be the moderate side,
Speaker 1: it could be the Maga side, it could be any
Speaker 1: any group of Republicans who feel emboldened. And Kevin McCarthy,
Speaker 1: you know, he's got a reputation. I've done it for
Speaker 1: a long time. He's he kind of likes being everyone's friend,
Speaker 1: and this is not a job where you make friends.
Speaker 1: Asked Nancy Pelosi about that. I'm going to add in
Speaker 1: my own partisanship here. He's also an abject moron, so
Speaker 1: that could be problematic for him, but I guess he does.
Speaker 1: But I know people like him speaking of people who
Speaker 1: people don't like. Representative Andy Biggs this morning at gets
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I've seen enough I can of vote for
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker. I do not believe he
Speaker 1: will get to to e T and I refuse to
Speaker 1: assist him in this effort to get those votes discuss.
Speaker 1: I don't believe him. Matt Gates is saying the same things.
Speaker 1: I've seen things like this playoff before, and Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: had to herself piece together the votes after some self
Speaker 1: election cycles. Ultimately, if the alternative is making a making
Speaker 1: hockeym Jeffreys Speaker of the House, then then they're gonna
Speaker 1: vote for Kevin McCarthy. There's gonna be deals cut, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be people that hold their nose, there'll be people
Speaker 1: voting present. So I mean, there's all kinds of like
Speaker 1: side things that can happen to make it work. But
Speaker 1: I I just don't see a viable alternative. And Andie Biggs,
Speaker 1: who just tried to be that alternative, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple dozen votes, you know, and I think ultimately he'll
Speaker 1: get there. It's gonna be messy, it's gonna be ugly,
Speaker 1: and he may lose it. I think he gets there.
Speaker 1: And I think the Bigges and the Gates is of
Speaker 1: the woman. Ultimately, you know, if they don't vote for him,
Speaker 1: they know that voting against him isn't gonna stop him
Speaker 1: from becoming speaker because there really is no alternative. And
Speaker 1: I don't say that lightly. It's not just that there
Speaker 1: isn't another person out there. The way the mechanics work
Speaker 1: is the Democrats put up a candidate, the Republicans put
Speaker 1: up a candidate, and one of them is going to
Speaker 1: get a majority, and you want your team to win. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: they'd rather have McCarthy than than Jeffreys hundred day out
Speaker 1: of a hundred. Right, no, no, no question. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you have this, but everyone I know, straight journalist,
Speaker 1: opinion journalists, we all are having a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump is back anxiety. Yeah. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of Republicans are having it. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of Democrats are having it. You know, there's a feeling
Speaker 1: we shouldn't talk about him because that will make him
Speaker 1: come true. There's a feeling that and you know he
Speaker 1: lies a lot, so you don't want to promote the lies.
Speaker 1: Is there a path to stopping this person from becoming,
Speaker 1: you know, the European nominee? Because I don't see a
Speaker 1: world where there is. I think a lot of things
Speaker 1: have to happen. And if you remember how he became nominee,
Speaker 1: the first time. You'll remember how messy it was, and
Speaker 1: it was a function of the fact that there were
Speaker 1: twenty different Republicans running and they were all, you know,
Speaker 1: cannablyzing each other's votes, and he was winning with small amounts.
Speaker 1: I don't think he definitely loses. I also don't think
Speaker 1: he definitely wins. I think the path runs through the
Speaker 1: Republican primaries first and foremost, because right, but the primaries
Speaker 1: are already easier now. They're more consolidated, so they're easier
Speaker 1: now to explain to me. Well, yes, there's some things
Speaker 1: that make it easier to start running away with it
Speaker 1: early on if you start listening some early victories. But
Speaker 1: there's so much of that's happen for then. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is what I thought about his announcement. I mean,
Speaker 1: we are literally two years away from the election, like
Speaker 1: we're gonna go through a whole other Thanksgiving and Christmas
Speaker 1: and still no one will have voted next year, and
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of baseball tweve And the big difference,
Speaker 1: you know, between this cycle and the last is that
Speaker 1: you know, we've been there and done that. On Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: he isn't the flashy new thing, and there are really
Speaker 1: appealing to Republicans other candidates out there. He's not going
Speaker 1: to be alone in this primary. I'm convinced that. So
Speaker 1: let's just game this out for a minute, because I
Speaker 1: agree he's not going to be alone in this primary.
Speaker 1: Which is why I think he might win this primary.
Speaker 1: Because he has this relationship with his base, right, like it.
Speaker 1: Don't like it. He's like the grateful dad. Right. People
Speaker 1: go to his concerts, they wear T shirts, they drive.
Speaker 1: I mean, it may still be the same two thousand
Speaker 1: people going to each one, but they go. So here's
Speaker 1: my question for you. This guy has the die hard base, right.
Speaker 1: So say you have Mike pens right, and you have
Speaker 1: Mike Pompeio, and you have Ted Cruz, and you have Marco,
Speaker 1: and you have this one, you have that one. Doesn't
Speaker 1: Donald Trump? Then even isn't he even more likely to
Speaker 1: win the primary? Of that depends on what the whole,
Speaker 1: what the home makeup of it is, And I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's if it's like twenty candidates again, and he's got
Speaker 1: his his band of of supporters or the party, then
Speaker 1: then yeah, I think he's in a really good spot.
Speaker 1: But like you know, I'm not a music guy. So
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna get this analogy wrong. But like grateful
Speaker 1: Dud fans also like Dave Matthews band, right, Like, there's
Speaker 1: there's other, there's other there's other music that might they
Speaker 1: might want to groove to at some point. I don't
Speaker 1: think that that will be perceived as some disloyalty to Trump.
Speaker 1: We've talked to a lot of Trump supporters at rallies
Speaker 1: and around the country say I love the guy, but
Speaker 1: he's just too polarizing, or he's just two out there
Speaker 1: in the January six was too much, whatever, the thing
Speaker 1: that's abridged too far. The people at his rallies are
Speaker 1: the people those rallies, and I think you're right they
Speaker 1: run through fire for him. But man, we talked to them.
Speaker 1: They like Rhonda Santis a lot too, you know, and
Speaker 1: and they could be talked into liking a lot of
Speaker 1: other people if there is a robust primary debate so
Speaker 1: all of us. I'm not saying he can't win. We can,
Speaker 1: but I'm not saying he definitely will. I I don't
Speaker 1: think we can look to the last cycle to be
Speaker 1: instructive in any way, shape or form, just because it's
Speaker 1: gonna be different. The issues will be different, the stakes
Speaker 1: will feel different, the pacing of the campaign will be different.
Speaker 1: There's no modern precedent for a former president coming back
Speaker 1: and trying to do this. The only even go back
Speaker 1: to Teddy Roosevelt, and he ended up starting his own
Speaker 1: party as a result of it. And we can't look
Speaker 1: at any piece of history to be instructive on this,
Speaker 1: I think, including Trump's history. So I you know, I
Speaker 1: think for liberals or even Republicans who are alarmed by
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, I say, then you know you're gonna have
Speaker 1: your workout out for you. But I don't think there's
Speaker 1: any inevitability around him, which, again, like a month or
Speaker 1: two ago, might have been different. I think if this
Speaker 1: was a better election cycle for him or his candidates,
Speaker 1: maybe that would have been different. If it was a
Speaker 1: worse election cycle for Rhonda Santis, maybe that would be different.
Speaker 1: There will be other Rhonda Santis is over the over
Speaker 1: the next you know, six to twelve months there that
Speaker 1: are going to emerge and it's going to be a battle.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if he loses the battle, I
Speaker 1: don't know many Republicans who think he's just gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: quietly concede and fade away and endorse the new nominee.
Speaker 1: I mean, that could be a real disaster for Republicans
Speaker 1: if he if he loses and doesn't accept it and
Speaker 1: tries to burn the party down on his way out.
Speaker 1: He was close to vaulting the party after January six,
Speaker 1: and if he loses this time, or I mean may
Speaker 1: have done it if he lost the primer, and so
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot that has to get figured
Speaker 1: out before we're talking about him as a nominee. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. That was great, Rick, Thank you, You're welcome,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Molly John Fast Jesse Cannon didn't take long
Speaker 1: for Kevin McCarthy to be influenced by the MTG wing
Speaker 1: of the party. I thought, for a second, when it
Speaker 1: took Republicans so long to win the House, I think
Speaker 1: there's still at like to eighteen. Maybe there's one more
Speaker 1: race being called. You know, they have the House by
Speaker 1: historically slim margin. I thought perhaps that might cause Republicans
Speaker 1: to not act in the completely demented fashion I knew
Speaker 1: they would, but humiliates for them, I mean, you got it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the Marjorie Taylor Green caucus now and
Speaker 1: the MAGA Caucus controls what poor dumb Mike Kevin a
Speaker 1: k A Kevin McCarthy MTG is pulling the strings. And
Speaker 1: the first string she's going to Paul is, according to
Speaker 1: young Kevin, he's going to remove some of the friends
Speaker 1: of this show, members of Congress who are friends of
Speaker 1: the show from their committees, including Eric swaltwell as well
Speaker 1: as Adam Schiff and Ilhan Omar. So he's already doesn't
Speaker 1: even have the gabble yet, not till January, but already
Speaker 1: he's planning ways to behave badly and stunts. MAGA is
Speaker 1: all about stunts, and Kevin will be performing lots of stunts.
Speaker 1: And don't you think this is all about trying to
Speaker 1: make it look like his party isn't as bad as
Speaker 1: it is that when we threw MTG out. He's now
Speaker 1: trying to pretend that somehow these Congress people are equivalent
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, of course that's the whole idea. And
Speaker 1: he's trying to make a false equivalency and say that
Speaker 1: Adam Scheff is the same as Marjorie Taylor Green and
Speaker 1: we all know that there is literally no parity. And
Speaker 1: so for that, the simple, simple soon to be Speaker
Speaker 1: of the House, though for how long no one knows.
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy gets a hearty fuck you. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense 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. E