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 the FBI has paid over one
Speaker 1: million dollars in overtime to redact the Epstein files. I
Speaker 1: wonder what they're redacting. We have such a great show
Speaker 1: for you today, talking Points Memos own Josh Marshall stops
Speaker 1: by to talk Trump's insane adventures to bring America into war.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Oversight Committee Chairman Congressman Robert Garcia
Speaker 1: about the latest tranch of Epstein files. But first we
Speaker 1: have the stories the media is missing.
Speaker 2: So BALI people are perplexed today. There's this Democratic representative, Henriquoilar,
Speaker 2: who has been a controversial figure the backbench world of
Speaker 2: democratic politics because he's one of the debsoli pro wife congressmen.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are very bad at Democratic leadership
Speaker 2: for running him in the first place. And then he
Speaker 2: got accused with his wife of some little corrupt mistealings.
Speaker 3: And now mister Trump has pardoned him.
Speaker 1: Yes, mister Trump has pardoned him because crimes. What are crimes?
Speaker 1: Trump is like on a pardoning spree here, pardoning everyone
Speaker 1: who does crimes. I mean, maybe not everyone, but almost everyone.
Speaker 1: These were several former democratic he granted clemency. So again,
Speaker 1: there's been other Democratic elected officials. Which he posted on
Speaker 1: truth quote unquote social that the Biden administration had weaponized
Speaker 1: the justice system to prosecute Quohlar because he bravely spoke
Speaker 1: out against the Biden border catastrophe. That is not true.
Speaker 1: You can not like Quahlar, you cannot like Biden. You
Speaker 1: can be upset about the border. But none of these
Speaker 1: things are connected to each other. Because of these facts
Speaker 1: and others, the others being that he loves to pardon people.
Speaker 1: I'm hereby announcing my full an unconditional pardon of beloved
Speaker 1: Texas Congressman. I'm not sure he's beloved. The President added
Speaker 1: he will also pardon his wife, the applely named Amelda,
Speaker 1: as well. She was under indictment on the same charges
Speaker 1: as her husband, just like another Amelda.
Speaker 2: I got a picture of a shoe closet of my head.
Speaker 1: All right, immediately, parents, don't name your child Amelda unless
Speaker 1: you are ready for.
Speaker 2: What less you what people our age here? That was
Speaker 2: one of the first news stories you saw. Birded your brain.
Speaker 1: We both are obsessed but you know, let me just
Speaker 1: add Melda Marcos's son went on to be the President
Speaker 1: of the Philippines.
Speaker 2: True, we should say the accusations were taking six hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars of bribes. And one of the things I
Speaker 2: really find gross about this is a Democratic Minority leader,
Speaker 2: Hakim Jeffries, said that the charges were really thin anyway,
Speaker 2: And it really is just you got to wonder what
Speaker 2: the leadership was doing supporting this guy in the first place,
Speaker 2: and then what the hell they're even doing right now
Speaker 2: with statements like that.
Speaker 1: Well, we know what they're doing, which is because Representative
Speaker 1: Quailar is now running for Congress as a Democrat, So
Speaker 1: we know the deal that Hikeem is making. It's not
Speaker 1: a deal that we might make, but we know what's
Speaker 1: happening here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The question now is is do we have an Eric
Speaker 2: Adams and the House of Representatives that is under Trump's control.
Speaker 1: You wish you had an Eric Adams in the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives.
Speaker 2: I don't want any other Eric Adams.
Speaker 1: Is you want to turn your haters into waiters at
Speaker 1: the table of success.
Speaker 2: I wake up at the boarding. I repeat that as
Speaker 2: a meditation about trow to make sure I go it
Speaker 2: to each day like that.
Speaker 1: You know, every episode of this podcast, I am contractually
Speaker 1: mandated to say, turn your haters into waiters at the
Speaker 1: table of success.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, yes, we can't fix people are contractually mandated
Speaker 2: to do. At least, Defodoc is mad dated to try
Speaker 2: to call attention to herself because she believes it's very
Speaker 2: weird these upstate people who believe that they are destined
Speaker 2: for bigger things. Her Andrew Clobo that everybody else looks
Speaker 2: at them and they're like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Your like a backbench personality at best. She is putting
Speaker 2: a lot of signals out that she's coming for leadership
Speaker 2: to replace Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1: That is not what I think is happening here.
Speaker 2: Tell me what you think is happening, because that seems
Speaker 2: to be the conventional wisdom on Twitter right now.
Speaker 1: So what I think is happening here is that at
Speaker 1: least Devonic is running for governor of New York State.
Speaker 1: Democrats are probably going to win governor of New York State,
Speaker 1: even with Kathy Hokeel, who is like not the most popular.
Speaker 1: It's still hard for me to imagine with the ships
Speaker 1: we're seeing in the electorate that elis devonic can get
Speaker 1: a win here. But in order for her to even try,
Speaker 1: she needs to fight with Republican leadership. She needs to
Speaker 1: look like she's an independent. And so I think what's
Speaker 1: happening here is it's very easy to fight with Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson and it will give her some you know, if
Speaker 1: she starts fighting with Trump, that's going to be that's
Speaker 1: like picking a fight with a velociraptor, whereas picking a
Speaker 1: fight with good old Mike Johnson. I think this is
Speaker 1: theatrics honestly interesting. First of all, Mike Johnson was installed
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump, so in order for her to get
Speaker 1: him out, she would have to go to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: And maybe Donald Trump decides he doesn't need Mike Johnson anymore.
Speaker 1: But so far Mike Johnson has been a loyal servant.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think by one thing is never underestimate the
Speaker 2: delusional aspirations of a personality with loser like her.
Speaker 1: But she's running for governor.
Speaker 2: She's tried to elevate her profile into whatever she could
Speaker 2: get it right.
Speaker 1: But fighting with him elevates her profile. I just don't
Speaker 1: I just don't see it. I think, Okay, I think
Speaker 1: this is like one of these plays where she can
Speaker 1: go back and be like, look, I'm so independent.
Speaker 2: Well, Molly, I welcome you to put up a better'd
Speaker 2: be again one of those sites that I will bet
Speaker 2: session one of those sites I will never use.
Speaker 1: Yes, let's bet on politics, because that is a very
Speaker 1: good thing for people will write about politics to do.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, we're definitely not doing that. Also, I don't bet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I don't either. Okay, we have to talk
Speaker 2: about people who delusionally believed in themselves, but we always
Speaker 2: saw they had the juice when we saw how much
Speaker 2: their yosification of their look worked, which is Christino. She
Speaker 2: says that we need more travel bands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the problem, is the travel band.
Speaker 4: Look.
Speaker 1: So we had a CIA, a guy from Afghanistan who
Speaker 1: worked for the CIA, and he killed a member of
Speaker 1: the National Guard. And from this, Republicans they wanted a villain, right,
Speaker 1: they wanted to be able to lock down the immigration
Speaker 1: from Afghanistan. But here's the problem. This guy was working
Speaker 1: for the CIA. So in order to try to make
Speaker 1: it make sense, they don't give a fuck. So they're
Speaker 1: just like maybe a travel band. Look, here's what we've seen.
Speaker 1: The big problems in this country seemed to be coming
Speaker 1: directly from the White House and not from foreign countries.
Speaker 1: So the tears zipardons that you know, tearing down the
Speaker 1: East Wing all originated in the White House. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the game here is they. By
Speaker 1: the way, she said that she will recommend a travel
Speaker 1: ban on several companies which she's claiming are flooding the
Speaker 1: US with criminal activities. I mean, by the way, some
Speaker 1: of these countries are the Trump administration, right. She said
Speaker 1: she met with Donald Trump and decided to suggest a
Speaker 1: full ban on every damn country that's been flooding our
Speaker 1: nation with killers, leeches and entitlement junkies. Who would that be?
Speaker 1: I just am real curious what they're going to do.
Speaker 1: On June fourth, they did ban some country.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I mean, the problem is they don't have an enemy,
Speaker 1: so they have to make one up, which is so
Speaker 1: very on brand for this administration.
Speaker 3: Sure is so bali.
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal has brought up a article that
Speaker 2: says that the Pentagon Signal Gate review finds Pete Heigsith
Speaker 2: violated the Defense Department regularly should say put troops at risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is when Pete Hegseth put Jeff Goldberg
Speaker 1: in a signal chat by accident. Pete Hegseth didn't do it.
Speaker 1: It was Mike Walls from National Security who did it
Speaker 1: and then was moved in this administration. So, but the
Speaker 1: Defense Department Inspector General has concluded that dependent on Chief
Speaker 1: heg Seth has the authority to declassify Defense Department information,
Speaker 1: which is fine, but that he violated some department regulations
Speaker 1: when he shared sensitive information from his cell phone on
Speaker 1: signal earlier this year. And this was according to Senator
Speaker 1: Mark Kelly, the Democrat from Arizona. They very clearly state
Speaker 1: that he should not be using his cell phone and
Speaker 1: putting this kind of information on an unclassified system. Really
Speaker 1: you don't say, you know. Eric Schmidt or Republicans said
Speaker 1: it was a nothing burger. When you don't care about
Speaker 1: classified information, it is a nothing burger. You know, it's
Speaker 1: all fine and good until somebody gets hacked. And Schmidt,
Speaker 1: who is a big weekend news anchor defender, said the
Speaker 1: arc of the story is that it's just a never
Speaker 1: ending stream of efforts to undermine Pete hegseyth. Right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's also that Pete Hegseth is stupid and careless.
Speaker 2: That sounds like the right read. Speaking of stupid and careless,
Speaker 2: we now get to that the Trump officials are in
Speaker 2: panic because this new ADP Private Sector Jobs report shows
Speaker 2: that all their policies are horrible for small businesses. Be
Speaker 2: who barely knows this could have told you that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so private sector jobs report shows that the Trump
Speaker 1: administration is crippling small businesses with its terrible terrors. A
Speaker 1: new report from Payroll Processor found that private employees lost
Speaker 1: thirty two thousand jobs in November. This is a far
Speaker 1: off from the projection that these private employees would gain
Speaker 1: ten thousand jobs. Data is a sharp decline from our
Speaker 1: October Large companies are still hiring, wrote Heather Long, chief
Speaker 1: economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. But smaller firms are
Speaker 1: doing layoffs. And this would make sense because you would
Speaker 1: see smaller firms have to eat the price of the
Speaker 1: tariffs and have more trouble doing it. And you know,
Speaker 1: like this is just so stupid. But the goodness is
Speaker 1: that you have one of the great geniuses of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, Howard Lutnick. You'll remember Howard Lutnik from being
Speaker 1: terrible he was on CNBC and he was asked about
Speaker 1: the tariffs, and he said, no, it's not the tariffs.
Speaker 1: Of course, is not the tariffs. Lutnick said, it's the
Speaker 1: democratic shutdown. And you know what happens to small businesses
Speaker 1: when democrats. Yeah, good luck Lutnick, Good lucky Lucknick. Excited
Speaker 1: to see how Costco suing the administration goes. Josh Marshall
Speaker 1: is the editor of Talking Points Memo. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It's a hard time in celebrity journalism, but it's also
Speaker 1: a hard time in political journalism. Let's talk about political journalism.
Speaker 1: I think we start by talking about the Pentagon, because
Speaker 1: the Pentagon got rid of all it's real journalists and
Speaker 1: has replaced them with such luminaries as Macates, who is
Speaker 1: technically not a journalist. I mean he's a.
Speaker 3: Lot of I mean officially, yeah, officially, he's.
Speaker 1: A lot of things. He was almost our attorney general,
Speaker 1: he was a congressman from the Ruby Red district of
Speaker 1: Florida's first and he is a sex predator. I don't
Speaker 1: know it, accused sex something.
Speaker 3: Bad, Yes, I guess, I guess he is in that
Speaker 3: category like many many men today of sort of clearly
Speaker 3: did very as predator things. But but you don't have
Speaker 3: like a signed warrant from the government, right, so everybody
Speaker 3: kind of tiptoes around it or something. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: this is it's a it is a not good. It's
Speaker 3: part of Trump world. It's like in the mafia, where
Speaker 3: you need to you need to have done a stint
Speaker 3: in prison and you need to have killed at least
Speaker 3: one person before you can be sort of like a
Speaker 3: a made man in the mafia. And in the maga
Speaker 3: world you need to have some sexual assault or rape
Speaker 3: or something, you know, something like that on your collar
Speaker 3: to to really be you know, Corey Lewandowski Trump.
Speaker 1: That guy, Yeah, I mean I think Gates. Uh no, no,
Speaker 1: I I think that's correct. So let's uh, let us
Speaker 1: go and journey into You had Laura Lumer, you had
Speaker 1: Pizza Jack, most famous for spreading Pizzagate. That guy is
Speaker 1: now right Pentagon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is it? Pussy?
Speaker 1: What is his last nay puss pusso beec Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've never I've never I've always just left it
Speaker 3: unstated since I've never knew how to yeah, how to
Speaker 3: pizza Jack diseaser. I can remember that.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, Laura Lumer. So those guys are in the
Speaker 1: Pentagon press pool, which is they were. That's pretty interesting,
Speaker 1: and there was a press conference yesterday at the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: This is all I think so important and relevant because
Speaker 1: the member of Trump's cabinet who strikes me as being
Speaker 1: in the worst state. And remember, it's always a sort
Speaker 1: of it's a gang, it's a murderer's row of people
Speaker 1: who are perhaps.
Speaker 3: Not It's sort of like in a reality show or
Speaker 3: like you know, or Real Housewives or something there there
Speaker 3: is where you know, it's always changing who the baddie is, like, right,
Speaker 3: so sometimes that person she's bad, she's super bad, she's scheming,
Speaker 3: and then she turns out to be good and someone
Speaker 3: else's That's kind of like the Trump cabinet.
Speaker 1: I'm writing that down the Real Housewives because uh it is,
Speaker 1: it's correct. I think the real housewives of the Trump cabinet.
Speaker 1: So anyway, usually it's bestn't time in the barrel, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to fed and the economy cratering. A
Speaker 1: lot of reasons to focus on Scott Essen, but this
Speaker 1: week it's everyone's favorite weekend cable news host whiskey Pete.
Speaker 3: It's always strange what sort of gets through. Obviously they
Speaker 3: are in some version of trouble now for these kind
Speaker 3: of like I don't know what you want to call them,
Speaker 3: sort of like boat snuff film things or assassinations or
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Boat snuff films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the fact that there was this second attack,
Speaker 3: you know, just killing the survivors. And just to be
Speaker 3: clear with everybody, I see it as very bad. But
Speaker 3: the administration does lots of very bad things. And it's
Speaker 3: and and and these attacks have been have been going
Speaker 3: on for since September month, you know, or maybe more
Speaker 3: than a couple months. This recent reporting has sort of
Speaker 3: upped the volume on that. And the other thing that
Speaker 3: is only that it hasn't gotten that much attention yet,
Speaker 3: is that the Signal Gate Inspector General's report. I remember
Speaker 3: signal Gate. That sounds like what was that in the
Speaker 3: BC era? I mean, how you know, kind of it's
Speaker 3: like ancient history. Now, just this.
Speaker 1: Shorthand Mike Wall's actually accidentally put Jeff Goldberg j che
Speaker 1: editor in chief of the Atlantic, And is it not
Speaker 1: some randoh security journalists, but the editor and chief of
Speaker 1: the Atlantic who actually hosts a PBS show in his
Speaker 1: signal chat continue.
Speaker 3: Well, you know how what does it make? I guess
Speaker 3: it's on text too, but you know how in signal
Speaker 3: like if you haven't identified someone, it'll just put you
Speaker 3: down as your MJ or I'm j M right, you
Speaker 3: know where it just puts it. And I think that
Speaker 3: was the thing where he was just you know, uh JG.
Speaker 3: And there's some other like you know, Jonas George that
Speaker 3: he thought he was putting on who does work crimes
Speaker 3: analysis for them or so in any case, that is
Speaker 3: finally done and they are apparently going to give it
Speaker 3: to Congress. There's going to be a public version of
Speaker 3: it now. I think where you can kind of see
Speaker 3: this coming together is if the boat snuff film things
Speaker 3: gets a little too hot, this Inspector General's report would
Speaker 3: be sort of a convenient way for them to remove
Speaker 3: him from the stage, even if you know, even even
Speaker 3: if that wouldn't really be the reason. So it does
Speaker 3: put him in a kind of I doubt anything is
Speaker 3: going to happen, because I'm sure Trump loves the boat attacks,
Speaker 3: and I just don't you know, we've seen there's there's
Speaker 3: already been a couple times where the White House and
Speaker 3: or Trump wanted to drop Pete Hegzeth. It happened at
Speaker 3: the very beginning when he was when he was nominated, right,
Speaker 3: there was a point at which Joni Ernst was, you know,
Speaker 3: was was against him because he had.
Speaker 1: Done work on on sexual assault and the military and
Speaker 1: had found.
Speaker 3: Which in a funny way, so had Pete Heggsath. Just
Speaker 3: to any different sense, yeah, sort of Famously, JD. Vance
Speaker 3: was sort of squiring him around Capitol Hill and he
Speaker 3: like intentionally got into this shouting match with some reporters
Speaker 3: and Trump loved it. And after that, Trump apparently went
Speaker 3: to Susie Wilds or whoever and said, like, I want
Speaker 3: this guy. That was awesome, and that got him the thing.
Speaker 3: And then there was a brief period where after the
Speaker 3: signal Gate thing first happened where he seemed like he
Speaker 3: was in a little trouble, but he did a similar thing.
Speaker 3: So Pete Heggsath knows how to tickle Donald Trump in
Speaker 3: the right way, let's put it that way, to you know,
Speaker 3: to bring him on side. So I don't expect any
Speaker 3: I didn't expect him to get canned. But if things
Speaker 3: moved in the wrong direction, that ig report is a Again,
Speaker 3: it's sort of like a trapdoor under him. They could
Speaker 3: choose to yank at any moment and would you know,
Speaker 3: kind of bring everything together.
Speaker 1: It is interesting just this thing you say about Trump
Speaker 1: loving people fighting, because that is absolutely true and it
Speaker 1: is such a great example of how Trump makes everyone worse,
Speaker 1: right like, so the you're incentivized by Trump to be
Speaker 1: worse than you might otherwise.
Speaker 3: Be, which is which is challenging. I think with Pete
Speaker 3: Hegzeth he does know, yeah he does a he does it.
Speaker 1: It's a miracle. But yeah, so no, I think that's
Speaker 1: very interesting. So the question of whether he stays is
Speaker 1: a real one. I agree. I think he ends up
Speaker 1: staying because Trump's whole thing is that he just keeps
Speaker 1: everyone no matter what, and he doesn't care. But you
Speaker 1: could see a world where you could see a world
Speaker 1: where Trump decides it's too much.
Speaker 3: He also remember he he They didn't present it as
Speaker 3: that they sort of exiled him to the UN, but
Speaker 3: they did fire Mike wals over that, I mean, And
Speaker 3: it was interesting how it was sort of a what
Speaker 3: was Connie's husband's name? And the godfather? Am I remembering this?
Speaker 3: You know, the guy who gets it at the end
Speaker 3: of Godfather One where they strangle him in the car,
Speaker 3: where that was sort of like the Mike Walls thing
Speaker 3: that you you don't exact the punishment at the time,
Speaker 3: you let it ride. It was the same thing with
Speaker 3: Apple with Fredo, right. These things ride for a long
Speaker 3: time until the convenient moment comes, and then it was
Speaker 3: time for Mike Waltz because he was he wasn't he
Speaker 3: wasn't fired at the time he was. It was I
Speaker 3: didn't know a month or maybe two months later or
Speaker 3: something like that, and so you know, who knows. But again,
Speaker 3: it does seem like Pete Hegzeth is sort of doing
Speaker 3: all the things that you know, the Trump wants and
Speaker 3: doing it. You know, did the Department of War, he
Speaker 3: could get the reporters, he does the snuff films. Although
Speaker 3: you know, it's interesting, Like many people, I have been
Speaker 3: genuinely mystified, like what are we doing with Venezuela? Like
Speaker 3: what And I don't mean that in like a rhetorical sense,
Speaker 3: like what is the plan here? And why are we
Speaker 3: you know, what is happening here? And my understanding is
Speaker 3: is that even though we sort of associate this with
Speaker 3: the Pentagon, that it's really Marco Rubio who is who
Speaker 3: is the driver, the driver of this and that that
Speaker 3: makes sense because of his you know, connection with Cuban
Speaker 3: exile politics, which obviously has a heavy overlap with Venezuela
Speaker 3: and exile politics. And also Marco needs a brand, a
Speaker 3: post Trump brand, other than being thirsty or sweaty or
Speaker 3: looking awkward small, yeah, or looking small, being little little
Speaker 3: Marco or what I think that was it. So I
Speaker 3: assume this is also, you know, because this this with
Speaker 3: certain elements of the right and certainly a lot of
Speaker 3: the expatriate Latin American right. This is good stuff. This
Speaker 3: is like, you know, this is like universal health care
Speaker 3: for the DSA crowd. It gets him going.
Speaker 1: So let's do a minute on this special election Democrats.
Speaker 1: It was it Tennessee's seventh district. It's an R plus
Speaker 1: twenty two. It ended up being an R plus eight
Speaker 1: point nine. It is you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: Monday morning quarterbacking on this. The line that I read
Speaker 1: in Politico, so I know it must be true is
Speaker 1: that Republicans will freak out if it's a less than
Speaker 1: double digits. So it's less than double digits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is it's sort of the story.
Speaker 3: We know Trump is super unpopular, the Republicans are super unpopular.
Speaker 3: We have seen you know, direct proxies ie special elections
Speaker 3: that we've seen other things like the elections in November
Speaker 3: that weren't federal elections, but you still get a sense of,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of how each party's doing. They all
Speaker 3: tell a pretty consistent story, which is that you're set
Speaker 3: up for something at least like twenty eighteen, and quite
Speaker 3: possibly bigger than twenty eighteen, and you still have this
Speaker 3: confounding factor that the congressional generic ballot people usually use
Speaker 3: as a proxy for that stuff is does not show
Speaker 3: the Republicans that far behind, and that has sort of
Speaker 3: thrown people and kind of you know, complicated people's analysis.
Speaker 3: I think there's a few reasons why that may be
Speaker 3: the case. But if you look at it in these
Speaker 3: special elections, this is an approximation. I think that you know,
Speaker 3: the average over performance of the Democrats in the twenty
Speaker 3: eighteen cycle was something like six and now it's ten
Speaker 3: or something. But again this is from memory. I'm just
Speaker 3: just trying to give you a sense of scale. It
Speaker 3: is substantially substantially more. I don't think there's any question
Speaker 3: they're very freaked out. I think the only reason that
Speaker 3: people in the house, maybe you're slightly less freaked out
Speaker 3: is that they've figured they're losing the house for a while.
Speaker 3: But if you talk about shifts in the very low
Speaker 3: double digits, that starts to be the thing where people
Speaker 3: are not just worried, Oh, we're not going to be
Speaker 3: in the majority anymore, and it's not going to be
Speaker 3: fun like I may actually lose my seat, like I'm
Speaker 3: in a you know, in an R plus ten R
Speaker 3: plus fifteen day strict. And you know, if you're an
Speaker 3: R plus fifteen district, you're probably okay, because you can't
Speaker 3: just take I mean, just for everybody to under understand,
Speaker 3: you can't just take a special election and just you know,
Speaker 3: directly apply it.
Speaker 1: Except this there's high high turn special It was the
Speaker 1: same turns.
Speaker 3: The mid YEA, yeah, no, it's so that does but
Speaker 3: still again it is it is different. You can't just
Speaker 3: make it a focus. Yes, you can't make it. You
Speaker 3: can't just say, okay, so it's going to be identical.
Speaker 3: That said, incumbent presidents and their parties generally get less
Speaker 3: popular in the second year, so you've already got another
Speaker 3: another year to go. And when you talk about for
Speaker 3: congressional Republicans, if you say, you know, let's just say,
Speaker 3: for instance, someone is in a a R plus fifteen
Speaker 3: district or even in an R plus twenty district. Someone
Speaker 3: in an R plus twenty district is quite likely to survive.
Speaker 3: But you actually have a race, right and people generally
Speaker 3: speaking in our twenty districts are not used to have
Speaker 3: ever having a race. I expect you will see a
Speaker 3: substantial number of Republican retirements over the next three months
Speaker 3: or so, just because that's what happens when when when
Speaker 3: a party figures it's going to lose, lose the majority.
Speaker 3: I mean, in some ways from the outside, it looks
Speaker 3: like it you kind of be more fun to be
Speaker 3: in the minority because you get the yack a lot.
Speaker 3: You don't have to carry the water for the speaker
Speaker 3: and stuff. But I guarantee you anybody who's ever they
Speaker 3: hate it. They hate it. You get the crappy offices,
Speaker 3: you don't get budgets. They really really hate it.
Speaker 1: So what we know we're seeing right now are a
Speaker 1: lot of resignations and or we have resignations like Marjorie
Speaker 1: Tailer Green or retirements where they're not going to resign,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to run again. And when you
Speaker 1: don't run again, that means that this seat is more
Speaker 1: expensive to keep usually and.
Speaker 3: Harder to keep. You have you have this is this
Speaker 3: is this always happens when you always have this amplifying
Speaker 3: effect when you when you have a you know, a
Speaker 3: wave or a sub wave election in the offing that
Speaker 3: people say all right, I don't have you know, I'm
Speaker 3: not up for this, they retire and then the race
Speaker 3: that they probably could have, you know, they probably could
Speaker 3: have held onto their seat maybe sixty seventy percent chance,
Speaker 3: suddenly they lose that seat. So you know, you it
Speaker 3: just it's it's it has a self fulfilling effect.
Speaker 1: I want to get into redistricting. So Trump had this
Speaker 1: brilliant idea that he was going to redistrict and get
Speaker 1: more seats, and it works if Trump has the Trump
Speaker 1: turnout that he did before. So when you have an
Speaker 1: around a ten point shift, that means that you are
Speaker 1: seeing a seed that was So say you have a
Speaker 1: safe R plus twenty, you make that R plus nine,
Speaker 1: you think you're going to be fine, but in a
Speaker 1: in a general, in a midterm where everything shifts ten points,
Speaker 1: you're not fine, right, you have to fight to keep
Speaker 1: that seat.
Speaker 3: It's it's it is as it's the classic issue always
Speaker 3: with with kind of an over gerrymanderin right that you
Speaker 3: I mean, think of it this way that you take
Speaker 3: the you take the levee right, and you want to
Speaker 3: cover more territory with it, so you carve up the
Speaker 3: top few feet of the levee and you move it over.
Speaker 3: If you have a really big storm, the levee is
Speaker 3: going to fail. And that's it's. It's it's just basic math. Now,
Speaker 3: I I have I have been told to people who
Speaker 3: really know districts well that the Texas jerry mander apparently
Speaker 3: is pretty smartly done. It kind of yeah, that it's
Speaker 3: there's kind of no way it can be overwhelmed. And
Speaker 3: again these are people who really know districts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I have also been told that very
Speaker 1: thing by other Texas district ee people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but some of these other states where you're in,
Speaker 3: they're eking out like they're think they're eking out one
Speaker 3: extra seat. But you know, overall, it looks like the
Speaker 3: effect of all of this is likely to turn out
Speaker 3: to be a wash in terms of because Democrats are
Speaker 3: them elves being so are being so aggressive. So it's
Speaker 3: you know, it's a.
Speaker 1: Newsome and by the way, you know, again Newsome politically
Speaker 1: not totally my vibe, but he did really save Democrats here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well he he, and I can't remember what I
Speaker 3: think they're gonna They think they get five seats, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of equal equal to Texas. But in some ways
Speaker 3: an even more important part of it was that he
Speaker 3: gave sanction to every other blue state to do the
Speaker 3: same thing. And that is something it's it's always been
Speaker 3: very uncharacteristic for Democrats to act in this way, but
Speaker 3: he sort of set a different standard, and so you
Speaker 3: have people like the governor of Maryland saying, hey, we're
Speaker 3: doing it too, which you know, yeah, so it And
Speaker 3: the thing is is that I said before that it
Speaker 3: seems like it's likely to be a wash. You know,
Speaker 3: let's say if it ends up being you know, two
Speaker 3: or three seats in either direction, you have a big
Speaker 3: you have a big election, and you're probably talking about
Speaker 3: twenty or thirty seats moving. So yeah, two or three
Speaker 3: seats is not gonna is. I mean, put it this way,
Speaker 3: if the election comes down to Republicans were saved by
Speaker 3: adding three seats, it'll that will mean it was a
Speaker 3: disaster of an election for Democrats, quite apart from any jerrymanderin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again we don't know what Trump's going to
Speaker 1: try to do just put sand in the gears, but
Speaker 1: it sure feels like he is going to would have
Speaker 1: to do a lot. Josh Marshall, will you please come back.
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, whenever you call me.
Speaker 1: Congressman Robert Garcia represents California's forty second district and is
Speaker 1: the head of the Oversight Committee. Welcome to Bass Politics.
Speaker 1: Congressman Garcia, how are you ranking member of Oversight? So
Speaker 1: tell us what do you have?
Speaker 5: I mean, we continue, obviously to get a ton of documents, pictures,
Speaker 5: photos from all sorts of sources, and right now we
Speaker 5: are going through an enormous amount of documents, about five
Speaker 5: thousand pages of photos and videos from it, such as
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Epstein's Island that were given to us by the
Speaker 5: US Virgin Islands. Those photos and videos are quite disturbing
Speaker 5: and pretty creepy, to be honest, just to never kind
Speaker 5: of before seen look at what some of the rooms
Speaker 5: look like, and video of the estate itself on the island.
Speaker 4: And then more importantly, we also have received.
Speaker 5: Pretty significant amount of financial documents from both JP Morgan
Speaker 5: as well as Dortchy Bank, and these are two of
Speaker 5: the institutions that are really critical in the investigation to
Speaker 5: understand how the money was transferred within Epstein's sexual trafficking
Speaker 5: ring and who was paying who, where Jeffrey Epsten was
Speaker 5: getting his money from, and there's a lot there. What's
Speaker 5: important is while we have this information from these two banks,
Speaker 5: they've just given us a first of batch and that's
Speaker 5: where our focus is right now, which is really on
Speaker 5: all the financial documents.
Speaker 1: Are these videos that the Virgin Islands took of the
Speaker 1: house or are they videos that they seized?
Speaker 4: These are video that they.
Speaker 5: Took and so there are many more videos and photos
Speaker 5: than the ones we released today. We'll be releasing all
Speaker 5: of those in the days ahead. We have to be
Speaker 5: very careful. Even with the pictures that we put out today.
Speaker 5: We had to make some reactions in the photos. There
Speaker 5: were photos, for example, of Jeffrey Epstein's phone and some
Speaker 5: of the numbers that he had pre programmed.
Speaker 4: So we had to redact some of those names.
Speaker 5: There were names of possible victims on this large chalkboard
Speaker 5: that he had in one of his living rooms, so
Speaker 5: we had to redact some names from there.
Speaker 4: And so there is a process going on. But we
Speaker 4: will release all the photos.
Speaker 5: In the videos in the days ahead of the Virgin
Speaker 5: Islands documents.
Speaker 1: Now there are more videos that are Jeffrey Ebstein's videos,
Speaker 1: but you don't have those yet.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 5: I mean, look, the vast majority of the evidence for
Speaker 5: this investigation, and vast majority of the Epstein files are
Speaker 5: at the.
Speaker 4: Department of Justice.
Speaker 5: The Department of Justice, as we understand, has an enormous
Speaker 5: amount of videos and photogs that are actually of Jeffrey
Speaker 5: that were in his possession and that investigators put together
Speaker 5: at the FBI. We understand that many of those videos,
Speaker 5: of course, contain images of parties that he had and
Speaker 5: of women and girls, and in some cases, of course,
Speaker 5: some of these goals, as we know, were minors. We
Speaker 5: are demanding that all of the files, whether it's the videos,
Speaker 5: the photographs, all get turned over to our committee, which
Speaker 5: has a subpoena on the full EPs files, and Congress
Speaker 5: has also passed as we know just recently an actual
Speaker 5: law that requires the president to get all these files
Speaker 5: out the door, but they continue to cover up the
Speaker 5: Epstein files and they have to understand it. We will
Speaker 5: continue to hammer away and if anyone that's out there
Speaker 5: to get and put together all of these different documents
Speaker 5: that the DOJ should be giving us directly.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the financial documents. So you have these
Speaker 1: documents from Deutsche Bank and from JP Morgan in the documents.
Speaker 1: Have you looked at them and are are their names?
Speaker 1: You know? Are their numbers for account? How hard is
Speaker 1: it to figure out where the money is coming from
Speaker 1: or going to?
Speaker 5: It is going to take us a couple of weeks
Speaker 5: to actually these documents are actually pretty complicated financial documents.
Speaker 5: Some of them are transfers, some are from organizations and
Speaker 5: names that we need to deciphered exactly what is being
Speaker 5: said in some of these documents. Others are just financial
Speaker 5: ledgers like you've seen the you know, checking account or
Speaker 5: someone's basic checking our savings account.
Speaker 4: It is pretty significant.
Speaker 5: The amount of money that moved in and out of
Speaker 5: Jeff Westein's essential criminal empire that he had, and what
Speaker 5: we heard from the survivors directly. Multiple times I've heard
Speaker 5: from this from them one on one meetings and round
Speaker 5: tables we've had, is they have said to follow the money,
Speaker 5: that continue to follow the money. There was an enormous
Speaker 5: amount of money that was paid for these horrible things
Speaker 5: that were done to these children and these women, and
Speaker 5: these financial records should.
Speaker 4: Help us unlock a lot of that information.
Speaker 1: So they have thirty days because this discharge petition set
Speaker 1: the clock going on thirty days to release this stuff.
Speaker 1: We know that the Justice Department has it. Do you
Speaker 1: think they're making We know they paid a million dollars
Speaker 1: in overtime to FBI agents to redact, So that would
Speaker 1: make me think that the information is ready. Is that right?
Speaker 4: We think that the information is ready to be released.
Speaker 5: We know that when Trump first got into office, there
Speaker 5: was a review done by the DOJ. I mean Pembondy
Speaker 5: talked about that has been reported in the media that
Speaker 5: Pembondi went to Donald Trump and said, hey, you are
Speaker 5: in these files. Pambondi claimed that they were on her desk.
Speaker 5: They made a decision early on to not release anything
Speaker 5: or essentially give up these kind of maga social influencers
Speaker 5: kind of limited amount of documents.
Speaker 4: We remember it was kind of a joke.
Speaker 5: Since then, they have been determined to not release anything
Speaker 5: else and to downplay the actual files. And now we
Speaker 5: know that they have a significant amount of document in
Speaker 5: their possession and there have to be compelled to release them.
Speaker 5: And what we're concerned about now is that somehow this
Speaker 5: sham new investigation that Trump has demanded through the Southern
Speaker 5: District of New York around you know, Democrats or others
Speaker 5: that he believe are involved in the files, is going
Speaker 5: to somehow be used as an excuse by Pambondy to
Speaker 5: not release the documents of the Congress. And what I've
Speaker 5: reminded the DJ and we've done this directly, is that
Speaker 5: the subpoena that we put in place a few weeks
Speaker 5: ago doesn't have any language about ongoing investigations. So they
Speaker 5: have to provide all the documents to us, whether they
Speaker 5: want to or not, and we'll see if they comply.
Speaker 1: There's some talk that Pambondy would testify about this. Could
Speaker 1: that happen, Will that happen.
Speaker 4: It's something that we definitely want to do.
Speaker 5: We want to have a conversation with her, and we
Speaker 5: have a lot of questions not just about the Epstein files,
Speaker 5: but about Glen Maxwell. And you know, when are we
Speaker 5: going to find out how the hell who made the
Speaker 5: decision to transfer her to that lower security prison. She's
Speaker 5: been now transferred to this prison. She's getting all these
Speaker 5: secret meetings, she's meeting with Todd blanch to the DOJ,
Speaker 5: and no one is giving the Congress any information about
Speaker 5: how this all happened, Who directed the transfer, why was
Speaker 5: it done, what was Glene Maxwell promised? Did Pambondi authorize
Speaker 5: this transfer? These are basic questions that any normal administration
Speaker 5: or responsible administration would answer.
Speaker 4: To the public and to the Congress.
Speaker 5: And so it's all part of this broader cover up
Speaker 5: that is clearly, in our opinion, being directed by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: It feels like the Oversight Committee is I mean, I
Speaker 1: know that there's controversy, but it feels like the House
Speaker 1: is weirdly united on the ebscene stuff and that it's
Speaker 1: not as partisan as everything else. Is that true or
Speaker 1: is that just vibes? And also can you use that
Speaker 1: in any way right? Because we're seeing members get more
Speaker 1: involved in discharge petitions, We're seeing a lot of pushback
Speaker 1: on Speaker Johnson. He clearly does not have control of
Speaker 1: the caucus. I mean, is there opportunity there for Democrats?
Speaker 4: There is?
Speaker 5: I mean, look, I think clearly Republicans have been on
Speaker 5: board in some of our efforts on the closure, but
Speaker 5: they've also had to be almost forced or pushed into
Speaker 5: it and have a lot of Republicans signed the Dishart petition.
Speaker 5: It wasn't until we forced the vote that you saw
Speaker 5: the wave on the Oversight Committee.
Speaker 4: We haven't had a lot of Republicans supportive.
Speaker 5: It's been a couple but once we've forced votes on subpoenas,
Speaker 5: or once we've pressured the majority into getting bank documents,
Speaker 5: or once we've publicly called on actions to be taken
Speaker 5: and have essentially shown the majority that we do have
Speaker 5: some Republicans with us, that's when there has been action.
Speaker 5: I mean, it hasn't the Republicans have clined, oh, we've
Speaker 5: released X amount of documents. They've only released documents after
Speaker 5: Democrats have essentially forced their hand or released a few moments,
Speaker 5: then they released the rest. And so they have been
Speaker 5: I think kind of dragged along. There have been a
Speaker 5: couple of them that have been principled from I think
Speaker 5: the start, but a vast majority have, I think reluctantly
Speaker 5: come forward and we encourage that support that we want
Speaker 5: more folks to do the right thing. And as the
Speaker 5: President continues to get weaker and his power seems to
Speaker 5: be diminishing within his own party and base, I think
Speaker 5: you're going to continue to see more Republicans stand up
Speaker 5: and do the right thing. And in many ways, the
Speaker 5: Epstein files and this investigation, I believe, is what's going
Speaker 5: to break. That's really a bond that somehow Donald Trump
Speaker 5: has created over years with his magabase.
Speaker 1: Are we going to see the Epstein files.
Speaker 4: I think we will. I hope that we're able to
Speaker 4: sooner than later.
Speaker 5: Certainly, when we get into the majority, the power that
Speaker 5: we're going to have of subpoena and getting documents will
Speaker 5: be dramatically different than what we have now in our ability.
Speaker 5: But absolutely, I mean, these women, these survivors, they deserve justice,
Speaker 5: they deserve the truth.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Congressman Garcia.
Speaker 3: They're no more perfect.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon my jug fast.
Speaker 2: So you may remember some of the members of the
Speaker 2: New York Young Republican Club is having their tech leaked
Speaker 2: and well, let's be real here, sounding like a bunch
Speaker 2: of Nazis, bigots and racists and saying things that, well,
Speaker 2: we're obvious to people like us, but shocked a lot
Speaker 2: of people. Well, I'm going to shock you here. They've
Speaker 2: invited this German leader who had an I Love Hitler
Speaker 2: chat who amongst us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, who could have seen these young people, they're basically
Speaker 1: children in their thirties and forties, who had a group
Speaker 1: chat where they mused about all the anti Semitism. In
Speaker 1: case you are Jewish and you think these people are
Speaker 1: not hugely anti Semitic, they in fact are.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: New York Republicans GALA will recognize this guy. He's from
Speaker 1: a political parties called the Alternative for Germany. They are
Speaker 1: far right. I know you'll be shocked to hear this statement.
Speaker 1: To Letico, The group defended inviting the German politician, saying
Speaker 1: the AfD is a model for fighting the far left.
Speaker 1: That's right, Antifa. Remind me who fought Antifa? What's the
Speaker 1: faugh for?
Speaker 2: I just never remember this part. The thing I think about,
Speaker 2: though with this that really does make me quite angry
Speaker 2: is while groups like the ADL set up tip lines
Speaker 2: about Zoron, this is happening in New York City, right,
Speaker 2: in their fucking backyard. One of my other favorite things
Speaker 2: is this club has removed their address from Oddline so
Speaker 2: that they don't get protested anymore.
Speaker 1: Great stuff, great stuff, the best. That's it for this
Speaker 1: episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Speaker 1: and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.