July 30, 2025 • 44 mins
As The World Churns’ Andy Levy examines Trump’s constant Epstein flubs.Texas State Representative James Talarico details how Democrats can communicate with voters like humans.
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Episode Transcript
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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 Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Said, I never had the privilege of.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Going to his island about guess who, Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
We have such a great show for you.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Today as the world churns Andy Levy stop Spy to
talk about Trump's constant Epstein flubbs, he never knew him.
Then we'll talk to Texas State Representative James Tellerco about
how Democrats can communicate with voters like humans.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But first the news.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Molly rare in person podcast for you and I. This
is like the rarest of things we do on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I feel like we haven't seen each other in a year.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
It's in person.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
It's been about a month that I have to two
months in person.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
All right, all right, all right.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Okay, okay, So Molly, the DOJ has sued for the
Trump administration with holding a memo on Trump's four hundred
million dollar jet from guitar where he's taking money from
a nuclear modernization plan that would help keep us safe
so that he could have a gold toilet in a jet.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, so this is a watchdog group because Trump's DOJ
only works for Trump. So while in a normal administration,
which we used to have, you might have a DOJ
actually have independence from the president, this DOJ Pambondi, serves
at the pleasure of one Donald Trump sue she is
(01:34):
now being sued or this watchdog group is suing them
to release this memorandum.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Again, the administration has said that all of this is classified,
that the plane redo is classified. There's no reason for
any of this to be classified. It's really classified because
Trump is thinking he can get away with avoiding bad press.
But the Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy at this
(02:05):
watchdog group, you'll remember Daniel Ellsberg as being involved.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
In the Pentagon papers.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It shouldn't take six hundred and twenty days to release
a single time sensitive document. How many flights could Trump
have taken on his new plane in the same amount
of time it would have taken the DOJ to release
one document. The complaint filed in the District of Columbia
notes that the airplane is set to be donated to
Trump's private Presidential Library foundation is second term. By the way,
(02:35):
there is no precedent for a country donating a plane
to the Air Force or to the President, or to
any of this, and then to have it then be
kept so that Trump doesn't have to buy another plane
or use his seven five seven. It's worth remembering that
(02:56):
in normal administrations they're not allowed to politic. Any kind
of campaigning is a Hatch Act violation, so they have
to They can't talk about re election campaigns. They can't
use the government to enrich themselves. There are all sorts
of things that a normal campaign couldn't do that The
Trump administration is just full throttle in on and it
(03:18):
is just incredible to watch this kind of stuff. There
are no words.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
So speaking of things that Trump does that are totally
corrupt to enrich himself. He used our text dollars to
open his Scottish golf course.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Look, man, that's what he does. But I mean the
Scottish golf course thing. The best thing about the whole
story is that the Scots were like protesting him in
a hilarious way.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
The worst thing.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
About the whole story is that there's video of him
perhaps treating as he golfs. I don't understand golf. I
don't want to understand golf. The less I know about golf,
the better. It is fascinating to me that he came
out of it with like two things.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The first day.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
He was mad about windmills and mad about immigration. I mean,
this cannot believe that people in this country made this
guy president again. Like at every point, I'm like, you, guys,
does nobody remember what happened the first time? The first
time when they were actually people around him being like
you can't do that, as opposed to this time when
(04:22):
the people around him are like, oh, mister president, you know.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Oh I see, I see a spot on your bootick
a little more right.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
So look, yeah, I mean this is all it's They're
just having vacations, doing horrible things to people and spending
our tax dollars on truly atrocious things, well, cutting food
stamps and medicaid and all of the things that we
would like.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Our tax dollars to be spent on. So here we are.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
He also did do a meeting with the EU Commissioner
Ursula vandy Ley, who and that maybe they have a
trade deal, maybe they don't have a trade who knows.
I always promised ninety deals in ninety days. It's been
more than ninety days and we still have like four
or five deals outlines of deals, concepts of a plan.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
Yeah, well, I'm going to take you back to a
previous player that we don't think about a lot, from
a kind of in between season one, Lezelden.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
He went on a little podcast and.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
He revealed that the EPA plans to revoke the legal
basis for tackling climate change.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I mean, these people, if they could kill the planet
any harder, they would also, I might add there undermining
our forecasting, their closing weather satellites. They're not paying for
the weather balloons. Like the thinking here is if there's
a big weather catastrophe and we don't know about it,
it won't have happened. And it's just so fucking stupid.
(05:47):
And I think it's worth remembering that Lizelden is just
to complete more on.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Yeah, and particularly we remember this from the plans that
were laid out in Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yes, Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Where everyone where Trump was.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Like no, I won't do that, and people are like, okay,
well he said he won't. Yeah, Project twenty twenty five,
which they're doing right now. Speaking of Project twenty twenty five,
let's talk about the DOJ.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Yes, well, so Judge Bowsburg is someone mister Trump really
doesn't like, so of course his sycophantic ag Pam Bondi
has to come to the rescue.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So again, this is right from Project twenty twenty five,
and it's a war on the independent judiciary. But the
idea here is that the DOJ is an arm of
the Trump administration. It's part of this imperial presidency thing
which we saw about in Project twenty twenty five. And
the idea here is that everyone serves at the pleasure
of the president as long as the president is a Republican.
(06:48):
If the president is a Democrat, that's a totally different story.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
She's mad.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
She's going to make Judge Bosberg's life a living hell.
I mean, there's no world in which she doesn't do that.
And the good news is that so far, unlike universities,
unlike billionaires, unlike many many media organizations, Judge Bosberg, the
judiciary is in fact holding strong. Now we don't know
(07:16):
that that continues on, but that is certainly a good thing.
Andy Levy is the co host of As the World
Churns and Levin and What's going on. It's nice the
lighting I'm in Jesse's studio and the lighting has made
(07:38):
me look my actual age.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
I feel I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Could if you're watching this on the YouTube, just take
ten years off my age? Why not? Who among us?
So you were like, what's going on besides Epstein? Basically
Epstein is going on like the American people have decided.
I mean, I feel like this is how stupid everything is.
(08:06):
Trump has closing rural hospitals, cutting Medicaid, cutting snap right
food snamps. We're gonna have all these kids who can't eat.
But it's Jeff Epp that has unraveled the thing because
the reality is at to quote philosopher King poet Joe Rogan, uh,
(08:30):
you know we want answers.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Well, I've been saying that.
Speaker 7 (08:34):
This is the first you know, Trump voters are very
big on saying this is not what I voted for.
This is the first time I believed it because they
legitimately did vote thinking they were going to get answers
on Epstein. Why they then voted for the pale of
Epstein is obviously beyond me, but you know, that's the
(08:54):
way we live in right now. But this is legitimately
the first time where I see them saying this and
I see I'm getting upset, and I'm like, all right.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
I buy it.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I buy that you actually didn't.
Speaker 7 (09:04):
You voted for what you thought was the opposite of
this stupid as that was, but it is legitimately what
you thought as opposed to the you know, the the
deportations and the and all the other stuff that you mentioned,
which Trump clearly signaled ahead of time.
Speaker 6 (09:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Billions of dollars to Ice, right, Yeah, billions dollars to
Mars at least a little less than a billion dollars,
maybe somewhere between five hundred and nine hundred million dollars
to refurbishing Air Force one, a present that Donald Trump
has taken trip free with no influence, no no influence,
(09:44):
fax fayers paying for him to fly to Scotland to
open a golf course. I think that there are a
lot of things that are keeping me up at night.
I'm now at the stage of Trump second from where
I have anxiety dreams. Do you have anxiety dreams?
Speaker 4 (09:58):
I do, but not about Trump.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Oh I have I have like I have. People are like,
how's your life, and I'm like, my life in itself
is fine, right, there's not it. You know it by
the measures that I measure my own life, they're fine.
But living through what is clearly at best unprecedented and
at worst precedented in very bad moments of both American
(10:24):
history and other countries that have fallen to authoritarian regimes,
not a good feeling.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
No, not a good feeling.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
By the way I call anxiety dreams, I just call
them dreams, so you know, I'm not aware of any
other kind. Look, whatever anxiety dreams I or dreams I
am having, I'm thankful that they're not trupolated because it's
at least a little bit of a respite.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
From my waking day.
Speaker 7 (10:52):
Which is just like it is unreal and as bad
as we all thought this was going to be, and
and you know, we clearly thought it was going to
be bad. The speed and just the overwhelming force of it,
and watching institutions cave in real time and pretty quickly,
(11:12):
it's so overwhelming. It's just every day, it's you know,
And now at the point where I think Columbia, my
alma mater, I'm more embarrassed of them than they are
of me.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I never thought that would happen.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What I find really soul crushing, and then I want
to talk about the good news, which is nothing. Is
that I find this sort of way in which different
places have really like Harvard now wants to make a deal.
It was like two days ago I was talking about
like how great Harvard is for fighting against the AD
(11:44):
and they want to make a deal. CBS, NBC, NBC
not so much, but CBS, ABC both paid out. We
had this incredible moment this weekend where Trump sued Roup
Murnox Wall Street Journal for publishing this letter, which this
(12:07):
letter which said, you know, we don't know what that.
We haven't seen the letter, but we've seen that there
is this letter, and many people have confirmed that it's
this letter. I mean, the problem with Glaine the Galain
story is that there are so many victims, right, like,
this might be the largest sex trafficking story in American history.
(12:29):
Maybe not in American history, but it's one of the
top I mean, two hundred plus victims. So you can
never it will always be another victim in this story.
There will always be another fourteen year old who is
like Glaine picked me up from school, middle school, not
high school. Middle school. So if you pardon her, you
will unleash the floodgates.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Of more and more more of this.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
So it is Trump is like in this position where
they clearly want her to say he's not in it, right,
or say something right. I mean, this is clearly the motivation.
Blanche has gone and met with her. He has. Why
we don't have the notes, why we don't get information
about what that meeting was, we don't know. But the
(13:12):
deputy Attorney general, which is by the way, never happens, right,
and it's four years after she's been I mean, every
bit of the Todd Blanche meeting is smacks of some
kind of shakedown thing because you don't do that.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
But remember Bill Clinton on the tarmac.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
By the way, I love Republicans who are like Bill
Clinton's in it. Okay, I don't care. Oh, send her
to Gimo.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Absolutely, I've sent you. Exile him to wherever you're going
to exile Trump.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
At right next you're gonna say Bill richards is in it.
Don't care, fine, tout have been the Hague, New Mexican
governor Democrat Bill Richardson.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Don't care.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Send him to the hand I don't care.
Speaker 8 (13:52):
Absolutely.
Speaker 7 (13:53):
The thing is, you know you kept saying that they
want Maxwell to do this. They want her to lie,
is what they want her to do. Let's let's just
you know, let's name names.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
She seems pretty amenable to that idea for sure.
Speaker 7 (14:06):
Let's not forget that she is as guilty as as
Epstein was. Like, she wasn't just she wasn't some poor
flunky who took the hit.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
She was in this.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
She was procuring these girls, she was grooming these girls. Yeah,
she she was completely one hundred percent in this. And
the idea that is even being that a pardon for
her is even being floated. And I mean, i mean, look,
every time, you know, it's the what was a great
(14:39):
tweet that's now become a cliche, the you know, I
love to see old Donnie wriggle his way out of
this one. Yeah, you know, And we are at this point,
like it's hard to believe that anything will convince his
base to turn against him, but maybe this. I mean,
I'm not one hundred percent sold on it, not even close,
(15:01):
but this has a possibility.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Well, and it's also it's just there's just not a
clear way out in my mind, right, Like they clearly
thought we're gonna we'll say we're gonna release the Grand jury.
All the names are redacted. We know the names are redacted.
We know it's a high level of a high standard
to release grand jury testimony. We know it won't work,
(15:24):
so we'll say that. So then the judges, no, you
can't release grand jury testimenty okay, oops. But you know
what it does is it doesn't It just prolongs the
news cycle. And we know there are hundreds and hundreds
of pictures and video and whatever, and very likely a
lot of it is you know, unreleasable because it's pornography,
(15:46):
child pornography. But but there's certainly I'm sure there are
pictures of people with their clothes on that would be
at least you know, we know there are certain people
we know are involved in that's just you know that
are in the book, that are in the lists, that
are in the birthday book. So I do think and
(16:07):
I do think they're not wrong. It's just that there
are certain things that this administration has done that are
horrific on a very large scale. This may be horrific
in it on a small scale. One of the other
things I wanted to talk to you about was it's
like a race and class thing to a certain extent,
like it's a wealth thing too, Like he said, I'm
(16:29):
one of you, I'm an outsider. And then here he is,
like this guy was like mister insider, right, A ton
of academics, a ton of wealthy people, a ton of politicians.
So he's like, I'm an outsider. Oh and for ten
years I was best friends with this guy who was
sort of the pinnacle of society and also a sex trafficker.
Speaker 7 (16:51):
I find it interesting that, you know, he's sort of
at the very least intimated for a long time that
he stopped being friends with Epstein because of maybe these
savory things, you know, right, styled sex trafficking. And then
the other day he comes out and says, oh, I
stopped in front of him because he kept stealing employees
from mar A Lago.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Imagine if a Democrat did that.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
No, I can't.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Christine nom posted this photo of her and her friend
Corey riding horses in Argentina and it was like, I
never read wrote an Argentinian base, and I'm thinking, like,
you know, the fucking job is to serve the people
and not to just have great vacations, right, yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
Yeah, I also feel like riding a horse in Argentina
at the same time that people are calling you a
fascist and the Nazi is like that.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
You know, it's a.
Speaker 7 (17:47):
Little we're kind of past that at this point. But
to get back to what you were saying, it is
it's class and wealth and all of that. And look,
Trump has somehow again and convince all these people who
voted for him that he is one of them, that
he looks out for them, when in.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Fact, I mean, you couldn't be more the opposite of that.
Speaker 7 (18:11):
And so this issue, I think another reason why this
is becoming harder and harder for him to overcome or
to make go away. This issue really gets to that
because there are people now walking around thinking, oh my god, wait,
he's actually part of this group. He's not looking out
for me, He's not one of us, He's one of them.
(18:33):
And again, god knows how it took this to make
them figure that out, but that does seem to be
a large part of it. And everything he's doing is
furthering that. And like you said, everything he's doing is
keeping the story alive, whether it's firing was James Comy's daughter, Yes,
And it's just it feels like, if you didn't want
(18:56):
this story to go away. You would do exactly what
the Trump had been is doing, and yet they seem
to be doing it thinking it's going to help make
it go away.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
My man is a very undisciplined politician. He's a very
undisciplined thinker. There is no world in which this guy,
you know, any time, and during Trump's first admin, we
saw is a lot you know, there would be a
sort of blue and anish like this is this He's
doing that to distract from this, and then he's going
to do that and then pay attention to what they're
(19:26):
saying and not what they're doing, you know, or what
they're doing and not what they're saying. The reality is
like he just throwing shit on the wall. You know,
there's no world in always has Yeah, there's no discipline here,
there's no like master plan.
Speaker 7 (19:40):
But also I get really annoyed at the people who
think that the Epstein thing itself is a distraction and
why for a couple of well, that's the thing, like, yes,
as you pointed out earlier, Okay, it might not be
as you know, all encompassing as the you know the
fact that we're at the end of due process in
(20:01):
this country and and things like that. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
but it's still it's still it's child sex trafficking. It's
not a distraction. That's a kind of a gross thing
to say. But also it's not a distraction because of
everything we've been talking about that this is what seems
to be turning his base against him. So, you know,
(20:24):
it really annoys me. I understand why Republicans want to
stay age the distraction, but it annoys me when when
there are Democrats out there saying, oh, we shouldn't focus
on this. I understand again in terms of what's going
on in Gaza and what's going on with the kidnapping
people off the stream and shredding the constitution thing. Sure,
not in the same scope. But still, if this is
(20:46):
the thing that's going to bring Trump down, and it's
goddamn awful in and of itself, don't call it a distraction.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, no, I agree, I mean I don't. It's hard
to think of anything that unites all of us more
than child sex trafficking is bad and people should not
do it, and if they've done it, they should go
to jail. Like this is not a hard one. There's
no nuance here, And no, I agree I also think
(21:11):
this thing is going to go on and on and on.
One of the things that's happening here is the Republicans
have signed on to the bill, signed have signed this BBB,
but none of them read it. So now they're learning
what's in it and is coming as a as a
delightful surprise. I want to read you something because I
(21:31):
feel like it's time for amazing show and tell here.
And you know, there are these recision packages and the
question of whether or not they can be receded, you know.
So basically what's happened is in order to pass these
recision packages, they need to have bipartisan support. Russ Vot
(21:56):
Architective Project twenty twenty five, which Trump said he knew
nothing about, but who Also you'll remember that rus Wott
worked in Trump's first administration. I feel like I take
crazy pills every time we talk about this, because it
was like Trump was president for four years and he
did all the stuff. Then he campaigned and he was like,
I'm gonna do all this stuff and everyone was like, no,
(22:16):
he's not, he's not. He says he's gonna do it,
but he's not gonna do it. Right, he had this
thing where they would be like they would just give
him the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to every
other politician where they were like, you can't do that.
You know, you're okay. So now he Republicans are regretting
a tax hike on gamblers they inserted into President Trump's
(22:39):
megabill calling for it to be repealed. One GOP senator
said they didn't even know what was in the bill
they voted for.
Speaker 8 (22:47):
I mean, take Cruz has said things like this, and
I'll do Do you think that makes you better? I
mean this is literally you have one job, Like your
job is to know what you're voting on.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Actually think a tax on gamblers back too, might actually
be like it's this stuff in there that they want,
like the recision So the last recision packet was money
for pep FAR and also defunding all public radio basically
all public broadcasting public radio, like sticking it to Sesame
(23:19):
straight because though you know, cutting the seven dollars they
get from the federal budget, I mean sticking it you
Grover and Elmo because they say kindness and kindness is
obviously will propaganda. Sure, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Think the solution here is for Elmo to develop a
gambling problem.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It is the only answer, and.
Speaker 7 (23:43):
Then he can get money once they take that out
of the bill. But no, you're right. I was making
a different point, but you're absolutely right of all the
things for them to be suddenly like, oh, I wish
I hadn't voted for that.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
It's a tax on gambling.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
You'll be billions of dollars to colonizing mars. I mean
there are billions of dollars to nefarious shit that we've
never heard of. And now you're upset about Elmo.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (24:09):
Oh, and you cut all that You took all that
money away from Medicaid and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Andy Levy, Andy Levy, I just got I'm being detained. No,
I'm not being yet. Will you come back?
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I guess all come back.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
James tell Rico represents Texas's fifty second district in the
Texas House of Representatives. Welcome to past.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Politics, James, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
So we basically we were on TV together this week
where you were talking and then I was sort of
reacting to what you said and your state rep from
Texas possibly maybe open to running for the Texas Cent
the cent the actual Senate as opposed to the state
Senate in Texas. And one of the things you talked about,
(25:00):
which is like one of my peccadillos, one of my obsessions,
is you talked about how you have to go everywhere
that you will not get in front of Joe Rogan's
people unless you go on Joe Rogan. So I would
love you to just explain that more and sort of yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I mean, I think the last election should be a
wake up call for the Democratic Party, and I think
it should push us to get outside of our comfort zone,
outside of our bubbles, and start to go places that
we don't typically go and talk to people we don't
typically talk to, because that be the only way we
can build a big enough, tend to big enough coalition
(25:40):
to transform this state in this country. I mean, you know,
Vice President Harris lost to President Trump by a point
and a half, which is a close selection. But we
should never be that close to losing or beating Donald Trump.
We should be beating him with sixty percent of the vote.
That's the kind of coalition I want to build. You,
(26:01):
a new Deal size coalition, a great society sized coalition
like we had with another Texas Democrat, Linda Johnson. So
that's I think should be our goal as a party
not to just squeak by in the next election. We
need to completely change our politics so that we can
gain political power and remake this broken political system so
(26:22):
it can actually work for people again.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
So one of the things that when you get in
front of I would love you to talk about, like
getting on Joe Rogan and how that I want you
to talk us through the whole thing, because Harris did
not break through, Like she did an amazing job for
being someone with one hundred days, she really did do
a great job, but she could not break through. And
(26:46):
we saw that because there were all these Google searches
on election day who is running for president? So that
means they didn't know who was running for president on
the Democratic side, so they didn't see it. Right, they're
not reading the New York Times.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know the moments in
the campaign where the American people heard directly from Vice
President Harris or some of her best moments, right the debate,
the convention speech. I mean, I you know, you can
always Monday Morning quarterback this stuff. But I think if
Vice President Harris had been on Joe Rogan, I think
she might have won the election. That's how much faith
(27:20):
I have in her as a as a person, as
a leader. I think if someone hears directly from Donald
Trump and hears directly from Vice President Harris, I think
it's a clear choice. The problem is they didn't always
hear directly from her. There were those moments, but in
this in this day and age, you've got to be
talking to people directly all the time, and you can't
(27:41):
just do it at the big, you know, peaks of
a campaign, like a debate or a convention. It's got
to be the whole way through. And that's what that's
what President Trump was doing, and I do think it's
why it won. But I don't think that had to
be the result. And so I'm trying to learn from
those mistakes and I'm trying to put myself in sometimes
uncomfortable positions, right. I mean, I to answer your question
(28:01):
about Joe Rogan, his team emailed us out of the
blue and said that Joe had seen a video of
mine and would love to have me on.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
There was no list of questions, no list of topics.
Didn't even know how long it was going to go,
didn't know if I was going to get a bathroom break.
I didn't know any of this stuff, and so I
was flying blind. And that's interest.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
So he's in Austin and you just went into his studio,
and that's right.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Yep, very nondescript. You would not have thought when you
were outside the the the office that it was the
biggest podcast in the country. His team was very chill
and very nonchalant, couple like he is, and and he
was very warm, very curious, very open.
Speaker 6 (28:47):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
I think he and I really hit it off and
created a connection. We obviously don't see ida on everything,
but there was a lot of common ground.
Speaker 6 (28:54):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
He thinks this political system is corrupt. I absolutely agree
with that. He thinks that both political parties are flawed
and need to change. I agree with that. He thinks
that there should be a more shared prosperity in this country.
I believes in universal health. It's populized, right, yeah, And
those are all things that I believe in too. So
that's a lot to build off of. So, you know,
(29:16):
I thought it was a little nerve racking to go
into a you know, not the most friendly of places
and have an open ended conversation for two and a
half hours with no set list of questions or topics.
But it requires some courage from our elected leaders to
put yourself in those positions. And I do think that
you get points for that. You may not say everything perfectly,
(29:38):
you may flub a little bit, you may make a mistake,
and that's okay. People would rather just hear from you directly,
your honest opinions, and I think you can't worry about
having a gaff here and there. That's going to happen.
Donald Trump has gafs all the time, but people hear
from him, They hear the honesty or what they perceive
is honesty, and it works. And so we've got to
(29:59):
do that on our side. We've got to be ourselves.
We speak directly, and we've got to be everywhere talking
to everyone.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I would love you to tell us what it was
like after you went on Joe Rogan, Like, what was
did you did your I mean, did your life change?
Because this is the thing that I want to get out.
I want to get people understanding is that part of
the siloed media means that you only get if you're
(30:25):
doing certain media, which I work for, you will only
get in front of certain people, which is great. There's
you know a lot of very smart people watch MSNBC,
a lot of very smart But but you in order
to win at the national level, you also have to
get in front of all different people. So tell me what,
(30:46):
how what happened after doing Joe Rogan?
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Well, yeah, like right on this show, I'm talking to
folks who are already in our coalition. Yeah, and that's
important because we've got to get our act together if
we're going to start winning political power and making people's
life better. So sometimes we have to have locker room
talks with our team, which you know you do on
MSNBC or you do here, and that's super important. But
then if you want to actually go out there and
build that big tent, you've got to go on Joe Rogan.
(31:11):
You've got to go on Fox News, which I've done.
You've got to go on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which
I've done. And those places are sometimes less friendly, and
that's okay. That's part of the job of being an
elected official is having that courage to go into those places.
But the response has been overwhelming. I mean, in some ways,
you know, I think it was just a podcast, but
you know, in other ways, people are acting like it
(31:33):
was a you know, some kind of democratic moon landing. Right,
that's one one small step for a Democrat, one giantly
for the Democratic Party. And so the response has just
been overwhelming on our side. But I think the thing
that is most encouraging is I've just been flooded with
emails and direct messages on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook
(31:55):
and Twitter where people are saying, you know, I lean right,
or I both parties, or I can't tell you how
many people have sent me a message of last week
where they start off with I have never messaged a
politician before. That is probably the most common thing I've
heard over.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Which is a good time, because.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Yeah, I mean the people these are not people who
listen to the show. They don't watch me with NBC.
And some of them have been said like, I didn't
agree with everything that I heard, but I was struck
by your openness and your honesty, and I was really
interested in some of your thoughts about about big money
and corruption and these billionaire mega donors, and so I
(32:32):
don't know it just the it's been an avalanche both
on the Democratic side with people who are just kind
of surprised that a Democrat went on this show and
was able to connect. But then I think more importantly
from a lot of people who are not in a
democratic coalition, who are are interested in this in my
views and interested in my values and found places to connect.
(32:53):
And connection is the name of the game in politics.
That's the only thing that matters is are you connecting
with people? And that's the only thing that moves people
to do something like show up to vote or change
the system oors.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Other Democrats do go on Rogan, like Bernie is a
regular Rogan guest or has at least been two or
three times. We've seen Rokana on Rogan. Threading the need
all when it comes to democratic populism is not impossible,
but we have not had big candidates do it, right,
(33:26):
I mean, you know, like Rokana and Bernie, it's a
little bit different. So to have a sort of more
centrist decandidate trying to thread the populism need all is
in some ways I think profound.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Yeah, you know, I just have kind of a simple
criteria when it comes to political communications, which is a
big part of my job.
Speaker 7 (33:49):
Right.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I do a lot of legislative work. I pass a
lot of bills, But my job also includes communicating with
my constituents and with the broader public. And if you
can't do that, you don't change public opinion, and you
don't organize or inspire people to change the balance of
power in a place like Texas. So communication is central
to the job that I have. And when it comes
(34:12):
to that communication, I just try to always be myself
and tell the truth. Those are the two things that
I that I go into these conversations with. Anything else,
you know, trying to figure out how to thread a
needle or have a certain messaging or whatever. All that
is just takes up too much space in my brain
and so it's just easier to just be myself, flaws included.
(34:33):
And I think, honestly, that's what people are hungry for.
It's why people respond to Donald Trump. They don't agree
with everything Donald Trump says either, but he is himself,
flaws and all. He is unabashed in being himself. And
I do think we need elected officials in our coalition
to do the same thing, hopefully with more character and
integrity and honesty and core values than Donald Trump. But
(34:57):
you really shouldn't shouldn't have the consultant and to full
driven filter that so many of us get trapped into
as politicians. You can kind of see sometimes when politicians
are like buffering right, Like you get asked a question,
there's like some loading time where they're like putting it
through all these these different layers of that's not going
(35:17):
to cut it anymore, it really is. That's not the
world we live in anymore. Maybe it was in the
eighties and the nineties, it's not the twenty twenties.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I wonder if you could talk about how you have
this religious background and what that looks like and how
that sort of informs I mean, I told you I
try to be myself and that includes my faith, and
you know, sometimes it makes people in our coalition uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
I mean, I've gotten some messages since Rogan saying like,
I don't think you talk this much about religion as
a public official has an opinion. I've gotten some meaner
ones from our fellow progressives who are like, I don't
want to hear about your sky daddy, you know, and
I understand where that's coming from.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
People have sky daddy. I've never heard of sky daddy.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Since one way one way to describe religion. Yeah, we
wonder why people of faith feel turned off with a
Democratic party. But you know, I get where that's coming from,
because organized religion has done a lot of damage and
it's hurt a lot of people, and so I understand
it comes from a place of of hurt and pain.
And I respect that very much and I want to
try to build that that divide, but it does. I
(36:21):
have gotten pushback. And again I just say that for
any elected officials or staffers or operators who are listening
to your show, you still have to be yourself, even
if it's going to ruffle some feathers, even if it's
not gonna You're not gonna be everbody's cup of tea, right,
but but you have to be yourself. And for me,
my faith is why I do this. I mean, it
is the foundation of my life. My granddad was a
(36:42):
Baptist preacher. I grew up in a Presbyterian church. It's
still the same church I attend today. It's wild I
went into public service. It's why I became a teacher.
It's why I ran for office, because I am called
to love God and love napor or those are the
two commandments that Jesus gave us as Christians, and they're
pretty simple. I mean they're not easy, and they're they're
(37:03):
very difficult sometimes to follow, but it is pretty simple.
And we as Christians are called to move from the
sanctuary where we where we love God, where we where
we where we are in touch with our spiritual selves.
We're called to move from that sanctuary to the streets
where our neighbors are. We're called to feed the hungry
(37:24):
and and heal the sick, and welcome the stranger. Those
are that is essential. I mean, Jesus tells us in
the in the New Testament that that is how we
will be saved.
Speaker 6 (37:34):
Right.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Sometimes you hear the word saved and you think it means,
you know, professing some kind of faith or something. But
in Matthew twenty five, Jesus is very clear the way
you will be saved is how you treat the least
of these. And that doesn't mean belonging to a church.
My pastor growing up said, you know, being in church
doesn't make you a Christian, just like sitting in a
garage doesn't make you a car Right, So it is
(37:57):
how you act out in the world. And honestly, I
know a lot of non religious people who are more
christ Like than a lot of people who go to
church every Sunday. But that foundation of faith is why
I do this work, and I can't help but explain
that and talk about that. And I'm not going to
be ashamed or afraid to say those things, even if
(38:20):
it may rubble some feathers in my own coalition.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
One of the things that the right really wants is
for centrist Democrats to throw trans children, to throw the
LGBTQ under the bus. I strongly believe that it's nobody's
goddamn business what people what adult people want to do
(38:43):
to their bodies.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
But that's just me as a reform Jew. Tell me
what you're thinking is on this? I mean, I just
I saw this video of a Democratic politician saying, no,
a man can't become a woman, and I thought, why
is it any business of yours? No?
Speaker 4 (39:01):
And you may be a reform Jews, not in Texas,
and you have that attitude. I know there are a
lot of Texas Protestants who have that same value of
live and let live. There are a few things that
make our state great. I'm an eight generation to Texan,
so I love my state more than it's probably healthy
to love a state. But there are kind of two
values that define our state and have throughout our history.
(39:22):
One is freedom Texas. The reason it captures the country's
imagination all the time is because it is in some
ways a frontier right, not just physically or geographically, but
artistically politically right. The Great Society came from Texas. Beyonce
Knowles just came out with the most innovative country album
we've ever seen. She's a Texan, right, like we have
(39:44):
constantly defined the frontier Texans. We're the ones who put
a man on the moon, right. I mean, Texas has
always been about freedom and breaking through from what has
been to what could be, and that value of freedom
of letting people live they want to live is kind
of essential to how Texans see the world. The other
(40:04):
value is friendship. The word Texas comes from the Native
American word for friend, from the Native American word for friend,
and they didn't use that word to describe a friend
in their own tribe. They use that word to describe
a friend in a different tribe. In other words, I
think a better translation is ally right. Someone who's different
from you but is your friend, is your ally across
(40:27):
lines of difference. And that's what makes Texas so great,
is we're this big mashup of all these different people
and cultures and ideas and food and music. We're this
big melting pot. We're kind of America on steroids in
Texas and our elected leaders in recent years, certainly of
the last twenty years, as these kind of right wing
extremists have taken over our state, they've forgotten those two
(40:48):
values of freedom and friendship that have defined our state
throughout our history. And so I think kind of getting
back in touch with those values is really necessary if
we're going to navigate some of these issues that are
dividing us.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Such a good point. Thank you for joining us, James.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Yeah, well we fast. Thanks for having me, and I'd
love to come back.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Yes, definitely do and I hope to see you.
Speaker 6 (41:13):
A moment.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Secret Jesse Cannon Smiley.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
There's this Congressman Randy Fine, who is on you and
I's radar, But I think he only got onto the
radar of people in the last few weeks that oh boy,
this guy is one of the worst. He was the
author of the thumb thumbplaw, you know, the law in
Florida where you can run over protesters called the thumb thumb.
Speaker 6 (41:36):
It really is called the thumb thumbplaw.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
I fact checked that and then thought about what I
might do with a rope to myself. So anyway, he
has been saying such aggressively awful things about nuking Gaza,
for example, that he's gotten the unlikely pushback from both
Apak and Marjorie Taylor Green, who went scorched Earth on
him in a tweet.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Well, Marjorie Taylor Gran, who is no buddy's friend.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
And nobody's I think she's running for Ted Cruz number
two in the way that she alienates everyone.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yes, well, first of all, I want to point out
that actually Apak said that, so they went against him
because he came out as pro starving children, which is
what actually is happening in Gaza. But I guess you're
not allowed to say it as what it is. Release
the hostages until then starve away. These are like children
(42:33):
babies dying of malnutrition. This is a hard thing to
talk about because there was so much weirdness here, but basically,
Marjorie Taylor Green is against the famine Gaza.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
She called it a genocide. She's the first Republican to
call it that, But she was also against that Randy
Fine seemed to be an opportunist for his congressional seek
because she thinks you should be an honest, true believer
and not just want to live in Washington outside your district.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
I read that that was really interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (43:02):
Her oral compass is always very interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
They've gotten very far around here with Marjorie Taylor Green.
But I think it's important to remember that we really
need food to Gaza at this point. Let's just save
the people who can be saved. Let's get some food
in there, Let's get some aid in there to these children.
We don't have to litigate anything. Let's just save the
children of Gaza. It has nothing to do with anything
(43:25):
but saving whoever can be saved there. It's time to
allow food in there and allow medical stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
It's enough.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
And I think that as a Jew, I know my
religion tells me that there is no place for starving
children in this world, and so that this has that. Honestly,
it's time to allow food into Gaza. It doesn't matter
what else is happening, it doesn't just let's just get
food into Gaza. Let's try to save whoever we can
(43:54):
save their food and medicine. And I don't think we
even need to argue about anything else at this moment.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Well, I'm gonna argue for woke March retailer.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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. 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 Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Said, I never had the privilege of.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Going to his island about guess who, Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
We have such a great show for you.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Today as the world churns Andy Levy stop Spy to
talk about Trump's constant Epstein flubbs, he never knew him.
Then we'll talk to Texas State Representative James Tellerco about
how Democrats can communicate with voters like humans.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But first the news.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Molly rare in person podcast for you and I. This
is like the rarest of things we do on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I feel like we haven't seen each other in a year.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
It's in person.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
It's been about a month that I have to two
months in person.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
All right, all right, all right.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Okay, okay, So Molly, the DOJ has sued for the
Trump administration with holding a memo on Trump's four hundred
million dollar jet from guitar where he's taking money from
a nuclear modernization plan that would help keep us safe
so that he could have a gold toilet in a jet.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, so this is a watchdog group because Trump's DOJ
only works for Trump. So while in a normal administration,
which we used to have, you might have a DOJ
actually have independence from the president, this DOJ Pambondi, serves
at the pleasure of one Donald Trump sue she is
(01:34):
now being sued or this watchdog group is suing them
to release this memorandum.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Again, the administration has said that all of this is classified,
that the plane redo is classified. There's no reason for
any of this to be classified. It's really classified because
Trump is thinking he can get away with avoiding bad press.
But the Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy at this
(02:05):
watchdog group, you'll remember Daniel Ellsberg as being involved.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
In the Pentagon papers.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It shouldn't take six hundred and twenty days to release
a single time sensitive document. How many flights could Trump
have taken on his new plane in the same amount
of time it would have taken the DOJ to release
one document. The complaint filed in the District of Columbia
notes that the airplane is set to be donated to
Trump's private Presidential Library foundation is second term. By the way,
(02:35):
there is no precedent for a country donating a plane
to the Air Force or to the President, or to
any of this, and then to have it then be
kept so that Trump doesn't have to buy another plane
or use his seven five seven. It's worth remembering that
(02:56):
in normal administrations they're not allowed to politic. Any kind
of campaigning is a Hatch Act violation, so they have
to They can't talk about re election campaigns. They can't
use the government to enrich themselves. There are all sorts
of things that a normal campaign couldn't do that The
Trump administration is just full throttle in on and it
(03:18):
is just incredible to watch this kind of stuff. There
are no words.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
So speaking of things that Trump does that are totally
corrupt to enrich himself. He used our text dollars to
open his Scottish golf course.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Look, man, that's what he does. But I mean the
Scottish golf course thing. The best thing about the whole
story is that the Scots were like protesting him in
a hilarious way.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
The worst thing.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
About the whole story is that there's video of him
perhaps treating as he golfs. I don't understand golf. I
don't want to understand golf. The less I know about golf,
the better. It is fascinating to me that he came
out of it with like two things.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The first day.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
He was mad about windmills and mad about immigration. I mean,
this cannot believe that people in this country made this
guy president again. Like at every point, I'm like, you, guys,
does nobody remember what happened the first time? The first
time when they were actually people around him being like
you can't do that, as opposed to this time when
(04:22):
the people around him are like, oh, mister president, you know.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Oh I see, I see a spot on your bootick
a little more right.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
So look, yeah, I mean this is all it's They're
just having vacations, doing horrible things to people and spending
our tax dollars on truly atrocious things, well, cutting food
stamps and medicaid and all of the things that we
would like.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Our tax dollars to be spent on. So here we are.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
He also did do a meeting with the EU Commissioner
Ursula vandy Ley, who and that maybe they have a
trade deal, maybe they don't have a trade who knows.
I always promised ninety deals in ninety days. It's been
more than ninety days and we still have like four
or five deals outlines of deals, concepts of a plan.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
Yeah, well, I'm going to take you back to a
previous player that we don't think about a lot, from
a kind of in between season one, Lezelden.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
He went on a little podcast and.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
He revealed that the EPA plans to revoke the legal
basis for tackling climate change.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I mean, these people, if they could kill the planet
any harder, they would also, I might add there undermining
our forecasting, their closing weather satellites. They're not paying for
the weather balloons. Like the thinking here is if there's
a big weather catastrophe and we don't know about it,
it won't have happened. And it's just so fucking stupid.
(05:47):
And I think it's worth remembering that Lizelden is just
to complete more on.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Yeah, and particularly we remember this from the plans that
were laid out in Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yes, Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Where everyone where Trump was.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Like no, I won't do that, and people are like, okay,
well he said he won't. Yeah, Project twenty twenty five,
which they're doing right now. Speaking of Project twenty twenty five,
let's talk about the DOJ.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Yes, well, so Judge Bowsburg is someone mister Trump really
doesn't like, so of course his sycophantic ag Pam Bondi
has to come to the rescue.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So again, this is right from Project twenty twenty five,
and it's a war on the independent judiciary. But the
idea here is that the DOJ is an arm of
the Trump administration. It's part of this imperial presidency thing
which we saw about in Project twenty twenty five. And
the idea here is that everyone serves at the pleasure
of the president as long as the president is a Republican.
(06:48):
If the president is a Democrat, that's a totally different story.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
She's mad.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
She's going to make Judge Bosberg's life a living hell.
I mean, there's no world in which she doesn't do that.
And the good news is that so far, unlike universities,
unlike billionaires, unlike many many media organizations, Judge Bosberg, the
judiciary is in fact holding strong. Now we don't know
(07:16):
that that continues on, but that is certainly a good thing.
Andy Levy is the co host of As the World
Churns and Levin and What's going on. It's nice the
lighting I'm in Jesse's studio and the lighting has made
(07:38):
me look my actual age.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
I feel I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Could if you're watching this on the YouTube, just take
ten years off my age? Why not? Who among us?
So you were like, what's going on besides Epstein? Basically
Epstein is going on like the American people have decided.
I mean, I feel like this is how stupid everything is.
(08:06):
Trump has closing rural hospitals, cutting Medicaid, cutting snap right
food snamps. We're gonna have all these kids who can't eat.
But it's Jeff Epp that has unraveled the thing because
the reality is at to quote philosopher King poet Joe Rogan, uh,
(08:30):
you know we want answers.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Well, I've been saying that.
Speaker 7 (08:34):
This is the first you know, Trump voters are very
big on saying this is not what I voted for.
This is the first time I believed it because they
legitimately did vote thinking they were going to get answers
on Epstein. Why they then voted for the pale of
Epstein is obviously beyond me, but you know, that's the
(08:54):
way we live in right now. But this is legitimately
the first time where I see them saying this and
I see I'm getting upset, and I'm like, all right.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
I buy it.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I buy that you actually didn't.
Speaker 7 (09:04):
You voted for what you thought was the opposite of
this stupid as that was, but it is legitimately what
you thought as opposed to the you know, the the
deportations and the and all the other stuff that you mentioned,
which Trump clearly signaled ahead of time.
Speaker 6 (09:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Billions of dollars to Ice, right, Yeah, billions dollars to
Mars at least a little less than a billion dollars,
maybe somewhere between five hundred and nine hundred million dollars
to refurbishing Air Force one, a present that Donald Trump
has taken trip free with no influence, no no influence,
(09:44):
fax fayers paying for him to fly to Scotland to
open a golf course. I think that there are a
lot of things that are keeping me up at night.
I'm now at the stage of Trump second from where
I have anxiety dreams. Do you have anxiety dreams?
Speaker 4 (09:58):
I do, but not about Trump.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Oh I have I have like I have. People are like,
how's your life, and I'm like, my life in itself
is fine, right, there's not it. You know it by
the measures that I measure my own life, they're fine.
But living through what is clearly at best unprecedented and
at worst precedented in very bad moments of both American
(10:24):
history and other countries that have fallen to authoritarian regimes,
not a good feeling.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
No, not a good feeling.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
By the way I call anxiety dreams, I just call
them dreams, so you know, I'm not aware of any
other kind. Look, whatever anxiety dreams I or dreams I
am having, I'm thankful that they're not trupolated because it's
at least a little bit of a respite.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
From my waking day.
Speaker 7 (10:52):
Which is just like it is unreal and as bad
as we all thought this was going to be, and
and you know, we clearly thought it was going to
be bad. The speed and just the overwhelming force of it,
and watching institutions cave in real time and pretty quickly,
(11:12):
it's so overwhelming. It's just every day, it's you know,
And now at the point where I think Columbia, my
alma mater, I'm more embarrassed of them than they are
of me.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I never thought that would happen.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What I find really soul crushing, and then I want
to talk about the good news, which is nothing. Is
that I find this sort of way in which different
places have really like Harvard now wants to make a deal.
It was like two days ago I was talking about
like how great Harvard is for fighting against the AD
(11:44):
and they want to make a deal. CBS, NBC, NBC
not so much, but CBS, ABC both paid out. We
had this incredible moment this weekend where Trump sued Roup
Murnox Wall Street Journal for publishing this letter, which this
(12:07):
letter which said, you know, we don't know what that.
We haven't seen the letter, but we've seen that there
is this letter, and many people have confirmed that it's
this letter. I mean, the problem with Glaine the Galain
story is that there are so many victims, right, like,
this might be the largest sex trafficking story in American history.
(12:29):
Maybe not in American history, but it's one of the
top I mean, two hundred plus victims. So you can
never it will always be another victim in this story.
There will always be another fourteen year old who is
like Glaine picked me up from school, middle school, not
high school. Middle school. So if you pardon her, you
will unleash the floodgates.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Of more and more more of this.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
So it is Trump is like in this position where
they clearly want her to say he's not in it, right,
or say something right. I mean, this is clearly the motivation.
Blanche has gone and met with her. He has. Why
we don't have the notes, why we don't get information
about what that meeting was, we don't know. But the
(13:12):
deputy Attorney general, which is by the way, never happens, right,
and it's four years after she's been I mean, every
bit of the Todd Blanche meeting is smacks of some
kind of shakedown thing because you don't do that.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
But remember Bill Clinton on the tarmac.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
By the way, I love Republicans who are like Bill
Clinton's in it. Okay, I don't care. Oh, send her
to Gimo.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Absolutely, I've sent you. Exile him to wherever you're going
to exile Trump.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
At right next you're gonna say Bill richards is in it.
Don't care, fine, tout have been the Hague, New Mexican
governor Democrat Bill Richardson.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Don't care.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Send him to the hand I don't care.
Speaker 8 (13:52):
Absolutely.
Speaker 7 (13:53):
The thing is, you know you kept saying that they
want Maxwell to do this. They want her to lie,
is what they want her to do. Let's let's just
you know, let's name names.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
She seems pretty amenable to that idea for sure.
Speaker 7 (14:06):
Let's not forget that she is as guilty as as
Epstein was. Like, she wasn't just she wasn't some poor
flunky who took the hit.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
She was in this.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
She was procuring these girls, she was grooming these girls. Yeah,
she she was completely one hundred percent in this. And
the idea that is even being that a pardon for
her is even being floated. And I mean, i mean, look,
every time, you know, it's the what was a great
(14:39):
tweet that's now become a cliche, the you know, I
love to see old Donnie wriggle his way out of
this one. Yeah, you know, And we are at this point,
like it's hard to believe that anything will convince his
base to turn against him, but maybe this. I mean,
I'm not one hundred percent sold on it, not even close,
(15:01):
but this has a possibility.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Well, and it's also it's just there's just not a
clear way out in my mind, right, Like they clearly
thought we're gonna we'll say we're gonna release the Grand jury.
All the names are redacted. We know the names are redacted.
We know it's a high level of a high standard
to release grand jury testimony. We know it won't work,
(15:24):
so we'll say that. So then the judges, no, you
can't release grand jury testimenty okay, oops. But you know
what it does is it doesn't It just prolongs the
news cycle. And we know there are hundreds and hundreds
of pictures and video and whatever, and very likely a
lot of it is you know, unreleasable because it's pornography,
(15:46):
child pornography. But but there's certainly I'm sure there are
pictures of people with their clothes on that would be
at least you know, we know there are certain people
we know are involved in that's just you know that
are in the book, that are in the lists, that
are in the birthday book. So I do think and
(16:07):
I do think they're not wrong. It's just that there
are certain things that this administration has done that are
horrific on a very large scale. This may be horrific
in it on a small scale. One of the other
things I wanted to talk to you about was it's
like a race and class thing to a certain extent,
like it's a wealth thing too, Like he said, I'm
(16:29):
one of you, I'm an outsider. And then here he is,
like this guy was like mister insider, right, A ton
of academics, a ton of wealthy people, a ton of politicians.
So he's like, I'm an outsider. Oh and for ten
years I was best friends with this guy who was
sort of the pinnacle of society and also a sex trafficker.
Speaker 7 (16:51):
I find it interesting that, you know, he's sort of
at the very least intimated for a long time that
he stopped being friends with Epstein because of maybe these
savory things, you know, right, styled sex trafficking. And then
the other day he comes out and says, oh, I
stopped in front of him because he kept stealing employees
from mar A Lago.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Imagine if a Democrat did that.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
No, I can't.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Christine nom posted this photo of her and her friend
Corey riding horses in Argentina and it was like, I
never read wrote an Argentinian base, and I'm thinking, like,
you know, the fucking job is to serve the people
and not to just have great vacations, right, yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
Yeah, I also feel like riding a horse in Argentina
at the same time that people are calling you a
fascist and the Nazi is like that.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
You know, it's a.
Speaker 7 (17:47):
Little we're kind of past that at this point. But
to get back to what you were saying, it is
it's class and wealth and all of that. And look,
Trump has somehow again and convince all these people who
voted for him that he is one of them, that
he looks out for them, when in.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Fact, I mean, you couldn't be more the opposite of that.
Speaker 7 (18:11):
And so this issue, I think another reason why this
is becoming harder and harder for him to overcome or
to make go away. This issue really gets to that
because there are people now walking around thinking, oh my god, wait,
he's actually part of this group. He's not looking out
for me, He's not one of us, He's one of them.
(18:33):
And again, god knows how it took this to make
them figure that out, but that does seem to be
a large part of it. And everything he's doing is
furthering that. And like you said, everything he's doing is
keeping the story alive, whether it's firing was James Comy's daughter, Yes,
And it's just it feels like, if you didn't want
(18:56):
this story to go away. You would do exactly what
the Trump had been is doing, and yet they seem
to be doing it thinking it's going to help make
it go away.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
My man is a very undisciplined politician. He's a very
undisciplined thinker. There is no world in which this guy,
you know, any time, and during Trump's first admin, we
saw is a lot you know, there would be a
sort of blue and anish like this is this He's
doing that to distract from this, and then he's going
to do that and then pay attention to what they're
(19:26):
saying and not what they're doing, you know, or what
they're doing and not what they're saying. The reality is
like he just throwing shit on the wall. You know,
there's no world in always has Yeah, there's no discipline here,
there's no like master plan.
Speaker 7 (19:40):
But also I get really annoyed at the people who
think that the Epstein thing itself is a distraction and
why for a couple of well, that's the thing, like, yes,
as you pointed out earlier, Okay, it might not be
as you know, all encompassing as the you know the
fact that we're at the end of due process in
(20:01):
this country and and things like that. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
but it's still it's still it's child sex trafficking. It's
not a distraction. That's a kind of a gross thing
to say. But also it's not a distraction because of
everything we've been talking about that this is what seems
to be turning his base against him. So, you know,
(20:24):
it really annoys me. I understand why Republicans want to
stay age the distraction, but it annoys me when when
there are Democrats out there saying, oh, we shouldn't focus
on this. I understand again in terms of what's going
on in Gaza and what's going on with the kidnapping
people off the stream and shredding the constitution thing. Sure,
not in the same scope. But still, if this is
(20:46):
the thing that's going to bring Trump down, and it's
goddamn awful in and of itself, don't call it a distraction.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, no, I agree, I mean I don't. It's hard
to think of anything that unites all of us more
than child sex trafficking is bad and people should not
do it, and if they've done it, they should go
to jail. Like this is not a hard one. There's
no nuance here, And no, I agree I also think
(21:11):
this thing is going to go on and on and on.
One of the things that's happening here is the Republicans
have signed on to the bill, signed have signed this BBB,
but none of them read it. So now they're learning
what's in it and is coming as a as a
delightful surprise. I want to read you something because I
(21:31):
feel like it's time for amazing show and tell here.
And you know, there are these recision packages and the
question of whether or not they can be receded, you know.
So basically what's happened is in order to pass these
recision packages, they need to have bipartisan support. Russ Vot
(21:56):
Architective Project twenty twenty five, which Trump said he knew
nothing about, but who Also you'll remember that rus Wott
worked in Trump's first administration. I feel like I take
crazy pills every time we talk about this, because it
was like Trump was president for four years and he
did all the stuff. Then he campaigned and he was like,
I'm gonna do all this stuff and everyone was like, no,
(22:16):
he's not, he's not. He says he's gonna do it,
but he's not gonna do it. Right, he had this
thing where they would be like they would just give
him the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to every
other politician where they were like, you can't do that.
You know, you're okay. So now he Republicans are regretting
a tax hike on gamblers they inserted into President Trump's
(22:39):
megabill calling for it to be repealed. One GOP senator
said they didn't even know what was in the bill
they voted for.
Speaker 8 (22:47):
I mean, take Cruz has said things like this, and
I'll do Do you think that makes you better? I
mean this is literally you have one job, Like your
job is to know what you're voting on.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Actually think a tax on gamblers back too, might actually
be like it's this stuff in there that they want,
like the recision So the last recision packet was money
for pep FAR and also defunding all public radio basically
all public broadcasting public radio, like sticking it to Sesame
(23:19):
straight because though you know, cutting the seven dollars they
get from the federal budget, I mean sticking it you
Grover and Elmo because they say kindness and kindness is
obviously will propaganda. Sure, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Think the solution here is for Elmo to develop a
gambling problem.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It is the only answer, and.
Speaker 7 (23:43):
Then he can get money once they take that out
of the bill. But no, you're right. I was making
a different point, but you're absolutely right of all the
things for them to be suddenly like, oh, I wish
I hadn't voted for that.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
It's a tax on gambling.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
You'll be billions of dollars to colonizing mars. I mean
there are billions of dollars to nefarious shit that we've
never heard of. And now you're upset about Elmo.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (24:09):
Oh, and you cut all that You took all that
money away from Medicaid and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Andy Levy, Andy Levy, I just got I'm being detained. No,
I'm not being yet. Will you come back?
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I guess all come back.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
James tell Rico represents Texas's fifty second district in the
Texas House of Representatives. Welcome to past.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Politics, James, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
So we basically we were on TV together this week
where you were talking and then I was sort of
reacting to what you said and your state rep from
Texas possibly maybe open to running for the Texas Cent
the cent the actual Senate as opposed to the state
Senate in Texas. And one of the things you talked about,
(25:00):
which is like one of my peccadillos, one of my obsessions,
is you talked about how you have to go everywhere
that you will not get in front of Joe Rogan's
people unless you go on Joe Rogan. So I would
love you to just explain that more and sort of yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I mean, I think the last election should be a
wake up call for the Democratic Party, and I think
it should push us to get outside of our comfort zone,
outside of our bubbles, and start to go places that
we don't typically go and talk to people we don't
typically talk to, because that be the only way we
can build a big enough, tend to big enough coalition
(25:40):
to transform this state in this country. I mean, you know,
Vice President Harris lost to President Trump by a point
and a half, which is a close selection. But we
should never be that close to losing or beating Donald Trump.
We should be beating him with sixty percent of the vote.
That's the kind of coalition I want to build. You,
(26:01):
a new Deal size coalition, a great society sized coalition
like we had with another Texas Democrat, Linda Johnson. So
that's I think should be our goal as a party
not to just squeak by in the next election. We
need to completely change our politics so that we can
gain political power and remake this broken political system so
(26:22):
it can actually work for people again.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
So one of the things that when you get in
front of I would love you to talk about, like
getting on Joe Rogan and how that I want you
to talk us through the whole thing, because Harris did
not break through, Like she did an amazing job for
being someone with one hundred days, she really did do
a great job, but she could not break through. And
(26:46):
we saw that because there were all these Google searches
on election day who is running for president? So that
means they didn't know who was running for president on
the Democratic side, so they didn't see it. Right, they're
not reading the New York Times.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know the moments in
the campaign where the American people heard directly from Vice
President Harris or some of her best moments, right the debate,
the convention speech. I mean, I you know, you can
always Monday Morning quarterback this stuff. But I think if
Vice President Harris had been on Joe Rogan, I think
she might have won the election. That's how much faith
(27:20):
I have in her as a as a person, as
a leader. I think if someone hears directly from Donald
Trump and hears directly from Vice President Harris, I think
it's a clear choice. The problem is they didn't always
hear directly from her. There were those moments, but in
this in this day and age, you've got to be
talking to people directly all the time, and you can't
(27:41):
just do it at the big, you know, peaks of
a campaign, like a debate or a convention. It's got
to be the whole way through. And that's what that's
what President Trump was doing, and I do think it's
why it won. But I don't think that had to
be the result. And so I'm trying to learn from
those mistakes and I'm trying to put myself in sometimes
uncomfortable positions, right. I mean, I to answer your question
(28:01):
about Joe Rogan, his team emailed us out of the
blue and said that Joe had seen a video of
mine and would love to have me on.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
There was no list of questions, no list of topics.
Didn't even know how long it was going to go,
didn't know if I was going to get a bathroom break.
I didn't know any of this stuff, and so I
was flying blind. And that's interest.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
So he's in Austin and you just went into his studio,
and that's right.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Yep, very nondescript. You would not have thought when you
were outside the the the office that it was the
biggest podcast in the country. His team was very chill
and very nonchalant, couple like he is, and and he
was very warm, very curious, very open.
Speaker 6 (28:47):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
I think he and I really hit it off and
created a connection. We obviously don't see ida on everything,
but there was a lot of common ground.
Speaker 6 (28:54):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
He thinks this political system is corrupt. I absolutely agree
with that. He thinks that both political parties are flawed
and need to change. I agree with that. He thinks
that there should be a more shared prosperity in this country.
I believes in universal health. It's populized, right, yeah, And
those are all things that I believe in too. So
that's a lot to build off of. So, you know,
(29:16):
I thought it was a little nerve racking to go
into a you know, not the most friendly of places
and have an open ended conversation for two and a
half hours with no set list of questions or topics.
But it requires some courage from our elected leaders to
put yourself in those positions. And I do think that
you get points for that. You may not say everything perfectly,
(29:38):
you may flub a little bit, you may make a mistake,
and that's okay. People would rather just hear from you directly,
your honest opinions, and I think you can't worry about
having a gaff here and there. That's going to happen.
Donald Trump has gafs all the time, but people hear
from him, They hear the honesty or what they perceive
is honesty, and it works. And so we've got to
(29:59):
do that on our side. We've got to be ourselves.
We speak directly, and we've got to be everywhere talking
to everyone.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I would love you to tell us what it was
like after you went on Joe Rogan, Like, what was
did you did your I mean, did your life change?
Because this is the thing that I want to get out.
I want to get people understanding is that part of
the siloed media means that you only get if you're
(30:25):
doing certain media, which I work for, you will only
get in front of certain people, which is great. There's
you know a lot of very smart people watch MSNBC,
a lot of very smart But but you in order
to win at the national level, you also have to
get in front of all different people. So tell me what,
(30:46):
how what happened after doing Joe Rogan?
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Well, yeah, like right on this show, I'm talking to
folks who are already in our coalition. Yeah, and that's
important because we've got to get our act together if
we're going to start winning political power and making people's
life better. So sometimes we have to have locker room
talks with our team, which you know you do on
MSNBC or you do here, and that's super important. But
then if you want to actually go out there and
build that big tent, you've got to go on Joe Rogan.
(31:11):
You've got to go on Fox News, which I've done.
You've got to go on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which
I've done. And those places are sometimes less friendly, and
that's okay. That's part of the job of being an
elected official is having that courage to go into those places.
But the response has been overwhelming. I mean, in some ways,
you know, I think it was just a podcast, but
you know, in other ways, people are acting like it
(31:33):
was a you know, some kind of democratic moon landing. Right,
that's one one small step for a Democrat, one giantly
for the Democratic Party. And so the response has just
been overwhelming on our side. But I think the thing
that is most encouraging is I've just been flooded with
emails and direct messages on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook
(31:55):
and Twitter where people are saying, you know, I lean right,
or I both parties, or I can't tell you how
many people have sent me a message of last week
where they start off with I have never messaged a
politician before. That is probably the most common thing I've
heard over.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Which is a good time, because.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Yeah, I mean the people these are not people who
listen to the show. They don't watch me with NBC.
And some of them have been said like, I didn't
agree with everything that I heard, but I was struck
by your openness and your honesty, and I was really
interested in some of your thoughts about about big money
and corruption and these billionaire mega donors, and so I
(32:32):
don't know it just the it's been an avalanche both
on the Democratic side with people who are just kind
of surprised that a Democrat went on this show and
was able to connect. But then I think more importantly
from a lot of people who are not in a
democratic coalition, who are are interested in this in my
views and interested in my values and found places to connect.
(32:53):
And connection is the name of the game in politics.
That's the only thing that matters is are you connecting
with people? And that's the only thing that moves people
to do something like show up to vote or change
the system oors.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Other Democrats do go on Rogan, like Bernie is a
regular Rogan guest or has at least been two or
three times. We've seen Rokana on Rogan. Threading the need
all when it comes to democratic populism is not impossible,
but we have not had big candidates do it, right,
(33:26):
I mean, you know, like Rokana and Bernie, it's a
little bit different. So to have a sort of more
centrist decandidate trying to thread the populism need all is
in some ways I think profound.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Yeah, you know, I just have kind of a simple
criteria when it comes to political communications, which is a
big part of my job.
Speaker 7 (33:49):
Right.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I do a lot of legislative work. I pass a
lot of bills, But my job also includes communicating with
my constituents and with the broader public. And if you
can't do that, you don't change public opinion, and you
don't organize or inspire people to change the balance of
power in a place like Texas. So communication is central
to the job that I have. And when it comes
(34:12):
to that communication, I just try to always be myself
and tell the truth. Those are the two things that
I that I go into these conversations with. Anything else,
you know, trying to figure out how to thread a
needle or have a certain messaging or whatever. All that
is just takes up too much space in my brain
and so it's just easier to just be myself, flaws included.
(34:33):
And I think, honestly, that's what people are hungry for.
It's why people respond to Donald Trump. They don't agree
with everything Donald Trump says either, but he is himself,
flaws and all. He is unabashed in being himself. And
I do think we need elected officials in our coalition
to do the same thing, hopefully with more character and
integrity and honesty and core values than Donald Trump. But
(34:57):
you really shouldn't shouldn't have the consultant and to full
driven filter that so many of us get trapped into
as politicians. You can kind of see sometimes when politicians
are like buffering right, Like you get asked a question,
there's like some loading time where they're like putting it
through all these these different layers of that's not going
(35:17):
to cut it anymore, it really is. That's not the
world we live in anymore. Maybe it was in the
eighties and the nineties, it's not the twenty twenties.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I wonder if you could talk about how you have
this religious background and what that looks like and how
that sort of informs I mean, I told you I
try to be myself and that includes my faith, and
you know, sometimes it makes people in our coalition uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
I mean, I've gotten some messages since Rogan saying like,
I don't think you talk this much about religion as
a public official has an opinion. I've gotten some meaner
ones from our fellow progressives who are like, I don't
want to hear about your sky daddy, you know, and
I understand where that's coming from.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
People have sky daddy. I've never heard of sky daddy.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Since one way one way to describe religion. Yeah, we
wonder why people of faith feel turned off with a
Democratic party. But you know, I get where that's coming from,
because organized religion has done a lot of damage and
it's hurt a lot of people, and so I understand
it comes from a place of of hurt and pain.
And I respect that very much and I want to
try to build that that divide, but it does. I
(36:21):
have gotten pushback. And again I just say that for
any elected officials or staffers or operators who are listening
to your show, you still have to be yourself, even
if it's going to ruffle some feathers, even if it's
not gonna You're not gonna be everbody's cup of tea, right,
but but you have to be yourself. And for me,
my faith is why I do this. I mean, it
is the foundation of my life. My granddad was a
(36:42):
Baptist preacher. I grew up in a Presbyterian church. It's
still the same church I attend today. It's wild I
went into public service. It's why I became a teacher.
It's why I ran for office, because I am called
to love God and love napor or those are the
two commandments that Jesus gave us as Christians, and they're
pretty simple. I mean they're not easy, and they're they're
(37:03):
very difficult sometimes to follow, but it is pretty simple.
And we as Christians are called to move from the
sanctuary where we where we love God, where we where
we where we are in touch with our spiritual selves.
We're called to move from that sanctuary to the streets
where our neighbors are. We're called to feed the hungry
(37:24):
and and heal the sick, and welcome the stranger. Those
are that is essential. I mean, Jesus tells us in
the in the New Testament that that is how we
will be saved.
Speaker 6 (37:34):
Right.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Sometimes you hear the word saved and you think it means,
you know, professing some kind of faith or something. But
in Matthew twenty five, Jesus is very clear the way
you will be saved is how you treat the least
of these. And that doesn't mean belonging to a church.
My pastor growing up said, you know, being in church
doesn't make you a Christian, just like sitting in a
garage doesn't make you a car Right, So it is
(37:57):
how you act out in the world. And honestly, I
know a lot of non religious people who are more
christ Like than a lot of people who go to
church every Sunday. But that foundation of faith is why
I do this work, and I can't help but explain
that and talk about that. And I'm not going to
be ashamed or afraid to say those things, even if
(38:20):
it may rubble some feathers in my own coalition.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
One of the things that the right really wants is
for centrist Democrats to throw trans children, to throw the
LGBTQ under the bus. I strongly believe that it's nobody's
goddamn business what people what adult people want to do
(38:43):
to their bodies.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
But that's just me as a reform Jew. Tell me
what you're thinking is on this? I mean, I just
I saw this video of a Democratic politician saying, no,
a man can't become a woman, and I thought, why
is it any business of yours? No?
Speaker 4 (39:01):
And you may be a reform Jews, not in Texas,
and you have that attitude. I know there are a
lot of Texas Protestants who have that same value of
live and let live. There are a few things that
make our state great. I'm an eight generation to Texan,
so I love my state more than it's probably healthy
to love a state. But there are kind of two
values that define our state and have throughout our history.
(39:22):
One is freedom Texas. The reason it captures the country's
imagination all the time is because it is in some
ways a frontier right, not just physically or geographically, but
artistically politically right. The Great Society came from Texas. Beyonce
Knowles just came out with the most innovative country album
we've ever seen. She's a Texan, right, like we have
(39:44):
constantly defined the frontier Texans. We're the ones who put
a man on the moon, right. I mean, Texas has
always been about freedom and breaking through from what has
been to what could be, and that value of freedom
of letting people live they want to live is kind
of essential to how Texans see the world. The other
(40:04):
value is friendship. The word Texas comes from the Native
American word for friend, from the Native American word for friend,
and they didn't use that word to describe a friend
in their own tribe. They use that word to describe
a friend in a different tribe. In other words, I
think a better translation is ally right. Someone who's different
from you but is your friend, is your ally across
(40:27):
lines of difference. And that's what makes Texas so great,
is we're this big mashup of all these different people
and cultures and ideas and food and music. We're this
big melting pot. We're kind of America on steroids in
Texas and our elected leaders in recent years, certainly of
the last twenty years, as these kind of right wing
extremists have taken over our state, they've forgotten those two
(40:48):
values of freedom and friendship that have defined our state
throughout our history. And so I think kind of getting
back in touch with those values is really necessary if
we're going to navigate some of these issues that are
dividing us.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Such a good point. Thank you for joining us, James.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Yeah, well we fast. Thanks for having me, and I'd
love to come back.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Yes, definitely do and I hope to see you.
Speaker 6 (41:13):
A moment.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Secret Jesse Cannon Smiley.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
There's this Congressman Randy Fine, who is on you and
I's radar, But I think he only got onto the
radar of people in the last few weeks that oh boy,
this guy is one of the worst. He was the
author of the thumb thumbplaw, you know, the law in
Florida where you can run over protesters called the thumb thumb.
Speaker 6 (41:36):
It really is called the thumb thumbplaw.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
I fact checked that and then thought about what I
might do with a rope to myself. So anyway, he
has been saying such aggressively awful things about nuking Gaza,
for example, that he's gotten the unlikely pushback from both
Apak and Marjorie Taylor Green, who went scorched Earth on
him in a tweet.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Well, Marjorie Taylor Gran, who is no buddy's friend.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
And nobody's I think she's running for Ted Cruz number
two in the way that she alienates everyone.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yes, well, first of all, I want to point out
that actually Apak said that, so they went against him
because he came out as pro starving children, which is
what actually is happening in Gaza. But I guess you're
not allowed to say it as what it is. Release
the hostages until then starve away. These are like children
(42:33):
babies dying of malnutrition. This is a hard thing to
talk about because there was so much weirdness here, but basically,
Marjorie Taylor Green is against the famine Gaza.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
She called it a genocide. She's the first Republican to
call it that, But she was also against that Randy
Fine seemed to be an opportunist for his congressional seek
because she thinks you should be an honest, true believer
and not just want to live in Washington outside your district.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
I read that that was really interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (43:02):
Her oral compass is always very interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
They've gotten very far around here with Marjorie Taylor Green.
But I think it's important to remember that we really
need food to Gaza at this point. Let's just save
the people who can be saved. Let's get some food
in there, Let's get some aid in there to these children.
We don't have to litigate anything. Let's just save the
children of Gaza. It has nothing to do with anything
(43:25):
but saving whoever can be saved there. It's time to
allow food in there and allow medical stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
It's enough.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
And I think that as a Jew, I know my
religion tells me that there is no place for starving
children in this world, and so that this has that. Honestly,
it's time to allow food into Gaza. It doesn't matter
what else is happening, it doesn't just let's just get
food into Gaza. Let's try to save whoever we can
(43:54):
save their food and medicine. And I don't think we
even need to argue about anything else at this moment.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Well, I'm gonna argue for woke March retailer.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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