September 26, 2023 • 17 mins
In a special bonus crossover episode live from Texas Tribune Fest, Talking Feds' Harry Litman and Molly Jong-Fast discuss the latest in politics.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Today, we have a special crossover bonus episode for you
where I talk to Talking Feds Harry Litman live from
this weekend's Texas Tribune Festival.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm Harry Littman of Talking Fits. I'm really pleased to welcome.
I want to say Malli john Fest. But I keep
reading that it's a reverend.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Something.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I think your first name is a reverend? Were there
many kids in school who have? When did you become a.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Reverend?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Is such a weird thing to have as a describer?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Do you think it's not? Until you think it's like
a little shade.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Let's take no reverence. Great, I've been called much worse.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Even today, we're in the middle of like a million
different legal like just everybody is in legal jeopardy right
we have. I mean, Trump is the main event, but
there are a lot of other satellite events. What case
do you think right now seems most open and shut
to you?
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Oh, open and shut?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That's not where I thought you were going, because I
don't know if it'll open and shut in the time
we want.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
But the most open and shut I actually think is
the mar Lago case. The document, the doc it's so
straight forward.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
The law is so clear. All it has to be.
You have classified documents. We know that it says that
I'm you take this man. You know you're not supposed to,
and you know it just gets stronger and stronger every day.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Killer evidence.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So it's like a weird time that where you know,
teeny little things, pieces of knowledge you've acquired over twenty years,
have all some political significance, removal and burden of proof,
but it actually matters. So here this witness who came
forward to who we learned about a couple days ago, right, Michael,
(01:50):
she's going to bury him because he's the she is unimpeachable.
Tried to stay with him, nicely, well presented and will say,
oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
When he found out it's going to talk with the FBI,
I said, you don't know anything about those documents. You
can like the.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Majurial, right, and that's we We focus on stunning the
Bullgravano or me Parkment. But but they'll have bruising cross examinations.
I think John Laurel will just weep and say, no
further questions.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
What are you gonna do with the with it?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So so mar Alago, Okay, now I got one for you.
I'll stick with the irreverent themes.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
So this can a little is it a little more
meta and reflective?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
See as, because you know, truth be told, you're very
sort of susbanative and trenchant.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
But through the prism of irreverence.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
What do you see as the kind of role of irony, wit,
humor and actually the you know, the the mission of
journalism of you know, not just imparting facts, but giving
the kind of point of view that hopefully will make
people see the stakes.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Here the goal is always honesty, right.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I mean, I'm on the opinion side, which gives me
a lot of freedom. I don't have to not say
what I think, whereas like a straight reporter needs to
be able to tell a story without I mean, of
course we always know, right, but without their own personal bias,
Whereas I don't have to do that. But I do
feel like there's even more impetus on me to be
(03:25):
honest and to be honest about when I'm looking at
a case because I'm on the opinion side, and also
because the goal here is always honesty, right, So it
might be funny that there's nothing we can do about
the fact that the world is so deeply insane. I
think if it were less insane, it might be less funny.
(03:45):
You know, you have to laugh to not cry. The
thing is right, the Republican front runner has foreign indictments
and a superseding indictment and he can't stop winning.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
But I mean it's preposterous.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
But on the face of it, like imagine, think of
gour Vidal writing about that.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I mean, he wouldn't believe it. He wouldn't. I mean,
I was listening.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
To some of his writings on the plane on the
way out here, and he was talking about how George
Bush was so beyond the pale George but it thought
of as like now a statesman, I mean, not by me,
but you know, as a painter in a.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Richard Nixon's the best thing that ever happened, right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So I think that the sort of preposterousness of American
politics lends itself to humor in a way that it's
still very serious and we always have to be serious
about it.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
But it is I mean, remember like think about right.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
I mean John Patty right, Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Think about yesterday is like big or the day before
big breaking news about Rudy Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani sexually harassed
or in a very inappropriate sexual contact with a young
girl Mark Meadows.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
You know with that Cassidy wild Trump is making this
watch at the right and Johnny through clearing that right now,
it's like at a Hoeronymous spot, right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Truly a horrendous, horrendous scene from a different century. But
I want to point out, like we could talk about
Rudy Julian and look back at Rudy Giuliani's time in
the Borat movie?
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Will you did this game the right?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Right?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
The Borat Movie supposed to be a satire.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I say, sorry, so, I mean, it's just I wouldn't
be so irreverend if everything wasn't so insane.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Right, and in fact, if the if the actual touchstone
is truth, then it really how do you get out
at a time where even that's up for grass?
Speaker 4 (05:36):
But I shouldn't have said that because it's your turning over.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yes, wet all right. So Laurence O'Donnell was on my podcast.
Yeah he's my body.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, he said that a very very very high number
of jury trials end in guilty verdict like ninety percent plus.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And why, well, a very very very high percentage of
criminal press acutions and in guilty verdicts, although they're usually
by plea.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
But you know, I'm here to tell you.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So I went to law school kind of last refuge
of the amateur. Like a lot of people, I thought
I might be a defense lawyer. It's just by way
of saying, I'm not a fire in the Valley prosecutor.
But it's just a fact, like there's you know, like
facts we were just talking about. To the prosecutors choose
their their cases. Defendants are honestly mostly guilty. I have
(06:31):
whenever I've gotten close to like it's just true and
it could be some solid maybe they have a good
legal claim. I don't mean, and I totally respect defenser,
But whenever I get close to defense, I always say, like, over, so,
have you.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Ever had like someone who didn't do it?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
And they're you know, I think the sky in twenty
fourteen maybe, so you know, the evidences, So they choose now,
of course in the incredible it really and it should
be sort of reassuring because I know some people, especially
in the age of Trump, have such fundamental mistrust for
law enforcement. It is, you know, as of course, said
(07:08):
the competitive business affairity on crime.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Once you're one, you're engaged. You don't want to lose.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
But in any professional office, somebody there's a lot of
cases out there and somebody who you're going to have
trouble proving or god forbid, you're not sure did it
unless they are themselves and you know, for independent reasons.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
A real plague on the community.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So you really want to dig dig card kind of
an al capone situation, you go to the next guy.
So it's really the case. Now, trials are different because
beyond a reasonable doubt, you only need one shit happens.
I was just thinking of this Fulton County trial that's
coming up.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
She charges a rico.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
We're going to have two people sitting there supposedly for
four months, while what a week of the evidence concerns
them directly, you know, twelve real people sitting on your
might think what.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
The how am I doing here?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And there sort of human reaction, et cetera. So that
can happen, especially if you count a mistrial. But the
short answer to Lawrence so O Donald, he's got a
real vantage point. He's I don't know if you read
his book about the big criminal case and stuff.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
But the real answer, don't shoot the messenger.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
It's a fact almost all charged criminal defendants, certainly in
the federal system, are gilly my turn.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Interesting you said recently, I'm kind of terrifying, which is
the media is giving us flashbacks to twenty sixteen. Yeah,
you know, I think there's a sort of overarching question
of this festival of you know, where do we stand
after sort of eight years of Trump is?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And how much is an in root and branch and
how do you purge it? And I've asked this question.
We had a journalism panel with Jacob Weisberg and Johnny
Cobb and Katie Benner, and I just spoke with the
Major Garrett about this indictment, and everybody said, you know,
guilty is charge of journalism back then for giving Trump
so much airtime as if they were like to calling
(09:11):
in too, and then they take the call kind of
as if you know, he's this. I think there was
a sense of which he was always a kind of
attention gathering buffoon, but the joke was sort of on us, right.
So when I hear you say you're getting flashbacks, that
suggests to me that those grievous and consequential errors are
(09:35):
being replicated.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Is that how you see it.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
One of the things that I wrote in that piece,
which I think is is really as i've you know,
sometimes I write something and I'll look back and I'll
be like, oh.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
That was not no. I usually I think, oh that
was stupid, that's not right, but or it'll haunt me.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
But this I actually think was right, which was I
said that Trump was treated as a joke and Hillary
was treated as a peto complay. She was sort of
going to be it, and he was really like a
Joe candidate. So if you covered him, the stakes were
low because he had a twenty percent chance of winning.
(10:12):
Right after he won and we were grappling with how
to cover an autocrat that was a different story. There
is some feeling now, right Biden is he won once
against Trump. I mean, what's so interesting about being a
writer and being on the opinion side is that I
see these anxieties boil up. And sometimes they are the
(10:35):
anxieties of straight journalists and politics editors, and.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Sometimes they are the fantasies.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Right And last night at this talk that I was at,
Chris Hayes said, he said something brilliant.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
He said.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
The age issue is a great issue if you don't
know anything, right, Like political journalists love it because it's meaningless. Right,
you can say he's old, and you have to say, yes,
he's old, and the other guy says yes, still right,
and Trump is three years younger than Biden. Like fundamentally,
you know, it's just so meaningless. But the child tax
credit and the nuances of legislation, something that Trump has
(11:11):
never been guilty of legislating, is more substantive and harder
to write about, which is true.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
What you're seeing the flashbacks of Twoentown sixteen are not
the sort of slavish attention to Trump, but the simplicity
of storyline narratives.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, I mean, it's just and it's also just this
sort of way that the media. And again I don't
want to blame the media, because the media is super
important and we're part of it, right, like the idea people,
right when they call out the mainstream media and they're
in it, it's very annoying. So I would say, I
think the thing that I worry about is that there
(11:48):
seems to be stories kind of come from groupthink and
sort of go around and sometimes they influence real like
sometimes they're meaningless and they go away, right like you know,
but they influence voting and sometimes they actually create themselves
into being. And I think of like the Hillary email story, right,
like she was sloppy with her emails?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Is she a criminal mastermind? Now? Was she treated like
she was a criminal mastermind?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Well, there was a question, and that's for example, like
the Hunter Biden gun charge, right like he didn't dispose
of the weapon like a federal gun charge. Okay, now
we go to your question. How usual is what Hunter
Biden was charged with?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
The choices are a very unusual, be non existent, and
I can go in with b in this. You do
have to understand DOJ policies because that crimes on the books. Right,
they'll occasionally have recourse to it. But those occasions are
because of an X factor, right for example the president. Well, no,
(12:54):
that's that's the Y factor here, the Z factor, the
B factor. But no, it's like the guy who lied
on the form used the gun to commit another crust.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
The guy who lied on the form was a straw purchaser.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
The guy we happened to know is responsible for twenty
never though, just a free standing charge literally, and I've
really plumbed the depths. I can't find a single case.
And you know, as you say, it's not simply didn't
have eleven days unloaded in the in the dumpster.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
He throws it out, the girlfriend throws it out, and
then they call the FBI.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
They wouldn't have even known about it exactly.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
So I'm calm and I've written you know this.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
He he was charged with his offense as being the
you know it was his last name, So.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
That would you john question.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
I just want to transmnd my gratitude because, like many.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Question, here we go the book.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I remember almost every scenario in the frame.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
This is great. Oh good, So talking about my mother.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
It was so exciting.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
But I mean I just things I.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Like more than talking about So I'm going to ask
you about polling. No, so, oh yeah, you're my life
is talking about my mother sexual I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I literally found the book on the third floor.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
All right, well let's talk about pulling. I feel like
we could talk about pulling. Here's my I love this.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah, I know. I just will you please from yes.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Gratitude for her elevation until fifteen year old boy?
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
All right, really, I can't wait to have that conversation
with her.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I'm counting to a Sidebard, Yes, I forged it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Okay, pulling, so I this vexing question of finance, fine
stewardship of the economy and all these things. But besides that,
compared to what and the Autocrat ninety one count criminal
I think you've written and I think thought quite a
lot about yes, And I think there's.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
A sense in which the sour.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Mood of the nation, I think of Groucho Marx and
horse feathers and whatever it is. I'm against it and whenever,
So when you say Biden, you're gonna get trapped, you
know you're gonna wind up with a tie, but it
doesn't really augur a tie electorate. And yeah, because of
polling and the mood of the electric today.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Thoughts okay, so national polling is bullshit and it's.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Mental national national.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Am I allowed to curse you because I don't think.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Of a word we haven't said on but I can't.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
National polling is bullshed.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
We don't elect with a popular vote number one, number two.
National pulling in twenty fifteen one polls were more accurate
because we had more landlines, had Hillary Clinton at a
ninety three percent chance of winning the presidency.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
So remember that day seven.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Oh no, I still from looking at that needle. So
number one, that is just a meaning syndicator. I think
polls are you look at polls for trajectories. You look
at obviously if somebody drops in polls, you know, in
a in a sort of stratospheric way that you look
at that. But I think that we've seen really again
(16:14):
and again that polls tend to underrepresent, underrepresent really the truth.
And I think of the Lauren Beaupert Adam Fresh runoff
that you know that was a congressional seat. We had
him on on my podcast in twenty twenty one, twenty
twenty two before the midterm election, and everyone said, you're crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
He lost by five hundred votes. That matter. You know,
a producer has real PTSD when he's like five hundred.
But the money.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
If he hadn't had those bad polls, he would have
raised more money and he would have won by seven hundred,
five hundred votes whatever.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So he polland what you said, what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Than Paul, there you go, all right, getting.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Ahead of contact. Such a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
What it is?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Today, we have a special crossover bonus episode for you
where I talk to Talking Feds Harry Litman live from
this weekend's Texas Tribune Festival.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm Harry Littman of Talking Fits. I'm really pleased to welcome.
I want to say Malli john Fest. But I keep
reading that it's a reverend.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Something.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I think your first name is a reverend? Were there
many kids in school who have? When did you become a.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Reverend?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Is such a weird thing to have as a describer?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Do you think it's not? Until you think it's like
a little shade.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Let's take no reverence. Great, I've been called much worse.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Even today, we're in the middle of like a million
different legal like just everybody is in legal jeopardy right
we have. I mean, Trump is the main event, but
there are a lot of other satellite events. What case
do you think right now seems most open and shut
to you?
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Oh, open and shut?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That's not where I thought you were going, because I
don't know if it'll open and shut in the time
we want.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
But the most open and shut I actually think is
the mar Lago case. The document, the doc it's so
straight forward.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
The law is so clear. All it has to be.
You have classified documents. We know that it says that
I'm you take this man. You know you're not supposed to,
and you know it just gets stronger and stronger every day.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Killer evidence.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So it's like a weird time that where you know,
teeny little things, pieces of knowledge you've acquired over twenty years,
have all some political significance, removal and burden of proof,
but it actually matters. So here this witness who came
forward to who we learned about a couple days ago, right, Michael,
(01:50):
she's going to bury him because he's the she is unimpeachable.
Tried to stay with him, nicely, well presented and will say,
oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
When he found out it's going to talk with the FBI,
I said, you don't know anything about those documents. You
can like the.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Majurial, right, and that's we We focus on stunning the
Bullgravano or me Parkment. But but they'll have bruising cross examinations.
I think John Laurel will just weep and say, no
further questions.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
What are you gonna do with the with it?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So so mar Alago, Okay, now I got one for you.
I'll stick with the irreverent themes.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
So this can a little is it a little more
meta and reflective?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
See as, because you know, truth be told, you're very
sort of susbanative and trenchant.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
But through the prism of irreverence.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
What do you see as the kind of role of irony, wit,
humor and actually the you know, the the mission of
journalism of you know, not just imparting facts, but giving
the kind of point of view that hopefully will make
people see the stakes.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Here the goal is always honesty, right.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I mean, I'm on the opinion side, which gives me
a lot of freedom. I don't have to not say
what I think, whereas like a straight reporter needs to
be able to tell a story without I mean, of
course we always know, right, but without their own personal bias,
Whereas I don't have to do that. But I do
feel like there's even more impetus on me to be
(03:25):
honest and to be honest about when I'm looking at
a case because I'm on the opinion side, and also
because the goal here is always honesty, right, So it
might be funny that there's nothing we can do about
the fact that the world is so deeply insane. I
think if it were less insane, it might be less funny.
(03:45):
You know, you have to laugh to not cry. The
thing is right, the Republican front runner has foreign indictments
and a superseding indictment and he can't stop winning.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
But I mean it's preposterous.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
But on the face of it, like imagine, think of
gour Vidal writing about that.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I mean, he wouldn't believe it. He wouldn't. I mean,
I was listening.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
To some of his writings on the plane on the
way out here, and he was talking about how George
Bush was so beyond the pale George but it thought
of as like now a statesman, I mean, not by me,
but you know, as a painter in a.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Richard Nixon's the best thing that ever happened, right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So I think that the sort of preposterousness of American
politics lends itself to humor in a way that it's
still very serious and we always have to be serious
about it.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
But it is I mean, remember like think about right.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
I mean John Patty right, Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Think about yesterday is like big or the day before
big breaking news about Rudy Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani sexually harassed
or in a very inappropriate sexual contact with a young
girl Mark Meadows.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
You know with that Cassidy wild Trump is making this
watch at the right and Johnny through clearing that right now,
it's like at a Hoeronymous spot, right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Truly a horrendous, horrendous scene from a different century. But
I want to point out, like we could talk about
Rudy Julian and look back at Rudy Giuliani's time in
the Borat movie?
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Will you did this game the right?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Right?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
The Borat Movie supposed to be a satire.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I say, sorry, so, I mean, it's just I wouldn't
be so irreverend if everything wasn't so insane.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Right, and in fact, if the if the actual touchstone
is truth, then it really how do you get out
at a time where even that's up for grass?
Speaker 4 (05:36):
But I shouldn't have said that because it's your turning over.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yes, wet all right. So Laurence O'Donnell was on my podcast.
Yeah he's my body.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, he said that a very very very high number
of jury trials end in guilty verdict like ninety percent plus.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And why, well, a very very very high percentage of
criminal press acutions and in guilty verdicts, although they're usually
by plea.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
But you know, I'm here to tell you.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So I went to law school kind of last refuge
of the amateur. Like a lot of people, I thought
I might be a defense lawyer. It's just by way
of saying, I'm not a fire in the Valley prosecutor.
But it's just a fact, like there's you know, like
facts we were just talking about. To the prosecutors choose
their their cases. Defendants are honestly mostly guilty. I have
(06:31):
whenever I've gotten close to like it's just true and
it could be some solid maybe they have a good
legal claim. I don't mean, and I totally respect defenser,
But whenever I get close to defense, I always say, like, over, so,
have you.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Ever had like someone who didn't do it?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
And they're you know, I think the sky in twenty
fourteen maybe, so you know, the evidences, So they choose now,
of course in the incredible it really and it should
be sort of reassuring because I know some people, especially
in the age of Trump, have such fundamental mistrust for
law enforcement. It is, you know, as of course, said
(07:08):
the competitive business affairity on crime.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Once you're one, you're engaged. You don't want to lose.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
But in any professional office, somebody there's a lot of
cases out there and somebody who you're going to have
trouble proving or god forbid, you're not sure did it
unless they are themselves and you know, for independent reasons.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
A real plague on the community.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So you really want to dig dig card kind of
an al capone situation, you go to the next guy.
So it's really the case. Now, trials are different because
beyond a reasonable doubt, you only need one shit happens.
I was just thinking of this Fulton County trial that's
coming up.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
She charges a rico.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
We're going to have two people sitting there supposedly for
four months, while what a week of the evidence concerns
them directly, you know, twelve real people sitting on your
might think what.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
The how am I doing here?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And there sort of human reaction, et cetera. So that
can happen, especially if you count a mistrial. But the
short answer to Lawrence so O Donald, he's got a
real vantage point. He's I don't know if you read
his book about the big criminal case and stuff.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
But the real answer, don't shoot the messenger.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
It's a fact almost all charged criminal defendants, certainly in
the federal system, are gilly my turn.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Interesting you said recently, I'm kind of terrifying, which is
the media is giving us flashbacks to twenty sixteen. Yeah,
you know, I think there's a sort of overarching question
of this festival of you know, where do we stand
after sort of eight years of Trump is?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And how much is an in root and branch and
how do you purge it? And I've asked this question.
We had a journalism panel with Jacob Weisberg and Johnny
Cobb and Katie Benner, and I just spoke with the
Major Garrett about this indictment, and everybody said, you know,
guilty is charge of journalism back then for giving Trump
so much airtime as if they were like to calling
(09:11):
in too, and then they take the call kind of
as if you know, he's this. I think there was
a sense of which he was always a kind of
attention gathering buffoon, but the joke was sort of on us, right.
So when I hear you say you're getting flashbacks, that
suggests to me that those grievous and consequential errors are
(09:35):
being replicated.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Is that how you see it.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
One of the things that I wrote in that piece,
which I think is is really as i've you know,
sometimes I write something and I'll look back and I'll
be like, oh.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
That was not no. I usually I think, oh that
was stupid, that's not right, but or it'll haunt me.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
But this I actually think was right, which was I
said that Trump was treated as a joke and Hillary
was treated as a peto complay. She was sort of
going to be it, and he was really like a
Joe candidate. So if you covered him, the stakes were
low because he had a twenty percent chance of winning.
(10:12):
Right after he won and we were grappling with how
to cover an autocrat that was a different story. There
is some feeling now, right Biden is he won once
against Trump. I mean, what's so interesting about being a
writer and being on the opinion side is that I
see these anxieties boil up. And sometimes they are the
(10:35):
anxieties of straight journalists and politics editors, and.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Sometimes they are the fantasies.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Right And last night at this talk that I was at,
Chris Hayes said, he said something brilliant.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
He said.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
The age issue is a great issue if you don't
know anything, right, Like political journalists love it because it's meaningless. Right,
you can say he's old, and you have to say, yes,
he's old, and the other guy says yes, still right,
and Trump is three years younger than Biden. Like fundamentally,
you know, it's just so meaningless. But the child tax
credit and the nuances of legislation, something that Trump has
(11:11):
never been guilty of legislating, is more substantive and harder
to write about, which is true.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
What you're seeing the flashbacks of Twoentown sixteen are not
the sort of slavish attention to Trump, but the simplicity
of storyline narratives.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, I mean, it's just and it's also just this
sort of way that the media. And again I don't
want to blame the media, because the media is super
important and we're part of it, right, like the idea people,
right when they call out the mainstream media and they're
in it, it's very annoying. So I would say, I
think the thing that I worry about is that there
(11:48):
seems to be stories kind of come from groupthink and
sort of go around and sometimes they influence real like
sometimes they're meaningless and they go away, right like you know,
but they influence voting and sometimes they actually create themselves
into being. And I think of like the Hillary email story, right,
like she was sloppy with her emails?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Is she a criminal mastermind? Now? Was she treated like
she was a criminal mastermind?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Well, there was a question, and that's for example, like
the Hunter Biden gun charge, right like he didn't dispose
of the weapon like a federal gun charge. Okay, now
we go to your question. How usual is what Hunter
Biden was charged with?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
The choices are a very unusual, be non existent, and
I can go in with b in this. You do
have to understand DOJ policies because that crimes on the books. Right,
they'll occasionally have recourse to it. But those occasions are
because of an X factor, right for example the president. Well, no,
(12:54):
that's that's the Y factor here, the Z factor, the
B factor. But no, it's like the guy who lied
on the form used the gun to commit another crust.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
The guy who lied on the form was a straw purchaser.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
The guy we happened to know is responsible for twenty
never though, just a free standing charge literally, and I've
really plumbed the depths. I can't find a single case.
And you know, as you say, it's not simply didn't
have eleven days unloaded in the in the dumpster.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
He throws it out, the girlfriend throws it out, and
then they call the FBI.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
They wouldn't have even known about it exactly.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
So I'm calm and I've written you know this.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
He he was charged with his offense as being the
you know it was his last name, So.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
That would you john question.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
I just want to transmnd my gratitude because, like many.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Question, here we go the book.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I remember almost every scenario in the frame.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
This is great. Oh good, So talking about my mother.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
It was so exciting.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
But I mean I just things I.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Like more than talking about So I'm going to ask
you about polling. No, so, oh yeah, you're my life
is talking about my mother sexual I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I literally found the book on the third floor.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
All right, well let's talk about pulling. I feel like
we could talk about pulling. Here's my I love this.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah, I know. I just will you please from yes.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Gratitude for her elevation until fifteen year old boy?
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
All right, really, I can't wait to have that conversation
with her.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I'm counting to a Sidebard, Yes, I forged it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Okay, pulling, so I this vexing question of finance, fine
stewardship of the economy and all these things. But besides that,
compared to what and the Autocrat ninety one count criminal
I think you've written and I think thought quite a
lot about yes, And I think there's.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
A sense in which the sour.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Mood of the nation, I think of Groucho Marx and
horse feathers and whatever it is. I'm against it and whenever,
So when you say Biden, you're gonna get trapped, you
know you're gonna wind up with a tie, but it
doesn't really augur a tie electorate. And yeah, because of
polling and the mood of the electric today.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Thoughts okay, so national polling is bullshit and it's.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Mental national national.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Am I allowed to curse you because I don't think.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Of a word we haven't said on but I can't.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
National polling is bullshed.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
We don't elect with a popular vote number one, number two.
National pulling in twenty fifteen one polls were more accurate
because we had more landlines, had Hillary Clinton at a
ninety three percent chance of winning the presidency.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
So remember that day seven.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Oh no, I still from looking at that needle. So
number one, that is just a meaning syndicator. I think
polls are you look at polls for trajectories. You look
at obviously if somebody drops in polls, you know, in
a in a sort of stratospheric way that you look
at that. But I think that we've seen really again
(16:14):
and again that polls tend to underrepresent, underrepresent really the truth.
And I think of the Lauren Beaupert Adam Fresh runoff
that you know that was a congressional seat. We had
him on on my podcast in twenty twenty one, twenty
twenty two before the midterm election, and everyone said, you're crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
He lost by five hundred votes. That matter. You know,
a producer has real PTSD when he's like five hundred.
But the money.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
If he hadn't had those bad polls, he would have
raised more money and he would have won by seven hundred,
five hundred votes whatever.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So he polland what you said, what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Than Paul, there you go, all right, getting.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Ahead of contact. Such a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
What it is?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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