November 15, 2025 • 49 mins
NOTUS’ Evan McMorris-Santoro examines the fallout from the post-Epstein emails.
Then Semafor’s Dave Weigel details the vibe shift since Election Day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
New Reuters ipso's poll says fifty one percent of Americans
are opposed to military strikes against drug boats.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
We have such a great show for you today. Notice
his own Evan McMorris, San Toro stops by to talk
about the post Epstein email fallout. Then we'll talk to
Semaphore's Dave Weigel about the vibe shift since election Day.
But first the news.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
What would you say if I told you that Trump
is taking his cues from Zoronmandani.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I would say that I wouldn't actually be that surprised,
because I had some reporting that's said as much.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, now all everybody's talking about is affordability, and I
think it's a very interesting story that particularly more is
Cats told on our podcast last week that when everybody
was thinking of other things, Zoron had a hunch that
even though the pulling said othertherwise, that affordability was the
real thing people needed to talk about.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
And now it's trickled all the way up to the
White House.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
So we know that Trump found Mondani to be popular
and to be charming, and that he had sort of
like game recognized his game, Like he saw a politician
that had that thing that he has, and he was
both threatened and also inspired by it. But the problem
(01:37):
was affordability for Trump. Is that Trump is now, I mean,
he's basically in if you do the math, his fifth
year in office, and he has yet to make anything
more affordable. If anything, things seemed to be less affordable
than ever.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Right, you walk in the grocery aisles, your jaw drops
at the prices these days.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Right, So the idea that Trump could somehow vibe shift
this seems in my mind to be kind of not
But maybe he'll be able to do it. But this
affordability issue is kind of like I just don't think
you can put lipstick on a pig like this. I mean,
(02:24):
it's this idea that the richest cabinet in the world, right,
the richest cabinet, These are the richest people in the
world serving in the government. You have an administration that
the first three months you had Elon Musk practicing reverse philanthropy.
It's hard to spin this as now they care about
affordability just because Democrats want an election on affordability.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So Fanny Willis's Georgia election interference case against Trump will
carry on for now with a new prosecutor.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah again, look, this is super interesting because, like, this
is something that Trump does not want, just like the
Epstein files being released, just like the Supreme Court arguing
against his tariffs, right, just like him hearing some of
(03:14):
his Supreme Court justices complaining about the tariffs or pushing
back on the tariffs. This is not what Donald Trump wants.
And you know, little cracks in Trumpism are showing, and
you know, you could say I'm being overly optimistic, but
I really think that's what this is. Like, he is
(03:34):
losing his power over the Republican Party. When Marjorie Taylor
Green and Lauren Boepert and Nancy Mays and Tomas Massey,
when these people are breaking with him, they're breaking with
him because they see opportunity, because they see a place
where the party is no longer Donald Trump's. And so
things like this, every little bit of this starts to
(03:57):
disintegrate the power of trump Ism. And these things are meaningful.
And Georgia is a really good example of the place
where there are two Democratic senators. They lost a state
house race. I think this is meaningful.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, no, I totally agree with you that I think
this is a show of the increasing weakness. So weird,
weird week of lots of related news stories. We see
such a disturbing story in the New York Times about
former congressman and Trump's ag pick, Matt Gates and a
seventeen year old girl who is trying to get braces.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Think about this is like a backlash to a backlash
to a backlash, right, me too, you know, sort of
canceled a lot of these bad guys, and then there
was kind of a backlash and Donald Trump got reelected,
and now we come back to this fact that some
of these people are just bad people. So here's the story.
Trump initiated a g pick. He denies report he paid
(04:56):
for sex with a homeless seventeen year old saving money
for braces. Like, every part of the story is so bad.
But these kind of stories, people don't come up with
these things haul coths usually, so a bombshell bipartisan report
from the House Ethics Committee. By the way, the House
Ethics Committee is known to be toothless. So the idea
(05:19):
that they have come up with something that is this
bad is a pretty good sign that my man Matt
Gates was too no good that he Gates regularly paid
women to engage in sexual activity. One of those transactions
involved a seventeen year old girl in twenty seventeen. The
girl's lawyer, Lord be Wolf, spoke to The New York
(05:41):
Times after a federal judge unsealed documents related to the
seventeen year old's alleged experience. So she's homeless, she is underage,
and she's being taken advantage of. Greenberg later paid her
four hundred dollars to meet him on his boat. Greenberg
is an ally and friend of Gates is who was
in jail for sex trafficking. Greenberg contacted her again and
(06:01):
paid first sex seven times before inviting her to a
party at the home of Chris Dorthworth, a former Republican
member of the Florida State House of Representatives. Gates attended
the party, which took place Underly fifteenth twenty seventeen, had
sex with the seventeen year old twice that evening. Her testimony,
which was included in the report seen by The New Time,
(06:24):
stated that she was paid four hundred dollars documents stay
she danced in front of them and swam naked in
the polls popper. She then moved to Texas to use
her minimum wage income to pay for braces. The alleged
incident only came to light when Greenberg was investigated for
mailing fake letters to a school where a political opponent worked,
claiming the opponent had sexual relationship with a student. Look,
(06:48):
this guy could have been the head of the DOJ.
Like the DOJ.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Everybody think he was running for governor this round, And yeah,
I think this is the end of that.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
In congratulations Governor Byron do.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's so so so disturbing, and it's so dark and
it's just horrific.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Speaking of Florida, not my favorite state.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
When we did our little dot com project twenty twenty five,
one of the things you really noticed reading that document
is these people are real excited to get their warped
ideas into schools. And what we now see is Florida
will be adopting the Heritage Foundation's school agenda.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
This is so if Florida has really cooked its own
education crew and just beyond and they've adopted this conservative
education plan, it is from Heritage. Heritage is pretty cooked.
It's developed by again, this is Project twenty twenty five.
Basically Florida Governor Ronda sant All Governor Ronde Santas wants
(07:54):
is to be president and he thinks that if he
goes the most MAGA, he will be president. And there
is almost really no evidence to support that MEGA is
ideological as much as it is just you know, charismatic
and a lot of ways, MAGA is really just whatever
Trump wants it to be. But this crew has a
(08:17):
sort of ideological bent. And so they're going to take
over these Florida schools and you know, God only knows
what they'll do to these kids. They'll teach them, you
know that dinosaurs were not you know, real, and who
even knows, But Florida students and families deserve investment in
(08:39):
their public schools, not a political pledge written by outside groups.
Isn't this actually just political campaigns? Like it's a little
ironic trojan horse. Here, here we are, ladies and gentlemen,
and there we go. Dave Weigel is a reporter at
(09:04):
some before. Welcome to Fast Politics, Evan, Alight, thanks for
having me. I'm so excited to have you to talk
about how this insane moment in American political life.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
That's your evergreen intro, right, you use that for every
episode pretty much.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I think today sometimes American politics is just really disappointing
and sometimes it's really worrying. But right now we're in
this period like I feel like the first nine months
of Trump's administration, it was like, oh shit, this American
(09:43):
democracy experiment may be over. And now I feel like,
oh no, these guys are doing what they did last time.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Yeah, well, you know I did. I was in a
c SPAN analyst on election night, so I sat there
all night a.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Question try and to make me jealous.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
No, yes, exactly, but no.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
The fun thing about doing on CCS.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
On you know, I'm like obsessed with c SPAN, and
you take calls.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
And everything, and the funny thing about it is that
it's like you're just kind of like a learning the
studio with the host and you're watching all of the.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And also no one is watching it, but may that's right.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Well, you only had some callers it, Okay, my mom watched,
I think, but they they do a lot of uh
they you know, they show all the speeches and everything.
So it was fascinating for me because that night was
sort of as you say, it was this moment of like,
oh right, like politics are actually still happening, Like this
administration is failed to message itself because you know, heading
(10:41):
into that cycle, right, the whole idea was this administration
is so different. This is a dimocrat of politics. Right,
They're going to be able to stay in power forever.
We're going to win every election. Democrats have nothing, they
can't do anything. And then sort of every different kind
of style of Democrats they were around the ballot effective
won all over, which is I was a strange moment
(11:04):
of like, oh okay, I guess the loss of Grabby
do apply. And then of course the most hilarious part
about that is that I'm like home that someday or whatever,
whatever Sunday, that what recent Sunday, doing my newsletter that
I have you for notice, and like as we're watching
this implosion of the democrats shutdown strategy happen in real time,
and I was another moment where all of a sudden,
(11:25):
everyone's like, oh my god, the Democrats they're they're they're
they're doing it, they're blowing it. It's this oh my god,
and we're and we're backing this idea that like politics
is broken forever and the Democrats are blowing it. And
then where we sit today, the President looks completely feckless.
He's had his own business yelling at him by H
one B. Visa's telling him about Epstein, yelling him about
(11:46):
the things he's been saying and doing.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
And the Democrats, which like three days ago were like
forever gone and destroyed because of this of this shutdown
thing that's like agent history now and now we're back
in this world in which Trump is once again bad
and not and has no control and can't handle anything.
So you're right, And this is one of the wildest
roller coasters I had been on, and I think it
(12:09):
does sort of end with Trump is like not doing
that great and his administration is not doing a great
job of communicating or rechiging itself very well.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
He's also, my man is underwater on all the things.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Look, the most interesting thing I've been tracking this since
the beginning of the administration, right, because the main thing
this administration tried to do and pitch, just like on
administrations do, was twenty twenty fours economics an economy election.
This president said, I'm an economy guy where I do
a bunch of economy stuff, and I've been tracking through
the entire time kind of the messaging that they've been
(12:48):
trying to do, and if it has mostly been look,
we know what we're doing. People are going to tell
you this is bad, but it's actually really good. You
got to hang out air, trust us, and you've got
to believe us. Right, the polts have shown that that's
now really been working, and now this president has reverted
to the kindie economic messaging that was just the Biden
(13:09):
economic message. You like, actually, you the American people are wrong.
Everything is great, We're doing great. Everything rocks. And that
is kind of a funny full circle moment because you're
in the situation where you're just looking at this. I've
talked to Biden officials throughout the administration like sort of
like from the beginning of this, Like you can go
back and look at the reporting I was doing in
January to now, and I ran the story a bunch
(13:30):
of times of like officials from a Biden administration being like,
oh my god, Like they're saying the same stuff that
we said. They're doing the same stuff that we said. Right,
Because this this central challenge of like, we have these
basic economic problems that will probably take a long like
need long term solutions, but the public wants short term solutions.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
This guy was supposed to be able to figure that out,
because the whole thing about Trump is he's such a
great communicator, he's so well trusted and so well believed
that he's the guy people will follow into hell because
some promises there, but the other side things will be good,
and that is one thousand percent not happening. And so
you were watching them flail around the same way that
(14:09):
other administrations short face the same problem flail around, which
is that way they have no way to explain to
people what to do about these prices and things like that.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
But I do think that a real difference between trump
Ism and normal administrations of any stripe is that Trump
did tariffs, and tariffs made things more expensive. So like
he ran saying like I'm going to make bacon cheaper
(14:43):
and then almost immediately did everything he could to make
things more expensive. Now, I don't think he thought that's
what he was doing, but that is a direct a
direct consequence of.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
The tariffs, that's right. And I'm going to tell you
they had no plan for this have been talking to that.
I think I've been reporting on just being an administration, okay,
because I kept asking them, you know, like there's a
political supporter perspective, So what's your plan from prices go
up because of terrorists? What's your plan? What are you
going to say?
Speaker 6 (15:11):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 5 (15:12):
And what they would say to you repeatedly over and
over was they're not going to go up. They're not
going up. It's not going to happen. They're not going
to go up. They're not going to go up. Lately
they've been saying things like, well, look a little bit
of short term pain, you know, but they haven't been
doing that right along, and they can't. And now they're
talking about me piling back some of these teriffs. You know,
just switch over. But I'll say, you know, the other
major difference is that they don't appear to have a
(15:34):
message that at all connects with what people are actually
feeling and thinking about. You know, like a lot of
things with the Biden administration, they did a lot of
stuff that actually sort of like was sort of what
experts and a lot of folks think it's sort of
the right thing to do to freeze and manufacturing jobs back,
raise wages. You know, you can look at the inflation
and the rest of the whole world and the inflation
(15:54):
of America, and it was like kinds of better in
America during that inflationary period, et cetera. They couldn't really
communicate that because of various and surnry reasons, primarily you know,
Biden was not the best person to be commun getting it.
The Trump administration is like face planting wildly with its attempts.
Like a thing that really fascinated me to happen recently
was almost sudden You're like, oh, what about a fifty
(16:16):
year mortgage?
Speaker 6 (16:17):
Guys?
Speaker 7 (16:19):
Cheaper it's longer, it's gonna be fifty years, so like
it's cheaper to get it because you have to pay
less money every year. Brilliant and like immediately maga world
and sort of folks who aren't like the populists right
said like what are you talking about? Like you wann't
be able to pay more money to the banks? You
want there to be more debt, like.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Like like this this is a solution that like when
it was rolled out, it was like strutting around like
a ha, we got it, Like did off fifty year mortgage.
And it's like immediately everyody's like this insitute i've ever
heard and you've not heard about it again, right, this
This is the kind of thing that's happening, is that
the reality of the situation is they have got to
give you know, they wanted they get an affordability message
(16:59):
that actually like takes on some of this stuff like
prices and things like that and some destructural stuff that
they're just not that interested in. Tariffs were supposed to
do it. But tariffs again makes everything more expensive right now,
Theoretically down the road, it doesn't. And they needed Trump
to be the guy to carry the public forward with them,
(17:20):
and it's not happening. One the taco thing, right, he
kept flipping around on these terairufs.
Speaker 6 (17:24):
Anyway.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Two, they can't stand the heat, which no administration can
stand either, which is like they're doing this, well, holy crap,
we could just drop the tariffs and maybe prices will
go down, and they're gonna do that's what they're talking about.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Truth.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
But you know, the healthcare thing, they have no plan
on the healthcare thing, as they've never had, right, Democrats
had a plan out, They've talked about it they have
an idea of how to bring healthcare costs down. In
this particular case, this ACA subsidy thing that would shut
down what's about was like literally a moment where you
could sign it, build and bring costs down. Republicans don't
want to do it. They're trapped in their own kind
(18:02):
of world on this. And I think it was sort
of always coming. But everybody just thought that these magicians
in Trump's White House, led by Trump himself, that somehow
have some sort of magic beings that could you know,
get through through this. They don't have it. And now they,
you know, they look like people who are just kind
(18:23):
of like grabbing anything they can get their hands on,
like a fifty year mortgage that nobody wants.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yes, the fifty year mortgage that nobody wants. What you
see with this administration when you when you see them
start to fall apart. What I think is so interesting
is you see what good messaging looks like and bad
messaging looks like. For example, Ebstein. So this administration is
(18:49):
on the run from Ebstein, right, And there was this
dump yesterday of thousands of emails. They had things like,
you know, Trump in Epstein, an in Palm Beach Thanksgiving
twenty seventeen. Now did they have a meal together, Who knows,
But there are emails that say they were both there
(19:09):
at the same time after Trump was already president, which
means that Trump's timetable, if these emails are true, is incorrect. Right,
that his timetable of not speaking to the guy since
two thousand and four is bullshit. So they're just the
dump after dump after dump of emails and this and
this one and that one, and a lot of them
(19:32):
that say Trump is stupid, like a lot.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Yeah, very traffic emailing.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yes, that's right, Yes, I mean a lot of typos.
What are your take? What's your I want to talk
about the messaging on the Epstein, but first I want
you to talk about your take on the Epstein emails.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Wellok, the Epstein emails themselves. I don't know that what
we had seen, Like you mentioned this idea of like
the timeline changing and things like that. I think all
you have to know about whether or not the administration
was worried about out more Epsteam stuff coming out is
because of how worried they are about more stuff coming out,
they're casting, you know, they drag Lauren Bobert through the
(20:08):
situation room to try and get her to kill this
discharge petition.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Did it work the first and last time that Lauren
Bobert will ever be invited to the situation room?
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Oh no, I mean never say never. Twenty twenty eats
up that far away, Molly, I shut up?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Why do you hate me? But as Sarah Palin Lauren
Boebert ticket.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Now, I think it's a Bobert emptg. I think I
think it's like it's time to get the space lasers
onto the sky.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
I think it's well, you do.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Not use my queen's name in vain and continue.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
But anyway, so you only have to know that they
that they don't want themut because it worked too hard
to think you get them out in ways that are
really embarrassing. I mean, you know they've tried to pressure
lawmakers and they couldn't get them to do it. On
the messaging front, I will tell you I spent yesterday
or the day after the emails came out. I just
sort of watched every stream daily stream of and email
and checked with my colleagues, reached out to every single
(21:06):
one of the right wing influencers that got that binder
back in February from PAYM Bondy the Epstein Binder that
like completely kicked off his entire.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Things was such a disaster, right, amazing, You've reached to
every single one of them.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I reached out to everything one of that. Well, we
reach out to a one or watch their st because
we all do daily streams and stuff. So we checked
in and see what they were all doing and saying. Right,
and in general, what they're saying is that like, look,
these emails don't don't change the story. Trump is like
not part of this. He's not the bad guy, and
these emails like he's not the bad.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Guys in all the emails.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Their view on the substance is that this doesn't actually
incriminate him more. And look, look these emails, they don't
say anything. They're not definitive, right, definitive is that birthday book?
Speaker 6 (21:48):
Right?
Speaker 5 (21:48):
That's like, oh wow, things are this is very bizarre.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
But I do say things like he knew about the girls.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Yeah, but like you know, you look at the context,
like whatever, this is what they said. But on the
messaging front, I will tell you, on the messaging front,
they are absolutely baffled. One guy said, I don't know
why he keeps using the word hoax. I think he
doesn't know what the word hoax means. Like, wow, everything
(22:19):
that the White House is doing to try to shut
this down Trump talking about a hoax. You know they
were not into the distart petition. I will say, like,
you can look at some messaging, like I don't know
what the White House is doing in terms of.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Pocket of these folks.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
My colleague Jasmine is pretty sure that they are fairly
regularly reaching out to the right wing media spear on
this issue. Though as yet it's not like those influencers
were egging the Republicans on to break with the president
and vote for the and vote for the bill to
get these morripcing files out. But they were baffled at
(22:52):
the messaging, very confused and really like I said, this
whole thing, but you know, he doesn't know what a
word hoax is, Like why he keep staying oaks Like
you're in the emails, this is real. What you've told
people is that you didn't do anything wrong and you're
not part of any of the amy criminal And the
emails don't seem to change that conversation. Why not just
let them out? Why not just talk more about that
and put that more out. It's opposed to this weird
(23:14):
thing of like this is not a real story. This
is not a real story. So that's from people who
like desperately want want that to be real. They're the
ones who are saying Trump is really messing up this messaging.
So that to me was really fascinating, and I think
there was a really illuminating as to where this moment
is that like they really don't know how to deal
(23:34):
with this because they've got a guy at the top
to keep saying, what are you talking at? Hoakx fak,
they're making this up and like nobody thinks that everybody
wants to see these emails, and they're not able to
get up in front of it because they have this
weird message of like this is not a work, this
is a waste of everybody's sorry, and like which by
the way, may end up very well being, but like,
(23:56):
who do you want to see this?
Speaker 6 (23:57):
At this point?
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Who doesn't want to see them?
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Though?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
My favorite for problematic messaging problem involves Megan Kelly, who
had a clip where she was saying a young fifteen
year old is not the same as a five year old.
(24:20):
Live your life, so you are never defending the difference
between having sex with teenagers and having sex with toddlers. Fair.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Fair, it's a good word to live. I do have that.
I do have that tattooed on my arm. You know,
I think it's a good it's a good rule of thumb. Look,
how did she get.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
To how did she mental gymnastics herself into a moment
where she was defending that?
Speaker 5 (24:48):
So I look, I think I don't really know what
to get in the head of digging Kelly particularly, but
I will. You know, this is this thing of how
they're all trying to cretchel themselves to deal with this,
and you know, this is a good this this is
the very like only like the weirdest libertarians you've ever
met in your life are the ones who do the like, well,
(25:10):
actually California is actually right, like it doesn't really particularly
matter very much, like, but but down this road, it's like, yeah, yeah,
this is this is one of those stopp incriminating yourselves conversations,
you know, right, But I think that, But I think
that it's because they're in this really tough spot because
(25:32):
they have they have nothing to grab onto because nobody
like the messaging of this thing is not like, yeah,
put them all out. We're fine, We're fine, but please
don't release anything else. And also like, look, you know
it's been interesting because Megan tell you think it is
representative of something going on in the concerative movement right now.
(25:53):
You know, she was the one who really cluded me in.
I watched her stream and clued me into all the
posts Charlie kirk assassination and talk about the conspiracies and
you know, about Israel, about exactly Israel and the idea
like she was only clued me into all that because
she was the one talking about Candice Owens being a
genius and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
So she's anti Semitic too.
Speaker 6 (26:16):
Well, I don't know anything about that.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
She says that she's not at all. She's like, she's
very strongly she strongly does.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Think Israel might be responsible.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Well, no, she had a whole clip that was talking
about Candace. This is right off the assassination things. You know,
there's things have changed ince then. But she talked about
how there was a you know, this sort of leading
that Charlie Kirk was supposed to have had at Bill
Appman's house and like this, you know, and and how
it was. The whole idea was that Charlie Kirk was
(26:46):
moving into an anti Israel position. And this is only
just very worthwhile to note all their worked while to
understand and this is a really reasonable conversation to have,
and like that is a sort of growing conversation as well.
And so when you see making Kelly's saying something that
sounds like really like the sort of farthest right take
on stuff, it's because like that far right is really
(27:09):
gaining a lot of traction right now, and at the
same time, the White House is trying to figure out
its way through this you know, really self imposed thicket
that if I mean, you know, it grew a thicket
and jumped into it when it comes to this, you know,
to this Epstein stuff, I mean, it's you know that
I don't know. The Binders are the perfect example of that,
(27:29):
where it's like they didn't release all the files but
said that they did, and like the whole thing was
really really wild.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
But like I think this there's all.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Swirling in a moment right now where like just suddenly
this whole political project does not seem that standing on
such a firm ground right now, they're talking about you know,
there's some in this conspiracy world. They're Taksinbau, who counts
as a panophile. These were paying Megan Kelly, you know
even the other people are talking about is the presence
(27:57):
bringing up talking about a hoax? Is it is kind
of like a moment where if you were in politics,
if you were running for something right now, you would
not want to be in their camp. Yeah, and that
is like a rare moment that has not been true
since sort of November of last year.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, oh man, it's all happening.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
It is.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
I mean, it really is like a very very very
rapid plip. But it's getting weirder and weirder. Molly, I
think it's like a I.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Don't know, you mispronounced stupider and more depressing.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
I don't know, we get that a shutdown conversation and
like just just right after we get coming up from
New Year's break. So I mean, if you.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Like that, thank you, Evan, of course.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
Molly, thank you. Please help me on as it gets
weirder and weirder.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yes, Evan McMorris Santro is a reporter at Notice. Welcome
to Fast Politics, Dave.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
Blagle, It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
We find ourselves and yet an they're incredibly strange but
also very stupid moment in American history. You're an intrepid reporter,
and you have been intrepidly reporting. What are you seeing?
Here's the fundamentally worst question ever in American politics? What
are the vibes?
Speaker 6 (29:16):
Is that the worst?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (29:18):
Okay, I'll roll with that. So they shifted. I guess
that's the worst answer to that question. They did shift,
And I wrote it about this last week, and I
followed up a little bit this week after I went
to Omaha and talked to Democrats in a swingy region
there that before Tuesday there was a worry this is
very different than eight years ago, a worry that Trump
(29:38):
actually was more popular than Democrats, understood that Poles were
underrating him, and that he had made games with Latinos
and young people that Democrats were not doing good job
of reversing. And you saw this in coverage. I'd say
more coverage of New Jersey than Virginia. Reporters going into
the field, it's finding that, Okay, we went to a
Latino event, they don't seem that excited. Therefore, things that
(29:59):
have been moving in Trump's direction, and then the election
happens and they weren't. So you saw that big shift
in how Democrats conceive of the electorate and its concerns,
which is, if I could sum it up, what we
need to do as Democrats is to point out the
costs are still high and a bunch of other economic
problems are still bad. And Trump didn't fix this, and
so he hit us with She's for them and he's
(30:22):
for you. We're going to him with my Republican opponent
is for Trump, and I'm for you. I'm the one
who cares about you. This guy is just making money
for himself. He's cutting tax for his friends. Insert the
rest of democratic messaging. But what changed is that they
weren't sure it was working, and now that thin get.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Is Yeah, I'm going to tell a story that sounds tangential,
but I actually think is really relevant. I have a
friend who's a very smart strategist. He's very smart, but
I think he's a little bit centrist in a way
that I think is a little bit destructive. But I
heard him on a podcast saying voters are so angry
that Biden is going to lose and we're going to
(30:56):
have backlash to backlash to backlash. Basically like voters are
just going to they don't have patience, so they'll kick
one person out and then they'll kick that. They'll change
so quickly they'll be bodship to bib ship to bid ship.
Is that what's happening here?
Speaker 6 (31:09):
That was the concern. And specifically, let's say that everyone,
if you average of everyone's media consumption of politics, the
country is less trusting of institutions than it was at
any point in modern history. Enterplayed mass media history and
that benefits Republicans. That was the worry for Democrats is
that occasionally we're going to be the party that's not
(31:30):
in power, and we can exploit that. When we're in power,
we don't know how to make people stop rejecting us.
And so this was a lot of the angst about Biden.
And I covered this over the course of the year.
Ye's not over, but I think most debates were mostly
happening before November. Hey, we Democrats, we reponsible Democrats tried
this with Joe Biden. We did a bunch of populous
stuff and it didn't benefit us. So gosh, maybe we're
(31:52):
stuck in a backlash loop. Like you were saying forever,
and I don't think that was changed by the election.
But Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey, in New York all
have opportunities to deliver something in the context to don
Trump being president trying to undermine them. And so what
was really powerful for Mamdannie and Cheryl more than well
the whole year for Demo president In Virginia, the fact
(32:12):
that Trump was was firing federal workers was toxic Republicans.
They never came up with an answer. They punted, they
got destroyed. In New Jersey and New York, it was
more direct. The President out of spite, is going to
be cutting things. New York and New Jersey was expecting
things they paid through the tax dollars paid for. So
New York was suing all year and I mean, you
know this suing all year for just funding that the
(32:33):
city had received that the administration wanted to take back.
In New Jersey, it was the Gateway tunnel. Trump in
a snit was just going to cancel this funding that
the state fought twenty years for. That threat is going
to continue existing. And so this is a new dynamic
for Democrats is the parties in power in a bunch
of places. It's going to try to do things and
Trump will be they're undermining it. And will voters say,
(32:56):
we wish you would change your policy and just agree
with Trump, or will they say, dang, I wish Trump
was not screwing this up. Is it giving them not
in the jail out, get out of jail free card,
but something to say if let's say, in four months, mom,
Donnie's entire agenda has not been in place. Yeah, I
think it does. And Republicans experienced us under Biden. It
(33:17):
was easier for their incumbents even to get elected with
a very few exceptions under Joe Biden because they could say, look,
I'm greag ab but I'm trying to fix the border,
and this administration screwing with me a less intense versus
of that, I think happening. Fewer people being trafficked in
buses across state lines, but I see that happening already.
And I want to repeat myself too much from the
first question, But there was a year Democrats not being
(33:39):
sure if that was true. But maybe maybe it turns
out that voters do think Trump is right. And you
saw this in New York right away because I from
the story I wrote yesterday or for Wednesday. I talked
to people who've been on the Spikey Cheryl campaign and
then we're going to work for Kathy Hogel, and they
this is at least to Fanic was not that threatening
(34:01):
to them on Tuesday last week, very much less so
on Wednesday, because it looks like she's just going to
defend the Trump agenda even if it hurts the state,
and that's a terrible place Republicans to be. They figured
that out.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yes, I think that's right. Has there ever been a
politician with worse timing than a least to phonic.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
Maybe Hillary Quittin and Kamala Harris because they both Hillary
and then Kamala in twenty nineteen ran at the one
time in history when being a Democrat who was tough
on crime was bad. Maybe that first Stephanic. She's one
of many House members who are going to run statewide
this next year. The leading candidates for governor of Iowa
(34:41):
for governor of Wisconsin the Republican primary have been in Congress,
voting for Republican priorities in Congress and against Democratic bills.
She has done the same thing, but in a much
more intense way, and her campaign. I don't know if
if she is an auxiliary of the New York Post
or the New Ropost and auxiliary for every day her
campaign is basically at least dephonics said something terrible at HOKL.
(35:02):
But when your post has a feature on it and
then the campaign puts out what the New York Posts said,
a bottles to phonic, that was always going to exist.
But is this a bad cycle to be a Republican
on record for their whole agenda? It looks like it
kind of is, because what was the benefit from the
tax bill so far Republicans If they all voted for
the tax bill this summer in bluespates, that means they
(35:23):
could say, hey, I cut your taxes with the salt deduction.
They did fine in Nassau County and that's it. I mean,
they got they got pretty creamed. And the rest of
New York, certainly in the high tax parts of New Jersey,
Morris County is the sort of place that it's full
of people who want, we're going to use that salt deduction.
And it had been a Republican and it flipped to
Mikey Sheryl again, I compare a lot of stuff in
(35:43):
twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, because I think Democrats are in
a different position, but Trump is also more eubuistic and
less limited by his advisors. In twenty eighteen, Republicans say, well,
at least we have an economic situation that people are
not blaming Trump for. It's pretty good where you can
run on that no matter what other things blow up
for Trump and immigration was really their biggest weakness in
twenty eighteen. Now Republicans are a week if you look
(36:05):
at polling on who's handling the economy? Did are their
policies helping you? And they're just pretending that they're not.
They're pretending to hear Republicans. It's the Scott Bessett line.
It's all going to be great yet next year, don't
worry about it. Now, there's a little bit of punitory saying, well,
that's exactly what Joe Biden was doing four years ago.
It didn't work. Biden had an okay midterm considering.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I mean, part of the problem for Biden was the
way overperformed in the midterms, and that gave him confidence
to run again.
Speaker 6 (36:32):
Yes it duh. So the economy though might one people
see they didn't see Biden at that point, and over
time they blamed him for inflation, even after inflation had
gone back down. But in polvan And said who's responsible
for the econmy Biden and wagging Trump already owns that,
and Trump wanted to own it. Trum Trump that talks
about the golden age of America beginning on his inauguration
(36:54):
day and talked about how great the economy was all year,
and in the same interview they'll say that things are
better and also if they're bad, it's Joe Biden's fault.
This is the JD. Dvance line we inherited and Joe
Biden but fully suggests the voters don't think that. And
you're seeing the most significant response to that since the
election has been the administration rolling back some tariffs. Are
saying it's going to and not saying sorry, we're wrong,
(37:16):
that the terroriffs actually cost you money and they're unpopular,
but saying to lower prices. We're going to get rid
of these tariffs. Who knows who put them in there.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
I mean, it's not like Trump has been on the
record just musing about how great tariffs are all the time.
Speaker 6 (37:33):
Yes, and that turned out to be unpopular. So really,
like in New Jersey and Virginia, I was giving Democrats.
And the piece I've written since the election is that
I think I said just that the interest of journalists
and candidates are often at odds, and journalists wanted the
Democrats to have more exciting messages to write and new
responses to Republicans. And also you saw this, I'm not
(37:56):
really being negative at the Year Times, but you saw
a one year Time story by Shing Goldmacher a couple
weeks for the election about demograph are still running around
about Trump? Are they ever feeding the mistakes of the past?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Does it work?
Speaker 6 (38:07):
Does it work? And yes? The reason it worked is
because Trump was taking credit for a great economy and
voters thought, actually, tariffs are costing me too much, and
everything else is costing me too much, So I don't
want to vote for the park. He's taking credit for
this economy and it's too late. You already see people
blaming them for just prices not being that simple. Now.
There are layoffs that people who have been laid off
(38:29):
or unhappy about, but the main one is just he
said prices would go down, he cleaned they were down already.
They weren't, so he's just going to keep saying it,
and he's the well part where he is. I think
analogus to Biden is the bidenminstration would say, Hey, good news, everybody.
This one good that has been famously too expensive is
now much less expensive and people didn't care anymore. Oh
(38:49):
we fixed the baby formula outage. Nobody cared. That is
one thing they have in common that even Trump can't benefit.
If people are angry about something, and you're angry about
goes away, nobody says thank you, President for fixing it.
He's better at advertising than Biden, but hasn't really done
anything for him.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
I also think the problem for him is there is
a reason why politicians don't promise undoable things, and that's
because a lot of political gravity that didn't apply to
Trump is sort of catching up with him, right. Like
he used to be able to say stuff and no
one would ever be like, well what about But it
does seem like now there's you said tariffs were great.
(39:26):
Now everything's more expensive, you know what I mean? Like
there seems to be some amount of political gravity catching
up to him.
Speaker 6 (39:32):
Yeah, I'm obsessed. I don't think I wrote about this
week except for social media. I'm obsessed with how the
deministration will keep floating that people are going to get
three months either a rebate check from Doze or from
teriffs or the terroriffs. From that positim than anything. And
before we got on, I was just checking my email
and indep I have a fundraising email. I'm on a
couple fundraising lists. Is to see what they get. What
(39:53):
people who donate to the CAAAN it's get not they donate.
I just signed up. It's psychotic. Don't do it unless
you're reporter. But yesterday I have If you are a
donor to Donald Trump, you got an email saying would
you accept a terror rebate check signed by Trump? And
I do think it's starting. I watch a lot of
local news, partly because that's where campaigns are advertising and
spending time, and local loser report. How there are a
(40:15):
lot of segments, and there have been all year, but
in the last week since this terror frebate discussion began,
segments that are just a version of the President says
he might send out a check. What would it look like.
We talked to an expert about whether you're going to
get your check after a while. I think it's reasonable
for people to say I am unhappy because I thought
i'd get a check and I did not. That's what
it's happening too.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
That's a fundamental problem with Trump is is he has
only a couple of ideas, and he's like, well, send
people money that work during COVID, but there's not a
mechanism for that. We got to talk about the shutdown.
So it feels like the Democrats in the House did
actually stay together, you know. I mean Mike Johnson helped
them in a certain way by never bringing them back,
and it was the Senate that caved. Now, I from
(40:58):
someone who has covered the Senate deems the way that
this vote went down to have only people were up
for reelection in twenty thirty, people who were retiring, and
people who were not necessarily in danger voting to reopen
the government seemed a little bit too cute, I have
in my mind. Then, to have the Senate majority leader
(41:20):
vote now and give a long speech, it felt as
if the vibes were Chuck wanted to end the shutdown.
Speaker 6 (41:28):
That is fair. I've not been my colleague Burgess ever
it and other people who covered a Senate more closely
and daily than I do have gotten the feedback on this.
So it's fair to say that Schumer and other Democrats
were pushed into this shutdown strategy that they did not
fully support, and they were surprised how well it works.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
That is, and they turned it down in March, right,
and then they got so much pushback they had to
go along with it.
Speaker 6 (41:52):
One they got pushed back. I think also importantly, and
you've talked about this, is that in March the idea
of a lot of holdouts he did not want to
do a shutdown was if do a shutdown, russ vote
is going to fire a bunch more people because he
wants to do that anyway. And they learned over the
course of the year that russ vote was just gonna
just fire people anyway. They actually did get well. One
of the only things they got as a benefit from
(42:13):
ending the shutdown is officially that there's not gonna be
any more reduction the force while the government shut down.
Now in the law, there shouldn't have been any reductions
of forces during the shutdown anyway, but that changed everything
where Democrats said, we actually have a president who's just
going to try to fire people try to cut funds,
do it before court stops them, and then if the
court stops them, it's too late. That changed everything, and
(42:34):
I think that's gonna that's gonna That mindset will be
there for the next impass in January. I'm already predicting
an impass over over healthcare funding. They also became convinced
that if you're a Democrat, wanted to be over and
I actually Timillary has expressed this, I think better than
a lot of Democrats had, is well, you've changed the
conversation to healthcare, right, which yeah, yeah, and you got
(42:56):
things queued up for the Epstein discharge petition, which is
an advantage. So you should just take this win and
go on because you're not going to get something out.
And that, to me is credible because there's no shutdown
the part in order to shut to the end the shutdown,
the President just gave the House or the holdouts whatever
they wanted. That's that's not crazy. But for the Schumer
(43:17):
role in it was that definitely that he was pushed
by both progressives and by reality and he was talking
to Robins trying to make a scandal out of this,
but he was taught, he was in contact with progressive
groups like Indivisible to Move On that were saying, please
shut the government down? Should he not be? I guess
the idea there is that Democrats should not listen to
their interest groups. But the end that's true, that that
(43:37):
is true, and those same interest groups are going to
want a new leader. But not to write Schumer's biography
for him. But the role of him as leader for
the next few weeks or a few years is going
to be losing a bunch of Donald Trump, maybe winning
the Senate and then maybe facing pressure. I actually already
facing pressure AT's retire next year. So it's like being
being the Senate leader is not a great is not
(43:59):
a great place to suddenly come in and dominate and
run your party's agenda. If did Bernie Sanders is in
the party leadership, like undermining you, that's part of a job.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Didn't he say that he was going to not run
for reelection.
Speaker 6 (44:11):
He didn't say that.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
He hasn't He hasn't come out and said it.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
No.
Speaker 6 (44:14):
So what happened with Biden was that Biden's team in
twenty nineteen let word go out for some reporters that hey,
he was considering a one term pledge, and so people
who wanted to think Biden would run for one term
got some got something to hang on. And I'm not
trying to insall he'll for not memorizing ever news article,
but that became like didn't I read one somewhere that
he probably one term?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
It really did help him when because he could make
a case that maybe it was that Trumpian thing of
being a roar shack, right, you'll be whatever is wanted.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
Yes, and that Schumer has not been that definitive. It
did just that people in New York politics looking at
his calendar, which includes Schumer used to be famous for
going to every county in the state every year. He
has not done that discycle. So he he turns seventy
five this month, he turned seventy six after the midterms.
Would he be announcing in twenty twenty seven that he
(45:07):
wants to run for reelection That would take him into
his mid eighties. That's the assumption. So does he want
to say I Chuck Schumer right now, want to give
up my leverages leader and say that I got bullied
out of this job by move on? Yeah? Probably not,
but the invisible I guess job application going on for
Senate leader. That's already been happening, and part of it
is people in New York saying we don't think Schuber's
(45:30):
going to run it again. There's so many different angles
on this, but I want to get too tangential about
who would replace Humor. That's already happening because a lot
of people think he's not going.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
To run, who would replace Schuma.
Speaker 6 (45:41):
So a lot of conversations about aoc NO in leadership.
In leadership, Brian Schottz Center for What Hawaii has done
most of the work to get himself ready for that
compared to other people Amy Clover Shard in the leadership
and would be in the position. No one else has
been making moves that way, especially because I do think
there are their discrepancies between what progresses want the job
(46:02):
to be what the job ends up being. And so
a lot of progresses say, why can't we have the
most progressive fighter we have in the Senate every day
leading the messaging and the counterpoint. B Well, that's not
Republicans have Republicans didn't say, look at the Senate, we
need somebody like Josh Hawley or Rick Scott to lead us.
Rick Scott rand he lost. You have to be kind
(46:22):
of a sin eater in the job. You have to
be there for awful deals, and you have to if
you let's say there's a big Senate if Democrats have
a great Senate election in the midterms and they win,
Sharon Brown wins the seat, and Mary Paul Tola and
Alaska wins and they get everything, they get almost everything
they want to. But there's a new demograph from Iowa.
Some of them are just not going to vote with
Progresses on everything, and so you'll need some of these.
(46:44):
So I'm not trying to That is why shots who
got elected as a progressive, he was appointed to the
seat and then got reelected with the supported Progresses over
a more conservative candidate. He's already been willing to buff
progressive on some issues, and that's why people think, all right,
well he's ready. He's getting himself ready to win if
he runs for leader. His colleagues, including conative more conservative Democrats,
to say, great.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Yeah, Dave Wigo, I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 6 (47:07):
Oh yeah, thanks for having me. All these post election
periods are we actually have data? Really are great, so
happy to do it. They're no more pfectly.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Jesse cannon Somali Trump and his administration as a weapon
they're just so thrilled to use against anyone whoever wronged them.
And friend of the show, Congressman Eric Swolwell is the
latest victim of their weapon. He just announced today that
he's going to be running for governor of California and
(47:42):
they're going to go after him for mortgage fraud.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Bill Pulti works in the Trump administration, and what he
does is he finds people who have mortgages, and then
he finds enemies of Trump and he puts that Vinn
diagram together. And I think that Eric is the fource
Democrat that Bill Poulti has accused of mortgage fraud, with
(48:04):
varying degrees of success. But you know, here's the thing
about prosecuting people politically, it doesn't have to work and
necessarily like it's clearly bullshit, but it doesn't necessarily have
to work in order for them to get the Jews
from it. So that's what we're seeing here is just
(48:25):
a lot of them sort of grasping at straws and
trying to get this going. I don't think that they
can get any of these going because they've just done
so many, and they've all looked so intentional. So I
don't think that Trump world will get to do this.
And like, this is one of these things where it's like,
thank god they're stupid, because if they had been smart,
(48:47):
you know, and they had been like and they had
sort of like made up different cases, like some were
mortgage fraud and some were this and some were that.
Like in Putin's Russia, people get arrested for stuff like
iss right. So I do think that as much as
there's a certain amount of this that is scary, it's
also so stupid and thank god it's so stupid. That's
(49:12):
it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
New Reuters ipso's poll says fifty one percent of Americans
are opposed to military strikes against drug boats.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
We have such a great show for you today. Notice
his own Evan McMorris, San Toro stops by to talk
about the post Epstein email fallout. Then we'll talk to
Semaphore's Dave Weigel about the vibe shift since election Day.
But first the news.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
What would you say if I told you that Trump
is taking his cues from Zoronmandani.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I would say that I wouldn't actually be that surprised,
because I had some reporting that's said as much.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, now all everybody's talking about is affordability, and I
think it's a very interesting story that particularly more is
Cats told on our podcast last week that when everybody
was thinking of other things, Zoron had a hunch that
even though the pulling said othertherwise, that affordability was the
real thing people needed to talk about.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
And now it's trickled all the way up to the
White House.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
So we know that Trump found Mondani to be popular
and to be charming, and that he had sort of
like game recognized his game, Like he saw a politician
that had that thing that he has, and he was
both threatened and also inspired by it. But the problem
(01:37):
was affordability for Trump. Is that Trump is now, I mean,
he's basically in if you do the math, his fifth
year in office, and he has yet to make anything
more affordable. If anything, things seemed to be less affordable
than ever.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Right, you walk in the grocery aisles, your jaw drops
at the prices these days.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Right, So the idea that Trump could somehow vibe shift
this seems in my mind to be kind of not
But maybe he'll be able to do it. But this
affordability issue is kind of like I just don't think
you can put lipstick on a pig like this. I mean,
(02:24):
it's this idea that the richest cabinet in the world, right,
the richest cabinet, These are the richest people in the
world serving in the government. You have an administration that
the first three months you had Elon Musk practicing reverse philanthropy.
It's hard to spin this as now they care about
affordability just because Democrats want an election on affordability.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So Fanny Willis's Georgia election interference case against Trump will
carry on for now with a new prosecutor.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah again, look, this is super interesting because, like, this
is something that Trump does not want, just like the
Epstein files being released, just like the Supreme Court arguing
against his tariffs, right, just like him hearing some of
(03:14):
his Supreme Court justices complaining about the tariffs or pushing
back on the tariffs. This is not what Donald Trump wants.
And you know, little cracks in Trumpism are showing, and
you know, you could say I'm being overly optimistic, but
I really think that's what this is. Like, he is
(03:34):
losing his power over the Republican Party. When Marjorie Taylor
Green and Lauren Boepert and Nancy Mays and Tomas Massey,
when these people are breaking with him, they're breaking with
him because they see opportunity, because they see a place
where the party is no longer Donald Trump's. And so
things like this, every little bit of this starts to
(03:57):
disintegrate the power of trump Ism. And these things are meaningful.
And Georgia is a really good example of the place
where there are two Democratic senators. They lost a state
house race. I think this is meaningful.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, no, I totally agree with you that I think
this is a show of the increasing weakness. So weird,
weird week of lots of related news stories. We see
such a disturbing story in the New York Times about
former congressman and Trump's ag pick, Matt Gates and a
seventeen year old girl who is trying to get braces.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Think about this is like a backlash to a backlash
to a backlash, right, me too, you know, sort of
canceled a lot of these bad guys, and then there
was kind of a backlash and Donald Trump got reelected,
and now we come back to this fact that some
of these people are just bad people. So here's the story.
Trump initiated a g pick. He denies report he paid
(04:56):
for sex with a homeless seventeen year old saving money
for braces. Like, every part of the story is so bad.
But these kind of stories, people don't come up with
these things haul coths usually, so a bombshell bipartisan report
from the House Ethics Committee. By the way, the House
Ethics Committee is known to be toothless. So the idea
(05:19):
that they have come up with something that is this
bad is a pretty good sign that my man Matt
Gates was too no good that he Gates regularly paid
women to engage in sexual activity. One of those transactions
involved a seventeen year old girl in twenty seventeen. The
girl's lawyer, Lord be Wolf, spoke to The New York
(05:41):
Times after a federal judge unsealed documents related to the
seventeen year old's alleged experience. So she's homeless, she is underage,
and she's being taken advantage of. Greenberg later paid her
four hundred dollars to meet him on his boat. Greenberg
is an ally and friend of Gates is who was
in jail for sex trafficking. Greenberg contacted her again and
(06:01):
paid first sex seven times before inviting her to a
party at the home of Chris Dorthworth, a former Republican
member of the Florida State House of Representatives. Gates attended
the party, which took place Underly fifteenth twenty seventeen, had
sex with the seventeen year old twice that evening. Her testimony,
which was included in the report seen by The New Time,
(06:24):
stated that she was paid four hundred dollars documents stay
she danced in front of them and swam naked in
the polls popper. She then moved to Texas to use
her minimum wage income to pay for braces. The alleged
incident only came to light when Greenberg was investigated for
mailing fake letters to a school where a political opponent worked,
claiming the opponent had sexual relationship with a student. Look,
(06:48):
this guy could have been the head of the DOJ.
Like the DOJ.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Everybody think he was running for governor this round, And yeah,
I think this is the end of that.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
In congratulations Governor Byron do.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's so so so disturbing, and it's so dark and
it's just horrific.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Speaking of Florida, not my favorite state.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
When we did our little dot com project twenty twenty five,
one of the things you really noticed reading that document
is these people are real excited to get their warped
ideas into schools. And what we now see is Florida
will be adopting the Heritage Foundation's school agenda.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
This is so if Florida has really cooked its own
education crew and just beyond and they've adopted this conservative
education plan, it is from Heritage. Heritage is pretty cooked.
It's developed by again, this is Project twenty twenty five.
Basically Florida Governor Ronda sant All Governor Ronde Santas wants
(07:54):
is to be president and he thinks that if he
goes the most MAGA, he will be president. And there
is almost really no evidence to support that MEGA is
ideological as much as it is just you know, charismatic
and a lot of ways, MAGA is really just whatever
Trump wants it to be. But this crew has a
(08:17):
sort of ideological bent. And so they're going to take
over these Florida schools and you know, God only knows
what they'll do to these kids. They'll teach them, you
know that dinosaurs were not you know, real, and who
even knows, But Florida students and families deserve investment in
(08:39):
their public schools, not a political pledge written by outside groups.
Isn't this actually just political campaigns? Like it's a little
ironic trojan horse. Here, here we are, ladies and gentlemen,
and there we go. Dave Weigel is a reporter at
(09:04):
some before. Welcome to Fast Politics, Evan, Alight, thanks for
having me. I'm so excited to have you to talk
about how this insane moment in American political life.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
That's your evergreen intro, right, you use that for every
episode pretty much.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I think today sometimes American politics is just really disappointing
and sometimes it's really worrying. But right now we're in
this period like I feel like the first nine months
of Trump's administration, it was like, oh shit, this American
(09:43):
democracy experiment may be over. And now I feel like,
oh no, these guys are doing what they did last time.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Yeah, well, you know I did. I was in a
c SPAN analyst on election night, so I sat there
all night a.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Question try and to make me jealous.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
No, yes, exactly, but no.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
The fun thing about doing on CCS.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
On you know, I'm like obsessed with c SPAN, and
you take calls.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
And everything, and the funny thing about it is that
it's like you're just kind of like a learning the
studio with the host and you're watching all of the.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And also no one is watching it, but may that's right.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Well, you only had some callers it, Okay, my mom watched,
I think, but they they do a lot of uh
they you know, they show all the speeches and everything.
So it was fascinating for me because that night was
sort of as you say, it was this moment of like,
oh right, like politics are actually still happening, Like this
administration is failed to message itself because you know, heading
(10:41):
into that cycle, right, the whole idea was this administration
is so different. This is a dimocrat of politics. Right,
They're going to be able to stay in power forever.
We're going to win every election. Democrats have nothing, they
can't do anything. And then sort of every different kind
of style of Democrats they were around the ballot effective
won all over, which is I was a strange moment
(11:04):
of like, oh okay, I guess the loss of Grabby
do apply. And then of course the most hilarious part
about that is that I'm like home that someday or whatever,
whatever Sunday, that what recent Sunday, doing my newsletter that
I have you for notice, and like as we're watching
this implosion of the democrats shutdown strategy happen in real time,
and I was another moment where all of a sudden,
(11:25):
everyone's like, oh my god, the Democrats they're they're they're
they're doing it, they're blowing it. It's this oh my god,
and we're and we're backing this idea that like politics
is broken forever and the Democrats are blowing it. And
then where we sit today, the President looks completely feckless.
He's had his own business yelling at him by H
one B. Visa's telling him about Epstein, yelling him about
(11:46):
the things he's been saying and doing.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
And the Democrats, which like three days ago were like
forever gone and destroyed because of this of this shutdown
thing that's like agent history now and now we're back
in this world in which Trump is once again bad
and not and has no control and can't handle anything.
So you're right, And this is one of the wildest
roller coasters I had been on, and I think it
(12:09):
does sort of end with Trump is like not doing
that great and his administration is not doing a great
job of communicating or rechiging itself very well.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
He's also, my man is underwater on all the things.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Look, the most interesting thing I've been tracking this since
the beginning of the administration, right, because the main thing
this administration tried to do and pitch, just like on
administrations do, was twenty twenty fours economics an economy election.
This president said, I'm an economy guy where I do
a bunch of economy stuff, and I've been tracking through
the entire time kind of the messaging that they've been
(12:48):
trying to do, and if it has mostly been look,
we know what we're doing. People are going to tell
you this is bad, but it's actually really good. You
got to hang out air, trust us, and you've got
to believe us. Right, the polts have shown that that's
now really been working, and now this president has reverted
to the kindie economic messaging that was just the Biden
(13:09):
economic message. You like, actually, you the American people are wrong.
Everything is great, We're doing great. Everything rocks. And that
is kind of a funny full circle moment because you're
in the situation where you're just looking at this. I've
talked to Biden officials throughout the administration like sort of
like from the beginning of this, Like you can go
back and look at the reporting I was doing in
January to now, and I ran the story a bunch
(13:30):
of times of like officials from a Biden administration being like,
oh my god, Like they're saying the same stuff that
we said. They're doing the same stuff that we said. Right,
Because this this central challenge of like, we have these
basic economic problems that will probably take a long like
need long term solutions, but the public wants short term solutions.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
This guy was supposed to be able to figure that out,
because the whole thing about Trump is he's such a
great communicator, he's so well trusted and so well believed
that he's the guy people will follow into hell because
some promises there, but the other side things will be good,
and that is one thousand percent not happening. And so
you were watching them flail around the same way that
(14:09):
other administrations short face the same problem flail around, which
is that way they have no way to explain to
people what to do about these prices and things like that.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
But I do think that a real difference between trump
Ism and normal administrations of any stripe is that Trump
did tariffs, and tariffs made things more expensive. So like
he ran saying like I'm going to make bacon cheaper
(14:43):
and then almost immediately did everything he could to make
things more expensive. Now, I don't think he thought that's
what he was doing, but that is a direct a
direct consequence of.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
The tariffs, that's right. And I'm going to tell you
they had no plan for this have been talking to that.
I think I've been reporting on just being an administration, okay,
because I kept asking them, you know, like there's a
political supporter perspective, So what's your plan from prices go
up because of terrorists? What's your plan? What are you
going to say?
Speaker 6 (15:11):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 5 (15:12):
And what they would say to you repeatedly over and
over was they're not going to go up. They're not
going up. It's not going to happen. They're not going
to go up. They're not going to go up. Lately
they've been saying things like, well, look a little bit
of short term pain, you know, but they haven't been
doing that right along, and they can't. And now they're
talking about me piling back some of these teriffs. You know,
just switch over. But I'll say, you know, the other
major difference is that they don't appear to have a
(15:34):
message that at all connects with what people are actually
feeling and thinking about. You know, like a lot of
things with the Biden administration, they did a lot of
stuff that actually sort of like was sort of what
experts and a lot of folks think it's sort of
the right thing to do to freeze and manufacturing jobs back,
raise wages. You know, you can look at the inflation
and the rest of the whole world and the inflation
(15:54):
of America, and it was like kinds of better in
America during that inflationary period, et cetera. They couldn't really
communicate that because of various and surnry reasons, primarily you know,
Biden was not the best person to be commun getting it.
The Trump administration is like face planting wildly with its attempts.
Like a thing that really fascinated me to happen recently
was almost sudden You're like, oh, what about a fifty
(16:16):
year mortgage?
Speaker 6 (16:17):
Guys?
Speaker 7 (16:19):
Cheaper it's longer, it's gonna be fifty years, so like
it's cheaper to get it because you have to pay
less money every year. Brilliant and like immediately maga world
and sort of folks who aren't like the populists right
said like what are you talking about? Like you wann't
be able to pay more money to the banks? You
want there to be more debt, like.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Like like this this is a solution that like when
it was rolled out, it was like strutting around like
a ha, we got it, Like did off fifty year mortgage.
And it's like immediately everyody's like this insitute i've ever
heard and you've not heard about it again, right, this
This is the kind of thing that's happening, is that
the reality of the situation is they have got to
give you know, they wanted they get an affordability message
(16:59):
that actually like takes on some of this stuff like
prices and things like that and some destructural stuff that
they're just not that interested in. Tariffs were supposed to
do it. But tariffs again makes everything more expensive right now,
Theoretically down the road, it doesn't. And they needed Trump
to be the guy to carry the public forward with them,
(17:20):
and it's not happening. One the taco thing, right, he
kept flipping around on these terairufs.
Speaker 6 (17:24):
Anyway.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Two, they can't stand the heat, which no administration can
stand either, which is like they're doing this, well, holy crap,
we could just drop the tariffs and maybe prices will
go down, and they're gonna do that's what they're talking about.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Truth.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
But you know, the healthcare thing, they have no plan
on the healthcare thing, as they've never had, right, Democrats
had a plan out, They've talked about it they have
an idea of how to bring healthcare costs down. In
this particular case, this ACA subsidy thing that would shut
down what's about was like literally a moment where you
could sign it, build and bring costs down. Republicans don't
want to do it. They're trapped in their own kind
(18:02):
of world on this. And I think it was sort
of always coming. But everybody just thought that these magicians
in Trump's White House, led by Trump himself, that somehow
have some sort of magic beings that could you know,
get through through this. They don't have it. And now they,
you know, they look like people who are just kind
(18:23):
of like grabbing anything they can get their hands on,
like a fifty year mortgage that nobody wants.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yes, the fifty year mortgage that nobody wants. What you
see with this administration when you when you see them
start to fall apart. What I think is so interesting
is you see what good messaging looks like and bad
messaging looks like. For example, Ebstein. So this administration is
(18:49):
on the run from Ebstein, right, And there was this
dump yesterday of thousands of emails. They had things like,
you know, Trump in Epstein, an in Palm Beach Thanksgiving
twenty seventeen. Now did they have a meal together, Who knows,
But there are emails that say they were both there
(19:09):
at the same time after Trump was already president, which
means that Trump's timetable, if these emails are true, is incorrect. Right,
that his timetable of not speaking to the guy since
two thousand and four is bullshit. So they're just the
dump after dump after dump of emails and this and
this one and that one, and a lot of them
(19:32):
that say Trump is stupid, like a lot.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Yeah, very traffic emailing.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yes, that's right, Yes, I mean a lot of typos.
What are your take? What's your I want to talk
about the messaging on the Epstein, but first I want
you to talk about your take on the Epstein emails.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Wellok, the Epstein emails themselves. I don't know that what
we had seen, Like you mentioned this idea of like
the timeline changing and things like that. I think all
you have to know about whether or not the administration
was worried about out more Epsteam stuff coming out is
because of how worried they are about more stuff coming out,
they're casting, you know, they drag Lauren Bobert through the
(20:08):
situation room to try and get her to kill this
discharge petition.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Did it work the first and last time that Lauren
Bobert will ever be invited to the situation room?
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Oh no, I mean never say never. Twenty twenty eats
up that far away, Molly, I shut up?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Why do you hate me? But as Sarah Palin Lauren
Boebert ticket.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Now, I think it's a Bobert emptg. I think I
think it's like it's time to get the space lasers
onto the sky.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
I think it's well, you do.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Not use my queen's name in vain and continue.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
But anyway, so you only have to know that they
that they don't want themut because it worked too hard
to think you get them out in ways that are
really embarrassing. I mean, you know they've tried to pressure
lawmakers and they couldn't get them to do it. On
the messaging front, I will tell you I spent yesterday
or the day after the emails came out. I just
sort of watched every stream daily stream of and email
and checked with my colleagues, reached out to every single
(21:06):
one of the right wing influencers that got that binder
back in February from PAYM Bondy the Epstein Binder that
like completely kicked off his entire.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Things was such a disaster, right, amazing, You've reached to
every single one of them.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I reached out to everything one of that. Well, we
reach out to a one or watch their st because
we all do daily streams and stuff. So we checked
in and see what they were all doing and saying. Right,
and in general, what they're saying is that like, look,
these emails don't don't change the story. Trump is like
not part of this. He's not the bad guy, and
these emails like he's not the bad.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Guys in all the emails.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Their view on the substance is that this doesn't actually
incriminate him more. And look, look these emails, they don't
say anything. They're not definitive, right, definitive is that birthday book?
Speaker 6 (21:48):
Right?
Speaker 5 (21:48):
That's like, oh wow, things are this is very bizarre.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
But I do say things like he knew about the girls.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Yeah, but like you know, you look at the context,
like whatever, this is what they said. But on the
messaging front, I will tell you, on the messaging front,
they are absolutely baffled. One guy said, I don't know
why he keeps using the word hoax. I think he
doesn't know what the word hoax means. Like, wow, everything
(22:19):
that the White House is doing to try to shut
this down Trump talking about a hoax. You know they
were not into the distart petition. I will say, like,
you can look at some messaging, like I don't know
what the White House is doing in terms of.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Pocket of these folks.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
My colleague Jasmine is pretty sure that they are fairly
regularly reaching out to the right wing media spear on
this issue. Though as yet it's not like those influencers
were egging the Republicans on to break with the president
and vote for the and vote for the bill to
get these morripcing files out. But they were baffled at
(22:52):
the messaging, very confused and really like I said, this
whole thing, but you know, he doesn't know what a
word hoax is, Like why he keep staying oaks Like
you're in the emails, this is real. What you've told
people is that you didn't do anything wrong and you're
not part of any of the amy criminal And the
emails don't seem to change that conversation. Why not just
let them out? Why not just talk more about that
and put that more out. It's opposed to this weird
(23:14):
thing of like this is not a real story. This
is not a real story. So that's from people who
like desperately want want that to be real. They're the
ones who are saying Trump is really messing up this messaging.
So that to me was really fascinating, and I think
there was a really illuminating as to where this moment
is that like they really don't know how to deal
(23:34):
with this because they've got a guy at the top
to keep saying, what are you talking at? Hoakx fak,
they're making this up and like nobody thinks that everybody
wants to see these emails, and they're not able to
get up in front of it because they have this
weird message of like this is not a work, this
is a waste of everybody's sorry, and like which by
the way, may end up very well being, but like,
(23:56):
who do you want to see this?
Speaker 6 (23:57):
At this point?
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Who doesn't want to see them?
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Though?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
My favorite for problematic messaging problem involves Megan Kelly, who
had a clip where she was saying a young fifteen
year old is not the same as a five year old.
(24:20):
Live your life, so you are never defending the difference
between having sex with teenagers and having sex with toddlers. Fair.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Fair, it's a good word to live. I do have that.
I do have that tattooed on my arm. You know,
I think it's a good it's a good rule of thumb. Look,
how did she get.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
To how did she mental gymnastics herself into a moment
where she was defending that?
Speaker 5 (24:48):
So I look, I think I don't really know what
to get in the head of digging Kelly particularly, but
I will. You know, this is this thing of how
they're all trying to cretchel themselves to deal with this,
and you know, this is a good this this is
the very like only like the weirdest libertarians you've ever
met in your life are the ones who do the like, well,
(25:10):
actually California is actually right, like it doesn't really particularly
matter very much, like, but but down this road, it's like, yeah, yeah,
this is this is one of those stopp incriminating yourselves conversations,
you know, right, But I think that, But I think
that it's because they're in this really tough spot because
(25:32):
they have they have nothing to grab onto because nobody
like the messaging of this thing is not like, yeah,
put them all out. We're fine, We're fine, but please
don't release anything else. And also like, look, you know
it's been interesting because Megan tell you think it is
representative of something going on in the concerative movement right now.
(25:53):
You know, she was the one who really cluded me in.
I watched her stream and clued me into all the
posts Charlie kirk assassination and talk about the conspiracies and
you know, about Israel, about exactly Israel and the idea
like she was only clued me into all that because
she was the one talking about Candice Owens being a
genius and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
So she's anti Semitic too.
Speaker 6 (26:16):
Well, I don't know anything about that.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
She says that she's not at all. She's like, she's
very strongly she strongly does.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Think Israel might be responsible.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Well, no, she had a whole clip that was talking
about Candace. This is right off the assassination things. You know,
there's things have changed ince then. But she talked about
how there was a you know, this sort of leading
that Charlie Kirk was supposed to have had at Bill
Appman's house and like this, you know, and and how
it was. The whole idea was that Charlie Kirk was
(26:46):
moving into an anti Israel position. And this is only
just very worthwhile to note all their worked while to
understand and this is a really reasonable conversation to have,
and like that is a sort of growing conversation as well.
And so when you see making Kelly's saying something that
sounds like really like the sort of farthest right take
on stuff, it's because like that far right is really
(27:09):
gaining a lot of traction right now, and at the
same time, the White House is trying to figure out
its way through this you know, really self imposed thicket
that if I mean, you know, it grew a thicket
and jumped into it when it comes to this, you know,
to this Epstein stuff, I mean, it's you know that
I don't know. The Binders are the perfect example of that,
(27:29):
where it's like they didn't release all the files but
said that they did, and like the whole thing was
really really wild.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
But like I think this there's all.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Swirling in a moment right now where like just suddenly
this whole political project does not seem that standing on
such a firm ground right now, they're talking about you know,
there's some in this conspiracy world. They're Taksinbau, who counts
as a panophile. These were paying Megan Kelly, you know
even the other people are talking about is the presence
(27:57):
bringing up talking about a hoax? Is it is kind
of like a moment where if you were in politics,
if you were running for something right now, you would
not want to be in their camp. Yeah, and that
is like a rare moment that has not been true
since sort of November of last year.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, oh man, it's all happening.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
It is.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
I mean, it really is like a very very very
rapid plip. But it's getting weirder and weirder. Molly, I
think it's like a I.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Don't know, you mispronounced stupider and more depressing.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
I don't know, we get that a shutdown conversation and
like just just right after we get coming up from
New Year's break. So I mean, if you.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Like that, thank you, Evan, of course.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
Molly, thank you. Please help me on as it gets
weirder and weirder.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yes, Evan McMorris Santro is a reporter at Notice. Welcome
to Fast Politics, Dave.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
Blagle, It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
We find ourselves and yet an they're incredibly strange but
also very stupid moment in American history. You're an intrepid reporter,
and you have been intrepidly reporting. What are you seeing?
Here's the fundamentally worst question ever in American politics? What
are the vibes?
Speaker 6 (29:16):
Is that the worst?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (29:18):
Okay, I'll roll with that. So they shifted. I guess
that's the worst answer to that question. They did shift,
And I wrote it about this last week, and I
followed up a little bit this week after I went
to Omaha and talked to Democrats in a swingy region
there that before Tuesday there was a worry this is
very different than eight years ago, a worry that Trump
(29:38):
actually was more popular than Democrats, understood that Poles were
underrating him, and that he had made games with Latinos
and young people that Democrats were not doing good job
of reversing. And you saw this in coverage. I'd say
more coverage of New Jersey than Virginia. Reporters going into
the field, it's finding that, Okay, we went to a
Latino event, they don't seem that excited. Therefore, things that
(29:59):
have been moving in Trump's direction, and then the election
happens and they weren't. So you saw that big shift
in how Democrats conceive of the electorate and its concerns,
which is, if I could sum it up, what we
need to do as Democrats is to point out the
costs are still high and a bunch of other economic
problems are still bad. And Trump didn't fix this, and
so he hit us with She's for them and he's
(30:22):
for you. We're going to him with my Republican opponent
is for Trump, and I'm for you. I'm the one
who cares about you. This guy is just making money
for himself. He's cutting tax for his friends. Insert the
rest of democratic messaging. But what changed is that they
weren't sure it was working, and now that thin get.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Is Yeah, I'm going to tell a story that sounds tangential,
but I actually think is really relevant. I have a
friend who's a very smart strategist. He's very smart, but
I think he's a little bit centrist in a way
that I think is a little bit destructive. But I
heard him on a podcast saying voters are so angry
that Biden is going to lose and we're going to
(30:56):
have backlash to backlash to backlash. Basically like voters are
just going to they don't have patience, so they'll kick
one person out and then they'll kick that. They'll change
so quickly they'll be bodship to bib ship to bid ship.
Is that what's happening here?
Speaker 6 (31:09):
That was the concern. And specifically, let's say that everyone,
if you average of everyone's media consumption of politics, the
country is less trusting of institutions than it was at
any point in modern history. Enterplayed mass media history and
that benefits Republicans. That was the worry for Democrats is
that occasionally we're going to be the party that's not
(31:30):
in power, and we can exploit that. When we're in power,
we don't know how to make people stop rejecting us.
And so this was a lot of the angst about Biden.
And I covered this over the course of the year.
Ye's not over, but I think most debates were mostly
happening before November. Hey, we Democrats, we reponsible Democrats tried
this with Joe Biden. We did a bunch of populous
stuff and it didn't benefit us. So gosh, maybe we're
(31:52):
stuck in a backlash loop. Like you were saying forever,
and I don't think that was changed by the election.
But Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey, in New York all
have opportunities to deliver something in the context to don
Trump being president trying to undermine them. And so what
was really powerful for Mamdannie and Cheryl more than well
the whole year for Demo president In Virginia, the fact
(32:12):
that Trump was was firing federal workers was toxic Republicans.
They never came up with an answer. They punted, they
got destroyed. In New Jersey and New York, it was
more direct. The President out of spite, is going to
be cutting things. New York and New Jersey was expecting
things they paid through the tax dollars paid for. So
New York was suing all year and I mean, you
know this suing all year for just funding that the
(32:33):
city had received that the administration wanted to take back.
In New Jersey, it was the Gateway tunnel. Trump in
a snit was just going to cancel this funding that
the state fought twenty years for. That threat is going
to continue existing. And so this is a new dynamic
for Democrats is the parties in power in a bunch
of places. It's going to try to do things and
Trump will be they're undermining it. And will voters say,
(32:56):
we wish you would change your policy and just agree
with Trump, or will they say, dang, I wish Trump
was not screwing this up. Is it giving them not
in the jail out, get out of jail free card,
but something to say if let's say, in four months, mom,
Donnie's entire agenda has not been in place. Yeah, I
think it does. And Republicans experienced us under Biden. It
(33:17):
was easier for their incumbents even to get elected with
a very few exceptions under Joe Biden because they could say, look,
I'm greag ab but I'm trying to fix the border,
and this administration screwing with me a less intense versus
of that, I think happening. Fewer people being trafficked in
buses across state lines, but I see that happening already.
And I want to repeat myself too much from the
first question, But there was a year Democrats not being
(33:39):
sure if that was true. But maybe maybe it turns
out that voters do think Trump is right. And you
saw this in New York right away because I from
the story I wrote yesterday or for Wednesday. I talked
to people who've been on the Spikey Cheryl campaign and
then we're going to work for Kathy Hogel, and they
this is at least to Fanic was not that threatening
(34:01):
to them on Tuesday last week, very much less so
on Wednesday, because it looks like she's just going to
defend the Trump agenda even if it hurts the state,
and that's a terrible place Republicans to be. They figured
that out.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yes, I think that's right. Has there ever been a
politician with worse timing than a least to phonic.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
Maybe Hillary Quittin and Kamala Harris because they both Hillary
and then Kamala in twenty nineteen ran at the one
time in history when being a Democrat who was tough
on crime was bad. Maybe that first Stephanic. She's one
of many House members who are going to run statewide
this next year. The leading candidates for governor of Iowa
(34:41):
for governor of Wisconsin the Republican primary have been in Congress,
voting for Republican priorities in Congress and against Democratic bills.
She has done the same thing, but in a much
more intense way, and her campaign. I don't know if
if she is an auxiliary of the New York Post
or the New Ropost and auxiliary for every day her
campaign is basically at least dephonics said something terrible at HOKL.
(35:02):
But when your post has a feature on it and
then the campaign puts out what the New York Posts said,
a bottles to phonic, that was always going to exist.
But is this a bad cycle to be a Republican
on record for their whole agenda? It looks like it
kind of is, because what was the benefit from the
tax bill so far Republicans If they all voted for
the tax bill this summer in bluespates, that means they
(35:23):
could say, hey, I cut your taxes with the salt deduction.
They did fine in Nassau County and that's it. I mean,
they got they got pretty creamed. And the rest of
New York, certainly in the high tax parts of New Jersey,
Morris County is the sort of place that it's full
of people who want, we're going to use that salt deduction.
And it had been a Republican and it flipped to
Mikey Sheryl again, I compare a lot of stuff in
(35:43):
twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, because I think Democrats are in
a different position, but Trump is also more eubuistic and
less limited by his advisors. In twenty eighteen, Republicans say, well,
at least we have an economic situation that people are
not blaming Trump for. It's pretty good where you can
run on that no matter what other things blow up
for Trump and immigration was really their biggest weakness in
twenty eighteen. Now Republicans are a week if you look
(36:05):
at polling on who's handling the economy? Did are their
policies helping you? And they're just pretending that they're not.
They're pretending to hear Republicans. It's the Scott Bessett line.
It's all going to be great yet next year, don't
worry about it. Now, there's a little bit of punitory saying, well,
that's exactly what Joe Biden was doing four years ago.
It didn't work. Biden had an okay midterm considering.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I mean, part of the problem for Biden was the
way overperformed in the midterms, and that gave him confidence
to run again.
Speaker 6 (36:32):
Yes it duh. So the economy though might one people
see they didn't see Biden at that point, and over
time they blamed him for inflation, even after inflation had
gone back down. But in polvan And said who's responsible
for the econmy Biden and wagging Trump already owns that,
and Trump wanted to own it. Trum Trump that talks
about the golden age of America beginning on his inauguration
(36:54):
day and talked about how great the economy was all year,
and in the same interview they'll say that things are
better and also if they're bad, it's Joe Biden's fault.
This is the JD. Dvance line we inherited and Joe
Biden but fully suggests the voters don't think that. And
you're seeing the most significant response to that since the
election has been the administration rolling back some tariffs. Are
saying it's going to and not saying sorry, we're wrong,
(37:16):
that the terroriffs actually cost you money and they're unpopular,
but saying to lower prices. We're going to get rid
of these tariffs. Who knows who put them in there.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
I mean, it's not like Trump has been on the
record just musing about how great tariffs are all the time.
Speaker 6 (37:33):
Yes, and that turned out to be unpopular. So really,
like in New Jersey and Virginia, I was giving Democrats.
And the piece I've written since the election is that
I think I said just that the interest of journalists
and candidates are often at odds, and journalists wanted the
Democrats to have more exciting messages to write and new
responses to Republicans. And also you saw this, I'm not
(37:56):
really being negative at the Year Times, but you saw
a one year Time story by Shing Goldmacher a couple
weeks for the election about demograph are still running around
about Trump? Are they ever feeding the mistakes of the past?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Does it work?
Speaker 6 (38:07):
Does it work? And yes? The reason it worked is
because Trump was taking credit for a great economy and
voters thought, actually, tariffs are costing me too much, and
everything else is costing me too much, So I don't
want to vote for the park. He's taking credit for
this economy and it's too late. You already see people
blaming them for just prices not being that simple. Now.
There are layoffs that people who have been laid off
(38:29):
or unhappy about, but the main one is just he
said prices would go down, he cleaned they were down already.
They weren't, so he's just going to keep saying it,
and he's the well part where he is. I think
analogus to Biden is the bidenminstration would say, Hey, good news, everybody.
This one good that has been famously too expensive is
now much less expensive and people didn't care anymore. Oh
(38:49):
we fixed the baby formula outage. Nobody cared. That is
one thing they have in common that even Trump can't benefit.
If people are angry about something, and you're angry about
goes away, nobody says thank you, President for fixing it.
He's better at advertising than Biden, but hasn't really done
anything for him.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
I also think the problem for him is there is
a reason why politicians don't promise undoable things, and that's
because a lot of political gravity that didn't apply to
Trump is sort of catching up with him, right. Like
he used to be able to say stuff and no
one would ever be like, well what about But it
does seem like now there's you said tariffs were great.
(39:26):
Now everything's more expensive, you know what I mean? Like
there seems to be some amount of political gravity catching
up to him.
Speaker 6 (39:32):
Yeah, I'm obsessed. I don't think I wrote about this
week except for social media. I'm obsessed with how the
deministration will keep floating that people are going to get
three months either a rebate check from Doze or from
teriffs or the terroriffs. From that positim than anything. And
before we got on, I was just checking my email
and indep I have a fundraising email. I'm on a
couple fundraising lists. Is to see what they get. What
(39:53):
people who donate to the CAAAN it's get not they donate.
I just signed up. It's psychotic. Don't do it unless
you're reporter. But yesterday I have If you are a
donor to Donald Trump, you got an email saying would
you accept a terror rebate check signed by Trump? And
I do think it's starting. I watch a lot of
local news, partly because that's where campaigns are advertising and
spending time, and local loser report. How there are a
(40:15):
lot of segments, and there have been all year, but
in the last week since this terror frebate discussion began,
segments that are just a version of the President says
he might send out a check. What would it look like.
We talked to an expert about whether you're going to
get your check after a while. I think it's reasonable
for people to say I am unhappy because I thought
i'd get a check and I did not. That's what
it's happening too.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
That's a fundamental problem with Trump is is he has
only a couple of ideas, and he's like, well, send
people money that work during COVID, but there's not a
mechanism for that. We got to talk about the shutdown.
So it feels like the Democrats in the House did
actually stay together, you know. I mean Mike Johnson helped
them in a certain way by never bringing them back,
and it was the Senate that caved. Now, I from
(40:58):
someone who has covered the Senate deems the way that
this vote went down to have only people were up
for reelection in twenty thirty, people who were retiring, and
people who were not necessarily in danger voting to reopen
the government seemed a little bit too cute, I have
in my mind. Then, to have the Senate majority leader
(41:20):
vote now and give a long speech, it felt as
if the vibes were Chuck wanted to end the shutdown.
Speaker 6 (41:28):
That is fair. I've not been my colleague Burgess ever
it and other people who covered a Senate more closely
and daily than I do have gotten the feedback on this.
So it's fair to say that Schumer and other Democrats
were pushed into this shutdown strategy that they did not
fully support, and they were surprised how well it works.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
That is, and they turned it down in March, right,
and then they got so much pushback they had to
go along with it.
Speaker 6 (41:52):
One they got pushed back. I think also importantly, and
you've talked about this, is that in March the idea
of a lot of holdouts he did not want to
do a shutdown was if do a shutdown, russ vote
is going to fire a bunch more people because he
wants to do that anyway. And they learned over the
course of the year that russ vote was just gonna
just fire people anyway. They actually did get well. One
of the only things they got as a benefit from
(42:13):
ending the shutdown is officially that there's not gonna be
any more reduction the force while the government shut down.
Now in the law, there shouldn't have been any reductions
of forces during the shutdown anyway, but that changed everything
where Democrats said, we actually have a president who's just
going to try to fire people try to cut funds,
do it before court stops them, and then if the
court stops them, it's too late. That changed everything, and
(42:34):
I think that's gonna that's gonna That mindset will be
there for the next impass in January. I'm already predicting
an impass over over healthcare funding. They also became convinced
that if you're a Democrat, wanted to be over and
I actually Timillary has expressed this, I think better than
a lot of Democrats had, is well, you've changed the
conversation to healthcare, right, which yeah, yeah, and you got
(42:56):
things queued up for the Epstein discharge petition, which is
an advantage. So you should just take this win and
go on because you're not going to get something out.
And that, to me is credible because there's no shutdown
the part in order to shut to the end the shutdown,
the President just gave the House or the holdouts whatever
they wanted. That's that's not crazy. But for the Schumer
(43:17):
role in it was that definitely that he was pushed
by both progressives and by reality and he was talking
to Robins trying to make a scandal out of this,
but he was taught, he was in contact with progressive
groups like Indivisible to Move On that were saying, please
shut the government down? Should he not be? I guess
the idea there is that Democrats should not listen to
their interest groups. But the end that's true, that that
(43:37):
is true, and those same interest groups are going to
want a new leader. But not to write Schumer's biography
for him. But the role of him as leader for
the next few weeks or a few years is going
to be losing a bunch of Donald Trump, maybe winning
the Senate and then maybe facing pressure. I actually already
facing pressure AT's retire next year. So it's like being
being the Senate leader is not a great is not
(43:59):
a great place to suddenly come in and dominate and
run your party's agenda. If did Bernie Sanders is in
the party leadership, like undermining you, that's part of a job.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Didn't he say that he was going to not run
for reelection.
Speaker 6 (44:11):
He didn't say that.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
He hasn't He hasn't come out and said it.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
No.
Speaker 6 (44:14):
So what happened with Biden was that Biden's team in
twenty nineteen let word go out for some reporters that hey,
he was considering a one term pledge, and so people
who wanted to think Biden would run for one term
got some got something to hang on. And I'm not
trying to insall he'll for not memorizing ever news article,
but that became like didn't I read one somewhere that
he probably one term?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
It really did help him when because he could make
a case that maybe it was that Trumpian thing of
being a roar shack, right, you'll be whatever is wanted.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
Yes, and that Schumer has not been that definitive. It
did just that people in New York politics looking at
his calendar, which includes Schumer used to be famous for
going to every county in the state every year. He
has not done that discycle. So he he turns seventy
five this month, he turned seventy six after the midterms.
Would he be announcing in twenty twenty seven that he
(45:07):
wants to run for reelection That would take him into
his mid eighties. That's the assumption. So does he want
to say I Chuck Schumer right now, want to give
up my leverages leader and say that I got bullied
out of this job by move on? Yeah? Probably not,
but the invisible I guess job application going on for
Senate leader. That's already been happening, and part of it
is people in New York saying we don't think Schuber's
(45:30):
going to run it again. There's so many different angles
on this, but I want to get too tangential about
who would replace Humor. That's already happening because a lot
of people think he's not going.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
To run, who would replace Schuma.
Speaker 6 (45:41):
So a lot of conversations about aoc NO in leadership.
In leadership, Brian Schottz Center for What Hawaii has done
most of the work to get himself ready for that
compared to other people Amy Clover Shard in the leadership
and would be in the position. No one else has
been making moves that way, especially because I do think
there are their discrepancies between what progresses want the job
(46:02):
to be what the job ends up being. And so
a lot of progresses say, why can't we have the
most progressive fighter we have in the Senate every day
leading the messaging and the counterpoint. B Well, that's not
Republicans have Republicans didn't say, look at the Senate, we
need somebody like Josh Hawley or Rick Scott to lead us.
Rick Scott rand he lost. You have to be kind
(46:22):
of a sin eater in the job. You have to
be there for awful deals, and you have to if
you let's say there's a big Senate if Democrats have
a great Senate election in the midterms and they win,
Sharon Brown wins the seat, and Mary Paul Tola and
Alaska wins and they get everything, they get almost everything
they want to. But there's a new demograph from Iowa.
Some of them are just not going to vote with
Progresses on everything, and so you'll need some of these.
(46:44):
So I'm not trying to That is why shots who
got elected as a progressive, he was appointed to the
seat and then got reelected with the supported Progresses over
a more conservative candidate. He's already been willing to buff
progressive on some issues, and that's why people think, all right,
well he's ready. He's getting himself ready to win if
he runs for leader. His colleagues, including conative more conservative Democrats,
to say, great.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Yeah, Dave Wigo, I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 6 (47:07):
Oh yeah, thanks for having me. All these post election
periods are we actually have data? Really are great, so
happy to do it. They're no more pfectly.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Jesse cannon Somali Trump and his administration as a weapon
they're just so thrilled to use against anyone whoever wronged them.
And friend of the show, Congressman Eric Swolwell is the
latest victim of their weapon. He just announced today that
he's going to be running for governor of California and
(47:42):
they're going to go after him for mortgage fraud.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Bill Pulti works in the Trump administration, and what he
does is he finds people who have mortgages, and then
he finds enemies of Trump and he puts that Vinn
diagram together. And I think that Eric is the fource
Democrat that Bill Poulti has accused of mortgage fraud, with
(48:04):
varying degrees of success. But you know, here's the thing
about prosecuting people politically, it doesn't have to work and
necessarily like it's clearly bullshit, but it doesn't necessarily have
to work in order for them to get the Jews
from it. So that's what we're seeing here is just
(48:25):
a lot of them sort of grasping at straws and
trying to get this going. I don't think that they
can get any of these going because they've just done
so many, and they've all looked so intentional. So I
don't think that Trump world will get to do this.
And like, this is one of these things where it's like,
thank god they're stupid, because if they had been smart,
(48:47):
you know, and they had been like and they had
sort of like made up different cases, like some were
mortgage fraud and some were this and some were that.
Like in Putin's Russia, people get arrested for stuff like
iss right. So I do think that as much as
there's a certain amount of this that is scary, it's
also so stupid and thank god it's so stupid. That's
(49:12):
it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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