Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molli 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 Russia has offered political asylum to
Speaker 1: Elon Musk Perfect gotta love it. We have such a
Speaker 1: great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Stuart
Speaker 1: Stevens stops by to talk about the Elon and Trump
Speaker 1: breakup and the case for nationalizing SpaceX and Starlink. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to the New Yorkers John Cassidy about his
Speaker 1: book Capitalism and Its Critics, a history from the Industrial
Speaker 1: Revolution to AI.
Speaker 2: But first the news, Mally, I'm going to let you
Speaker 2: and Stewart do the discussion of the girls who are
Speaker 2: fighting between Elon and the Trump and all that surrounds it,
Speaker 2: because we have other fish to fry that got buried
Speaker 2: in the news this week. This one is particularly horrifying.
Speaker 2: You and I were both wretching as we read this
Speaker 2: before this question swirl over who's running the CDC? Not
Speaker 2: a headline you want to read?
Speaker 1: This is not good? Okay. First of all, one of
Speaker 1: the things that's happened in this administration which we should
Speaker 1: all be thinking about, worrying about, and talking about is
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration has given up on running the
Speaker 1: federal government the way it's supposed to be run. And
Speaker 1: the problem is they're disrupting things that we actually need,
Speaker 1: like the CDC. Putting RFK Junior in charge of this
Speaker 1: CDC is basically just giving it up right, and that's
Speaker 1: what we're seeing here. Confusion over shifting Center for Disease
Speaker 1: Control and Prevention COVID nineteen recommendations are reuniting questions in
Speaker 1: the public health community about who's actually running the agency
Speaker 1: and the answer is no one. And that is what
Speaker 1: you should be scared of. This is really scary. We're
Speaker 1: six months into the Trump administration. This health agency is
Speaker 1: who we need to be tracking the avian flu, to
Speaker 1: be following food borne diseases, to making sure that you know,
Speaker 1: studies are being followed, that drugs that our dangerous are
Speaker 1: being kept off the market, that you know there's the
Speaker 1: CDC is a huge organization with a really important job.
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing here is that RFK Junior, who
Speaker 1: said he needed to be in charge of public health, well,
Speaker 1: he is falling down on the job. He faced questions
Speaker 1: about the direction of the agency and is send hearing
Speaker 1: last month, and he really couldn't answer them. He said
Speaker 1: things like couldn't answer questions, didn't understand what was happening.
Speaker 1: So here's something important from the Health and Human Services
Speaker 1: spokesperson said, the chief of staff has been carrying out
Speaker 1: some of the duties of the CDC director as a
Speaker 1: senior official. So you see what's happening here, right, They're
Speaker 1: just not doing what they're supposed to be doing, and
Speaker 1: it's very inefficient and we're going to see this is
Speaker 1: going to be bad. This is like what we're seeing.
Speaker 1: They're going to be wholes that need to be fixed.
Speaker 1: It's not good. And you know that this is it
Speaker 1: relates to our next story. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: get ahead of ourselves, but this is the CDC that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be following the bird flu and preventing another
Speaker 1: once in a lifetime pandemic from catching hold. And now
Speaker 1: let us move on to the next big problem coming
Speaker 1: to us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you said, it's really similar, which is that
Speaker 2: DOSEE fired too many people. They took a chainsaw that
Speaker 2: was really long to this when they should have been
Speaker 2: in with a scalpel. And now we're seeing absolutely horrifying
Speaker 2: issues with this report from the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: So Jesse put this in our schedule to talk about.
Speaker 1: I read it earlier and could not believe what I
Speaker 1: read me And this is a piece. This's a big
Speaker 1: expose in the Washington Post. And basically what they did was,
Speaker 1: at every point they sent these emails and you could see,
Speaker 1: well it was happening, that this was what was going
Speaker 1: to happen. But it is I don't want to say gratifying,
Speaker 1: because all of this is terrible and they're going to
Speaker 1: be huge consequences that none of us can quite game
Speaker 1: out yet. But basically, they offered these resignations to all
Speaker 1: these people, many of whom needed to actually work in
Speaker 1: the federal government. And this is where it is. So
Speaker 1: this piece is really you should definitely read it. It
Speaker 1: explains how at every point they fired people who were necessary,
Speaker 1: then they listed jobs to try to get them to
Speaker 1: come back. A lot of people didn't want to come
Speaker 1: back because now they worry that the federal government is
Speaker 1: not a reasonable place to work anymore.
Speaker 2: Do you mean that essay for the hiring we talked
Speaker 2: about in the last episode. It makes people not want
Speaker 2: to work in an environment like that. I can't imagine
Speaker 2: why they wouldn't want to work with people who did
Speaker 2: a loyalty essay for Trump.
Speaker 1: And it's also I would say, it's like the top
Speaker 1: line is Elon is done with the federal government, but
Speaker 1: the federal government has been just traumatized and injured by Elon.
Speaker 1: And there are so many different parts of the government.
Speaker 1: I mean, so, we just did a story about there's
Speaker 1: no one running the CDC right the Center for Disease Control,
Speaker 1: an extremely important part of the federal government that keeps
Speaker 1: us healthy and safe. Now in this story, there's reporting
Speaker 1: that all these other parts of the State Department, and
Speaker 1: then they tried to rehire the people in the State
Speaker 1: Department and they don't want to come back, and that's
Speaker 1: security overseas. And then you have Trump doing these bands
Speaker 1: from different countries, and you don't have the State Department
Speaker 1: following up on what's happening in those other countries because
Speaker 1: of these bands, and that's going to be really important.
Speaker 1: And then you have in this article it talks about
Speaker 1: how you have people that were fired from all different
Speaker 1: sections like the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Housing
Speaker 1: in Urban Development, the FDA. These are things food and
Speaker 1: drug administration is housing in urban development, that's like housing,
Speaker 1: that's different cities. And then agriculture that's our food safety.
Speaker 1: So there are so many different parts of the federal
Speaker 1: government that have been devastated by the richest man in
Speaker 1: the world who thought it would be cool to pretend
Speaker 1: to work government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nice cosplaying there, Speaking of people whose job qualifications
Speaker 2: seem like cosplay. I would say yesterday was in the
Speaker 2: top ten funnest days on the Internet. But I was
Speaker 2: really really sad that something that would have made the
Speaker 2: day fun no matter what, got buried, which was Howard
Speaker 2: Blunick testifying in front of Congress and showing what an
Speaker 2: absolute unqualified person years to be running anything this high up.
Speaker 3: Let's listen.
Speaker 4: What's the terriffon bananas? Americans, by the way, love bananas.
Speaker 4: We buy billions of them a year.
Speaker 1: I love bananas.
Speaker 4: What's the terriffon bananas?
Speaker 3: The tariffone bananas would be representative of the countries that
Speaker 3: produced and what what's that terraff generally ten percent? Correct?
Speaker 4: Ten percent? Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas
Speaker 4: by eight percent.
Speaker 5: As untrust who deals with us, that will go to
Speaker 5: zero as countries do deals right now.
Speaker 4: American consumer now and on the businesses with the confus Now,
Speaker 4: mister Secretary, I believe you know better. I believe you
Speaker 4: recognize that a trade deficit is not something to fear.
Speaker 4: I believe you know that predictability, stability is essential for businesses.
Speaker 1: I wish you would show that truth to this administration.
Speaker 2: And I yeope, back ladies my mind.
Speaker 5: Mister Tairman, if I make one quick comment to the end,
Speaker 5: that'd be okay. I'm sorry, would you mind if I
Speaker 5: make one quick comment to the representative?
Speaker 3: Please? Uh?
Speaker 6: There is no uncertainty.
Speaker 5: If you build in America and you produce your product
Speaker 5: in America, there will be no task.
Speaker 1: We can't be hung as aling in.
Speaker 3: America and pay no tax. You cannot, very very clear.
Speaker 1: You cannot fighting build that as in America.
Speaker 3: Time with the general Lady has expired.
Speaker 1: Wait, you can't build bananas in America.
Speaker 2: It is so far this discussion of on shoring things.
Speaker 2: What it's like, so many these jobs we don't Americans doing,
Speaker 2: and that was what we worked on for seventy five years.
Speaker 2: And then there's just things that are not able to
Speaker 2: be done in our climate.
Speaker 1: Speak for yourself. I'm building American bananas right here. Baby, No,
Speaker 1: this isn't completely insane. And what you don't see, because
Speaker 1: this is audio and now video, is that he has
Speaker 1: this enormous qrin on his face. That is absolutely it just.
Speaker 2: Is so he thought he killed it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he thinks he killed it. I think that is
Speaker 1: absolutely he thinks he killed it. And my man, he
Speaker 1: did not kill it. It's just very annoying, I mean,
Speaker 1: and also so insane.
Speaker 2: We have more incompetent hires that are totally unqualified for
Speaker 2: their job this time, though it's much more in the
Speaker 2: comical way of that. We have a twenty two year
Speaker 2: old former gardener picked to lead the Terrorism Prevention Department
Speaker 2: of Homeland Security named Thomas Fugate.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, and this is you know, this is
Speaker 1: this story relates to the story about the CDC, relates
Speaker 1: to the story about everything else they are. They're defenestrating
Speaker 1: the federal government, and they're going to be consequences. I
Speaker 1: hope there aren't, but it really seems like they're going
Speaker 1: to be. And it's just such a incredibly insane moment
Speaker 1: in American life and just so fucked up. Excuse my
Speaker 1: fact Stuart Stevens is a legendary campaign manager and the
Speaker 1: author of the Conspiracy to in America Five Ways My
Speaker 1: Old Party is driving our democracy to autocracy. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Stuart Stevens.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Molly. I've got to use this as a
Speaker 5: shout out for your book. It's really extraordinary. It really
Speaker 5: is an amazing piece of writing.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. And you know,
Speaker 1: Stuart is actually really incredible. You are a boot beautiful writer,
Speaker 1: and you write tends not to be political, writing tends
Speaker 1: not to be so lyrical, and you write very lyrically.
Speaker 1: So I really appreciate that from you. And now we
Speaker 1: must talk about your mad cap idea, which I love
Speaker 1: it so much. It's also just super interesting. So talk
Speaker 1: me through this idea.
Speaker 5: The idea of nationalizing Starlink. And yeah, the deeply troubling
Speaker 5: thing about this is that I seem to agree with
Speaker 5: Steve mannon, but I'm trying to get over that. Look,
Speaker 5: I mean this in all seriousness, never if we had
Speaker 5: one person so deeply embedded into essential related national security industries.
Speaker 5: Companies Starlink and SpaceX are critical elements of American national
Speaker 5: security and of America's power in the world. So, I mean,
Speaker 5: if I just woke up in the Middle nine and said,
Speaker 5: what if we had a guy who you know, has
Speaker 5: a well reported, very high level drug problem, unstable obviously
Speaker 5: mental issues, and he's the person that runs these companies,
Speaker 5: he'd probably say that's really not a great idea. There
Speaker 5: is this thing called the Defense Procurement Act, which is
Speaker 5: passed in nineteen fifty. It was actually updated in nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy to specifically include anything related to space, and in
Speaker 5: earlier versions, the first was around World War One they
Speaker 5: came up with It gives the government in times of
Speaker 5: national emergency the power to direct or nationalize industries, and
Speaker 5: it's been used before from the railways to mining and
Speaker 5: various ways with steel companies. So Republicans say that we
Speaker 5: are in a national emergency, they say that we are
Speaker 5: at war. That's what they used to justify the use
Speaker 5: of the Alien Act, and they call it a regular warfare.
Speaker 5: So if I was a Democrat, though now that Steve
Speaker 5: Bannon has supported this idea, maybe you don't have to
Speaker 5: be a Democrat, I.
Speaker 3: Would take you face value.
Speaker 5: Okay, great, right, we're in a national emergency where it
Speaker 5: war that gives the government the power to nationalize SpaceX
Speaker 5: and Starlink.
Speaker 1: So as a conservative, it's a pretty bold idea. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's wrong. But so the theory of the
Speaker 1: case here is that I think Tesla it doesn't. It
Speaker 1: is sort of a rounding error. But there are two
Speaker 1: companies that Elon Muss that has had that our owns
Speaker 1: that are where he is the largest stockholder of SpaceX
Speaker 1: is actually a private company that he has built through
Speaker 1: government subsidies and a lot of incentive advising with taxes,
Speaker 1: and they have made him the richest band in the world.
Speaker 1: And one is Starlink and one is SpaceX and starlink
Speaker 1: is And again this runs to the idea that you
Speaker 1: have a problem, which is you need SpaceX for satellites
Speaker 1: and also space exploration. You need Starlink for all of
Speaker 1: the stuff that's already in space and yeah, the communication.
Speaker 1: And again Trump tweeted yesterday about canceling a lot of
Speaker 1: Elon's contracts. But there is no other company that can
Speaker 1: do this. So we got here because government refused to regulate.
Speaker 1: I mean, explain is how we got here that we
Speaker 1: have one company that does these things.
Speaker 5: It's interesting because wearing my conservative hat. You could make
Speaker 5: a good case that this goes to the efficiency of
Speaker 5: the marketplace. You had a guy who is extraordinarily gifted,
Speaker 5: if deeply disturbed. So had this been set up by
Speaker 5: NASA from the beginning, you would have had security clearances
Speaker 5: that would have include drug testing, and you wouldn't have
Speaker 5: an elone muff anywhere near this thing. So that's positive.
Speaker 5: But now that it is what it is, one person
Speaker 5: should not be allowed to have this power, particularly someone
Speaker 5: who has such terrible judgment, is obviously in some sort
Speaker 5: of manic personal crisis. And we have a perfect example
Speaker 5: of his insertion of himself in world events when he
Speaker 5: refused in twenty twenty two Ukraine, Yeah, of twenty twenty
Speaker 5: two to allow Ukraine, I mean, just picture this. Ukraine
Speaker 5: had set up the first use of one of their
Speaker 5: now sort of famous water drones, these water power drones
Speaker 5: that carry explosives that they've used to somehow for a
Speaker 5: country that didn't have a navy to defeat the Russian navy.
Speaker 5: So they are seventy kilometers away from their target, which
Speaker 5: was the Muskova flagship, and Elon musk turned off the
Speaker 5: starlink and refused to turn it back on. That is
Speaker 5: extremely dangerous, and there is this weird affinity would be
Speaker 5: the most positive way to put it. Of this group
Speaker 5: of South Africans that he is part of. Sex is
Speaker 5: another one. They have this soft spot for Russia, probably
Speaker 5: but no other reason. It's an oligarch's paradise and they
Speaker 5: are oligarchs or would be firing and they have elections
Speaker 5: that are performative, not determinative, which they obviously you know.
Speaker 5: I just I think it should be done. I think
Speaker 5: if you had any sort of seriousness about national security,
Speaker 5: you would step back from this and say, regardless of
Speaker 5: how we got here, we're here and we can't allow
Speaker 5: this to continue.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be hard to convince people
Speaker 1: to do that because I think the public markets aren't
Speaker 1: going to like it. I understand the need for it
Speaker 1: because Elon is very erratic, and he's running these companies
Speaker 1: in a very erratic way, and there are certain things
Speaker 1: that are needed from Starlank and SpaceX that you know,
Speaker 1: his personal peccadillos are hurting right like, there are people
Speaker 1: up in the space station who need to be okay,
Speaker 1: there are people in Alabama or rural Kentucky or you know,
Speaker 1: where they need to make sure the satellites, or Ukraine
Speaker 1: where they need to make sure the satellites are working.
Speaker 1: So there is a need that is beyond what Elon's
Speaker 1: personal piccadillos are. But the worry I think a lot
Speaker 1: of us on the both the left and the right,
Speaker 1: is that once you start taking over private companies, it's
Speaker 1: a very slippery slope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's look, it's been used before.
Speaker 5: It's always been unpopular with those that are connected to
Speaker 5: the companies, right understandable, going back to when they nationalized
Speaker 5: a lot of use of the railroads, uh, going into
Speaker 5: the US entry into World War One. I think it's
Speaker 5: like everything in life, you have to balance the good right,
Speaker 5: And there's really no two companies that are as deeply
Speaker 5: involved in national security.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: This isn't a case of your nationalizing Tesla to get
Speaker 5: FOURD to break or to help Toyota and Tesla, which
Speaker 5: is really the source of most of his wealth. And
Speaker 5: of course, which is one of the reasons they've had
Speaker 5: this extraordinary higher technical fight is Trump wants to cut
Speaker 5: to EV credits and until recently, the only money that
Speaker 5: Tesla made was from EV credits. They were basically an
Speaker 5: ev credit company that also made cars. You take that
Speaker 5: away and the value Tesla's extraordinarily overvalued company.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, for sure it will.
Speaker 5: Go down, but that's fine. I mean, Tesla's not necessary
Speaker 5: to have financial security. I mean, all my neighbors in
Speaker 5: Santa Monica can make do a print wood will survive.
Speaker 5: But there ought to be responsible adults connected with the
Speaker 5: best interest in the United States government that are at
Speaker 5: this point running starlink and running SpaceX.
Speaker 3: Right, pay him a bunch.
Speaker 1: Of money, right by it from them.
Speaker 5: United States government has a lot of money. You don't
Speaker 5: have to just seize it. Pay them a lot of money.
Speaker 3: That's fine.
Speaker 1: So you feel like it's an imminent domain question.
Speaker 3: Exactly like imminent domain.
Speaker 5: That's a very good it's a very good example, and
Speaker 5: we use it, and it's controversial, and those that are
Speaker 5: eminently domained out usually don't worry.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: But I just think that you can't unsee what we've
Speaker 5: seen in the last forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: Right, this is not a person who should be in
Speaker 1: charge of National Saturday.
Speaker 5: I mean you could say, okay, here's a guy. He's
Speaker 5: jumping up and down behind it. You know, President of
Speaker 5: the United States. You look at that footage in the
Speaker 5: Oval Office, and you know, there's not a teenage in
Speaker 5: America that would walk into their home in that kind
Speaker 5: of condition and not know that they're going to be
Speaker 5: busted by their parents. How deeply into drugs do you
Speaker 5: have to be that you can't restrain yourself the morning
Speaker 5: of knowing that you're going to have meeting in the
Speaker 5: Oval Office that's going to be televised. You know, if
Speaker 5: you can't kind of hold it together for that, that
Speaker 5: is a serious indication of a serious problem.
Speaker 1: Right. I mean, we don't want to speculate, but there
Speaker 1: certainly has been reporting in the Wallstreet Journal about a
Speaker 1: box of pills and this and that.
Speaker 5: You also said, did he use this kind of meine? Right,
Speaker 5: and we can now use Donald Trump as a source, right.
Speaker 1: Well, Donald Trump, the two of them did definitely get
Speaker 1: involved in a lot of pretty insane no name calling.
Speaker 1: So right now there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: want Elan and Trump to sort of take it all down, right,
Speaker 1: they are de accelerate, d you know whatever, stop fighting.
Speaker 1: This is a bad situation for people like Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1: This is a bad situation for people like Anna, Paulina
Speaker 1: Luna or any member of the House goop who is
Speaker 1: got to choose between their richest benefactor and their political
Speaker 1: north star. Do you think, and this is something already
Speaker 1: we're seeing this, do you think like this bill could
Speaker 1: get crashed just by Elon? Should Democrats be pushing that
Speaker 1: even if Elon pash the bill is something totally different
Speaker 1: than why Democrats want to crash it.
Speaker 5: I think that what Democrats have to learn to do
Speaker 5: is to use whatever tools they have available and not
Speaker 5: to feel that like this is beneath me or that
Speaker 5: is right. You can't allow yourself to luxury of pretending
Speaker 5: that the greater good is served by acting like a
Speaker 5: normal governing party. Right, as Jonathan last that brilliantly pointed out,
Speaker 5: we don't need opposition party now, we need a dissident movement.
Speaker 5: So this is a terrible bill for any reason. So
Speaker 5: he didn't need Elon, But the degree to which Elon
Speaker 5: can be useful in this, I think they should grasp
Speaker 5: it and beat him over the head with it. And look,
Speaker 5: this is also just we should not lose sight of
Speaker 5: the fact this is terrible for the country.
Speaker 1: Right, no deep off medicaid.
Speaker 5: Today's no, just this fight is terrible country. The bill
Speaker 5: is terrible too, But today's anniversary of D Day. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but think about what America was doing then and what
Speaker 5: the leadership, the sacrifice, and the image that it secured
Speaker 5: for America's place in the world as a flawed but
Speaker 5: instrument of greater good compared to this fight between two
Speaker 5: deeply flawed, horrible human beings who are two of the
Speaker 5: most powerful people in the world. I mean, it's just
Speaker 5: how far are we falling? Publicans are to blame for this.
Speaker 5: They didn't have to tolerate this, and they've allowed it
Speaker 5: to happen.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about what this looks like now.
Speaker 1: So Democrats really could and I think they should think
Speaker 1: about trying to sink this thing with the help of
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, because Keal and Musks people want it gone.
Speaker 1: This bill, if it passes, will kick people off Medicaid,
Speaker 1: it will cut food stamps for poor kids, It will
Speaker 1: just do everything, and it will extend these ridiculous tax cuts.
Speaker 1: And it will also open the door to no tax
Speaker 1: on tips. How that will work, I have no idea
Speaker 1: talk about that.
Speaker 5: Look, I think the Democrats should have a greater ambition
Speaker 5: than just stopping this bill. They should use what's happened
Speaker 5: with Musk as one of the instruments to undo and
Speaker 5: get all these Doze cronies out of government. I mean,
Speaker 5: just stop and think the guy that we have seen
Speaker 5: in the last twenty four hours. Would you trust him
Speaker 5: to hire someone to paint your house?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: And he's what are these people like that he's hired.
Speaker 5: They try to hide, they try to the big balls
Speaker 5: in these crowds. They're going to be weird. They're not
Speaker 5: going to have a sense of any patriotism, and they're dangerous,
Speaker 5: right we are at this moment. I mean, anybody you know,
Speaker 5: I think grusde has made this very good point.
Speaker 3: Oh this is great.
Speaker 5: You got one of these guys has all our personal
Speaker 5: information in his pocket and the other has the nuclear codes. Right, yes,
Speaker 5: well this is really great. So I think it just
Speaker 5: indicates the recklessness and carelessness and lack of any sense
Speaker 5: of responsibility that has driven this entire Doge effort.
Speaker 3: They should try to undo this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's interesting, and in fact, there's really good
Speaker 1: reporting today from the Washington Post about how DOGE has
Speaker 1: fired so many people, and there really is quite They're
Speaker 1: trying to rehire these people that they fired. And I
Speaker 1: do wonder if there is a question now if you could,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it would mean that you would
Speaker 1: need to appeal to John Thoon. You would mean that
Speaker 1: you would need to get Trump back on board to
Speaker 1: try to stop sort of defenestrating the federal government. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. Like remember, part of why DOJE was allowed
Speaker 1: to happen was because the Heritage Foundation really did want
Speaker 1: to unravel the federal government. So there were two different
Speaker 1: polls involved in that.
Speaker 5: Talk to that, yeah, I think also, yes, that's true
Speaker 5: the Heritage Foundation, of course, but there is a hidden
Speaker 5: motive here of someone like Trump and someone like Musk.
Speaker 5: They really don't believe in democracy. They believe in autocracies
Speaker 5: and the sort of great Man theory of history. So
Speaker 5: if you have a government that is working, that is functioning,
Speaker 5: they see that as a reduction of their own ability
Speaker 5: to be historic figures. This whole notion that goes back
Speaker 5: to George Washington, that the president is just holds the
Speaker 5: office temporarily and this is he's a steward of something greater.
Speaker 5: That goes back to the oath of allegiances to the Constitution,
Speaker 5: not to a man that is deeply alien to someone
Speaker 5: like Trump and someone like Musk, and everything is personal
Speaker 5: to him. So this is one of the reasons they're
Speaker 5: so drawn to putin. And it is cruelty, it is ignorance,
Speaker 5: it is a complete inability to imagine how government can
Speaker 5: help others. But it also is a ploy to make
Speaker 5: the need for a strong man essential. I think the
Speaker 5: best fights you get in not because you know you're
Speaker 5: gonna win, but you get in because you have to fight.
Speaker 5: It's true of Ukraine, is true the Battle of Britain.
Speaker 5: That's that is the Democrats should have. I mean, if
Speaker 5: Democrats take over the House, the first thing I would
Speaker 5: do is I would cut off all funding for the
Speaker 5: executive branch every bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, such a good point, Such a good point.
Speaker 5: Don't play this game by different rules, except that this
Speaker 5: is the game that we're in, and use those rules.
Speaker 5: Don't be like we were in World War One when
Speaker 5: hesitant to establish intelligence because gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail.
Speaker 1: No, right, that was the actual sense of Bidenism. Was
Speaker 1: bringing a stuff to animal to a knife fight, was
Speaker 1: refusing to meet these people where they were.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that there's two ways to look at that.
Speaker 5: I think that's what you just said is absolutely true.
Speaker 5: I think also that Biden historically will have to plead
Speaker 5: guilty to having a greater expectation of what America could
Speaker 5: rise to than America chose to rise to.
Speaker 1: That is really true. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: Stuart Stevens.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: You're so smart. John Cassidy is a staff writer at
Speaker 1: The New Yorker and the author of Capitalism and Its Critics,
Speaker 1: A History from the Industrial Revolution to AI. So welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics.
Speaker 6: John, thanks very much for inviting me on.
Speaker 1: I am excited to talk about this book, but I
Speaker 1: just want for a minute to talk about the progression.
Speaker 1: So the last book he wrote was a book about
Speaker 1: how markets fail, and this book is about capitalism and
Speaker 1: perhaps how capitalism may have some failings. Is there a
Speaker 1: connection here between this one and the next.
Speaker 7: I'm recovering the sort of economics and finance. You knows
Speaker 7: since I was in my twenties and I in my
Speaker 7: sixties now, so we're talking nearly forty years. So if
Speaker 7: you cover finance and economics, what makes news is always
Speaker 7: the market failures. My first book about was it was
Speaker 7: about the Internet boom and bust back in the late nineties.
Speaker 7: My second book was really about the financial Christ's great
Speaker 7: financial Crisis of two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 7: two thousand and nine, and the sort of economic failures
Speaker 7: behind that.
Speaker 6: And then I thought, well, I've done the two individual ones.
Speaker 7: Why not go the whole hog and do a book about,
Speaker 7: you know, the sort of full history of capitalism and
Speaker 7: its critics. The pitch for this book is that it's
Speaker 7: not just another boring history of capitalism. It's toiled through
Speaker 7: the eyes of the critics. So I mean I turned
Speaker 7: it into a series of mini biographies going all the
Speaker 7: way back to Adam Smith and the luod Heites up
Speaker 7: until today.
Speaker 1: So it's working great.
Speaker 6: Huh.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean there's always two sided capitalism, right, I mean,
Speaker 7: we generally regarded as better than the alternatives. We tried
Speaker 7: an alternative in the twentieth century state socialism that eventually
Speaker 7: broke down. I mean, capitalism has delivered a massive economic growth.
Speaker 7: I mean, I've got a charge in my book showing
Speaker 7: how if you just look at GDP since the year dot,
Speaker 7: you know, it's basically a flat line until eighteen hundred,
Speaker 7: when industrial capitalism comes on and then it takes off,
Speaker 7: and it's been going up since. So I think the
Speaker 7: reason capitalism survives is because it delivers the gods just
Speaker 7: in terms of economic growth, but it brings with it
Speaker 7: a lot of problems which have been there since, being
Speaker 7: of the system, exploitation of workers and of consumers, inequality,
Speaker 7: especially recent decades, that's been a huge problem. And now
Speaker 7: technological displacement has always been an issue, and now with
Speaker 7: AI it's an even bigger issue.
Speaker 6: So you know, it's a two sided story.
Speaker 7: I'm a sort of I come from a center left,
Speaker 7: so I've always been critical of capitalism and thought it
Speaker 7: can be improved, and I would describe myself as a
Speaker 7: sort of Canesian social democrat. I think you've got to
Speaker 7: keep the basics of the system, but you need to
Speaker 7: manage it. I'm in favor of managed capitalism. That's the
Speaker 7: argument I make in the book. And in sort of
Speaker 7: terms of American politics, I guess you'd put me in
Speaker 7: the sort of Elizabeth Warren Bernie Sanders camp.
Speaker 1: There are many people on this podcast who are in
Speaker 1: that camp too. It feels there is a real bit
Speaker 1: of post free trade hangover happening right now, and we
Speaker 1: saw it again. Biden poor at explaining things for any
Speaker 1: number of reasons. He did. Chips and Sciences was largely
Speaker 1: about entering manufacturing because of Taiwan and because of any
Speaker 1: number of other reasons, Tariff's, Trump whatever. But theoretically the
Speaker 1: thought behind it is entering manufacturing. So can you explain
Speaker 1: to us where this sort of free trade I want
Speaker 1: to say, it's a sort of like free trade regretism
Speaker 1: comes from. That's not a real word.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think you know you have to You
Speaker 7: have to go back into history a bit.
Speaker 6: Well, that's the problem with covering Trump. Everybody gets caught
Speaker 6: up in the day to day headlines. I do it myself.
Speaker 7: I just wrote about his comments about toys. But you
Speaker 7: have to step back a bit here. Trump people attribute
Speaker 7: too much to him. He is a react in a
Speaker 7: part of a react against globalization and what he uses
Speaker 7: neoliberalism basically sort of conservative economic policy from the sort
Speaker 7: of nineties onwards and embrace of sort of unrestricted globalization
Speaker 7: that produced in the US at least a lot of
Speaker 7: a lot of job displacement, especially in Red States. Best
Speaker 7: they joined the China Shock from about when China joined
Speaker 7: the World Trade Organization in two thousand and one. If
Speaker 7: you just look at the charts of manufacturing employment after that,
Speaker 7: they go straight down, and that produce another There's always
Speaker 7: this bigger, big debate about was Trump a product of
Speaker 7: economic resentments or racial and cultural resentments. I think the
Speaker 7: answer obviously is both, but economics definitely played a role.
Speaker 7: So what we've seen since twenty sixteen, anyway, is a
Speaker 7: big backlash against sort of free trade on both sides
Speaker 7: of the aisle. Started off, obviously with Trump and his
Speaker 7: tariffs in the first term, and he run in on
Speaker 7: economic nationalism.
Speaker 6: America First, America First.
Speaker 7: That's basically a catchphrase for economic nationalism. The Democrats up
Speaker 7: until you know, Clinton and Obama were very much in
Speaker 7: favor of free trade. It was obviously Bill Clinton who
Speaker 7: signed then After Agreement back in the nineteen nineties. So
Speaker 7: the party had very much bought into the idea that
Speaker 7: free trade and globalization was best for America, and there
Speaker 7: are some strong arguments for it, but they'd sort of
Speaker 7: ignored and say they ignored the downsides, but they didn't
Speaker 7: do it, so they didn't do enough about them. So
Speaker 7: Trump stepped into the sort of backlash that was building
Speaker 7: and made it his own, you know, in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7: And Biden came in in twenty twenty and some people
Speaker 7: thought he'd get rid of Trump's tariffs, but he did,
Speaker 7: and he kept the way he did. He got rid
Speaker 7: of the stuff on Europe and other things, but he
Speaker 7: kept the tariffs on China and then introduced a very
Speaker 7: aggressive industrial policy which he referred to the Chips Act,
Speaker 7: the Infrastructure Act, and the part of the Green New
Speaker 7: Deal aspects of the It wasn't really a green New Deal,
Speaker 7: but a pro electric vehicles, pro green technology, aspects of
Speaker 7: the American Rescue Act. And it was, you know, a
Speaker 7: big shift for the Democrats to the sort of I
Speaker 7: wouldn't say the Trumpian line, but in a more interventionist,
Speaker 7: anti skepticism of tree trade.
Speaker 6: So that and then at the end of his term.
Speaker 7: Biden, when he was back, I think it was at
Speaker 7: last September or October, he then doubled down on his
Speaker 7: tariffs of China and raised them.
Speaker 6: He remember he raised someone.
Speaker 7: I think he raised the tariffs on electric vehicles Chinese
Speaker 7: electric vehicles two one hundred percent, not as high as
Speaker 7: Trump one hundred and forty five percent, but you know,
Speaker 7: pretty high, more targeted. But you know, no way you
Speaker 7: can describe that as a free trade policy. So I
Speaker 7: think at this stage the sort of abandonment of the
Speaker 7: old globalization model is a bi partisan thing. There are
Speaker 7: few there are people on both sides who are still favorite,
Speaker 7: but the sort of leadership of both parties have rejected
Speaker 7: some extent. Now Trump has come in and taken that
Speaker 7: sort of consensus and then twisted it, you know, tripled
Speaker 7: down on it. I wouldn't say double down on it
Speaker 7: with his blanket tariffs, tariffing countries, you know, tariffing poor countries,
Speaker 7: putting huge tax on countries. Just Trump's not just anti
Speaker 7: sort of unfair trade. Trump's anti all trade. It seems
Speaker 7: like you eliminate all trade deficits, you know, and that
Speaker 7: there's a huge difference between that and trying to just
Speaker 7: target certain industries like Biden.
Speaker 6: But that's where we stand out.
Speaker 7: I don't think we're going back to the old model
Speaker 7: of free trade agreements anytime soon.
Speaker 1: Right, Trump seems to not like any trade. Now, is
Speaker 1: he against trade because he's a racist?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Obviously? I mean I don't think anyone would think even
Speaker 1: he might agree to that, or is he against free
Speaker 1: trade because he doesn't understand how trade deficits work.
Speaker 6: I think he doesn't really understand.
Speaker 7: He doesn't have any real appreciation of sort of free
Speaker 7: trade and the sort of arguments for it. Going back
Speaker 7: to Adam Smith and David Ricardo featuring my book, you know,
Speaker 7: the argument for free trade is if everybody does what
Speaker 7: they're best at, then everybody can benefit the sort of
Speaker 7: gains from trade. And if you know you can bring
Speaker 7: it down to you can bring it down to individuals
Speaker 7: trade every day. I mean the famous example is, you know,
Speaker 7: going for a haircut or something. You could cut your
Speaker 7: own hair. You know, you could be self sufficient in haircuts,
Speaker 7: but it wouldn't be very good. You gain you gain
Speaker 7: from hiring an expert to do it, and you pay them.
Speaker 7: So you run a deficit with your barber or your hairdresser.
Speaker 6: He doesn't he doesn't give you. He or she doesn't
Speaker 6: give you any money, but you give them money. So
Speaker 6: we all run trade differences in our daily lives with
Speaker 6: all the people we deal with. That's what the free
Speaker 6: market is.
Speaker 7: That that's what I could you know, that's the capitalism
Speaker 7: and I exchange you're based on the sort of gains
Speaker 7: from trade among individuals. The argument for a free trade
Speaker 7: among countries is very similar. That if we want to
Speaker 7: buy avocados, it's probably a good idea to hire them
Speaker 7: from Mexico, where they buy them from Mexico, where they
Speaker 7: can make them in bulk more cheaply than we can, and.
Speaker 6: We can call them you know, iPhones or whatever. They
Speaker 6: don't have any and we do.
Speaker 7: So it's a very basic Almost any you know, any
Speaker 7: economist across the spectrum agrees with that. But Trump has
Speaker 7: just got this idea in his mind. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 7: I think if I said I used to cover Trump
Speaker 7: back in the eighties when I worked on the London
Speaker 7: Times as a sort of Wall Street correspondent, and even
Speaker 7: back then he was pretty much the same. I mean,
Speaker 7: there's this famous editorial. You know, used to buy himself
Speaker 7: editorials in the New York Times, full page ads.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: The famous one was the one against The most famous
Speaker 7: and notorious one was when he called for sort of
Speaker 7: death penalty for the.
Speaker 1: Yeah for the Central Park.
Speaker 7: But another one he took out was about imports, and
Speaker 7: at the time, the threat to American jobs and industries
Speaker 7: were seen to come from Japan. Japan was the sort
Speaker 7: of mini China of its time, you know, Toyota, Nissan
Speaker 7: Hondo making roads into American car market, and Trump called
Speaker 7: for basically blanket bands on any imports made very exactly
Speaker 7: in his saying they were basically cheating, they were stealing
Speaker 7: our markets, same as things. He says, now you know
Speaker 7: they were stealing our markets, taking our jobs away, and
Speaker 7: it should be completely banned. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 7: his views have changed in Iota, in you know, forty years.
Speaker 7: It was all there in those editorials.
Speaker 6: And I don't you can't really talk.
Speaker 3: About a bit.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm sure some of his advisors do to
Speaker 7: some to some extent try to when he you know,
Speaker 7: when he says, let's put one hundred tariff on somebody,
Speaker 7: I'm sure somebody says, are we sure about that, mister president,
Speaker 7: But you know, he says, you're iron, and they just
Speaker 7: go ahead. I mean, his argument is, you know, it's
Speaker 7: all for bargaining purposes, but he talks across purposes. One
Speaker 7: day he says, you know, we need it, we need
Speaker 7: the huge tariffs because it'll strengthen our bargaining position and
Speaker 7: they'll come beg in.
Speaker 6: And then we'll greect great pills.
Speaker 7: And then the next day he said, no, we we're
Speaker 7: going to replace the tax system.
Speaker 6: We don't need income tax anymore. We should switch to
Speaker 6: just tariffs will make so much.
Speaker 7: They those two things can't possibly fit together, because you know,
Speaker 7: if it's the bargaining shape, you're bargaining away.
Speaker 6: The idea is to bargain down the tariffs, and then
Speaker 6: you wouldn't know.
Speaker 1: Yes, I would love it if you could sort of
Speaker 1: talk about where we are with the trade, because it
Speaker 1: seems like we are on our way to a trade catastrophe.
Speaker 1: But maybe I'm wrong. We don't have any deals yet.
Speaker 1: From what I understand from the ports, from the information
Speaker 1: on the ports, the ports are seem pretty spare. So
Speaker 1: how does this how does this play out?
Speaker 7: Yeah, we're in a sort of interregnant period of the moment, Molly,
Speaker 7: I think here whereas the policies have been put into effect,
Speaker 7: especially the ones on China, but they haven't really hit
Speaker 7: home yet. Companies order goods in advance, so most of
Speaker 7: the goods they're using at the moment, or most retailers
Speaker 7: are selling, you know, they ordered a year ago or
Speaker 7: six months ago or whatever. So as this sort of
Speaker 7: several month period of several months where Trump's announced these tariffs.
Speaker 7: The hammer won't come down until, you know, the empty
Speaker 7: ships don't arrive. There's already been big reports of the
Speaker 7: famous one was Seattle. There was some day whether we're
Speaker 7: apparently known, you know, no shipping containers in the port.
Speaker 6: But I think that maybe was a bit of a flu.
Speaker 7: And people think that by the end of May is
Speaker 7: start of June and it really will be hitting home
Speaker 7: and the shortages will start to kick in. I mean
Speaker 7: that's what the retailers I think told Trump down at
Speaker 7: the White House, head of you know, Home Depot, Walmart,
Speaker 7: et cetera.
Speaker 6: Were in there.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: Trump came out the next day and you know, said,
Speaker 7: this is not really going to happen. It's going to
Speaker 7: be here. You know, we're going to make deals.
Speaker 6: But now he seems to be changing his turn, and
Speaker 6: he made this argument last week. You know he's done.
Speaker 7: Now he's forced to make arguments that kids don't need all, yes,
Speaker 7: as many pencils, they can have five pencils instead of
Speaker 7: five hundred pencils, which is a remarkable argument for a
Speaker 7: Republican president to make, because arguing against consumerism. For all
Speaker 7: my life, the arguments against mass consumerism have come from
Speaker 7: the left. Now Trump is because he's in this political corner,
Speaker 7: he's forced to sort of make some of those arguments.
Speaker 7: And I wrote a piece facetiously arguing that he's become
Speaker 7: a deep growth, which is in a very left wing position.
Speaker 7: So I think, to get back to your question, if
Speaker 7: he keeps the tariffs where they are now, there will
Speaker 7: be an economic shock, and it will probably not the economy.
Speaker 6: Into recession Wall Street. He's not going to do that.
Speaker 1: Find someone who has faith in you the way the
Speaker 1: public markets have faith in Donald Trump.
Speaker 7: Well they I think, what the you know, the member
Speaker 7: the Liberation Day, you know, when he his tariffs and
Speaker 7: the markets basically collapsed, and when the markets collapsed, and
Speaker 7: especially the bond market went into a tissy, Trump basically caved,
Speaker 7: not basically he did cave.
Speaker 6: You know, it came out.
Speaker 7: He put the you know, he suspended all the ones
Speaker 7: apart from China for ninety days.
Speaker 6: He hinted that, you know, other ones that would be
Speaker 6: coming down too.
Speaker 7: So I think the markets took that as a sign
Speaker 7: that when push comes to show, they.
Speaker 6: Run things, not Trump.
Speaker 7: They've had this remarkable comeback when the markets are basically
Speaker 7: back to where you know, when he was elected. So
Speaker 7: I think the market is maybe be where we're being
Speaker 7: too optimistic because I think it's very difficult to predict Trump.
Speaker 7: He does have this sort of got instinct that what
Speaker 7: he's doing is right, and I think he would be
Speaker 7: a huge climb down for him to get rid of
Speaker 7: all his tariffs. But at the same time, he hates
Speaker 7: the market going down. We know that judges every private
Speaker 7: so he sort of is between a rock and a
Speaker 7: hard place. Really, so I think we'll go We're going
Speaker 7: to end up. He's just sort of more chaos with him,
Speaker 7: you know, sort of bucking down on some things, up
Speaker 7: in the stakes on others.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: We so he announced this threatened this week that he's
Speaker 7: got about a hundred percent tariffs on more in films.
Speaker 1: Yes, those cash cass For a second, what I thought
Speaker 1: was interesting about that chaos was that he was okay
Speaker 1: with the market, the public markets creator but it was
Speaker 1: when the bond market started freaking out. Now what I
Speaker 1: think happened, and again, who the fuck knows, but it's
Speaker 1: possible that someone went in and explained to him dollar flight.
Speaker 1: I am like very interested in dollar flight. I just
Speaker 1: read a really smart piece in The Economist about it.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what dollar flight is and
Speaker 1: why that is not an impossible I think it's unlikely,
Speaker 1: but I think it's not impossible scenario right now.
Speaker 7: Well, it's back up to the Liberation Day fiasco again
Speaker 7: and the market reaction what really spoop people in the
Speaker 7: markets and in the White House and in the FED
Speaker 7: and everywhere.
Speaker 6: Basically the stock.
Speaker 7: Market went down, but the dollar and bonds went down
Speaker 7: to Usually when you have a crisis, money floods into
Speaker 7: the bond market because it's seen as as seen as
Speaker 7: a safe reserve. The US bonds US treasuries. People switch
Speaker 7: out of bonds and they buy US treasuries.
Speaker 6: They do that all over the world.
Speaker 7: So if you're in China or England or Germany or wherever,
Speaker 7: and you're trying to buy US treasures, you have to
Speaker 7: buy dollars first to do it, because you could only
Speaker 7: buy obviously their dollar denominated. So people buy dollars to
Speaker 7: buy treasuries. That boosts the value of the dollar. So
Speaker 7: in a crisis, it's always been a case of almost
Speaker 7: always that the stocks collapse, people freak out. But the
Speaker 7: bond market bounces and the dollar goes up this time,
Speaker 7: but the stock market collapsed, well actually nearly collapsed. It
Speaker 7: went down a lot, but the bond market tanked with it.
Speaker 7: People seem to be fleeing out of bonds and treasuries
Speaker 7: as well the US bonds and buying things like gold
Speaker 7: and other currencies, you know, maybe europe bonds issued in
Speaker 7: Europe or even Japan or wherever. And that seemed to
Speaker 7: especially be happening on the night of the Liberation Day
Speaker 7: in Asia. It seems hedge funds or maybe Asian governments
Speaker 7: or whatever, we're basically dumping dollars. And there are stories
Speaker 7: in the markets which I've been told and not not
Speaker 7: never been completely confirmed that Scott Less and the Treasury
Speaker 7: Secretary was on the phone to hedge funds and foreign
Speaker 7: governments in Asia saying, look, you know, you've got to
Speaker 7: stop this.
Speaker 6: We're going to deal with this crisis.
Speaker 1: Working for Trump Man that it's not a good job.
Speaker 7: So that happened. Then the question is, you know, are
Speaker 7: we still vulnerable. Okay, he's reversed that, you know, he's
Speaker 7: backed off. That could have happened again. I mean, the
Speaker 7: problem is we're in a sort of overall situation in
Speaker 7: which we are vulnerable because we run a huge you know,
Speaker 7: we run a huge budget deficit and have have been
Speaker 7: doing forever, and in order to in order to finance
Speaker 7: that budget deficit, the treasury has to issue bonds, and
Speaker 7: a lot of the buyers of those bonds historically over
Speaker 7: the last decade or two have been foreigners, foreign governments,
Speaker 7: including the Chinese government was famously.
Speaker 1: Well, we are in a basically in a cold war
Speaker 1: with at this point exactly, the unspoken assumption underneath Trump's
Speaker 1: trade war is that we're the big guy on.
Speaker 7: The block where the bully it can really do any
Speaker 7: damage to us. Things are going to get bad, but
Speaker 7: will come out best. Now, the fact that we're dependent
Speaker 7: on foreign financing for the deficit sort of undermines that. So,
Speaker 7: you know, maybe we're not as strong as we think
Speaker 7: we are, or maybe as Trump thinks we are. So
Speaker 7: that's always that's always the sort of tension here. And
Speaker 7: you know, there's always this fear that maybe the Chinese
Speaker 7: will start dumping bonds, maybe other governments will start dumping bonds,
Speaker 7: and that would force you know, could in a crisis,
Speaker 7: cause a collapse in the dollar and a big rise
Speaker 7: in inflation. That's the sort of scenario we's developing countries
Speaker 7: get into all the time, not the United States. I
Speaker 7: think that's what we're so alarming to the markets and
Speaker 7: to a lot of people. During the response to the Liberation,
Speaker 7: Big Pretty Show. That's why they did a YouTube I
Speaker 7: think basically made the same argument to child that I've
Speaker 7: just made to you and said, we haven't ready to
Speaker 7: go most choice, mister President.
Speaker 1: We have to do something, and we can see that again.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, Thank you, John, and we're looking
Speaker 1: forward to finishing the book.
Speaker 6: Thanks very much for having me on.
Speaker 3: No moment.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, Mali junk Fast.
Speaker 2: New Mexico is feeling the wrath of the job course closure.
Speaker 2: More than four hundred employees and students at Albuquerque and
Speaker 2: Roswell campuses are impacted. According to the New Mexico Department
Speaker 2: of Workforce.
Speaker 1: Solutions, this is a moment of our grade that comes
Speaker 1: directly from our friendly or in New Mexico. He just
Speaker 1: sent me this thing. You know, you have this thing
Speaker 1: called job Corpse. It's a small organization that helps people
Speaker 1: get back on their feed. It is really good. It
Speaker 1: trains kids to get jobs. It is like, these are
Speaker 1: the things that we need our federal government to be doing.
Speaker 1: It's not a huge amount of money to keep them going.
Speaker 1: While Trump administration no more, Federal judge Wednesday temporarily block
Speaker 1: job Corpse from closing by the end of the month
Speaker 1: because this is money that Congress appropriated that the Trump
Speaker 1: administration doesn't want to go towards the job Corpse, because
Speaker 1: even though Congress created this and Congress should end it,
Speaker 1: Trump has decided that the rounding error that is the
Speaker 1: money to help these kids is not okay with him,
Speaker 1: very very very annoying, upsetting, and also just unconstitutional. And that,
Speaker 1: my friends, is our moment of fuck ray. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
Speaker 1: make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, asked,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.