Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics. Well,
Speaker 1: we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's
Speaker 1: best minds, and Steve Bannon says that Dr Fauci will
Speaker 1: be hunted after the mid terms. Well, we sure have
Speaker 1: one hell of a show for you. Vice President Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris joins us to talk about a host of issues.
Speaker 1: Then we have Andrew Ross Sorkin, but you, of course
Speaker 1: known as the New York Times columnist and co ancher
Speaker 1: squawk Box. But first we have the host of Hell
Speaker 1: and high Water and the Circus on Showtime, the recounts,
Speaker 1: John Hilman. Welcome to Fast Politics. John, Hey, it's uh.
Speaker 1: I like you know, I didn't realize what I decided Molly,
Speaker 1: that you had a new podcast, and I was excited
Speaker 1: to do it. I would do anything you ever asked,
Speaker 1: you know that. But but I thought Fast Politics. So
Speaker 1: this is gonna be if we're gonna speak fast, we're
Speaker 1: gonna cover a lot of ground fast. I didn't really
Speaker 1: get that. Oh yeah, it's actually also a thing related
Speaker 1: to Molly's name. Yes, we're really clever. And I like
Speaker 1: that it took. It tells you how stupid I am
Speaker 1: or how smart you are that it took me little
Speaker 1: while to figure that out. I don't think anyone figured
Speaker 1: it out, but I actually think people should listen to it.
Speaker 1: I was listening to my podcast when I'm listening to
Speaker 1: podcasts on one and a half speed, So, oh my god,
Speaker 1: can you imagine like taking our conversational tempo and amping
Speaker 1: it up to like one and a half? Do it?
Speaker 1: I mean, life is sure? Why you know, if you
Speaker 1: could listen to it in third e versus forty five,
Speaker 1: go for it. I'm all for it. So I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about two weeks from the mid terms.
Speaker 1: We're all going to die? Right, well, we asked, Actually,
Speaker 1: we are all going to die. The other question, the
Speaker 1: question is when we're gonna die. I would say that
Speaker 1: I have been told by my one of my primary
Speaker 1: care positions that I may be a space alien and
Speaker 1: and may never die. But other than me, other than me,
Speaker 1: you were all going to die. Excellent, I was hoping.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to die though necessarily in
Speaker 1: the calendar year two, not all of us. But the
Speaker 1: narrative seems to be I mean and again that this
Speaker 1: is like the mainstream media narrative. Do with this what
Speaker 1: you will all summer, Democrats are not going to have
Speaker 1: a red wave. Democrats are killing it. All of a
Speaker 1: sudden September comes and the narrative totally ships were in October,
Speaker 1: I've had, you know, three weeks of newsletters telling me
Speaker 1: that Democrats are going to get slaughtered and democracy is
Speaker 1: going to die. What happened, Well, I guess I first,
Speaker 1: I'd say, the narrative is always capital t capital, and
Speaker 1: I always wonder like whose narrative is that? Um, there's
Speaker 1: some realities here. The first part which was, I mean,
Speaker 1: the first part was there was going to be a
Speaker 1: red wave. If you think about the period of time
Speaker 1: from the Virginia and New Jersey off your elections in
Speaker 1: November of last year. Two, I would say, the moment
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court decided to strike down a Row
Speaker 1: and did the ruling in Dobbs, that was all Republicans
Speaker 1: are definitely gonna be definitely gonna have a red wave.
Speaker 1: Then and then you had a summer where two things happened.
Speaker 1: One was the backlash on row slash jobs, and and
Speaker 1: that energy that got unleashed with a lot of voters
Speaker 1: who care about choice and care about women's reproductive health
Speaker 1: and and hate the Supreme Court for being so wildly politicide,
Speaker 1: which something we could talk about in the more even
Speaker 1: more vivid form in the context of what Justice Thomas
Speaker 1: did yesterday. But um and and the other thing that
Speaker 1: people ignored, I think at what seemed to be their
Speaker 1: peril at the time and now seems to have really
Speaker 1: cost Democrats to some extent, is you know, there was
Speaker 1: a weird moment there in August where the economy started
Speaker 1: to get better, and if you look at Joe Biden's
Speaker 1: approval rating and lay it down next to gas prices,
Speaker 1: you'll see an incredibly incredibly consistent correlation. So, you know,
Speaker 1: the president's approval already matters a lot in intermal elections
Speaker 1: because the House at least tends to kind of rise
Speaker 1: and fall with, you know, the national approval of the
Speaker 1: the end party. And so the combination of that, what
Speaker 1: was going on on the on the abortion rights front,
Speaker 1: and the fact that the economy seemed like it might
Speaker 1: be headed towards the soft landing that the Biden people
Speaker 1: have been predicting, and inflation was starting to take down
Speaker 1: and gas prices and food prices were taking down, led
Speaker 1: to this surge of optimism in August into Labor Day
Speaker 1: that you know, not the Democrats, I don't. I mean
Speaker 1: I heard some liberals who were like, Democrats are like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're could be a blue wave, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you guys are out of your minds. But the possibility
Speaker 1: you know, rose to one in four, you know, one
Speaker 1: in three the Democrats might be able to hold the House,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, would be great odds against against history.
Speaker 1: And people were very confident about the Senate when you
Speaker 1: saw you know, double digit leads for for for John
Speaker 1: Pederman in Pennsylvania, and it looked like John Warnock was
Speaker 1: gonna have an easy time with marciall Walker and Gregian
Speaker 1: Whittmer was up by double digits in the governor's race Michigan.
Speaker 1: And then what happened was Molly. What happened was what
Speaker 1: sometimes happens. The economic improvement turned out to be a lousory.
Speaker 1: Gas prices started to rise again, inflation started to go
Speaker 1: up again. People started like really bracing for a real recession.
Speaker 1: The Feds started hiking interest rates because inflation was was
Speaker 1: out of control and again and they felt like they
Speaker 1: needed to us put the brakes on the economy, which
Speaker 1: made the recession talk even more pronounced everywhere I go
Speaker 1: in the country, which is a lot of places. Because
Speaker 1: of the circus, people who had stopped asking me, hey,
Speaker 1: where are you from and what are gas prices there,
Speaker 1: which is things that you here out in the campaign trail,
Speaker 1: just among normal people, they started asking again, um in September, like, hey,
Speaker 1: where are you from? And we're the gas prices there
Speaker 1: are gas prices are back off the charts again. You
Speaker 1: know that happened, and and and I think the question
Speaker 1: in there's no doubt that the focus on reproductive rights,
Speaker 1: which is clearly a super important issue and one that
Speaker 1: has potential political payoff, we saw a lot of these,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of voter registration that seemed to
Speaker 1: be driven by dobbs. You saw some data on that
Speaker 1: that had filled democratic hearts with a lot of optimism
Speaker 1: that didn't go away. And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the questions right now right are are this is the
Speaker 1: polling picking up those new voters, and or are we
Speaker 1: getting an overly dire picture. You know, as you sit
Speaker 1: here today, we're back to something more like what you'd
Speaker 1: expect in the mid term or in the House at least,
Speaker 1: which is Republicans are probably going to take control of
Speaker 1: the House. That's always been. The margin is razor thin.
Speaker 1: There are more safe Republican seats. I mean, the math
Speaker 1: is just yes, the bottom line is like, it's just
Speaker 1: it is. There's a reason historically that you know when
Speaker 1: a when a new president comes in, and especially when
Speaker 1: the new president has control of the House and Senate,
Speaker 1: that the first year mid term is usually a referendum
Speaker 1: on that in power party. And right now there's not
Speaker 1: nobody can really argue that. Just forget about why or
Speaker 1: whether you think it's rightful or not. The country is
Speaker 1: not in a psyched place about its economy or its prospects,
Speaker 1: and people generally, you know, blame the president who's in
Speaker 1: sitting in the oble office, fairly or unfairly. I always say,
Speaker 1: you know, presidents get more credit than they deserve when
Speaker 1: things are going great, and they get more blame than
Speaker 1: they deserve when things aren't going great. But right now
Speaker 1: where the more blame than they deserve that when things
Speaker 1: are not going great. So you know, people are discing,
Speaker 1: are unhappy with the state of the country, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna blame it on Democrats, and so given that the
Speaker 1: margin and the houses so thick, you know, you can
Speaker 1: expect Republicans take control. But look, David actual out of
Speaker 1: righting me the other day that they lost sixty seats
Speaker 1: at sixty net seats in two thousand ten. We're not
Speaker 1: going to see that happen, I don't think on November eight.
Speaker 1: But we're likely to see Republicans take control of the House,
Speaker 1: and then we can talk in more detail. I'll shut
Speaker 1: up and let you ask another question. I think the
Speaker 1: Senate is exactly where I thought it would be a
Speaker 1: bunch of really close races that could break, you know,
Speaker 1: could end up with the Republicans with a one seat majority.
Speaker 1: We get up with the Democrats by a one seat majority,
Speaker 1: but that's about it. We're not gonna see. I don't
Speaker 1: think we're not going to see suddenly Republicans have a
Speaker 1: four seat majority in the Senate or Democrats have before
Speaker 1: seat majority in the Senate. I don't think's going to happen.
Speaker 1: We're gonna end up with really narrowly divided Senate again
Speaker 1: one way or the other. And obviously that matters a
Speaker 1: lot which way it goes. But that's I think we're headed.
Speaker 1: So I was actually gonna ask you about the Senate
Speaker 1: because it seems like in August and September we saw
Speaker 1: Fetterman had a huge lead, we saw Mandela Barnes said
Speaker 1: an enormous lead. You know, a September of ron and
Speaker 1: on flooding the Wisconsin air waves with ads about how
Speaker 1: Republicans are tough on crime. Again, I have yet to
Speaker 1: see any Republican policy on crime or anything else. I mean,
Speaker 1: God forbid, you know Republicans make policy. But now all
Speaker 1: these races are super tight, even Blake Masters in Arizona.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing Poland. I would have said to you, if
Speaker 1: you'd asked me in in August whether I thought Mandela
Speaker 1: Barnz is gonna win that race by double digits, I
Speaker 1: would have said, hey, Molly, um, can you tell me
Speaker 1: when the last time, other than Mandela Barnes as lieutenant governor?
Speaker 1: Can you tell me the last time that Wisconsin's elected
Speaker 1: a statewide black Canada in a hundred years? You would
Speaker 1: have said, huh, And I can't really think of one.
Speaker 1: I was that because there has never been one. You know,
Speaker 1: my father was from Wisconsin. I actually like Wisconsin a lot,
Speaker 1: but they don't have a great record in terms of
Speaker 1: racial diversity in that state. And it was always gonna
Speaker 1: be an uphill push for for Mandela Barnes, who's who
Speaker 1: is very liberal on crime, and you're right to Republicans
Speaker 1: have good crime policies. No, they're ridiculous. And is the
Speaker 1: crime problem as bad as they claim it is? No,
Speaker 1: of course it's not. But this is politics and and
Speaker 1: and a black liberal candidate in a year where crime
Speaker 1: is we're Democrats. Republicans have been successful in creating a
Speaker 1: lot of fear about crime and and a lot of
Speaker 1: it misplaced and a lot of it distorted with the statistics.
Speaker 1: You know, that was a guy who was going to
Speaker 1: have a tough race. And Wisconsin's a purple state. It's
Speaker 1: not like this is not blue state. So and beating
Speaker 1: us the last thing. Beating an incumbent in the Senate
Speaker 1: is hard. I mean, it's it's just not it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to do always right. The incumbents are entrenched, even
Speaker 1: when they're odious, as Ron Johnson clearly is. When they're
Speaker 1: entrenched and they're well funded, they're hard to be You
Speaker 1: need a really great candidate who's really well funded, and
Speaker 1: you can need to get some breaks. And that's one place.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you another place where the crime issues playing
Speaker 1: Molly is is uh more than people understand is in
Speaker 1: the Federman race, where everybody's focused on his health. And
Speaker 1: I would say that's a reasonable thing. The guy had
Speaker 1: a stroke. I mean you should be we should wonder
Speaker 1: about whether about his health. I think that's a legitimate
Speaker 1: thing for voters to ask about. But politically, that you
Speaker 1: think about this, how bad is Dr Oz as a candidate.
Speaker 1: He's so bad that in the course of the period
Speaker 1: from May to Labor Day, John Funerman was essentially unable
Speaker 1: to campaign because he had a stroke, did not do
Speaker 1: almost any public events or or face to face interviews.
Speaker 1: And yet Oz was so bad that Fetterman, by basically
Speaker 1: campaigning from his basement and doing great stuff on digital,
Speaker 1: was able to open up that double digit twelve point
Speaker 1: lead at one point. That's how bad. That's all about
Speaker 1: the odds badness. And then thirty million dollars in Republican
Speaker 1: ads in September, almost all of him on crime. John Federman,
Speaker 1: who ran the parole board, ran the pardon board, was like,
Speaker 1: has a record on crime that Republicans have been able
Speaker 1: to successfully if again, I'd say unfairly but successfully portray
Speaker 1: as too liberal and out of step with UH with
Speaker 1: with the mainstream of Pennsylvania voters. Thirty million dollars Republican
Speaker 1: ads made that made that race. What I think now is,
Speaker 1: you know, Federman's up a little bit um, but it's
Speaker 1: not twelve and and this debate tonight is huge. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've never seen anything like it, really where the race
Speaker 1: has been closing for the reasons I just said, And
Speaker 1: no one knows what you're gonna see tonight. And I
Speaker 1: don't say that with any prejudice against John Federman, who
Speaker 1: who's a charismatic, compelling candidate and and certainly was both
Speaker 1: those things to to a to a huge degree before
Speaker 1: he suffered this unfortunate health incident. But a lot of
Speaker 1: people have a lot of questions and univer seen a
Speaker 1: candidate on stage who had has had to use close
Speaker 1: captioning in a live debate. You've never seen a health
Speaker 1: issue that's been elevated in quite this way. I think
Speaker 1: his campaign has done a good job of managing expectations
Speaker 1: about it. They've got a really good job of kind
Speaker 1: of saying to Pennsylvanians. Yeah, people have health incidents. You like,
Speaker 1: millions of you have had things that have happened to
Speaker 1: your health. And he's recovering, and he's working really hard
Speaker 1: to recover and he understands you because he's gone through this.
Speaker 1: He understands you if you seen more empathic than he
Speaker 1: was before. But it still is the case that you know,
Speaker 1: in a very in a very evenly divided state, you know,
Speaker 1: the swing vote, they want to see him get up
Speaker 1: on stage and feel comfortable and confident that he can
Speaker 1: do the job. And you know, so if he clears
Speaker 1: that bar tonight, I think he could end the race Fetterman,
Speaker 1: and he might, but other things could happen to miss
Speaker 1: will A wait and see. But in Georgia, right we
Speaker 1: had hershell Walker can't do sentences. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: I've read commentary that says he won that debate. I'd say,
Speaker 1: you know, in the standard again, this is one of
Speaker 1: these things capital T capital and for the narrative, there's
Speaker 1: also a capital E expectations, capital G. Game herschel Walker
Speaker 1: can't do sentences is true, and I don't think he's
Speaker 1: qualified to the United States Senator. I don't think he's
Speaker 1: qualified to hold any public office. But but again in politics,
Speaker 1: you know, the guy who was expected to get up
Speaker 1: there and and be a mumbling, bumbling fool, and was
Speaker 1: coming off of all these these mostly devastating scandals, expectations
Speaker 1: were lowered naturally, not by anybody's effort. You have to
Speaker 1: spin that one like, you know, the expectations were as
Speaker 1: low as could be, and he cleared that bar. And
Speaker 1: I will say again not to not to upset maybe
Speaker 1: the likely listeners of the podcast Raphael Warnock, Who's a
Speaker 1: really smart guy, a really dignified man, a powerful order,
Speaker 1: obviously qualified to the United States senator and and and
Speaker 1: all of that, he's still fucked up the simplest thing
Speaker 1: in the world, Molly, which is Senator wearnock. This was
Speaker 1: not literally the question, but the implied implicit of this
Speaker 1: question was Senator we knock. You know, you became the
Speaker 1: United States senator largely because of Joe Biden and the
Speaker 1: stakes in that race between him and Donald Trump, and
Speaker 1: the way that the Biden campaign rallied turnout in in Georgia.
Speaker 1: You were able to get into the Senate a run off,
Speaker 1: you would say, in the sense of your political career
Speaker 1: to Joe Biden if he runs again twenty four where
Speaker 1: you support him. That first part was the part that
Speaker 1: was implicit. The explicit part was if he run four year,
Speaker 1: guess him. There's only one answer to that question, Molly,
Speaker 1: the honest answer, the loyal answer. The true answer is
Speaker 1: it's up to Joe Biden decide if he wants to run.
Speaker 1: But if he runs, of course I'll support him, and
Speaker 1: he couldn't say it, and it was like one of
Speaker 1: the great pieces of political malpractice I've seen in a while, Like,
Speaker 1: you just answer that question, be straight, be a human being,
Speaker 1: don't be an automaton, don't be a guy with consultants
Speaker 1: in your head, worried about what the ramifications are going
Speaker 1: to be up sticking with the guy who brung you.
Speaker 1: And then they turned to herschel Walker and asked him
Speaker 1: the same question, are you gonna support Donald Trump for
Speaker 1: if he runs four and Walker gave the perfect answer,
Speaker 1: which was he's my friend, of course I'm gonna stick
Speaker 1: with him. And then he looked at Warnock and said,
Speaker 1: you know you're being ridiculous to say you won't stick
Speaker 1: with the guy you voted with at the time. That
Speaker 1: was a good answer. The rest of them were barely literate,
Speaker 1: but that cleared the bar. But that answer, in that
Speaker 1: moment was it was good answer. And I will say
Speaker 1: for for Raphael Warnock, who needs to get very robust
Speaker 1: black turnout in Georgia if he wants to win this
Speaker 1: thing outright, I think he's still a little bit ahead.
Speaker 1: But George's funny state. Remember what happened. You got to
Speaker 1: win fifty plus one, right, or you have a runoff,
Speaker 1: or you have a runoff. And for them, the difference
Speaker 1: between you know, what they need to get to to
Speaker 1: put this thing to bed on November eight is they
Speaker 1: needed to have very robust black turnout and that's what
Speaker 1: will be the question of the night that night. If
Speaker 1: they get very robust black turnout, there's also a question
Speaker 1: of course of what what percentage of that black turnout
Speaker 1: will go for Soschel Walker, also an African American candidate.
Speaker 1: But if they get robust turnout black turnout that night,
Speaker 1: they think that they can get it done on November eight.
Speaker 1: If they don't, we're back and run it. We're back
Speaker 1: in a runoff land again, and in an off your election,
Speaker 1: you know, a midterm election with no the top of
Speaker 1: the ticket. No Donald Trump in Georgia, a state that
Speaker 1: is showing how Republican it still is by by giving
Speaker 1: Brian Kemp a double digit lead over Stacey Abrams. It's
Speaker 1: a very worrying prospect, the notion of a one on
Speaker 1: one between We're not gonna walker in a runoff election,
Speaker 1: we're turned out well will plummet And that could be
Speaker 1: it too. You know, everybody now has focused on these
Speaker 1: three races too. We've talked about one in Pennsylvania, one
Speaker 1: in Georgia, and there there in Nevada, where another pair
Speaker 1: of capitals, not the narrative, not expectations game, but capital
Speaker 1: C conventional capital W wisdom in the political classes that
Speaker 1: Catherine Cortes Massen is gonna lose in Nevada, Federman is
Speaker 1: gonna win in Pennsylvania, and it's all gonna come down
Speaker 1: to Georgia. And we might not know the answer on
Speaker 1: the night of Member eight. We might have to wait
Speaker 1: for the runoff for that. So hold your breath, right,
Speaker 1: that's terrifying. I I don't think I'm emotionally, like like
Speaker 1: strong enough to withstand another one of these fucking runoffs.
Speaker 1: But think about this moment what I'm now focused on
Speaker 1: because I'm you know, freak is the wild card scenarios
Speaker 1: right where Evan McMuffin a K. McMullen, don't call him that.
Speaker 1: He's my body. I like mcmuffins, I like the egg McMuffin.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of that. But yes, I like
Speaker 1: him though, and he's a delight Yes, continue, he's a
Speaker 1: delightful He's delightful man. And he knows I'm kidding when
Speaker 1: I say that, because again, McMuffin is not exactly an invective.
Speaker 1: I like that. I mean a nice little breakfast sandwich.
Speaker 1: She doesn't like that cheese eggs. You know, but yet
Speaker 1: another Trump nickname that has stuck. Continued, Yes, but he
Speaker 1: might win, Yeah, he might win. He could and you know,
Speaker 1: the whole thing could get me, could be turned out, said,
Speaker 1: you know, there's talk about there's there's now some indications
Speaker 1: and two of the smartest Democratic strategist I know who
Speaker 1: have been paying attention to this for months, I really
Speaker 1: think that Chuck Grassley could lose in Iowa. So you know,
Speaker 1: you insane, right, I mean you know things, you know,
Speaker 1: weird ship happens in midterm elections, and people you don't
Speaker 1: expect to be vulnerable, turned out to be more vulnerable
Speaker 1: than you thought, and and maybe that will alleviate all
Speaker 1: of your anxiety and and the need for all that
Speaker 1: out of Yeah, I'm sure that I'll do it because
Speaker 1: I'm very relaxed otherwise. So let's talk about this CRISP.
Speaker 1: De Santis debate. I don't even want to talk about
Speaker 1: it because I'm like, so, I just think Florida is
Speaker 1: absolutely out of reach for Democrats. But some interesting stuff
Speaker 1: happened during that debate. I'm with you on this, right,
Speaker 1: rondes stant is gonna win that that race, and so
Speaker 1: I I just don't like spend that much time focused
Speaker 1: on things that that are out of reach at this
Speaker 1: point in the election cycle. Just completely yes, irrelevant. But
Speaker 1: I did think it was interesting when Chris said to
Speaker 1: De Santis, can you promise that you're going to serve
Speaker 1: out your term? Charlie. Chris is a in those moments.
Speaker 1: He's a very practice politician. He's good, he knows how
Speaker 1: to do these been a lot of big debates before,
Speaker 1: and I thought, in that moment, for the debate, moment
Speaker 1: that's going to get replaced over and over. He knew
Speaker 1: how to execute on that, and I and he it
Speaker 1: was he looked strong, he prosecuted it well, and to
Speaker 1: Santis couldn't have looked worse. He looked like a deer
Speaker 1: in the headlights. And I actually think from that standpoint,
Speaker 1: he both He didn't answer, he looked like, you know,
Speaker 1: he looked shifty, he looked uncomfortable, and then he tried
Speaker 1: to turn it by robotically reading out some line about
Speaker 1: you know, pastures and daw, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: that was, but he's raid. It's a question, which I
Speaker 1: think it's funny. There's a fair number of people in
Speaker 1: the Republican world who will watch that and say they
Speaker 1: already think to Santis is running for president, so that's
Speaker 1: not gonna be news to them that he wouldn't answer,
Speaker 1: But they will look at the way he handled it
Speaker 1: and wonder, maybe he doesn't have quite the candidate skills
Speaker 1: that we thought he had, and that that will that
Speaker 1: debate will not have done him any good in Republican circles,
Speaker 1: who are you know, looking around for who is the person?
Speaker 1: If it's not Trump, who's the person? And that was
Speaker 1: not a trumpet performance by De Santis. That was a nervous,
Speaker 1: uncertain and then robotic and badly executed performance. And so
Speaker 1: you know, for all of those people in the GOP
Speaker 1: sweepstakes business, that's the thing that I'll tell you. Who
Speaker 1: is smiling watching that debate. Carrien Lake, Oh, Carrie Lake,
Speaker 1: carry Lake, Christie Nome, anybody who's thinking about running in
Speaker 1: the Republican primary four who's not Donald Trump. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: thinks thinks to Santa as a clown and thinks he
Speaker 1: would crush him anyway. He doesn't really care. I mean,
Speaker 1: his attitude is, you know, if I'm running, I'm gonna win.
Speaker 1: And and he thinks he thinks to sant this is
Speaker 1: a little man with no talent and who was made
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump. It's those other people. It's the carry
Speaker 1: Lakes and Christine Nomes, Mike Pompeo's and and others who
Speaker 1: want to run, Tom Cotton's who want to run, who
Speaker 1: are watching De Santis to see how good is this
Speaker 1: guy really? He's good at given a press conference, he's
Speaker 1: good at given, you know, standing up and in their
Speaker 1: view he's good standing up and invoking cultural issues and yakking.
Speaker 1: But is he good and when he's actually has to
Speaker 1: go toe to toe with somebody in a real political scrap.
Speaker 1: That was not a performance that well that did that,
Speaker 1: that made people think more of the Santis and in fact,
Speaker 1: for all those other people, they're like, yeah, I could
Speaker 1: take this guy. Yeah it's possible. All right, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Sn it goes by so fast? Is that why they
Speaker 1: called fast politics. Kamala Harris is the Vice President of
Speaker 1: the United States. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: It's good to be with you. You're in New Mexico. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm here at the University in Albuquerque. So I was curious.
Speaker 1: New Mexico is a sort of abortion island in an
Speaker 1: otherwise desert, and I know that they're building more clinics,
Speaker 1: they're building them on the borders of the state, and
Speaker 1: I was wondering what you're seeing, and more importantly, what
Speaker 1: you're thinking about this. Well, one of the things I'm
Speaker 1: seeing being here in New Mexico is it is a
Speaker 1: vivid illustration of the importance of who is an elected office.
Speaker 1: There's a governor here, Michelle Luhan Grisham, who is holding
Speaker 1: the line on so many of these issues. And since
Speaker 1: the Dog's decision did an unthinkable thing, which is to
Speaker 1: take a constitutional right that had been recognized from the
Speaker 1: people of America, from the women of America. One of
Speaker 1: the things they did is they pushed it to the states.
Speaker 1: And so when I'm seeing in New Mexico, to your point,
Speaker 1: is state leadership and the governor and others who are saying,
Speaker 1: we're going to make sure that our laws not only
Speaker 1: protect individual rights and privacy and freedom, but also ensure
Speaker 1: that we do, which is what they're doing, take care
Speaker 1: of our neighbors. And isn't that at the essence of
Speaker 1: it all When you when you want to live a
Speaker 1: good life, it's about taking care of yourself and your neighbors.
Speaker 1: And they're certainly doing that in New Mexico. So it
Speaker 1: seems to me that the stakes are very high. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious. You were a senator, you are now the
Speaker 1: vice president. I'm curious to know do you think personally
Speaker 1: that democracy can survive a second Trump term. Let me
Speaker 1: just say this, here's how I sincerely think about it. All.
Speaker 1: Democracy there's a duality to it. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: a democracy, when it is intact, it's very strong. There's
Speaker 1: a strength about democracy in terms of what it does
Speaker 1: to protect individual rights and freedoms, and and to enforce
Speaker 1: civil rights and human rights and and and justice right.
Speaker 1: When a democracy is intact, it is very strong in
Speaker 1: that way in terms of what it does to protect
Speaker 1: the rights of its people. On the other hand, and
Speaker 1: here is the duality, democracy is also extremely fragile. It
Speaker 1: will only be as strong as the willingness of its
Speaker 1: people to fight for it. It is a function of
Speaker 1: the willingness of the people to fight for it. And
Speaker 1: so when you ask me about Trump that the real
Speaker 1: answer is that I believe in the strength of the
Speaker 1: American people and the willingness and the desire of the
Speaker 1: American people to fight for their democracy and make sure
Speaker 1: that we don't have a situation where there's a further
Speaker 1: erosion of rights, but in fact that there will be
Speaker 1: picking up of the movements that have been about not
Speaker 1: only preserving rights but expanding rights. So that's how I feel.
Speaker 1: I feel that the people have the power, and I
Speaker 1: do believe that in our heart as a nation, in
Speaker 1: the heart of the people, there is a love of
Speaker 1: our country, and by extention, a love of the supposed
Speaker 1: upon which our country was founded, which include the principles
Speaker 1: of freedom and liberty and equality, and justice, which are
Speaker 1: all the attributes of acy. But we have these three
Speaker 1: hundred plus election deniers running this mid term, and I'm
Speaker 1: wondering what you're feeling is on what we can do
Speaker 1: as Americans and also what Biden can do to sort
Speaker 1: of protect and you and you two can do to
Speaker 1: protect are what has happened in our democracy. Well, well,
Speaker 1: let's start with making sure that in these mid terms
Speaker 1: everyone gets out to vote. Because for example, again here
Speaker 1: I'm here in New Mexico, Michelle Luhan Grisham is a
Speaker 1: for election. Make sure you vote for her for re
Speaker 1: election because she is standing up for people's rights. She's
Speaker 1: not an election denier. You have people running for office
Speaker 1: in states around the country. As governor, there are eleven
Speaker 1: people running for Secretary of State around the country who
Speaker 1: are election deniers. Vote and vote and make the statement
Speaker 1: that you want people who actually uphold the truth and
Speaker 1: uphold the law and protect freedoms. And I do believe
Speaker 1: that that is part of the power that we have
Speaker 1: right now with an election just around the corner. In addition,
Speaker 1: look if if we gain two more seats in the
Speaker 1: United States Senate, hold onto the numbers and gained two
Speaker 1: more sets and ied State Senate. Our President Joe Biden
Speaker 1: has said he will not let the filibuster get in
Speaker 1: the way of signing into law the Women's Health Protection Act,
Speaker 1: which would essentially reinstate the protections of Roe v. Wade. Again,
Speaker 1: elections matter. If we gain two more Senate seats in
Speaker 1: this upcoming election, we can undo these laws that have
Speaker 1: been proposed and passed that would criminalize healthcare providers for
Speaker 1: providing reproductive healthcare, that punish women for exercising the right
Speaker 1: to make decisions about their own body instead of their
Speaker 1: government telling them what to do. And the President has
Speaker 1: said if we elect two more Senators and therefore I
Speaker 1: have the numbers, he will be able to sign into
Speaker 1: law the John Willis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which is
Speaker 1: about reinstating protections around people's right to access the poll
Speaker 1: and be able to issue their voice through their vote
Speaker 1: about what they want from their government. So these are
Speaker 1: very specific things that can happen. But again to your
Speaker 1: point about the importance of democracy, and I will say
Speaker 1: that the fragility of democracy, it will only be as
Speaker 1: strong as our willingness as the people of this country,
Speaker 1: as Americans, to fight for it. And one of the
Speaker 1: ways we do that is by voting. Are you surprised.
Speaker 1: I mean, I never thought I would see row overturned
Speaker 1: in my lifetime. I didn't either, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: but it has happened. There's a saying from CREDITF. God
Speaker 1: Ping which I paraphrase all the time, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to do it now. He famously said the fight for
Speaker 1: civil rights, which is the fight for equality and justice
Speaker 1: and freedom, must be fought and one with each generation.
Speaker 1: And I think there were two points he was making.
Speaker 1: One and this is your point. It is the very
Speaker 1: nature of it all that whatever games we make, they
Speaker 1: will not be permanent. We cannot assume they will be permanent,
Speaker 1: because the second point is it's given that it's not
Speaker 1: the nature of it to be permanent unless and here's
Speaker 1: the second point, we fight and we are vigilant to
Speaker 1: maintain them. We can never sit back and just assume
Speaker 1: that these rights that we have gained will be forever
Speaker 1: intact if we are not willing every day to remain
Speaker 1: vigilant and ensuring that they are attacked. I mean, look
Speaker 1: at what happened in the Dotts position. In addition to
Speaker 1: a woman being allowed to make decisions about her own
Speaker 1: body and not her government. Clara Thomas of the quite
Speaker 1: part out loud, they're looking at and at risk could
Speaker 1: be right to contraception, which has been a right that
Speaker 1: was long settled. He said, right to to marry the
Speaker 1: person you love. Dave's next marriage. And when I was General,
Speaker 1: I thought to ensure that people around our country can
Speaker 1: marry the person they love and we can undo those
Speaker 1: laws that prohibited it. And now Clarence Thomas said the
Speaker 1: quiet part out law, which that might be at risk.
Speaker 1: So here's the bottom line. Just know that we cannot
Speaker 1: take anything for granted. We have to participate in our country.
Speaker 1: Our country will only be as strong as our willingness
Speaker 1: to do that. And I will tell you I travel
Speaker 1: around the world, and as Vice President, I have met
Speaker 1: a hundred world leaders in person or by phone, president's,
Speaker 1: prime minister's, chancellor's king. One of the things we can
Speaker 1: do is the United States of America is walk in
Speaker 1: those rooms and talk about the importance of the strength
Speaker 1: of democracy. And then we can talk about rule of law,
Speaker 1: human rights, civil rights, and we can talk about why
Speaker 1: that should be the gold standard for the world. But
Speaker 1: here's the deal. As a role model of the democracy
Speaker 1: and as a role model for any one of us.
Speaker 1: We know when you're a role model means people watch
Speaker 1: what you do to see if it matches to what
Speaker 1: you say. People around the world are watching what's happening
Speaker 1: in our country. And my fear is that autocrats and
Speaker 1: dictators can point to what's happening right now and say
Speaker 1: to their people, you want to talk about why I
Speaker 1: should give you rights, why you're rights to be recognized.
Speaker 1: You want to point to America as an example, We'll
Speaker 1: look at what's happening in America, which means that things
Speaker 1: that are happening now in our country have the very
Speaker 1: real possibility of affecting people around the world. And so
Speaker 1: I do believe I know who we are as a people,
Speaker 1: and I do believe that we are willing to fight
Speaker 1: that love of our country, for our country and its principles.
Speaker 1: And I would say to everyone, listen here, standards can't
Speaker 1: be h this is awful. I give up. I'm not
Speaker 1: participating because that means you don't understand the nature of it.
Speaker 1: The nature of it is, it will be awful. If
Speaker 1: you don't participate. You have to. It's how It's how
Speaker 1: we it's we do what we do. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. I'm really quite grateful and just
Speaker 1: really appreciative. Well, I'm glad to do with you. It's
Speaker 1: good to have this conversation. And thanks for your voice.
Speaker 1: These are difficult conversations, but they're so important. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: Take care calculator. Andrew Ross Sorkin is a New York
Speaker 1: Times columnist and co anchor of Squawk Box. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. Andrew Ross Sorkin, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Very excited. How excited are you? Very excited? Let's talk
Speaker 1: about inflation. I feel like it is the number one
Speaker 1: every political article centers on this question of inflation. I
Speaker 1: still don't understand what is Republicans grand plan. I mean,
Speaker 1: what can a political party do with inflation? Oh goodness,
Speaker 1: well that's a that's a heady question. What can a
Speaker 1: political party do? The answer is probably very little. The
Speaker 1: truth is, I think you can probably do you some
Speaker 1: stuff around the margins, and that's probably the best you're
Speaker 1: gonna do. I think that the governor, if you will,
Speaker 1: of the inflation story is going to ultimately be the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve. Of course, you know, by the way, the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve chair. I know we say they're independent actors,
Speaker 1: and I would argue to some degree they are, but
Speaker 1: they are appointed by politicians. So you know, I remember
Speaker 1: doing the Obama administration. People would say, you know, the
Speaker 1: economy was going great. They wouldn't give Obama credit. They'd say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's Ben Bernanke. Well, you know Ben Bernanke would have
Speaker 1: had that role in unless you know, Obama kept him
Speaker 1: in that seat. So it's all a little complicated on
Speaker 1: the On the I think the question you're talking about.
Speaker 1: The biggest thing that you could actually do is when
Speaker 1: you look at inflation today. There was all the supply
Speaker 1: chain stuff we saw over the last two years as
Speaker 1: a function of the pandemic, but the biggest, most insidious
Speaker 1: element of it is actually wage inflation. And it's sort
Speaker 1: of a very almost like an oxymoron or almost perverse
Speaker 1: talk about because for so long we wanted our wages
Speaker 1: and guess what we're now getting them. Higher wages help
Speaker 1: working people, but they also drive inflation, is what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Higher wages help working people, but they drive inflation. So
Speaker 1: if therefore everything else costs more than your actual wages
Speaker 1: are going up, you know, it looks good on paper,
Speaker 1: but in reality, when you show up with the story,
Speaker 1: it's not really working for you. And that's where we are.
Speaker 1: So okay, what could you do? You could actually, and
Speaker 1: this is the perversest part of it, you could lower wages,
Speaker 1: right or I don't know if you can. At this point,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're going backwards. It's not like wages
Speaker 1: are gonna go down per se. But arguably they're not
Speaker 1: going to go continue to go up, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what's the reality of what's going to happen. What
Speaker 1: that really means is you're going to start to see
Speaker 1: unemployment go up. And so there's a sort of political
Speaker 1: perversion of it because here we are. You know, the
Speaker 1: administration says we want to get inflation down. Well to
Speaker 1: get inflation down, you want employment to go up. So
Speaker 1: which headline sounds worse? Right, I mean that's that's sort
Speaker 1: of that's not what which headline sound sources what is
Speaker 1: actually work. You could argue inflation is actually worse, but
Speaker 1: tell that to the people who don't have jobs. So
Speaker 1: what happens now, I mean, we're going to have a
Speaker 1: mid term It seems we don't really know how it's
Speaker 1: going to go. There certainly is a lot of posturing.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you were the chair of the Fed,
Speaker 1: would you keep raising interest rates? I mean, what would
Speaker 1: you do? This is a very strange moment because there's
Speaker 1: a credibility issue for the Federal Reserve, which actually does matter,
Speaker 1: and right now the Federal Reserve, I think, is on
Speaker 1: thin ice with the investment community. And you could say, well,
Speaker 1: why does the investment community really matter? Why should we
Speaker 1: be listening to investors the bond vigilantes take a look
Speaker 1: at what just happened across the pond. It's actually a
Speaker 1: natural experiment. We're seeing it in real time, which is
Speaker 1: in the UK, the bondholders, the investors actually effectively said
Speaker 1: we don't like your politics, we don't like what you're
Speaker 1: doing here, like this isn't gonna work, and guess what
Speaker 1: they want. And so I think that you have to
Speaker 1: be a little bit aware of of that element, which
Speaker 1: is that the bond sort of investor class, in a
Speaker 1: very strange way, has a remarkable grip over the United States.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you think about who owned some
Speaker 1: of those bonds, it's not just investors, it's governments, it's
Speaker 1: it's China, it's countries, and that's why this is also interconnected, right.
Speaker 1: I mean what happened in the UK, you know where
Speaker 1: the markets cratered was I think a real kind of
Speaker 1: I mean it's meant to sort of be a wake
Speaker 1: up call to that could happen here, right. I hope
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen here. But in the UK, if I
Speaker 1: get my numbers right, they're running at like GDP in
Speaker 1: terms of what they're paying. I think we're over that,
Speaker 1: we're in like the hunter. We're maybe right now of GDP.
Speaker 1: That's a problem, and it's a problem because at some
Speaker 1: point there's gonna be a lack of confidence. At some point,
Speaker 1: somebody's gonna say, you know what, these people aren't good
Speaker 1: for the money. And it's not that, by the way,
Speaker 1: that the government's got to be able to turn around
Speaker 1: to pay off all the debt at one time. That's
Speaker 1: never gonna happens. Not the issue. It's that there's a
Speaker 1: path to pay it off, that there's that there's a
Speaker 1: path that people believe in. Again, it's about confidence, and
Speaker 1: so yes, if people look at whatever we're doing, if
Speaker 1: we continue to spend money the way we're spending money.
Speaker 1: If we continue to have the economic problems we're continuing
Speaker 1: to have, at some point someone's going to say this
Speaker 1: doesn't work anymore. Is this like the death of modern
Speaker 1: monetary theory? I never really understood m m T to
Speaker 1: begin with. Well, that's good, because neither did I. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of the wrong person to ask. I didn't understand
Speaker 1: that theory. I didn't really think it was. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it was a theory. It was theoretical, and
Speaker 1: that was about all it was. But I mean it
Speaker 1: definitely shows. I mean, some of why we're in this
Speaker 1: inflation is because of trump bonomics, right, keep rates low,
Speaker 1: will the markets are doing well, to pump up the
Speaker 1: stock market. I mean, there's a number of reasons we're here,
Speaker 1: and you could say that the stimulus. I mean there
Speaker 1: are many many factors, but all of them include printing
Speaker 1: more money. We have been printing money and living beyond
Speaker 1: our means for basically most of my life. Ton I'm
Speaker 1: forty five years old, and so you know, we could
Speaker 1: play Trump anovics, you could blame Obama namics. You can
Speaker 1: play bushonomics, reagan ornomics. You can go pretty far back
Speaker 1: to a point where we sort of became disconnected with
Speaker 1: the reality that was on the ground of what our
Speaker 1: actual economy was, and we've been juicing it ever since.
Speaker 1: So does this mean that we will I mean, are
Speaker 1: we headed towards a two thousand eight kind of that
Speaker 1: sort of I mean bleak kind of every day like,
Speaker 1: you know, there would be a sort of sense like
Speaker 1: maybe the banks won't have money. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think we're heading towards that? I'm less inclined to think
Speaker 1: that that's the case and more inclined to think that.
Speaker 1: Look to me, I think this goes one of two ways.
Speaker 1: Either the world sort of gets its act together. We
Speaker 1: get some real political leadership, which is sort of hard
Speaker 1: to believe. I don't really know what would would make
Speaker 1: that actually happen, But if it were to happen, I
Speaker 1: think this would be a two or three year kind
Speaker 1: of situation. And you know, David Solomon was to see
Speaker 1: of Goldman. Sachs often tells the story of how, you know, basically,
Speaker 1: since I think basically since two over the last call
Speaker 1: it forty plus years, you know, the stock market, the economy,
Speaker 1: everything has been sort of up into the right. There
Speaker 1: have been these moments, these blips that have lasted twelve months,
Speaker 1: eighteen months, twenty four months, where if you held your
Speaker 1: breath or you close your eyes and then you opened
Speaker 1: your eyes up two years later like things were better.
Speaker 1: The question is whether that's going to happen in this instance,
Speaker 1: or whether it's gonna look a lot more like what
Speaker 1: happened between nineteen seventy nine two, which is to say
Speaker 1: that if you had a dollar in the stock market,
Speaker 1: you did not have a dollar in nineteen eight you
Speaker 1: had less you did, And I think we forget that,
Speaker 1: and I think that is I mean, if you want
Speaker 1: to be a warrior, that's the thing to worry about.
Speaker 1: And people like Larry Sommers has talked about two things actually,
Speaker 1: and by the way, he's been right about at least
Speaker 1: one part of it. We'll see whether he's right about
Speaker 1: the second part. The first part is he's been arguing
Speaker 1: obviously that inflations is run away and you have to
Speaker 1: take control of it, and he would argue for higher,
Speaker 1: higher rates. The second part is that he has been
Speaker 1: speculating more recently about this idea of secular stagnation and
Speaker 1: that and that that we get into this sort of
Speaker 1: stagnation period and that to me is also a pretty
Speaker 1: scary period. Yeah, I was about to ask you about stagnation.
Speaker 1: We stagflation, stagflation, I should say, it's not that Well,
Speaker 1: what stagnation is a form of stagflation. Yes, we'll explain
Speaker 1: to our listeners what stagflation is and why it's so
Speaker 1: fucking bad. I'm now reading from the Oxford Language Dictionary.
Speaker 1: Stagflation excellent. Persistent high inflation combined with high unemployment and
Speaker 1: stagnant demand in a country's economy. Now, just to put
Speaker 1: that in context, it is possible for inflation in this
Speaker 1: case to come down but to still be higher than
Speaker 1: you'd want on a relative basis to where you're at
Speaker 1: the same time, how high unemployment or not even high unmployed,
Speaker 1: but just more unemployment. And you have an economy that
Speaker 1: is not growing right right now in the States, we
Speaker 1: have high inflation, but we have very good job numbers
Speaker 1: bingo right now. And that's why we all debate are
Speaker 1: we in a recession? Is? How do you describe your recession?
Speaker 1: What's the technical term? This or that? That's why everyone
Speaker 1: looks at now says are we It feels like a recession.
Speaker 1: It looks like a recession. But is it a recession? Well,
Speaker 1: it may not be because we're these sort of unique
Speaker 1: data points around employment for the most part that feel different.
Speaker 1: So people say, maybe we're not in a recession. However,
Speaker 1: all that could shift. We'll see. We won't know if
Speaker 1: we're in a recession until we're already in it. Look, technically,
Speaker 1: we're not in a recession until what's the name of
Speaker 1: the group, the National Bureau of Economic Research will define
Speaker 1: the recession. They are the sort of arbiters of what
Speaker 1: is an actual recession, and they won't, you know, usually
Speaker 1: show their hand for a while, and it'll be interesting
Speaker 1: to see how they describe it when they do, right,
Speaker 1: and we won't know. But the larger question I think
Speaker 1: is if you were Democrats. We don't know how this
Speaker 1: is going to play out, But what would you do
Speaker 1: if you were President Biden to sort of figure out
Speaker 1: a way to stop inflation? I mean, there's just not
Speaker 1: so much a president can do. Right, Well, you could
Speaker 1: deal with this third rail issue known as immigration. That
Speaker 1: actually is something you could do because that would create
Speaker 1: more labor, create more labor exactly, and that would probably
Speaker 1: put pressure on the wages, increasing wages absolutely I mean,
Speaker 1: you know that that would be something that you could
Speaker 1: deal with. You could deal with certain tariffs that might
Speaker 1: take some pressure off at least in the short term.
Speaker 1: As I said, there are things that can be done.
Speaker 1: But again it's I think it's all. It's all for
Speaker 1: the most part on the margins. It depends on how
Speaker 1: big you go. We saw what happened to UK. You
Speaker 1: can't sort of decide you're going with like a Thatcher
Speaker 1: like approach or Reagan like approach and lowering taxes that
Speaker 1: actually just creates more demand inflation because it's exactly more
Speaker 1: money goes into the economy. So now we tend to think,
Speaker 1: at least I I'm not gonna try to make you
Speaker 1: say something partisan, which is one of my favorite things
Speaker 1: to do to people on this podcast. I tend to
Speaker 1: think of Republicans as being when Trump was. When he
Speaker 1: was in office, pretty much the only thing he passed
Speaker 1: was an enormous tax cut for wealthy people, which was
Speaker 1: what ended Liz Tases brief Prime ministership. We're seeing that
Speaker 1: that is really not a thing that the markets like,
Speaker 1: I think, but the markets don't like, and I think
Speaker 1: we should be clear about this. Is the markets don't
Speaker 1: like when governments put together budget proposals, whether it's how
Speaker 1: you're taxing people at what level or this it's not
Speaker 1: something they don't want you to tax people higher or lower.
Speaker 1: That's not what they like. They just want to know
Speaker 1: that the thing works, meaning that there's gonna be enough
Speaker 1: revenue coming in to pay for the costs. That's what
Speaker 1: that's the issue in some cases, as we all saw
Speaker 1: actually during the Trump administration early on, the market actually
Speaker 1: very much liked lower taxes the market and freak out.
Speaker 1: In fact, the market rewarded. Yeah, I want to like
Speaker 1: get into this idea of currency because all of these
Speaker 1: economies are interconnected. And while we have problematic inflation eight nine,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of countries around the world that
Speaker 1: have much larger inflation. Life is relative, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the other I mean, but it's very hard to tell somebody,
Speaker 1: especially somebody who who lives in the United States, that oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we suck worse or we suck less, or less,
Speaker 1: we suck less. I remember having uh do you interview
Speaker 1: with Barney Frank and he said, you can never you
Speaker 1: can never put a bumper sticker that says, you know,
Speaker 1: I suck less vote for me. It's just it doesn't
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. It doesn't work. And so yes, if
Speaker 1: you're a factual human being, you look around and you say, actually,
Speaker 1: we're doing a lot better than everybody else. That's great.
Speaker 1: And then people say, well, but you know, I don't
Speaker 1: see it. So what are you talking about? Why is
Speaker 1: it much worse? I mean, uk Brexit, they sanctioned themselves,
Speaker 1: they made it much harder to trade. But what about
Speaker 1: other countries? Why is it so much worse? And other countries, Well,
Speaker 1: let's be honest. This the situation Ukraine is having a
Speaker 1: real impact on energy costs in Europe, and that's a big,
Speaker 1: big issue. I think the slowdown in China in terms
Speaker 1: of what that economy has experienced is real. Their COVID policy,
Speaker 1: which has basically restricted so many people, has changed the
Speaker 1: dynamic of that economy, hopefully not forever, but at least temporarily.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of extraneous things that are happening here. Plus,
Speaker 1: I think going into this crisis or into this pandemic,
Speaker 1: the US was actually in a very strong place, so
Speaker 1: we had a lot we were falling from a different
Speaker 1: position as opposed to other countries. So now, I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't fall off the floor, right, that's sort of
Speaker 1: the issue, right do you think now? You do you
Speaker 1: think inflation will drive a lot of the vote. It's
Speaker 1: hard to know because we talked about inflation. It's talked
Speaker 1: about obviously on television every day. It's in the headlines
Speaker 1: all the time, and you feel it if you go
Speaker 1: to shop right right, like you see it in the aisle,
Speaker 1: the good news in some ways. You know, for a
Speaker 1: long time, I'm used to say that you go to
Speaker 1: a gas station, it was like there was like a
Speaker 1: billboard up there on every every you know, on the highway,
Speaker 1: it was like this, you could see the inflation just
Speaker 1: running away. That's come down. So I think that billboards
Speaker 1: a little bit less taking up mind share. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean people always vote with their wallet, and the
Speaker 1: question is, you know, what are they actually feeling and seeing,
Speaker 1: and then what are people telling them to feel and see. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: I think during the Obama administration for a very long time,
Speaker 1: you know, the economy is actually doing much better than
Speaker 1: people seem to believe it was. So that's the other component.
Speaker 1: It's like it's not just what you actually feel, it's
Speaker 1: what you like, think you feel right, and that is
Speaker 1: ultimately a big democratic messaging problem, right, Oh, I think
Speaker 1: it's a for the for the Democrats, it's a huge
Speaker 1: messaging problem. If you look at polling, people were polled
Speaker 1: will say Democrats are better on this, this and this,
Speaker 1: and Republicans are better on the economy. So we if
Speaker 1: you look back on all these different presidents, you've seen
Speaker 1: that Republicans tend to increase the dad and Democrats tend
Speaker 1: to be, you know, a little bit more conservative, not always,
Speaker 1: but with the debt, wouldn't that run contrary? It's funny.
Speaker 1: I look, I've seen the same numbers you have in
Speaker 1: over the last forty years, if you were to look
Speaker 1: at most Republican presidencies versus Democratic presidencies. The truth is
Speaker 1: that the economy and the questions are you measuring the economy,
Speaker 1: you measure the stock market, but for the most part
Speaker 1: has done better under Democrats. That has been the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter. But at the same time, I think
Speaker 1: there's other issues at play. Some of it's about regulation
Speaker 1: in certain instances, and then I think you're starting to
Speaker 1: see what happened. I mean, I think this last round
Speaker 1: of stimulus and I'm not talking about the Inflation Production Act,
Speaker 1: though I'm sure people could debate that, But I think
Speaker 1: that people look at sort of how the pandemic played
Speaker 1: out and how much of that money came into effect
Speaker 1: and frankly, how much it was was misspent, and that
Speaker 1: creates a sort of sense of frustration. By the way,
Speaker 1: true of what happened under the Trump administration, also true
Speaker 1: of what happened under the Biden administration. The only distinction
Speaker 1: that you you could make, and maybe you're gonna say
Speaker 1: I'm sounding sympathetic to the Trump administration this instances. In
Speaker 1: the beginning, nobody knew what was actually happening, and nobody
Speaker 1: knew how long this was going on. You know, later
Speaker 1: on we had a better sense of it, and we
Speaker 1: still kept spending that money. And I think there's there's
Speaker 1: a there's a fair debate at least to be had
Speaker 1: about all that. Andrew Ross Sorkin so interesting, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I'm so glad we got to talk about
Speaker 1: this sort of micro macro. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I just want to talk more about Kanye Molly, John Fast,
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, that Vetterman debate, Doctor oz He really um,
Speaker 1: I feel like he said a saying we'll be hearing
Speaker 1: for years to come. Doctor Oz believes abortion should be
Speaker 1: between a woman, her doctors, and local politicians. I want women, doctors,
Speaker 1: local political leaders, letting the democracy that's always allowed our
Speaker 1: nation to thrive, to put the best ideas forward so
Speaker 1: states can decide for themselves. Mr Eights Rights. You know
Speaker 1: those memes like where it's like, aren't you forgetting to
Speaker 1: ask somebody you like? This is gonna be a thing
Speaker 1: people make fun of for years to come. No one
Speaker 1: better on your body than a local Republican elected You
Speaker 1: know what I keep thinking, Remember what everybody was saying,
Speaker 1: his kid paid staff first, must hate him. I really
Speaker 1: feel like every time he showed himself in public, he
Speaker 1: showed that it's probably him making these bad decisions, and
Speaker 1: they're just not able to save him from it. Because
Speaker 1: this guy sucks up every time he's on the camera.
Speaker 1: I would just say, I don't I don't want local
Speaker 1: Republican politicians deciding what happens in my UDREUS sounds like
Speaker 1: a wise, wise thing to want, And I think for
Speaker 1: that local Republican politician, Dr Oz has our moment of fun.
Speaker 1: Ray that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune
Speaker 1: in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best
Speaker 1: minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a
Speaker 1: friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening. MH.