September 27, 2025 • 46 mins
To The Contrary’s Charlie Sykes examines Trump’s fast-paced authoritarianism. The New York Times’ Jonathan Mahler details his powerful story on the Trump administration cutting cancer research funding.
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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. According to a new poll from Somos Bontantes,
a quarter of Latinos who backed Trump last November were
either disappointed in his performance or regretted voting for him.
I'm shocked. We have such a great show for you today.
(00:23):
Two of The Contrary's own, Charlie Sykes, stops by to
talk about Trump's fast paced authoritarianism. Then we'll talk to
The New York Times own Jonathan Mahler about his amazing
story on the Trump administration cutting cancer research.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
But first the news, Molly, I just shocked here the
uh it turns out that the reason the Epstein files
weren't coming out as well lots of Trump's friends are
in the files.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, lots of So we got two different kinds of
Epstein stuff coming out. We have House Oversight, which is
releasing these tranches of documents, and then we have Jason
Leopold at Bloomberg who's also got into Epstein's Yahoo account.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Such a security email.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
DA that's right.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
And by the way, can I just say that this
Yahoo stuff is so amazing because it's.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Like, do we think the past word was pete obosk one, two, three.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Oh god, but they are completely crazy. There are three
of them. The one from yesterday though he had a
whole crisis comms team, he was proving different statements. Anyway,
this batch today from House oversight from the Democrats, never
going to see the Republicans do it. By the way,
you know who's running House oversight for the Democrats, So
(01:43):
let's for Robert Garcia, who continues to deliver the goods.
So in this phone message, logs from two thousand and
two to two thousand and five might be of some interest.
I wonder who he was talking to them. Copies of
flow logs and flight manifestos for aircraft including helicopters that
(02:04):
mister Epstein owned, rented, least operated, or used from nineteen
ninety to twenty nineteen, so there's probably a fair number
of politicians and that Copies of ledgers reflecting transactions recorded
as cash transactions for mister Epstein and business entities. These
documents were previously shown to the committee and then Epstein's
(02:25):
daily schedule between twenty ten and twenty nineteen. That means
if you had brunch with Jeff Epp. If you're listening
a podcasts and you had brunch with Jeff Epp between
twenty ten and twenty nineteen, you might want to call
your lawyer. What I think is very interesting about this
is there's evidence that Peter Til you may remember Peter
(02:46):
Tile as the person who's funded this entire dystopia. Steve Bannon,
you may remember Steve Bannon as the person who is
narrating this entire dystopia, had scheduled meetings with Epstein. Cheryl
was nothing. Why would it be Prince an Andrew is
You may remember Prince Andrew as being a Prince of
British Prince. He's listed as a passenger on Epstein's aircraft.
(03:09):
There's possible with financial disclosures proving possible evidence of payment
from Epstein to missus on behalf of an individual identified
as You're never going to believe this. Andrew very discreet,
extensive reactions to protect victims, which is what we all want.
(03:29):
I want to point out that Donald Trump is obsessed
with people not getting this information. That doesn't mean you're guilty.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It doesn't What did Jeffrey Epstein is saying on tape
saying I was Donald Trump's best friend for over a decade.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You gotta wonder he likes beautiful women as much as
I do. Many of them on the younger side. We're
not making light of sex trafficking children. We think it's bad,
but we are wondering why this has to take so
long and why Donald Trump is fighting these disclosures so hard. Also,
(04:05):
another person who was friends with jeff epp and flew
around on the plane brainworm himself.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Do you remember when he was I believe it was
Hannity and he tried to list all the times he
got with Jeffrey Epstein. But the funniest thing is he
didn't list all of them, even though we were like, damn,
that's a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well the best ones, like Kennedy was like, please let
me help you not destroy your life, and r kids
like and then there was that time we went to
the Caribbean and I was like, I don't know how.
I mean, I guess that everything has gotten so stupid
that if you're famous then it doesn't matter if you
do all of this self incrimination.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
But when you're famous, they let you do anything. Grab them.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Oh boy, yeah, Oh that's not good. Anyway, we're not
making light of any of this stuff, but we are.
We got to get to rfkgnor my I think when.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
He was doing that interview with Hannity, you know they
sometimes say, what Jesus take the wheel? I think the
worm took the wheel and just did what it had
to do.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I just want to point out the worm is supposedly dead.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I mean, he gets a lot of facts wrong. The
worm might be might be alive and well, and it
seems like he's running things, which is what is scary
a lot of us. With this new report.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
We've got to get a worm that doesn't take tilent
all continue. So all comes back to talent.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
The tilet all jokes at every group chat I've in
in these days.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It's like in any group chats anyway, that's what you
put me in your group chat.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Okay. So anytime we hear that HHS Secretary RFK Junior
is studying something, we know it's going to go to
a very stupid place. Now we've seen lots of evidence
of this. At his new subject, he's studying abortion pills.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
You want my hottest take on what it means for
him to study things.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I'm putting on my flameproof suit so I can get
your hottest take.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I think what happens is he goes on Facebook groups
and he LARPs as someone his own age because he's
in his seven and he gets in there and he
just asks other boomers what their take is on things.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The policies feel that way.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Not that there's anything wrong with being a boomer, but
there is something wrong with being a boomer on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah. This is causing a lot of alarm since the
conclusions that the quacks he hangs out with seem to
get to are not just contrarian, they're very wrong and
not not based in science.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yes, they're not not based in science. Many people are
saying they are not based in science, but they could
also be not not the good science. In case you're
wondering things are going great, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Here's another way things are going great. The Guardian has
this amazing report that immigrants with no criminal record now
are the largest group in nice attention. Seem to remember
that the campaign was all about how they going to
just get the criminals out of here.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, you know, as someone who just did an event
with Scott Jennings from CNN at Penn State University.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I really hope you're treating yourself to some self care
this weekend.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah. Sure. What I think is really interesting about this
moment in American life is you had polling the show
that immigration was a winner for trumpet. That's why they
had the mass deportation. Now signs everything that Trump does, well,
it's craven. It's often because he thinks it'll make him
win with the base. So here's the news. This policy
(07:26):
of the massed people picking up the women, the little
old ladies, the children. I don't know if you saw
that that an autistic kid was held outside so that
the father would come out so he could get arrested.
Legal immigration has never been more popular. I wonder if
we could go back in time and look at what
(07:47):
the United States government did to Mexicans during the very
dark period that was. You'll remember where they deported all
of these Mexican people and also a lot of citizens
because they were way profiling. And it turns out, I
don't tell the Supreme Court this, but when you racially profile,
you just get people of that race. Worth wondering, like,
(08:09):
if we ever get out of this thing, how this
changes people's views. I think a lot about Arizona, because
Arizona had this sheriff or Pio, who became a Trump
World fixture because why wouldn't he be, But he radicalized
a lot of the young people in Arizona because of
his incredibly insane you know, the insane stuff they were
(08:31):
doing where they were trying to strip, you know, right
from immigrants.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So I think it'll be really.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Curious to see, if we ever get out of this,
how people's views towards immigrants change. I think that we
will see a real backlash to this. I'm just guessing
that these videos of these massed agents carrying around women,
hitting them, arresting them. I just think it's going to
be hard to sell this the American people.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I agree with you, and especially when you're seeing footage
of just small women getting the living shit kicked out
of him. You know, as somebody whose wife had an
encounter with ice that was very very well oppressed to.
We have prid of the show Kataboo Zagala getting thrown
to the point that she was injured pretty badly. It's
(09:18):
just real disgusting stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, you know, we are in this backlash cycle and
it's hard for me to imagine this won't continue on.
Charlie Sikes is the author of the newsletter to the
Contrary and the book How the Right Lost Its Mind.
Welcome back to Fast Politic, Charlie Sikes.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Wow, what do we have to talk about today?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Really?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Remember when Donald Trump said that he was going to
seek retribution against his enemies, and many different interviewers were like,
but you don't really mean that, and he was like, no, no, I.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Do, Yeah, no, no, I do. You know the funny
us you should put it that way because I was.
I'm writing about that this morning. And on one level,
a lot of what's going on is like completely predictable, right.
I mean, he's been saying it for years. You know,
I am your retribution. I am going to go after
you know, he called for the death penalty for General Millie.
You know, he's been saying these things. And yet I
(10:19):
think there's been that kind of denialism across the board
that the people on the you know, in the Republican
Party go, well, okay, let's don't you know, don't take
him serious. He's taking seriously but not literally, he's not
actually going to do that. I think there have been
people in the center in the left who thought, okay,
well yeah, but there are all these guard rails, there's
(10:39):
all these limits. He's not going to find lawyers who
are going to do this. And then we wake up today,
Molly and find out that, damn it, he is doing
everything he said and he's making no secret of it.
And this is the thing. It's kind of like a
mob boss thing. You get in that hole. You know,
I want a head of James. But normally, and Jimmy
(11:02):
Kimmel did a great joke about this the other day,
you know, when he's talking about Brendan Carr making his
mob boss, you know, a nice network he got there,
comments that normally, if you're going to get that kind
of a threat from a mob boss, you have to
plant a microphone in a deli and then sit outside
in the van for an hour or so. You have
these guys saying it every day on Blast. It's like
(11:23):
Watergate on the biggliest loudspeakers in the world. And you know,
and so people are saying, well, I'm shocked. Well, on
one level, why you shocked? He told us he was
to do it. On the other hand, I don't know
about you. We are in uncharted territory. I mean, if
this feels different, it is different. I mean people do
need to understand that even a few months ago, if
(11:45):
you would have said that he would order the Department
of Justice to indicite a specific person, and even when
the lawyers came back and said there's no case, he
would then fire those lawyers and he would find some
tody and he would from the Oval office ordering the
criminal indictment of a Politically, even a few months ago,
people would have said, yeah, I don't he's gonna go
(12:07):
that far right, Well, here we are.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So we've seen other countries slip into autocracy, like real autocracy,
not this sort of squishy middle that we're in right now.
But it's tended to be that it's happened because in
a way the leaders have done things like they've been
a little sneakier about it right erduwan. They've tried not
(12:30):
to scare people I was thinking of orbon you know,
they've said, even putin right, there was some you know,
we don't want just some couching of it. That's not
what's happening here. What's happening here is like he's doing it,
saying he's doing it being like I'm doing it and
everyone else is also saying like trying to you know,
there's some kind of incentive structure where you know, they're
(12:52):
all trying to take credit for it so that Trump
will path them on the head. Does that help or
does that hurt our autocratic slot?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Well, our articatct slide has become a landslide, hasn't it.
I mean, your point is exactly right. I think I
heard an Apple bombs say a couple of weeks ago
that it took Victor Orbon fifteen years to accomplish what
Donald Trump is doing in the first eight months. And
part of the reason this goes back to the cliche
about the boiling frog. You know, you boil the frog
slowly so the frog doesn't notice, and then by the
(13:23):
time it notices it's too late, it's already boiled. Whereas
if you just threw the floor a frog into really
scalding water, it would jump out. I mean that's the theory, right. Well,
here's the deal. We're the frog. He's scalding us, and
I'm not sure that the American frog has figured how
to respond to this. I've already strained that analogy way
too far, it's good.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I like it, American Frog.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
The thing is that and I have talked to you know,
the people who have watched what's happened in Turkey, watch
what's happened in Russia, watch what's happened in other countries,
including Hungary, and they all make the same point. Is
the pattern is exactly the same. Go after the civil institutions,
go after you know, go after the dissident billionaires, go
after the independent media, go after the universities. Create an
(14:09):
enemy that you use to establish state spot power. And
again there's no gradualism. Donald Trump is accurately he's a
man on the.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Clock, right, No, he clearly is. And in fact, when
you saw those Truths Truths quote unquote, he'd say things like,
you know, we got to get this going, and we
can't waste any time. We saw this week, Kimmel is
not off the air. And in fact, he was the
Tom Hanks of COVID, right where Tom Hanks got COVID
and people were like, oh shit, this is real. Yeah,
(14:41):
Kimmel six million people on network, another thirty million on YouTube.
Even if thirty million people did not sit down and
watch the entire episode, it means that it has broken through.
It has broken through to a big percentage of the population,
and now igur ma ay force next are to air him.
Kimmel can be an inflection point. Either can be a
(15:06):
hero because this is the first time we've seen this.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
It feels like the first time we've seen this, and
I'm sure there are other episodes, but but not at
the scale of what Jimmy Kimmel is doing right now,
you know, And hey, look, kim let's see there's so
much awful going on. I think we ought to like
spend a moment wallowing in the in the sort of
awesomeness of the You and I failed attempt comedy.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Real cock eyed optimists. It's like you're you're a Midwesterner
and I'm just well medicated.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
But I try to stay away from the hopium. But
I will say that this, you know, watching What's happened
with Jimmy Kimmel, the point was to cancel him. Right
He's bigger than ever right now. The last two nights
he's come out and he's been on his game, going
after Donald Trump very very specifically, as you know, being
a bully and the kinds of things that that he
(15:58):
is doing, talking about what's going on with the you know,
people like Sinclair and Nextstar. The audience is huge, it
is pointed. It's also in a sweet spot for the
critics of Donald Trump because free speech, you know, it's
been battered and hollowed out, but it is a fundamental
It is the fundamental American value. It is in our DNA,
(16:23):
the right to speak, the right to make fun of
people in power, and people get it now. Again, things
may have gotten squishy and soft and people came up
with all kinds of others, but it feels like there's
real opportunity here to sort of go back and go, Okay,
what is America all about? Why do we value free speech?
What is the point of free speech? And what is
(16:43):
Donald Trump doing? Is Donald Trump really thinking that he
makes America great by censoring and canceling people who make
fun of him. On one level, the hypocrisy of Donald
Trump claiming he was the free president candidate is sort
of obvious. That's kind of the old story. I kind
of feel that there's a possibility of a moment of
(17:04):
revival of American values here, I mean, and also so
that there's that hope. Second, I think people ought to
realize that, Yeah, you can make a difference. Some things
do make a difference. You know, Bob Iger did not
wake up heroic. He woke up with lots of numbers
about cancelations and long lists of celebrities and entertainers who
(17:27):
might not work with Disney in the past. So now
he had his nuts and a squeeze. Then that doesn't
mean that at some point he didn't think, all right,
who do I want to be in this movie? Who
do I want to be? Do I want to be
you know, the craven quizzling who cowers? Or do I
want to be the guy that stands up for these principles?
(17:48):
And then coincidentally, maybe you know, stops the bleeding on
people who are canceling their Hulu and their Disney Plus accounts.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. It's a question.
It's like the difference between Bob and Cherry Redstone. Cherry
Redstone does everything Trump asked her to do so she
can sell to paramount because she says, no big deal.
She even defends it later she says, no, it was
a distraction. Obviously, it wasn't a distraction. It was trying
(18:16):
to change the partisan lean of an entire network because
Donald Trump is an autocrat. Canceling Colbert was not about
anything but making Donald Trump happy so you could get
the regulatory approval.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Yeah yeah, but weirdly enough, the way they went about
it by giving him months in which he can point
out to skewer that to secure them. I mean, you know,
Colbert is there's nothing more dangerous than a comedian who's
got nothing left to lose, right, he says a lot
of fucks to get like I and Colbert goes out
there every single night, and Jimmy Fallon kind of feels
(18:51):
that way. Jimmy Fallon feels like like he has been Jimmy.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I was thinking of Fallon because
Fallon was next on the list, right right, I mean.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
They're all on the list. We're all on the list.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And the thing about Trump again is how he can't
his his defenders will say, well, no, he had nothing
to do with, you know, the cancelation of Jimmy Kendle,
And so he just comes out and says no, I
was told he was candled.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I wanted the White House was tall, that we were
the White House was tald, So maybe not even so
somebody called somebody, maybe Brenda Carr, maybe this one.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Maybe I mean craziness, Yeah, craziness. And then he said
and Seth Myers and Jimmy fallon our next. So again
he sort of laid it out the same thing with
Jimmy Jim Cally. Okay, So he could have just let
the indictment speak for itself, right as opposed to he
had to on Friday morning basically come out and spike
(19:45):
the football on this right to say, you know, yeah, go,
he's a crooked cop. In case there was any doubt,
any possible shred that you know, some hack like Scott
Jennings could hang on and say Trump had nothing to
do with the indictment of Jim Comy. How dare you
suggest that the president of the United States. I'm sure
that Pam Bondi and all the other great Google minds
thought of this themselves, right, So you know, Scott Jennings
(20:08):
is going to go out there and say, no, this
is not a case of the President in the Oval
office ordering the indictment of Jim coming. And what Donald
Trump says says, hey, fuck you, Scott Jennings. Yes it
was I did it.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yes, No, I think that's a really good point. He
cannot give his defenders anything to hang their hats on. No,
at least to try to pretend to be normal, which
is probably good news if you're trying to avoid an
authoritarian slide, if you're trying to avoid the appearance that
all is normal when things are really being undermined.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, well again, I don't think we're an authoritarian is sliding. Well,
I think it's an authoritarian crack up. I mean when
you're seeing these when you're seeing them and the speed
with which it is happening, and just just to throw
things up to keep an eye on over the next
couple of days, keeping on this meeting with Pete haggs
Ath and all the admirals and the generals.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
What's your sense on that?
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Well, you want my dark sense on that?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, I want anything.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
People need to understand that this is we use the
word unprecedented too much. This never happens. But you don't
invite all of the eight hundred top admirals in generals
all over the world to come to a meeting and
not tell them what it's all about. You can do
this on zoom. You can do this on secure networks.
He's basically taking them from their posts, making them fly,
(21:29):
come back, sit in front of him. No one knows
what it's about. My dark concern is that he's going
to stand up and say, we want to know who
you're loyal to. How many people in this room will
follow every order that Donald Trump gives you, and if
you don't raise your hand, submit your resignation. Now, in
(21:49):
our system of government, the military takes an oath to
the Constitution, not to one man, not to Donald Trump.
If hegzeth demands some sort of life loyalty of some
sort to the administration, it will be one of those
again watershed moments. What does it feel like, you know,
(22:10):
will the military stand up? Will we see mass firings?
What is he going to demand of them? I don't know,
But again I'm speculating, But I was freaked out late
last night when I saw this tweet from General Michael Hayden,
retired for star general, used to be the head of
the CIA, Director of National Intelligence, who reacted to somebody
(22:31):
who proposed that scenario saying, I'm afraid that's what's going
to happen. This is the fear in the military right
now that they're going to demand some sort of loyalty.
You know, we're going into some deep shit people. We
want to know who's with us and who's against us.
Who is unconditionally going to follow an order from Donald
Trump no matter what as by the way, Donald Trump
(22:53):
expects now from the Department of Justice, right, the Department
of Homeland Security, the FBI. We've seen that throughout the government.
In Donald Trump's mind, why shouldn't that be the case
in the military. It's his generals, his military, his people.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Right. Everything we worried about happened.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
And more because we thought, we knew that he would
do these things. We thought that people would stand up
against it more effectively, didn't we. Yeah, I mean I
thought the courts would stand up. I thought the universities,
the law firms, the media would all stand at the
civil society, that Americans would go this is horrible. No,
this is not what we are.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
There is a case against being a captured institution, and
I'd love to talk about them for a minute. So
we have Bob Iger on the side of standing up
for things. Then we have Sharon Redstone right for the moment.
That's right, let's not get you know what, that's good
Check on my optimism. But then we have Sherry Redstone,
we have there, you know, a lot of different college presidents.
(23:54):
We have law firms, we have these people who have
said no, no, all the billionaires, all the tech billionaires,
Bezos is basically Donald Trump's show for now. These people
are captured institutions. They have no legal anything because they've
made illegal deals with Trump. So Trump has no incentive
to say like, this is enough, I've had enough of
my pound of flash, and so talk us through what
(24:15):
that looks like as a captured institution.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Well, I think that this is what should be the
lesson they I thought that they would have understood that,
if you know, pay off the schoolyard bully, he's going
to demand more. I think ABC is learning that lesson.
They pay him off sixteen million dollars for that completely
bogus lawsuit against them. They threw George Stephanopolis under the bus.
(24:38):
But what they're learning now is that, you know, paying
off Donald Trump does not buy you safety. Capitulating does
not buy you safety. The law firms are finding out
the same sort of thing. They're finding out that Donald
Trump has a way of renigging on deals or expanding
deals in ways that they should have anticipated, but what
they didn't. I think there's a lot of regret among
(24:58):
the universities. Plus, you know, the wheel of fortune turns,
and when you go all in on this particular project,
what do you think happens if things turn around? Now,
perhaps both MAGA and these companies that have taken Anita
MAGA think that the wheel will never come around. Maybe
(25:19):
they think that MAGA will never lose power, that there
will never be a time of reckoning. That seems somewhat
naive because normally these smart people will hedge their bets
and they're all in.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I think that's such an important point. I think also
it's important to talk about the polling. Right, the polling
shows none as is popular that Trump is underwater on everything.
He's underwater in Texas. And he knows this polling to
be true, because otherwise he would not ask states to
be redistricting. Right. He knows he's going to get slacked
in the midterms if they're a fair midterm. Right. I mean,
(25:54):
don't you think why else ask for redistricting?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Oh? Yeah, But I actually don't think he cares about
the general population poll. I think what Donald Trump comes
in every morning looks as is the base still with me?
Is If the base is still with me, if nobody
in Congress is going to buck me, then I can
still have absolute power. And in a thoroughly Jerry mannered country,
he doesn't need to have a majority of Americans behind him.
(26:21):
All he needs to do is keep the loyalists in line,
and he's testing it, he's figuring, you know, and by
forcing them to take more and more outrageous positions, I
think he solidifies their support. And of course he's managed.
He's very working, very hard to weaponize the victim status
(26:42):
post the murder of Charlie Kirk. So I don't think
he's freaked out about the fifty six percent disapproval ratings.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But and this goes to the base question. He does
want a farmer's bailout, which is very interesting because we
had so Democrats hurdling towards the shutdown. Mike Johnson sent
Congress home. All of a sudden, Donald Trump wants a
bailout for farmers. He's going to need Democrats for that.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, good luck with that. No, I think this is interesting.
I mean, the shutdown is going to happen, and I
think it's going to be this massive game of political chicken,
and we'll see that. But remember that he had to
bail out This is the irrationality of his teriff regime.
He did this, This is the first time bad and
you know, he slapped the tariffs on in the first
(27:33):
term and then he had to bail out the farmers,
so you know, and he's we're going to go through
the exact same scenario. And by the way, while we're
bailing out the farmers, we're also bailing out Argentina because
America first, Molly, why are.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
We bailing out Argentina? I mean, by the way, as
you know, as we're clearly heading towards the recession.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Our numbers are so bad.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
You know, the Bureau of Labor Statistics like they've all
gone home, right, they fired the top boss. Now they've
held the numbers because clearly they're so bad. Why we're
bailing out Argentina.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Think about this for you, Of all the countries in
the world, if you had to make a list of like,
name me a country that has a long track record
of fiscal insanity, I'm guessing that your list in the
top five is going to be like, yeah, you don't
want to be like Argentina. Argentina has this new libertarian
slash right wing president who has been kissing up to
Donald Trump and Elon Musk. We like him. So we're
(28:25):
whacking Brazil because Donald Trump doesn't like the president. We
are having the taxpayers potentially on the hook to bail
out Argentina because he's a buddy. If you try to
come up with any coherent theory for Trump's foreign policy
where his his policies, forget it. It's all that. What
is Jonathan rob I call it, you know, the you know,
(28:47):
the but the personalization, it is just it is just
it is just what benefits Donald Trump. Who Donald Trump
likes moment to moment, which is also why, by the way,
potentially one of the biggest stories of the week was
his one eighty flip flop on Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Believe you, Molly, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Well yes, literally unbelievable because you don't know where he's
going to be forty eight hours from now until he
backs it up with actual hardware. It means nothing, and
you know, the Vlad's gonna call him up and say done,
We'll be you know, come on, you know you didn't
mean that. You didn't mean it, right, you know, and
and they'll get back together again. So this is a
(29:29):
man who you know, with a moment to moment to moment,
he's got the principles of a goldfish. Yeah, and not
insult goldfishes, just that they have ten second memories.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Mean to goldfish, Charlie Sykes, don't be mean to goldfish.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
You know that the bad analogy, because his principles may
be goldfish like, but his memory is at least when
it comes to grievances is infinite, infinite. He will he
will hang upon any slight that is ever.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
For sure, trow that is for sure, trow forever and ever. Oh,
thank you so much, Charlie.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Thank you anytime.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Jonathan Mahler is a reporter for The New York Times
and the author of the Gods of New York. Welcome
to Fast Politics, John.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Mollie.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
It's so exciting. It's funny because it's like, this is
such a clear thing that we knew they were going
to be doing, as the cutting the nah Grant said,
we knew this was coming, but for some reason, I
think people had a hard time threading the needles. So
can you sort of talk us through what is happening here.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Yeah, I mean, as you say that, it's both kind
of not surprising and also shocking. I think primarily because
biomedical research and cancer research in particular has always been
just a bipartisan issue, a totally uncontroversial bipartisan issue, going
all the way back to nineteen seventy one, and President Nixon,
(31:02):
who was the one who actually signed the National Cancer Act,
who launched the War on cancer. The idea that and
a new administration might decide that some reform is in order,
that some changes are in order. Okay, that's one thing.
But what we have seen really since since the earliest
days of this administration is really the systematic dismantling of
(31:27):
infrastructure that took more than fifty years to build and
that has been extraordinarily successful at extending lives and saving lives.
And I'm talking about cancer patients, but even beyond cancer.
This research system, it's what enabled scientists to understand the
COVID virus and develop a vaccine for COVID. The basic
(31:49):
biological research that was funded and enabled by this system
has has really transformed our kind of ability to treat people.
So it's been on that level, it's been really shocking.
So I'd love you to just talk us through. Now
we got.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
To this moment with the Trump administration dismantling this kind
of research.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
Yeah, sure, So within days of the administration taking office,
they issued a gag order basically that prevented everyone at
the NIH and the National Cancer Institute from really talking
to scientists, from publishing research, from having any kind of
meetings to consider grant proposals, and so you know, that
really really kind of froze the system in place. And
(32:30):
then they started actually canceling existing grants, which just you know,
totally unprecedented. I mean that that like truly has never
happened before. You know, they were canceling, in the end, hundreds.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Of grants in the name of doge right.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Both in the name of kind of DEI claiming that
any grant that had the word, say, you know, diversity title.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
But even like diversity of cells cells would get canceled.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Yes, as soon as they started doing that, they started
basically free using payments to universities that on this grant
money to pay their professors, to pay their researchers, and
to keep their labs open and running. So that was
all kind of happening on the ground. At the same time,
the administration, you know, Trump put forward his new budget
(33:16):
which calls for a nearly forty percent cut in cancer research.
So we're talking about, you know, three billion dollars, a
three billion dollar cut in our investment in research to
treat cancer. So that's still kind of looming, and meanwhile
the system is like already in utter chaos.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So I feel like there were sort of two groups
cutting everything in a super disorganized way. One was the
Elon Musk NIH grants and he was really offended by
this idea that the universities would take a certain percentage
of the grant for themselves. I would love you to
talk about that.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, So there's another element to this which gets a
little a little deeper into the weeds, but is like
also incredibly important that you're alluding to, which is the
individual researchers apply for grants, They get grants to do projects,
to do research. In addition to that, universities are reimbursed
for overhead expenses associated with that work. And that is
something that yes, drove Elon and drove other kind of
(34:15):
Trump Republicans kind of crazy that the government was reimbursing
universities you know, for things like you know, running labs
for electricity for you know, things like that that are
you know, just basic overhead expenses that are necessary part
of running a laboratory. That is something else that the
administration cut. It actually got blocked by the court, so
it's still it's still like up in the ear, what's
(34:35):
going to happen. Each university has its own kind of
rate of reimbursement, and the administration cut them across the
board to fifteen percent, which is very very low number,
and then doge itself. What they did basically was was
just kind of take control of the payment system at NIH.
And you know, keep in mind that the NIH was
like designed to be an a political organizational political institution
(35:00):
was meant to be insulated from politics. There were two
political appointees in all of the NIH. One was the
director of the NIH and one was the director of
the National Cancer Institute. Dosee went in and basically took
control of the payment system so that they could just
stop paying universities.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Right, And what happened next with the not paying university,
I mean some things were on prosen, some things were
not right or was nothing unprosen.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I mean it was like totally chaotic. So you had
this handful of universities, a dozen or so that were
targeted for specific political reasons. We've kind of read about
some of those. Obviously, Harvard is the you know, they've
gotten the most attention, but they're hardly the only one.
Columbia earned Northwestern penn. A lot of others also got
hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money frozen for
(35:44):
political reasons. And then there were just some schools, including
one that I wrote about in detail in this piece
of University of Massachusetts, which was not any sort of
political list at all. It's a state university in Massachusetts.
But Doose nevertheless kind of took control role of this
payment system and just just stop paying their grants.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Why.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
They never gave a good reason. They would claim that
they were, you know, reordering the process, reconsidering how the
government does things. They never really explained, you know, in
any kind of official capacity, what they were doing. All
that the administrators at U Masked were able to learn
was that this was some sort of change that was
going on. It was it was it was like really
(36:25):
not clear.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And that Chan School of Medicine U mass they focus.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
On what they do all sorts of biomedical research. I
was sort of specifically interested because this piece was really
about cancer research. They do a good deal. They do
I think about forty five million dollars a year in
cancer research. They do quite a bit of cancer research.
But they do everything. And you know, they had a
Nobel Prize winning molecular biol I think it was a
molecular biologist last year. You know, it's not Harvard, it's
a pretty powerful research institute itself. And you know, when
(36:51):
they when that money stopped appearing, the chancel of the
school had to lay off two hundred people and he
had to rescind offers to the entire you know, accepted
an incoming class.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Of PhD grad students.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Right, It's like it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
I Mean one of the things I've been strupped by
always is just how passive a lot of people have been.
But is there pushback, and if so, is there any
kind of effort on the private side to take over
some of those.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
There's been some. I think part of the problem is that,
you know, first of all, these people are like, for
the most part, academics. We're not talking about political activists here,
and we're also talking about people who are very accustomed
to the system operating a certain way. They spend an
enormous amount of time in the lab, and they spend
an enormous amount of time publishing their research and writing
(37:42):
grant proposals. What they don't do is, you know, lobby
or organize. You know, I don't think we've seen a
lot of it. I think, you know, I think we've
seen a lot of just kind of shock. And I certainly,
you know, people were eager to talk to me and
hoping that I would help get the word out that
this piece would you know, kind of amplified their concerns,
(38:02):
you know, but we haven't seen a lot of it.
And also it's the only body that can make a
difference at this point is Congress, and even that is
you know, we'll see. But you know, for the most part,
these scientists and I think they could be out in
the streets, but they're pretty powerless. You know, they're not
making these decisions. Congress, on the other hand, you know, yeah,
they could be holding the President's feet to the fire.
I mean, this is money we're talking about, like billions
of dollars in money Congress has allocated for research that
(38:26):
that the president has unilaterally decided he's not going to
give to researchers. It's totally madness.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Part of the reason why we did things like this
was because it was good for all of us, but
also because it was popular. Do you think the lack
of news is why people don't know this is happening
and why Trump world doesn't care. Try to make this
make sense to me. If you can, like how we
got here, I.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Would love to. It's very hard to make sense. I
think that part of it is COVID backlash. I think
that there's a sort of a mistrust now of the
scientific establishment. You know, the Maha movement is like at
the center of it, and I think it's kind of
a powerful political force in this country. So I think
that that has provided kind of cover for a lot
(39:14):
of this. I mean, if there's an explanation, like, I
don't think that before the pandemic this would have been possible.
I think everyone on the left and right would have
had their hair on fire about this, and now there's
a sense of well, these sign I mean, what are
these scientists you know cooking up labs anyway?
Speaker 3 (39:32):
You know?
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah, Yeah, it's just such a departure from everything we
know about how America operates. That the only way in
my mind that it makes sense is if there's some
kind of larger post pandemic lunacy happening, which that sounds
like it makes the most sense. There's like a new
head of Anih. Not the woman who got fired, but
(39:56):
Jay Banishariya. He's a really complicated and fascinating and I
love it if you could talk through him because he
comes from anti VACS world, or he was an icon
of anti vacts, but he's not really anti vax, So
talk us through this.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, No, I think it's it's going to be really
interesting to see kind of what happens with him. I mean, yes,
I mean he sort of he made his name. I
mean he was just a research scientist at Stanford, but
he joined with a few other scientists during COVID and
kind of wrote this this, you know, the Great Barrington Declaration.
It was called. It was a critique of the COVID
policies and and kind of encouraging her immunity. And so,
(40:34):
you know, not quite right to say that he's a
vaccine skeptic, but he's a big critic of the NIH
or he was a big critic of the NIH and
now he's running the NA. So I think another thing
that's important to note about him is that he's from Stanford.
He's from like Silicon Valley. He's sort of been kind
of part of the you know, this is a bit
(40:55):
of a bit of a generalization, but he's kind of
part of the tech right in a way. He's like
of the kind of just ouption is good and government
is bad kind of mindset. Having all that, you know,
he's a legitimate scientist.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
As opposed to RFK Junior, who is not a real scientist.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
That's right, And he has been NIH funded himself. He's
one grants himself, and so I can't believe that he
likes what he's seeing. I don't know a whether he
is going to have the power to, I guess would
say whether he's going to have the will to try
to stop any or be whether he power to. I mean,
I have a pretty strong sense that HHS is really
(41:31):
kind of controlling healthcare policy, that RFK has really kind
of consolidated power. So it'll be interesting to see whether
he feels like he needs to basically like champion the
interests of the research community that he comes from, or
whether he's just going to fold himself into the sort
of Maga Maha movement.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
His problem is with the way that these grants work,
or the way they're written, the way the grant world,
the way that you get money, the way that you
you know that they're big on kind of theory and
not as and not as involved in practice.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Right, he did a long interview with you know, like
three hour long interview with the r Huberman, I think maybe
right when he was appointed.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
You know.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
And the thing that his critiques of the system, they're
pretty like widely held, I mean on the left end,
right and popular. One is that scientists have become too
risk averse. There are so many scientists competing for a
limited number of grants, and that a lot of the
scientists are now much older. Everyone is kind of inclined
toward more incremental, safer projects rather than kind of riskier
(42:37):
moonshot type ideas. And of course it's also a Silicon
Valley mindset too, right, So I think that you know,
there is from what I gather, and you know, I
talked to a lot of people for this story, there
is definitely some truth to that critique. I mean, the
problem is what we're seeing is the fact that it's
going to be even harder to get grant improove now
is going to have the opposite effect. It's going to
(42:58):
make people even more risk averse, and it's going to
drive even more young scientists with you know, who understand
new technology and have have exciting new ideas. It's going
to drive them out of the field altogether.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Aren't we basically giving it all away to China here?
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Yeah? I mean that's the reality is that you know,
people are just not going to want to do science
in this country anymore. I mean, not only is the
money not there, but like our government no longer respects
these people. And it's made clear if you're a promising
young scientist. And I mean, you know, they're the European countries,
they are recruiting our scientists, but they don't have anywhere
near the resources of China. I mean, why would you
(43:33):
not go to China? They will build you if you're
you know, build you a labor of staff that with
researchers and people who would be willing to work around
the clock, and you know you're good to go.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
It is the end of American exceptionalism. At least in science.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
It really feels that way. I mean, I think that
it's not going to happen overnight. But you know, one
of the guys I interviewed for this story is this guy,
Harold Varmus, who's a former Nobel Prize winning cancer researcher
himself and from the NIH And you know, he made
the point to me that this is not like a
clothing store where it's like, you know, yeah, you have
a couple bad years and then you bounce back. This
(44:08):
is an elaborate system that has been built that took
decades to build. You start to pull it apart and
it's gone. To rebuild it would require so many years
and so much political will and so much money that
it's just hard to imagine that that could happen. So yeah,
I mean, you know, I don't want to be too hyperbolic,
but it does feel like we are at risk of
(44:28):
sacrificing kind of one of the yeah, one of the
greatest things this country's ever done.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, I don't think there's a way back now. So
and that goodness, thank you for joining. I hope you'll
come back.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
My pleasure. I would love to.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
A moment.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Jesse cannon my junk.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Fast Congressman Mikey Cheryl is running for governor in the
great state of New Jersey. And I think you and
I discussed like this. This is like one of our
fears is the Trump administration would weaponize government against candidates
and races. And it looks like that's probably what happens.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah, here we are.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yes, So this is exactly what Trump was saying that
Democrats did, but he actually is doing it. So this
is her home address. It was all given to her
Republican challenger. Again, I don't I mean, who knows. Maybe
this works for them, but I mean this is just
(45:29):
so dirty and so wrong headed and so just appalling.
And you know, they got this information because she's a veteran,
and when you're a veteran, you have your information, you know,
in these archives. So maybe it does help, but it's
hard for me to imagine this helps the Republican And
(45:49):
it's also such just like with the call me stuff,
such an incredible dereliction of their duty. So it's just appalling.
And I hope that they just said to press charges
on this. I hope she does agreed. That's it for
this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
(46:11):
Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
make sense of.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
All this chaos.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
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. According to a new poll from Somos Bontantes,
a quarter of Latinos who backed Trump last November were
either disappointed in his performance or regretted voting for him.
I'm shocked. We have such a great show for you today.
(00:23):
Two of The Contrary's own, Charlie Sykes, stops by to
talk about Trump's fast paced authoritarianism. Then we'll talk to
The New York Times own Jonathan Mahler about his amazing
story on the Trump administration cutting cancer research.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
But first the news, Molly, I just shocked here the
uh it turns out that the reason the Epstein files
weren't coming out as well lots of Trump's friends are
in the files.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, lots of So we got two different kinds of
Epstein stuff coming out. We have House Oversight, which is
releasing these tranches of documents, and then we have Jason
Leopold at Bloomberg who's also got into Epstein's Yahoo account.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Such a security email.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
DA that's right.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
And by the way, can I just say that this
Yahoo stuff is so amazing because it's.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Like, do we think the past word was pete obosk one, two, three.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Oh god, but they are completely crazy. There are three
of them. The one from yesterday though he had a
whole crisis comms team, he was proving different statements. Anyway,
this batch today from House oversight from the Democrats, never
going to see the Republicans do it. By the way,
you know who's running House oversight for the Democrats, So
(01:43):
let's for Robert Garcia, who continues to deliver the goods.
So in this phone message, logs from two thousand and
two to two thousand and five might be of some interest.
I wonder who he was talking to them. Copies of
flow logs and flight manifestos for aircraft including helicopters that
(02:04):
mister Epstein owned, rented, least operated, or used from nineteen
ninety to twenty nineteen, so there's probably a fair number
of politicians and that Copies of ledgers reflecting transactions recorded
as cash transactions for mister Epstein and business entities. These
documents were previously shown to the committee and then Epstein's
(02:25):
daily schedule between twenty ten and twenty nineteen. That means
if you had brunch with Jeff Epp. If you're listening
a podcasts and you had brunch with Jeff Epp between
twenty ten and twenty nineteen, you might want to call
your lawyer. What I think is very interesting about this
is there's evidence that Peter Til you may remember Peter
(02:46):
Tile as the person who's funded this entire dystopia. Steve Bannon,
you may remember Steve Bannon as the person who is
narrating this entire dystopia, had scheduled meetings with Epstein. Cheryl
was nothing. Why would it be Prince an Andrew is
You may remember Prince Andrew as being a Prince of
British Prince. He's listed as a passenger on Epstein's aircraft.
(03:09):
There's possible with financial disclosures proving possible evidence of payment
from Epstein to missus on behalf of an individual identified
as You're never going to believe this. Andrew very discreet,
extensive reactions to protect victims, which is what we all want.
(03:29):
I want to point out that Donald Trump is obsessed
with people not getting this information. That doesn't mean you're guilty.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It doesn't What did Jeffrey Epstein is saying on tape
saying I was Donald Trump's best friend for over a decade.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You gotta wonder he likes beautiful women as much as
I do. Many of them on the younger side. We're
not making light of sex trafficking children. We think it's bad,
but we are wondering why this has to take so
long and why Donald Trump is fighting these disclosures so hard. Also,
(04:05):
another person who was friends with jeff epp and flew
around on the plane brainworm himself.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Do you remember when he was I believe it was
Hannity and he tried to list all the times he
got with Jeffrey Epstein. But the funniest thing is he
didn't list all of them, even though we were like, damn,
that's a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well the best ones, like Kennedy was like, please let
me help you not destroy your life, and r kids
like and then there was that time we went to
the Caribbean and I was like, I don't know how.
I mean, I guess that everything has gotten so stupid
that if you're famous then it doesn't matter if you
do all of this self incrimination.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
But when you're famous, they let you do anything. Grab them.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Oh boy, yeah, Oh that's not good. Anyway, we're not
making light of any of this stuff, but we are.
We got to get to rfkgnor my I think when.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
He was doing that interview with Hannity, you know they
sometimes say, what Jesus take the wheel? I think the
worm took the wheel and just did what it had
to do.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I just want to point out the worm is supposedly dead.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I mean, he gets a lot of facts wrong. The
worm might be might be alive and well, and it
seems like he's running things, which is what is scary
a lot of us. With this new report.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
We've got to get a worm that doesn't take tilent
all continue. So all comes back to talent.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
The tilet all jokes at every group chat I've in
in these days.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It's like in any group chats anyway, that's what you
put me in your group chat.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Okay. So anytime we hear that HHS Secretary RFK Junior
is studying something, we know it's going to go to
a very stupid place. Now we've seen lots of evidence
of this. At his new subject, he's studying abortion pills.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
You want my hottest take on what it means for
him to study things.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I'm putting on my flameproof suit so I can get
your hottest take.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I think what happens is he goes on Facebook groups
and he LARPs as someone his own age because he's
in his seven and he gets in there and he
just asks other boomers what their take is on things.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The policies feel that way.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Not that there's anything wrong with being a boomer, but
there is something wrong with being a boomer on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah. This is causing a lot of alarm since the
conclusions that the quacks he hangs out with seem to
get to are not just contrarian, they're very wrong and
not not based in science.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yes, they're not not based in science. Many people are
saying they are not based in science, but they could
also be not not the good science. In case you're
wondering things are going great, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Here's another way things are going great. The Guardian has
this amazing report that immigrants with no criminal record now
are the largest group in nice attention. Seem to remember
that the campaign was all about how they going to
just get the criminals out of here.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, you know, as someone who just did an event
with Scott Jennings from CNN at Penn State University.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I really hope you're treating yourself to some self care
this weekend.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah. Sure. What I think is really interesting about this
moment in American life is you had polling the show
that immigration was a winner for trumpet. That's why they
had the mass deportation. Now signs everything that Trump does, well,
it's craven. It's often because he thinks it'll make him
win with the base. So here's the news. This policy
(07:26):
of the massed people picking up the women, the little
old ladies, the children. I don't know if you saw
that that an autistic kid was held outside so that
the father would come out so he could get arrested.
Legal immigration has never been more popular. I wonder if
we could go back in time and look at what
(07:47):
the United States government did to Mexicans during the very
dark period that was. You'll remember where they deported all
of these Mexican people and also a lot of citizens
because they were way profiling. And it turns out, I
don't tell the Supreme Court this, but when you racially profile,
you just get people of that race. Worth wondering, like,
(08:09):
if we ever get out of this thing, how this
changes people's views. I think a lot about Arizona, because
Arizona had this sheriff or Pio, who became a Trump
World fixture because why wouldn't he be, But he radicalized
a lot of the young people in Arizona because of
his incredibly insane you know, the insane stuff they were
(08:31):
doing where they were trying to strip, you know, right
from immigrants.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So I think it'll be really.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Curious to see, if we ever get out of this,
how people's views towards immigrants change. I think that we
will see a real backlash to this. I'm just guessing
that these videos of these massed agents carrying around women,
hitting them, arresting them. I just think it's going to
be hard to sell this the American people.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I agree with you, and especially when you're seeing footage
of just small women getting the living shit kicked out
of him. You know, as somebody whose wife had an
encounter with ice that was very very well oppressed to.
We have prid of the show Kataboo Zagala getting thrown
to the point that she was injured pretty badly. It's
(09:18):
just real disgusting stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, you know, we are in this backlash cycle and
it's hard for me to imagine this won't continue on.
Charlie Sikes is the author of the newsletter to the
Contrary and the book How the Right Lost Its Mind.
Welcome back to Fast Politic, Charlie Sikes.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Wow, what do we have to talk about today?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Really?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Remember when Donald Trump said that he was going to
seek retribution against his enemies, and many different interviewers were like,
but you don't really mean that, and he was like, no, no, I.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Do, Yeah, no, no, I do. You know the funny
us you should put it that way because I was.
I'm writing about that this morning. And on one level,
a lot of what's going on is like completely predictable, right.
I mean, he's been saying it for years. You know,
I am your retribution. I am going to go after
you know, he called for the death penalty for General Millie.
You know, he's been saying these things. And yet I
(10:19):
think there's been that kind of denialism across the board
that the people on the you know, in the Republican
Party go, well, okay, let's don't you know, don't take
him serious. He's taking seriously but not literally, he's not
actually going to do that. I think there have been
people in the center in the left who thought, okay,
well yeah, but there are all these guard rails, there's
(10:39):
all these limits. He's not going to find lawyers who
are going to do this. And then we wake up today,
Molly and find out that, damn it, he is doing
everything he said and he's making no secret of it.
And this is the thing. It's kind of like a
mob boss thing. You get in that hole. You know,
I want a head of James. But normally, and Jimmy
(11:02):
Kimmel did a great joke about this the other day,
you know, when he's talking about Brendan Carr making his
mob boss, you know, a nice network he got there,
comments that normally, if you're going to get that kind
of a threat from a mob boss, you have to
plant a microphone in a deli and then sit outside
in the van for an hour or so. You have
these guys saying it every day on Blast. It's like
(11:23):
Watergate on the biggliest loudspeakers in the world. And you know,
and so people are saying, well, I'm shocked. Well, on
one level, why you shocked? He told us he was
to do it. On the other hand, I don't know
about you. We are in uncharted territory. I mean, if
this feels different, it is different. I mean people do
need to understand that even a few months ago, if
(11:45):
you would have said that he would order the Department
of Justice to indicite a specific person, and even when
the lawyers came back and said there's no case, he
would then fire those lawyers and he would find some
tody and he would from the Oval office ordering the
criminal indictment of a Politically, even a few months ago,
people would have said, yeah, I don't he's gonna go
(12:07):
that far right, Well, here we are.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So we've seen other countries slip into autocracy, like real autocracy,
not this sort of squishy middle that we're in right now.
But it's tended to be that it's happened because in
a way the leaders have done things like they've been
a little sneakier about it right erduwan. They've tried not
(12:30):
to scare people I was thinking of orbon you know,
they've said, even putin right, there was some you know,
we don't want just some couching of it. That's not
what's happening here. What's happening here is like he's doing it,
saying he's doing it being like I'm doing it and
everyone else is also saying like trying to you know,
there's some kind of incentive structure where you know, they're
(12:52):
all trying to take credit for it so that Trump
will path them on the head. Does that help or
does that hurt our autocratic slot?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Well, our articatct slide has become a landslide, hasn't it.
I mean, your point is exactly right. I think I
heard an Apple bombs say a couple of weeks ago
that it took Victor Orbon fifteen years to accomplish what
Donald Trump is doing in the first eight months. And
part of the reason this goes back to the cliche
about the boiling frog. You know, you boil the frog
slowly so the frog doesn't notice, and then by the
(13:23):
time it notices it's too late, it's already boiled. Whereas
if you just threw the floor a frog into really
scalding water, it would jump out. I mean that's the theory, right. Well,
here's the deal. We're the frog. He's scalding us, and
I'm not sure that the American frog has figured how
to respond to this. I've already strained that analogy way
too far, it's good.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I like it, American Frog.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
The thing is that and I have talked to you know,
the people who have watched what's happened in Turkey, watch
what's happened in Russia, watch what's happened in other countries,
including Hungary, and they all make the same point. Is
the pattern is exactly the same. Go after the civil institutions,
go after you know, go after the dissident billionaires, go
after the independent media, go after the universities. Create an
(14:09):
enemy that you use to establish state spot power. And
again there's no gradualism. Donald Trump is accurately he's a
man on the.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Clock, right, No, he clearly is. And in fact, when
you saw those Truths Truths quote unquote, he'd say things like,
you know, we got to get this going, and we
can't waste any time. We saw this week, Kimmel is
not off the air. And in fact, he was the
Tom Hanks of COVID, right where Tom Hanks got COVID
and people were like, oh shit, this is real. Yeah,
(14:41):
Kimmel six million people on network, another thirty million on YouTube.
Even if thirty million people did not sit down and
watch the entire episode, it means that it has broken through.
It has broken through to a big percentage of the population,
and now igur ma ay force next are to air him.
Kimmel can be an inflection point. Either can be a
(15:06):
hero because this is the first time we've seen this.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
It feels like the first time we've seen this, and
I'm sure there are other episodes, but but not at
the scale of what Jimmy Kimmel is doing right now,
you know, And hey, look, kim let's see there's so
much awful going on. I think we ought to like
spend a moment wallowing in the in the sort of
awesomeness of the You and I failed attempt comedy.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Real cock eyed optimists. It's like you're you're a Midwesterner
and I'm just well medicated.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
But I try to stay away from the hopium. But
I will say that this, you know, watching What's happened
with Jimmy Kimmel, the point was to cancel him. Right
He's bigger than ever right now. The last two nights
he's come out and he's been on his game, going
after Donald Trump very very specifically, as you know, being
a bully and the kinds of things that that he
(15:58):
is doing, talking about what's going on with the you know,
people like Sinclair and Nextstar. The audience is huge, it
is pointed. It's also in a sweet spot for the
critics of Donald Trump because free speech, you know, it's
been battered and hollowed out, but it is a fundamental
It is the fundamental American value. It is in our DNA,
(16:23):
the right to speak, the right to make fun of
people in power, and people get it now. Again, things
may have gotten squishy and soft and people came up
with all kinds of others, but it feels like there's
real opportunity here to sort of go back and go, Okay,
what is America all about? Why do we value free speech?
What is the point of free speech? And what is
(16:43):
Donald Trump doing? Is Donald Trump really thinking that he
makes America great by censoring and canceling people who make
fun of him. On one level, the hypocrisy of Donald
Trump claiming he was the free president candidate is sort
of obvious. That's kind of the old story. I kind
of feel that there's a possibility of a moment of
(17:04):
revival of American values here, I mean, and also so
that there's that hope. Second, I think people ought to
realize that, Yeah, you can make a difference. Some things
do make a difference. You know, Bob Iger did not
wake up heroic. He woke up with lots of numbers
about cancelations and long lists of celebrities and entertainers who
(17:27):
might not work with Disney in the past. So now
he had his nuts and a squeeze. Then that doesn't
mean that at some point he didn't think, all right,
who do I want to be in this movie? Who
do I want to be? Do I want to be
you know, the craven quizzling who cowers? Or do I
want to be the guy that stands up for these principles?
(17:48):
And then coincidentally, maybe you know, stops the bleeding on
people who are canceling their Hulu and their Disney Plus accounts.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. It's a question.
It's like the difference between Bob and Cherry Redstone. Cherry
Redstone does everything Trump asked her to do so she
can sell to paramount because she says, no big deal.
She even defends it later she says, no, it was
a distraction. Obviously, it wasn't a distraction. It was trying
(18:16):
to change the partisan lean of an entire network because
Donald Trump is an autocrat. Canceling Colbert was not about
anything but making Donald Trump happy so you could get
the regulatory approval.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Yeah yeah, but weirdly enough, the way they went about
it by giving him months in which he can point
out to skewer that to secure them. I mean, you know,
Colbert is there's nothing more dangerous than a comedian who's
got nothing left to lose, right, he says a lot
of fucks to get like I and Colbert goes out
there every single night, and Jimmy Fallon kind of feels
(18:51):
that way. Jimmy Fallon feels like like he has been Jimmy.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I was thinking of Fallon because
Fallon was next on the list, right right, I mean.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
They're all on the list. We're all on the list.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And the thing about Trump again is how he can't
his his defenders will say, well, no, he had nothing
to do with, you know, the cancelation of Jimmy Kendle,
And so he just comes out and says no, I
was told he was candled.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I wanted the White House was tall, that we were
the White House was tald, So maybe not even so
somebody called somebody, maybe Brenda Carr, maybe this one.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Maybe I mean craziness, Yeah, craziness. And then he said
and Seth Myers and Jimmy fallon our next. So again
he sort of laid it out the same thing with
Jimmy Jim Cally. Okay, So he could have just let
the indictment speak for itself, right as opposed to he
had to on Friday morning basically come out and spike
(19:45):
the football on this right to say, you know, yeah, go,
he's a crooked cop. In case there was any doubt,
any possible shred that you know, some hack like Scott
Jennings could hang on and say Trump had nothing to
do with the indictment of Jim Comy. How dare you
suggest that the president of the United States. I'm sure
that Pam Bondi and all the other great Google minds
thought of this themselves, right, So you know, Scott Jennings
(20:08):
is going to go out there and say, no, this
is not a case of the President in the Oval
office ordering the indictment of Jim coming. And what Donald
Trump says says, hey, fuck you, Scott Jennings. Yes it
was I did it.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yes, No, I think that's a really good point. He
cannot give his defenders anything to hang their hats on. No,
at least to try to pretend to be normal, which
is probably good news if you're trying to avoid an
authoritarian slide, if you're trying to avoid the appearance that
all is normal when things are really being undermined.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, well again, I don't think we're an authoritarian is sliding. Well,
I think it's an authoritarian crack up. I mean when
you're seeing these when you're seeing them and the speed
with which it is happening, and just just to throw
things up to keep an eye on over the next
couple of days, keeping on this meeting with Pete haggs
Ath and all the admirals and the generals.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
What's your sense on that?
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Well, you want my dark sense on that?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, I want anything.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
People need to understand that this is we use the
word unprecedented too much. This never happens. But you don't
invite all of the eight hundred top admirals in generals
all over the world to come to a meeting and
not tell them what it's all about. You can do
this on zoom. You can do this on secure networks.
He's basically taking them from their posts, making them fly,
(21:29):
come back, sit in front of him. No one knows
what it's about. My dark concern is that he's going
to stand up and say, we want to know who
you're loyal to. How many people in this room will
follow every order that Donald Trump gives you, and if
you don't raise your hand, submit your resignation. Now, in
(21:49):
our system of government, the military takes an oath to
the Constitution, not to one man, not to Donald Trump.
If hegzeth demands some sort of life loyalty of some
sort to the administration, it will be one of those
again watershed moments. What does it feel like, you know,
(22:10):
will the military stand up? Will we see mass firings?
What is he going to demand of them? I don't know,
But again I'm speculating, But I was freaked out late
last night when I saw this tweet from General Michael Hayden,
retired for star general, used to be the head of
the CIA, Director of National Intelligence, who reacted to somebody
(22:31):
who proposed that scenario saying, I'm afraid that's what's going
to happen. This is the fear in the military right
now that they're going to demand some sort of loyalty.
You know, we're going into some deep shit people. We
want to know who's with us and who's against us.
Who is unconditionally going to follow an order from Donald
Trump no matter what as by the way, Donald Trump
(22:53):
expects now from the Department of Justice, right, the Department
of Homeland Security, the FBI. We've seen that throughout the government.
In Donald Trump's mind, why shouldn't that be the case
in the military. It's his generals, his military, his people.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Right. Everything we worried about happened.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
And more because we thought, we knew that he would
do these things. We thought that people would stand up
against it more effectively, didn't we. Yeah, I mean I
thought the courts would stand up. I thought the universities,
the law firms, the media would all stand at the
civil society, that Americans would go this is horrible. No,
this is not what we are.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
There is a case against being a captured institution, and
I'd love to talk about them for a minute. So
we have Bob Iger on the side of standing up
for things. Then we have Sharon Redstone right for the moment.
That's right, let's not get you know what, that's good
Check on my optimism. But then we have Sherry Redstone,
we have there, you know, a lot of different college presidents.
(23:54):
We have law firms, we have these people who have
said no, no, all the billionaires, all the tech billionaires,
Bezos is basically Donald Trump's show for now. These people
are captured institutions. They have no legal anything because they've
made illegal deals with Trump. So Trump has no incentive
to say like, this is enough, I've had enough of
my pound of flash, and so talk us through what
(24:15):
that looks like as a captured institution.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Well, I think that this is what should be the
lesson they I thought that they would have understood that,
if you know, pay off the schoolyard bully, he's going
to demand more. I think ABC is learning that lesson.
They pay him off sixteen million dollars for that completely
bogus lawsuit against them. They threw George Stephanopolis under the bus.
(24:38):
But what they're learning now is that, you know, paying
off Donald Trump does not buy you safety. Capitulating does
not buy you safety. The law firms are finding out
the same sort of thing. They're finding out that Donald
Trump has a way of renigging on deals or expanding
deals in ways that they should have anticipated, but what
they didn't. I think there's a lot of regret among
(24:58):
the universities. Plus, you know, the wheel of fortune turns,
and when you go all in on this particular project,
what do you think happens if things turn around? Now,
perhaps both MAGA and these companies that have taken Anita
MAGA think that the wheel will never come around. Maybe
(25:19):
they think that MAGA will never lose power, that there
will never be a time of reckoning. That seems somewhat
naive because normally these smart people will hedge their bets
and they're all in.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I think that's such an important point. I think also
it's important to talk about the polling. Right, the polling
shows none as is popular that Trump is underwater on everything.
He's underwater in Texas. And he knows this polling to
be true, because otherwise he would not ask states to
be redistricting. Right. He knows he's going to get slacked
in the midterms if they're a fair midterm. Right. I mean,
(25:54):
don't you think why else ask for redistricting?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Oh? Yeah, But I actually don't think he cares about
the general population poll. I think what Donald Trump comes
in every morning looks as is the base still with me?
Is If the base is still with me, if nobody
in Congress is going to buck me, then I can
still have absolute power. And in a thoroughly Jerry mannered country,
he doesn't need to have a majority of Americans behind him.
(26:21):
All he needs to do is keep the loyalists in line,
and he's testing it, he's figuring, you know, and by
forcing them to take more and more outrageous positions, I
think he solidifies their support. And of course he's managed.
He's very working, very hard to weaponize the victim status
(26:42):
post the murder of Charlie Kirk. So I don't think
he's freaked out about the fifty six percent disapproval ratings.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But and this goes to the base question. He does
want a farmer's bailout, which is very interesting because we
had so Democrats hurdling towards the shutdown. Mike Johnson sent
Congress home. All of a sudden, Donald Trump wants a
bailout for farmers. He's going to need Democrats for that.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, good luck with that. No, I think this is interesting.
I mean, the shutdown is going to happen, and I
think it's going to be this massive game of political chicken,
and we'll see that. But remember that he had to
bail out This is the irrationality of his teriff regime.
He did this, This is the first time bad and
you know, he slapped the tariffs on in the first
(27:33):
term and then he had to bail out the farmers,
so you know, and he's we're going to go through
the exact same scenario. And by the way, while we're
bailing out the farmers, we're also bailing out Argentina because
America first, Molly, why are.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
We bailing out Argentina? I mean, by the way, as
you know, as we're clearly heading towards the recession.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Our numbers are so bad.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
You know, the Bureau of Labor Statistics like they've all
gone home, right, they fired the top boss. Now they've
held the numbers because clearly they're so bad. Why we're
bailing out Argentina.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Think about this for you, Of all the countries in
the world, if you had to make a list of like,
name me a country that has a long track record
of fiscal insanity, I'm guessing that your list in the
top five is going to be like, yeah, you don't
want to be like Argentina. Argentina has this new libertarian
slash right wing president who has been kissing up to
Donald Trump and Elon Musk. We like him. So we're
(28:25):
whacking Brazil because Donald Trump doesn't like the president. We
are having the taxpayers potentially on the hook to bail
out Argentina because he's a buddy. If you try to
come up with any coherent theory for Trump's foreign policy
where his his policies, forget it. It's all that. What
is Jonathan rob I call it, you know, the you know,
(28:47):
the but the personalization, it is just it is just
it is just what benefits Donald Trump. Who Donald Trump
likes moment to moment, which is also why, by the way,
potentially one of the biggest stories of the week was
his one eighty flip flop on Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Believe you, Molly, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Well yes, literally unbelievable because you don't know where he's
going to be forty eight hours from now until he
backs it up with actual hardware. It means nothing, and
you know, the Vlad's gonna call him up and say done,
We'll be you know, come on, you know you didn't
mean that. You didn't mean it, right, you know, and
and they'll get back together again. So this is a
(29:29):
man who you know, with a moment to moment to moment,
he's got the principles of a goldfish. Yeah, and not
insult goldfishes, just that they have ten second memories.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Mean to goldfish, Charlie Sykes, don't be mean to goldfish.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
You know that the bad analogy, because his principles may
be goldfish like, but his memory is at least when
it comes to grievances is infinite, infinite. He will he
will hang upon any slight that is ever.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
For sure, trow that is for sure, trow forever and ever. Oh,
thank you so much, Charlie.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Thank you anytime.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Jonathan Mahler is a reporter for The New York Times
and the author of the Gods of New York. Welcome
to Fast Politics, John.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Mollie.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
It's so exciting. It's funny because it's like, this is
such a clear thing that we knew they were going
to be doing, as the cutting the nah Grant said,
we knew this was coming, but for some reason, I
think people had a hard time threading the needles. So
can you sort of talk us through what is happening here.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Yeah, I mean, as you say that, it's both kind
of not surprising and also shocking. I think primarily because
biomedical research and cancer research in particular has always been
just a bipartisan issue, a totally uncontroversial bipartisan issue, going
all the way back to nineteen seventy one, and President Nixon,
(31:02):
who was the one who actually signed the National Cancer Act,
who launched the War on cancer. The idea that and
a new administration might decide that some reform is in order,
that some changes are in order. Okay, that's one thing.
But what we have seen really since since the earliest
days of this administration is really the systematic dismantling of
(31:27):
infrastructure that took more than fifty years to build and
that has been extraordinarily successful at extending lives and saving lives.
And I'm talking about cancer patients, but even beyond cancer.
This research system, it's what enabled scientists to understand the
COVID virus and develop a vaccine for COVID. The basic
(31:49):
biological research that was funded and enabled by this system
has has really transformed our kind of ability to treat people.
So it's been on that level, it's been really shocking.
So I'd love you to just talk us through. Now
we got.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
To this moment with the Trump administration dismantling this kind
of research.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
Yeah, sure, So within days of the administration taking office,
they issued a gag order basically that prevented everyone at
the NIH and the National Cancer Institute from really talking
to scientists, from publishing research, from having any kind of
meetings to consider grant proposals, and so you know, that
really really kind of froze the system in place. And
(32:30):
then they started actually canceling existing grants, which just you know,
totally unprecedented. I mean that that like truly has never
happened before. You know, they were canceling, in the end, hundreds.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Of grants in the name of doge right.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Both in the name of kind of DEI claiming that
any grant that had the word, say, you know, diversity title.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
But even like diversity of cells cells would get canceled.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Yes, as soon as they started doing that, they started
basically free using payments to universities that on this grant
money to pay their professors, to pay their researchers, and
to keep their labs open and running. So that was
all kind of happening on the ground. At the same time,
the administration, you know, Trump put forward his new budget
(33:16):
which calls for a nearly forty percent cut in cancer research.
So we're talking about, you know, three billion dollars, a
three billion dollar cut in our investment in research to
treat cancer. So that's still kind of looming, and meanwhile
the system is like already in utter chaos.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So I feel like there were sort of two groups
cutting everything in a super disorganized way. One was the
Elon Musk NIH grants and he was really offended by
this idea that the universities would take a certain percentage
of the grant for themselves. I would love you to
talk about that.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, So there's another element to this which gets a
little a little deeper into the weeds, but is like
also incredibly important that you're alluding to, which is the
individual researchers apply for grants, They get grants to do projects,
to do research. In addition to that, universities are reimbursed
for overhead expenses associated with that work. And that is
something that yes, drove Elon and drove other kind of
(34:15):
Trump Republicans kind of crazy that the government was reimbursing
universities you know, for things like you know, running labs
for electricity for you know, things like that that are
you know, just basic overhead expenses that are necessary part
of running a laboratory. That is something else that the
administration cut. It actually got blocked by the court, so
it's still it's still like up in the ear, what's
(34:35):
going to happen. Each university has its own kind of
rate of reimbursement, and the administration cut them across the
board to fifteen percent, which is very very low number,
and then doge itself. What they did basically was was
just kind of take control of the payment system at NIH.
And you know, keep in mind that the NIH was
like designed to be an a political organizational political institution
(35:00):
was meant to be insulated from politics. There were two
political appointees in all of the NIH. One was the
director of the NIH and one was the director of
the National Cancer Institute. Dosee went in and basically took
control of the payment system so that they could just
stop paying universities.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Right, And what happened next with the not paying university,
I mean some things were on prosen, some things were
not right or was nothing unprosen.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I mean it was like totally chaotic. So you had
this handful of universities, a dozen or so that were
targeted for specific political reasons. We've kind of read about
some of those. Obviously, Harvard is the you know, they've
gotten the most attention, but they're hardly the only one.
Columbia earned Northwestern penn. A lot of others also got
hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money frozen for
(35:44):
political reasons. And then there were just some schools, including
one that I wrote about in detail in this piece
of University of Massachusetts, which was not any sort of
political list at all. It's a state university in Massachusetts.
But Doose nevertheless kind of took control role of this
payment system and just just stop paying their grants.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Why.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
They never gave a good reason. They would claim that
they were, you know, reordering the process, reconsidering how the
government does things. They never really explained, you know, in
any kind of official capacity, what they were doing. All
that the administrators at U Masked were able to learn
was that this was some sort of change that was
going on. It was it was it was like really
(36:25):
not clear.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And that Chan School of Medicine U mass they focus.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
On what they do all sorts of biomedical research. I
was sort of specifically interested because this piece was really
about cancer research. They do a good deal. They do
I think about forty five million dollars a year in
cancer research. They do quite a bit of cancer research.
But they do everything. And you know, they had a
Nobel Prize winning molecular biol I think it was a
molecular biologist last year. You know, it's not Harvard, it's
a pretty powerful research institute itself. And you know, when
(36:51):
they when that money stopped appearing, the chancel of the
school had to lay off two hundred people and he
had to rescind offers to the entire you know, accepted
an incoming class.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Of PhD grad students.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Right, It's like it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
I Mean one of the things I've been strupped by
always is just how passive a lot of people have been.
But is there pushback, and if so, is there any
kind of effort on the private side to take over
some of those.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
There's been some. I think part of the problem is that,
you know, first of all, these people are like, for
the most part, academics. We're not talking about political activists here,
and we're also talking about people who are very accustomed
to the system operating a certain way. They spend an
enormous amount of time in the lab, and they spend
an enormous amount of time publishing their research and writing
(37:42):
grant proposals. What they don't do is, you know, lobby
or organize. You know, I don't think we've seen a
lot of it. I think, you know, I think we've
seen a lot of just kind of shock. And I certainly,
you know, people were eager to talk to me and
hoping that I would help get the word out that
this piece would you know, kind of amplified their concerns,
(38:02):
you know, but we haven't seen a lot of it.
And also it's the only body that can make a
difference at this point is Congress, and even that is
you know, we'll see. But you know, for the most part,
these scientists and I think they could be out in
the streets, but they're pretty powerless. You know, they're not
making these decisions. Congress, on the other hand, you know, yeah,
they could be holding the President's feet to the fire.
I mean, this is money we're talking about, like billions
of dollars in money Congress has allocated for research that
(38:26):
that the president has unilaterally decided he's not going to
give to researchers. It's totally madness.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Part of the reason why we did things like this
was because it was good for all of us, but
also because it was popular. Do you think the lack
of news is why people don't know this is happening
and why Trump world doesn't care. Try to make this
make sense to me. If you can, like how we
got here, I.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Would love to. It's very hard to make sense. I
think that part of it is COVID backlash. I think
that there's a sort of a mistrust now of the
scientific establishment. You know, the Maha movement is like at
the center of it, and I think it's kind of
a powerful political force in this country. So I think
that that has provided kind of cover for a lot
(39:14):
of this. I mean, if there's an explanation, like, I
don't think that before the pandemic this would have been possible.
I think everyone on the left and right would have
had their hair on fire about this, and now there's
a sense of well, these sign I mean, what are
these scientists you know cooking up labs anyway?
Speaker 3 (39:32):
You know?
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah, Yeah, it's just such a departure from everything we
know about how America operates. That the only way in
my mind that it makes sense is if there's some
kind of larger post pandemic lunacy happening, which that sounds
like it makes the most sense. There's like a new
head of Anih. Not the woman who got fired, but
(39:56):
Jay Banishariya. He's a really complicated and fascinating and I
love it if you could talk through him because he
comes from anti VACS world, or he was an icon
of anti vacts, but he's not really anti vax, So
talk us through this.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, No, I think it's it's going to be really
interesting to see kind of what happens with him. I mean, yes,
I mean he sort of he made his name. I
mean he was just a research scientist at Stanford, but
he joined with a few other scientists during COVID and
kind of wrote this this, you know, the Great Barrington Declaration.
It was called. It was a critique of the COVID
policies and and kind of encouraging her immunity. And so,
(40:34):
you know, not quite right to say that he's a
vaccine skeptic, but he's a big critic of the NIH
or he was a big critic of the NIH and
now he's running the NA. So I think another thing
that's important to note about him is that he's from Stanford.
He's from like Silicon Valley. He's sort of been kind
of part of the you know, this is a bit
(40:55):
of a bit of a generalization, but he's kind of
part of the tech right in a way. He's like
of the kind of just ouption is good and government
is bad kind of mindset. Having all that, you know,
he's a legitimate scientist.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
As opposed to RFK Junior, who is not a real scientist.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
That's right, And he has been NIH funded himself. He's
one grants himself, and so I can't believe that he
likes what he's seeing. I don't know a whether he
is going to have the power to, I guess would
say whether he's going to have the will to try
to stop any or be whether he power to. I mean,
I have a pretty strong sense that HHS is really
(41:31):
kind of controlling healthcare policy, that RFK has really kind
of consolidated power. So it'll be interesting to see whether
he feels like he needs to basically like champion the
interests of the research community that he comes from, or
whether he's just going to fold himself into the sort
of Maga Maha movement.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
His problem is with the way that these grants work,
or the way they're written, the way the grant world,
the way that you get money, the way that you
you know that they're big on kind of theory and
not as and not as involved in practice.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Right, he did a long interview with you know, like
three hour long interview with the r Huberman, I think maybe
right when he was appointed.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
You know.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
And the thing that his critiques of the system, they're
pretty like widely held, I mean on the left end,
right and popular. One is that scientists have become too
risk averse. There are so many scientists competing for a
limited number of grants, and that a lot of the
scientists are now much older. Everyone is kind of inclined
toward more incremental, safer projects rather than kind of riskier
(42:37):
moonshot type ideas. And of course it's also a Silicon
Valley mindset too, right, So I think that you know,
there is from what I gather, and you know, I
talked to a lot of people for this story, there
is definitely some truth to that critique. I mean, the
problem is what we're seeing is the fact that it's
going to be even harder to get grant improove now
is going to have the opposite effect. It's going to
(42:58):
make people even more risk averse, and it's going to
drive even more young scientists with you know, who understand
new technology and have have exciting new ideas. It's going
to drive them out of the field altogether.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Aren't we basically giving it all away to China here?
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Yeah? I mean that's the reality is that you know,
people are just not going to want to do science
in this country anymore. I mean, not only is the
money not there, but like our government no longer respects
these people. And it's made clear if you're a promising
young scientist. And I mean, you know, they're the European countries,
they are recruiting our scientists, but they don't have anywhere
near the resources of China. I mean, why would you
(43:33):
not go to China? They will build you if you're
you know, build you a labor of staff that with
researchers and people who would be willing to work around
the clock, and you know you're good to go.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
It is the end of American exceptionalism. At least in science.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
It really feels that way. I mean, I think that
it's not going to happen overnight. But you know, one
of the guys I interviewed for this story is this guy,
Harold Varmus, who's a former Nobel Prize winning cancer researcher
himself and from the NIH And you know, he made
the point to me that this is not like a
clothing store where it's like, you know, yeah, you have
a couple bad years and then you bounce back. This
(44:08):
is an elaborate system that has been built that took
decades to build. You start to pull it apart and
it's gone. To rebuild it would require so many years
and so much political will and so much money that
it's just hard to imagine that that could happen. So yeah,
I mean, you know, I don't want to be too hyperbolic,
but it does feel like we are at risk of
(44:28):
sacrificing kind of one of the yeah, one of the
greatest things this country's ever done.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, I don't think there's a way back now. So
and that goodness, thank you for joining. I hope you'll
come back.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
My pleasure. I would love to.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
A moment.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Jesse cannon my junk.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Fast Congressman Mikey Cheryl is running for governor in the
great state of New Jersey. And I think you and
I discussed like this. This is like one of our
fears is the Trump administration would weaponize government against candidates
and races. And it looks like that's probably what happens.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah, here we are.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yes, So this is exactly what Trump was saying that
Democrats did, but he actually is doing it. So this
is her home address. It was all given to her
Republican challenger. Again, I don't I mean, who knows. Maybe
this works for them, but I mean this is just
(45:29):
so dirty and so wrong headed and so just appalling.
And you know, they got this information because she's a veteran,
and when you're a veteran, you have your information, you know,
in these archives. So maybe it does help, but it's
hard for me to imagine this helps the Republican And
(45:49):
it's also such just like with the call me stuff,
such an incredible dereliction of their duty. So it's just appalling.
And I hope that they just said to press charges
on this. I hope she does agreed. That's it for
this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
(46:11):
Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
make sense of.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
All this chaos.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
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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