December 18, 2024 • 44 mins
The Al Franken Show's Al Franken examines how Trump's administration might get caught in the mechanics of the U.S. government. Justice Allison Riggs details her fiercely contested race in North Carolina, a critical battle for control of the courts.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and President Biden has called for a
ban on congressional stock trading. We have such a great
show for you today, such a great show, the Al
Franken Shows. Al Franken stops by to talk about how
(00:23):
Trump's administration will be pretty bad for people who live
on Earth. Then we will talk to Justice Alison Riggs
about her contentious race in North Carolina and the many
recounts that have followed. But first the news, Somalie.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
You know, many people are hoping that the TikTok band
doesn't go through. Many people think that TikTok band should
go through because they want their children to pay attention
to them personally. I said it a group chat of
people who discussed this last night that after I saw
mister Trump met with show Chow at Marlago, He's going
to repeal the TikTok ban after he gets sworn in,
(01:03):
which will be two days after the ban. That's where
my money is. I'm going to polymarket with it right now,
like versus brain Dead.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I have always been really highly skeptical that Trump was
going to ban TikTok because of his transactional nature. And
you'll remember that one of his st donors this season
of Trump Destroys America was actually a big TikTok downer.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
And that was why he had reversed his plan.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Let's not also forget his dear friend Kelly Anne was
a lobbyist for them.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, but Joe Biden did sign a bill that would
ban TikTok if its owner Byte Dance doesn't sell the
app with a New Year look. The Chinese Communist Party,
which a subsidiary of owns Bye Dance, which owns TikTok,
does not want algorithmic transparency, which, by the way, I
think is interesting to realize that no one will tell
(01:58):
us how these algorithms were.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, it is ip that is very valuable, right, but it.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Is still like a little bit interesting Anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The point is, you know, it's a completely different TikTok
in China is totally different than TikTok in the United States. Right,
TikTok in China makes people smarter. TikTok in the United
States doesn't necessarily do that. So we'll see what happens.
It's supposed to be banned on January nineteenth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
This would be amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Because Trump will then be sworn in on the twentieth,
a day after the ban and could reverse it immediately. Look, yep,
I think he's going to do that, but we will see.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, and the Supreme Court could also still intervened. But
no one knows what those people are doing and how
to predict anything they do. At this point, said say,
that's so weird.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
See there's one a little bit interesting dynamic here, listeners,
is that Jesse is very pro TikTok because he's a
TikTok celebrity.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Celebrity, I think TikTok should still be bad, even though
I will lose.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
A lot from him.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Oh you do, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I think it's silly when people don't think that the
Chinese government can't manipulate favor here for listeners who don't know,
I actually study marketing at the algorithms, and I know
what the power is because I've manipulate them all day.
For music artists anyway, speaking of young people versus old people,
the Dems have decided we should put a seventy four
(03:20):
year old guy with cancer in the leadership role for
the oversych communic Molly, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Jerry Connolly, seventy four years old, has throw cancer, is
now going to be the ranking member of oversight again.
He won one hundred and thirty one to eighty four,
so the votes were clearly not whipped for him. It
wasn't that he won what I think they probably I
mean Nancy Pelosi vote would have been two hundred to
(03:48):
whatever fifteen, so she did actually much better than probably
a lot of people thought. It's so stupid to do this.
And here's why, because this is not about Jerry Connelly
versus AOC.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Right, It's not.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
This is about are you going to put someone who's
thirty five as the face of oversight for the Dems?
Are you going to put someone who's seventy four and
has throw cancer?
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
We know Jerry Connolly. I'm sure he's a great guy.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I was actually texting with a member today he was like,
you don't understand, Jerry Connolly was so good to me,
So what who cares? This is not about people being friends.
This is about the United States government. This is like,
this is the thing that makes me so just disappointed,
deeply disappointed with Democrats. It's like, I don't give a
fuck if you guys are friends. This is not the
place for friendship. Donald Trump is about to take a
(04:37):
wrecking ball to American democracy and we got to have
the guy that everybody likes head oversight. It's just preposterous
and quite infuriating. And look, you know, Hakeem Jeffries is
young and quite smart. In the Steering Committee, AOC did
much better than anyone thought right. It was these are
(04:59):
all secret ballots, so nobody knows who voted for what.
But Connoley got thirty four, she got twenty seven, so
clearly there's a real recommendation here. And I think that
it's just very fucking annoying because this is not about
people being friends. This is about messaging. And you have
the choice between a woman who is a very good messenger,
(05:19):
who has millions of followers in different platforms, who can
talk to people, who inspires young people, and a seventy
four year old who has throw cancer.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And like, as much as I'm not this is.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
The thing this and again people are going to say
I'm being agist, and I'm going to say to them,
this is not about how old you are. This is
about the party, not about the people. So if you
are thinking to yourself, how can I serve the Democratic
Party best, Well, let's vote for my friend because he's nice.
Oh no, let's vote for the person who can fucking
(05:54):
message because we're about to go into one of the
darkest periods in American history.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know, I seem to called just a week ago,
the Democrats insisted that one represent Jerry Nadler, shouldn't lead
the judiciary for sixty two year old chievy. You're asking
him because he's a better messenger. And then I noticed
they've went a different way. And really, I have no
conflict of interest to your saying any of this.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
This whole thing is fucking annoying, and it hits us
to our next story here, which is bipartisan legislation to
officially make the Bald eagle to the American bird. First
of all, what the fuck, man, what the actual fuck? Okay,
you can't no, no, no, no, no, I'm so agitated.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I just want two seconds here.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You tell us American democracy is on the ticket. Right,
you say Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy,
You still have the Senate. You still have the presidency
for another few days. You could spend that time just
pushing through judges. Right, you could be the Southern District.
There are two seats, two judge ships in New York.
(07:00):
You could be killing yourself to put in judges, and
instead the bald eagle is a symptom of a fucking problem.
Let me tell you, the bald eagle is a symbol
of our country's freedman strength. In Minnesota, we take bride
and our egles. Our state is home to one of
the largest populations of bald eagles in the nation.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Sorry, go on, Yeah, it's almost like Senator Kobashar doesn't
really have much riding on the line.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I mean, it's just.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I have no words except to say, first of all,
isn't the bald eagle already the eagle?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Like, already the bird of this fucking country.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
My wife turned to me yesterday and she said, there's
no way it's not already the bird, right, I said,
this not a thing I've ever fact checked.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So anyway, the point here is that if damaguards are
going to tell us that this is the end of
American democracy, then I think that we should fucking act
like it and not have the goddamn bald eagle be
legislatd on.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So, speaking of other things that seem like we should
be taking it pretty seriously Donald Trump. For a reason
I can not figure out once the end, the FDIC
like one of the most successful monetary policies we've ever
had in preventing to an absolute degree a problem that
used to occur from preventing again.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
What the fuck, Molly, what in the fuck.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
This is why Democrats should not be naming birds, but
instead focusing on protecting all of the many things that
Trump is trying to disassemble. The FDIC and so it
ensures deposit systems so they can't be around on the banks. Basically,
everything Trump is doing is trying to get America back
(08:45):
to like nineteen twenty nine. But nothing bad happened in
nineteen twenty nine, so it should be fine. So is
trying to get rid of vaccines. But ensuring deposits is
something that America has been doing for ninety years. It
works really well. It keeps the banks from running out
of money. It is completely crazy to want to get
(09:06):
rid of it.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And uh, you know, we don't want to have bank runs.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Like we don't want to have the dust ball, we
don't want to have anti vacts, we don't want to
have you know, all this stuff. It's like even Trump's
people I don't think voted for bank runs.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Although it doesn't even know.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I'm not even sure why he wants to do it.
Like it's so many of the things that are just stupid,
and that, my friends, is so stupid.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
We're all going to die.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
So, speaking of stupid things, I have to play you something.
Steve Bedden said that the New York Young Republicans did
her right after one of Trump's advisors passed out and
fell off the stage.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
Donald John Trump is going to raise his hand on
a King James Bible and take the Oath of avas
his third victory, his third victory and his second term.
And the Viceroy Mike Davis tells me he doesn't actually
(10:00):
say consecutive that.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
Maybe we do it again in twenty eight, Are you.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Guys not for that.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Trump twenty eight?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Come on, man, In twenty twenty eight, Donald Trump will
be eighty three. Look, this is a band in troll, right.
He's doing two things. This is a thing Trump World does.
He's trolling to see if people will get upset so
that he can say he was just kidding, but he's
(10:37):
also trolling to see if it could work. I think
that it is pretty scary and bad. But I also
think I'm not taking the fucking bait right like they
want everyone to be apoplectic. The law is the law,
period paragraph. He cannot run for another term.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That is it. We are done.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Al Frankett is a former United States Senator and the
host of the Al Franklin Show. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Al Franken.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Always great to be on, Molly, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
You know what's nice is we started talking when this
just started, and I said how are you and you
said depressed. I'd say, really fucking depressed.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Yeah, I mean it is really hard right now to
even get it up to follow what's going on. I mean,
he's so confident now Trump we're talking about Donald Trump
and that he was elected president. He's going to have
another term, and he's picking all these horrible people and
he's confident that they're going to get through, even like hegseath.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Now, so let's talk about how great things are going.
What is going on here?
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Well, it just seems that unlike his first term, where
I think he was shaken that he won. I don't
think he thought he would win. And you saw that,
and you saw that with his meeting Obama, I mean
very nervous there. Yeah, And he looked totally comfortable with
Biden to the extent that he goes to Greek totally
(12:08):
comfortable with each other. And I think that, you know,
he has four years under his belt and he's going
to do it differently this time. And he is. And
he started by picking people that are not just you know,
normal nominees, but people that have disqualifiers in the headlines
and exclamation points hanging over their heads. And it's Tulsey
(12:28):
Gabbard and it's head seth and it's Kennedy, and it's
people I think are going to get through.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
We don't know, right because there are going to be
Senate hearings, just like you. Actually the first Trump admin,
you were in the Senate for these hearings.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
How'd they go?
Speaker 4 (12:45):
You know, I was on health, education, labor, and pension.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
All things Trump wants to destroy health, education and pension.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
It's like a hit list for that admin.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
So we had hearings for the new Secretary of Education,
which was the voce. And she really was not qualified
at all. I don't think she'd ever been to a
public school.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
No, she actually not a public school fan, but very
involved in education.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
She's education, but in trying to privatize it and trying
to get religious.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Very into religious schools.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Yeah, and also but mainly didn't know anything about education.
Issuest large for public schools, and she didn't know the
difference between growth and proficiency.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Not a fan of public schools. None of her kids
went to public schools.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Well that's fair. I mean it's fair than none of
her kidsmen, But if you're going to be Secretary of Education,
you have to have some knowledge of this. And so
I enjoyed that hearing.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I would postulate that Trump's new Secretary of Education wrestling
aficionado and Trump megadonor may actually be worse.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
I doubt it. I don't think she'll be worse.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
You don't think so. Trump has now moved on to
that he just wants to get rid of the Department
of Education.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
That's true. I don't know how proud you are to
be selected as a secretary or something he's getting rid of.
And I guess you know, it's going to be a
big deal getting rid of that Department of Education. I
mean they do all the finances.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Tel grants, federal funding for education. Linda McMahon though, has
a lot of experience with pro wrestling.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Well she does. But they're billionaires, right. That is Another
thing is how many billionaires have been selected.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Let's even go a step further.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
How much of the government is Elon Mosk running.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
What is this fortune? Now? Two hundred billions?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I think he's the richest person in the world, right,
well he is.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
He is the richest person in the world. But some
wayson his I thought it was worth his four hundred
that he increased two hundred this year he increased to
two hundred or increased two hundred.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Poor Jesse has to get involved. Things are problematic.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Going Trump's a US combinat billionaires worth find three hundred
and forty billion.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Well, that means that he can't be more than probably
two hundred. I guess he could be three hundred and thirty.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
The sad thing is that's the Guardian and then we
have courts in the Washington posting four hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
This is all between all the billions when all the cabinet. Yeah. Yeah,
and of course the first tax cut will help people
at the very top the most. And he's going to
lower the tax rate even more than he did last
time for the top.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Well, that's why he's doing it in the first place.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Yeah, And to think about what he who is people are?
Who is the maga people? They are not. They are
people that are working people, and that's who won the
election for him. Yeah, and they will get almost nothing
in this tax cut, and we'll go to the people
at the very top.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
That's why they did it.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Yeah. And this is why I'm depressed, because he's getting
away with what he's getting away with the.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Thing that I'm struck by is he's going to want
to cut Social Security and Medicare and the DOGE. So
DOGE exists to save money so that Trump's tax cuts
won't expire. And the way they want to save money
is by what they.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Have threatened to cut it by how much now two
hundred billion or something like that.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I mean, when you don't understand how anything works, but
it does seem like there's a non zero chance that
Donald Trump is like, why are we paying all of
our debt? Oh?
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Well, he says that we're going to pay down our debt.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, no, I mean, when you look at America's debt numbers, right,
a lot of the spend, the yearly spend that the
country does, is servicing the debt, right, paying interest on
the debt. So there are certain things you can cut
the federal budget by cutting the debt, cutting the payment
on the debt because you owe that money. And if
you default on the debt, your dollar becomes valueless and
(16:54):
you crush your economy.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
Yeah, and then the world goes into a huge recession.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Donald Trump has historically, in his own purview, not paid
his debt.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Right, the elist government, by law, has to pay a debt.
It's not so big a secret is that. What's going
to happen with Trump is that the death that's going
to explode.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
He said that it's going to be easy to pay
it off, and he's going to remember when he was
going to pay it off with tariffs. When we said.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
That, that was like three weeks ago.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
This was three weeks ago. Well, you know, obviously.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
We've all aged decade since then.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yeah, I mean, he basically was telling the American people
that when you have a tariff on something and China
has it. We put a tariff on Chinese cars that
the tariff goes to the treasury, and it doesn't we
pay the tariff. Best Buy is importing Chinese TVs. They
(17:47):
have to pay a tariff on each TV. That's best Buy.
I hasked to pay it, and then they passed on
the cost to So they pass on the cost to
their customers, you know, or they can take you or
completely comes out of their profit and they don't sell
Chinese TVs anymore. That's what happened. So the way he
describes terroris is like a tax on products coming in.
(18:10):
And I know he's been disabused of that by his people,
but he doesn't seem to want to do that. So
our debt is going to just shoot up, especially if
he lowers a tax on So he's talking about lowering
the tax rate on very top.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, it's exactly what we said was going to happen, right,
I mean.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Yeah, And you know his people I don't. I mean,
they're getting information from it totally different. They're not listening
to us right now. I'll just spurt that way.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
But what I think is interesting about this, what I
think is relevant is that we've been here before with
Donald Trump, right, Like even that soft Bank announcement yesterday,
and Trump announced the toft Bank was going to invest
you know whatever.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
He said two hundred millions.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
He had done the exact same thing before with the
soft Bank thing.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
So it was like we were literally living this.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I mean, there are so many callbacks to season one,
it's kind of amazing. But then also things have gotten
much much darker, right, So part of it is we
have these callbacks to season one, but then we also
have like the first time, we didn't have all of
Silicon Valley. We didn't know, at least I did not
know that all of Silicon Valley was filled with nefarious billionaires.
(19:30):
I thought there were a few good billionaires.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
You thought there were a few well, I mean Bezos
is given a million dollars to the Inaugural Fund.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah. Trump said yesterday at Mara a Lago with the
CEO of SoftBank that the SoftBank will invest one hundred
billion in United States projects over the next four years
in season one of this Trump thing. I'm reading you
a piece of politics here term one. On December six,
(20:00):
twenty sixteen, Trump says soft Bank will invest fifty billion
in US aiming to create fifty thousand jobs.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Did they actually come through?
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Let's go to Jesse Canon Jesse, did SoftBank actually do that?
Speaker 4 (20:16):
I don't believe. So I think they didn't. And I
think this one hundred billion that they're talking about this
time will include other investors that they have coming in.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Look if it happens, great, but you know it is
a callback to the first season. And this keeps happening,
right that we keep seeing Trump kind of recycle the
same trout.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Except that this time is so much worse because if
you look at just the caneate picks, these are people
who have will have complete loyalty to them. And these
are people, I mean, Hegseth is not going to resist
anything Trump wants right as Defense secretary.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So let me just read this to you.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Standing behind SoftBank's chief executive is mar A Lago Estate,
Trump announced the pledge that echoed a fifty billion dollar
commitment SoftBank made after his victory in twenty sixteen. That
promise was followed up by investments in a host of
fledgling startups, some that surged, others that ran into trouble,
including the coworking company you may remember it.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
We were We worked down and.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
A company called Zumi that used robots to make pizza.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Okay, that one didn't work.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
See when I'm making pizza, I think, why can't a
robot make this pizza?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
That's what I think. I think, Why am I bothering.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
With this pizza when I too could be making I
could have a robot doing it.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Isn't most people's pizza just taking of the freezer and
putting in the oven?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
I mean that's they obviously don't have robots. If SoftBank
had given them robots, think of what would have happened,
we'd all be living in we Works right now.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, and we Work was a place where you go
and have an office. Was that it?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (22:02):
What Jesse tell us? What happened when we work?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Well, you see the CEO was a Jeckuss and they
overspent their money. The one thing is they do still exist.
But the leadership wasn't considered Theorranose level of like bullshitting,
but it was of the kind of bullshitting of Theranose.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yes, and they bought a lot of real estate.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Right it is now mostly someone else's. Right.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
In the end, the robots couldn't make the pizza.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
There was no pizza robots.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
The dog walking startup had a lot of complaints about
lost dogs on walks. Really, yes, yes, he invested in
a dog walking startup that lost dogs. You know, was
beabs like, you have one job. Well, there we go.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I don't want to laugh because it's so dark.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And if anything happened to Boussephalos, Spartacus and Leonidas, we
would be devastated. But it is pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I was waiting for you to not nab one of
the dogs so that we were going to see your
true colors.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, that's not good.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
You should not If you have a dog walking company,
you should not lose any dogs.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
That'd be rule one.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
I have a question for you, So do you think that.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Like obviously, voters are very mad at incumbents. They were
mad at Biden. They were Matda Harris.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
That's what the election was about. The election was about
inflation as much as anything, and more than anything, I
think it was all non inflation, and.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So they were quite mad, and they were really mad.
They were so mad that when a CEO got murdered,
they couldn't stop clapping. So here's my question for you.
It doesn't seem like any of the legislation, and I
don't think it's going to be a lot of legislation,
but any of the executive order said Trump World are
(24:01):
going to put into practice will help people who feel disenfranchised.
So what happens like play this.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Out for me, Well, they're in such a different information world,
then I'm not sure those people will be understanding what's happening.
That they will understand that their taxes, their taxes will
go down slightly, but just slightly compared to what the
billionaires are going to Well yours, Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I'm not a billionaire, but I mean wealthy people will
have their.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Taxes go Now.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Now you think they're going to get rid of the
thing on that how much you.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Can carry interest loophole? Now I do not.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Well, how about the cap on how much you can deduct?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
The salt deduction? Maybe the state and local income tax deduction.
Perhaps there's a lot of New Yorkers in that cabinet.
So we're talking about something that Jesse hates talking about,
which is that in blue states you used to be
able to deduct your state taxes off your taxes, so
you weren't taxed twice.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Now there's a ceiling to that, yes.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Which affects wealthy people and makes them very angry.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yeah, and it was really aimed at blue.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Skates, punishing Democratic donors.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Yeah, Democratic donors in California and New York, Illinois.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And they're so punished that a lot of them just
decided to support.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
From But you know, like Florida has no basil income tax, right,
no state income tax.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I think there are some, but it's low.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
I mean, the thing with state income taxes, So what
I think is interesting and upsetting is that state income
taxes largely go to schools, right, public schools. There's other
stuff they go to, but public schools are a big
part of it. So blue states tend to have better
schools because they have more money for schools. Trump wants
to get rid of the Department of Education, which provides
(25:52):
grants added grants to public schools in red states.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, and forces things like you know, you know, people
get what is it title two of the title two?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, they get grants and then also pel grants, federal
grants for.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Education, etc.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Somebody's got to administer that stuff. Where would that go?
Speaker 3 (26:15):
It will go to nowhere. They're not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
So McMahon, she volunteered to be the secretary of a
department that he's going to get rid of.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
She couldn't get commerce right because here was what happened.
Howard Lutnik and Linda McMahon co chaired the transition. Howard
Lutnik wanted to be the Treasury secretary. They actually got
a real guy as the Treasury Secretary who knew how
to do stuff, which bumped Howard Lutnick to Secretary of Commerce,
which is what Linda McMahon had wanted. Linda McMahon, not
(26:46):
wanting to be without a shair, said she'd take the
department no one wanted.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Which is education, which is when he's getting rid of. Yeah,
well it says he's getting rid of Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
He wants to get rid of.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I don't think he will get rid of it because
all of this is too much.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, well, I just think that getting right of education,
where does all that stuff go? You might as well
have an education department. I think it'll stay, it'll stick.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
So much of this stuff is just too much work
for him and annoying.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
It's like, we have to remember what Trump was like
in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
He was like not that effective. Yeah, thank god.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
But he was scared and I think and also he
had people around him knew didn't obey him and countered
him and thought he was an.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Idiot, right right, and we don't have that this time.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
And said so right, Tillerson.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Yeah, rerex On. So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
But we're not depressed because we are just going to
keep going because the only way through is through.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
That's right. So keep up the good work, Alfragan, Thanks.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Molly, thank you. Justice Allison Riggs is running to be
a justice in North Carolina. Welcome back, too fast politics.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
Justice Riggs, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I want you to give us the whole story, just
for everyone, give us the whole backstory everything.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
I appreciate the opportunity to tell folks what's happening here
in North Carolina. So I was a former civil rights attorney.
I was appointed to first the North Carolina Court of
Appeals and then the North Carolina State Supreme Court in
September of twenty three. State supreme courts are even more
important than they've ever been because of rulings from the
(28:30):
US Supreme Court kicking jerry mandering in reproductive freedom back
to the state level. So I served on the Court
of Appeals and the Supreme Court for two years. I
stood for election this past November six weeks ago, and
was elected by the voters in North Carolina to serve
a full eight year term on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
I won by seven hundred and thirty four votes out
(28:53):
of over five point five million cast, so every vote
mattered here in North Carolina. Since then, there have been
two recounts, one full machine statewide and then a sample
hand eye recount. Both confirmed my victory, and my opponent
has filed what we call here in North Carolina election protests,
(29:15):
and he is seeking something very extreme and I think
people need to know about it. He's seeking to toss
sixty thousand ballots cast by eligible North Carolina voters this
past election, including both of my parents. That's how extreme
we've gotten.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Basically, you won, and now he wants to throw out
the vote.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Right. I think in the past few years we've seen
this troubling trend of people not wanting to concede when
they lose. And it's not everyone, but it's certainly a
playbook that we're seeing nationally and across certain states. We
saw it in Arizona in twenty two, all over the
place in twenty when the President Trump didn't want to concede,
(29:59):
he lost. And now it's come home to roost here
in North Carolina. But it ought to be very troubling
for anyone who cares about in respects the rule of
law and how our democracy works. You can't change the
rules of a game after an election. My father went
to register to vote using his military ID and proof
(30:21):
of residency. That was acceptable. Those were the rules, and
he'd been voting, just like many of these sixty thousand
voters have been voting for years and years and years,
and they include Democratic and Republican elected officials. So there
are some things that are just too far. And that's
where we are here in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
What happens now.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
So last week the state Board of Elections ruled that
the vast majority of the elections, they didn't get all
of the election protests in front of them at once,
but they ruled that the majority of them had no merit,
and so they issued a forty page written order on
Friday saying, look, they sent postcards to some of the
(31:07):
challenged voters. So for example, my mom got one, my
dad didn't. It said your vote may be affected by
a protest, Scan this QR code to find out if
you're on the list, and then you had to jump
through a bunch of hoops to find out if you
were on the list. The State Board of Election says
that doesn't constitute notice. If you're going to try and
disenfranchise someone, you have to at least tell them. And
(31:32):
my dad, like many people of that generation, one doesn't
know how to use a QR code, but told my
mom not to scan the QR code because her phone
could get a virus. So I just warm this inside
glimpse of what is happening in so many North Carolina
homes across the state. And now that we're on pins
and needles waiting to see the North Carolina Republican Party
(31:54):
has said my opponent intends to appeal that state board order.
We're waiting for it. There's also ongoing, not through me,
but through other parties. There's federal litigation already trying to
ensure that every vote counts. I put my hand on
a Bible and swore to uphold and defend the North
Carolina and US constitutions. So did my opponent, who's a
(32:17):
sitting North Carolina Appeals Court judge. We as constitutional officers
have to walk the walk. We have to live what
we preach, and that is commitment to the constitution.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Even when you don't like.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
The rules right, you have to follow them. And it's
just so important that people see what's happening in North
Carolina and understand the undercurrent that is running across all
of this nation in political elections, political spaces, is that
we need to be worried about the damage that has
already been done to our democracy and trust in our institutions.
(32:56):
Our democracy doesn't defend itself, and we need people of
strong constitutional conviction to stand up and say this is wrong.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I mean, what do you do?
Speaker 5 (33:06):
I mean right now, I am in a waiting game.
I am waiting to see when the appeal will be filed.
We're getting just tons and tons of emails from voters.
So as this continues to get coverage and voters get
some help finding if they're on the list or not,
they're mad. They think it's ridiculous. My sense is a
(33:27):
very small fraction of them that are challenged even realize
they're on that list. But my opponent's attorney in the
State Board of Elections last week said he couldn't name
one person out of that sixty thousand that he believed
to be ineligible to vote. So they are fussing about
some data being allegedly missing from the voter.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
File, right, so they're just full of shed.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
Well, I think what we need to do is call
out what is wrong when it is wrong, if we
ever have any hope of move moving on from this.
I mean, people want to move on from elections when
it's over. If you put yourself out there to run
for political office, means if you take the L, you
take the L and you walk on with life.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Will there be more lawsuits, etc.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
What we're expecting to be filed will look like a
state court lawsuit. It's technically an appeal of an administrative
decision from the State Board of Elections, but it's in
the form of a civil action filed in state court.
So you know, the short is is, if what the
North Carolina GOP says is going to happen, it happens,
(34:34):
then yes, we'll see more litigation. And you know, I'm
just trying to make sure that every eligible vote counts.
It's critically important if we want to have elections conduct elections,
have nice things. We have to respect democracy even when
it breaks your heart. And I think you've seen a
lot of folks, you know, not happy with the election
(34:55):
results this year and not trying to overturn an election either.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
So what can people do if they want to support
you in this situation.
Speaker 5 (35:05):
Yeah, So we are really encouraging folks to look at
follow me on social media. We're circulating regular updates so
that folks will know what's happening when it's happening. We
want folks to find out if their name is on
that list, if they have been challenged, and we encourage
them to share their stories. So if you go on Instagram,
(35:29):
I'm at Rigs for our courts, if you go to
x I'm at Alice and Jay Riggs, there's step by
step ways instructions on how to find out if your
name is on that list. And then we're encouraging people
to use the hashtag count don't cancel. Make sure that
their stories are heard because we're just we really want
(35:51):
people to know that these sixty thousand voters, it's not
just a number, It is a ton of people who
took the time and effort to get registered, turn out
and vote, and they deserve better than this.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, So these elections are small elections that generally fly
under the radar. Do you think it speaks to a
sort of larger Republican interest in the judiciary and why.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
I think we've seen deep Republican investment in federal and
state courts for years and years and years, And I
think that progressive counterparts are doing the work now, but
the counter voice wasn't as quick to be heard. But
since Justice Protozelitz was elected in Wisconsin, since I was
(36:41):
elected this year, I think we're starting to understand that.
Because judicial elections are down ballot, because a lot of
people may not understand what judges do their lower information votes,
and so we have to do extra work to educate
people not only about what our core do, but what
does a judge who you can trust with your rights
(37:04):
do like, what do they look like, what do they
sound like? How do you get to know them? And
then ultimately how do you hold them accountable? And so
over the last two years, I have been working tirelessly
to ensure that voters know who I am. There's the
only other Democrat on our North Carolina Supreme Court Justice
Anita Earls. She's up in twenty twenty six, and so
(37:24):
we're you know, we're going to be working to make
sure that North Carolina voters have more information understand how
important our state courts are. If you care about democracy,
if you care about reproductive freedom, if you care about
the environment, and you know, engage in this long term
accountability project where we it's not just about pushing money
(37:47):
into down ballot races. It's about empowering voters to understand
how important these seats are and how they can vote
us out if they don't like what the judges and
justices that they have are doing. And I think you know,
certainly in North Carolina, I want all voters to hold
our courts accountable.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, can you explain to us sort of some of
the case like state jerrymandering will come to that court,
right besides like state laws.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
Yeah, so you know, we're not going to redistrict here
in this state again until after the twenty thirty census.
But who gets elected in the twenty twenty eight election,
we'll sit on the court when jerrymandering cases make their
way up. And you know, the federal courts, the US
Supreme Court, they don't want parties in jerrymandering cases that
(38:39):
they decided that there wasn't an avenue in federal court
to address those. So you know, we know that in
North Carolina the history of jerry mandering is highly contested.
And what Justice Earles and I are doing is working
to make sure that we're very present in communities across
this large state. Talk about our past experience. I was
(39:02):
a former voting rights attorney. I worked on cases seeking
to make sure that voters picked their politicians, not the
politicians deciding what voters they got to keep or shed.
And we need people who care about our democracy on
the bench. And I've described it as we here in
North Carolina have dominoes that we need to knock over
(39:25):
in order to have a majority on the bench of
people who are justice minded, who care about a functioning,
healthy democracy. And we have the chance to do that.
In twenty twenty eight. We had to keep me and
my seat in twenty twenty four. We have to keep
Justice Anita Earles in her seat in twenty twenty six,
and then in twenty twenty eight before the next round
(39:46):
of regular redistricting, three Republicans terms are up, and that's
control of the court before a really important process that
the state courts have been involved in. So that's what's
on the line line here, and you know, my job
is to make sure that voters understand that and don't
just say, oh, well, that's you know, years down the road.
(40:08):
I mean, we're making decisions now. We're building infrastructure, we're
recruiting candidates, we're doing all the work that the right
has done for much longer. We have to do that now.
And it's not a one election cycle task. It's multi
cycle work. It's about building infrastructure and educating voters about
what's at stake.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, do you feel on the state level that you're
able to connect with voters in a way that at
the national level Democrats might not be.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
Yeah, i mean North Carolina is, as I'm sure you
could tell, it's a bit of a quirky state. There's
a lot of ballots splitting, so Democrats won half the
council's state seats and Republicans one half. You know, it's
just it's a very quirky state. But that means that voters,
if they get to know you, will vote for you.
(40:58):
And so it makes it a lot of it makes
it hard work, and I think we continue to get polarized.
And so the number of voters who are who are
willing to if they get to know you and like you,
vote for you like that number isn't enormous, but it
is significant because of what we see. You know, it's
a decent sized number. So I think with a lot
(41:19):
of work and a lot of connection on a human level,
you know, I tell people my story. I told people
this election cycle that I'm a forty three year old
woman who hopes to start a family, but my ability
to do so may depend on decisions that our own
court makes. And I want women to know that they
have someone in me who shares their experience and understands
(41:43):
what it's like to, you know, need access to IVF
for fertility treatments to start their family and the interplay
between those personal realities and state court proceedings. And so
I think we have to do the work to recruit
great candidates who can resonate with different voters. And it's
a lot of work to get out across the state
(42:03):
this big and that's just the reality of choosing to
run in North Carolina. But I'm very encouraged that we
can do this. Even in a red wave election, we
were able to hold onto this seat and that speaks
to me to a lot of the work that's been
done from the North Carolina Democratic Party and folks just
working to raise awareness of the importance of state court races.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, really important.
Speaker 5 (42:29):
Thank you, Justice Riggs, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
No moment coxectly, Jesse Cannon smile.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
When I think of all the stupid things that Trump
likes to sue people for, you know, Bill Maher for
saying his mother was a baboon and a joke, one
of the stupider ones. But suing Anne Seltzer for her
poll being off pretty fucking dumb.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
It's dumb. But Donald Trump wants to send and Se
to get Mo for being wrong about her poll, and I,
for one, am here for it. No, I'm just kidding. No, obviously,
you can't send An.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Seltzer to Gitmo for having her poll be off.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Trump is going to experiment with trying to intimidate the media.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
That's what's happening here. That's what he did with ABC.
It worked for him with.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
ABC, so now he's going to try it with the
des Moines Register again, you know, Okay, I mean it
sucks and I hope that the Des Moines Register will
not fold and donate fifteen million dollars to the Trump
Presidential Library, which will never happen. But there we are.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
(43:44):
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and President Biden has called for a
ban on congressional stock trading. We have such a great
show for you today, such a great show, the Al
Franken Shows. Al Franken stops by to talk about how
(00:23):
Trump's administration will be pretty bad for people who live
on Earth. Then we will talk to Justice Alison Riggs
about her contentious race in North Carolina and the many
recounts that have followed. But first the news, Somalie.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
You know, many people are hoping that the TikTok band
doesn't go through. Many people think that TikTok band should
go through because they want their children to pay attention
to them personally. I said it a group chat of
people who discussed this last night that after I saw
mister Trump met with show Chow at Marlago, He's going
to repeal the TikTok ban after he gets sworn in,
(01:03):
which will be two days after the ban. That's where
my money is. I'm going to polymarket with it right now,
like versus brain Dead.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I have always been really highly skeptical that Trump was
going to ban TikTok because of his transactional nature. And
you'll remember that one of his st donors this season
of Trump Destroys America was actually a big TikTok downer.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
And that was why he had reversed his plan.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Let's not also forget his dear friend Kelly Anne was
a lobbyist for them.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, but Joe Biden did sign a bill that would
ban TikTok if its owner Byte Dance doesn't sell the
app with a New Year look. The Chinese Communist Party,
which a subsidiary of owns Bye Dance, which owns TikTok,
does not want algorithmic transparency, which, by the way, I
think is interesting to realize that no one will tell
(01:58):
us how these algorithms were.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, it is ip that is very valuable, right, but it.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Is still like a little bit interesting Anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The point is, you know, it's a completely different TikTok
in China is totally different than TikTok in the United States. Right,
TikTok in China makes people smarter. TikTok in the United
States doesn't necessarily do that. So we'll see what happens.
It's supposed to be banned on January nineteenth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
This would be amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Because Trump will then be sworn in on the twentieth,
a day after the ban and could reverse it immediately. Look, yep,
I think he's going to do that, but we will see.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, and the Supreme Court could also still intervened. But
no one knows what those people are doing and how
to predict anything they do. At this point, said say,
that's so weird.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
See there's one a little bit interesting dynamic here, listeners,
is that Jesse is very pro TikTok because he's a
TikTok celebrity.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Celebrity, I think TikTok should still be bad, even though
I will lose.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
A lot from him.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Oh you do, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I think it's silly when people don't think that the
Chinese government can't manipulate favor here for listeners who don't know,
I actually study marketing at the algorithms, and I know
what the power is because I've manipulate them all day.
For music artists anyway, speaking of young people versus old people,
the Dems have decided we should put a seventy four
(03:20):
year old guy with cancer in the leadership role for
the oversych communic Molly, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Jerry Connolly, seventy four years old, has throw cancer, is
now going to be the ranking member of oversight again.
He won one hundred and thirty one to eighty four,
so the votes were clearly not whipped for him. It
wasn't that he won what I think they probably I
mean Nancy Pelosi vote would have been two hundred to
(03:48):
whatever fifteen, so she did actually much better than probably
a lot of people thought. It's so stupid to do this.
And here's why, because this is not about Jerry Connelly
versus AOC.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Right, It's not.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
This is about are you going to put someone who's
thirty five as the face of oversight for the Dems?
Are you going to put someone who's seventy four and
has throw cancer?
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
We know Jerry Connolly. I'm sure he's a great guy.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I was actually texting with a member today he was like,
you don't understand, Jerry Connolly was so good to me,
So what who cares? This is not about people being friends.
This is about the United States government. This is like,
this is the thing that makes me so just disappointed,
deeply disappointed with Democrats. It's like, I don't give a
fuck if you guys are friends. This is not the
place for friendship. Donald Trump is about to take a
(04:37):
wrecking ball to American democracy and we got to have
the guy that everybody likes head oversight. It's just preposterous
and quite infuriating. And look, you know, Hakeem Jeffries is
young and quite smart. In the Steering Committee, AOC did
much better than anyone thought right. It was these are
(04:59):
all secret ballots, so nobody knows who voted for what.
But Connoley got thirty four, she got twenty seven, so
clearly there's a real recommendation here. And I think that
it's just very fucking annoying because this is not about
people being friends. This is about messaging. And you have
the choice between a woman who is a very good messenger,
(05:19):
who has millions of followers in different platforms, who can
talk to people, who inspires young people, and a seventy
four year old who has throw cancer.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And like, as much as I'm not this is.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
The thing this and again people are going to say
I'm being agist, and I'm going to say to them,
this is not about how old you are. This is
about the party, not about the people. So if you
are thinking to yourself, how can I serve the Democratic
Party best, Well, let's vote for my friend because he's nice.
Oh no, let's vote for the person who can fucking
(05:54):
message because we're about to go into one of the
darkest periods in American history.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know, I seem to called just a week ago,
the Democrats insisted that one represent Jerry Nadler, shouldn't lead
the judiciary for sixty two year old chievy. You're asking
him because he's a better messenger. And then I noticed
they've went a different way. And really, I have no
conflict of interest to your saying any of this.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
This whole thing is fucking annoying, and it hits us
to our next story here, which is bipartisan legislation to
officially make the Bald eagle to the American bird. First
of all, what the fuck, man, what the actual fuck? Okay,
you can't no, no, no, no, no, I'm so agitated.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I just want two seconds here.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You tell us American democracy is on the ticket. Right,
you say Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy,
You still have the Senate. You still have the presidency
for another few days. You could spend that time just
pushing through judges. Right, you could be the Southern District.
There are two seats, two judge ships in New York.
(07:00):
You could be killing yourself to put in judges, and
instead the bald eagle is a symptom of a fucking problem.
Let me tell you, the bald eagle is a symbol
of our country's freedman strength. In Minnesota, we take bride
and our egles. Our state is home to one of
the largest populations of bald eagles in the nation.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Sorry, go on, Yeah, it's almost like Senator Kobashar doesn't
really have much riding on the line.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I mean, it's just.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I have no words except to say, first of all,
isn't the bald eagle already the eagle?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Like, already the bird of this fucking country.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
My wife turned to me yesterday and she said, there's
no way it's not already the bird, right, I said,
this not a thing I've ever fact checked.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So anyway, the point here is that if damaguards are
going to tell us that this is the end of
American democracy, then I think that we should fucking act
like it and not have the goddamn bald eagle be
legislatd on.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So, speaking of other things that seem like we should
be taking it pretty seriously Donald Trump. For a reason
I can not figure out once the end, the FDIC
like one of the most successful monetary policies we've ever
had in preventing to an absolute degree a problem that
used to occur from preventing again.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
What the fuck, Molly, what in the fuck.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
This is why Democrats should not be naming birds, but
instead focusing on protecting all of the many things that
Trump is trying to disassemble. The FDIC and so it
ensures deposit systems so they can't be around on the banks. Basically,
everything Trump is doing is trying to get America back
(08:45):
to like nineteen twenty nine. But nothing bad happened in
nineteen twenty nine, so it should be fine. So is
trying to get rid of vaccines. But ensuring deposits is
something that America has been doing for ninety years. It
works really well. It keeps the banks from running out
of money. It is completely crazy to want to get
(09:06):
rid of it.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And uh, you know, we don't want to have bank runs.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Like we don't want to have the dust ball, we
don't want to have anti vacts, we don't want to
have you know, all this stuff. It's like even Trump's
people I don't think voted for bank runs.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Although it doesn't even know.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I'm not even sure why he wants to do it.
Like it's so many of the things that are just stupid,
and that, my friends, is so stupid.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
We're all going to die.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
So, speaking of stupid things, I have to play you something.
Steve Bedden said that the New York Young Republicans did
her right after one of Trump's advisors passed out and
fell off the stage.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
Donald John Trump is going to raise his hand on
a King James Bible and take the Oath of avas
his third victory, his third victory and his second term.
And the Viceroy Mike Davis tells me he doesn't actually
(10:00):
say consecutive that.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
Maybe we do it again in twenty eight, Are you.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Guys not for that.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Trump twenty eight?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Come on, man, In twenty twenty eight, Donald Trump will
be eighty three. Look, this is a band in troll, right.
He's doing two things. This is a thing Trump World does.
He's trolling to see if people will get upset so
that he can say he was just kidding, but he's
(10:37):
also trolling to see if it could work. I think
that it is pretty scary and bad. But I also
think I'm not taking the fucking bait right like they
want everyone to be apoplectic. The law is the law,
period paragraph. He cannot run for another term.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That is it. We are done.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Al Frankett is a former United States Senator and the
host of the Al Franklin Show. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Al Franken.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Always great to be on, Molly, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
You know what's nice is we started talking when this
just started, and I said how are you and you
said depressed. I'd say, really fucking depressed.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Yeah, I mean it is really hard right now to
even get it up to follow what's going on. I mean,
he's so confident now Trump we're talking about Donald Trump
and that he was elected president. He's going to have
another term, and he's picking all these horrible people and
he's confident that they're going to get through, even like hegseath.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Now, so let's talk about how great things are going.
What is going on here?
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Well, it just seems that unlike his first term, where
I think he was shaken that he won. I don't
think he thought he would win. And you saw that,
and you saw that with his meeting Obama, I mean
very nervous there. Yeah, And he looked totally comfortable with
Biden to the extent that he goes to Greek totally
(12:08):
comfortable with each other. And I think that, you know,
he has four years under his belt and he's going
to do it differently this time. And he is. And
he started by picking people that are not just you know,
normal nominees, but people that have disqualifiers in the headlines
and exclamation points hanging over their heads. And it's Tulsey
(12:28):
Gabbard and it's head seth and it's Kennedy, and it's
people I think are going to get through.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
We don't know, right because there are going to be
Senate hearings, just like you. Actually the first Trump admin,
you were in the Senate for these hearings.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
How'd they go?
Speaker 4 (12:45):
You know, I was on health, education, labor, and pension.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
All things Trump wants to destroy health, education and pension.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
It's like a hit list for that admin.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
So we had hearings for the new Secretary of Education,
which was the voce. And she really was not qualified
at all. I don't think she'd ever been to a
public school.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
No, she actually not a public school fan, but very
involved in education.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
She's education, but in trying to privatize it and trying
to get religious.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Very into religious schools.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Yeah, and also but mainly didn't know anything about education.
Issuest large for public schools, and she didn't know the
difference between growth and proficiency.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Not a fan of public schools. None of her kids
went to public schools.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Well that's fair. I mean it's fair than none of
her kidsmen, But if you're going to be Secretary of Education,
you have to have some knowledge of this. And so
I enjoyed that hearing.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I would postulate that Trump's new Secretary of Education wrestling
aficionado and Trump megadonor may actually be worse.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
I doubt it. I don't think she'll be worse.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
You don't think so. Trump has now moved on to
that he just wants to get rid of the Department
of Education.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
That's true. I don't know how proud you are to
be selected as a secretary or something he's getting rid of.
And I guess you know, it's going to be a
big deal getting rid of that Department of Education. I
mean they do all the finances.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Tel grants, federal funding for education. Linda McMahon though, has
a lot of experience with pro wrestling.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Well she does. But they're billionaires, right. That is Another
thing is how many billionaires have been selected.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Let's even go a step further.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
How much of the government is Elon Mosk running.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
What is this fortune? Now? Two hundred billions?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I think he's the richest person in the world, right,
well he is.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
He is the richest person in the world. But some
wayson his I thought it was worth his four hundred
that he increased two hundred this year he increased to
two hundred or increased two hundred.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Poor Jesse has to get involved. Things are problematic.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Going Trump's a US combinat billionaires worth find three hundred
and forty billion.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Well, that means that he can't be more than probably
two hundred. I guess he could be three hundred and thirty.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
The sad thing is that's the Guardian and then we
have courts in the Washington posting four hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
This is all between all the billions when all the cabinet. Yeah. Yeah,
and of course the first tax cut will help people
at the very top the most. And he's going to
lower the tax rate even more than he did last
time for the top.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Well, that's why he's doing it in the first place.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Yeah, And to think about what he who is people are?
Who is the maga people? They are not. They are
people that are working people, and that's who won the
election for him. Yeah, and they will get almost nothing
in this tax cut, and we'll go to the people
at the very top.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
That's why they did it.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Yeah. And this is why I'm depressed, because he's getting
away with what he's getting away with the.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Thing that I'm struck by is he's going to want
to cut Social Security and Medicare and the DOGE. So
DOGE exists to save money so that Trump's tax cuts
won't expire. And the way they want to save money
is by what they.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Have threatened to cut it by how much now two
hundred billion or something like that.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I mean, when you don't understand how anything works, but
it does seem like there's a non zero chance that
Donald Trump is like, why are we paying all of
our debt? Oh?
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Well, he says that we're going to pay down our debt.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, no, I mean, when you look at America's debt numbers, right,
a lot of the spend, the yearly spend that the
country does, is servicing the debt, right, paying interest on
the debt. So there are certain things you can cut
the federal budget by cutting the debt, cutting the payment
on the debt because you owe that money. And if
you default on the debt, your dollar becomes valueless and
(16:54):
you crush your economy.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
Yeah, and then the world goes into a huge recession.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Donald Trump has historically, in his own purview, not paid
his debt.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Right, the elist government, by law, has to pay a debt.
It's not so big a secret is that. What's going
to happen with Trump is that the death that's going
to explode.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
He said that it's going to be easy to pay
it off, and he's going to remember when he was
going to pay it off with tariffs. When we said.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
That, that was like three weeks ago.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
This was three weeks ago. Well, you know, obviously.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
We've all aged decade since then.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yeah, I mean, he basically was telling the American people
that when you have a tariff on something and China
has it. We put a tariff on Chinese cars that
the tariff goes to the treasury, and it doesn't we
pay the tariff. Best Buy is importing Chinese TVs. They
(17:47):
have to pay a tariff on each TV. That's best Buy.
I hasked to pay it, and then they passed on
the cost to So they pass on the cost to
their customers, you know, or they can take you or
completely comes out of their profit and they don't sell
Chinese TVs anymore. That's what happened. So the way he
describes terroris is like a tax on products coming in.
(18:10):
And I know he's been disabused of that by his people,
but he doesn't seem to want to do that. So
our debt is going to just shoot up, especially if
he lowers a tax on So he's talking about lowering
the tax rate on very top.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, it's exactly what we said was going to happen, right,
I mean.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Yeah, And you know his people I don't. I mean,
they're getting information from it totally different. They're not listening
to us right now. I'll just spurt that way.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
But what I think is interesting about this, what I
think is relevant is that we've been here before with
Donald Trump, right, Like even that soft Bank announcement yesterday,
and Trump announced the toft Bank was going to invest
you know whatever.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
He said two hundred millions.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
He had done the exact same thing before with the
soft Bank thing.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
So it was like we were literally living this.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I mean, there are so many callbacks to season one,
it's kind of amazing. But then also things have gotten
much much darker, right, So part of it is we
have these callbacks to season one, but then we also
have like the first time, we didn't have all of
Silicon Valley. We didn't know, at least I did not
know that all of Silicon Valley was filled with nefarious billionaires.
(19:30):
I thought there were a few good billionaires.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
You thought there were a few well, I mean Bezos
is given a million dollars to the Inaugural Fund.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah. Trump said yesterday at Mara a Lago with the
CEO of SoftBank that the SoftBank will invest one hundred
billion in United States projects over the next four years
in season one of this Trump thing. I'm reading you
a piece of politics here term one. On December six,
(20:00):
twenty sixteen, Trump says soft Bank will invest fifty billion
in US aiming to create fifty thousand jobs.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Did they actually come through?
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Let's go to Jesse Canon Jesse, did SoftBank actually do that?
Speaker 4 (20:16):
I don't believe. So I think they didn't. And I
think this one hundred billion that they're talking about this
time will include other investors that they have coming in.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Look if it happens, great, but you know it is
a callback to the first season. And this keeps happening,
right that we keep seeing Trump kind of recycle the
same trout.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Except that this time is so much worse because if
you look at just the caneate picks, these are people
who have will have complete loyalty to them. And these
are people, I mean, Hegseth is not going to resist
anything Trump wants right as Defense secretary.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So let me just read this to you.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Standing behind SoftBank's chief executive is mar A Lago Estate,
Trump announced the pledge that echoed a fifty billion dollar
commitment SoftBank made after his victory in twenty sixteen. That
promise was followed up by investments in a host of
fledgling startups, some that surged, others that ran into trouble,
including the coworking company you may remember it.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
We were We worked down and.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
A company called Zumi that used robots to make pizza.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Okay, that one didn't work.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
See when I'm making pizza, I think, why can't a
robot make this pizza?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
That's what I think. I think, Why am I bothering.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
With this pizza when I too could be making I
could have a robot doing it.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Isn't most people's pizza just taking of the freezer and
putting in the oven?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
I mean that's they obviously don't have robots. If SoftBank
had given them robots, think of what would have happened,
we'd all be living in we Works right now.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, and we Work was a place where you go
and have an office. Was that it?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (22:02):
What Jesse tell us? What happened when we work?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Well, you see the CEO was a Jeckuss and they
overspent their money. The one thing is they do still exist.
But the leadership wasn't considered Theorranose level of like bullshitting,
but it was of the kind of bullshitting of Theranose.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yes, and they bought a lot of real estate.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Right it is now mostly someone else's. Right.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
In the end, the robots couldn't make the pizza.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
There was no pizza robots.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
The dog walking startup had a lot of complaints about
lost dogs on walks. Really, yes, yes, he invested in
a dog walking startup that lost dogs. You know, was
beabs like, you have one job. Well, there we go.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I don't want to laugh because it's so dark.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And if anything happened to Boussephalos, Spartacus and Leonidas, we
would be devastated. But it is pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I was waiting for you to not nab one of
the dogs so that we were going to see your
true colors.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, that's not good.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
You should not If you have a dog walking company,
you should not lose any dogs.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
That'd be rule one.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
I have a question for you, So do you think that.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Like obviously, voters are very mad at incumbents. They were
mad at Biden. They were Matda Harris.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
That's what the election was about. The election was about
inflation as much as anything, and more than anything, I
think it was all non inflation, and.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So they were quite mad, and they were really mad.
They were so mad that when a CEO got murdered,
they couldn't stop clapping. So here's my question for you.
It doesn't seem like any of the legislation, and I
don't think it's going to be a lot of legislation,
but any of the executive order said Trump World are
(24:01):
going to put into practice will help people who feel disenfranchised.
So what happens like play this.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Out for me, Well, they're in such a different information world,
then I'm not sure those people will be understanding what's happening.
That they will understand that their taxes, their taxes will
go down slightly, but just slightly compared to what the
billionaires are going to Well yours, Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I'm not a billionaire, but I mean wealthy people will
have their.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Taxes go Now.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Now you think they're going to get rid of the
thing on that how much you.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Can carry interest loophole? Now I do not.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Well, how about the cap on how much you can deduct?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
The salt deduction? Maybe the state and local income tax deduction.
Perhaps there's a lot of New Yorkers in that cabinet.
So we're talking about something that Jesse hates talking about,
which is that in blue states you used to be
able to deduct your state taxes off your taxes, so
you weren't taxed twice.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Now there's a ceiling to that, yes.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Which affects wealthy people and makes them very angry.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yeah, and it was really aimed at blue.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Skates, punishing Democratic donors.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Yeah, Democratic donors in California and New York, Illinois.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And they're so punished that a lot of them just
decided to support.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
From But you know, like Florida has no basil income tax, right,
no state income tax.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I think there are some, but it's low.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
I mean, the thing with state income taxes, So what
I think is interesting and upsetting is that state income
taxes largely go to schools, right, public schools. There's other
stuff they go to, but public schools are a big
part of it. So blue states tend to have better
schools because they have more money for schools. Trump wants
to get rid of the Department of Education, which provides
(25:52):
grants added grants to public schools in red states.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, and forces things like you know, you know, people
get what is it title two of the title two?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, they get grants and then also pel grants, federal
grants for.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Education, etc.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Somebody's got to administer that stuff. Where would that go?
Speaker 3 (26:15):
It will go to nowhere. They're not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
So McMahon, she volunteered to be the secretary of a
department that he's going to get rid of.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
She couldn't get commerce right because here was what happened.
Howard Lutnik and Linda McMahon co chaired the transition. Howard
Lutnik wanted to be the Treasury secretary. They actually got
a real guy as the Treasury Secretary who knew how
to do stuff, which bumped Howard Lutnick to Secretary of Commerce,
which is what Linda McMahon had wanted. Linda McMahon, not
(26:46):
wanting to be without a shair, said she'd take the
department no one wanted.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Which is education, which is when he's getting rid of. Yeah,
well it says he's getting rid of Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
He wants to get rid of.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I don't think he will get rid of it because
all of this is too much.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, well, I just think that getting right of education,
where does all that stuff go? You might as well
have an education department. I think it'll stay, it'll stick.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
So much of this stuff is just too much work
for him and annoying.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
It's like, we have to remember what Trump was like
in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
He was like not that effective. Yeah, thank god.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
But he was scared and I think and also he
had people around him knew didn't obey him and countered
him and thought he was an.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Idiot, right right, and we don't have that this time.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
And said so right, Tillerson.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Yeah, rerex On. So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
But we're not depressed because we are just going to
keep going because the only way through is through.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
That's right. So keep up the good work, Alfragan, Thanks.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Molly, thank you. Justice Allison Riggs is running to be
a justice in North Carolina. Welcome back, too fast politics.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
Justice Riggs, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I want you to give us the whole story, just
for everyone, give us the whole backstory everything.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
I appreciate the opportunity to tell folks what's happening here
in North Carolina. So I was a former civil rights attorney.
I was appointed to first the North Carolina Court of
Appeals and then the North Carolina State Supreme Court in
September of twenty three. State supreme courts are even more
important than they've ever been because of rulings from the
(28:30):
US Supreme Court kicking jerry mandering in reproductive freedom back
to the state level. So I served on the Court
of Appeals and the Supreme Court for two years. I
stood for election this past November six weeks ago, and
was elected by the voters in North Carolina to serve
a full eight year term on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
I won by seven hundred and thirty four votes out
(28:53):
of over five point five million cast, so every vote
mattered here in North Carolina. Since then, there have been
two recounts, one full machine statewide and then a sample
hand eye recount. Both confirmed my victory, and my opponent
has filed what we call here in North Carolina election protests,
(29:15):
and he is seeking something very extreme and I think
people need to know about it. He's seeking to toss
sixty thousand ballots cast by eligible North Carolina voters this
past election, including both of my parents. That's how extreme
we've gotten.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Basically, you won, and now he wants to throw out
the vote.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Right. I think in the past few years we've seen
this troubling trend of people not wanting to concede when
they lose. And it's not everyone, but it's certainly a
playbook that we're seeing nationally and across certain states. We
saw it in Arizona in twenty two, all over the
place in twenty when the President Trump didn't want to concede,
(29:59):
he lost. And now it's come home to roost here
in North Carolina. But it ought to be very troubling
for anyone who cares about in respects the rule of
law and how our democracy works. You can't change the
rules of a game after an election. My father went
to register to vote using his military ID and proof
(30:21):
of residency. That was acceptable. Those were the rules, and
he'd been voting, just like many of these sixty thousand
voters have been voting for years and years and years,
and they include Democratic and Republican elected officials. So there
are some things that are just too far. And that's
where we are here in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
What happens now.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
So last week the state Board of Elections ruled that
the vast majority of the elections, they didn't get all
of the election protests in front of them at once,
but they ruled that the majority of them had no merit,
and so they issued a forty page written order on
Friday saying, look, they sent postcards to some of the
(31:07):
challenged voters. So for example, my mom got one, my
dad didn't. It said your vote may be affected by
a protest, Scan this QR code to find out if
you're on the list, and then you had to jump
through a bunch of hoops to find out if you
were on the list. The State Board of Election says
that doesn't constitute notice. If you're going to try and
disenfranchise someone, you have to at least tell them. And
(31:32):
my dad, like many people of that generation, one doesn't
know how to use a QR code, but told my
mom not to scan the QR code because her phone
could get a virus. So I just warm this inside
glimpse of what is happening in so many North Carolina
homes across the state. And now that we're on pins
and needles waiting to see the North Carolina Republican Party
(31:54):
has said my opponent intends to appeal that state board order.
We're waiting for it. There's also ongoing, not through me,
but through other parties. There's federal litigation already trying to
ensure that every vote counts. I put my hand on
a Bible and swore to uphold and defend the North
Carolina and US constitutions. So did my opponent, who's a
(32:17):
sitting North Carolina Appeals Court judge. We as constitutional officers
have to walk the walk. We have to live what
we preach, and that is commitment to the constitution.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Even when you don't like.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
The rules right, you have to follow them. And it's
just so important that people see what's happening in North
Carolina and understand the undercurrent that is running across all
of this nation in political elections, political spaces, is that
we need to be worried about the damage that has
already been done to our democracy and trust in our institutions.
(32:56):
Our democracy doesn't defend itself, and we need people of
strong constitutional conviction to stand up and say this is wrong.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I mean, what do you do?
Speaker 5 (33:06):
I mean right now, I am in a waiting game.
I am waiting to see when the appeal will be filed.
We're getting just tons and tons of emails from voters.
So as this continues to get coverage and voters get
some help finding if they're on the list or not,
they're mad. They think it's ridiculous. My sense is a
(33:27):
very small fraction of them that are challenged even realize
they're on that list. But my opponent's attorney in the
State Board of Elections last week said he couldn't name
one person out of that sixty thousand that he believed
to be ineligible to vote. So they are fussing about
some data being allegedly missing from the voter.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
File, right, so they're just full of shed.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
Well, I think what we need to do is call
out what is wrong when it is wrong, if we
ever have any hope of move moving on from this.
I mean, people want to move on from elections when
it's over. If you put yourself out there to run
for political office, means if you take the L, you
take the L and you walk on with life.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Will there be more lawsuits, etc.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
What we're expecting to be filed will look like a
state court lawsuit. It's technically an appeal of an administrative
decision from the State Board of Elections, but it's in
the form of a civil action filed in state court.
So you know, the short is is, if what the
North Carolina GOP says is going to happen, it happens,
(34:34):
then yes, we'll see more litigation. And you know, I'm
just trying to make sure that every eligible vote counts.
It's critically important if we want to have elections conduct elections,
have nice things. We have to respect democracy even when
it breaks your heart. And I think you've seen a
lot of folks, you know, not happy with the election
(34:55):
results this year and not trying to overturn an election either.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
So what can people do if they want to support
you in this situation.
Speaker 5 (35:05):
Yeah, So we are really encouraging folks to look at
follow me on social media. We're circulating regular updates so
that folks will know what's happening when it's happening. We
want folks to find out if their name is on
that list, if they have been challenged, and we encourage
them to share their stories. So if you go on Instagram,
(35:29):
I'm at Rigs for our courts, if you go to
x I'm at Alice and Jay Riggs, there's step by
step ways instructions on how to find out if your
name is on that list. And then we're encouraging people
to use the hashtag count don't cancel. Make sure that
their stories are heard because we're just we really want
(35:51):
people to know that these sixty thousand voters, it's not
just a number, It is a ton of people who
took the time and effort to get registered, turn out
and vote, and they deserve better than this.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, So these elections are small elections that generally fly
under the radar. Do you think it speaks to a
sort of larger Republican interest in the judiciary and why.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
I think we've seen deep Republican investment in federal and
state courts for years and years and years, And I
think that progressive counterparts are doing the work now, but
the counter voice wasn't as quick to be heard. But
since Justice Protozelitz was elected in Wisconsin, since I was
(36:41):
elected this year, I think we're starting to understand that.
Because judicial elections are down ballot, because a lot of
people may not understand what judges do their lower information votes,
and so we have to do extra work to educate
people not only about what our core do, but what
does a judge who you can trust with your rights
(37:04):
do like, what do they look like, what do they
sound like? How do you get to know them? And
then ultimately how do you hold them accountable? And so
over the last two years, I have been working tirelessly
to ensure that voters know who I am. There's the
only other Democrat on our North Carolina Supreme Court Justice
Anita Earls. She's up in twenty twenty six, and so
(37:24):
we're you know, we're going to be working to make
sure that North Carolina voters have more information understand how
important our state courts are. If you care about democracy,
if you care about reproductive freedom, if you care about
the environment, and you know, engage in this long term
accountability project where we it's not just about pushing money
(37:47):
into down ballot races. It's about empowering voters to understand
how important these seats are and how they can vote
us out if they don't like what the judges and
justices that they have are doing. And I think you know,
certainly in North Carolina, I want all voters to hold
our courts accountable.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, can you explain to us sort of some of
the case like state jerrymandering will come to that court,
right besides like state laws.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
Yeah, so you know, we're not going to redistrict here
in this state again until after the twenty thirty census.
But who gets elected in the twenty twenty eight election,
we'll sit on the court when jerrymandering cases make their
way up. And you know, the federal courts, the US
Supreme Court, they don't want parties in jerrymandering cases that
(38:39):
they decided that there wasn't an avenue in federal court
to address those. So you know, we know that in
North Carolina the history of jerry mandering is highly contested.
And what Justice Earles and I are doing is working
to make sure that we're very present in communities across
this large state. Talk about our past experience. I was
(39:02):
a former voting rights attorney. I worked on cases seeking
to make sure that voters picked their politicians, not the
politicians deciding what voters they got to keep or shed.
And we need people who care about our democracy on
the bench. And I've described it as we here in
North Carolina have dominoes that we need to knock over
(39:25):
in order to have a majority on the bench of
people who are justice minded, who care about a functioning,
healthy democracy. And we have the chance to do that.
In twenty twenty eight. We had to keep me and
my seat in twenty twenty four. We have to keep
Justice Anita Earles in her seat in twenty twenty six,
and then in twenty twenty eight before the next round
(39:46):
of regular redistricting, three Republicans terms are up, and that's
control of the court before a really important process that
the state courts have been involved in. So that's what's
on the line line here, and you know, my job
is to make sure that voters understand that and don't
just say, oh, well, that's you know, years down the road.
(40:08):
I mean, we're making decisions now. We're building infrastructure, we're
recruiting candidates, we're doing all the work that the right
has done for much longer. We have to do that now.
And it's not a one election cycle task. It's multi
cycle work. It's about building infrastructure and educating voters about
what's at stake.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, do you feel on the state level that you're
able to connect with voters in a way that at
the national level Democrats might not be.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
Yeah, i mean North Carolina is, as I'm sure you
could tell, it's a bit of a quirky state. There's
a lot of ballots splitting, so Democrats won half the
council's state seats and Republicans one half. You know, it's
just it's a very quirky state. But that means that voters,
if they get to know you, will vote for you.
(40:58):
And so it makes it a lot of it makes
it hard work, and I think we continue to get polarized.
And so the number of voters who are who are
willing to if they get to know you and like you,
vote for you like that number isn't enormous, but it
is significant because of what we see. You know, it's
a decent sized number. So I think with a lot
(41:19):
of work and a lot of connection on a human level,
you know, I tell people my story. I told people
this election cycle that I'm a forty three year old
woman who hopes to start a family, but my ability
to do so may depend on decisions that our own
court makes. And I want women to know that they
have someone in me who shares their experience and understands
(41:43):
what it's like to, you know, need access to IVF
for fertility treatments to start their family and the interplay
between those personal realities and state court proceedings. And so
I think we have to do the work to recruit
great candidates who can resonate with different voters. And it's
a lot of work to get out across the state
(42:03):
this big and that's just the reality of choosing to
run in North Carolina. But I'm very encouraged that we
can do this. Even in a red wave election, we
were able to hold onto this seat and that speaks
to me to a lot of the work that's been
done from the North Carolina Democratic Party and folks just
working to raise awareness of the importance of state court races.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, really important.
Speaker 5 (42:29):
Thank you, Justice Riggs, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
No moment coxectly, Jesse Cannon smile.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
When I think of all the stupid things that Trump
likes to sue people for, you know, Bill Maher for
saying his mother was a baboon and a joke, one
of the stupider ones. But suing Anne Seltzer for her
poll being off pretty fucking dumb.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
It's dumb. But Donald Trump wants to send and Se
to get Mo for being wrong about her poll, and I,
for one, am here for it. No, I'm just kidding. No, obviously,
you can't send An.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Seltzer to Gitmo for having her poll be off.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Trump is going to experiment with trying to intimidate the media.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
That's what's happening here. That's what he did with ABC.
It worked for him with.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
ABC, so now he's going to try it with the
des Moines Register again, you know, Okay, I mean it
sucks and I hope that the Des Moines Register will
not fold and donate fifteen million dollars to the Trump
Presidential Library, which will never happen. But there we are.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
(43:44):
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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