February 27, 2023 • 51 mins
George Conway explains to us Donald J Trump’s increasingly bleak legal troubles. The New Republic Editor Michael Tomasky stops by for a brief history lesson on how we get to our partisan political climate. Plus, Silent Spring Revolution author Douglas Brinkley talks to us about what Biden can learn from past environmental disasters.
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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 Jim Jordan continues to embarrass the
American people on our southern border. We have an incredible
show today. The new republicanitor Michael Damaski stops by for
a brief history lesson on how we got to our
(00:23):
current partisan political climate. Then Silent Spring Revolution author Douglas
Brinkley outlines what Biden can learn from past environmental disasters.
But first we have the one, the Only, George Conway.
Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, your friend and mine. George Conway. Oh,
(00:45):
how are Yeah? I'm fine. We haven't had any insurructions lately.
It's good. That is good. First, I want to start
by asking you about the Georgia Grand Jury. Yes, the jury, Foreman,
it's going to be a great Saturday Night Live skin
it really is, right, right, She's like that one wasn't
(01:07):
Michigan The guy in the red vest remember the guy
in the red vest ken bone, The guy in the
red vest ken bone. That's right? Okay, yeah, okay, okay.
So I want to ask you special grand jury put
together by Fanny Wells, it was already out right, it
was done, her service was done, the deliberations were done, right.
I mean, I've seen some suggestions in the press. I
(01:29):
don't know, Georgia lost. I've seen some suggestions in the
press that she actually huge the line that was appropriate
for a Georgia special grand jury, which is different from
a federal grand jury because you'd never see a federal
grand jury do this. But one one way or the other,
it just wasn't particularly helpful. But at the end of
the day, it's just comic relief. And that's my bottom
line on this. Doesn't it bias? Like now? What? Now?
(01:52):
What the I mean? Like, so, now Fanny Wellis is
going to make these indictment recommendations. Is this, you know,
take the case to another grand jury and that jury
has the power to indict, and the defendants will make
whatever noises they want to make about this, but it's
not going to help. And at the end of the day,
this is all going to be forgotten because we'll actually
(02:13):
see the indictments, we'll see who's been indicted, and we'll
start seeing more evidence. When do we think that happens?
She told this court, the court that released the grand
jury report. In part she told that judge that indictments
were imminent. But you know, imminent can mean. I mean,
some people mean imminent means it's they're they're going to
the hospital have a baby. Some people mean imminent means
(02:34):
we're getting into it in a few weeks. Logically, imminent
wouldn't mean six months. I think imminent would mean at
most a couple two or three months. Is this my guess,
And just timing wise, she's got to get this cranking.
She's got to get this cracking. It's annoying on for
a while, and you don't really want to have these
cases brought in the middle of the silly season. What
(02:57):
is the silly season. The silly season is when you know,
people start wearing red hats and actually going to Iowa
and things like that, And that's going to happen in
the next few We're not We're almost there. Okay. So
that's one case of Donald Trump's many legal liabilities. The
second case is Jack Smith. Jack Smith the new Bob Mueller.
(03:17):
I think he's a younger and faster model. Okay, So
tell me what you're what your sense is there? Well,
I mean, we solve a report in the New York
Times yesterday or the day before days all playing together. Now, really,
I have no idea what that's like. You have no
idea exactly. Jared and Ivanka have been subpoena to appear
before that grand jury. There is only one reason why
(03:39):
you would do that, because they're pretty and tall. They're
pretty and tall, yes, And that's the money. It's like
lots of sawty money, not just money. Mister Kushner tell
us about NBS is he is? He is? He is?
He really a fun guy, he seems everyone else oh above.
(04:01):
I know I make these slatching jokes about the Saudis
because I despise them so much. Yes, all right, so
you know the only reason why you want to talk
to them is because they had access to Trump on
January sixth, and so the only reason why you do
that is you are focusing on him as the talking
Meadows isn't the target here. Meadows may even cooperate for
(04:23):
all we know. So you know, there's really nobody else
at the end of the day for those two who matters.
They are a window into Trump. I mean, they kept
sending Ivanka down to the Oval to talk to him
and you know, trying to get them off the ledge
and talk some sense into him. These two are the worst, right,
(04:45):
she was supposed to be this influence right where she
was going to get him. In their defense, which I
hate to say those words, in their defense, he's completely uncontrollable.
He's completely manipulable. But he's uncontrollable, and people don't understand it.
There is they think just because they can manipulate him.
He's old, he's stupid, he's narcissistic. You can play on
(05:05):
his ego and that's why you know, I mean, you
read these stories. It's been for years. Like the last
person it's almost important to read the last person to talking,
because everyone knows how to go in there and persuade
him by saying that you're so smart. Look at this
idea that I just thought of it, you just thought
of I just thought it from you. You know. There
are all sorts of tricks they used to manipulate him,
(05:25):
but they can't control him. That's the problem, right, right, right,
that's the mistake that they made. Right, No, that's for
sure true. As we see this who going then there's
your friend in mine e Gene Carroll's case. That's the
sleeper case O case. And also this is going to
be great when I get to go on TV to
talk about it. Full disclaimer here and you need this
(05:47):
disclaimer too, Oh good, I like any disclaimer that I
am also covered by Gene Carroll met her lawyer, Robbie
Kaplan because I met Jean and a party at your apartment.
That's right, don't I know it? And I told Jean
that she had to go out and get this lawyer.
(06:07):
And I then called this lawyer, Robbie Kaplant, up and
said it is I have a case for you, and
the rest is unfortunate history for Donald J. Trump. So
tell me about that case. Though now you can comment
Donald as a That case is going to go to
trial on April twenty fourth, and in one way or
the other. And there are really two cases. There's one
(06:27):
case that's the defamation case based upon the statements that
Trump made while he was president when the accusations first
came out. He said, she's not my type. I've never
matter of course, there was a photograph of him meeting her.
That's a definite action. And then New York passed this
thing called the Survivor's Law. It basically it says it
revived all sexual assault to sexual harassment claims for a
(06:48):
period of I don't know how many a year, I
think after the passage or the statutes, so that people
victims whose claims were cut to up by a shorter
statue of limitations in the past one chet chance to
bring their case one time, and that's what she then
brought the case against Trump on sexual assault, which for
the statute of limitations for which would have otherwise run.
So now there are two cases and they basically turned
(07:11):
on the same issue. Did Donald Trump rape Jean Carroll?
If he did, then that he also defamed her when
he said she was lying, And if he did, he's
also liable now for sexual assault under the survivors launch.
So it's basically two cases and one depending on like
one event that happened in nineteen nineties, to which there
are multiple witnesses in the sense that there are you know,
(07:31):
she told people immediately after it happened, and then apparently
there's going to be some other evidence about you know,
coming from people who are who are there at the
town to gap. But we'll say, do you think that
case has a real shot. It's not a question of
it as a shot. I don't I don't know how
it's trial for Donald Trump. Is he really going to
testify and subject himself to cross examination? Because hasn't he
been ordered to testify? Now he had to testify that position.
(07:53):
He doesn't have to testify in his own defense at trial.
Robbie Kaplan, the plan lawyer could call him as a
hostile witness. But if he doesn't testify to what happened
that day, there is no evidence on his side. But
on the other hand, he can't testify because he'll get
cut the shreds. Robbie'll kill him right, and it's going
to be a spectacle. His best play is to not
(08:14):
dignify the trial by showing up and just making the
case about damages and saying we think it's just ridiculous.
And then what happens. He's gonna be held liably. He's
going to have the red jet. But there's no criminal. No,
there's no criminal, but he's going to be The evidence
is going to be very embarrassing to him. And the
way he could compound the embarrassment, I think is by testify.
I think he's going to want to basically take to
(08:35):
take a default on liability. You don't think he's going
to try to testify. I think he'd be insane too.
But he is insane, right, all right? So who knows?
On the other him, they were successful in getting him
to flee the Fifth Amendment four hundred and some long
times at his civil deposition in the ARKG case. So
you did no times, then sense will prevail on him.
(08:55):
That's sensitive. But he's you know, on the other hand,
he opens his mouth about everything all the time. But
what kind of civil award could this be? Do you think?
I don't know what damage is sought? Are I don't
know what the expert reports say or anything like that.
But you know, it's basically argues that she was she's
have an emotional injury from what happened in the department store,
and then she also suffered damages from the libel. Some
(09:17):
people wouldn't go near her and hire her for things,
and so on and so forth after that. Right, it's
not going to bankrupt them. But you know, the most
important thing is just the testimony about what he did
and the fact that there's nothing, nothing, that stands on
his side. That and she's going to be a much
more credible witness I think than he would ever be
right right, right, And also she doesn't have years of
(09:37):
lying to her her standing. Yes, Donald Trump could not
withstrand cross examination on any subject for more than five
minutes or one minute. Frankly, he can't answer class questions coherently,
He can't answer questions truthfully, and basically you get gibberish
and insanity after a certain amount of time. I mean,
(09:58):
we saw that in the first this book that Woodward wrote,
which I forget the names of which the books, but
the first one he wrote about, you know, he wrote
about the defense of the Mueller investigation and how Jim Doubt,
his own lawyer, put him through a cross examination to
try to figure out how, you know, how to how
to prep him for being interviewed by Mueller. And basically
(10:18):
conclusion is that I can testify to lie his ass off,
he just will lose it. I know, you're not a
Republican anymore, but you really are a Republican. So who
do this sort of non crazy Republicans vote for in
this primary? Look, I mean, if I were voting in
a Republican primary, which I've been, because I will not
registered as a Republican for a number of years until
(10:39):
the rot is completely gone, and I don't see that
happening anytime soon. I vote for Sinnoni and Hogan. This
is more sane. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I do
that because I mean, look, they're a little maybe they're
a little more liberal than I might like. In sort
of a normal world where we had sensible political discourse,
I'd probably'd be slightly to the right of them, not
(11:00):
too much, I think, I don't know, but in this environment,
you know, so basically the big question for me is,
you know, just you know, call out a lot, a
big lot. I even have sympathy for people who I
know know the truth and have been willing to sort
of hint at it. I can even accept some of that.
I mean, you know, it's like, I'm not vote for
Mitch McConnell for president. I don't think anybody would. I'm
(11:21):
not even sure a Lane would. Yeah, but you know,
so I have this, I have this now soft spot
in my heart for you that develops right because he's
not fullishit. Well, he is fullishit. I mean he is
full of shit, but not in about the election in
a typical politician kind of way. Okay, in a regular
regular machine politician kind of way, which is fine, you know,
in an ordinary environment. But the thing about McConnell is,
(11:42):
I know, deep down he hates Donald Trump, despises Donald
Trump to test his behavior everybody as much as you
alide right right now, probably more, probably more because it
made his life difficult, right It's crushed his dream of
taking away Social Security. You gave you a pod? Yes,
it cost him a job. Yeah, Oh well, thoughts prayers neither.
(12:05):
I want to ask you one more question, which is,
I mean, let's just game this out for a minute.
Does de Santis get the nomination? No, okay, it's possible
as an outside shot at it, What do you think happens?
Because I think you have a pretty interesting I do.
I have a pretty gunn Here's might be a trunk
will get the nomination and he will get bailed, but
(12:26):
he will not win the general. And what I think is,
I don't think right now that the primary is set
up so that Trump can be defeated. I mean, there
are probably fifty percent of Republicans of a war who
want him to go away. Many of those people would
probably vote for him anyway if depending on who the
other choices were a lot of those people would. But
what matters is the fact that it doesn't take fifty
percent to win the nomination. I mean, there are these
(12:48):
you know, winner take all delegate rules that kick in
pretty early, as I understand it, And so you know,
you get twenty seven percent of the vote and that
guy gets twenty four you get all the delegates in
a lot of these states. The way you beat Trump
is one on on and going after him hammer and tone.
I don't think it's going to be one on one
at any point or soon enough for the Santis to win.
I don't think, and I don't think the Santists would
(13:09):
do what it's necess you do, which is to go
hammer and tongue at Trump. And I think the nam
is going to be everybody's going to go attack the Santis,
and Trump's going to be attacking the Santis. Right, everybody's
not to talk about the orange elephant that shout on
the stage. You know, he's going to get bit of
a free ride, and he's going to get his thirty
five percent, and he's going to get the nomination and
he will you know, he'll post bail and he'll be
(13:30):
the first actively indicted, maybe even trying a criminal case,
presidential candidate, a nominee of a major party in history,
and he's going to ferment violence because if he can't
get out by getting presidential immunity of being reelected again,
he'll He's wanted to take every everyone down with him,
which is what malignant narcissist, narcissistic psychopaths do. Even if
(13:51):
the Santists were able to beat Trump one on one
in a race that I just don't see happening. But
if it happened and he was he was got sixty
or seventy percent of the vote and got the nomination
or even fifty, you know he's gonna end up with
twenty or thirty percent of Republicans pissed at him. And
Trump would even run as a third party candidate just
to just to screw things up of spite. Yeah, I
(14:13):
mean that seems likely to Rick keeps saying that people
in case he's going to trial, and he wants to
basically say this, I'm being persecuted and because I'm running,
both parties have conspired against me, and you know he's
going to do that. I don't do that before anything else.
So it's going to be the biggest It's going to
be a biggest shit show because we've seen in the
(14:34):
last one hundred and sixty years of American history. Is
there going to be a change in George Conway's life.
It's possible. It's possible. Okay, So that I think is uh,
you know, not not nothing, George Conway. I hope you
will come back. Will you come back? You are a troublemaker.
You are a troublemaker. You are such a trouble maker.
I hope you will come back. Come on, it's fun. Hi.
(15:01):
Doug Brinkley is the author of Silent Spring Revolution, Welcome
Too Fast Politics. Doug Brinkley, thank you so much for
having me. Molly appreciate it. I'm very excited to have you.
We are second generation friends because you have been on
panels with my mother absolutely and I've watched on video
(15:23):
of panel you did with Playboy with your mom recently,
which I just love talking about the Second Feminist Revolution
and just where things are at today. It was a
really interesting panel you did. Oh well, thank you, mom
and daughter swapping stories. It was great. You know, we
have a dog and pony show, but you are an
expert in this field about this political history of environmental disaster.
(15:47):
For lack of a better phrase, yeah, well, you know, so,
I grew up in a town called Perrysburg, Ohio, along
the Mammy River, and I was there in nineteen sixty
nine when the Kayahoga River caught on fire. That's the
great industrial waterway by Cleveland, and I mean little match
you would go up and fire, and then Lake Geary
was dying. The novelist Kurt Vonnegut said it's dying of
(16:10):
human excrement in clorox bottles. And doctor Seuss wrote about
Lake Geary, Smeary, Lake Gary. And unfortunately Ohio has been
treated very shabbily from an environmental point of view. Companies
come here and run willy nilly and shotgun over the landscape.
That's one of the reasons one has to be concerned
about the chemical derailment that just occurred and the explosion
(16:34):
and a seemingly lack of immediate strong federal response. People
in Ohio feel like their rivers and their landscapes are
often abused by industrial chemical companies. So I want to
ask you about this book you wrote, Silent Spring Revolution.
You focused on a period of time and the leaders
(16:57):
who got involved in this great environment mental awakening. Can
you explain a little bit about how that came about
and sort of what this was. We've had three environmental waves.
It used to be the word conservation, So forgive me
for saying environmental to an era when that work didn't exist.
But for listeners it's easier for me to use the
word environmental. The first was Theodore Roosevelt from nineteen o
(17:21):
one to nineteen o nine, and tr really started putting
the federal large s on things like creating our US
FARS Service. Today, if you look at a map and
see all these national fars, they were born during the
Roosevelt pr administration. He started using executive power the Antiquities
Act of nineteen o six. The White House had the
(17:43):
power to go in and say you're not mining the
Grand Canyon for zinc, abstos and copper, and if you
don't want it as a national park, the national parks
have to be approved by Congress, and Congress didn't want
the Grand Canyon. R then used executive power to save
what became over a million acre national monument later became
park when the politics were better. So that era, that
(18:06):
first wave was quite exciting because Roosevelt by nature, tr
was a wildlife conservationist. He went to Harvard and naturalist studies.
He wrote a book as an undergraduate called The Summer
Birds of the Adirondack. And so we had a president
who really got conservation and elevated it. And didn't he
(18:26):
have a lot of wild pets too. He had thirty
seven at one point in the White House. His favorite
was a little dog named Skip that could climb trees,
but he also had parrots snakes. Emperor highly Selassie of
Ethiopia had gifted him a hyena, which Roosevelt and gave
to the National Zoo. Wandering around the White House was Josiah,
(18:50):
a badger that a little girl gave President Roosevelt in
a box in Nebraska, and he fed it with a
baby bottle milk and potatoes and grew up. And badgers
are colonial animals, meaning they'll play with they'll never turn
on the family they're grown up with, but they'll attack
anybody outside of the perfect pet perfect Yeah, exactly, But
(19:13):
so it actually bit a congressman that attack with the
badger in the White House forced near to Roosevelt to
bring the badger to his home in Long Island Sagamore Hill,
but it's buried and with the cemetery stone right at
Sagmore Hill the badger Josiah So Roosevelt was a Doctor
Doolittle like figure. TR kept his pockets filled with nuts
(19:34):
to feed the squirrels. Every day. He started working on
a book about the birds of Washington, DC. As president,
really remarkable Roosevelt and environmentalism and outdoor world. And I
wrote a book called The Wilderness Warrior about that. I
led you on a tangent, but I want you to
get back to it because what you're talking about is
incredibly interesting. So the second president who led this second
(19:56):
environmental revolution was who, oh, it was Franklin D. Rose Belt. Okay,
to understand TR and FDR, I mean, Theodore Roosevelt was
from New York. FDR was from New York. Theodore Roosevelt
went to Harvard. FDR went to Harvard, and they were
fifth cousins. But Theodore Roosevelt was assistant Secretary of the Navy.
(20:17):
FDR was assistant Secretary of the Navy. Theodore Roosevelt was
Governor of New York. FDR was Governor of New York.
Theodore Roosevelt liked the Big Navy and loved conservation. FDR
loved both. And Theodore Roosevelt had a niece, Eleanor, who
FDR married, right, So the two Roosevelts really elevated environmental
(20:39):
concerns to the very top of the national agenda. And
in fact, when it used to be inaugurations of presidents
were in March, and the famous New Deal kickoff of
FDR in March of thirty three. His first New Deal
program was the Civilian Conservation Corps, which paid unemployed workers
a dollar a day to tree plant, and from nineteen
(21:03):
thirty three to nineteen forty two, the CCC plant to
nearly three billion trees across America because we were just
like in Ohio right now, it's an ecological disaster of
the whole country. It wasn't just the stock market in
the depression. It was the dust bowl and the Great Plains.
We had cut all of our hardwood trees, drained all
(21:24):
the swamps. Right, we had been farming wrong, and that
had killed the land. Yeah, we've been farming wrong, and
we now we brought science into agriculture and forestry under FDR.
And he was the progenitor of eight hundred state parks
during the New Deal, and say places like the Great Smokies,
the Everglades, the Channel Islands of California, the Olympic Forest.
(21:47):
Want to go on and on with what FDR did
with others. It was a movement. So the third wave
that my new book is Silent Spring Revolution, doesn't have
a Roosevelt in it, and it didn't have a president
that really loved the natural world like these two Roosevelts,
I mean, tr and FDR loved Henry David Thurreau and
you know, and we're autub honors and all this. And
(22:09):
I had to begin my book in nineteen forty five
because the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
while gave us victory over Japan, concerned a lot of
public scientists and public moralists. Is this the doom of mankind?
And people started getting information and data, scientific info on radiation, fallout, sickness, cancer, leukemia.
(22:36):
Yet we were willy nilly testing nuclear weapons in the
Nevada Desert, right, people were six six six well. And
also we were building bombs in Los Alma, Yeah, New Mexico,
because the Southwest became a nuclear range. What happened is
people I write about in my book Rachel Carson, who
was from Pennsylvania. She had done her advanced degree in
(22:58):
zoology at John's Hopkins studied at Woods holl in Massachusetts.
Anybody listening read Rachel Carson's trilogy on ocean life. They're remarkable.
So let's get now to what's happening in Ohio because
there's a historical president. But there's also an opportunity here
for the Biden administration to get serious about conservation. Again. Well,
(23:21):
the Biden administration has done a good job on climate change,
but unfortunately, because I'm admer of President Biden, the administration
was slow in Ohio. In my book, I write about
when Nixon was president in eight days and the Santa
Barbara oil spill happened, and Nixon's sent Walter Hickle, the
Interior Secretary, to California, and right when he was arriving,
(23:42):
he heard the White House saying it wasn't so bad
in California. Yes, there's some birds that are got in oil,
but it's going to be okay. Hickle got ahold of
Nixon and said, do not minimize. It's a disaster. Do
not minimize. And Nixon listened to that. And avoided the
blame for the spill. Biden administration didn't seem to want
(24:03):
to make this into a big environmental flash point moment, right,
but it is, and they're going to have no choice.
Then they have no choice. That president didn't come, Kamala
Harris didn't come, Buddha Jedge only came after Trump, and
the EPA of Chief, who I like and Amyer was
seemed slow out of the gate, and it's unfortunate, but
(24:24):
when these disasters happened like this, you have to be
on the ground and have a bullhorn moment where you're
saying I'm here. And Biden is so good at hugging
and emphasizing with people, it would have been a natural
scene for him. But I think he may have been
planning the Ukraine trip to keep and kind of neglected
Ohio and they're paying a political cost for it in
(24:44):
the public square right now. Right. It's interesting because this
is actually a real opportunity. What's happened. I mean, so
one of the things that Trump did was he really
ran on deregulation, right he would say, for every regulation,
you know, we're going to take away five And nobody
was able to thread the needle between deregulation and environmental
(25:04):
catastrophes in such a clear way as we're seeing right
now right here. Absolutely, and so they do. You know,
the blame of the Trump administration for gutting EPA, for
massive deregulation. I could go on and on, but when
a crisis of the environment happens, the president has to
respond in a forty eight hour window while people are traumatized.
(25:28):
And you know, I remember when Barack Obama went to
Flint later and then drank the water. It was a
photo op moment. But it may people think maybe I
should be able to drink our water. There's confusion going
on in Ohio and Pennsylvania right now, you know, people
saying all that rash is and it isn't important, it's
not so bad. And then cameras showed get fish and
wildlife in a creek. Right People's pets are dying. We
(25:52):
actually last week we had the incredible Aaron Brockovich on
this podcast and she said that she had been told
that people's pets were dying, which struck me as really bad.
And Aaron, today, I'm in Ohio right now. She is
at ground zero. She's there today. Where do we go
from here? What do we do? Obviously the railroads are
(26:13):
going to pay up the gazoo for this, and they
fucking should excuse my fringe, absolutely full agreement, and it'll
be raining class action suits. What does the Biden administration?
I would have this public spokesperson. It's unusual for a
White House to farm it out, but I would now
let Shared Brown be the voice for the White House.
(26:34):
I would appoint him. He's loved in Ohio because he's
very good at constituent politics. And if he goes and
puts his arm around the mare and visits with people,
he has credibility in Ohio as being a compassionate senator
who cares about environmental justice issues. So I think he
has to be elevated. Now. I'm afraid Biden Harrison Buddha
(26:55):
jugs that wots their window to be the voice of this. Yeah,
it's really interesting, and I mean you say this as
we are both fans of Biden. But I think in
my mind there a number of issues here, and the
biggest one is, you know, how do we protect the
land in Ohio and the people who are there. I mean,
(27:15):
do you have any sense on what the plan there is?
The first thing that has to happen is FEMA never
should have said they're not going to be there. It's
not in their Ballywick. FEMA presence should have been everywhere.
There's going to have to be a shakedown. Even Nixon
would shakedown polluters after Kuyahoga and make him pay. The
White House and cher Brown have to be the voice
(27:37):
of anger that this has gone on for this many weeks,
that people are telling you that the idea was minimize
it and let people get back in their houses. But
any mother and father with children would be terrified within
a hundred mile area here of whether you would want
to be there, putting your child's long term risk of cancer, leukemia,
(27:58):
and on and on at risk. So it happened. It's
not an immediate solution. We're obviously going to be a
massive cleanup effort, but there everybody that lives in that
community needs to be paid. In my book, I wrote
about nineteen forty eight Dinorah, Pennsylvania, where the factories there.
It was so polluted. One day and the summer, you know,
(28:20):
it was hot, and everybody in the community of Dinora
got sick. Twenty people died a respiratory illness, and it
became where the word smog was born. There's even a
little museum in DeNora, Pennsylvania for the history of smog.
But that triggered a look at why can't we breathe
in New York City through the smog? Why is laf smog?
(28:40):
And it led to December nineteen sixty three Clean Air Act,
which attacked stationary pollution of factories. We now are going
to have to look at the railroad industry in a
new light. This utter recklessness by the Norfolk, Southern folk.
I mean, it is a really interesting opportunity for legislators
(29:02):
to remind all of us why they exist right why
the government needs to regulate things. The thing I wanted
to actually ask you about was Nixon and the EPA,
because that seems very counterintuitive. Well, I know, and that's
what I mean to your point, Molly, when you said
these crises can get you know, they're very very likely
(29:24):
in Ohio right now. JD. Vance and Shared Brown can
get on the same page. It's that's not far betched
on this issue. But Nixon decided to work with Henry M.
Jackson Scoop Jackson, Democrat from Washington, who was just won
the North Cascades National Park Battle and was an environmentalist.
Nixon worked with Jackson because Jackson did not criticize the
(29:46):
Vietnam War. Where George McGovern you, Jim McCarthy, Gaylord Nelson,
I can name you twenty Democrats that were denouncing Nixon's
policy in Southeast Asia, Jackson didn't. Nixon worked with Jackson,
and in April twenty second, nineteen seventy, we had Earth Day,
the first one, and Nixon saw that there were these
(30:07):
teachings everywhere, and he ended up planning a tree on
Earth Day and giving Interior Department employees the day off.
He was worried that they were gonna it was an
anti war trick Earth Day, but when it came and
went and it seemed to be a positive Earth consciousness event.
Nixon in the summer of nineteen seventy worked with Democrat
(30:27):
Scoop Jackson and Congressman John Dingle of Michigan, and they
cobbled together EPA and it opened its doors in December
nineteen seventy and under its first director, Administrator William Ruckles House,
it was awesome. The first EPA and seventy they did
bus polluters. They became law enforcement, going after companies, ruckle houses.
(30:50):
EPA would have been all over this in Ohio right
now in a very large way. Now, Nixon later thought
ruckles House was a loose cannon. A longer story, but
you know, Nixon ended up banning DDT. He didn't want to,
but the public demanded it, and his own EPA said
he had to. So I think the Biden administration is
(31:10):
going to get on the page here in the right ways.
But they've lost a communication opportunity to show the empathy
of the moment they needed, and so they're operating out
of a deficit right now, and they've allowed their opponents,
the GOP, to take some major punches at them. And
you know, it's indisputable they didn't move quickly enough there,
(31:31):
at least in a symbolic way, right And it is
interesting nobody is going to accuse the Republican Party of
being interested in environmental protection right or regulation, which are
the two things that need to happen now. So it
does feel really important that Democrats reclaim this. I agree,
(31:52):
and I think Shared Brown's the man. He's a running
for reelection for the Senate in twenty twenty four Ohio
is becoming a Republican state. He's got a hold on
to a Senate seat. I know sheared Brown quite well.
In fact, I know he w we knowed. He's reading
my book Silent Spring Revolution. Oh yeah, he really cares
(32:12):
about what's going on there. And so I think if
he becomes the voice of the Democrats in Ohio like
Mike DeWine was doing for the Republicans, and I think
that there can be a bipartisan consensus here on how
to regulate these railroad companies that are bringing toxic chemicals
through states at very rapid speeds. And they've done budget
(32:33):
cuts and got rid of employees on these train companies
that are carrying the toxic chemicals. And there's something always
bad happens when you start downsizing jobs better involved lethal
chemicals or industrial debris. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much,
Doug Brinkley. We're gonna want to have you back hey anytime,
(32:54):
Molly adoreya and I love your podcast and keep it going.
Oh you, our dear listeners are very busy, and you
don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces
of pundentry each week. This is why every week I
put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics.
(33:14):
If you enjoy the podcast, you will love having this
in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast
Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join
our mailing list. That's Fast politicspod dot com. Mike Damaski
is the editor of The New Republic. Welcome to Fast Politics,
(33:37):
my favorite friend, Mike Damaski. Hey, hey, I want to
talk to you about this unprecedented time in American history.
I would think of you as someone who has like
a long memory old ye, do give me a precedent
for what the fuck is happening here? Also weekend Curse. Yeah, well,
(33:59):
it's fucking crazy. There's not much precedent really. You know,
people point to the eighteen fifties. I guess, but I
think I've always said this is worse than the eighteen fifties,
because at least in the eighteen fifty they were kind
of arguing about the same set of facts. They disagreed
about slavery, but neither disputed the essential facts of the
slave trade. There was just one side that was against it.
(34:20):
In one side thought it was fine, and so on
and so on and so on. Now we're not talking
at all about the same set of facts, you know,
I mean, you watch MSNBC and CNN one night, and
then if we brought somebody here either from like another
planet or from a you know, a remotish civilization somewhere,
and asked them to watch MSNBC the first night, CNN
(34:44):
the second night, and Fox News the third night, they'd say, well,
the first two nights were pretty similar, and we're describing
a certain world, but the third night was just describing
a completely different place, right right, Yeah, in that sense,
we're much farther apart than they were in eighteen fifty nine,
in eighteen sixty. Well, that's what I wanted to ask
you about, because when we're talking about this idea of like,
(35:09):
I mean, you were there, as was I in nineteen
ninety seven when Fox News started. It was the same
year that MSNBC started and the networks at that time.
There were liberals on Fox. You know there are liberals
today on Fox too. Yeah, there was one liberal on Fox.
(35:30):
Let's not get carried away, Molly. There was Combs Alan Colmes,
right right, and his job was to be Sean Hannity's doormat.
You know, we know that, whereas on MSNBC, who was
on Laura Ingram was on MSNBC. Wow. Yeah, people forget
that MSNBC didn't become the MSNBC we know until well
(35:50):
into the Bush years. I always wonder what the chicken
or the egg here is, Like, did Fox News create
this or did this create Fox News? Yeah? I think
this created Fox News. But let's define this. This was
the Rupert Murdoch empire first of all, that started out
very small, started out with the New York Post and
(36:11):
included New York Magazine, include the Village Voice for a
little while. And he didn't try he didn't try to
turn the Village Voice right wing. He just wanted to
make money off the Village Voice and then he sold it.
So this was spearheaded by Murdoch and then also spearheaded
by the end of the fairness doctrine in the Reagan
years and the rise of right wing radio, right wing
(36:32):
talk radio and Christian talk radio, which people a lot
of people thought wasn't going to succeed at all, and
of course has. So those things were the first steps
in the right wing media. And Fox was just seeing
a market opportunity, Fox News seeing a market opportunity and
inserting themselves into it. Right. That is sort of the
(36:53):
sense that I was getting is that Murdoch is in
many ways just a mercenary, and that while he may
be ideologically right wing, she is chasing the dollar ultimately. Yeah,
and you know we've learned that. We learned that never
more emphatically than we learned it last week. Yes, the
(37:13):
dominion soon. Yeah, with that court filing, I mean they
openly said to each other, we can't lose market share
to Newsmax. We can't lose market share to Newsmax. We
know Trump is peddling a bunch of bullshit, but we
can't lose viewers to Newsmax. Let's play this, you know,
without exactly endorsing. Let's let's play this with kid gloves.
(37:36):
But of course they did go on to exactly endorse.
You know, a lot of the hosts completely endorse the
big lie, completely gay space to it. And it's not
just if you read through that filing. It's not just
Carlson and Ingram and Hannerty, it's other people, notably Bardaromo.
I mean, she comes off so poorly. I think I
never understood what happened to her. Yeah, how much money
(38:00):
does she make a year. That's probably what happened to her, right, Okay,
hey got it. I could give you sixteen million reasons
why she did or whatever the number is, you know,
all right, but it is like very clear when you
look at the filing just how much this was a
(38:21):
calculated decision on the part of these Fox anchors. Yeah,
and they played it along for weeks and weeks and
weeks and you know, so they let people go on
their air saying stuff that they knew to be false.
Let's stop, take a step back. These are alleged journalists
doing alleged journalism, and they let person after person after
(38:44):
person go on their air and say false things and
say crazy thing things they knew to be to have
no basis in fact. That wasn't about you know, whether
the New England Patriots inflated footballs or not. You know,
it was about the most important serious matters that democracy. Yeah, democracy,
(39:04):
the most important thing we confront as a country. And
they let these lies go on for weeks and weeks
and weeks and weeks, and they still go on, and
they now have been caught I think, you know, red handed.
But we'll see what happens. I mean, it's you know,
it's it's hard to convict rich people of anything in
this country. And I'm not arguing with that, that's certainly true.
(39:24):
But the other thing that I think is pretty interesting
is that here we are where there's a percentage of
the population that really needs to now hear that they
were lying, and they will not hear that on Fox News.
Oh no, of course not. I still think back to
that woman. Oh when was this? Oh it was it
was about the Muller Report. Do you remember that they
(39:45):
had that clip of that woman who only watched Fox
News and she said, well, I was aware that the
Muller Report said anything critical about Donald Trump? Where are
you getting that? Where are you getting that? And it's
you know, I mean, I'd love to do a poll
sometime of MSNBC and the n end viewers on the
one hand versus foxnewers on the other hand, and just
ask them what they know about the world, you know,
(40:05):
not only about you know, the twenty twenty election, but like,
you know, how old is the earth, you know, because
it's different universes? Yeah, definitely, well, and it's almost so
I think more importantly, there's no way to reconcile these
two things. No, and you know it's just gotten worse
and worse and worse. You know, we referred to you
(40:28):
referred to my fans, to my years of experience. I mean,
I remember when all this started, and yeah, they created
a kind of a different reality. And of course they
always seized on, you know, some out there left wing
professor who said something kind of crazy, and then they
(40:49):
made that seem to their viewers as if every liberal
believed that and did that and thought that. Now that's
practically all they do. You know, it used to be
part of the mix of what they did, but now
it's just about all they do. And it works. I Mean,
the thing that I'm struck by is the culture wars
work well to distract from bad policies. Yeah. One of
(41:12):
the things, Molly, that frustrates me more than anything else
in political life today is that when people are asked
the question by posters, which party do you think is
better for the economy, they always say Republicans by anywhere
from seven to fifteen points. And whether it's a Democratic
president or a Republican president, whether the economy happens to
be good at the moment or bad at the moment,
(41:33):
they always say Republicans. The facts are that if you
look over the last several administrations at job creation, growth
in media and household income, gross domestic product increase, stock
market increase, everything, deficit reduction, handling of the deficit, the
numbers with Democratic presidents are like far superior to the
(41:57):
numbers with Republican presidents, far far superior. Nobody knows that
that's the Democrat's fault, not the Republicans. They should be
talking about it a lot more than they do. So
that's number one. Number two. Now here, we have a
Democratic president passing, getting infrastructure jobs, jobs on the ground,
getting these infrastructure projects done, building chips and microprocessing plants
(42:21):
in the United States again, moving those jobs away from China,
starting to try to build things more in the United States,
make the federal government buy things that are American. Twelve
and a half million jobs in his first two years
in office. Some of that's luck coincides with coming back
after the pandemic, but still twelve and a half million
jobs in two years. Nobody's ever come anywhere near that,
(42:43):
And all of these good economic indicators, wages going up,
inflation now abating. The Republicans still people still reflectively think
Republicans are the party of the economy. It's a disaster,
and it ties to the cultural stuff because they keep
that culture stuff in front of people's faces, so they
don't notice the economic stuff, right right, No, No, I
(43:04):
mean that is we're finding ourselves in this complete kind
of world where what happens and what people think are
two different things. Right. Yeah. There are just these perceptions
that people have that are so baked in to their
ideas about the parties and their ideas about you know,
what they hear on the news or the quote unquote news.
(43:26):
It's just really hard to dislodge that ship. I mean,
how would you theoretically do that if you wanted to,
if you could, well, I mean the first thing I
would do is that I would I would like if
I were the president or the emperor or something. Yeah, yes, God, emperor,
king of whatever it is. The first thing I would
(43:46):
do is I would over and over and over again,
I would tout those statistics. And I know a lot
of people don't pay attention to statistics, but once they've
heard them for the ten thousandth time, I do think
they begin to make a difference in people's heads. You know,
people under the last sixteen years of Democratic presidencies, thirty
four million jobs have been created. Under the last sixteen
(44:07):
years of Republican presidencies, one points eight million jobs have
been created. Those are the numbers, people, Those are the numbers.
They don't lie. These are the numbers. Democrats are better
at the economy. Republicans are better at the economy. For
rich people, Democrats are better at the economy. So that's
the first thing I do. Just have Democrats say that
every single day in every venue that they possibly can.
(44:31):
So that starts it. And then I guess the other
thing I do is just and I mean this takes
a little bit of work and a couple of more
wins at the polls. But let's say by twenty twenty four,
if Biden wins reelection, and if the Democrats retake the House,
and if they manage to hold the Senate, which most
people don't think they're going to do because the Senate
(44:52):
map is pretty rough. But if they manage to do
all those things, then the first thing that they have
to do is get rid of the filibuster and just
start passing stuff. You know, raise the minimum wage, do
something about overtime pay, expand medicare to include dental and
glasses and go after prescription drug. Make insulent free. They
(45:13):
can make insulent free. That they've capped it at thirty
five dollars, that's nice, but make it free. It's actually
not that expensive. It's a few billion dollars a year
to make insulent free. Do these things show the people
that you can actually deliver stuff for them. But it
requires getting rid of the filibuster, because that way you
don't need sixty votes. And if God willing, they have
(45:37):
fifty two Democratic centers or fifty three. If they have
fifty three, then mansion and cinema are irrelevant, or even
at fifty two because they just need fifty plus the
vice president breaking the time, then they can do these things.
But you know, they just they really blew an opportunity
by not doing anything about that filibuster. Can we talk
(45:57):
about George Santos? Yeah, I mean, is there any precedent
for George Santos? There must be, right, a serial fabulous
The president for George Santos is George Santos he or
George Santos is president? Yeah, right, right right? I mean,
as he just told Pierre Morgan, he said, why why Yeah,
why should I have told the truth in twenty twenty two?
(46:19):
I lied in twenty twenty and I got away with it. Then, Yeah,
I don't know, you know, So the question is and
now we've got three. So there's that guy Andy Ogles
or whatever his name is. Yeah, he also right, Andy
Ogles is also a serial fabulous. Yeah. And then there's
the woman Luna, who's not exactly a serial fabulous but
lied about her heritage. So now we've got three. In
(46:40):
journalism school, you know that constitutes a pattern. I told
there would not be math. Well that's just three, Molly.
You have to ask why are there are these people?
And why are they all Republicans? Now? Are there democratic
liars in the world and resume patterns of You're right there,
(47:03):
of course, of course, of course there are college issues.
Never of course there are democratic resume patters. But why
is it that the only cases we have before us
are Republicans. Well, there are probably some valid theories about that.
They lie about all kinds of shit. So when you
start lying about the world, eventually you're going to start
lying about yourself. I also think that it's interesting that
(47:27):
two of these three Santos and Luna are non white,
and Republicans are so desperate to show that they're diverse
and to show that they have people of color who
are conservative that they don't give a crap about what
their credentials are. It is interesting to me, Like, you
lay down with Trump. Trump is your guy, right, you
(47:49):
know he is a serial fabulous. I mean, you know,
maybe he's not a serial fabulous, but basically, you know,
I would not go to that person for any trustworthy
source of information, or would many of his advisors, friends
or relatives. So clearly, like the message here is this
is okay. I mean I wonder about like the people
(48:10):
in the Republican Party. I often think about this, like
the people like a kind of I mean, I don't
want to say new Gangridge. I'm thinking more along the
lines of like someone smart, like the guy who wanted
to like drown the government in a bathtub. Norquest, Right,
I'm thinking about north Quest, Like Norquest went along with
(48:31):
Trump because it was working, right. Yeah, But like I
wonder if these people ever made the larger calculus that like,
while we're doing this, we're completely screwing ourselves, you know,
in a million different ways. Yeah, they had to know
I mean, I know Grover a bit. He is a
smart guy. He actually did go to Harvard. But no,
(48:53):
he's very smart. That's why I brought him up, because
he's like very smart, ideologically very conservative, and people like that.
You have to have made a sort of Faustian deal
that you were just going to do it. Yeah. I
think they all just thought, you know, we can get
away with this and just hope the roof doesn't cave
in on us. And meanwhile we're getting our judges and
(49:13):
you know, man, he's doing you know, he's doing whatever
else he's doing with respect to I don't know his
moves in Israel they like that, and cutting taxes they
love that, obviously. Yeah, they didn't anticipate January sixth. They
didn't anticipate an attempted coup. They didn't anticipate that he'd
actually want people to kill his vice president. And yet
(49:35):
he's the front runner for the nominee. Yeah. I think
he's a front runner for the nominee. Or and if
he's not the nominee, I think we're going to have
mini Trump. Yeah, meet ball Ron, Thank you, thank you,
thank you. I hope you will come back of course anytime.
Thanks Molly John Fast, Jesse Cannon. Remember how much Trump
(49:59):
pers expected that pledge about not running in another party
when they tried to get him to do it in
twenty sixteen, and he basically just embarrassed the blood stage.
That was fun. So Rona Romney RNC chair, yet again,
has decided that she's going to make all the candidates
sign a pledge saying they're going to support whoever wins
(50:22):
the nomination. But let me tell you, there's only one
candidate she really cares about getting to sign it, and
that candidate ain't going to sign it. You know. It
reminds me of the old George Bush. Fool me once,
shame on you fool me twice, shame on you don't
get to fool again. And that is a verbatim quote
(50:44):
from George W. Bush. Don't get to fool me again,
except with Ronna. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
(51:05):
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 Jim Jordan continues to embarrass the
American people on our southern border. We have an incredible
show today. The new republicanitor Michael Damaski stops by for
a brief history lesson on how we got to our
(00:23):
current partisan political climate. Then Silent Spring Revolution author Douglas
Brinkley outlines what Biden can learn from past environmental disasters.
But first we have the one, the Only, George Conway.
Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, your friend and mine. George Conway. Oh,
(00:45):
how are Yeah? I'm fine. We haven't had any insurructions lately.
It's good. That is good. First, I want to start
by asking you about the Georgia Grand Jury. Yes, the jury, Foreman,
it's going to be a great Saturday Night Live skin
it really is, right, right, She's like that one wasn't
(01:07):
Michigan The guy in the red vest remember the guy
in the red vest ken bone, The guy in the
red vest ken bone. That's right? Okay, yeah, okay, okay.
So I want to ask you special grand jury put
together by Fanny Wells, it was already out right, it
was done, her service was done, the deliberations were done, right.
I mean, I've seen some suggestions in the press. I
(01:29):
don't know, Georgia lost. I've seen some suggestions in the
press that she actually huge the line that was appropriate
for a Georgia special grand jury, which is different from
a federal grand jury because you'd never see a federal
grand jury do this. But one one way or the other,
it just wasn't particularly helpful. But at the end of
the day, it's just comic relief. And that's my bottom
line on this. Doesn't it bias? Like now? What? Now?
(01:52):
What the I mean? Like, so, now Fanny Wellis is
going to make these indictment recommendations. Is this, you know,
take the case to another grand jury and that jury
has the power to indict, and the defendants will make
whatever noises they want to make about this, but it's
not going to help. And at the end of the day,
this is all going to be forgotten because we'll actually
(02:13):
see the indictments, we'll see who's been indicted, and we'll
start seeing more evidence. When do we think that happens?
She told this court, the court that released the grand
jury report. In part she told that judge that indictments
were imminent. But you know, imminent can mean. I mean,
some people mean imminent means it's they're they're going to
the hospital have a baby. Some people mean imminent means
(02:34):
we're getting into it in a few weeks. Logically, imminent
wouldn't mean six months. I think imminent would mean at
most a couple two or three months. Is this my guess,
And just timing wise, she's got to get this cranking.
She's got to get this cracking. It's annoying on for
a while, and you don't really want to have these
cases brought in the middle of the silly season. What
(02:57):
is the silly season. The silly season is when you know,
people start wearing red hats and actually going to Iowa
and things like that, And that's going to happen in
the next few We're not We're almost there. Okay. So
that's one case of Donald Trump's many legal liabilities. The
second case is Jack Smith. Jack Smith the new Bob Mueller.
(03:17):
I think he's a younger and faster model. Okay, So
tell me what you're what your sense is there? Well,
I mean, we solve a report in the New York
Times yesterday or the day before days all playing together. Now, really,
I have no idea what that's like. You have no
idea exactly. Jared and Ivanka have been subpoena to appear
before that grand jury. There is only one reason why
(03:39):
you would do that, because they're pretty and tall. They're
pretty and tall, yes, And that's the money. It's like
lots of sawty money, not just money. Mister Kushner tell
us about NBS is he is? He is? He is?
He really a fun guy, he seems everyone else oh above.
(04:01):
I know I make these slatching jokes about the Saudis
because I despise them so much. Yes, all right, so
you know the only reason why you want to talk
to them is because they had access to Trump on
January sixth, and so the only reason why you do
that is you are focusing on him as the talking
Meadows isn't the target here. Meadows may even cooperate for
(04:23):
all we know. So you know, there's really nobody else
at the end of the day for those two who matters.
They are a window into Trump. I mean, they kept
sending Ivanka down to the Oval to talk to him
and you know, trying to get them off the ledge
and talk some sense into him. These two are the worst, right,
(04:45):
she was supposed to be this influence right where she
was going to get him. In their defense, which I
hate to say those words, in their defense, he's completely uncontrollable.
He's completely manipulable. But he's uncontrollable, and people don't understand it.
There is they think just because they can manipulate him.
He's old, he's stupid, he's narcissistic. You can play on
(05:05):
his ego and that's why you know, I mean, you
read these stories. It's been for years. Like the last
person it's almost important to read the last person to talking,
because everyone knows how to go in there and persuade
him by saying that you're so smart. Look at this
idea that I just thought of it, you just thought
of I just thought it from you. You know. There
are all sorts of tricks they used to manipulate him,
(05:25):
but they can't control him. That's the problem, right, right, right,
that's the mistake that they made. Right, No, that's for
sure true. As we see this who going then there's
your friend in mine e Gene Carroll's case. That's the
sleeper case O case. And also this is going to
be great when I get to go on TV to
talk about it. Full disclaimer here and you need this
(05:47):
disclaimer too, Oh good, I like any disclaimer that I
am also covered by Gene Carroll met her lawyer, Robbie
Kaplan because I met Jean and a party at your apartment.
That's right, don't I know it? And I told Jean
that she had to go out and get this lawyer.
(06:07):
And I then called this lawyer, Robbie Kaplant, up and
said it is I have a case for you, and
the rest is unfortunate history for Donald J. Trump. So
tell me about that case. Though now you can comment
Donald as a That case is going to go to
trial on April twenty fourth, and in one way or
the other. And there are really two cases. There's one
(06:27):
case that's the defamation case based upon the statements that
Trump made while he was president when the accusations first
came out. He said, she's not my type. I've never
matter of course, there was a photograph of him meeting her.
That's a definite action. And then New York passed this
thing called the Survivor's Law. It basically it says it
revived all sexual assault to sexual harassment claims for a
(06:48):
period of I don't know how many a year, I
think after the passage or the statutes, so that people
victims whose claims were cut to up by a shorter
statue of limitations in the past one chet chance to
bring their case one time, and that's what she then
brought the case against Trump on sexual assault, which for
the statute of limitations for which would have otherwise run.
So now there are two cases and they basically turned
(07:11):
on the same issue. Did Donald Trump rape Jean Carroll?
If he did, then that he also defamed her when
he said she was lying, And if he did, he's
also liable now for sexual assault under the survivors launch.
So it's basically two cases and one depending on like
one event that happened in nineteen nineties, to which there
are multiple witnesses in the sense that there are you know,
(07:31):
she told people immediately after it happened, and then apparently
there's going to be some other evidence about you know,
coming from people who are who are there at the
town to gap. But we'll say, do you think that
case has a real shot. It's not a question of
it as a shot. I don't I don't know how
it's trial for Donald Trump. Is he really going to
testify and subject himself to cross examination? Because hasn't he
been ordered to testify? Now he had to testify that position.
(07:53):
He doesn't have to testify in his own defense at trial.
Robbie Kaplan, the plan lawyer could call him as a
hostile witness. But if he doesn't testify to what happened
that day, there is no evidence on his side. But
on the other hand, he can't testify because he'll get
cut the shreds. Robbie'll kill him right, and it's going
to be a spectacle. His best play is to not
(08:14):
dignify the trial by showing up and just making the
case about damages and saying we think it's just ridiculous.
And then what happens. He's gonna be held liably. He's
going to have the red jet. But there's no criminal. No,
there's no criminal, but he's going to be The evidence
is going to be very embarrassing to him. And the
way he could compound the embarrassment, I think is by testify.
I think he's going to want to basically take to
(08:35):
take a default on liability. You don't think he's going
to try to testify. I think he'd be insane too.
But he is insane, right, all right? So who knows?
On the other him, they were successful in getting him
to flee the Fifth Amendment four hundred and some long
times at his civil deposition in the ARKG case. So
you did no times, then sense will prevail on him.
(08:55):
That's sensitive. But he's you know, on the other hand,
he opens his mouth about everything all the time. But
what kind of civil award could this be? Do you think?
I don't know what damage is sought? Are I don't
know what the expert reports say or anything like that.
But you know, it's basically argues that she was she's
have an emotional injury from what happened in the department store,
and then she also suffered damages from the libel. Some
(09:17):
people wouldn't go near her and hire her for things,
and so on and so forth after that. Right, it's
not going to bankrupt them. But you know, the most
important thing is just the testimony about what he did
and the fact that there's nothing, nothing, that stands on
his side. That and she's going to be a much
more credible witness I think than he would ever be
right right, right, And also she doesn't have years of
(09:37):
lying to her her standing. Yes, Donald Trump could not
withstrand cross examination on any subject for more than five
minutes or one minute. Frankly, he can't answer class questions coherently,
He can't answer questions truthfully, and basically you get gibberish
and insanity after a certain amount of time. I mean,
(09:58):
we saw that in the first this book that Woodward wrote,
which I forget the names of which the books, but
the first one he wrote about, you know, he wrote
about the defense of the Mueller investigation and how Jim Doubt,
his own lawyer, put him through a cross examination to
try to figure out how, you know, how to how
to prep him for being interviewed by Mueller. And basically
(10:18):
conclusion is that I can testify to lie his ass off,
he just will lose it. I know, you're not a
Republican anymore, but you really are a Republican. So who
do this sort of non crazy Republicans vote for in
this primary? Look, I mean, if I were voting in
a Republican primary, which I've been, because I will not
registered as a Republican for a number of years until
(10:39):
the rot is completely gone, and I don't see that
happening anytime soon. I vote for Sinnoni and Hogan. This
is more sane. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I do
that because I mean, look, they're a little maybe they're
a little more liberal than I might like. In sort
of a normal world where we had sensible political discourse,
I'd probably'd be slightly to the right of them, not
(11:00):
too much, I think, I don't know, but in this environment,
you know, so basically the big question for me is,
you know, just you know, call out a lot, a
big lot. I even have sympathy for people who I
know know the truth and have been willing to sort
of hint at it. I can even accept some of that.
I mean, you know, it's like, I'm not vote for
Mitch McConnell for president. I don't think anybody would. I'm
(11:21):
not even sure a Lane would. Yeah, but you know,
so I have this, I have this now soft spot
in my heart for you that develops right because he's
not fullishit. Well, he is fullishit. I mean he is
full of shit, but not in about the election in
a typical politician kind of way. Okay, in a regular
regular machine politician kind of way, which is fine, you know,
in an ordinary environment. But the thing about McConnell is,
(11:42):
I know, deep down he hates Donald Trump, despises Donald
Trump to test his behavior everybody as much as you
alide right right now, probably more, probably more because it
made his life difficult, right It's crushed his dream of
taking away Social Security. You gave you a pod? Yes,
it cost him a job. Yeah, Oh well, thoughts prayers neither.
(12:05):
I want to ask you one more question, which is,
I mean, let's just game this out for a minute.
Does de Santis get the nomination? No, okay, it's possible
as an outside shot at it, What do you think happens?
Because I think you have a pretty interesting I do.
I have a pretty gunn Here's might be a trunk
will get the nomination and he will get bailed, but
(12:26):
he will not win the general. And what I think is,
I don't think right now that the primary is set
up so that Trump can be defeated. I mean, there
are probably fifty percent of Republicans of a war who
want him to go away. Many of those people would
probably vote for him anyway if depending on who the
other choices were a lot of those people would. But
what matters is the fact that it doesn't take fifty
percent to win the nomination. I mean, there are these
(12:48):
you know, winner take all delegate rules that kick in
pretty early, as I understand it, And so you know,
you get twenty seven percent of the vote and that
guy gets twenty four you get all the delegates in
a lot of these states. The way you beat Trump
is one on on and going after him hammer and tone.
I don't think it's going to be one on one
at any point or soon enough for the Santis to win.
I don't think, and I don't think the Santists would
(13:09):
do what it's necess you do, which is to go
hammer and tongue at Trump. And I think the nam
is going to be everybody's going to go attack the Santis,
and Trump's going to be attacking the Santis. Right, everybody's
not to talk about the orange elephant that shout on
the stage. You know, he's going to get bit of
a free ride, and he's going to get his thirty
five percent, and he's going to get the nomination and
he will you know, he'll post bail and he'll be
(13:30):
the first actively indicted, maybe even trying a criminal case,
presidential candidate, a nominee of a major party in history,
and he's going to ferment violence because if he can't
get out by getting presidential immunity of being reelected again,
he'll He's wanted to take every everyone down with him,
which is what malignant narcissist, narcissistic psychopaths do. Even if
(13:51):
the Santists were able to beat Trump one on one
in a race that I just don't see happening. But
if it happened and he was he was got sixty
or seventy percent of the vote and got the nomination
or even fifty, you know he's gonna end up with
twenty or thirty percent of Republicans pissed at him. And
Trump would even run as a third party candidate just
to just to screw things up of spite. Yeah, I
(14:13):
mean that seems likely to Rick keeps saying that people
in case he's going to trial, and he wants to
basically say this, I'm being persecuted and because I'm running,
both parties have conspired against me, and you know he's
going to do that. I don't do that before anything else.
So it's going to be the biggest It's going to
be a biggest shit show because we've seen in the
(14:34):
last one hundred and sixty years of American history. Is
there going to be a change in George Conway's life.
It's possible. It's possible. Okay, So that I think is uh,
you know, not not nothing, George Conway. I hope you
will come back. Will you come back? You are a troublemaker.
You are a troublemaker. You are such a trouble maker.
I hope you will come back. Come on, it's fun. Hi.
(15:01):
Doug Brinkley is the author of Silent Spring Revolution, Welcome
Too Fast Politics. Doug Brinkley, thank you so much for
having me. Molly appreciate it. I'm very excited to have you.
We are second generation friends because you have been on
panels with my mother absolutely and I've watched on video
(15:23):
of panel you did with Playboy with your mom recently,
which I just love talking about the Second Feminist Revolution
and just where things are at today. It was a
really interesting panel you did. Oh well, thank you, mom
and daughter swapping stories. It was great. You know, we
have a dog and pony show, but you are an
expert in this field about this political history of environmental disaster.
(15:47):
For lack of a better phrase, yeah, well, you know, so,
I grew up in a town called Perrysburg, Ohio, along
the Mammy River, and I was there in nineteen sixty
nine when the Kayahoga River caught on fire. That's the
great industrial waterway by Cleveland, and I mean little match
you would go up and fire, and then Lake Geary
was dying. The novelist Kurt Vonnegut said it's dying of
(16:10):
human excrement in clorox bottles. And doctor Seuss wrote about
Lake Geary, Smeary, Lake Gary. And unfortunately Ohio has been
treated very shabbily from an environmental point of view. Companies
come here and run willy nilly and shotgun over the landscape.
That's one of the reasons one has to be concerned
about the chemical derailment that just occurred and the explosion
(16:34):
and a seemingly lack of immediate strong federal response. People
in Ohio feel like their rivers and their landscapes are
often abused by industrial chemical companies. So I want to
ask you about this book you wrote, Silent Spring Revolution.
You focused on a period of time and the leaders
(16:57):
who got involved in this great environment mental awakening. Can
you explain a little bit about how that came about
and sort of what this was. We've had three environmental waves.
It used to be the word conservation, So forgive me
for saying environmental to an era when that work didn't exist.
But for listeners it's easier for me to use the
word environmental. The first was Theodore Roosevelt from nineteen o
(17:21):
one to nineteen o nine, and tr really started putting
the federal large s on things like creating our US
FARS Service. Today, if you look at a map and
see all these national fars, they were born during the
Roosevelt pr administration. He started using executive power the Antiquities
Act of nineteen o six. The White House had the
(17:43):
power to go in and say you're not mining the
Grand Canyon for zinc, abstos and copper, and if you
don't want it as a national park, the national parks
have to be approved by Congress, and Congress didn't want
the Grand Canyon. R then used executive power to save
what became over a million acre national monument later became
park when the politics were better. So that era, that
(18:06):
first wave was quite exciting because Roosevelt by nature, tr
was a wildlife conservationist. He went to Harvard and naturalist studies.
He wrote a book as an undergraduate called The Summer
Birds of the Adirondack. And so we had a president
who really got conservation and elevated it. And didn't he
(18:26):
have a lot of wild pets too. He had thirty
seven at one point in the White House. His favorite
was a little dog named Skip that could climb trees,
but he also had parrots snakes. Emperor highly Selassie of
Ethiopia had gifted him a hyena, which Roosevelt and gave
to the National Zoo. Wandering around the White House was Josiah,
(18:50):
a badger that a little girl gave President Roosevelt in
a box in Nebraska, and he fed it with a
baby bottle milk and potatoes and grew up. And badgers
are colonial animals, meaning they'll play with they'll never turn
on the family they're grown up with, but they'll attack
anybody outside of the perfect pet perfect Yeah, exactly, But
(19:13):
so it actually bit a congressman that attack with the
badger in the White House forced near to Roosevelt to
bring the badger to his home in Long Island Sagamore Hill,
but it's buried and with the cemetery stone right at
Sagmore Hill the badger Josiah So Roosevelt was a Doctor
Doolittle like figure. TR kept his pockets filled with nuts
(19:34):
to feed the squirrels. Every day. He started working on
a book about the birds of Washington, DC. As president,
really remarkable Roosevelt and environmentalism and outdoor world. And I
wrote a book called The Wilderness Warrior about that. I
led you on a tangent, but I want you to
get back to it because what you're talking about is
incredibly interesting. So the second president who led this second
(19:56):
environmental revolution was who, oh, it was Franklin D. Rose Belt. Okay,
to understand TR and FDR, I mean, Theodore Roosevelt was
from New York. FDR was from New York. Theodore Roosevelt
went to Harvard. FDR went to Harvard, and they were
fifth cousins. But Theodore Roosevelt was assistant Secretary of the Navy.
(20:17):
FDR was assistant Secretary of the Navy. Theodore Roosevelt was
Governor of New York. FDR was Governor of New York.
Theodore Roosevelt liked the Big Navy and loved conservation. FDR
loved both. And Theodore Roosevelt had a niece, Eleanor, who
FDR married, right, So the two Roosevelts really elevated environmental
(20:39):
concerns to the very top of the national agenda. And
in fact, when it used to be inaugurations of presidents
were in March, and the famous New Deal kickoff of
FDR in March of thirty three. His first New Deal
program was the Civilian Conservation Corps, which paid unemployed workers
a dollar a day to tree plant, and from nineteen
(21:03):
thirty three to nineteen forty two, the CCC plant to
nearly three billion trees across America because we were just
like in Ohio right now, it's an ecological disaster of
the whole country. It wasn't just the stock market in
the depression. It was the dust bowl and the Great Plains.
We had cut all of our hardwood trees, drained all
(21:24):
the swamps. Right, we had been farming wrong, and that
had killed the land. Yeah, we've been farming wrong, and
we now we brought science into agriculture and forestry under FDR.
And he was the progenitor of eight hundred state parks
during the New Deal, and say places like the Great Smokies,
the Everglades, the Channel Islands of California, the Olympic Forest.
(21:47):
Want to go on and on with what FDR did
with others. It was a movement. So the third wave
that my new book is Silent Spring Revolution, doesn't have
a Roosevelt in it, and it didn't have a president
that really loved the natural world like these two Roosevelts,
I mean, tr and FDR loved Henry David Thurreau and
you know, and we're autub honors and all this. And
(22:09):
I had to begin my book in nineteen forty five
because the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
while gave us victory over Japan, concerned a lot of
public scientists and public moralists. Is this the doom of mankind?
And people started getting information and data, scientific info on radiation, fallout, sickness, cancer, leukemia.
(22:36):
Yet we were willy nilly testing nuclear weapons in the
Nevada Desert, right, people were six six six well. And
also we were building bombs in Los Alma, Yeah, New Mexico,
because the Southwest became a nuclear range. What happened is
people I write about in my book Rachel Carson, who
was from Pennsylvania. She had done her advanced degree in
(22:58):
zoology at John's Hopkins studied at Woods holl in Massachusetts.
Anybody listening read Rachel Carson's trilogy on ocean life. They're remarkable.
So let's get now to what's happening in Ohio because
there's a historical president. But there's also an opportunity here
for the Biden administration to get serious about conservation. Again. Well,
(23:21):
the Biden administration has done a good job on climate change,
but unfortunately, because I'm admer of President Biden, the administration
was slow in Ohio. In my book, I write about
when Nixon was president in eight days and the Santa
Barbara oil spill happened, and Nixon's sent Walter Hickle, the
Interior Secretary, to California, and right when he was arriving,
(23:42):
he heard the White House saying it wasn't so bad
in California. Yes, there's some birds that are got in oil,
but it's going to be okay. Hickle got ahold of
Nixon and said, do not minimize. It's a disaster. Do
not minimize. And Nixon listened to that. And avoided the
blame for the spill. Biden administration didn't seem to want
(24:03):
to make this into a big environmental flash point moment, right,
but it is, and they're going to have no choice.
Then they have no choice. That president didn't come, Kamala
Harris didn't come, Buddha Jedge only came after Trump, and
the EPA of Chief, who I like and Amyer was
seemed slow out of the gate, and it's unfortunate, but
(24:24):
when these disasters happened like this, you have to be
on the ground and have a bullhorn moment where you're
saying I'm here. And Biden is so good at hugging
and emphasizing with people, it would have been a natural
scene for him. But I think he may have been
planning the Ukraine trip to keep and kind of neglected
Ohio and they're paying a political cost for it in
(24:44):
the public square right now. Right. It's interesting because this
is actually a real opportunity. What's happened. I mean, so
one of the things that Trump did was he really
ran on deregulation, right he would say, for every regulation,
you know, we're going to take away five And nobody
was able to thread the needle between deregulation and environmental
(25:04):
catastrophes in such a clear way as we're seeing right
now right here. Absolutely, and so they do. You know,
the blame of the Trump administration for gutting EPA, for
massive deregulation. I could go on and on, but when
a crisis of the environment happens, the president has to
respond in a forty eight hour window while people are traumatized.
(25:28):
And you know, I remember when Barack Obama went to
Flint later and then drank the water. It was a
photo op moment. But it may people think maybe I
should be able to drink our water. There's confusion going
on in Ohio and Pennsylvania right now, you know, people
saying all that rash is and it isn't important, it's
not so bad. And then cameras showed get fish and
wildlife in a creek. Right People's pets are dying. We
(25:52):
actually last week we had the incredible Aaron Brockovich on
this podcast and she said that she had been told
that people's pets were dying, which struck me as really bad.
And Aaron, today, I'm in Ohio right now. She is
at ground zero. She's there today. Where do we go
from here? What do we do? Obviously the railroads are
(26:13):
going to pay up the gazoo for this, and they
fucking should excuse my fringe, absolutely full agreement, and it'll
be raining class action suits. What does the Biden administration?
I would have this public spokesperson. It's unusual for a
White House to farm it out, but I would now
let Shared Brown be the voice for the White House.
(26:34):
I would appoint him. He's loved in Ohio because he's
very good at constituent politics. And if he goes and
puts his arm around the mare and visits with people,
he has credibility in Ohio as being a compassionate senator
who cares about environmental justice issues. So I think he
has to be elevated. Now. I'm afraid Biden Harrison Buddha
(26:55):
jugs that wots their window to be the voice of this. Yeah,
it's really interesting, and I mean you say this as
we are both fans of Biden. But I think in
my mind there a number of issues here, and the
biggest one is, you know, how do we protect the
land in Ohio and the people who are there. I mean,
(27:15):
do you have any sense on what the plan there is?
The first thing that has to happen is FEMA never
should have said they're not going to be there. It's
not in their Ballywick. FEMA presence should have been everywhere.
There's going to have to be a shakedown. Even Nixon
would shakedown polluters after Kuyahoga and make him pay. The
White House and cher Brown have to be the voice
(27:37):
of anger that this has gone on for this many weeks,
that people are telling you that the idea was minimize
it and let people get back in their houses. But
any mother and father with children would be terrified within
a hundred mile area here of whether you would want
to be there, putting your child's long term risk of cancer, leukemia,
(27:58):
and on and on at risk. So it happened. It's
not an immediate solution. We're obviously going to be a
massive cleanup effort, but there everybody that lives in that
community needs to be paid. In my book, I wrote
about nineteen forty eight Dinorah, Pennsylvania, where the factories there.
It was so polluted. One day and the summer, you know,
(28:20):
it was hot, and everybody in the community of Dinora
got sick. Twenty people died a respiratory illness, and it
became where the word smog was born. There's even a
little museum in DeNora, Pennsylvania for the history of smog.
But that triggered a look at why can't we breathe
in New York City through the smog? Why is laf smog?
(28:40):
And it led to December nineteen sixty three Clean Air Act,
which attacked stationary pollution of factories. We now are going
to have to look at the railroad industry in a
new light. This utter recklessness by the Norfolk, Southern folk.
I mean, it is a really interesting opportunity for legislators
(29:02):
to remind all of us why they exist right why
the government needs to regulate things. The thing I wanted
to actually ask you about was Nixon and the EPA,
because that seems very counterintuitive. Well, I know, and that's
what I mean to your point, Molly, when you said
these crises can get you know, they're very very likely
(29:24):
in Ohio right now. JD. Vance and Shared Brown can
get on the same page. It's that's not far betched
on this issue. But Nixon decided to work with Henry M.
Jackson Scoop Jackson, Democrat from Washington, who was just won
the North Cascades National Park Battle and was an environmentalist.
Nixon worked with Jackson because Jackson did not criticize the
(29:46):
Vietnam War. Where George McGovern you, Jim McCarthy, Gaylord Nelson,
I can name you twenty Democrats that were denouncing Nixon's
policy in Southeast Asia, Jackson didn't. Nixon worked with Jackson,
and in April twenty second, nineteen seventy, we had Earth Day,
the first one, and Nixon saw that there were these
(30:07):
teachings everywhere, and he ended up planning a tree on
Earth Day and giving Interior Department employees the day off.
He was worried that they were gonna it was an
anti war trick Earth Day, but when it came and
went and it seemed to be a positive Earth consciousness event.
Nixon in the summer of nineteen seventy worked with Democrat
(30:27):
Scoop Jackson and Congressman John Dingle of Michigan, and they
cobbled together EPA and it opened its doors in December
nineteen seventy and under its first director, Administrator William Ruckles House,
it was awesome. The first EPA and seventy they did
bus polluters. They became law enforcement, going after companies, ruckle houses.
(30:50):
EPA would have been all over this in Ohio right
now in a very large way. Now, Nixon later thought
ruckles House was a loose cannon. A longer story, but
you know, Nixon ended up banning DDT. He didn't want to,
but the public demanded it, and his own EPA said
he had to. So I think the Biden administration is
(31:10):
going to get on the page here in the right ways.
But they've lost a communication opportunity to show the empathy
of the moment they needed, and so they're operating out
of a deficit right now, and they've allowed their opponents,
the GOP, to take some major punches at them. And
you know, it's indisputable they didn't move quickly enough there,
(31:31):
at least in a symbolic way, right And it is
interesting nobody is going to accuse the Republican Party of
being interested in environmental protection right or regulation, which are
the two things that need to happen now. So it
does feel really important that Democrats reclaim this. I agree,
(31:52):
and I think Shared Brown's the man. He's a running
for reelection for the Senate in twenty twenty four Ohio
is becoming a Republican state. He's got a hold on
to a Senate seat. I know sheared Brown quite well.
In fact, I know he w we knowed. He's reading
my book Silent Spring Revolution. Oh yeah, he really cares
(32:12):
about what's going on there. And so I think if
he becomes the voice of the Democrats in Ohio like
Mike DeWine was doing for the Republicans, and I think
that there can be a bipartisan consensus here on how
to regulate these railroad companies that are bringing toxic chemicals
through states at very rapid speeds. And they've done budget
(32:33):
cuts and got rid of employees on these train companies
that are carrying the toxic chemicals. And there's something always
bad happens when you start downsizing jobs better involved lethal
chemicals or industrial debris. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much,
Doug Brinkley. We're gonna want to have you back hey anytime,
(32:54):
Molly adoreya and I love your podcast and keep it going.
Oh you, our dear listeners are very busy, and you
don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces
of pundentry each week. This is why every week I
put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics.
(33:14):
If you enjoy the podcast, you will love having this
in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast
Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join
our mailing list. That's Fast politicspod dot com. Mike Damaski
is the editor of The New Republic. Welcome to Fast Politics,
(33:37):
my favorite friend, Mike Damaski. Hey, hey, I want to
talk to you about this unprecedented time in American history.
I would think of you as someone who has like
a long memory old ye, do give me a precedent
for what the fuck is happening here? Also weekend Curse. Yeah, well,
(33:59):
it's fucking crazy. There's not much precedent really. You know,
people point to the eighteen fifties. I guess, but I
think I've always said this is worse than the eighteen fifties,
because at least in the eighteen fifty they were kind
of arguing about the same set of facts. They disagreed
about slavery, but neither disputed the essential facts of the
slave trade. There was just one side that was against it.
(34:20):
In one side thought it was fine, and so on
and so on and so on. Now we're not talking
at all about the same set of facts, you know,
I mean, you watch MSNBC and CNN one night, and
then if we brought somebody here either from like another
planet or from a you know, a remotish civilization somewhere,
and asked them to watch MSNBC the first night, CNN
(34:44):
the second night, and Fox News the third night, they'd say, well,
the first two nights were pretty similar, and we're describing
a certain world, but the third night was just describing
a completely different place, right right, Yeah, in that sense,
we're much farther apart than they were in eighteen fifty nine,
in eighteen sixty. Well, that's what I wanted to ask
you about, because when we're talking about this idea of like,
(35:09):
I mean, you were there, as was I in nineteen
ninety seven when Fox News started. It was the same
year that MSNBC started and the networks at that time.
There were liberals on Fox. You know there are liberals
today on Fox too. Yeah, there was one liberal on Fox.
(35:30):
Let's not get carried away, Molly. There was Combs Alan Colmes,
right right, and his job was to be Sean Hannity's doormat.
You know, we know that, whereas on MSNBC, who was
on Laura Ingram was on MSNBC. Wow. Yeah, people forget
that MSNBC didn't become the MSNBC we know until well
(35:50):
into the Bush years. I always wonder what the chicken
or the egg here is, Like, did Fox News create
this or did this create Fox News? Yeah? I think
this created Fox News. But let's define this. This was
the Rupert Murdoch empire first of all, that started out
very small, started out with the New York Post and
(36:11):
included New York Magazine, include the Village Voice for a
little while. And he didn't try he didn't try to
turn the Village Voice right wing. He just wanted to
make money off the Village Voice and then he sold it.
So this was spearheaded by Murdoch and then also spearheaded
by the end of the fairness doctrine in the Reagan
years and the rise of right wing radio, right wing
(36:32):
talk radio and Christian talk radio, which people a lot
of people thought wasn't going to succeed at all, and
of course has. So those things were the first steps
in the right wing media. And Fox was just seeing
a market opportunity, Fox News seeing a market opportunity and
inserting themselves into it. Right. That is sort of the
(36:53):
sense that I was getting is that Murdoch is in
many ways just a mercenary, and that while he may
be ideologically right wing, she is chasing the dollar ultimately. Yeah,
and you know we've learned that. We learned that never
more emphatically than we learned it last week. Yes, the
(37:13):
dominion soon. Yeah, with that court filing, I mean they
openly said to each other, we can't lose market share
to Newsmax. We can't lose market share to Newsmax. We
know Trump is peddling a bunch of bullshit, but we
can't lose viewers to Newsmax. Let's play this, you know,
without exactly endorsing. Let's let's play this with kid gloves.
(37:36):
But of course they did go on to exactly endorse.
You know, a lot of the hosts completely endorse the
big lie, completely gay space to it. And it's not
just if you read through that filing. It's not just
Carlson and Ingram and Hannerty, it's other people, notably Bardaromo.
I mean, she comes off so poorly. I think I
never understood what happened to her. Yeah, how much money
(38:00):
does she make a year. That's probably what happened to her, right, Okay,
hey got it. I could give you sixteen million reasons
why she did or whatever the number is, you know,
all right, but it is like very clear when you
look at the filing just how much this was a
(38:21):
calculated decision on the part of these Fox anchors. Yeah,
and they played it along for weeks and weeks and
weeks and you know, so they let people go on
their air saying stuff that they knew to be false.
Let's stop, take a step back. These are alleged journalists
doing alleged journalism, and they let person after person after
(38:44):
person go on their air and say false things and
say crazy thing things they knew to be to have
no basis in fact. That wasn't about you know, whether
the New England Patriots inflated footballs or not. You know,
it was about the most important serious matters that democracy. Yeah, democracy,
(39:04):
the most important thing we confront as a country. And
they let these lies go on for weeks and weeks
and weeks and weeks, and they still go on, and
they now have been caught I think, you know, red handed.
But we'll see what happens. I mean, it's you know,
it's it's hard to convict rich people of anything in
this country. And I'm not arguing with that, that's certainly true.
(39:24):
But the other thing that I think is pretty interesting
is that here we are where there's a percentage of
the population that really needs to now hear that they
were lying, and they will not hear that on Fox News.
Oh no, of course not. I still think back to
that woman. Oh when was this? Oh it was it
was about the Muller Report. Do you remember that they
(39:45):
had that clip of that woman who only watched Fox
News and she said, well, I was aware that the
Muller Report said anything critical about Donald Trump? Where are
you getting that? Where are you getting that? And it's
you know, I mean, I'd love to do a poll
sometime of MSNBC and the n end viewers on the
one hand versus foxnewers on the other hand, and just
ask them what they know about the world, you know,
(40:05):
not only about you know, the twenty twenty election, but like,
you know, how old is the earth, you know, because
it's different universes? Yeah, definitely, well, and it's almost so
I think more importantly, there's no way to reconcile these
two things. No, and you know it's just gotten worse
and worse and worse. You know, we referred to you
(40:28):
referred to my fans, to my years of experience. I mean,
I remember when all this started, and yeah, they created
a kind of a different reality. And of course they
always seized on, you know, some out there left wing
professor who said something kind of crazy, and then they
(40:49):
made that seem to their viewers as if every liberal
believed that and did that and thought that. Now that's
practically all they do. You know, it used to be
part of the mix of what they did, but now
it's just about all they do. And it works. I Mean,
the thing that I'm struck by is the culture wars
work well to distract from bad policies. Yeah. One of
(41:12):
the things, Molly, that frustrates me more than anything else
in political life today is that when people are asked
the question by posters, which party do you think is
better for the economy, they always say Republicans by anywhere
from seven to fifteen points. And whether it's a Democratic
president or a Republican president, whether the economy happens to
be good at the moment or bad at the moment,
(41:33):
they always say Republicans. The facts are that if you
look over the last several administrations at job creation, growth
in media and household income, gross domestic product increase, stock
market increase, everything, deficit reduction, handling of the deficit, the
numbers with Democratic presidents are like far superior to the
(41:57):
numbers with Republican presidents, far far superior. Nobody knows that
that's the Democrat's fault, not the Republicans. They should be
talking about it a lot more than they do. So
that's number one. Number two. Now here, we have a
Democratic president passing, getting infrastructure jobs, jobs on the ground,
getting these infrastructure projects done, building chips and microprocessing plants
(42:21):
in the United States again, moving those jobs away from China,
starting to try to build things more in the United States,
make the federal government buy things that are American. Twelve
and a half million jobs in his first two years
in office. Some of that's luck coincides with coming back
after the pandemic, but still twelve and a half million
jobs in two years. Nobody's ever come anywhere near that,
(42:43):
And all of these good economic indicators, wages going up,
inflation now abating. The Republicans still people still reflectively think
Republicans are the party of the economy. It's a disaster,
and it ties to the cultural stuff because they keep
that culture stuff in front of people's faces, so they
don't notice the economic stuff, right right, No, No, I
(43:04):
mean that is we're finding ourselves in this complete kind
of world where what happens and what people think are
two different things. Right. Yeah. There are just these perceptions
that people have that are so baked in to their
ideas about the parties and their ideas about you know,
what they hear on the news or the quote unquote news.
(43:26):
It's just really hard to dislodge that ship. I mean,
how would you theoretically do that if you wanted to,
if you could, well, I mean the first thing I
would do is that I would I would like if
I were the president or the emperor or something. Yeah, yes, God, emperor,
king of whatever it is. The first thing I would
(43:46):
do is I would over and over and over again,
I would tout those statistics. And I know a lot
of people don't pay attention to statistics, but once they've
heard them for the ten thousandth time, I do think
they begin to make a difference in people's heads. You know,
people under the last sixteen years of Democratic presidencies, thirty
four million jobs have been created. Under the last sixteen
(44:07):
years of Republican presidencies, one points eight million jobs have
been created. Those are the numbers, people, Those are the numbers.
They don't lie. These are the numbers. Democrats are better
at the economy. Republicans are better at the economy. For
rich people, Democrats are better at the economy. So that's
the first thing I do. Just have Democrats say that
every single day in every venue that they possibly can.
(44:31):
So that starts it. And then I guess the other
thing I do is just and I mean this takes
a little bit of work and a couple of more
wins at the polls. But let's say by twenty twenty four,
if Biden wins reelection, and if the Democrats retake the House,
and if they manage to hold the Senate, which most
people don't think they're going to do because the Senate
(44:52):
map is pretty rough. But if they manage to do
all those things, then the first thing that they have
to do is get rid of the filibuster and just
start passing stuff. You know, raise the minimum wage, do
something about overtime pay, expand medicare to include dental and
glasses and go after prescription drug. Make insulent free. They
(45:13):
can make insulent free. That they've capped it at thirty
five dollars, that's nice, but make it free. It's actually
not that expensive. It's a few billion dollars a year
to make insulent free. Do these things show the people
that you can actually deliver stuff for them. But it
requires getting rid of the filibuster, because that way you
don't need sixty votes. And if God willing, they have
(45:37):
fifty two Democratic centers or fifty three. If they have
fifty three, then mansion and cinema are irrelevant, or even
at fifty two because they just need fifty plus the
vice president breaking the time, then they can do these things.
But you know, they just they really blew an opportunity
by not doing anything about that filibuster. Can we talk
(45:57):
about George Santos? Yeah, I mean, is there any precedent
for George Santos? There must be, right, a serial fabulous
The president for George Santos is George Santos he or
George Santos is president? Yeah, right, right right? I mean,
as he just told Pierre Morgan, he said, why why Yeah,
why should I have told the truth in twenty twenty two?
(46:19):
I lied in twenty twenty and I got away with it. Then, Yeah,
I don't know, you know, So the question is and
now we've got three. So there's that guy Andy Ogles
or whatever his name is. Yeah, he also right, Andy
Ogles is also a serial fabulous. Yeah. And then there's
the woman Luna, who's not exactly a serial fabulous but
lied about her heritage. So now we've got three. In
(46:40):
journalism school, you know that constitutes a pattern. I told
there would not be math. Well that's just three, Molly.
You have to ask why are there are these people?
And why are they all Republicans? Now? Are there democratic
liars in the world and resume patterns of You're right there,
(47:03):
of course, of course, of course there are college issues.
Never of course there are democratic resume patters. But why
is it that the only cases we have before us
are Republicans. Well, there are probably some valid theories about that.
They lie about all kinds of shit. So when you
start lying about the world, eventually you're going to start
lying about yourself. I also think that it's interesting that
(47:27):
two of these three Santos and Luna are non white,
and Republicans are so desperate to show that they're diverse
and to show that they have people of color who
are conservative that they don't give a crap about what
their credentials are. It is interesting to me, Like, you
lay down with Trump. Trump is your guy, right, you
(47:49):
know he is a serial fabulous. I mean, you know,
maybe he's not a serial fabulous, but basically, you know,
I would not go to that person for any trustworthy
source of information, or would many of his advisors, friends
or relatives. So clearly, like the message here is this
is okay. I mean I wonder about like the people
(48:10):
in the Republican Party. I often think about this, like
the people like a kind of I mean, I don't
want to say new Gangridge. I'm thinking more along the
lines of like someone smart, like the guy who wanted
to like drown the government in a bathtub. Norquest, Right,
I'm thinking about north Quest, Like Norquest went along with
(48:31):
Trump because it was working, right. Yeah, But like I
wonder if these people ever made the larger calculus that like,
while we're doing this, we're completely screwing ourselves, you know,
in a million different ways. Yeah, they had to know
I mean, I know Grover a bit. He is a
smart guy. He actually did go to Harvard. But no,
(48:53):
he's very smart. That's why I brought him up, because
he's like very smart, ideologically very conservative, and people like that.
You have to have made a sort of Faustian deal
that you were just going to do it. Yeah. I
think they all just thought, you know, we can get
away with this and just hope the roof doesn't cave
in on us. And meanwhile we're getting our judges and
(49:13):
you know, man, he's doing you know, he's doing whatever
else he's doing with respect to I don't know his
moves in Israel they like that, and cutting taxes they
love that, obviously. Yeah, they didn't anticipate January sixth. They
didn't anticipate an attempted coup. They didn't anticipate that he'd
actually want people to kill his vice president. And yet
(49:35):
he's the front runner for the nominee. Yeah. I think
he's a front runner for the nominee. Or and if
he's not the nominee, I think we're going to have
mini Trump. Yeah, meet ball Ron, Thank you, thank you,
thank you. I hope you will come back of course anytime.
Thanks Molly John Fast, Jesse Cannon. Remember how much Trump
(49:59):
pers expected that pledge about not running in another party
when they tried to get him to do it in
twenty sixteen, and he basically just embarrassed the blood stage.
That was fun. So Rona Romney RNC chair, yet again,
has decided that she's going to make all the candidates
sign a pledge saying they're going to support whoever wins
(50:22):
the nomination. But let me tell you, there's only one
candidate she really cares about getting to sign it, and
that candidate ain't going to sign it. You know. It
reminds me of the old George Bush. Fool me once,
shame on you fool me twice, shame on you don't
get to fool again. And that is a verbatim quote
(50:44):
from George W. Bush. Don't get to fool me again,
except with Ronna. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
(51:05):
for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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