October 18, 2025 • 54 mins
The Nation’s Elie Mystal examines all the chaos in the Supreme Court. Then Sen.Brian Schatz details how Democrats are fighting back against Trump.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Stephen Miller says, you can't love
your country and then fight President Trump. That's right, because whatever,
we have such a great show for you today. The
(00:20):
Nation's Almstal stops by to talk about all the fuckery
and the Supreme Court. Then we'll talk to Senator Brian
Shotts about how Democrats are fighting back against Trump. But
first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Somebody, we know that Trump's emmigration rates are not good
for the Ekai, but we have a number put on
it now fifteen million jobs gone by twenty thirty five,
a study claims.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So let's talk this through. Part of why America has
had this economy that is the envy of the world
is because and you're going to be shocked to hear this,
it's because our economy grew because we have immigration. Immigration.
You may wonder why Republicans hate immigration because they don't
(01:11):
understand how mouth works. So Trump's immigration is it's just
all sorts of different ways in which it's fucking up
the economy. One is we're going to have less workers,
We're going to have less people to pay into Social
Security and pay into taxes, and and we have this
(01:33):
where you know, our birth rate is on the decline.
I don't know if you know this. Elon Musk is
very upset about it.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I sometimes see some white supremacists talk about it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, right, So unless you can get people to have babies,
which they don't really want to for any number of reasons,
we're going to be a country with new young people
or not enough young people to keep the economy going.
And this is where we are. So it's like yet
another Trump policy that is incredibly short sighted. The lack
(02:05):
of immigration is going to trink our economy. And then
the other thing is like this doesn't matter because also
another thing that this administration's doing is it's limiting US companies'
access to high skilled foreign workers because it's making those
visas very expensive. They are the visas that a lot
(02:28):
of Silicon Valley people came to this country on. Again,
Elon Musk and his reverse philanthropy, he is cutting the
science that helped him make his billions of dollars. He
and this administration he's not in the administration anymore, but
they are cutting the visas that made it possible for
(02:48):
the people like Elon Musk to come to this country,
make a billion dollars and then destroy the country by
fucking up our federal government. Thank you, Elon Smiley.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Trump is I did John Bolton? I know, on principle
I have to be very very angry on about this,
but there's been so many things he's done over the years.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
You really hate John Polton.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, what he called for the death penalty for somebody
who did similar to what he did. You know, it
just makes it really hard for this principle stand for
me to stand up. But I'm standing up anyway because
it's principles. God, I'm getting tired of stead I go.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Like, let him get the chair. Okay. So I want
to talk about John Bolton because there are a couple
of things going on here. John Bolton is a good
person for Trump World to go after because they feel
he has no constituency. There is no one who is
for John Bolton, right, he does not. He's not a Trumper,
(03:49):
and he's not a Democrat, and he's not a louth
Cheney type who can keep it in his pants long enough.
You know. He just is unlikable on every SARTs of
the imagination that said, this is law fair. This is
Donald Trump going after John Bolton because John Bolton criticized
Donald Trump on television. And you know, they go after
(04:11):
a John Bolton so that they can go after a
Jesse Cannon, so that they can go after Amalie John Fest.
This is the road to authoritarianism is paved with going
after John Bolton. And this is basically there after him
because he wrote his book and in his book with
some classified information that his editor saw and that information
(04:37):
they saw it, and that was classified information. And when
they checked it for classified information, they took some of
this stuff out. But the idea here is that the
editors saw the classified information. Look, this is all bullshit.
This is all Donald Trump trying to get back at
people because he did crimes. You can you know on
(04:57):
Earth one we still well, no, it's like in this house.
In this house, we still understand that there is like
actual truth and then trumpy truth. And so look, I
don't like John Bolton, but you know you can. But
the idea that he's going to go to jail for
his book should send a chill to all who are here.
(05:19):
And again, like so far we've seen remember John Bolton
does not exist in a vacuum, right, So he it's
John Bolton, it's Letitia James. He's gone after Lisa Cook.
I mean like this is you know, this is what
Trump does. So again, you know, law farer is not Okay,
(05:40):
that's not how we do it in this country.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
All right, I'm standing up again for John. This is interesting.
Half a dozen House Democrats were seventy year old or
are being beaten in fundraising by their younger primary challengers.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, So I just want to say two things here.
One is that I do think it is important to
realize that this is part of a lot of news
for Democrats. So Democratic Senate candidates have raised a gazillion dollars,
and I think that's important. They have raised their way
(06:17):
out raising Republicans. Now, does that mean that Elon mush
comes in at the last minute and gives some big checks. Maybe,
But the energy on the ground is for Democrats. Now,
that said, the energy on the ground is not for
very very very very old Democrats. That is important. So
here we have House Democrats who are seventy years old,
(06:39):
and this again is where the base is. The base
does not want old members of the party we see
this in the polling. They don't like it. They want younger.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Members, people who are going to fight right.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
They want again to go back to Pritzker's aid, it's
fight versus cave, not left versus center. So you know,
here we have these incumbents who are raising these challengers
who are raising a ton of money. Though we have
Eleanor Holmes Norton, she's ten thousand years old. Her challenger
(07:14):
has ran half a million dollars. That's a seat, that's
not even a voting seat, right, that's the district of Columbia.
They're just a lot. We're seeing a lot of challengers
raising a ton of money. And even Steve Cohen, who
is actually a really reliable Democrat, and I don't think
he's not old. It's getting primary by Justin Pearson, one
(07:36):
of the Tennessee three, but a real fighter, a really
serious guy. So again we're going to see how this
plays out. But we've got a former venture capitalist, Eric
Jones thirty four.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Just for the record, cod is seventy six. That's too
old to my eyes to be congress, right.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
But former venture capitalist Eric Jones thirty four raised a
million and a half dollars for a house race, half
a million for Rep. Mike Thompson. You know he is
seventy four, So you have a thirty four year old
running against a seventy four year old. You have a
seventy three year old being primary by a forty two
(08:15):
year old. And Eleanor Holmesdorton is eighty eight. So we'll see.
I think that Dianne Feinstein, like, we got here through
watching elderly members fucking fuck off.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
We watched Mitch McConnell take a horrible fall yesterday.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So yeah, so this is wild. Now let us talk
about one of my stories that feels very important right now?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Are you talking about that the New York Young Republicans
are set to disband after they found their text to
be extremely racist, a thing that anyone who's ever encountered
these fellas could have told you.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It's very possible that these racist texts were in fact
leaked by someone more racist. I want to just pause.
These are like technically the good guys, and I use
good in quotes because we think these were leaked by
Gavin Wax, who's like a full on who puts the
knots in Nazi.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
My friend who has unfortunately had to deal with many
of these people over the years. Put it well that
the New York Young Republicans are just the guys who
are too out of shape to join the Proud Voice.
But they had the same ideology as them.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
But they could probably join ICE and get their student
loans paid for. Yes, yes, racist tax They are things,
by the way, in kids, you're wondering if you're a
fancied Jew and you think these guys don't also hate you,
they in fact do, And I think important things like
gas chamber jokes, lots of racism, monkey people, all the
(09:48):
kind of fucked up stuff you think they're saying.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Every racial stereotype you can think of, they thought was cute.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, and was kidding and again like ironic racism still racism.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
One Somali did you watch the Cuomo Sliwa Mom Donnie
debate last night?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I did not, because I have a life. Tell me
what happened.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well, I watched it.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I'm just kidding, I don't have a life.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
What I mostly saw was that the reaction seemed to
be a lot of roar shocking that whatever you feel
about the candidates, you feel they did. But what we
did see a lot of people saying that work in
the political world as they were astounded by Mam Donnie's
debate performance. As a debater, he shocked many people when
he admitted that he's bought marijuana from a dispensary that
(10:34):
is legal, which is legal in the state of New York.
There's a lot of pearl clutching about that. But you know,
there's many people who pontificate about New York politics who say, oh,
Curtis Sliwa, he's going to drop out and do the
right thing. And I think what became very clear last
night is Curtis Sliwa hates Andrew Clomo with the breadth
of a thousand dragons. My man was literally like there'd
(10:58):
be times he'd look over him and he's looking at
him like that taxi driver that shot him for the
Guttie crime family three million years ago.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, I'm telling you, Curtis Leewah, I don't know. I
continue to not understand who Andrew Cuomo is for.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Well, my best answer is if you watch Sarah Sherbin's
skit on Sarah Live this weekend, I think that that
answers it really well.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Anyway, I think Mondami is pulling ten twelve fifteen points ahead.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's actually a less than what he's pulling in some of.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
The bla what's he pulling? I saw ten fifteen.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
The big thing that all this clomos Becker's had to
deal with is that the latest poll now shows that
if Curse Lee Wood drops out, Andrew Cuomo still loses
by ten points.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Okay, So the point here is and I saw a
poll that had him cracking fifty. So the point is
you may not love Mondami, but you should ask yourself,
why is this a Democrat who's catching fire? And Biden
and Harris and all of these different other candidates had
to be sort of pulled away over the line. I
think that is a real question. Why does this candidate
(12:04):
speak to voters and other Democratic candidates struggle? And I
think that is, in my mind, the question we should
all be asking ourselves, and not the stylistic question of
whether or not you like Mondami that I don't know
how relevant that is, but the question of, like, why
does this candidate catch fire in a way that a
(12:24):
lot of Democrats happen? I think that is a real question.
Ellie Mystile is the Justice Correspondent of the Nation and
the author of the upcoming book Bad Law. Welcome back
to Fast Politics. Ellie, Hey, Molly, how are you. I'm good.
(12:45):
I'm so happy to have you here. I always am
a fan of yours, but right now one hundred times
feels even more important. So first, let's talk about the
voting rights case on Wednesday, because that case has just
that was the case that really shocked me. So Article
two of the Voting Right to Act, the Supreme Court
(13:09):
has deciding so much.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, it's about to decide, right, So yeah, for the
backstory here, this case called Louisiana vi. Calais, was actually
argued last year, all right, and the court couldn't reach
the decision last year, and they scheduled re argument for
this year, which is pretty rare, that doesn't happen very often.
And the reason why it happened is because there's no
way white folks should win this case based on Roberts's
(13:36):
own precedent from.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Two years ago.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
But the issue is they don't want they don't want
black folks to win this case. They want white folks
to win this case. So it kind of took them
some more time to figure out how they're going to
do it. And now at oral arguments on Wednesday this week,
we were able to see how they're going to do it.
The key issue here is a congressional map in Louisiana,
and Louisiana has six congressional districts. After the twenty twenty census,
(14:00):
Louisiana produced a map that had five of those six
districts be majority white. Now people think Louisiana, They're like, oh,
that makes sense, No, it doesn't. Louisiana is only fifty
six percent white and thirty one percent black. So you know,
simple math here suggests there should be two, not one
two majority.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
If you're thirty percent of the popularation, then you should
have maybe have a chance. But yeah, just saying right.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So a court eventually ordered Louisiana to draw map that
had two majority minority districts white folks. White plaintiffs sued
Louisiana over its two district map, saying that having two
black districts discriminated against them, discriminated against white folks to
discriminate against their equal protection rights. And so I just
(14:55):
want people to understand what the core argument here is
is that over representation of white people in Congress is constitutional,
but black people trying to stop the overrepresentation of white people.
That's what's unconstitutional. Like that is the core white argument here,
(15:16):
and that is the core argument that Supreme Court is
going to accept. Over a two and a half hour
argument on Wednesday, we heard the justices not even try
to come to a decision that we heard them try
to justify the decision they had already made. And like
I said, Molly, the fact that they're re arguing this
case a year later, when they have a clear precedent
in front of them, that tells them how it should go.
(15:36):
The fact that they took an extra year to figure
out a way to around that precedent really tells you
all you need to know about how they're going to decide.
What they're going to say is that the Voting Rights
Act cannot be used to stop the over representation of
white folks in congressional redistricting. Like that's going to be
the holding.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
That anti racism is actually racism. That's like the underlying issue.
And they decided that when it came to affirmative action, right,
anti racism racism against white people, because white people have
it so hard.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Right, they keep saying that the Constitution is colorblind, which
again I think for a lot of people that makes
them feel warm and gooey inside. And of course kumba yah,
my lord, like you should be called. The Constitution is
not colorblind. It wasn't colorblind when it was written, not
when I was three fits of a person, right, it
wasn't colorblind. Then, it wasn't colorblind after the reconstruction amendments,
which were made specifically to address the racism of the Constitution.
(16:34):
So this is not a colorblind document. But when you
pretend that it is, what it allows you to do
is what you say, Molly. It allows you to prohibit
attempts to stop lighte folks from being racist as a
constitutional matter.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I wonder also if there's something a little more insidious
going on. And again this Supreme Court would never say this,
but Donald Trump went to Texas and said, I would
like five seats. Governor Greg Abbott was like done. We
are in a redistricting arms race. California is about to
get five seats. There's gonna be tit for tat everywhere.
(17:09):
This will give Republicans at the most thirty seats. It
will give the South to Republicans in a way that
they would not otherwise have you think that plays here?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Of course, of course one of the reasons why we're
here is because of what happened in Georgia, what Stacy
Abrams started in Georgia, the way that has been spreading
around the South. I mean, people, forget, most black people
in this country still live in the states where we
were enslaved.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Most of us do not live in Chicago. Most of
us do not live in New York. Right. We did
not get to Montreal. Right, most of us stayed where
we were enslaved. The South is black as hell, now,
one of the and this actually came up at court.
One of the arguments Louisiana's Solicitor General made was that, oh,
(17:57):
it wasn't that Louisiana was discriminating against black people. Well,
it's that Louisiana was discriminating against Democrats. And the court
has previously said, in another stupid and horrible decision, that
it's okay to discriminate on the basis of party. That's
a different decision, right, And so this man fixed his
mouth to say this, Louisiana man fixed his mouth to
say that if the races had been if the party
(18:19):
had been the same, but the races have been different.
So if it was just a bunch of white Democrats,
Louisiana would would have drawn its maps in exactly the
same way. Molly. We know factually that is untrue, because
we know again that there are stats here, there is
math here that we can rely on, right, and we
(18:41):
know statistically speaking, white Democrats, white Democrats in Louisiana won't
vote for a black candidate. That just doesn't happen. They
won't vote for a black Democrat. They'd rather vote for
a white White Democrats again, would rather vote for a
white Republican than a black Democrat. So again to the
(19:02):
point of the Voting Rights Act, if black people are
to have their one third representation in Louisiana congressional delegation,
you need majority of Minori districts because even white Democrats
will vote for black people like that is just a
statistical fact, but it's one that was ignored by the
Supreme Court and just lie to by the Supreme Court.
(19:24):
The Supreme Court doesn't use facts anymore in their arguments.
So that's so when you say more insidious. I've seen
reports that say as many as nineteen seats in the
South could flip after this decision, if it comes out
the way everybody, including me, thinks it's gonna come out.
So there is a real there is a four real
political bailance to what the Supreme Court is doing beyond
(19:46):
the moral terpretuopitude.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I was gonna say interpret two two because it is
morally so dark. I want you to talk about Cavan
Austa because I'm thinking about Justice Brett my man and
the guy who tried to make racism cool again and
with his decision on that case.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, the rac You're talking about the racial profiling case
and Los Angeles f Predermo or whatever.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because he writes this opinion. I want
you to talk about.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yes, Kavanaugh's okay racial profiling. I mean literally, what Ice
was doing in California was profiling people on suspicion of
being immigrants based on and this is what they admitted to,
based on the color of their skin, whether they spoke
English with a Spanish accent, and what job they appeared
(20:44):
to be having at the time they were stomped. So
it was a straight up we're doing some racial profiling, right.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
It is I want to say this word, very racist word,
but it's the only way to explain what's happening right now.
It is Operation wet Back two point zero.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yes, that is that is what that is what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
That's what's called that. At the time, Kavanaugh has basically said,
go forth and discriminate.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Go on Brett Kavanaugh and an opinion and an opinion
off the shadow docket, where a lot of times the
conservatives don't explain themselves, but this time Kavanaugh felt so
bold that he actually explained why he thought racial profiling
was okay. And in addition to saying that it just
he said it just made common sense, which is like
always to me the the Canarian the coal mine of
(21:30):
a white supremacist, where it just makes common sense to
round up brown people on suspicion of crime because you
never know, you never know, like that, that is right.
But he also said that the reason why he was
cool with it is that he's hell. He said that
stops to actual citizens, stops to you know, birthright American
citizens who just happened to be Latino. That these will
(21:52):
be incidental and a minor inconvenience, minor inconvenience because all
you have to do is too happy and off a
short conversation with Ice, at which point you will be
let go.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Now, Republica shows in fact that that's not true, and
there are numerous American citizens put in Louisiana detention camps
for various amounts of time.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Right so your are so your options right now are
to believe that Brett Kavanaugh is a lying, a lying
white supremacist who's just trying to lie his way through
this argument, or he's an idiot. He's an idiot white
supremacist who is never like you know, who can't see
beyond his own beltwey, I happen to think, you know,
why not both? I think, you know, two things can
(22:37):
be true at the same time. He's a he's a liar,
and he's an idiot. You called them Kavanaugh stops. That's
exactly right. And the person who you know who who
in our modern kind of zeitgeist really revived the racial
profiling Sheriff Joelprio in Arizona. He's been coming out being like, see,
I was right. He's literally walking around in the town
(22:58):
right now being like I've been vindicated by alleged tempted
rapist Brett Kavanaugh.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's shocking. That they've somehow managed to create
a structure for this appallingness. Let's talk about bullying trans
people and also dismantling lgbt Q.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Right, Yeah, so I low key think that these cases
are actually the most important this term, because the ones
that we talk about that are focusing on racism, the
voting rights case, the racial profiling cases, these are obviously
critically important, but these are these are outcrops of living
under a white supremacist, authoritarian regime. What's happening with the
(23:40):
LGBTQQ two community is stuff that would happen regardless of
who was president, as long as we let the Supreme.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Court held power.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Like these these people are who the Republicans have a
have an axe to drind with, regardless of who happens
to be present in any one time. And what they're
trying to do this term is torually kind of stamp
out to eradicate the idea of being trans. They're trying
to eradicate trans people, they're trying to eradicate gay people.
(24:09):
So the first case they heard this term, literally their
first case back from summer vacation, was a case called
Childs B. Salazar, which involved conversion therapy right, which involved
the legality.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Of taking i mean Colorado gay.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Teens, gay kids, and telling them they're wrong, and telling
them God hates them, and telling them from a clinical
psychological perspective that they can just pray away the gay
or just you know, just just buck up and not
be gay any like. This is the therapy that they're
talking about.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
So, Colorado and I think twenty other states have banned
conversion therapy, and the Supreme Court basically said, or is
going to say, no, they can't ban ban it as
a matter of free speech, as a matter of free exercise.
And that's that's shocking to me because remember we're not
talking about random people on the street. You know, your
(25:02):
priests can say whatever whatever he wants. Right, person with
a sandwich board on a corner can say whatever they want.
They want to preach conversion therapy, they go to These
are licensed professionals, people licensed by the state of Colorado
to provide mental health services. Of course, Colorado has a
right to regulate what they do. Right, in the same
(25:22):
way they can't they could tell a person, well, you
can't administer shock therapy, right, We're not doing that anymore.
It's the same way they can tell version like bating
a kid doesn't help.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Isn't psychological treatment technically federalism too?
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
I would argue that it's federalism. I would I would
argue that letting the individual states define their have their
own rules for who can be licensed as a medical
professional who can't be is kind of point and click federalism.
They're arguing that that they don't have to care about that,
that they have a religious right to do whatever therapy
they want, and of course they do who they just
(26:01):
don't have a religious right to do whatever therapy they
want under the guise of a license from the state
of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
They really love religious freedom.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
The second set of cases that's coming up in November
is going to be about trans athletes, and we know
the Republican Party has made a lot of hay over
denigrating trans women who play sports. We know that they
hate them for it's such a small, really hater of
the part. We know that the Democratic consulting class has
generally abandoned these people.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I just want to add one thing about this, because
I think it's important to remember that so much of
this is political. They know that for them, there is
polling that shows that people don't like it if their
girls have to compete against people who are trans. That's
really the net net of it. So like they you know,
(26:52):
they probably do also hate trans people, but they see
the political expedience there and they think Trump won on
that issue, and so that, you know, I mean, I
just think, like it's even more craven.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Right, I totally agree with that. So the Supreme Court
is hearing a case that will uphold these trans bands
on women's sports. But the thing that really gets me
is that people think this issue is just about whether
or not a trans woman can run a race against
other girls. Right, It's not just that the Idaho law
that's issue in this case not only says that trans
(27:28):
athletes can't compete in high school sports, which again I
think you said it was craven. I think it's bigoted,
like it's stupid, but it also says that any rival
can question the gender of an athlete and that athlete
has to submit themselves to gynecological exam to prove their gender,
(27:51):
but only if they're a woman. So it's literally a
law that says a woman has to drop her drawers, right, doctor,
look up her huha. But boy, does not, does not
is a point and click violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
And the Republicans on the Court are going to say
that that is fine because they hate trans people. Like
(28:13):
that is where we're at, where they're And it's probably
going to be a Kavanaugh opinion because Kavanaugh likes to
remind everybody that he coaches girls basketball and that somehow
is supposed to make us forget about the rape allegations.
But anyway, it's probably going to be Kavanaugh saying that
the way to protect girls in sports is to make
them drop their panties on requests. That is going to
(28:38):
be the upshot of the Supreme Court's opinion.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
And what I think is so important about this is
that they really hate women sports too. Like you'll say, well,
this is one thing that gets conservatives to give a
shit about women's sports, but actually this will make it
much more unpleasant for women and women's sports because if
you don't look at certain way, you can get checked
(29:02):
out by your coach and that or whoever. Like one
of the things that I like to thread the needle
on is that you think, oh, this is just discriminating
against trans kids, and yeah, while my kid's not trans.
This is opening the door to discriminating against everyone, against
people don't look a certain way, against this, against you know,
(29:24):
and making it more unpleasant for women to do. You know.
I just think it's important to thread the needle that
this opens the door to something you can't necessarily close.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
One of the main plaintiffs in the in the trans
case pulled out. She pulled out because it was ruining
her life, because she was getting someone to hate so much,
death threats. She just wants to run track at she
was a boyis date, Yeah, student, she just wants run track.
Trans woman who just wants to run track, And it
became such an all consuming thing their life. She pulled
(29:54):
out of the case. That is also their goal. People
just give up just to yeah, not fight. And that's
and that's an other piece with the conversion therapy thing.
And that's why I say the goal here from the
Supreme Court this year is to eradicate these people. It's
to shove these people back into some closet somewhere where
(30:14):
we pretend they don't exist.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
And and and we know.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
That that directly leads to suffering side And like again,
there is math here, folks. We know that two percent
of the population is intersects. Two percent of population does
not fit into your gender binary that you want them
to fit into. These people are here, They're real people
(30:40):
with real problems, and the and the goal is to
make them hate themselves as a legal manner.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
We're in this moment where the Supreme Court is rolling back.
You know, we just talked about as trands rights voting
rights to anti discrimination, because anti discrimination is discrimination against
white people, which is, by the way, something white supremacists
have always said. This is not right. This is like
one of the tenants of white supremacy. I think, And
(31:09):
again maybe I'm just an optimist. I have been wrong
before because I was overly optimistic. But I think this
stuff feels medieval and that a lot of people do
not find losing all their rights within six month period
to be tenable. Talk to me about like, you know,
this is pushback for pushback for push you know, we're
(31:29):
like in these cycles of backlash. Talk to me about
your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Hey, look, the right answer was to go back to
Towy twenty one, like I told people, and expand the
court when you kept that is the right answer. The
only way that you get out of this Supreme Court
is by expanding the Supreme Court. And so while you're
saying that people are outraged, when you're saying that people
won't stand for it, so far, the Democrats have stood
for it. So far, the Democrats have taken it so far.
(31:57):
Even when you hear them, you know, make their speeches
and make their campaign pitches and whatever, they don't focus
attention on the Supreme Court as the as the ground
zero of all the revocation of rights that we're seeing.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
They don't.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
They're still on the Oh, the courts are gonna save us, right,
even though no matter what a lower court does, no
matter what a district court does, the Supreme Court is
always there to overturn them and back up Trump. Like
the focus on the Supreme Court as actually the problem,
not not a symptom of the problem, right, but what's
the actual problem. That is still lost on the Democrats, right,
(32:35):
And so at some level, like I don't see the
push I see the pushback from regular people.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I mean that's what I mean. I don't mean the party,
the party. I think you've lost the party, but I mean.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
No King's protest, like that's gonna be, that's gonna be invigorating.
But until the party focuses on taking the the people
who were out in the streets, giving them power back,
and taking that power away from the six unelected Republicans
in robes, we're not going to get anywhere. And as
(33:06):
far as from where I sit, the Democratic Party is
still nowhere near as focused on the Supreme Court as
it needs to be.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, Ali, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Molly.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Brian Chance is the senior Senator from the great state
of Hawaii. Welcome to Fast Politics, the Senator of Shots.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Thanks Molly, nice to see you.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Nice to see you. Everything's so incredibly bad. I have
nothing to say. I can't believe how bad everything is.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Well, let me give you some hope.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Okay, Now, granted we have to stitch it together, but
you know.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
All right, I'll take it.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
Hope and optimism is an action. And so I think,
first of all, a federal judge just now granted a
temporary restraining order against russ Vott and his attempt to
lay off a bunch of federal workers, basically to retaliate
against Democrats. And so we just went in court today,
and that's a non trivial thing. I think the other
(34:04):
thing that gives me some hope is that people are
starting to realize Republicans included the kind of velocity and
seriousness of this healthcare issue and the extent to which
prices are actually going to double. That's not a Democratic
talking point, that's actually what's happening.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
In Iowa, right in Iowa and Alaska today is Iowa though, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
And I just think there's no spinning like a letter
from your carrier, and so no one wins a shutdown.
So I don't want to characterize it as a win,
but I do think that we are fighting for the
right thing that the public agrees with us, and that
Republicans are starting to realize that they're going to have
to negotiate with us, both about the appropriations process generally
(34:47):
and constraining mister Russell vote, and also on healthcare. And
the final thing I'll say, which is now two or
three weeks old, but I thought it was really significant,
was when Brendan Carr tried to suspend Jimmy ca Kimmel
and Ted Cruz made a bet. Ted Cruz made a
bet that if he is to maintain his credibility as
a conservative and his viability as a future candidate that
(35:10):
he bet on the First Amendment and not on JD.
Vance's sort of view of the world. And what happened was,
he's not just Ted, CRU's well known conservative. He's the
chairman of the Commerce Committee who sort of yanked the
chain of the SCC chairman, which felt like it was,
you know, nineteen seventy eight with Fritz Hollings or whatever.
And what happened was as soon as Ted did that,
(35:31):
like five or six other Republicans said, yeah, also me
First Amendment. I would just say, there are some reasons
to be optimistic. And the last reason to be optimistic
is I think this rally on October eighteenth is going
to be tremendously optimistic and hopeful and joyful and peaceful
and patriotic.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
And I think whenever you do a thing.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
That you know allows everybody to sort of see each
other in person, to realize that you're not alone, to
realize that actually, democracy is not what we have, it's
what we do, and that we will prevail in the end.
I think that will be a hugely important moment for
all of us, in not just this battle, but in history.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I want you to talk about appropriations because Lisa Murkowski
not the only Republican to say this, but like, why
should Democrats make deals with Republicans if they're just going
to impound the money anyway or use a pocket recision
to claw back the money. Why trust the people who
(36:33):
are not trustworthy?
Speaker 5 (36:35):
Yeah, And I think one of the ways out of
just the narrower question around appropriations is can we get
a commitment from a sufficient number of Republican senators to
oppose any additional recisions? In other words, we're going to
enact the bill. It has to stick, right. That's the
recision is a technical term, but it's not that damn
hard to understand. It's that we pass this thing with
(36:56):
a bipartisan majority, and then they go, oh, it turns
out we don't want to spend money on a bunch
of democratic aspects of this bill, and so we're just
going to claw it back. They did that once on
four and eight. Was super hard. We tried to make
it as painful as possible. I think we succeeded along
those lines. And they have quietly told me that they
will oppose additional recisions packages and I you know, I
(37:18):
told them, you know, bipartisanship can't be your secret girlfriend
in Canada. Yeah, you've got to demonstrate that you understand
that when you enact a bill that you're a separate
and coequal branch of government. You might support the president
generally speaking, but when it's your bill, it's your bill.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
It feels like the posturing between Soon and Trump is
real weird. You know, Mike Johnson just serves at the
behals of Trump and is just sort of cleaning up
for him. Thune, it's more complicated. You're in the Senate,
Explain what the hell is happening there.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
I can't say I have super deep insights into that relationship,
but I think it is fair to say that, you know,
Mike Johnson will not make a move until Trump tells
him to. Thune, I think is at least will to
authorize some of his deputies to like go behind lines
and see what's possible. But I have not seen him
put together a bipartisan deal yet. And that is the
test of a majority leader, right is whether you can
(38:12):
work with the minority party and get bills done. And I,
by the way, I also think it's the test of
an opposition party is can we deliver a bipartisan deal
of some form or fashion where we get some wins
and we don't get screamed at because we didn't get
all the wins.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Right.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
Like, I've had this conversation with people, you know, in
my office, my colleagues, you know, in the media, in
the base, like if the standard is unless you stop
the fascism, you can't vote yes on anything, that's just
too high of a standard.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Right.
Speaker 5 (38:45):
And so point here, especially in appropriations, right, is to
say we're the article one branch. We decide how the
money gets spent, and if we get accomplish that, that
is a real ratcheting down of presidential power that is
worth getting, even if it's like only eight percent of
the stuff we eventually need to accomplish. Nobody accomplishes everything
(39:06):
all at once, and certainly not if you're in the
minority party.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
So explain to us, because what you're talking about, I
think is real. The base is furious, and I know
because I talked to you know, people come up to
me and they say, you have to talk to Dita.
You have to I'm like, you misunderstanding what my job is.
But the base is furious. So they're like a little
less furious I think because they feel that this shutdown was,
(39:33):
you know, a real line in the sand against this
sort of authoritarianism. But where do you find yourself in
this Because you're in a younger generation that's considered to
be more of a fight, right, This is what you
know from Pritzker's camp. They talk about it's not left
versus right, it's fight versus cave. So talk to me
(39:53):
about that.
Speaker 5 (39:54):
You fight for something right, You know, we have a
special obligation to fight for things, and in this case,
we're fighting for these ACA premium tax credits because people's
insurance rates are about to go up by one hundred
and fourteen percent, And we fight for the ability if
we do enact a spending bill for it not to
be undone by an unelected bureaucrat in the White House.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
So those are the things that we fight for.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
But I mean, I'm a little worried that we could
win some of these things. And people say, well, what
about the masks?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Right?
Speaker 4 (40:25):
What about that?
Speaker 5 (40:25):
You know, it's sort of like, yes, all of those
things are important, and if you want me to solve
all of them at once, we will solve none of
them at once. I think part of our problem as
a party, as a movement is there aren't that many
politicians who say, look, here's what's possible and here's what's
not And to the ear of a sort of angry
person who's pissed about everything that's happening, everything sounds like
(40:46):
a cave to them, right, But whe're your lead negotiators.
What that means is we negotiate four things, not endlessly
and for nothing.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I'm just gonna take double's advocate for a second. Democrats
are pretty good at telling voters what they can do
in a way, whereas Donald Trump was like, and I'm
going to do this, and I'm gonna do that, and
none of it was doable, but he didn't win elections
on it. So my question for you is like, is
it better to be the good guys who are telling
(41:17):
the truth or the good guys who win elections?
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Well, I mean, look, I'd rather win.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
And I think that our movement has to elevate winning
as a high principle. The accumulation of power on behalf
of vulnerable people, on behalf of democratic ideals. That is
a high principle. Winning is great. Winning should be not
frowned upon or looked on as though you sold out.
(41:43):
Winning is important, and we've gotten a little bit not
just unattached from winning, but there's a cohort of people
who want to critique power as the only way you
could get power is sort of ill begotten.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
So I agree with you on all that.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
I just honestly think we have to occasionally talk to
our folks like they are highly engaged.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Right.
Speaker 5 (42:04):
And find is that when I talk to people in person, right,
if I'm in it doesn't matter if it's a group
of two hundred and fifty people in you know, why
meya on the Big Island, or if I'm in like
a living room, or I'm talking to a family member
or friend. Like when I explain myself, people are like, oh,
that makes sense, right, So explaining yourself is not explaining.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Away why you have no power.
Speaker 5 (42:25):
It's a I have some limited power here, I'm going
to use it for this specific purpose to get this
particular thing, and here's why. And I think that we
have to build enough trust that if you do get
into the business of explaining what you're up to, that
it doesn't just become oh, you're one of those people
who caves. Because I do think like your point, Molly
is really right, which is that so many lawyers, so
(42:47):
many strategists, so many careful people who lock themselves out
of everything, right, But there's somewhere in between lying like
Donald Trump and being a lawyerly knit when I'm trying
to find that sweet spot and this.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
So now you're now you've hit my one topic that
I care about basically, which is so you and Chris Murphy,
you both speak in a very clear way, and you're
good at communicating. You don't do the thing that makes
me crazy, the thing where I actually had a fight
with a Democratic politician because I said, if you speak
(43:23):
English sentences, people are going to be much more interested
in supporting you. And so my theory is that Barack
Obama was such a talented messenger that he could say
anything and people would be like, yes, yes, yes, And
so the legacy of that was there were people who
were like, yes, I can say things if I say
them in the right way and people won't care about
(43:44):
the substance. But the truth is that's not how any
of this works. So you have people who are talking
like they're from Veep. You know, it's a mera ka,
and then you put the cut and you're like, none
of this relates to my world of English language. So
you guys don't do that. But how do you get
everybody else out of that?
Speaker 5 (44:03):
I mean, I think we are getting better at being clearer,
and I think this healthcare fight has been a pretty
good example of the Democratic Party, for all its faults,
being crisp with what we're trying to accomplish together. Now
there are healthcare care experts, you know, in the Senate,
and solet's talk about premium support, tax credits, and they're
(44:24):
going to talk about the exchange, and then you know,
and then you've got Gego who certainly knows all those things.
But it is also just saying Donald Trump is making
you sicker and poorer. It does take all kinds.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
It's the cautiousness that makes me cuezy. It's the loyalliness.
And this was a big problem in the twenty two cycle,
in the twenty twenty cycle, on the twenty four cycle,
you know exactly what I'm talking about, the inability to
just just say the thing and say it again and
again and again everywhere.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
Yeah, and but I mean, more to the point, just
say the thing right you're riding And I like your
theory about Obama. I haven't really turned it around in
my head long enough to know if I agree. But
he was so damn lyrical that it was really like
it was like it could have been Portuguese, and you're like,
I like that guy, right, And so that is a
lot of it. But I also just think there's a
vibes problem. Right, We're starting to solve that. I mean,
(45:14):
one of the things I saw in some reason polling
is that for the first time, Democrats are gaining an
advantage on the question of the cost of living, and
that is an enormous sign of progress. And so all
those folks you included, but you know, dozens of others,
thousands of others who have correctly criticized the Democratic Party
(45:35):
for not having a clear and crisp message. Here we
are with a clear and crisp message. And so you know,
Matti Glecia Assession sometimes says it, just say the thing
if you like what I'm saying, or what Murphy saying,
or Andy Kim is saying whatever, like, just boost that
you don't have to say Andy Kim is saying, not
what that other person is saying. Because the sort of
(45:55):
theater criticism aspect of democratic politics is like I'm I'm
a gossip and so I like that part where I'm like,
I think that person said that right, but nobody knows
a shit right, and and it sort of reinforces this
sense of fecklessness where it's like, you know what twenty
Democrats said things, I liked what thirteen of them said.
I'm going to boost the thirteen and ignore the seven
(46:18):
and the incentive structure then habituates people to like talk
more plainly, more clearly, and more crisply. But we don't
have to kind of get into it. Not everything is
like a media training for members around for a long time.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
No, And you know, I did write this piece that
was a little critical in the Times. Now that I
write for the New York Times, I get in trouble.
When I used to write for Manny Fair, it was
fine because people didn't necessarily read all my stuff. But
it's the only game in town. The other party is
doing stuff. You know, has the mask with the smoke bombs.
I mean, you have these thoughts because you're worried that there's.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Or not up to it.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Yeah, and now when you're just worried good to have
a one party system is pretty bleak.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (46:59):
I agree, And that's why this has to be a
movement of people who care about healthcare, who care about democracy,
who care about the Constitution, And that's why we all
have to show up in person. And then individual politicians'
ability to like hit that perfect note, you know, Bill
Clinton ala Barack Obama is like, it'd be great if
(47:21):
we find our next Bill Clinton, our next Barack Obama,
our next sort of magical communicator that sort of obviates
all of our structural problems. But the structural problem is
that culturally, in the last cycle, we had lost folks.
As long as we focus on costs, we can win
a lot of them back. Because who did we lose.
We lost working class individuals of all colors, and we
(47:43):
lot young people. And why were they pissed? They were
pissed because the president was old and couldn't explain himself,
and the cost of everything had gone up precipitously. There's
no particular reason to think these people are like they
swung over to Trump and now they're super happy with
everything that's happening. If they were pissed about prices a
year ago, they got to be even more pissed about prices.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
It's a much worse now, it's.
Speaker 5 (48:05):
Way worse, and it's being done on purpose, And so
I just think that's why we have to be relentless
in our focus on the price of everything, because you know,
one of the things that we've learned from fascists in
Europe and elsewhere is usually defeating fascists is not accomplished
by talking exclusively about fascism. It's for mundane stuff like
(48:27):
whether or not there are shortages of bread and electricity,
and we're about to have shortages of bread and electricity.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Yeah, I'm really excited for the electricity. So a lot
more younger Democrats in the Senate, Ruben, you, Andy Kim,
Chris Murphy, like a real sea.
Speaker 4 (48:43):
Change clockin also Brooks.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Yeah, right, leadership old, some of whom are retiring. I
personally have only you know, the most support for leadership.
But I'm just curious, like, I mean, is that being
talked about? Are people? I mean, is this monoliths? Are there?
Is there give the people something here?
Speaker 5 (49:04):
I think there's a generational transition happening in the United
States Senate. And it's Murphy and Heinrich and Booker and
Kim and Slotkin and Diego and also Brooks.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
We love Martin Heinrich.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
Yeah, I do too.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
He's so handsome, all right, go on to it.
Speaker 4 (49:19):
He's dreaming.
Speaker 5 (49:23):
But I think there really is a generational shift, and
I think that the kind of frustration with leadership generally speaking,
is a placeholder for why aren't some of you guys
doing something about all of this stuff? Waves in every direction.
Think that our unity and our clarity in this appropriations
fight is helping to demonstrate that we are you know, look,
(49:45):
we're not always operating on all cylinders, but right now
we've got our shit together, and I think that that's
worth celebrating and emphasizing.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah, that was good. You almost got to my question,
one last question, and then I promise that we'll stop
asking questions. The base hates it. I'm a fancied Jew,
so every time I go out to dinner, people yell
at me. It definitely feels like this is the base
is no longer like that used to be even a
year ago. Okay, and the goalposts have moved on a
(50:16):
pack go sots.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (50:19):
I mean, I'm not in cycle, so I don't know
the particulars of how it's playing in individual races, but
I will say that the general public Democrats, Republicans, independence
has soured on the nets and Yahoo government for very
specific and valid reasons. And it's not just that Netsan
yah who has moved forward with an absolutely brutal, inhumane,
(50:41):
illegal war against the Palestinian people. It's that his government
is comprised of people who were so radical that you know,
one of the guys was too radical to join.
Speaker 4 (50:51):
The idf Right.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
People are really out of control, and so to the
extent that a pack is essentially echoing what Benjamin nets
and Yao, who says, I think it's quite reasonable to say, I,
respectfully would like to disaffiliate with you, folks. I have
said that directly to the leadership of APEC. I have
told them that their position of basically never straying from
(51:13):
the nuts and Yahou line has made Israel less safe,
has made peloticians less safe, has made Jews in the.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Diameters very correct.
Speaker 5 (51:21):
You care about the cause of peace in the Middle East,
then there's no way to justify what Netanyahu has done
over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Thank you, Thank you no more. Jesse Cannon smiling.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Remember what we used to talk about woke generals? Really,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
I'm sorry. I forget everything we do. It's the only
way to stay saying.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
So.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
There used to be these jokes that the conservatives talked
about generals like that they are sitting around and reading
critical race theory all day. So now Pete Haigsith is
losing it because a general who was in charge of
of striking down boats that we don't know if we're
actually dealing drugs is now like, nah, this is too
much for me. I'm out.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
So I think it's important to take a minute here
to realize that this administration has been blowing up ships
in the Caribbean, literally blowing up ships in the Caribbean
because they say they think they're drug traffickers. There is
no evidence to support the fact that they're drug traffickers.
We are not at war with Venezuela. This is just
(52:29):
insane bullshit that is illegal. Okay, yet another place where
we can see this administration doing illegal shit. I think
that everyone should resign. This is like the question of
you know, Markalized had this really good point the other
day which was like, if you work in the DOJ,
resign because you are helping an authoritarian takeover. There are
(52:52):
no adults in the room. You are helping this crimey
crime crime Honoris crime criminal crime syndicate, and they are
killing people in the Caribbean for seemingly no reason. I mean,
maybe they have some reason, but because they hate Venezuela,
(53:13):
because they might think they're drugs. I mean, this is
like so bad. This is the kind of thing that
is so bad. We need new words for bad. Okay,
this guy is out. Admiral Averril Hulsey is out because
he thinks that blowing up Venezuela and drug boats or
just Venezuelan fishermen is not what he signed up for,
(53:34):
and quite frankly, I would like to see more of
those agreed. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear
the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a
(53:56):
friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Stephen Miller says, you can't love
your country and then fight President Trump. That's right, because whatever,
we have such a great show for you today. The
(00:20):
Nation's Almstal stops by to talk about all the fuckery
and the Supreme Court. Then we'll talk to Senator Brian
Shotts about how Democrats are fighting back against Trump. But
first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Somebody, we know that Trump's emmigration rates are not good
for the Ekai, but we have a number put on
it now fifteen million jobs gone by twenty thirty five,
a study claims.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So let's talk this through. Part of why America has
had this economy that is the envy of the world
is because and you're going to be shocked to hear this,
it's because our economy grew because we have immigration. Immigration.
You may wonder why Republicans hate immigration because they don't
(01:11):
understand how mouth works. So Trump's immigration is it's just
all sorts of different ways in which it's fucking up
the economy. One is we're going to have less workers,
We're going to have less people to pay into Social
Security and pay into taxes, and and we have this
(01:33):
where you know, our birth rate is on the decline.
I don't know if you know this. Elon Musk is
very upset about it.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I sometimes see some white supremacists talk about it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, right, So unless you can get people to have babies,
which they don't really want to for any number of reasons,
we're going to be a country with new young people
or not enough young people to keep the economy going.
And this is where we are. So it's like yet
another Trump policy that is incredibly short sighted. The lack
(02:05):
of immigration is going to trink our economy. And then
the other thing is like this doesn't matter because also
another thing that this administration's doing is it's limiting US companies'
access to high skilled foreign workers because it's making those
visas very expensive. They are the visas that a lot
(02:28):
of Silicon Valley people came to this country on. Again,
Elon Musk and his reverse philanthropy, he is cutting the
science that helped him make his billions of dollars. He
and this administration he's not in the administration anymore, but
they are cutting the visas that made it possible for
(02:48):
the people like Elon Musk to come to this country,
make a billion dollars and then destroy the country by
fucking up our federal government. Thank you, Elon Smiley.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Trump is I did John Bolton? I know, on principle
I have to be very very angry on about this,
but there's been so many things he's done over the years.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
You really hate John Polton.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, what he called for the death penalty for somebody
who did similar to what he did. You know, it
just makes it really hard for this principle stand for
me to stand up. But I'm standing up anyway because
it's principles. God, I'm getting tired of stead I go.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Like, let him get the chair. Okay. So I want
to talk about John Bolton because there are a couple
of things going on here. John Bolton is a good
person for Trump World to go after because they feel
he has no constituency. There is no one who is
for John Bolton, right, he does not. He's not a Trumper,
(03:49):
and he's not a Democrat, and he's not a louth
Cheney type who can keep it in his pants long enough.
You know. He just is unlikable on every SARTs of
the imagination that said, this is law fair. This is
Donald Trump going after John Bolton because John Bolton criticized
Donald Trump on television. And you know, they go after
(04:11):
a John Bolton so that they can go after a
Jesse Cannon, so that they can go after Amalie John Fest.
This is the road to authoritarianism is paved with going
after John Bolton. And this is basically there after him
because he wrote his book and in his book with
some classified information that his editor saw and that information
(04:37):
they saw it, and that was classified information. And when
they checked it for classified information, they took some of
this stuff out. But the idea here is that the
editors saw the classified information. Look, this is all bullshit.
This is all Donald Trump trying to get back at
people because he did crimes. You can you know on
(04:57):
Earth one we still well, no, it's like in this house.
In this house, we still understand that there is like
actual truth and then trumpy truth. And so look, I
don't like John Bolton, but you know you can. But
the idea that he's going to go to jail for
his book should send a chill to all who are here.
(05:19):
And again, like so far we've seen remember John Bolton
does not exist in a vacuum, right, So he it's
John Bolton, it's Letitia James. He's gone after Lisa Cook.
I mean like this is you know, this is what
Trump does. So again, you know, law farer is not Okay,
(05:40):
that's not how we do it in this country.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
All right, I'm standing up again for John. This is interesting.
Half a dozen House Democrats were seventy year old or
are being beaten in fundraising by their younger primary challengers.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, So I just want to say two things here.
One is that I do think it is important to
realize that this is part of a lot of news
for Democrats. So Democratic Senate candidates have raised a gazillion dollars,
and I think that's important. They have raised their way
(06:17):
out raising Republicans. Now, does that mean that Elon mush
comes in at the last minute and gives some big checks. Maybe,
But the energy on the ground is for Democrats. Now,
that said, the energy on the ground is not for
very very very very old Democrats. That is important. So
here we have House Democrats who are seventy years old,
(06:39):
and this again is where the base is. The base
does not want old members of the party we see
this in the polling. They don't like it. They want younger.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Members, people who are going to fight right.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
They want again to go back to Pritzker's aid, it's
fight versus cave, not left versus center. So you know,
here we have these incumbents who are raising these challengers
who are raising a ton of money. Though we have
Eleanor Holmes Norton, she's ten thousand years old. Her challenger
(07:14):
has ran half a million dollars. That's a seat, that's
not even a voting seat, right, that's the district of Columbia.
They're just a lot. We're seeing a lot of challengers
raising a ton of money. And even Steve Cohen, who
is actually a really reliable Democrat, and I don't think
he's not old. It's getting primary by Justin Pearson, one
(07:36):
of the Tennessee three, but a real fighter, a really
serious guy. So again we're going to see how this
plays out. But we've got a former venture capitalist, Eric
Jones thirty four.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Just for the record, cod is seventy six. That's too
old to my eyes to be congress, right.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
But former venture capitalist Eric Jones thirty four raised a
million and a half dollars for a house race, half
a million for Rep. Mike Thompson. You know he is
seventy four, So you have a thirty four year old
running against a seventy four year old. You have a
seventy three year old being primary by a forty two
(08:15):
year old. And Eleanor Holmesdorton is eighty eight. So we'll see.
I think that Dianne Feinstein, like, we got here through
watching elderly members fucking fuck off.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
We watched Mitch McConnell take a horrible fall yesterday.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So yeah, so this is wild. Now let us talk
about one of my stories that feels very important right now?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Are you talking about that the New York Young Republicans
are set to disband after they found their text to
be extremely racist, a thing that anyone who's ever encountered
these fellas could have told you.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It's very possible that these racist texts were in fact
leaked by someone more racist. I want to just pause.
These are like technically the good guys, and I use
good in quotes because we think these were leaked by
Gavin Wax, who's like a full on who puts the
knots in Nazi.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
My friend who has unfortunately had to deal with many
of these people over the years. Put it well that
the New York Young Republicans are just the guys who
are too out of shape to join the Proud Voice.
But they had the same ideology as them.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
But they could probably join ICE and get their student
loans paid for. Yes, yes, racist tax They are things,
by the way, in kids, you're wondering if you're a
fancied Jew and you think these guys don't also hate you,
they in fact do, And I think important things like
gas chamber jokes, lots of racism, monkey people, all the
(09:48):
kind of fucked up stuff you think they're saying.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Every racial stereotype you can think of, they thought was cute.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, and was kidding and again like ironic racism still racism.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
One Somali did you watch the Cuomo Sliwa Mom Donnie
debate last night?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I did not, because I have a life. Tell me
what happened.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well, I watched it.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I'm just kidding, I don't have a life.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
What I mostly saw was that the reaction seemed to
be a lot of roar shocking that whatever you feel
about the candidates, you feel they did. But what we
did see a lot of people saying that work in
the political world as they were astounded by Mam Donnie's
debate performance. As a debater, he shocked many people when
he admitted that he's bought marijuana from a dispensary that
(10:34):
is legal, which is legal in the state of New York.
There's a lot of pearl clutching about that. But you know,
there's many people who pontificate about New York politics who say, oh,
Curtis Sliwa, he's going to drop out and do the
right thing. And I think what became very clear last
night is Curtis Sliwa hates Andrew Clomo with the breadth
of a thousand dragons. My man was literally like there'd
(10:58):
be times he'd look over him and he's looking at
him like that taxi driver that shot him for the
Guttie crime family three million years ago.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, I'm telling you, Curtis Leewah, I don't know. I
continue to not understand who Andrew Cuomo is for.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Well, my best answer is if you watch Sarah Sherbin's
skit on Sarah Live this weekend, I think that that
answers it really well.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Anyway, I think Mondami is pulling ten twelve fifteen points ahead.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's actually a less than what he's pulling in some of.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
The bla what's he pulling? I saw ten fifteen.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
The big thing that all this clomos Becker's had to
deal with is that the latest poll now shows that
if Curse Lee Wood drops out, Andrew Cuomo still loses
by ten points.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Okay, So the point here is and I saw a
poll that had him cracking fifty. So the point is
you may not love Mondami, but you should ask yourself,
why is this a Democrat who's catching fire? And Biden
and Harris and all of these different other candidates had
to be sort of pulled away over the line. I
think that is a real question. Why does this candidate
(12:04):
speak to voters and other Democratic candidates struggle? And I
think that is, in my mind, the question we should
all be asking ourselves, and not the stylistic question of
whether or not you like Mondami that I don't know
how relevant that is, but the question of, like, why
does this candidate catch fire in a way that a
(12:24):
lot of Democrats happen? I think that is a real question.
Ellie Mystile is the Justice Correspondent of the Nation and
the author of the upcoming book Bad Law. Welcome back
to Fast Politics. Ellie, Hey, Molly, how are you. I'm good.
(12:45):
I'm so happy to have you here. I always am
a fan of yours, but right now one hundred times
feels even more important. So first, let's talk about the
voting rights case on Wednesday, because that case has just
that was the case that really shocked me. So Article
two of the Voting Right to Act, the Supreme Court
(13:09):
has deciding so much.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, it's about to decide, right, So yeah, for the
backstory here, this case called Louisiana vi. Calais, was actually
argued last year, all right, and the court couldn't reach
the decision last year, and they scheduled re argument for
this year, which is pretty rare, that doesn't happen very often.
And the reason why it happened is because there's no
way white folks should win this case based on Roberts's
(13:36):
own precedent from.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Two years ago.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
But the issue is they don't want they don't want
black folks to win this case. They want white folks
to win this case. So it kind of took them
some more time to figure out how they're going to
do it. And now at oral arguments on Wednesday this week,
we were able to see how they're going to do it.
The key issue here is a congressional map in Louisiana,
and Louisiana has six congressional districts. After the twenty twenty census,
(14:00):
Louisiana produced a map that had five of those six
districts be majority white. Now people think Louisiana, They're like, oh,
that makes sense, No, it doesn't. Louisiana is only fifty
six percent white and thirty one percent black. So you know,
simple math here suggests there should be two, not one
two majority.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
If you're thirty percent of the popularation, then you should
have maybe have a chance. But yeah, just saying right.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So a court eventually ordered Louisiana to draw map that
had two majority minority districts white folks. White plaintiffs sued
Louisiana over its two district map, saying that having two
black districts discriminated against them, discriminated against white folks to
discriminate against their equal protection rights. And so I just
(14:55):
want people to understand what the core argument here is
is that over representation of white people in Congress is constitutional,
but black people trying to stop the overrepresentation of white people.
That's what's unconstitutional. Like that is the core white argument here,
(15:16):
and that is the core argument that Supreme Court is
going to accept. Over a two and a half hour
argument on Wednesday, we heard the justices not even try
to come to a decision that we heard them try
to justify the decision they had already made. And like
I said, Molly, the fact that they're re arguing this
case a year later, when they have a clear precedent
in front of them, that tells them how it should go.
(15:36):
The fact that they took an extra year to figure
out a way to around that precedent really tells you
all you need to know about how they're going to decide.
What they're going to say is that the Voting Rights
Act cannot be used to stop the over representation of
white folks in congressional redistricting. Like that's going to be
the holding.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
That anti racism is actually racism. That's like the underlying issue.
And they decided that when it came to affirmative action, right,
anti racism racism against white people, because white people have
it so hard.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Right, they keep saying that the Constitution is colorblind, which
again I think for a lot of people that makes
them feel warm and gooey inside. And of course kumba yah,
my lord, like you should be called. The Constitution is
not colorblind. It wasn't colorblind when it was written, not
when I was three fits of a person, right, it
wasn't colorblind. Then, it wasn't colorblind after the reconstruction amendments,
which were made specifically to address the racism of the Constitution.
(16:34):
So this is not a colorblind document. But when you
pretend that it is, what it allows you to do
is what you say, Molly. It allows you to prohibit
attempts to stop lighte folks from being racist as a
constitutional matter.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I wonder also if there's something a little more insidious
going on. And again this Supreme Court would never say this,
but Donald Trump went to Texas and said, I would
like five seats. Governor Greg Abbott was like done. We
are in a redistricting arms race. California is about to
get five seats. There's gonna be tit for tat everywhere.
(17:09):
This will give Republicans at the most thirty seats. It
will give the South to Republicans in a way that
they would not otherwise have you think that plays here?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Of course, of course one of the reasons why we're
here is because of what happened in Georgia, what Stacy
Abrams started in Georgia, the way that has been spreading
around the South. I mean, people, forget, most black people
in this country still live in the states where we
were enslaved.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Most of us do not live in Chicago. Most of
us do not live in New York. Right. We did
not get to Montreal. Right, most of us stayed where
we were enslaved. The South is black as hell, now,
one of the and this actually came up at court.
One of the arguments Louisiana's Solicitor General made was that, oh,
(17:57):
it wasn't that Louisiana was discriminating against black people. Well,
it's that Louisiana was discriminating against Democrats. And the court
has previously said, in another stupid and horrible decision, that
it's okay to discriminate on the basis of party. That's
a different decision, right, And so this man fixed his
mouth to say this, Louisiana man fixed his mouth to
say that if the races had been if the party
(18:19):
had been the same, but the races have been different.
So if it was just a bunch of white Democrats,
Louisiana would would have drawn its maps in exactly the
same way. Molly. We know factually that is untrue, because
we know again that there are stats here, there is
math here that we can rely on, right, and we
(18:41):
know statistically speaking, white Democrats, white Democrats in Louisiana won't
vote for a black candidate. That just doesn't happen. They
won't vote for a black Democrat. They'd rather vote for
a white White Democrats again, would rather vote for a
white Republican than a black Democrat. So again to the
(19:02):
point of the Voting Rights Act, if black people are
to have their one third representation in Louisiana congressional delegation,
you need majority of Minori districts because even white Democrats
will vote for black people like that is just a
statistical fact, but it's one that was ignored by the
Supreme Court and just lie to by the Supreme Court.
(19:24):
The Supreme Court doesn't use facts anymore in their arguments.
So that's so when you say more insidious. I've seen
reports that say as many as nineteen seats in the
South could flip after this decision, if it comes out
the way everybody, including me, thinks it's gonna come out.
So there is a real there is a four real
political bailance to what the Supreme Court is doing beyond
(19:46):
the moral terpretuopitude.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I was gonna say interpret two two because it is
morally so dark. I want you to talk about Cavan
Austa because I'm thinking about Justice Brett my man and
the guy who tried to make racism cool again and
with his decision on that case.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, the rac You're talking about the racial profiling case
and Los Angeles f Predermo or whatever.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because he writes this opinion. I want
you to talk about.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yes, Kavanaugh's okay racial profiling. I mean literally, what Ice
was doing in California was profiling people on suspicion of
being immigrants based on and this is what they admitted to,
based on the color of their skin, whether they spoke
English with a Spanish accent, and what job they appeared
(20:44):
to be having at the time they were stomped. So
it was a straight up we're doing some racial profiling, right.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
It is I want to say this word, very racist word,
but it's the only way to explain what's happening right now.
It is Operation wet Back two point zero.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yes, that is that is what that is what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
That's what's called that. At the time, Kavanaugh has basically said,
go forth and discriminate.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Go on Brett Kavanaugh and an opinion and an opinion
off the shadow docket, where a lot of times the
conservatives don't explain themselves, but this time Kavanaugh felt so
bold that he actually explained why he thought racial profiling
was okay. And in addition to saying that it just
he said it just made common sense, which is like
always to me the the Canarian the coal mine of
(21:30):
a white supremacist, where it just makes common sense to
round up brown people on suspicion of crime because you
never know, you never know, like that, that is right.
But he also said that the reason why he was
cool with it is that he's hell. He said that
stops to actual citizens, stops to you know, birthright American
citizens who just happened to be Latino. That these will
(21:52):
be incidental and a minor inconvenience, minor inconvenience because all
you have to do is too happy and off a
short conversation with Ice, at which point you will be
let go.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Now, Republica shows in fact that that's not true, and
there are numerous American citizens put in Louisiana detention camps
for various amounts of time.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Right so your are so your options right now are
to believe that Brett Kavanaugh is a lying, a lying
white supremacist who's just trying to lie his way through
this argument, or he's an idiot. He's an idiot white
supremacist who is never like you know, who can't see
beyond his own beltwey, I happen to think, you know,
why not both? I think, you know, two things can
(22:37):
be true at the same time. He's a he's a liar,
and he's an idiot. You called them Kavanaugh stops. That's
exactly right. And the person who you know who who
in our modern kind of zeitgeist really revived the racial
profiling Sheriff Joelprio in Arizona. He's been coming out being like, see,
I was right. He's literally walking around in the town
(22:58):
right now being like I've been vindicated by alleged tempted
rapist Brett Kavanaugh.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's shocking. That they've somehow managed to create
a structure for this appallingness. Let's talk about bullying trans
people and also dismantling lgbt Q.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Right, Yeah, so I low key think that these cases
are actually the most important this term, because the ones
that we talk about that are focusing on racism, the
voting rights case, the racial profiling cases, these are obviously
critically important, but these are these are outcrops of living
under a white supremacist, authoritarian regime. What's happening with the
(23:40):
LGBTQQ two community is stuff that would happen regardless of
who was president, as long as we let the Supreme.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Court held power.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Like these these people are who the Republicans have a
have an axe to drind with, regardless of who happens
to be present in any one time. And what they're
trying to do this term is torually kind of stamp
out to eradicate the idea of being trans. They're trying
to eradicate trans people, they're trying to eradicate gay people.
(24:09):
So the first case they heard this term, literally their
first case back from summer vacation, was a case called
Childs B. Salazar, which involved conversion therapy right, which involved
the legality.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Of taking i mean Colorado gay.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Teens, gay kids, and telling them they're wrong, and telling
them God hates them, and telling them from a clinical
psychological perspective that they can just pray away the gay
or just you know, just just buck up and not
be gay any like. This is the therapy that they're
talking about.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
So, Colorado and I think twenty other states have banned
conversion therapy, and the Supreme Court basically said, or is
going to say, no, they can't ban ban it as
a matter of free speech, as a matter of free exercise.
And that's that's shocking to me because remember we're not
talking about random people on the street. You know, your
(25:02):
priests can say whatever whatever he wants. Right, person with
a sandwich board on a corner can say whatever they want.
They want to preach conversion therapy, they go to These
are licensed professionals, people licensed by the state of Colorado
to provide mental health services. Of course, Colorado has a
right to regulate what they do. Right, in the same
(25:22):
way they can't they could tell a person, well, you
can't administer shock therapy, right, We're not doing that anymore.
It's the same way they can tell version like bating
a kid doesn't help.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Isn't psychological treatment technically federalism too?
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
I would argue that it's federalism. I would I would
argue that letting the individual states define their have their
own rules for who can be licensed as a medical
professional who can't be is kind of point and click federalism.
They're arguing that that they don't have to care about that,
that they have a religious right to do whatever therapy
they want, and of course they do who they just
(26:01):
don't have a religious right to do whatever therapy they
want under the guise of a license from the state
of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
They really love religious freedom.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
The second set of cases that's coming up in November
is going to be about trans athletes, and we know
the Republican Party has made a lot of hay over
denigrating trans women who play sports. We know that they
hate them for it's such a small, really hater of
the part. We know that the Democratic consulting class has
generally abandoned these people.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I just want to add one thing about this, because
I think it's important to remember that so much of
this is political. They know that for them, there is
polling that shows that people don't like it if their
girls have to compete against people who are trans. That's
really the net net of it. So like they you know,
(26:52):
they probably do also hate trans people, but they see
the political expedience there and they think Trump won on
that issue, and so that, you know, I mean, I
just think, like it's even more craven.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Right, I totally agree with that. So the Supreme Court
is hearing a case that will uphold these trans bands
on women's sports. But the thing that really gets me
is that people think this issue is just about whether
or not a trans woman can run a race against
other girls. Right, It's not just that the Idaho law
that's issue in this case not only says that trans
(27:28):
athletes can't compete in high school sports, which again I
think you said it was craven. I think it's bigoted,
like it's stupid, but it also says that any rival
can question the gender of an athlete and that athlete
has to submit themselves to gynecological exam to prove their gender,
(27:51):
but only if they're a woman. So it's literally a
law that says a woman has to drop her drawers, right, doctor,
look up her huha. But boy, does not, does not
is a point and click violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
And the Republicans on the Court are going to say
that that is fine because they hate trans people. Like
(28:13):
that is where we're at, where they're And it's probably
going to be a Kavanaugh opinion because Kavanaugh likes to
remind everybody that he coaches girls basketball and that somehow
is supposed to make us forget about the rape allegations.
But anyway, it's probably going to be Kavanaugh saying that
the way to protect girls in sports is to make
them drop their panties on requests. That is going to
(28:38):
be the upshot of the Supreme Court's opinion.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
And what I think is so important about this is
that they really hate women sports too. Like you'll say, well,
this is one thing that gets conservatives to give a
shit about women's sports, but actually this will make it
much more unpleasant for women and women's sports because if
you don't look at certain way, you can get checked
(29:02):
out by your coach and that or whoever. Like one
of the things that I like to thread the needle
on is that you think, oh, this is just discriminating
against trans kids, and yeah, while my kid's not trans.
This is opening the door to discriminating against everyone, against
people don't look a certain way, against this, against you know,
(29:24):
and making it more unpleasant for women to do. You know.
I just think it's important to thread the needle that
this opens the door to something you can't necessarily close.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
One of the main plaintiffs in the in the trans
case pulled out. She pulled out because it was ruining
her life, because she was getting someone to hate so much,
death threats. She just wants to run track at she
was a boyis date, Yeah, student, she just wants run track.
Trans woman who just wants to run track, And it
became such an all consuming thing their life. She pulled
(29:54):
out of the case. That is also their goal. People
just give up just to yeah, not fight. And that's
and that's an other piece with the conversion therapy thing.
And that's why I say the goal here from the
Supreme Court this year is to eradicate these people. It's
to shove these people back into some closet somewhere where
(30:14):
we pretend they don't exist.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
And and and we know.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
That that directly leads to suffering side And like again,
there is math here, folks. We know that two percent
of the population is intersects. Two percent of population does
not fit into your gender binary that you want them
to fit into. These people are here, They're real people
(30:40):
with real problems, and the and the goal is to
make them hate themselves as a legal manner.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
We're in this moment where the Supreme Court is rolling back.
You know, we just talked about as trands rights voting
rights to anti discrimination, because anti discrimination is discrimination against
white people, which is, by the way, something white supremacists
have always said. This is not right. This is like
one of the tenants of white supremacy. I think, And
(31:09):
again maybe I'm just an optimist. I have been wrong
before because I was overly optimistic. But I think this
stuff feels medieval and that a lot of people do
not find losing all their rights within six month period
to be tenable. Talk to me about like, you know,
this is pushback for pushback for push you know, we're
(31:29):
like in these cycles of backlash. Talk to me about
your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Hey, look, the right answer was to go back to
Towy twenty one, like I told people, and expand the
court when you kept that is the right answer. The
only way that you get out of this Supreme Court
is by expanding the Supreme Court. And so while you're
saying that people are outraged, when you're saying that people
won't stand for it, so far, the Democrats have stood
for it. So far, the Democrats have taken it so far.
(31:57):
Even when you hear them, you know, make their speeches
and make their campaign pitches and whatever, they don't focus
attention on the Supreme Court as the as the ground
zero of all the revocation of rights that we're seeing.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
They don't.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
They're still on the Oh, the courts are gonna save us, right,
even though no matter what a lower court does, no
matter what a district court does, the Supreme Court is
always there to overturn them and back up Trump. Like
the focus on the Supreme Court as actually the problem,
not not a symptom of the problem, right, but what's
the actual problem. That is still lost on the Democrats, right,
(32:35):
And so at some level, like I don't see the
push I see the pushback from regular people.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I mean that's what I mean. I don't mean the party,
the party. I think you've lost the party, but I mean.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
No King's protest, like that's gonna be, that's gonna be invigorating.
But until the party focuses on taking the the people
who were out in the streets, giving them power back,
and taking that power away from the six unelected Republicans
in robes, we're not going to get anywhere. And as
(33:06):
far as from where I sit, the Democratic Party is
still nowhere near as focused on the Supreme Court as
it needs to be.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, Ali, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Molly.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Brian Chance is the senior Senator from the great state
of Hawaii. Welcome to Fast Politics, the Senator of Shots.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Thanks Molly, nice to see you.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Nice to see you. Everything's so incredibly bad. I have
nothing to say. I can't believe how bad everything is.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Well, let me give you some hope.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Okay, Now, granted we have to stitch it together, but
you know.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
All right, I'll take it.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
Hope and optimism is an action. And so I think,
first of all, a federal judge just now granted a
temporary restraining order against russ Vott and his attempt to
lay off a bunch of federal workers, basically to retaliate
against Democrats. And so we just went in court today,
and that's a non trivial thing. I think the other
(34:04):
thing that gives me some hope is that people are
starting to realize Republicans included the kind of velocity and
seriousness of this healthcare issue and the extent to which
prices are actually going to double. That's not a Democratic
talking point, that's actually what's happening.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
In Iowa, right in Iowa and Alaska today is Iowa though, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
And I just think there's no spinning like a letter
from your carrier, and so no one wins a shutdown.
So I don't want to characterize it as a win,
but I do think that we are fighting for the
right thing that the public agrees with us, and that
Republicans are starting to realize that they're going to have
to negotiate with us, both about the appropriations process generally
(34:47):
and constraining mister Russell vote, and also on healthcare. And
the final thing I'll say, which is now two or
three weeks old, but I thought it was really significant,
was when Brendan Carr tried to suspend Jimmy ca Kimmel
and Ted Cruz made a bet. Ted Cruz made a
bet that if he is to maintain his credibility as
a conservative and his viability as a future candidate that
(35:10):
he bet on the First Amendment and not on JD.
Vance's sort of view of the world. And what happened was,
he's not just Ted, CRU's well known conservative. He's the
chairman of the Commerce Committee who sort of yanked the
chain of the SCC chairman, which felt like it was,
you know, nineteen seventy eight with Fritz Hollings or whatever.
And what happened was as soon as Ted did that,
(35:31):
like five or six other Republicans said, yeah, also me
First Amendment. I would just say, there are some reasons
to be optimistic. And the last reason to be optimistic
is I think this rally on October eighteenth is going
to be tremendously optimistic and hopeful and joyful and peaceful
and patriotic.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
And I think whenever you do a thing.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
That you know allows everybody to sort of see each
other in person, to realize that you're not alone, to
realize that actually, democracy is not what we have, it's
what we do, and that we will prevail in the end.
I think that will be a hugely important moment for
all of us, in not just this battle, but in history.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I want you to talk about appropriations because Lisa Murkowski
not the only Republican to say this, but like, why
should Democrats make deals with Republicans if they're just going
to impound the money anyway or use a pocket recision
to claw back the money. Why trust the people who
(36:33):
are not trustworthy?
Speaker 5 (36:35):
Yeah, And I think one of the ways out of
just the narrower question around appropriations is can we get
a commitment from a sufficient number of Republican senators to
oppose any additional recisions? In other words, we're going to
enact the bill. It has to stick, right. That's the
recision is a technical term, but it's not that damn
hard to understand. It's that we pass this thing with
(36:56):
a bipartisan majority, and then they go, oh, it turns
out we don't want to spend money on a bunch
of democratic aspects of this bill, and so we're just
going to claw it back. They did that once on
four and eight. Was super hard. We tried to make
it as painful as possible. I think we succeeded along
those lines. And they have quietly told me that they
will oppose additional recisions packages and I you know, I
(37:18):
told them, you know, bipartisanship can't be your secret girlfriend
in Canada. Yeah, you've got to demonstrate that you understand
that when you enact a bill that you're a separate
and coequal branch of government. You might support the president
generally speaking, but when it's your bill, it's your bill.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
It feels like the posturing between Soon and Trump is
real weird. You know, Mike Johnson just serves at the
behals of Trump and is just sort of cleaning up
for him. Thune, it's more complicated. You're in the Senate,
Explain what the hell is happening there.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
I can't say I have super deep insights into that relationship,
but I think it is fair to say that, you know,
Mike Johnson will not make a move until Trump tells
him to. Thune, I think is at least will to
authorize some of his deputies to like go behind lines
and see what's possible. But I have not seen him
put together a bipartisan deal yet. And that is the
test of a majority leader, right is whether you can
(38:12):
work with the minority party and get bills done. And I,
by the way, I also think it's the test of
an opposition party is can we deliver a bipartisan deal
of some form or fashion where we get some wins
and we don't get screamed at because we didn't get
all the wins.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Right.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
Like, I've had this conversation with people, you know, in
my office, my colleagues, you know, in the media, in
the base, like if the standard is unless you stop
the fascism, you can't vote yes on anything, that's just
too high of a standard.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Right.
Speaker 5 (38:45):
And so point here, especially in appropriations, right, is to
say we're the article one branch. We decide how the
money gets spent, and if we get accomplish that, that
is a real ratcheting down of presidential power that is
worth getting, even if it's like only eight percent of
the stuff we eventually need to accomplish. Nobody accomplishes everything
(39:06):
all at once, and certainly not if you're in the
minority party.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
So explain to us, because what you're talking about, I
think is real. The base is furious, and I know
because I talked to you know, people come up to
me and they say, you have to talk to Dita.
You have to I'm like, you misunderstanding what my job is.
But the base is furious. So they're like a little
less furious I think because they feel that this shutdown was,
(39:33):
you know, a real line in the sand against this
sort of authoritarianism. But where do you find yourself in
this Because you're in a younger generation that's considered to
be more of a fight, right, This is what you
know from Pritzker's camp. They talk about it's not left
versus right, it's fight versus cave. So talk to me
(39:53):
about that.
Speaker 5 (39:54):
You fight for something right, You know, we have a
special obligation to fight for things, and in this case,
we're fighting for these ACA premium tax credits because people's
insurance rates are about to go up by one hundred
and fourteen percent, And we fight for the ability if
we do enact a spending bill for it not to
be undone by an unelected bureaucrat in the White House.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
So those are the things that we fight for.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
But I mean, I'm a little worried that we could
win some of these things. And people say, well, what
about the masks?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Right?
Speaker 4 (40:25):
What about that?
Speaker 5 (40:25):
You know, it's sort of like, yes, all of those
things are important, and if you want me to solve
all of them at once, we will solve none of
them at once. I think part of our problem as
a party, as a movement is there aren't that many
politicians who say, look, here's what's possible and here's what's
not And to the ear of a sort of angry
person who's pissed about everything that's happening, everything sounds like
(40:46):
a cave to them, right, But whe're your lead negotiators.
What that means is we negotiate four things, not endlessly
and for nothing.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I'm just gonna take double's advocate for a second. Democrats
are pretty good at telling voters what they can do
in a way, whereas Donald Trump was like, and I'm
going to do this, and I'm gonna do that, and
none of it was doable, but he didn't win elections
on it. So my question for you is like, is
it better to be the good guys who are telling
(41:17):
the truth or the good guys who win elections?
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Well, I mean, look, I'd rather win.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
And I think that our movement has to elevate winning
as a high principle. The accumulation of power on behalf
of vulnerable people, on behalf of democratic ideals. That is
a high principle. Winning is great. Winning should be not
frowned upon or looked on as though you sold out.
(41:43):
Winning is important, and we've gotten a little bit not
just unattached from winning, but there's a cohort of people
who want to critique power as the only way you
could get power is sort of ill begotten.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
So I agree with you on all that.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
I just honestly think we have to occasionally talk to
our folks like they are highly engaged.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Right.
Speaker 5 (42:04):
And find is that when I talk to people in person, right,
if I'm in it doesn't matter if it's a group
of two hundred and fifty people in you know, why
meya on the Big Island, or if I'm in like
a living room, or I'm talking to a family member
or friend. Like when I explain myself, people are like, oh,
that makes sense, right, So explaining yourself is not explaining.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Away why you have no power.
Speaker 5 (42:25):
It's a I have some limited power here, I'm going
to use it for this specific purpose to get this
particular thing, and here's why. And I think that we
have to build enough trust that if you do get
into the business of explaining what you're up to, that
it doesn't just become oh, you're one of those people
who caves. Because I do think like your point, Molly
is really right, which is that so many lawyers, so
(42:47):
many strategists, so many careful people who lock themselves out
of everything, right, But there's somewhere in between lying like
Donald Trump and being a lawyerly knit when I'm trying
to find that sweet spot and this.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
So now you're now you've hit my one topic that
I care about basically, which is so you and Chris Murphy,
you both speak in a very clear way, and you're
good at communicating. You don't do the thing that makes
me crazy, the thing where I actually had a fight
with a Democratic politician because I said, if you speak
(43:23):
English sentences, people are going to be much more interested
in supporting you. And so my theory is that Barack
Obama was such a talented messenger that he could say
anything and people would be like, yes, yes, yes, And
so the legacy of that was there were people who
were like, yes, I can say things if I say
them in the right way and people won't care about
(43:44):
the substance. But the truth is that's not how any
of this works. So you have people who are talking
like they're from Veep. You know, it's a mera ka,
and then you put the cut and you're like, none
of this relates to my world of English language. So
you guys don't do that. But how do you get
everybody else out of that?
Speaker 5 (44:03):
I mean, I think we are getting better at being clearer,
and I think this healthcare fight has been a pretty
good example of the Democratic Party, for all its faults,
being crisp with what we're trying to accomplish together. Now
there are healthcare care experts, you know, in the Senate,
and solet's talk about premium support, tax credits, and they're
(44:24):
going to talk about the exchange, and then you know,
and then you've got Gego who certainly knows all those things.
But it is also just saying Donald Trump is making
you sicker and poorer. It does take all kinds.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
It's the cautiousness that makes me cuezy. It's the loyalliness.
And this was a big problem in the twenty two cycle,
in the twenty twenty cycle, on the twenty four cycle,
you know exactly what I'm talking about, the inability to
just just say the thing and say it again and
again and again everywhere.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
Yeah, and but I mean, more to the point, just
say the thing right you're riding And I like your
theory about Obama. I haven't really turned it around in
my head long enough to know if I agree. But
he was so damn lyrical that it was really like
it was like it could have been Portuguese, and you're like,
I like that guy, right, And so that is a
lot of it. But I also just think there's a
vibes problem. Right, We're starting to solve that. I mean,
(45:14):
one of the things I saw in some reason polling
is that for the first time, Democrats are gaining an
advantage on the question of the cost of living, and
that is an enormous sign of progress. And so all
those folks you included, but you know, dozens of others,
thousands of others who have correctly criticized the Democratic Party
(45:35):
for not having a clear and crisp message. Here we
are with a clear and crisp message. And so you know,
Matti Glecia Assession sometimes says it, just say the thing
if you like what I'm saying, or what Murphy saying,
or Andy Kim is saying whatever, like, just boost that
you don't have to say Andy Kim is saying, not
what that other person is saying. Because the sort of
(45:55):
theater criticism aspect of democratic politics is like I'm I'm
a gossip and so I like that part where I'm like,
I think that person said that right, but nobody knows
a shit right, and and it sort of reinforces this
sense of fecklessness where it's like, you know what twenty
Democrats said things, I liked what thirteen of them said.
I'm going to boost the thirteen and ignore the seven
(46:18):
and the incentive structure then habituates people to like talk
more plainly, more clearly, and more crisply. But we don't
have to kind of get into it. Not everything is
like a media training for members around for a long time.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
No, And you know, I did write this piece that
was a little critical in the Times. Now that I
write for the New York Times, I get in trouble.
When I used to write for Manny Fair, it was
fine because people didn't necessarily read all my stuff. But
it's the only game in town. The other party is
doing stuff. You know, has the mask with the smoke bombs.
I mean, you have these thoughts because you're worried that there's.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Or not up to it.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Yeah, and now when you're just worried good to have
a one party system is pretty bleak.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (46:59):
I agree, And that's why this has to be a
movement of people who care about healthcare, who care about democracy,
who care about the Constitution, And that's why we all
have to show up in person. And then individual politicians'
ability to like hit that perfect note, you know, Bill
Clinton ala Barack Obama is like, it'd be great if
(47:21):
we find our next Bill Clinton, our next Barack Obama,
our next sort of magical communicator that sort of obviates
all of our structural problems. But the structural problem is
that culturally, in the last cycle, we had lost folks.
As long as we focus on costs, we can win
a lot of them back. Because who did we lose.
We lost working class individuals of all colors, and we
(47:43):
lot young people. And why were they pissed? They were
pissed because the president was old and couldn't explain himself,
and the cost of everything had gone up precipitously. There's
no particular reason to think these people are like they
swung over to Trump and now they're super happy with
everything that's happening. If they were pissed about prices a
year ago, they got to be even more pissed about prices.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
It's a much worse now, it's.
Speaker 5 (48:05):
Way worse, and it's being done on purpose, And so
I just think that's why we have to be relentless
in our focus on the price of everything, because you know,
one of the things that we've learned from fascists in
Europe and elsewhere is usually defeating fascists is not accomplished
by talking exclusively about fascism. It's for mundane stuff like
(48:27):
whether or not there are shortages of bread and electricity,
and we're about to have shortages of bread and electricity.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Yeah, I'm really excited for the electricity. So a lot
more younger Democrats in the Senate, Ruben, you, Andy Kim,
Chris Murphy, like a real sea.
Speaker 4 (48:43):
Change clockin also Brooks.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Yeah, right, leadership old, some of whom are retiring. I
personally have only you know, the most support for leadership.
But I'm just curious, like, I mean, is that being
talked about? Are people? I mean, is this monoliths? Are there?
Is there give the people something here?
Speaker 5 (49:04):
I think there's a generational transition happening in the United
States Senate. And it's Murphy and Heinrich and Booker and
Kim and Slotkin and Diego and also Brooks.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
We love Martin Heinrich.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
Yeah, I do too.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
He's so handsome, all right, go on to it.
Speaker 4 (49:19):
He's dreaming.
Speaker 5 (49:23):
But I think there really is a generational shift, and
I think that the kind of frustration with leadership generally speaking,
is a placeholder for why aren't some of you guys
doing something about all of this stuff? Waves in every direction.
Think that our unity and our clarity in this appropriations
fight is helping to demonstrate that we are you know, look,
(49:45):
we're not always operating on all cylinders, but right now
we've got our shit together, and I think that that's
worth celebrating and emphasizing.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah, that was good. You almost got to my question,
one last question, and then I promise that we'll stop
asking questions. The base hates it. I'm a fancied Jew,
so every time I go out to dinner, people yell
at me. It definitely feels like this is the base
is no longer like that used to be even a
year ago. Okay, and the goalposts have moved on a
(50:16):
pack go sots.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (50:19):
I mean, I'm not in cycle, so I don't know
the particulars of how it's playing in individual races, but
I will say that the general public Democrats, Republicans, independence
has soured on the nets and Yahoo government for very
specific and valid reasons. And it's not just that Netsan
yah who has moved forward with an absolutely brutal, inhumane,
(50:41):
illegal war against the Palestinian people. It's that his government
is comprised of people who were so radical that you know,
one of the guys was too radical to join.
Speaker 4 (50:51):
The idf Right.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
People are really out of control, and so to the
extent that a pack is essentially echoing what Benjamin nets
and Yao, who says, I think it's quite reasonable to say, I,
respectfully would like to disaffiliate with you, folks. I have
said that directly to the leadership of APEC. I have
told them that their position of basically never straying from
(51:13):
the nuts and Yahou line has made Israel less safe,
has made peloticians less safe, has made Jews in the.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Diameters very correct.
Speaker 5 (51:21):
You care about the cause of peace in the Middle East,
then there's no way to justify what Netanyahu has done
over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Thank you, Thank you no more. Jesse Cannon smiling.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Remember what we used to talk about woke generals? Really,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
I'm sorry. I forget everything we do. It's the only
way to stay saying.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
So.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
There used to be these jokes that the conservatives talked
about generals like that they are sitting around and reading
critical race theory all day. So now Pete Haigsith is
losing it because a general who was in charge of
of striking down boats that we don't know if we're
actually dealing drugs is now like, nah, this is too
much for me. I'm out.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
So I think it's important to take a minute here
to realize that this administration has been blowing up ships
in the Caribbean, literally blowing up ships in the Caribbean
because they say they think they're drug traffickers. There is
no evidence to support the fact that they're drug traffickers.
We are not at war with Venezuela. This is just
(52:29):
insane bullshit that is illegal. Okay, yet another place where
we can see this administration doing illegal shit. I think
that everyone should resign. This is like the question of
you know, Markalized had this really good point the other
day which was like, if you work in the DOJ,
resign because you are helping an authoritarian takeover. There are
(52:52):
no adults in the room. You are helping this crimey
crime crime Honoris crime criminal crime syndicate, and they are
killing people in the Caribbean for seemingly no reason. I mean,
maybe they have some reason, but because they hate Venezuela,
(53:13):
because they might think they're drugs. I mean, this is
like so bad. This is the kind of thing that
is so bad. We need new words for bad. Okay,
this guy is out. Admiral Averril Hulsey is out because
he thinks that blowing up Venezuela and drug boats or
just Venezuelan fishermen is not what he signed up for,
(53:34):
and quite frankly, I would like to see more of
those agreed. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear
the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a
(53:56):
friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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