Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and former President Jimmy Carter has entered
Speaker 1: hospice care. We have a great show Today, Legendary consumer
Speaker 1: advocate and activist Aaron Brockovich talks about the Ohio trained
Speaker 1: derailment and how it should be handled. Then we'll talk
Speaker 1: to Adam Fresh, who lost to Lauren Boebert by five
Speaker 1: hundred and forty six votes and has just announced he'll
Speaker 1: be running against her in But first we have legendary
Speaker 1: campaign manager the Lincoln Projects Stewart Stevens. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Stewart Stevens, thanks for asking me to the party. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We are very discerning here and I have to say
Speaker 1: I love your writing. I really think you're such a
Speaker 1: talented writer, which you know, I don't think that about everybody. Welcome.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about Nicki Haley and
Speaker 1: the future of the Republican Party. So this is going
Speaker 1: to be depressing depressing. Well now, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: but I'm not. I'm all sold out of the Hope Store. Right.
Speaker 1: They're not going to ever nominate someone who's not an
Speaker 1: authoritarian because the party has taken an authoritarian tact. Simple
Speaker 1: test of that is, will the Republican Party nominate someone
Speaker 1: who will assert positively that the President United States was
Speaker 1: elected in a legal, in fair election. That seems like
Speaker 1: a pretty low bar. And I can't imagine that's not
Speaker 1: the official position of the Republican Party, which I think
Speaker 1: it's just sort of a sign of how normalization has changed.
Speaker 1: But the Republican Party's official position now is that America
Speaker 1: is not a democracy because if we don't have a legal,
Speaker 1: infair elected president, then we have an occupier, which for
Speaker 1: not a democracy. Yeah. I think that that's where we are, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where we all. I mean, people are not focused
Speaker 1: on this. There's sort of a need, I think, which
Speaker 1: historical the teams to always happen when democracy side and
Speaker 1: deutocracy for the folks on the democracy side, which is
Speaker 1: a majority, to want to pretend that everything's okay and normal.
Speaker 1: But election, I can't imagine that they're going to nominate
Speaker 1: somebody who will say that Donald Trump lost. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so you're gonna have, for the first time, not an
Speaker 1: election between two parties with different political views. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have one party to believe that they are in a
Speaker 1: democracy and one party that believes this campaign is about
Speaker 1: removing and a legal occupant of the White House right.
Speaker 1: I wrote this piece earlier last week about how to
Speaker 1: Santis is an Autocrat just like Trump, and how he's
Speaker 1: basically the same but much better at it. So right,
Speaker 1: because we've seen him do it in Florida and they're
Speaker 1: so mad and they're like everyone, we don't you don't
Speaker 1: like as Hitler. But the truth is, that's not what
Speaker 1: it is. It really is the reason why he's so
Speaker 1: popular in the Republican Party is because he is. He
Speaker 1: is doing all of these things from the autocrap play bomb.
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating to watch what Ron de Santus
Speaker 1: is doing and Donald Trump's doing that. Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: out there saying don't cut Medicare and social Security. Ron
Speaker 1: de Santus is saying all this crazy stuff aimed at
Speaker 1: a Republican primary audience. Boup breaks are going to win
Speaker 1: a primary. Donald Trump, he's already running in the general. Listen.
Speaker 1: I am a great advocate, and I may take to
Speaker 1: walking up and down in a sandwich board of this
Speaker 1: that the Democratic Party should aggressively engage and seek out
Speaker 1: cultural awards because they're winning them. Think about your average
Speaker 1: suburban family or a fam whatever, we're that mythical family. Right.
Speaker 1: How many people move so they can send their kids
Speaker 1: to better schools? Millions? How many script and safe so
Speaker 1: that they can pay for their kids to go to
Speaker 1: a private school so that they can study AP And
Speaker 1: he's banning a p I think that is absolutely insane.
Speaker 1: So look, how do than how how do all these
Speaker 1: cultural wars of late gone for the Republicans? So how
Speaker 1: did the Donald Trump versus Nike Colin Kaepernack workout? Well,
Speaker 1: Nike may nine billion, nine billion off of Colic Kaepernack
Speaker 1: to retire. You live in Florida. You know how the
Speaker 1: cultural war? You know when they were mad at Nascar
Speaker 1: because they banned the Confederate flag. Well, I think Nascar
Speaker 1: won that one. They were in the cultural war with
Speaker 1: Walmart for a while because Walmart at mass mandates, right,
Speaker 1: Walmart seems to be doing okay to me. I don't know.
Speaker 1: They lost the cultural war on same sex marriage, lost
Speaker 1: the cultural war abortion. I mean, they lost the cultural war,
Speaker 1: but you can't get an abortion and huge swaps of
Speaker 1: this country. Yeah, I think they won at the action
Speaker 1: level if it were, but there are more people today
Speaker 1: consider themselves pro choice for higher percentages and everfore in America,
Speaker 1: right right, right, that is certainly true. I knew once
Speaker 1: people saw how bad this is going to be that
Speaker 1: there would be blowback and you I mean, look, the
Speaker 1: I mean the thing about abortion, which I think is incredible,
Speaker 1: is that you have all these women who were not
Speaker 1: pro choice and they now have had miscarriages and they
Speaker 1: can't get treated. Yeah. I just woke up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night and said, look, what about a
Speaker 1: politician that gets in a fight with the Happiness Company?
Speaker 1: How's that working out? Be fighting Peter Pan I mean, really,
Speaker 1: you're going to get in a fight with Disney, So like,
Speaker 1: who won that fight? I kind of remember, like the
Speaker 1: guy who won the Super Bowl went to Disney the
Speaker 1: next day. They didn't go to Tallahassee to see iron
Speaker 1: It is a complete losing argument and they're doing it.
Speaker 1: It's all aimed at white people. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's all about race. That's because you know Trump's coalition
Speaker 1: was white. The country's sixty white, sixty Deoman. Now you
Speaker 1: count it, you know, since we're talking it's less white,
Speaker 1: we're headed to become a majority of an already country.
Speaker 1: Republicans can't do anything about except try to change your votes,
Speaker 1: and that's what they're about. It does feel like this
Speaker 1: is the last bastion of a kind of rage, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think the Santus. This is a
Speaker 1: guy with the HARVARDEO and talk what a Darlington's right.
Speaker 1: I mean, give me a break. It's just he doesn't
Speaker 1: believe any of this stuff, all right, the same as
Speaker 1: Nicki Haley. She believed Donald Trump as a person she
Speaker 1: said he was in two thousand and sixteen when she
Speaker 1: stood out there with Mark Rubio. I think they just
Speaker 1: they all collapsed. I don't think the Santis is a
Speaker 1: particularly good politician. I mean, look, I did all of
Speaker 1: Charlie Chris. Charlie Chris is a guy he ran against
Speaker 1: last time. I did all of Charlie's races when he
Speaker 1: was a Republican running statewide, which he wants. So I
Speaker 1: did all Charlie Chris winning statewide races. So switchers have
Speaker 1: a terrible time. They do better if they've become independent.
Speaker 1: So like in Connecticut, you've had people who are Democrats
Speaker 1: became independent. Yeah, his name shall not be mentioned on
Speaker 1: this podcast The Enemy, But yes, yes, you don't have
Speaker 1: many examples of someone who was governor in one party
Speaker 1: switching and getting re elected in another party. I don't
Speaker 1: know a single example that's been successful. Buddy Rohmer tried
Speaker 1: in Louisiana. We do research on I I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's ever worked. I wouldn't think it's a great
Speaker 1: indicator that. I mean no offense to him, but he's
Speaker 1: not an amazing candidate, at least now. But the point
Speaker 1: is that you don't have to. I won't make you
Speaker 1: weigh in on that. But he did still eviscerate the
Speaker 1: Santis in the debate. He lost the debate to Charlie Crith,
Speaker 1: which is not like losing a pickup game with Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's right, it's like losing a pickup game with me.
Speaker 1: So I think he has no idea what he's in for. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: if I was, you know, God forbid, But if I
Speaker 1: was advising around the Santis, I would tell him not
Speaker 1: to run because Donald Trump is going to run, and
Speaker 1: one of two things is gonna happen. He's gonna win
Speaker 1: or he's gonna lose. If he wins, hopefully he'll only
Speaker 1: serve four years, and then Ronde Santis would be you
Speaker 1: know the ripple age of forty eight, all right, he's
Speaker 1: so young the time. And then if he loses, your
Speaker 1: your wealth positioned. Look, if somebody beats Donald Trump in
Speaker 1: the primary, the next day, Donald Trump is gonna wake
Speaker 1: up and the mission in his life seven will be
Speaker 1: to stop that person from getting elected president, whatever it takes.
Speaker 1: And it's in his power completely, Yes, yes, yes, get
Speaker 1: d Jr. On the ballot in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.
Speaker 1: It's over. He gets carried. Like to run in Arizona,
Speaker 1: it's over. Margiotta run in Pennsylvania, it's over. So to
Speaker 1: lose the primary to Donald Trump, and to be that
Speaker 1: primary be worth something. You have to exist in the
Speaker 1: fantasy that Donald Trump will behave like a normative politician,
Speaker 1: which I like my chances in the next NFL draft better.
Speaker 1: It's just not go that. Yeah, all of which I
Speaker 1: think is good news for Democrats. No, I think so too.
Speaker 1: The thing is, it's one of these terrible, dangerous games
Speaker 1: right where we find ourselves. Two things can be true.
Speaker 1: These things can be good for Democrats but bad for democracy.
Speaker 1: So I always have I always find myself like a
Speaker 1: little bit conflicted because you know, yes, I want Democrats
Speaker 1: to win, but I would rather just have a normal,
Speaker 1: safe system where we don't like slide into an autocracy. Listen,
Speaker 1: you know I worked on five presidential campaigns for winning
Speaker 1: nominations or two generals that we want, Like in the
Speaker 1: Romney campaign, you know, we wanted to win with intensity,
Speaker 1: with thousand sons. Right. I didn't go to bed at
Speaker 1: night after Romney lost worried about the country, right, R
Speaker 1: didn't the Romney Right. I think that's the thing about
Speaker 1: this Nicki Haley nomination, not nomination, but her jumping into
Speaker 1: the promary field is like she's like a charming throwback
Speaker 1: to the time when Republicans ran on like you know, ideas. Well.
Speaker 1: I find so kind of sad a lot of things
Speaker 1: about Niki Hilley, but if you look at that video,
Speaker 1: listen to what she's saying, it's like it will be forever,
Speaker 1: like like, oh, wouldn't it be amazing to have a woman, Well,
Speaker 1: we have a woman vice president. Wouldn't it be amazing
Speaker 1: if someone of you know, Indian or South Asian origin
Speaker 1: was elected to high office. Yeah, what we have one, right, President.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so kind of yesterday. There's nothing she's
Speaker 1: saying in a policy sense that any politician and the
Speaker 1: Republican Party couldn't have said for the last thirty five years,
Speaker 1: forty years, no new policy there, there's no I've got
Speaker 1: a plan, you know, here's an idea, um, there's nothing.
Speaker 1: And this is the problem with Republicans have there there
Speaker 1: is Ultimately the failure to attract non white votes is
Speaker 1: a failure of policy, right, all right, no question, it's
Speaker 1: so embarrassing to remember. But so as an hour he
Speaker 1: gets forty four percent of the black vote and fifty
Speaker 1: six didn't drop to seven percent with gold Water. It
Speaker 1: never came back, and there was this while Molly and
Speaker 1: I'm just so ashamed to admit this, but in the
Speaker 1: you know, when I was Republican consultant, they're doing races.
Speaker 1: In the late eighties and the nineties, Republican Party decided
Speaker 1: that the reason we weren't getting many black votes is
Speaker 1: that black voters just didn't understand what we were saying
Speaker 1: because we didn't know how to talk to black voters, right,
Speaker 1: so it sponsored this sort of cottage industry of Republican
Speaker 1: Party hiring black consultants to come down and talk to,
Speaker 1: you know, predominantly white candidates and campaign to tell how
Speaker 1: to talk to black people. It's pretty bad, and we
Speaker 1: would all sit there. It's so humiliar. Do you think about, Well,
Speaker 1: it's also like you could just have run black people
Speaker 1: and hired black people and talk to black people. But yeah,
Speaker 1: well actually that you know, we should talk about that.
Speaker 1: But you know, they say things like you can't talk
Speaker 1: about good jobs, you have to talk about meeting jobs,
Speaker 1: and we were all not And the problem wasn't that
Speaker 1: black people didn't understand Republicans. The problem was Republicans. They
Speaker 1: didn't understand them exactly what they were saying. It was
Speaker 1: the failure of policy anyway. And when you look at
Speaker 1: black Republicans who run, they don't do better with black
Speaker 1: than non black Republicans than white Republicans, which is kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. I want to ask you about this Fox
Speaker 1: News defamation dominion suit because last night there was a
Speaker 1: sort of incredible Was that a leaks document or was
Speaker 1: it just the court finally? I think the court finally
Speaker 1: put out the document, but it was you know, it
Speaker 1: includes included text messages from Fox News host to each other.
Speaker 1: It included basically the I think the top line is
Speaker 1: Fox New and did it anyway? Of course they knew,
Speaker 1: but I mean we now know they knew, like the right, right,
Speaker 1: It's hold another conversation. But you know, when democracies slot
Speaker 1: into autocracy, there has to be five elements. There has
Speaker 1: to be financiers, there has to be supportive a major party,
Speaker 1: there has to be shock troops, there has to be
Speaker 1: a legal system that is evolving to justify it. And
Speaker 1: there have to be propagandists right right, right, So we
Speaker 1: have evolved with people are propaganders. Yeah, and look, I
Speaker 1: I would deport Rupert Murdoch, right. I hesitate to get
Speaker 1: involved in stuff like that, but I do understand it
Speaker 1: does seem to me like the man is doing quite
Speaker 1: a bit of damage to our country. Yeah. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: impact of Fox News is much greater than its audience.
Speaker 1: It is more the web of what used to be
Speaker 1: conserned I now anti democratic elements. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: true statement that at its most popular, Fox News was
Speaker 1: much less popular than Storage Wars, right right, a statistical fact.
Speaker 1: So it's was just like three times. It's popular. It's
Speaker 1: not the number of people, but it is the ability
Speaker 1: that it has. In part, what Fox has done is
Speaker 1: normalized the really they're out there is the normal people
Speaker 1: and the really crazies of the Bannings and the other people,
Speaker 1: which always happens. Um But yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I hope Dominion bankrupts them all individually and collectively. I
Speaker 1: have no mercy for any of them. Every person that
Speaker 1: works at Fox News is getting paid off of money
Speaker 1: Tucker Carson makes. So you want to get your salary
Speaker 1: from a white supremacist, that's fun. Maybe you could go
Speaker 1: apply to KKK because it's the same goddamn thing. I
Speaker 1: have zero sympathy for any of those people. Where do
Speaker 1: you think this goes? Now? With this primary? Haley is in,
Speaker 1: Trump is in. I think it's gonna be two thousand fifteen.
Speaker 1: I think a bunch of people are gonna run. A
Speaker 1: lot of people run for president who previously would have
Speaker 1: gone on book tours, and it has the same function.
Speaker 1: I think a bunch of people are gonna run, and
Speaker 1: I think Donald Trump is going to be the nominee.
Speaker 1: I mean, the one thing if you go back and
Speaker 1: you look at two thousand fifteen two thousand and sixteen debates.
Speaker 1: The only person who was the same right he kills
Speaker 1: people in the debate. The only person who was the
Speaker 1: same person when they walked on stage for the first
Speaker 1: debate and when he walked off stage at the last
Speaker 1: debate was Donald Trump. I've done five of these are
Speaker 1: poking domities and all these debate prips. And the only
Speaker 1: way to take on a candidate like Donald Trump, if
Speaker 1: you're Nikki Hayley or anyone, if you're trying to win,
Speaker 1: you have to make the decision one of us is
Speaker 1: going to walk off that stage alive, and you have
Speaker 1: to be willing to say that's not gonna be me.
Speaker 1: But you have to go out there with that. You
Speaker 1: can't have any other mentality than I am going to
Speaker 1: kill Donald Trump's political chances, and probably you won't, but
Speaker 1: that is the only way you have any chance of winning.
Speaker 1: There are people who were waiting for Donald Trump. If
Speaker 1: you first started to wait while Donald Trump to self destruct,
Speaker 1: your kids are now in the third grade. It ain't
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Baby. I don't think that she'll do that.
Speaker 1: She didn't have the courage to mention Donald Trump's name.
Speaker 1: So you know who else is going to run? I
Speaker 1: think all these people are. I think John Bolton will
Speaker 1: probably run. But you know there is no I mean,
Speaker 1: Larry Hogan may run. That Look, Larry Hogan was a
Speaker 1: client amount. You know there is this other Republican party
Speaker 1: out there of these governors Skill Scott, Larry Hogan Maryland,
Speaker 1: Charlie Baker Massachusetts. I work for all those guys. I
Speaker 1: love those guys. If the party und any sense, they
Speaker 1: look at them and go, they're selling our product in
Speaker 1: the harvest market. If we could carry these states and
Speaker 1: the presidents will run the world instead. These people can't
Speaker 1: even pick your own state party chairman. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of are at the party. So I would love to
Speaker 1: say that Larry Hogan, you know, can run and there
Speaker 1: is a enough of the Republican Party that he can
Speaker 1: win a nomination. But in a party that that drew
Speaker 1: this chain. Yeah, Stewart Stevens, I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back, all right, Be careful. I'm
Speaker 1: like that uncle like nanksgiving dinner. You know, if you
Speaker 1: invite me, I come. So Aaron Brockovich is a consumer
Speaker 1: advocate and activist. Welcome to Fast Politics, Aaron Brockovich. I
Speaker 1: am so happy to be here. Thanks for having me on. Well,
Speaker 1: we're delighted. I mean, this is not a happy he gets.
Speaker 1: I guess you're used to not being called when the
Speaker 1: happy stories. Can you explain to our listeners a little
Speaker 1: bit about what is going on in Ohio? I'll do
Speaker 1: my best because I've watched this unfold into one of
Speaker 1: the most mismanaged, confused environmental disasters I've ever seen. So yeah,
Speaker 1: to back up February three, Norfolk how To train that
Speaker 1: derailed near Palestine, Ohio. This rail car was carrying twenty
Speaker 1: rail cars full of liquid hazardous waste as matt materials,
Speaker 1: and it caught fire and then derailed. And my understanding
Speaker 1: is that that they were concerned it was going to explode,
Speaker 1: which would have really been bad, and so they set
Speaker 1: out to do a controlled burn, if you will, and slowly,
Speaker 1: you know, like released the chemicals, and at that point,
Speaker 1: you know, a huge black, toxic cloud was released, and
Speaker 1: at this moment, everybody's going, what is going on? So
Speaker 1: they were put into a mandatory evacuation. And if you
Speaker 1: couldn't evacuate or didn't want to, evacuate. You had the
Speaker 1: shelter in place, and this was about a mild containment zone.
Speaker 1: There was several days went on with that, and the
Speaker 1: state e p A Norfolk, who had been supposedly doing
Speaker 1: the testing and controlling the burn, said everything was safe
Speaker 1: and you could come back home. So as people go
Speaker 1: back home, several more days passed, and then the governor
Speaker 1: a couple of three or four days ago, announces, well,
Speaker 1: you're safe to go home, but don't drink the water.
Speaker 1: If I were you, I drink bottled water. And the
Speaker 1: next day suddenly the testing has changed and oh it's
Speaker 1: safe to drink the water. So this community has been
Speaker 1: reaching out to me since actually figru Way fourth, and
Speaker 1: they are so frustrated. They are scared. They know something
Speaker 1: dangerous has happened. They have had all kinds of reports
Speaker 1: of you know, the nausea headaches, that labored breathing, the
Speaker 1: blue lips, the feeling that their throat is going to
Speaker 1: close off. Their cat died, their chickens have died, their
Speaker 1: foxes die, Holy sh it, it's killing pets. Yes, videotapes
Speaker 1: coming in and I believe they now confirmed twelve different
Speaker 1: species of fish to the tunes of thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands and thousands and died in the creeks and
Speaker 1: the rivers. So something's going on and getting any kind
Speaker 1: of answer other than this, well it's safe to return.
Speaker 1: People don't know what's happening, and at this moment they're
Speaker 1: becoming unbelievably concerned about what their future health holds and
Speaker 1: who can they trust on Is the soil safe, is
Speaker 1: the water safe? And there's three chemicals of concern. The
Speaker 1: first one is vinyl chloride, and vinyl chloride is a liquid,
Speaker 1: and when it's you know, on fire and exposed to
Speaker 1: air and heat, it becomes a very dangerous gas. That
Speaker 1: might be why animals were just dyeing. And they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: that's all clear now. And then there's another one that's
Speaker 1: pronounced beautifl, beautifl a krylling, And they have confirmed that
Speaker 1: that chemical has now left the containment zone and they're
Speaker 1: finding it and they're saying lower levels. Mind you, nobody's
Speaker 1: ever really seen in the actual physical hard test results
Speaker 1: what they're looking for and what detection limit they're at,
Speaker 1: and is that parts pervilion parts pervilion parts for trillion.
Speaker 1: Nobody's seen that, but this chemical has now gone out
Speaker 1: of the containment zone into the creeks. And what worries
Speaker 1: me about this chemical and people wouldn't know unless you
Speaker 1: review the m s DS sheet. It has an additive
Speaker 1: as an ingredient, and that additive is ben zene. Can
Speaker 1: you explain to our listeners what benzine is and why
Speaker 1: that is scary? Ben Zine is clearly known cancer causing compounds.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're the links with leukemia and cancer is
Speaker 1: very very well established, and it is very detrimental to
Speaker 1: the ecosystem. And it doesn't absorber evaporate in water. And
Speaker 1: I've heard that they're now putting booms out because the
Speaker 1: way this area is designed, these creeks and rivers, these
Speaker 1: tributaries run right into the Ohio River. We all know
Speaker 1: the importance of the Ohio River down in the Mississippi
Speaker 1: down to Louisiana, and if you get bituzine in those waterways,
Speaker 1: it's a ginormous ecological and health impact potentially for for decades.
Speaker 1: So what we're dealing with right now is we obviously
Speaker 1: from common sense can tell you something's going really wrong.
Speaker 1: And uh, I just have this horrible feeling that somebody's
Speaker 1: not disclosing what's really going on, or thinking this will pass,
Speaker 1: people will forget about it, will be out of the
Speaker 1: woods on it. And now we're just kind of watching
Speaker 1: in real time a real ship show happening. I don't
Speaker 1: know how else to say it, unfolding in front of
Speaker 1: all of us, with mishaps and mistruths and lack of
Speaker 1: information and nothing but total confusion, and a population a
Speaker 1: small village East Palestine, Ohio of about people, but neighboring
Speaker 1: communities spreading out from there are all having health implications,
Speaker 1: and nobody can seem to get any answers. I was curious.
Speaker 1: Mike DeWine, who was known as a sort of less
Speaker 1: terrible Republican governor than the average, did a press conference
Speaker 1: where he talked about the possibility that he had sort
Speaker 1: of not talked to Pete Buddha dig that he hadn't
Speaker 1: called him back, and that he had called and said
Speaker 1: anything you need, but that he had said he hadn't
Speaker 1: called him back yet. Besides the fact that the idea
Speaker 1: that this should be handled on local level when it's
Speaker 1: clearly going to be have large federal implications seems ridiculous,
Speaker 1: but I'm just curious, if you were governor of Ohio,
Speaker 1: what would you need. Okay, we've got a train derailment
Speaker 1: and you got hazardous chemicals. I definitely want to know
Speaker 1: about those hazardous chemicals. Secondly, I would definitely be who's
Speaker 1: doing the controlled burn? Is it going to be the
Speaker 1: stated p A. Is it going to be Norfolk. I
Speaker 1: would be getting in every expert I could to begin
Speaker 1: to question them on what actions to take. And then
Speaker 1: the next thing I would do is, as he did,
Speaker 1: you need to have an established an evacuation zone to
Speaker 1: get people out of harm's way, right, But once they're
Speaker 1: out of harm's way, and once you think that this
Speaker 1: is under control, I would want to see and understand
Speaker 1: every test result regarding the air, the soil, and the
Speaker 1: water before I ever deemed it's safe. And I would
Speaker 1: have had a press conference and said, I know you
Speaker 1: do not want to be evacuated, but I do not
Speaker 1: have all the answers. My questions aren't being answered. I
Speaker 1: do not have the personal assurance yet that satisfies me
Speaker 1: this area is safe, so please bear with us. This
Speaker 1: information can take a while, but to air on the
Speaker 1: side of caution before I jeopardize public health and welfare
Speaker 1: with continual reports coming into dead animals. I better have
Speaker 1: every fact in hand, and if I don't know, at
Speaker 1: least let the people know. I don't know. These leaders
Speaker 1: think because you're this leader, you're supposed to know everything.
Speaker 1: And for me that some of the best leaders are
Speaker 1: the ones that say, well, hell have I know, But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find out because that is my job to
Speaker 1: be your your elected official, in your leader, and I'm
Speaker 1: not letting you back into an area until I'm certain
Speaker 1: it's safe. And I'm not sure he had all that information.
Speaker 1: And I feel that way because there's very inconsistent messaging
Speaker 1: coming from him that I think he's being fed from others,
Speaker 1: which is indicating to me he in fact doesn't know,
Speaker 1: and he might be being fed from the train company
Speaker 1: or people who have a vested interest in this going away.
Speaker 1: Oh well, that I've seen way too often. I've dealt
Speaker 1: with that out here in California with Pacific Gas and Electric,
Speaker 1: and my gosh, boy, when they do something wrong and
Speaker 1: you get involved in any kind of litigation or media
Speaker 1: or trying to reach out to pr groups that can
Speaker 1: help manage all the inquiries and stuff, they practically own
Speaker 1: every one of them in the state. So somehow somebody
Speaker 1: gets into somebody's pocket, and I would expect that could
Speaker 1: be very plausible in this scenario. And you know, I know,
Speaker 1: speaking of you know, Pete Buddha Judge, Department Secretary Transportation.
Speaker 1: Trains are federal and there's this is a conversation that's
Speaker 1: going to have to be had. But my focus is
Speaker 1: always the people and this community and a train derailment
Speaker 1: and some verry hazardous chemicals. They're gonna get caught up
Speaker 1: in the political bs, which I think is the biggest
Speaker 1: travesty of all. But we have infrastructure issues. We have
Speaker 1: maintenance issues on our rail system. And when we have
Speaker 1: a rail system that is transporting hazardous chemicals, and by
Speaker 1: the way, we have another big spill in Louisiana in
Speaker 1: November that the Department of Transportation doesn't come in and
Speaker 1: go work. We need what the hell is going on
Speaker 1: and where is infrastructure money If that's part of the problem,
Speaker 1: or is a company cutting corners that's now jeopardizing the
Speaker 1: entire ecosystem and public health and welfare, I think you
Speaker 1: better step in there so that conversation will be had
Speaker 1: regarding that the conversation is there about our failing infrastructures.
Speaker 1: I think we're all aware of that. But what I
Speaker 1: don't want to get lost in this is the community
Speaker 1: and people in these agencies. You know, well, okay, they're
Speaker 1: once you have a little sore throat, so you threw
Speaker 1: up dismissive of what it is that's actually happening to them.
Speaker 1: But also, this is a job for the e p
Speaker 1: A here right, ideas I've read that the U S.
Speaker 1: E p A was going to be down there today.
Speaker 1: Did I see that? I know the stated p has
Speaker 1: been out there and was out there. Um wow, I
Speaker 1: would have been there. Well what is today the fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen that's happened on the ward? So there seems to
Speaker 1: be tensions between federal and state at this point. We're
Speaker 1: just definitely not getting the actual transparent information. I know
Speaker 1: you know that Dwine says it's all safe. He's done
Speaker 1: the test, show show me, show us, show us, show us,
Speaker 1: put that out, put that out there on a website
Speaker 1: so people could come in. It's it's like the like
Speaker 1: we were discussing with the Beautle of Act. We all know,
Speaker 1: you know, you may have something on the market shelf.
Speaker 1: That's questionable, but sometimes the sister chemicals or the additives
Speaker 1: can be worse than the actual chemical. And that's what's
Speaker 1: happening here, that we've got an additive of ben zine?
Speaker 1: Are you even looking for it? Are you thinking we're
Speaker 1: also stupid that we won't know that and you could
Speaker 1: get away with something. So that's why I think it's
Speaker 1: important any testing you're all needs to be in a
Speaker 1: format where we can go see were those that might
Speaker 1: have a question a legitimate one and I won't put
Speaker 1: it out there because you're probably gonna catch them at something.
Speaker 1: Why are you not looking for this? And that's a
Speaker 1: detection limit that means it's off site, so we haven't
Speaker 1: had the ability to do that, and that's adding to
Speaker 1: the frustration of this situation. Yeah, it sounds like it.
Speaker 1: I also just wonder like the narratives around it seemed
Speaker 1: really destructive to write, like the right has said that
Speaker 1: it's white genocide, which I mean, I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of bad stuff has gone down, but I don't
Speaker 1: think that this was intentionally focused on that. No, unless
Speaker 1: we're talking about by DuPont, any chemical contamination, whether it
Speaker 1: was a mistake or somebody wants to think it was deliberate.
Speaker 1: These chemicals recognize no boarders right, no no economic status,
Speaker 1: no race really true. What should people who are listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast do to support their people? At this point,
Speaker 1: they could probably clearly see that they can't assume or
Speaker 1: take it for granted or necessarily by you know, the
Speaker 1: line that all is safe, especially when they're questioning it.
Speaker 1: So what you have to do is trust your own instincts.
Speaker 1: In these communities, I've learned, nobody knows the land, the water,
Speaker 1: the creeks, the animals, or how they feel better than
Speaker 1: themselves in the community. So instead of hoping and waiting
Speaker 1: for someone to give you the answers, you be the eyes.
Speaker 1: You be the ears, You are the one experiencing it,
Speaker 1: and believe you don't need anybody to verify for you,
Speaker 1: right what it is you're experiencing it. You on that
Speaker 1: document what's happening, journal your health, if you're down out
Speaker 1: in the creeks and you're seeing the fish debt, We've
Speaker 1: got a great boone that we can all use and
Speaker 1: put it out there on social media that can be
Speaker 1: helpful because seeing is believing what is going on and
Speaker 1: start protecting yourself. Ask questions about the water. If your
Speaker 1: water looks funny, or you've noticed the smell of change,
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't drink it. If you're on well water,
Speaker 1: nobody's coming to test that for you. After a train derailment,
Speaker 1: there's online places you can go to get testing kits,
Speaker 1: so you can test yourself to find out what's in
Speaker 1: the water. And be vigilant in your surroundings, your observations.
Speaker 1: If you don't feel good, if you think something strange
Speaker 1: happening with your child, and you know there's been a
Speaker 1: toxic spill, go to a doctor. So and believe that
Speaker 1: you you We actually hold the answers when disasters like
Speaker 1: this happened, especially the victims. But we just don't want
Speaker 1: to trust ourselves. You have to trust yourself. No one
Speaker 1: knows better than you, So work with your community. Be vigilant,
Speaker 1: ask questions, demand answers. If something smells different, if something
Speaker 1: looks different, if something's changed, if you feel different, don't
Speaker 1: hesitate for one minute to leave, to go to a doctor,
Speaker 1: or to not drink the water. Yeah, definitely don't drink
Speaker 1: the water. Thank you so much, Aaron. I hope that
Speaker 1: we will not have a reason to have you back,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure we well, well listen, I I thank
Speaker 1: you for everything that you do, and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: we can talk again about happier days. That's always happy
Speaker 1: to come on. But I I will leave with this,
Speaker 1: and I wrote, please, this is daunting. I know everyone
Speaker 1: feels it's apocalyptic. I know we all are feeling these things.
Speaker 1: And I've been thirty years down on the ground during COVID.
Speaker 1: I released my book Superman is Not Coming. We are
Speaker 1: in a national water crisis. But what we can do
Speaker 1: about the people, And what I want to leave with
Speaker 1: is I have a great sense of hope sometimes of late,
Speaker 1: more than I've had historically, because I think we're more
Speaker 1: in tune. I think we're reconnecting. I think that we're
Speaker 1: waking up. And I'll tell you time after time again,
Speaker 1: what gives me hope is watching moms in communities rise up.
Speaker 1: This is my child. I will make it my business.
Speaker 1: I'm going to find out what's happening, and they do.
Speaker 1: We are still so lovely as humans and people in
Speaker 1: times of tragedy. That always comes out. My hope is
Speaker 1: and what I want to share and say to you
Speaker 1: and my observation of thirty years on the ground that
Speaker 1: hope is alive and it is well, yeah, really true.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Aaron, Thank you. I know you,
Speaker 1: our dear listeners are very busy and you don't have
Speaker 1: time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry
Speaker 1: each week. And this is why every week I put
Speaker 1: together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy the podcast, you will love having this
Speaker 1: in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast
Speaker 1: Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join
Speaker 1: our mailing list. That's fast politics pod dot com. Adam
Speaker 1: Fresh is running against Congresswoman Lauren Boubert in Colorado's third
Speaker 1: congressional district. Welcome to Fast Politics. Great to be here,
Speaker 1: But into Molly first, I need to caveat this interview
Speaker 1: with I had you on this podcast before your race
Speaker 1: against Lauren Boubert in Colorado's third district. I had you
Speaker 1: on this podcast and everyone said, you're crazy, You're crazy.
Speaker 1: You lost by how many votes? So let's talk about
Speaker 1: what happened. Some people thought we were gonna lose by
Speaker 1: forty to forty five thousand votes. From politics to the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party to the Republican Party to everybody in between.
Speaker 1: But you know, a year and a half ago, Molly
Speaker 1: I had this a little bit of epiphany that of
Speaker 1: all the extremists on the right, representing Bobart was the
Speaker 1: only one that any chance of losing Margutilla Green, Jim
Speaker 1: Jordan's Matt Gates, that whole caucus of Chaos has ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen to twenty wins every year, representing Bobart only
Speaker 1: one by five, and she did not even win her
Speaker 1: home county. Those in her best don't care for her.
Speaker 1: A lot more people knew her than and now her
Speaker 1: now than before, and not for good reason. So I
Speaker 1: thought that we had a Redistry team in CD three
Speaker 1: Western and Southern Colorado. So it kind of became an
Speaker 1: our ten to R twelve to R fourteen or nine district.
Speaker 1: But I just put my head down and said, you know,
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party wants their party back, we need
Speaker 1: to get ten percent of our prior voters. And I
Speaker 1: think if a moderate Democrat can get by the primary,
Speaker 1: which I did not by much, I would just drive
Speaker 1: around the district almost seven which we did four thousand
Speaker 1: mile road trip. Just I was on the road and
Speaker 1: we we built a coalition. My mom calls it the
Speaker 1: pro normal party coalition, and we came you know, we
Speaker 1: executed about ninety nine eight five of our plan. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're back for the other seven votes. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: got a flip two hundred seventy five or find another
Speaker 1: five or six hundred. You know, I think we have
Speaker 1: had the race done. A week later, amount of superliberals
Speaker 1: they came up to me and said, Adam, I didn't
Speaker 1: think you have a chance and you're too moderate for me.
Speaker 1: I left a blank, but they voted up and down
Speaker 1: the Democratic ticket for the rest of the race. And
Speaker 1: a bunch of moderate Republicans came up to me and
Speaker 1: said the same thing. They're like, Adam, you seem to
Speaker 1: be a nice person, but I just I've never voted
Speaker 1: for Democrat and you're not gonna win, so it's not
Speaker 1: gonna matter. There was a lot of those as well,
Speaker 1: and so you know, a number one message democracy, your
Speaker 1: vote matters. Make sure people fill out every bubble that
Speaker 1: they can. We are excited to get going again. We
Speaker 1: think we have a longer runway, and we're getting the
Speaker 1: support from a wide variety of people right off the bat.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're going to be working very, very
Speaker 1: hard and listening and connecting with people and the same
Speaker 1: reasons I ran before. People want the circus to stop.
Speaker 1: They don't like this entertainment aspect of politics, and that
Speaker 1: just resonates with a lot of people. I like that
Speaker 1: word angertainment, and I think it's true. I mean, if
Speaker 1: we saw anything from these mid terms, it's that people
Speaker 1: hate this. They don't like being governed by reality stars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so, I need to make a hats off
Speaker 1: to my high school and middle school buddy Deean Phillips,
Speaker 1: who is a congressman out of Minnesota. We grew up
Speaker 1: together and he used that term once entertainment, and like Dean,
Speaker 1: that is a brilliant summation of what's going on in
Speaker 1: the country, especially in western and southern Colorado with our
Speaker 1: current representative. And I just use it all the time
Speaker 1: and everyone realizes it is senses exactly. People want the
Speaker 1: circus to stop, and I've heard that from much is
Speaker 1: from moderate Republicans, even conserved Republicans. They want people to
Speaker 1: focus on the job, not in themselves. And people are
Speaker 1: not saying that there's any change one iota from the
Speaker 1: current incumbent now as she he cocked her way around
Speaker 1: that first week of Congress, and she thought she was
Speaker 1: doing a great service for herself, raising money um every
Speaker 1: time she was poking the bear at soon to be
Speaker 1: Speaker McCarthy. But the ranchers and farmers and a lot
Speaker 1: of people in Colorado that I spoke to who've voted
Speaker 1: for her in the past, they just put their head
Speaker 1: down and said, you know, I wish she would have
Speaker 1: learned her lesson about having, you know, the closest race
Speaker 1: in the country. She almost had the most surprising result
Speaker 1: in twenty five years across the country. You know, she
Speaker 1: was supposed to win by again twelve or fifteen points,
Speaker 1: and she won by point one five or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like that you're race in Colorado is actually
Speaker 1: really meaningful, not just because it's yet another annoying example
Speaker 1: of pollsters being wrong and fucking up candidates who really
Speaker 1: could have won, which is really the I feel like
Speaker 1: the headline of your race, right, just like Mandela Barnes,
Speaker 1: just like you know a lot of other candidates who
Speaker 1: got killed by just really inaccurate polling. But the other
Speaker 1: thing is that I feel like the state of Colorado,
Speaker 1: it's not a blue state. It's the purple state. But
Speaker 1: Republicans have run lunatics and Democrats have run, you know,
Speaker 1: saying candidates twenty years ago or thirty years ago, it
Speaker 1: was read it's now summer purple, and it's gone pretty
Speaker 1: blue in some places for sure. And again I think
Speaker 1: a lot of that has to do with the Democratics
Speaker 1: out here have been running just people that are trying
Speaker 1: to get the job. John b pragmatic work across party lines,
Speaker 1: solve problems that are facing the issues of the day
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, whether it's urban or rule.
Speaker 1: The Republican Party has run some real extremists. Having said that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting. Joe day was is a pretty
Speaker 1: normal person, uh and and a thoughtful businessman, and he
Speaker 1: lost to Michael Bennett by fifteen points. So it was
Speaker 1: there was definitely a bit of a blue wave. And
Speaker 1: so people have gone back and forth whether we helped
Speaker 1: the Democrats in c D three or they helped us.
Speaker 1: It was probably a little bit of both. But again,
Speaker 1: when you're running against people who are part of the
Speaker 1: chaos caucus, it makes life much easier. And the Republican
Speaker 1: Party in Colorado which I'm not going to spend too
Speaker 1: much time focus on, is an uproars. One of the
Speaker 1: biggest counties in the district is there's a splinter group
Speaker 1: that's suing each other. They're during their during their reassembly
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, blah blah. So again, I just
Speaker 1: think it's a matter of you know, you focus on
Speaker 1: the job at hand and you go forward, and you
Speaker 1: know that resonates with you know, the vast majority of
Speaker 1: people that want both parties to be played play ball
Speaker 1: between the two forty yard lines. Yeah, yeah, no exactly,
Speaker 1: But I do think, like I mean, you're not running
Speaker 1: against someone who's normal. You're running and someone who is
Speaker 1: taking quite a lot of the air out of the room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not for a good reason. I try to make
Speaker 1: the case that of all these extremists were the only
Speaker 1: ones that can defeat somebody, and no one believed us,
Speaker 1: And sadly, there aren't any other Republicans that are that
Speaker 1: kind of brand known nationally that have any chance of losing.
Speaker 1: In so, with all due respect to those Democrats that
Speaker 1: are going to be running against Marge Taylor Green and
Speaker 1: Jim Jordan and Macada, the numbers and it's not there.
Speaker 1: We have proved our point and I think we've earned
Speaker 1: the trust. We've seen a tremendous amount of money come in,
Speaker 1: not just within the district, in the state, but around
Speaker 1: the country because they realize that, you know, she is
Speaker 1: the one person in the country with that type of
Speaker 1: brand name nationally that has any not just a chance
Speaker 1: of losing, but are really done the chance to losing.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're going to focus on. This is
Speaker 1: all good point, but just remind our listeners why you're
Speaker 1: the right person for this, Candida say, for this job. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean so, there's a couple of things. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very rural district. We have asked
Speaker 1: an entire ride in quest to be at three resorts
Speaker 1: towns that a lot of people know in your listenership.
Speaker 1: And you have Carbondel to right. Yeah, you have Carbondale
Speaker 1: and Basalt and Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction, ten of
Speaker 1: twenty miles away from the Utah border. Is kind of
Speaker 1: the hub of Trump country in the Colorado not just
Speaker 1: in our district. But it is changing over over time.
Speaker 1: As you know, there's a brewery indecks I use the
Speaker 1: more breweries, and she the less conservative the areas, and
Speaker 1: we just started making connections. And again, I just I
Speaker 1: was very, very focused on working on that thirty to
Speaker 1: forty percent of the Republican Party that wants their party back,
Speaker 1: and I just pitched my self is a very safe
Speaker 1: alternative that the issues that face out here, water and
Speaker 1: rural healthcare, rural education. The water is not flowing red
Speaker 1: or blue. It's just not flowing. And they want somebody
Speaker 1: that's going to focus on that job. And I'm very
Speaker 1: good about that. And in my first five years. I
Speaker 1: was born on an Indian reservation for Peck Indian Reservation
Speaker 1: in northeastern Montana. My dad was in the public Health Service.
Speaker 1: He went on to becoming ob n for fifty years.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Minnesota. My great grandfather was a
Speaker 1: cattleman and Esco Minnesota outside of Duluth, and so I
Speaker 1: have some rural roots in addition to living in the
Speaker 1: mountain town now. But I'm a good listener and I
Speaker 1: worked really hard and we connected with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And the phones are ringing off the hook because I
Speaker 1: left a lot of messages last year and now it's
Speaker 1: not taking nine months for people to return my phone
Speaker 1: call anymore. Yeah, well, I do think that there really
Speaker 1: is a real problem with rural representation. There's a caveat
Speaker 1: to that, right, because there are a lot of rural
Speaker 1: places attend red senators and congressman to Congress and the Senate.
Speaker 1: But the thing is those people don't necessarily look out
Speaker 1: for rural voters, and they're more tied to special interests.
Speaker 1: So I do think, like, we've seen rural hospitals closed
Speaker 1: at alarming rates, We've seen rural maternal fetal health rate,
Speaker 1: you know, deaths rise. I mean, we do need people
Speaker 1: looking out for rural people. The problem is these Republicans
Speaker 1: don't do that. You lead into my number one statistics
Speaker 1: I share. There's about thirty one counties in the country,
Speaker 1: about thirty one and fifty counties in the country. Of that,
Speaker 1: two thousand of them are deemed ruled by the Department
Speaker 1: of Agriculture, two thousand and rural counties. In Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: won more than fifty percent of the rural counties two
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve. Barack Obama one of the rural counties
Speaker 1: from President Biden one fewer than ten percent of the
Speaker 1: rural counties in the country, and so the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: is twenty big cities Aspen and Tucket. Like that's kind
Speaker 1: of what's left of the Democratic Party. And so I'm
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time trying to not just focus
Speaker 1: on CD three, but a little bit of time just
Speaker 1: making the case that monopolies are bad and rule America
Speaker 1: has a big monopoly issue with the Republican Party. And
Speaker 1: so you know, we are in John Tester Joe Mansion country,
Speaker 1: which not every Democrat wants to hear, but that's just
Speaker 1: kind of the makeup of our district. It is an
Speaker 1: ur ten district that that is egg in ranching and
Speaker 1: farming and domestic energy production from solar and wind to
Speaker 1: also gas and coal which starts to wind down as
Speaker 1: it should and it needs to be done and everything
Speaker 1: else like that. But we need to make sure it's
Speaker 1: realistic about how we treat people and this rural aspect
Speaker 1: of making sure that every zip code and rule America
Speaker 1: has fought over by both parties. That's part of my
Speaker 1: little mission as well. Yeah, and that's a really good mission.
Speaker 1: And actually one of the things that happened during these
Speaker 1: mid terms is that in North Dakota, especially Democrats didn't
Speaker 1: run candidates in some of these races because they thought
Speaker 1: they wouldn't lose, would lose, which of course they would.
Speaker 1: But that is really a problem a for this idea
Speaker 1: of getting elected in these rural areas, but also because
Speaker 1: also because it's just so incredibly self defeating, it is hard.
Speaker 1: But listen, I know it's hard to run. I can
Speaker 1: vouch for that, especially in the district that's half the
Speaker 1: state of Colorado geographically. But you know, the main messages.
Speaker 1: I just think that the policies that the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: have are very beneficial to a lot of working class
Speaker 1: Americans and that but Fox News has done a brilliant job,
Speaker 1: quote unquote brilliant of taking a couple of sentences over
Speaker 1: the past generation and really amplifying them and skewing them.
Speaker 1: And it's turned into a very dimissive and demeaning brand
Speaker 1: of Democrats to a lot of people in rural America.
Speaker 1: And that's something I'm just trying to get over. Miles
Speaker 1: by miles, I drive around in a pickup truck, right,
Speaker 1: and the coffee houses and the breweries, and the beer
Speaker 1: halls and and the barbecue joints. It's not Authinian exercise
Speaker 1: to run for Congress in a place that has so
Speaker 1: many good restaurants, but you know, the Democracy calls so
Speaker 1: here I am, but you know, and that's the message
Speaker 1: I've been having with people in Washington at the highest levels,
Speaker 1: just to say, hey, listen, we've got to figure out
Speaker 1: how to expand the base. And all these zip codes
Speaker 1: are being left in the wind, and the messages there,
Speaker 1: the policies are there. You just have to make sure
Speaker 1: you get the right candidates that are willing to go
Speaker 1: and really meet the people and hit the road, meet
Speaker 1: them where they are physically as emotionally, and just be
Speaker 1: a good listener because a lot of people just feel
Speaker 1: like they've been left behind by a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And that's what former President Trump, you know again quote
Speaker 1: unquote brilliantly tapped into just that they just didn't feel
Speaker 1: like no one who was speaking to them. The Democratic
Speaker 1: Party used to be bad and it's left. My buddy
Speaker 1: Dean Phillips again in Minnesota. Minnesota Democratic Party is called
Speaker 1: the DFL the Democratic Farm Labor and said the Dems
Speaker 1: have lost the fs, and they've left the elves and
Speaker 1: they're left with the Dems and we need to do
Speaker 1: a much better job of building back the farmers and
Speaker 1: the working class labor movement, which is really important for
Speaker 1: our right. And I don't think that that necessarily means
Speaker 1: like sometimes you'll see people on the right saying, well,
Speaker 1: that's why Democrats have to abandon being pro lgbt Q
Speaker 1: or pro you know, choice, And I don't think it's binary.
Speaker 1: I think that you can be I mean, Colorado is
Speaker 1: a great example. You can be pro lgbt Q and
Speaker 1: believe that people have the right to their own lives
Speaker 1: and bodily autonomy and still want to build hospitals in
Speaker 1: rural areas. So you know, it's interesting. Our district has
Speaker 1: some of the highest support for Second Amendment in the country,
Speaker 1: and it has a really high pro choice support. And
Speaker 1: it goes back to whether you want to call it
Speaker 1: the libertarian view or more of a kind of the
Speaker 1: UB Party, which is just leave us alone. And I
Speaker 1: met a lot of Republicans, a lot of Christian Evangelic
Speaker 1: Evangelicas who are like, listen, I don't like abortion, but
Speaker 1: the only thing worse than that is having the government
Speaker 1: involved in it. And so it is a little bit
Speaker 1: of just leave us alone out here. We live out
Speaker 1: in rule and Western and southern Colorado. We're not in
Speaker 1: the big city for a reason, and we just don't
Speaker 1: want to government. You know, government should be there to
Speaker 1: support when needed, but the less regulation the better. And
Speaker 1: you see that on things that are more traditionally left
Speaker 1: from our traditionally right and as you know, as the
Speaker 1: son of Gioana fifty years that had bomb threats from
Speaker 1: his father's office growing up in the seventies and eighties
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis, I can attest to how important it is
Speaker 1: important for the government to just be at a women's
Speaker 1: healthcare decisions, and that resonates with some of the most
Speaker 1: rule read yes in the country. It's different if you're
Speaker 1: down in the South and Alabama, Mississippi, but out west
Speaker 1: it is the you do you party and it's something
Speaker 1: that resonates with a lot of people well. And I
Speaker 1: would also say in the South there are a lot
Speaker 1: of different voters in the South too, and and a
Speaker 1: lot of them are pro choice. It's a very interesting coalition.
Speaker 1: But I would say, um, I think that's right. And
Speaker 1: I think the rural hospital stuff is just unconscionable that
Speaker 1: we have places where you you know, it's hours and
Speaker 1: hours to at a hospital and there, and and also
Speaker 1: you know, we are seeing we need to take better
Speaker 1: care of our trains and our infrastructure. And if that's
Speaker 1: not clear from this week, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what we're trying to work on, and that
Speaker 1: infrastructure bill is really important. And you know, you know
Speaker 1: represented Bobart. One of the things we talked about is
Speaker 1: she's one of the few people that probably decides that
Speaker 1: she does not want to try to have some of
Speaker 1: that taxpayer based at Western and Southern Colorado pay in DC,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't fight to try to bring that stuff back.
Speaker 1: And if that money is not coming back to c
Speaker 1: D three, it's showing up in Denver or Detroit, or
Speaker 1: Newark or rural Kansas or rural Florida. And I made
Speaker 1: it very very clear that it's really really important how
Speaker 1: to figure out how to bring those resources back here.
Speaker 1: It's a lot healthcare has a lot of moving parts.
Speaker 1: But when you're an hour and a half away from
Speaker 1: an urgent care center or two hours away, if you
Speaker 1: have any type of pregnancy that's not just more of
Speaker 1: a traditional normal pregnancy, those are real issues that are
Speaker 1: facing to know people, and I'd love to see kind
Speaker 1: of that money be returned to the taxpayers pay and
Speaker 1: show up in the county health departments mental and physical,
Speaker 1: and again block grants. Let the county officials decide where
Speaker 1: that money should go. They're going to know better than
Speaker 1: people in Denver, you see. But the money needs to
Speaker 1: come because we just you know, we have some of
Speaker 1: the poorest counties. We have some of the wealthiest and
Speaker 1: the porest counties in the country. And I'm very focused
Speaker 1: on you know, with all respect to my friends and
Speaker 1: my neighbors up in Picking County where I live, I'm
Speaker 1: really focused on those counties that are going to need
Speaker 1: the help and have see huge transitions with energy and
Speaker 1: agriculture and are dealing with a really big drought that
Speaker 1: needs some focus. Adam, I hope you will come back
Speaker 1: multiple times before you're a congress person. Always great to
Speaker 1: chat with you, Molly Hope of a great week going ahead.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, Molly John Fast. You know, when those Fox
Speaker 1: News emails come out, you see who they really are.
Speaker 1: What was your favorite part where you see him? The
Speaker 1: dominion filing was released on Friday night, and in it
Speaker 1: we learned that Tucker, Shawn and Laura Ingram all knew
Speaker 1: exactly what they were doing. They knew that there was
Speaker 1: no election fraud and that they were just lying liars
Speaker 1: who lie, And they texted each other and they were
Speaker 1: very clear that they knew the truth and we're not
Speaker 1: following it. And for that, they then poisoned the well
Speaker 1: of many Americans. And there are still people in this
Speaker 1: country who believe that the election was rigged? Was they rigged?
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy more when it was ridiculous things like
Speaker 1: them threatening to get fact checkers fired, or when they
Speaker 1: said that Bruty Giuliani and City Power were insane but
Speaker 1: kept having them on their shows. There were so many
Speaker 1: moments that we had suspected were likely what was happening
Speaker 1: backstage at Fox News, but it was still a bit
Speaker 1: strange to actually see it firsthand. And a good lesson
Speaker 1: here is that if you think that there's some real
Speaker 1: corruption going on behind the scenes, sometimes there really is.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to her the best minds
Speaker 1: and politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening,