March 8, 2024 • 55 mins
The Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank tells us about his month being a Republican. White House communications director Ben LaBolt details the state of the union and what lies ahead for President Biden in the general election. Plus! A clip from our sold-out show at City Winery featuring Rick Wilson & surprise guest George Conway.
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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 recently obtained email show that Donald
Trump was always planning.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
To say the election was stolen.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I am shocked. I'm totally shocked. We have such a
great show for you today. White House communications director the
One the Only Ben Lebolt talks to us about the
state of the Union and what lies ahead for the president.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Then we're going to play you a.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Clip from our Soldown City Winery show featuring the One
the Only Rick Wilson and surprise guest George Conway. But
first we have The Washington Post's own Dana Milbank.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome back, Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Dana Milbank, Molly, it's a thrill as always to be
with you a thrill.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So I love you and love having you on the podcast.
I was excited to have you. Oh, I'm very like
not DC because I like hug people and tell them
that I like them.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
That's like not I feel like that's not the culture.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It's my culture in DC. You can hang with me anytime.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
But I wanted to talk to you about this PC
for The Washington Post, where it's so crazy. I mean,
I don't know if it is, like it's not that crazy,
but it is also that crazy my month of living
the republicanly. So you I want you to. I'm not
going to steal your.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Thunder here because it's so hilarious. So explain to us
what you did.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Well, you know that it is possible and throughout the country.
Really the laws vary by state to vote in whatever
primary you want to it just as long as you
register is that party a certain number of days before
the election. And in DC it's very easy. You just
got to become a Republican three weeks before the primary.
So it is a friend's suggestion that is exactly what
(02:04):
I did. I've always been independent and registered independent, you know,
because I'm scrupulously neutral in all things political, and also
I just don't like messing around, you know, voting for
local primaries I don't really know about.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Let's be honest. You live in the district.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, so my vote is a total throwaway anyway, and
it doesn't really count. But here was a chance for
my vote to count because in twenty sixteen, Marco Rubio
and John Kasik actually beat Trump, who came in a
distant third. So I was like, you know, I could
be part of Trump's only defeat in the entire primary season.
(02:39):
It turns out indeed, he did lose in the district
of Columbia. He also lost in Vermont, so we don't
have the sole distinction. But you know, there were only
I think twelve hundred and fifty votes for Nikki Haley.
That's how big the Republican Party is in all of DC.
So she won with sixty three percent, which means all
of two thousand people voted in this primary. But I
was one of them. So I feel like I had
(03:01):
a measurable effect on dealing this devastating defeat to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
What I love about this story is that Trump has
done a lot of I wanted to say, tweets, but
we know they are truths, a lot of truths. The
iron A too rich on how these radical leftist democrats
are voting in the primary and denying him of his coronation.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So you are one of those radical leftist democrats.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Well, except I was more of a radical leftist and
Hendon technically, but yeah, in fact, I hadn't yet become
a Republican when he was railing about them doing it
to him in New Hampshire, and there, in fact, you
had to do it months in advance of the primaries.
I was like, all right, this really gets under his skin.
So it was all the better reason to do it.
(03:51):
And you know, he's been all about how you vote
for Nikki Haley, you're banished permanently from MAGA, and of
course it's thrilled a lot of Haley supporters. Idea absolutely
thrilled me, you know, and I've always sort of, you know,
styled myself sort of you know, rhino, lowercase rhino, just
you know, never quite a real Republican, and that's that's
(04:11):
what I was officially.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So one of the things that you did was you
just embraced all of the stupid cultural war stuff that
Republicans have that have been a sort of a hallmark
of trumpsm you ate a Chick fil A, You tell
us the other things like that that you did.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Right, And that's why I called it my Month of
living republicanly because you know, it just seemed really cheap
to really just be a rhino. So I thought I'd
really do the stereotypical Republican thing. So I ate at
Chick fil a. I shopped at hobby Lobby. I got
to back the blue placard that I can have up
on my table. I didn't know if I could sleep
(04:51):
easy at night, so I bought my pillow from Mike Lindell.
It's one with He's screened on to the cover of
the pillow holding a flag and the Constitution. I have
that for sleeping. My how is the pillow. It's very
lumpy and flimsy. I compare it to Donald Trump's legal arguments.
I used the Sean Hannity special and it only cost
me fifteen bucks. And anyway, my cat likes it, like
(05:13):
you know, is sleeping on it right now, no doubt.
So I you know, I got my Mike Lindell pillow
trying to help him out of debt. I shopped at
Hobby Lobby. I went to the Museum of the Bible,
you know where Mike Johnson's clare.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I've been there.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I was a little disappointed because you know, he went
there and said, how God you know, made him into
the new Moses at the red seat moment. But it
was like totally non partisan. It was like sort of
a Disney version of the Bible. So I was I
was kind of disappointed because I wanted to have more
of a maga justification.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
It doesn't have a real magas my eldest son, yeah
me there.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah, Bobby Lobby was more maga than that. But it
was tiring, and so after that I went to a
sports bar and watched NASCAR. There was a pile up
at the beginning of the race, there was a photo finish,
and there were all these you know, hair dye for
men and copd ads. So I really felt right at
home with that. And then I drove three hours out
(06:05):
into Virginia to go to a gun show and that
was really I mean that those were my mag of
people right there.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Did they have disgusting t shirts that say like racist
and over sexualized things about our vice president.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, there was the Confederate flags and the three percenters
and Trader Joe. I bought one that said I support
Donald Trump, I drink beer, I eat meat, I have
guns to protect my family and if you don't like it,
move or something to that effect. It was very very pithy.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
The lack of pithiness with the trumpy accessories are because
you don't have a lot of writers writing that kind
of thing.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
This is true. They had some great targets that I
could shoot at with my guns. There was one with
a cowboy with a red dot on his chest and
read fart and then he had actual sort of you know,
life looking genitals in blue that you could shoot at. Yeah,
you know. And there's the survival food, the freeze dried food,
and first aid stuff. They were the patriots there, the
(07:10):
Massa Newton patriots having their election integrity meeting geese. So
you know, these were I felt that these were my
people as well. So I think that really rounded out
the experience. And it's not that I would want to
necessarily be part of that cultural I have to say.
I switched, you know, after I voted, I switched my
party back to Independent. And then I was passing a
(07:32):
Chick fil A and I was thinking, I can still
eat there. It's good.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I thought, Chick fil A stopped giving money to anti
LGBT causes, Well.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Then I'm not going to eat there anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Did you have the fried oreos at Chick fil A?
Speaker 5 (07:46):
No?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I didn't even know about this. You see, you are
a better Republican than I am.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Molly, Ah, I'm sure that's not true.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I should have checked with you first on this. No,
I just got the fried chicken sandwich and the milkshake.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But was it good.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
It was really good, and I think I'm I'm just
going to stick with it. I you know, whatever, whatever
their politics are, it's good.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
So let's talk about what else is happening in the
Beltway besides your weird and hilarious story. We are sort
of at the end of primary season.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Would you say that's fair?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I would say it's over, yes.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, and now we have eight months of limping along
until this election.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That is a very dreary thought. And I feel it
personally as well. I've sort of been following. You know,
I was going to cover the primary, but there's no
primary to cover, so I've basically been slumming it covering
the House Republicans, who it's sort of cheap fun, but
they never really disappoint, you know, they're always going to
do something wacky. But you know, after this week, I
(08:42):
was like, all right, I'm going to finally have to
graduate and start covering this interminable presidential campaign. And I'm
really not looking forward to it. I can already since
the procrastination.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Let's have two seconds on cheap fun. We got to
go back because.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Oh please, Yes, I think this is the stupidest group
of Republicans that the House has ever seen.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Well, and that's a high bar, but I think, I mean, objectively,
we have to say they cleared it this week. What
did we do? We spent the last year getting rid
of the speaker, having all these showdowns and everything.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
And then.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
And they're basically passing the same, you know, the same
spending bill that Kevin McCarthy agreed to a year ago.
So we just wasted the last year having all of
these fights that amounted to nothing.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Basically, this entire thing is because Matt Gates was mad
at McCarthy for allowing an ethics investigation into.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Him, yes, which is still proceeding.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I mean, so like, think about how stupid that is.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, it's hard to sort of overstate the stupidity. But
you know, it's not like they've done nothing. They've they've
impeached majorcas without any impeachable offenses. They've they're very close
to impeaching Biden, even though it turns out the whole
case is you know, imploded, because they're relying on a
whole bunch of felons the main witness is in jail
(09:59):
and the ones in jail. The other one is on
the lamb.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
For his own protection, likely because they worry about the
Russians killing him.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
And they want to have a hunter Biden hearing with
various of his accusers. But they're all going to have
to come in orange jumpsuits. Now.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
The maiorci Ist impeachment, though, is my favorite of the
two failed impeachments, because now they've realized they can't bring
it to the Senate.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Right after all that and saying it's really an emergency
and our national security depends on getting this guy out
of office, They're like, all right, we're just going to
sit on this for a while. Yes, that's particularly delightful.
I mean, I guess they're hoping that they can draw
a maximum attention to it if they pull back for
(10:46):
a while. But it does sort of undermine the whole
profess need to get rid of the man in the
first place.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
My favorite stupid moment of the stupidest Congress is actually
the moment that they decide that they're going to get
rid of Santos, and then over the weekend leadership realizes
they actually really need his vote. Because they spend the
weekend doing the math that two is less than three,
and they somehow on Monday morning they figure that out
(11:14):
and they start to try to get people to vote
against expelling Santo's but.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
It's too late, right, the ship had sailed, and they
narrowly do and they are correct that they can't govern
without Santos, but I mean they couldn't really govern with him,
so it's not a huge difference. But yeah, I mean,
like when the majorcas impeachment went down the first time,
it was by one vote and Santos tweeting do you
(11:40):
miss me now? And Gate says, yes, I miss him already.
In fairness, they couldn't really govern before. And you've seen it,
I think now six before this congress they had a
single rule. You know how the procedural what you started
to make had not failed in twenty years, and now
they've done it six times over the last year. It
(12:00):
would take one hundred and twenty years to have gotten
to that under normal proceedings, but they were able to
do it all.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, you know, you got to respect the incompetence. So
you know, this is just the stuff. You know, if
you watch c SPAN, it's not like the mainstream media
is picking up the really crazy stuff, there is still
more crazy stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Well, I am trying to fill that vacuum. I've been
trying to list every little bit of crazy and I
don't know if you know, I have a whole book
coming out. I think it's looking like September. It's going
to be called The Fools on the Hill. It's just
a compendium of crazy. And you know, I'm just going
to keep hitting you over the head with all the
craziness lest you forget any one delicious nugget of it.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
One of the things that I'm struck by was actually,
you know, so it looks like they're going to be
able to pass this the first tranche.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Of spending bilts. Right, these are the bills that we
were just talking about.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
But on the floor, Chip Roy is furious and gives
this insane speech yesterday where it was like, we didn't
do nearly enough. We should be cutting the FBI buy more.
I mean, what is happening.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Well, so one third of the House Republicans oppose this,
so it just sort of shows you and that's roughly
the crazy quotient in the House. And I mean, but
that's more than enough to you know, screw up the
entire operations of the place, and they have. But you know,
it does show you that if Mike Johnson or if
McCarthy before I'm actually wanted to try to govern, you
could do it with Democratic votes. They would stand up
(13:30):
to the crazy. So the option has always been there.
It's just like they needed to exhaust every other option
before they could do the most sensible thing. So, yeah,
the spending wheel. They got rid of all the or
virtually all of the crazy riders about abortion, the trans
at gay rights, at DEI, and you know, all the
other cultural war issues. So they just tossed all of those.
(13:54):
They stuck to the spending agreement that McCarthy had Biden
reached a year ago alone. Behold, it sails through with
i think all Democrats but two or something like that
and two thirds of the Republic. So it's not so hard,
is it.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So let's talk for a minute about even though this
is the rematch presidential race that nobody wanted, where the
stakes are impossibly high, yet again, there are some really
strange congressional races that are percolating. Magan really continues to
pick some of the most incredibly bad candidates I've ever
(14:39):
seen in my life.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, I mean, it'd be tough to exceed what they
did the last time around.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
They may have done it, though.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
They might have. I mean you got to you know,
if you look at North Carolina the gubernatorial nominee, I mean,
that's something they did get rid of that. I think
it's Sandy Smith was the name. She's the one who's
sort of been accused by her ex husband of trying
to run car and throwing an alarm clock at him.
She lost in the general election last time. This time
they were able to bump her out the way in
(15:08):
the in the primary. But yeah, I mean, I think
for everyone that, you know, what's left of the party
established is able to knock down a couple of the
crazies still get through. They've just sort of lost control
of the process. So it's what Tom Massey said a
few years ago that you know, he was confused as
to what the ideology was of the Republican primary voters,
(15:29):
like are they you know, libertarian? What are they? And
he finally realized they just want the craziest son of
a bitch in the race.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Thomas Massey was happy to oblige. I mean this is
a guy who went to ID and now he says.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Crazy, right, and now he walks around with his pocket
protector debt counter. So truth is he's one of the
more sane ones in that in the house right now.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
One of the things that I was struck by was
Nikki Haley this week dropped out of the race.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
She goes, this is like my favorite thing.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Like she's so quaint, She's like, what our biggest problem
is our national Dad. I was like, I haven't heard
this since what is this two thousand.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
And th right right? Which is like no child left
behind the flight right? No, it's it was a great throwback.
It's not wrong. It's just there's been a universal decision
to just ignore this, not worry about entitlements. Just right
off into the sunset.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Do you think that being fiscally sane will come back?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
There are so many things we wonder about. Will that,
you know, we'll just general sanity and the belief in
a strong America leading overseas. Will that come back? Will
democracy come back? Well? I would think that you would
reach a debt crisis at some point and then that
would force a reckoning. But it's you know, it never
(16:57):
actually seems to happen. It has not. Injured are standing
in the world. So you know all the people who
are saying, you know, social Security is going bankrupt, that
it cares going bankrupt and we won't be able to
issue you dead as the United States, it just hasn't happened.
Maybe it just hasn't happened yet, but I've sort of
given up on any sort of prudence.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Thank you so much, Dana Milbank, Molly.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
It's been a pleasure as always.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Ben Lebolt is the White House Communications Director. Welcome to
Fast Politics. Wait, what is your fancy title, Ben.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Lebalt, white House Communications Director.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
That seems very fancy.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
I can search for a new title if it's too much.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Now it's good.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
We like a fancy title here at Fast Politics. Since
you are in the admin, I now first.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Want to talk to you about things that happened to
me on television last night at one o'clock in the morning.
You may not be used to having questions phrase quite
like this, but this is where we are. So last
night on television at one o'clock in the morning, I'm
with Tim Miller.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
He's quite wonderful. I love him.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
But we were talking about it and he was saying
that out of the New Yorker magazine profile.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
He said, Well, he said, I'm worried that the White
House doesn't think the polls are right and isn't reactive
enough and might be complacent. Just for a minute, since
you work there, Yeah, tell us why that is not
something that necessarily people have to worry about.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Yeah. Look, well, I think entering this year, you know,
everybody should know what's at stake. We're quite clear that
American democracy is on the line, that rights and freedoms
for Americans across the country, or on the line if
you're a woman who wants to make their own healthcare decisions,
if you're a parent who believes they should decide what
(18:54):
books your kids have access to rather than an ideological governor,
if you believe that Jane Ray sixth was an insurrection,
not a celebration of patriots, I think pretty clear driven
by the president, are quite clear on what the stakes
are of the president's success on behalf of the American people.
In some ways, this year reminds me a little bit
(19:15):
of twenty twelve, when I served as the press secretary
for the Obama by re election campaign at that time
and We went into the year knowing that the country
was divided and that the race was essentially tied, and
I think we find ourselves in that same position today.
And so you know, we're now entering the portion of
(19:36):
the year where you know, we're moving closer towards the
end of the primaries and the two candidates entering the
general election. I think the State of the Union speech
is sort of the president's first appeal to the country
as a whole, the highest viewership we'll expect the president
to see all year, and really to start to reach
(19:58):
people with his me She then follow that with travel
to key states across the country and make sure that
people hear the contrast version of that message and the choice.
And so everybody here from the President down is up
night and day, recognizing the stakes, doing everything we can
to communicate both about the President's record and what's at
(20:20):
stake this year.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I want to talk to you about this speech.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
This is the State of the Union is an incredible
opportunity to talk about some of this stuff that I
feel like the Biden administration has accomplished that they haven't
gotten credit for in the very narrow and likely wrong polling.
So to talk about sort of the accomplishments that you
highlighted in this speech.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Well, if you, Molly, I mean, I think the State
of the Union offered a few things that offered a
chance for the President to look back for the largest
audience that he'll face in a long time, and talk
through the fact that we overcame the pandemic that was
killing so many Americans, that we've collectively built the strongest
(21:05):
economy in the world. We've brought inflation down more than
any other country, that wages are significantly outpacing inflation, that
the racial wealth gap is the lowest it's been in
twenty years. That more jobs have been created fifteen million
under this administration than any presidential administration in history.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
So those are.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Things that people may have heard bits and pieces of before,
but they didn't collectively hear it until Thursdaying weren't a
lot different situation this year, coming out of the supply chain,
inflation coming down than we were last, So that was
an important part of the case to be made. The
President also looked forward about what must be done now
you know, some of these accomplishments could be significantly expanded
(21:49):
to impact many more Americans. So you know, with insulin
capped at fifteen dollars per seniors, while the President's proposed
we should be able to do that for all Americans
who require in camping prescription drug costs a two thousand
dollars out of pocket a year for seniors. Let's offer
that to all Americans. Housing costs. This is something that
has been a persistent problem facing Americans up and down
(22:13):
the economic scale. The President has proposed some tax breaks
to provide mortgage reliefs and building more housing to keep
the price of rent down. He recommitted to things like
making sure that IVF is available to every single American
and that the rollback of grow that we stopped that
that we were sore row and you know, all these
(22:34):
implications for women and families across the country. So that's
a chance to look forward and then also to just
talk about what's on the line and what the contrast
is against you know, MAGA Republicans and the President is
a defender of democracy. This is a very significant moment
in US history that will come to it for this November.
(22:55):
He stood up for democracy at home and abroad. He's
standing up for individual rights and freedoms. Republicans used to
be say that they were for freedoms, but they've passed
hundreds of bills and state legislatures to take freedoms away
and certainly are responsible for the fall of Roe versus
Wade at the Supreme Court. And look, their economic approach
(23:15):
hasn't worked. You know, the president's predecessor showered billionaires and
corporations with two trillion dollars in tax cuts. It exploded
the deficit, and the middle class had to pay for it,
and they didn't see any benefits out of it. And
so you know, the present that laid out the stakes
and laid out the contrast in a really compel a way.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
So, one of the many arguments that I have with
people in the pundon industrial complex, by the way, I
think they're going to kick me out, is that Joe
Biden is not a president for you. He is a
president for more working class Americans in a way that
is I think really sort of like a thing that
the Democratic Party sort of lost sight of. And one
(23:55):
of the things that makes me think about that is
like Biden has had this quest against fees. It's small,
it's very un sexy, but I actually think it's something
voters really do care about can you talk about that
and other things like it.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
I think the President's tests is always is this something
that your family would talk about around the Thanksgiving table?
And people like us, Molly, obviously, we've been hyper political
for a big portion of our lives. But you know
that the average America and the average family isn't like that.
And you know, when I get together with my extended
family over Thanksgiving, there's still a lot of people who say,
(24:30):
you know, I'm just not interested in politics. It doesn't
have that big of an impact on my life, which
I've argued to various extents over the years, but I
got to tell you it's stuck. Like jug fees where
it took a trip, they were loaded up with all
these resort fees that didn't even stayed a resort, you know,
doubled the cost threat or you know, they want to
go see a concert or a game, and you know
(24:52):
the ticket company is doubling the fee for that and
not disclosing it. I mean, the presence Lens has always
been the family million household he grew up with and
around in Scranton, Pennsylvania and Claymont, Delaware. You know, working
families who struggle to make ends and meet who aren't
one hundred percent sure that they'll have job security or
(25:13):
financial security and have to strap things together every couple
of weeks. And he has kept those Americans, those hardworking Americans,
at the heart of his presidency. He's made sure that
the earners on the bottom of the wave scale have
actually seen the biggest gains under this administration as wages
have gone up. He's made sure that the racial wealth
(25:34):
gap has closed. His address areas like student debt relief,
which had really burdened families and prevented them from you know,
putting down at the down payment on a house or
having another kid. He's focused on things like the child
tax care credit and the economy to make sure that
this is just the lenses. Does it impact the daily
(25:54):
life of hardworking Americans, and if so, then he's got
time to focus on.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So I think that's important point about the junk fees
and the sort of smaller pieces of legislation that may
not be mass deportation squads but will actually help people's lives.
So talk to us about some of the top lines
from the speech, and also just some like IVF abortion.
I would love you to talk about like sort of
(26:19):
the health freedom aspect.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
The President believes that this is a significant moment in
history that we're living through where democracy is on the
line abroad, and and he draws a connection between what's
happening abroad in Ukraine and in Europe where Putin's on
the march. He's waving a war of aggression against Ukraine.
He won't stop there. We know that when dictators and
(26:44):
authoritarians are on the march that they'll go into other countries.
He's signified that he would like to do so, it
least into the Baltics, and that if we don't stop
them there, it'll continue and our native alliance, the strongest
alliance in history, will be threatened. And by the way,
if he enters into a European country that's part of
(27:04):
the NATO alliance, we're at war. So we've got to
stop Putin in Ukraine, and we've got to stop you know,
bowing down to Putin and his government and imply that
it's just okay for authoritarians like Putin to seize territory
that's not theirs. Well, we're also facing a really significant
moment at home and a significant risk to our democracy
(27:25):
became very clear on January sixth, where thousands of insurrectionists
stormed the Capitol and tried to overturn the results of
a free and fair election, and Maga Republicans have embraced
and the president's predecessor embraced those people not as insurrectionists,
not as criminals, but as patriots. Well, that's a very
(27:46):
dangerous moment for our country that has not been fully alleviated,
and the present believes we need to confront that directly.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
So that's one.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Secondly, there's been a rollback of rights and freedoms. The
rights and freedoms of Americans across the country are under assault.
If you're a gay person that believes their identity should
be recognized, if you're a woman who wants to make
their own healthcare decisions, if you're worried about what's happening
in schools where entire programs and chapters of history are
(28:15):
just being torn out of books, Well, this is a
moment where we need to fight back for our freedoms
and to defend our individual liberties. And the present beliefs
that this is a year where we'll make big decisions
on that front. And at the art of things, as
we talked about earlier, is the present believes we need
to continue to build the economy from the bottom up,
(28:36):
in middle out instead of the top down. We know
what the results have been, record job creation, the strongest
economy in the world, record contracts for workers, Unions are expanding,
wages are rising. The policies that the President has put
into place, which by the way, some people said were
too aggressive when he did so, has led those things.
(28:59):
He believes we need to can continue our progress. And
the MAGA Republicans all they want to do is the
same trickle down economic expansion of tax breaks for billionaires
and corporations. Well, guess what the President thinks tax fairness
should mean. It should mean charging billionaires and corporations their
fair share, that we should actually have a minimum tax
(29:20):
on billionaires, that we should raise the minimum tax on corporations,
that we can actually do things like fund a child
tax scar rented in this country for working America.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
So let me ask you two questions.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
So, one of the things that you guys are going
to get into trouble with in this election, and you're
already seeing it in some of the exit poll line
is progressives who you know in some ways they don't
understand just how much the Supreme Court sucks.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
And so I want to talk to you about like
student debt.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
One of the things I think has been really amazing
is that the buy An administration has been quietly working
around the clock to try to cancel student debt, but
not so easy. You guys have canceled certain tranches. Talk
to me about where you are and what's happening with that,
And also do you think people can understand that the
Supreme Court really is just going around trying to undermine
(30:13):
legislation at every point.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Well, the good news is you can see from a
public pulling that Americans more Americans know about the work
that the president's doing on student deck belief than the
progress are making out a lot of other issues. So
this is one area that's broken through. I think it's
broken through in part because the Supreme Court overturned what
the President was trying to do in terms of canceling
student debt for millions in America. But he didn't allow
(30:37):
the Supreme Court decision to stop is canceled student debt
for four million Americans to the tune of the one
hundred and thirty eight billion dollars in debt relief through
every executive lever that he has available to do that,
and every couple of weeks every month, there are thousands
of new borrowers getting a letter and email from the
President saying that their debt is canceled or that their
(30:58):
payments are reduced. So he's attacking this from every single angle,
and I think it shows the type of work he's
done throughout the presidency. You know, he doesn't believe this
is a country that should have crumbling infrastructures, So he
passed legislation to get forty six thousand infrastructure projects off
the ground modernists across the country. He doesn't think Europe
(31:18):
and China should lead the world on that.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
He thinks the.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
United States should. He dug into the supply chain crisis
that was causing inflation into individual issues to look at
things like semiconductors, which power refrigerators in cars. We invented
those in America, but they were being built overseas in Asia,
and the present pass bipartisan legislation to make sure we're
(31:40):
building those in America again. Factories are getting off the
ground in places from New York to Arizona. To make
sure that those chips are built here in the United States.
I mean, he really took and looked at the pandemic
and the financial crisis that came out of it, to say,
what do we need to do to build our enomy
in a way it's helping working families, that's bringing prices down,
(32:03):
and that's addressing the cost issue that Americans are facing
at home. And so that's really been the heart of
his domestic policy agenda.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
One of the things that I've been impressed with that
you guys have done is we have this attention economy.
The goal here is to get in front of voters
and also to inspire young people. How is the Biden
Biden administration talking to constituents in ways that are a
little bit creative and not necessarily traditional because I think
(32:36):
that you guys are doing interesting stuff.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Well, look, you know, from a purch of my job,
there's nothing more important than that, and it's what I
spend every day on is figuring out how we reach
the average person across the country. And you have to
realize the average person is not consuming political news right
They're going about the day. They may have you know,
a morning show or day side TV on to you know,
(33:00):
catching bits and pieces of it as they're you know,
making lunch or a family member or heading to a job.
At night, you know, after dinner, people are watching The Bachelor,
you know, more than they're watching the evening news and so.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
And some people don't have cable, like anyone under.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Fifty exactly, there's lots of cord cutters now. Streamings increasingly important,
and so the media has just become more fractured. People
have added new channels to their diet, but they haven't
removed the old channels, and so there's diminishing returns on
any interview or news event. And so what we have
to do is figure out how to reach people everywhere
(33:38):
throughout their day on their smartphone, on consumer media that
doesn't tend to cover political neviws, on digital media, through
every social media platform available. We produced our on content.
We talked to the media, We talked to the media
at the White House, we talked to the media in
the States. We brief influencers who have large reach with
(34:00):
their own audiences. We need to reach people across ages
and demographics wherever they get their news. So look like
we've got you know, talking to you right now. We've
got a podcast strategy then my dads didn't have four
years ago, So we look at information consumption and we
work backwards from that to make sure we're reaching people.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Ben Lebault, thank you so much for joining us. I
hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
It was great to talk to you and would love
to Thanks Molly, and.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Now we have a special clip from our sold out
show at City Winery in New York City with Rick
Wilson and George Conway. One of the things about Robbie
Kaplan is you can't just get any lawyer for that case.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
I mean, she.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Really is singularly very smart and go.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
And then the way I got to know her was
I had she was. She has another case against Sean
which most people don't know about. It is a it
is a uh it was a class action. I don't
think I got certified as a class action. But it
involves lots and lots of people who.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
They were Trump Steaks, No, Trump Water.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
No, it's it's Trump University. No, but it's but it's
it was a ripoff. It was it's called no, no,
what is it?
Speaker 6 (35:22):
That Trump for President campaign?
Speaker 5 (35:26):
Free drinks for that table where we go That right,
very smart crowd scheme where it was like you can
get rich just you know, and roll in our program,
send us money. And it basically it was a what
they call multiply was that was that the that the
and the and the and they and they pushed it
on the apprentice. He did and what was Don Jr?
(35:50):
And there was I am shocked.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Don Jr.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
Was basically lost the load of money and there was
you know that you can demonstrate apparently the evidence is
pretty strong. You can demonstrate basically there was no way
anybody other than Donald Trump and the founders of ACN
We're gonna make any money on us. So I had
read this complaints, so I have read well, because the
judge didn't certify it as a class action, refused are
(36:15):
uncertified it as a class action. So that piece of
it's going up. So it's not gonna it's not gonna
get tried this year. So but you know, at some
day he's gonna have to get out of prison to
testify in this case. But I mean, you're maybe no,
maybe maybe they'll just let him testify for my satellite
from you know, from the they'll have to shut down
(36:36):
the license plate making room for a couple of hours
and he can have his deposition.
Speaker 6 (36:41):
I've read in the prison laundry.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
Now it's the best rud laundry in any federal correction.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
The c before I got here, the prison commissary, no
one liked it.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
It was strong.
Speaker 5 (36:53):
Prisoners came up to me and would say, sir, we
have a terrible, terrible commissary.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
It's it's it's it's.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
Do we need a businessman, a stable genius to run
the commissary?
Speaker 6 (37:13):
Before the things there, we're not classy. I've made them classy.
Speaker 5 (37:18):
And the license plates, they were terrible. They were the
worst license plates. Now they shine. They are Trump license.
Speaker 6 (37:27):
Plates are more beautiful license plates than these.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
When do I tell them to stop? Or can I
let them keep doing it?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
They can keep doing it?
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Okay, did this on the We should just do this
on the Jimmy Kimmel's right something right, right?
Speaker 6 (37:42):
I mean we can.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Okay, Well yeah, I.
Speaker 7 (37:47):
Mean, but George, you're you're more bullish than a lot
of people. On Trump actually going to prison, Yes, talk
about that, because there are a lot of people it's
really simple.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Yeah, I mean he's criminal.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
I have noticed a lot of criming.
Speaker 5 (38:03):
Yeah, yeah, and look at I mean, look at it
this way. He's got the ninety one counts basically any
combination of them. I mean it's like you gotta okay,
they should have a roulette wheel. They've got the quick
ninety one. You know, wherever the ball lands, that's three
or four years right there. So you know, you just
a couple of spins, bye bye.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
So that's I feel.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Like you will not be said to see him go.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
I you know, I don't wish him unwell. He is unwell.
I don't wish him unwell. I mean I I don't.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I think when you like the Republican Party back.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
We're never getting it back.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
It's gone.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
It's gone. It's dead, it's gone. I mean, you know,
it's it's basically, if Trump doesn't destroy the Republican Party
this year, it'll be because he got elected and he will
destroy the country, right, But he's not going to do that.
And I think that you can already see the tensions
in the Republican Party at the state level. At the
federal level, You've got Henry Barber saying no, don't spend
(39:04):
the money on Trump's legal defense and his judgments. You know,
you've got you've got all these I mean at the
state level. Look, the Republican Party is a disaster because
all the looney tunes have taken over the state. The
state parties, Michigan's are perfect. Florida can't raise any money
because they're crazy. You know, we we haven't seen everybody.
(39:27):
I want all the Democrats to be paranoid and upset
and scared.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
We don't don't.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Because I want all of you people to walk on
a crawl unbroken glass with people on your back to
the you know, in a swing state, please take you know,
get on Jet blue or.
Speaker 6 (39:50):
Whatever whatever whatever, register legally, and.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
That's you know, that's that's the way. You know, it's
it's when you assume that, oh, he's such an idiot,
he can't win. Is y he wins? Yeah, And that's
what happened in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7 (40:05):
I remember twenty sixteen. I was talking to people around
Clinton World.
Speaker 6 (40:08):
They're like, oh man, they've got this in the bag.
It's amazing.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
They were hanging out in.
Speaker 6 (40:12):
Brook they were picking out curtains in the west wind.
Speaker 7 (40:16):
They were like, I'm going to be the deputy Secretary
of Commers, I'm going to be in the state and
where were they after that?
Speaker 5 (40:23):
And then and then but they figured it out, like
with seven days to go before the election, which is
why they held that big rally in Philadelphia, and it
was and they never how many times they go to
Wisconsin zero?
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yeah, but the reason they did go to Wisconsin was
because every time she went it wasn't good, was it
didn't do whatever.
Speaker 6 (40:41):
Here's here's the book.
Speaker 5 (40:43):
The reason why she lost was because the election became
about her.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
The reason why he lost in twenty twenty was because
the election was about him, because he was the incumbent
and the lunatic. And twenty twenty four he is going
to lose because he cannot help but make the election
about him, because everything has to be about him. And
(41:06):
they can tell him, no, you have to say you
have to you know, you have to talk about Joe Biden,
and he'll mutter some things about Biden crime family where
he's see and then he's gonna say blah blah, and
then and then and then people like people like Rick
(41:27):
are gonna run ads saying you know, you are a lunatic,
You're a madman, and he's gonna say, no, I'm not.
He's gonna spend all day saying I'm a stable genius
and he's gonna look like a complete and one of
the things we have to do this year, everybody was
upset about this guy herd the council. It's like, no,
(41:48):
he did he doesn't. He did us a favor because
he put the mental state of our presidential candidates an issue.
And okay, hey, Joe's old. He forgets stuff. I forget stuff.
We're all forgetting stuff. Okay, he needs more sleep than
(42:08):
he used to, like my dog, like my dog, Bonnie.
Speaker 8 (42:12):
Yes, okay, Bonnie, and so fucking what Yeah, okay, and
you're here, all right, So so let's let's talk about
You got the old guy who's nice and not crazy
and doesn't wanna it, doesn't want.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
To destroy the be a dictator for damn a minute.
Speaker 6 (42:32):
Or burn down the republic, burn down the.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
Republic, or you know, reak vengeance upon his enemies.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
That's us, by the way, in case you're wondering, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (42:45):
I want the I want the bungalow nearest to the
to the fire pit.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
So yeah, that's what Givemo is known for its bungalows.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
But anyway, I mean, you know, one of the one
of the great failures. So the press was that, I mean,
it's his problem. Isn't just that he's losing it, like
he's losing it in terms of his ability to recall things,
his language ability is is aphasia, all these things. His
problem is the same problem he's had this entire life.
(43:14):
He's a narcissistic sociopath. And and the thing that's that's that's.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
We're gonna clap for narcissistic.
Speaker 5 (43:20):
Exact, everybody cluster b let's hear it for cluster We
having a hand for all these people who know what
cluster b is. Everyone took a cluster b he he
we need to talk about that. And four years ago,
oh my god, four and a half years ago, I
wrote a piece in The Atlantic that was like eleven
thousand words trying to get people to focus on the
(43:42):
fact that he was a narcissist somath. No. But you know,
I mean it got some press. It really got a
lot of play in the Beltway. I think all of
the basically all the journalists read it and they said, oh,
that makes sense, but they still ill wouldn't report it
because because well, well there's there's first of all, there's
(44:09):
there's a, there's a everybody's used to his lunacy. So
you know, we've defined deviancy down if you will, and
we've we've basically, you know, or psychologists or sociology called
it malignant normality. And so everything he's graded on a curve.
But there's the gold Water Rule, and the press always
(44:29):
afraid about the Goldwater Rule says says that mental health
professionals cannot talk about people who are not their patients,
and they and and so they're afraid to go near it.
The problem is all the reasons behind the Goldwater Rule
don't apply here. Like one is, well, how can you
how can you say somebody has this condition if you
haven't examined them. Dude, we have been examining this fucking
(44:53):
guy for how many years now? Nine nine years, nine
nine and years. And it's not like it's not like
it's ambiguous or marginal. I mean, if you look at
you know, this isn't hard. I mean, it's it's actually
written in plain English that diagnosed The Constatistical Manual of
(45:13):
of of mental disorders is the description of narcissistic personality
disorder and it's and anti social personality disorder. Of the
two clear ones that he clearly has. You go through
one through nine, only like five of them you have
to have. He's nine for nine, like five, they're like
(45:37):
five of them. For for sociopathy, ding ding ding ding ding,
you only need like three. It's like so much winning,
so much winning and everything. If you look at those
behavioral characteristics, it explained everything makes sense about Donald Trump. Everything,
(45:58):
the pathological line that's basically part and parcelov of the
self regard, the talking about himself, the fact that he
thinks that that the soldiers who die and to protect
democracy are our suckers and losers. Okay, this is this
is this is Donald Trump. This is his this is
his sociopathy and his narcissism. And and you know, there
(46:22):
was there was one I was sort of wondering about, Well,
was he is he is? There is Does he assault people? Yes, yeah,
we've proven that already. And and there are just so
many I mean it, literally he checks every box. And
we need to start talking about that because it explains
almost everything about him, about his desire to use the
(46:45):
government as an instrument for revenge, about his problem with
not seeking consent before in trying to engage in sexual relations,
with other people, and you know his fevery stealing documents
and money. Do I mention the pathological line? Yeah, you know,
(47:07):
it's all. It all makes sense when you say this
is this guy is textbook and and the press will
not talk about it. They'll just say, oh, he's unconventional
because he's a fucking lunatic.
Speaker 6 (47:22):
But take him seriously but not literally, No, take him literally.
Speaker 5 (47:27):
He's crazy and and and you know, I I think
that's something that we need to talk about this year.
And now that we.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Are he's the nominee again.
Speaker 5 (47:39):
We're gonna start talking about it this year more than ever.
And you you know, we're.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Gonna talking over The goal is we're going to talk
about it for eight months and then we're never going
to talk about him, right.
Speaker 9 (47:52):
That's what we want, and then we go back to
having normal politics with normal presidents who you might not
agree with, but who you don't think are going to.
Speaker 7 (48:02):
Asp You know what, I don't think we're going to
be clear of it, even if we beat him this year.
I don't think we're going to be clear of it
for a while. There's a lot of bad incentives out there,
I hope. So there's a lot of bad incentives out
there to make people act in crazy ways.
Speaker 5 (48:18):
And that's not in the clubhouses. Yeah, right, running there
the Lauren Boberts. But that's the thing. I mean, I
think the Republican Party is going to fall apart because
those people are not going to be able to hold
it together. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
One of the things go ahead, one of the things
you would say to me for years now, as you've
been saying to me, he's going to destroy the Republican Party.
Speaker 6 (48:44):
Yes, yes, I mean functionally the party doesn't exist.
Speaker 5 (48:47):
It doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 7 (48:48):
Right, there's no ideology, there's no philosophy, there's no plan
of governance.
Speaker 5 (48:53):
It's all about Well, there was the twenty twenty Republican platform.
Speaker 6 (48:59):
You mean, the one that was whatever Donald says goes.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Yeah. They said we will just reprint the one from
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 6 (49:06):
It's better when it was like the Bath Party platform.
Speaker 5 (49:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Oh but but yeah, I think that's a really good point.
We are, Uh, he really has all of the It's
funny because as Nicky Haley and Nikki Hally's last sort
of hurrah, she was talking about spending, government spending, and
I was like, I haven't heard a Republican talk about
(49:30):
this in like five seasons.
Speaker 6 (49:32):
No, it was, it was.
Speaker 5 (49:33):
It was so quaint. I remember like that first debate,
it's like.
Speaker 6 (49:39):
Oh, tell us more about them. Before times Grandma was.
Speaker 5 (49:44):
Talking about not spending money wastefully. Wow, that's like that's
the earth I grew up on. What how into that planet?
So I give her credit for that. Yeah, I don't
(50:05):
give her credit for raising her and saying, well, I'll
vote for him even he's a criminal. And did she
say she'd pardon him or no?
Speaker 7 (50:12):
Yeah, she said several times that She's like, we just
have to put it behind us. I'm like, yeah, close
the jail, Doring's behind us.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
That's she seems to have gotten better lately. I don't know. Yeah,
it's gonna last.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
She's out now she's going.
Speaker 5 (50:28):
Look, I know she's out, but I I but she was,
she's she was actually getting close to saying the right
things almost consistently.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
And then she was like, and Joe Biden's bad too.
Speaker 6 (50:39):
Yeah, Well I hope she. I hope she stays strong.
I don't hold a lot of hope for it, though.
Speaker 7 (50:45):
I Mean, I've just seen too many of these people
join that cadre of broken men and women who oppose
Trump and.
Speaker 6 (50:52):
Then so befo him anyway, because Biden's communism, and then
you end up being like a hollow shell of a man,
like a Marco or a Ted.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
Cran What about it, right, If I had to bet
money on that.
Speaker 6 (51:02):
Rudy, Rudy's on a hollow shell of anything. Rudy is.
Speaker 5 (51:06):
Rudy is like Rudy is, he's he's just sloshing around.
Speaker 6 (51:11):
Rudy is destroyed. Yeah, yes, listen, I would actually not
actually full. I wouldn't even describe it as secrets.
Speaker 7 (51:20):
I would describe it something on the lower shelf in
the plastic jug wild No, no, not even wild turkey,
like old Ocelot or.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
All right, we have zero minutes left.
Speaker 10 (51:34):
Yes, I'm going to break this up, this party, but
it was absolutely amazing, all right, George Conway, No, no moment.
Speaker 6 (51:53):
So it's now time for a moment. We're standing now
for the moments of fu We really.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Wanted to and this whole time didn't we So we
are in the moment of fuckery. For people who listen
to my podcast, that's something we do there.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
Do you do it in your podcast?
Speaker 5 (52:09):
No? I do.
Speaker 6 (52:10):
Who's on the enemy's list.
Speaker 5 (52:11):
Oh and oh that's good.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
I listened to your podcast, so don't. It's didn't make
it sound it made it sound like I don't, but
I do. Obviously, moment of buckery, you're gonna go first
because you have real scorged earth.
Speaker 6 (52:26):
Is Mitch motherfucking McConnell.
Speaker 7 (52:29):
That is a man who, at two critical moments in
our American history, had the chance to shut.
Speaker 6 (52:36):
Donald Trump's ship down. He had the chance.
Speaker 7 (52:39):
He said the right thing after January sixth, and when
he said Donald Trump did this, he caused this, and
you know what he did what he did this week?
Speaker 11 (52:51):
Will hope to endorse Trump because of what don't you know?
We'll hold full communism when Joe Biden is a Marxis socialist.
And guess what This is a man who insulted Mitch
McConnell's wife, who called her Coco chow, overtly racist, unbelievably
destructive to McConnell's plan to hold power in the Senate,
(53:12):
and yet all he cares about is the vestigial twitch
reflex of maintaining a Republican Therefore, most vote for the
guy is divorced from every single moral aspect of what
Trump is and does. And for that, Mitch McConnell, is
my moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
That was very good.
Speaker 9 (53:35):
Go girl, you're pretty good at this.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
So my moment of fuckery is actually something I've seen
now because I was interviewing Tammy Baldwin the other day,
great senator from the state of Wisconsin running for reelection,
good people, and she was saying to me, you know,
they actually brought in a candidate who lives in California
to run for the Wisconsin seed.
Speaker 7 (54:00):
Well, it's like Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. He flew his
jet down from his house in Connecticut.
Speaker 6 (54:05):
I'm not kidding you, No, no, he really did.
Speaker 5 (54:08):
And this is not even a joke.
Speaker 6 (54:09):
They bought a house in.
Speaker 7 (54:10):
A very fancy neighborhood, I know because they know one
of his neighbors, and they fly their jet down there
when Dave has to come down for events. They commute
from Connecticut to run for US Senate in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6 (54:22):
But this is happening in.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Wisconsin, and he actually lives in a seven million dollar
house in California. But these are candidates who are carbon baggers,
but they're also self funded, and so I just wonder
and again, we are going to see more reporting on this,
but I just wonder how much of these self funded
candidates are running because the RNC is having some trouble
(54:45):
raising money.
Speaker 6 (54:46):
It's listen, McConnell.
Speaker 7 (54:48):
This was part of McConnell's plan for a long time
was to get wealthy moderate Republicans to run and smash them.
Speaker 6 (54:55):
Ag. Here's the again, going back to my moment of fucker.
Speaker 7 (54:58):
The irony is that Mitch McConnell after twenty twelve said, oh,
fuck these tea Party people, We're going to put more
modern Republicans in.
Speaker 6 (55:05):
Well.
Speaker 7 (55:05):
That didn't work in the end of the day, but
so then there the plan was, oh, well, we'll get
these rich guys.
Speaker 6 (55:11):
They're donor class guys. We know who they are.
Speaker 7 (55:13):
They like money, we like money, and it made it
easier for them to counteract the crazy right and also.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
All and also all that money is going to Trump's
legal bills, so you got to get bless them.
Speaker 5 (55:29):
And that is our moment off the Great Well.
Speaker 6 (55:31):
And by the way that it started, my experience.
Speaker 5 (55:34):
Was we've done it. I know, We've done it.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
Hi, 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 recently obtained email show that Donald
Trump was always planning.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
To say the election was stolen.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I am shocked. I'm totally shocked. We have such a
great show for you today. White House communications director the
One the Only Ben Lebolt talks to us about the
state of the Union and what lies ahead for the president.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Then we're going to play you a.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Clip from our Soldown City Winery show featuring the One
the Only Rick Wilson and surprise guest George Conway. But
first we have The Washington Post's own Dana Milbank.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome back, Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Dana Milbank, Molly, it's a thrill as always to be
with you a thrill.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So I love you and love having you on the podcast.
I was excited to have you. Oh, I'm very like
not DC because I like hug people and tell them
that I like them.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
That's like not I feel like that's not the culture.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It's my culture in DC. You can hang with me anytime.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
But I wanted to talk to you about this PC
for The Washington Post, where it's so crazy. I mean,
I don't know if it is, like it's not that crazy,
but it is also that crazy my month of living
the republicanly. So you I want you to. I'm not
going to steal your.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Thunder here because it's so hilarious. So explain to us
what you did.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Well, you know that it is possible and throughout the country.
Really the laws vary by state to vote in whatever
primary you want to it just as long as you
register is that party a certain number of days before
the election. And in DC it's very easy. You just
got to become a Republican three weeks before the primary.
So it is a friend's suggestion that is exactly what
(02:04):
I did. I've always been independent and registered independent, you know,
because I'm scrupulously neutral in all things political, and also
I just don't like messing around, you know, voting for
local primaries I don't really know about.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Let's be honest. You live in the district.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, so my vote is a total throwaway anyway, and
it doesn't really count. But here was a chance for
my vote to count because in twenty sixteen, Marco Rubio
and John Kasik actually beat Trump, who came in a
distant third. So I was like, you know, I could
be part of Trump's only defeat in the entire primary season.
(02:39):
It turns out indeed, he did lose in the district
of Columbia. He also lost in Vermont, so we don't
have the sole distinction. But you know, there were only
I think twelve hundred and fifty votes for Nikki Haley.
That's how big the Republican Party is in all of DC.
So she won with sixty three percent, which means all
of two thousand people voted in this primary. But I
was one of them. So I feel like I had
(03:01):
a measurable effect on dealing this devastating defeat to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
What I love about this story is that Trump has
done a lot of I wanted to say, tweets, but
we know they are truths, a lot of truths. The
iron A too rich on how these radical leftist democrats
are voting in the primary and denying him of his coronation.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So you are one of those radical leftist democrats.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Well, except I was more of a radical leftist and
Hendon technically, but yeah, in fact, I hadn't yet become
a Republican when he was railing about them doing it
to him in New Hampshire, and there, in fact, you
had to do it months in advance of the primaries.
I was like, all right, this really gets under his skin.
So it was all the better reason to do it.
(03:51):
And you know, he's been all about how you vote
for Nikki Haley, you're banished permanently from MAGA, and of
course it's thrilled a lot of Haley supporters. Idea absolutely
thrilled me, you know, and I've always sort of, you know,
styled myself sort of you know, rhino, lowercase rhino, just
you know, never quite a real Republican, and that's that's
(04:11):
what I was officially.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So one of the things that you did was you
just embraced all of the stupid cultural war stuff that
Republicans have that have been a sort of a hallmark
of trumpsm you ate a Chick fil A, You tell
us the other things like that that you did.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Right, And that's why I called it my Month of
living republicanly because you know, it just seemed really cheap
to really just be a rhino. So I thought I'd
really do the stereotypical Republican thing. So I ate at
Chick fil a. I shopped at hobby Lobby. I got
to back the blue placard that I can have up
on my table. I didn't know if I could sleep
(04:51):
easy at night, so I bought my pillow from Mike Lindell.
It's one with He's screened on to the cover of
the pillow holding a flag and the Constitution. I have
that for sleeping. My how is the pillow. It's very
lumpy and flimsy. I compare it to Donald Trump's legal arguments.
I used the Sean Hannity special and it only cost
me fifteen bucks. And anyway, my cat likes it, like
(05:13):
you know, is sleeping on it right now, no doubt.
So I you know, I got my Mike Lindell pillow
trying to help him out of debt. I shopped at
Hobby Lobby. I went to the Museum of the Bible,
you know where Mike Johnson's clare.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I've been there.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I was a little disappointed because you know, he went
there and said, how God you know, made him into
the new Moses at the red seat moment. But it
was like totally non partisan. It was like sort of
a Disney version of the Bible. So I was I
was kind of disappointed because I wanted to have more
of a maga justification.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
It doesn't have a real magas my eldest son, yeah
me there.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah, Bobby Lobby was more maga than that. But it
was tiring, and so after that I went to a
sports bar and watched NASCAR. There was a pile up
at the beginning of the race, there was a photo finish,
and there were all these you know, hair dye for
men and copd ads. So I really felt right at
home with that. And then I drove three hours out
(06:05):
into Virginia to go to a gun show and that
was really I mean that those were my mag of
people right there.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Did they have disgusting t shirts that say like racist
and over sexualized things about our vice president.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, there was the Confederate flags and the three percenters
and Trader Joe. I bought one that said I support
Donald Trump, I drink beer, I eat meat, I have
guns to protect my family and if you don't like it,
move or something to that effect. It was very very pithy.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
The lack of pithiness with the trumpy accessories are because
you don't have a lot of writers writing that kind
of thing.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
This is true. They had some great targets that I
could shoot at with my guns. There was one with
a cowboy with a red dot on his chest and
read fart and then he had actual sort of you know,
life looking genitals in blue that you could shoot at. Yeah,
you know. And there's the survival food, the freeze dried food,
and first aid stuff. They were the patriots there, the
(07:10):
Massa Newton patriots having their election integrity meeting geese. So
you know, these were I felt that these were my
people as well. So I think that really rounded out
the experience. And it's not that I would want to
necessarily be part of that cultural I have to say.
I switched, you know, after I voted, I switched my
party back to Independent. And then I was passing a
(07:32):
Chick fil A and I was thinking, I can still
eat there. It's good.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I thought, Chick fil A stopped giving money to anti
LGBT causes, Well.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Then I'm not going to eat there anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Did you have the fried oreos at Chick fil A?
Speaker 5 (07:46):
No?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I didn't even know about this. You see, you are
a better Republican than I am.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Molly, Ah, I'm sure that's not true.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I should have checked with you first on this. No,
I just got the fried chicken sandwich and the milkshake.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But was it good.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
It was really good, and I think I'm I'm just
going to stick with it. I you know, whatever, whatever
their politics are, it's good.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
So let's talk about what else is happening in the
Beltway besides your weird and hilarious story. We are sort
of at the end of primary season.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Would you say that's fair?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I would say it's over, yes.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, and now we have eight months of limping along
until this election.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That is a very dreary thought. And I feel it
personally as well. I've sort of been following. You know,
I was going to cover the primary, but there's no
primary to cover, so I've basically been slumming it covering
the House Republicans, who it's sort of cheap fun, but
they never really disappoint, you know, they're always going to
do something wacky. But you know, after this week, I
(08:42):
was like, all right, I'm going to finally have to
graduate and start covering this interminable presidential campaign. And I'm
really not looking forward to it. I can already since
the procrastination.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Let's have two seconds on cheap fun. We got to
go back because.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Oh please, Yes, I think this is the stupidest group
of Republicans that the House has ever seen.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Well, and that's a high bar, but I think, I mean, objectively,
we have to say they cleared it this week. What
did we do? We spent the last year getting rid
of the speaker, having all these showdowns and everything.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
And then.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
And they're basically passing the same, you know, the same
spending bill that Kevin McCarthy agreed to a year ago.
So we just wasted the last year having all of
these fights that amounted to nothing.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Basically, this entire thing is because Matt Gates was mad
at McCarthy for allowing an ethics investigation into.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Him, yes, which is still proceeding.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I mean, so like, think about how stupid that is.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, it's hard to sort of overstate the stupidity. But
you know, it's not like they've done nothing. They've they've
impeached majorcas without any impeachable offenses. They've they're very close
to impeaching Biden, even though it turns out the whole
case is you know, imploded, because they're relying on a
whole bunch of felons the main witness is in jail
(09:59):
and the ones in jail. The other one is on
the lamb.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
For his own protection, likely because they worry about the
Russians killing him.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
And they want to have a hunter Biden hearing with
various of his accusers. But they're all going to have
to come in orange jumpsuits. Now.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
The maiorci Ist impeachment, though, is my favorite of the
two failed impeachments, because now they've realized they can't bring
it to the Senate.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Right after all that and saying it's really an emergency
and our national security depends on getting this guy out
of office, They're like, all right, we're just going to
sit on this for a while. Yes, that's particularly delightful.
I mean, I guess they're hoping that they can draw
a maximum attention to it if they pull back for
(10:46):
a while. But it does sort of undermine the whole
profess need to get rid of the man in the
first place.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
My favorite stupid moment of the stupidest Congress is actually
the moment that they decide that they're going to get
rid of Santos, and then over the weekend leadership realizes
they actually really need his vote. Because they spend the
weekend doing the math that two is less than three,
and they somehow on Monday morning they figure that out
(11:14):
and they start to try to get people to vote
against expelling Santo's but.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
It's too late, right, the ship had sailed, and they
narrowly do and they are correct that they can't govern
without Santos, but I mean they couldn't really govern with him,
so it's not a huge difference. But yeah, I mean,
like when the majorcas impeachment went down the first time,
it was by one vote and Santos tweeting do you
(11:40):
miss me now? And Gate says, yes, I miss him already.
In fairness, they couldn't really govern before. And you've seen it,
I think now six before this congress they had a
single rule. You know how the procedural what you started
to make had not failed in twenty years, and now
they've done it six times over the last year. It
(12:00):
would take one hundred and twenty years to have gotten
to that under normal proceedings, but they were able to
do it all.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, you know, you got to respect the incompetence. So
you know, this is just the stuff. You know, if
you watch c SPAN, it's not like the mainstream media
is picking up the really crazy stuff, there is still
more crazy stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Well, I am trying to fill that vacuum. I've been
trying to list every little bit of crazy and I
don't know if you know, I have a whole book
coming out. I think it's looking like September. It's going
to be called The Fools on the Hill. It's just
a compendium of crazy. And you know, I'm just going
to keep hitting you over the head with all the
craziness lest you forget any one delicious nugget of it.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
One of the things that I'm struck by was actually,
you know, so it looks like they're going to be
able to pass this the first tranche.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Of spending bilts. Right, these are the bills that we
were just talking about.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
But on the floor, Chip Roy is furious and gives
this insane speech yesterday where it was like, we didn't
do nearly enough. We should be cutting the FBI buy more.
I mean, what is happening.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Well, so one third of the House Republicans oppose this,
so it just sort of shows you and that's roughly
the crazy quotient in the House. And I mean, but
that's more than enough to you know, screw up the
entire operations of the place, and they have. But you know,
it does show you that if Mike Johnson or if
McCarthy before I'm actually wanted to try to govern, you
could do it with Democratic votes. They would stand up
(13:30):
to the crazy. So the option has always been there.
It's just like they needed to exhaust every other option
before they could do the most sensible thing. So, yeah,
the spending wheel. They got rid of all the or
virtually all of the crazy riders about abortion, the trans
at gay rights, at DEI, and you know, all the
other cultural war issues. So they just tossed all of those.
(13:54):
They stuck to the spending agreement that McCarthy had Biden
reached a year ago alone. Behold, it sails through with
i think all Democrats but two or something like that
and two thirds of the Republic. So it's not so hard,
is it.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So let's talk for a minute about even though this
is the rematch presidential race that nobody wanted, where the
stakes are impossibly high, yet again, there are some really
strange congressional races that are percolating. Magan really continues to
pick some of the most incredibly bad candidates I've ever
(14:39):
seen in my life.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, I mean, it'd be tough to exceed what they
did the last time around.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
They may have done it, though.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
They might have. I mean you got to you know,
if you look at North Carolina the gubernatorial nominee, I mean,
that's something they did get rid of that. I think
it's Sandy Smith was the name. She's the one who's
sort of been accused by her ex husband of trying
to run car and throwing an alarm clock at him.
She lost in the general election last time. This time
they were able to bump her out the way in
(15:08):
the in the primary. But yeah, I mean, I think
for everyone that, you know, what's left of the party
established is able to knock down a couple of the
crazies still get through. They've just sort of lost control
of the process. So it's what Tom Massey said a
few years ago that you know, he was confused as
to what the ideology was of the Republican primary voters,
(15:29):
like are they you know, libertarian? What are they? And
he finally realized they just want the craziest son of
a bitch in the race.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Thomas Massey was happy to oblige. I mean this is
a guy who went to ID and now he says.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Crazy, right, and now he walks around with his pocket
protector debt counter. So truth is he's one of the
more sane ones in that in the house right now.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
One of the things that I was struck by was
Nikki Haley this week dropped out of the race.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
She goes, this is like my favorite thing.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Like she's so quaint, She's like, what our biggest problem
is our national Dad. I was like, I haven't heard
this since what is this two thousand.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
And th right right? Which is like no child left
behind the flight right? No, it's it was a great throwback.
It's not wrong. It's just there's been a universal decision
to just ignore this, not worry about entitlements. Just right
off into the sunset.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Do you think that being fiscally sane will come back?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
There are so many things we wonder about. Will that,
you know, we'll just general sanity and the belief in
a strong America leading overseas. Will that come back? Will
democracy come back? Well? I would think that you would
reach a debt crisis at some point and then that
would force a reckoning. But it's you know, it never
(16:57):
actually seems to happen. It has not. Injured are standing
in the world. So you know all the people who
are saying, you know, social Security is going bankrupt, that
it cares going bankrupt and we won't be able to
issue you dead as the United States, it just hasn't happened.
Maybe it just hasn't happened yet, but I've sort of
given up on any sort of prudence.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Thank you so much, Dana Milbank, Molly.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
It's been a pleasure as always.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Ben Lebolt is the White House Communications Director. Welcome to
Fast Politics. Wait, what is your fancy title, Ben.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Lebalt, white House Communications Director.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
That seems very fancy.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
I can search for a new title if it's too much.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Now it's good.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
We like a fancy title here at Fast Politics. Since
you are in the admin, I now first.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Want to talk to you about things that happened to
me on television last night at one o'clock in the morning.
You may not be used to having questions phrase quite
like this, but this is where we are. So last
night on television at one o'clock in the morning, I'm
with Tim Miller.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
He's quite wonderful. I love him.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
But we were talking about it and he was saying
that out of the New Yorker magazine profile.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
He said, Well, he said, I'm worried that the White
House doesn't think the polls are right and isn't reactive
enough and might be complacent. Just for a minute, since
you work there, Yeah, tell us why that is not
something that necessarily people have to worry about.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Yeah. Look, well, I think entering this year, you know,
everybody should know what's at stake. We're quite clear that
American democracy is on the line, that rights and freedoms
for Americans across the country, or on the line if
you're a woman who wants to make their own healthcare decisions,
if you're a parent who believes they should decide what
(18:54):
books your kids have access to rather than an ideological governor,
if you believe that Jane Ray sixth was an insurrection,
not a celebration of patriots, I think pretty clear driven
by the president, are quite clear on what the stakes
are of the president's success on behalf of the American people.
In some ways, this year reminds me a little bit
(19:15):
of twenty twelve, when I served as the press secretary
for the Obama by re election campaign at that time
and We went into the year knowing that the country
was divided and that the race was essentially tied, and
I think we find ourselves in that same position today.
And so you know, we're now entering the portion of
(19:36):
the year where you know, we're moving closer towards the
end of the primaries and the two candidates entering the
general election. I think the State of the Union speech
is sort of the president's first appeal to the country
as a whole, the highest viewership we'll expect the president
to see all year, and really to start to reach
(19:58):
people with his me She then follow that with travel
to key states across the country and make sure that
people hear the contrast version of that message and the choice.
And so everybody here from the President down is up
night and day, recognizing the stakes, doing everything we can
to communicate both about the President's record and what's at
(20:20):
stake this year.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I want to talk to you about this speech.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
This is the State of the Union is an incredible
opportunity to talk about some of this stuff that I
feel like the Biden administration has accomplished that they haven't
gotten credit for in the very narrow and likely wrong polling.
So to talk about sort of the accomplishments that you
highlighted in this speech.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Well, if you, Molly, I mean, I think the State
of the Union offered a few things that offered a
chance for the President to look back for the largest
audience that he'll face in a long time, and talk
through the fact that we overcame the pandemic that was
killing so many Americans, that we've collectively built the strongest
(21:05):
economy in the world. We've brought inflation down more than
any other country, that wages are significantly outpacing inflation, that
the racial wealth gap is the lowest it's been in
twenty years. That more jobs have been created fifteen million
under this administration than any presidential administration in history.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
So those are.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Things that people may have heard bits and pieces of before,
but they didn't collectively hear it until Thursdaying weren't a
lot different situation this year, coming out of the supply chain,
inflation coming down than we were last, So that was
an important part of the case to be made. The
President also looked forward about what must be done now
you know, some of these accomplishments could be significantly expanded
(21:49):
to impact many more Americans. So you know, with insulin
capped at fifteen dollars per seniors, while the President's proposed
we should be able to do that for all Americans
who require in camping prescription drug costs a two thousand
dollars out of pocket a year for seniors. Let's offer
that to all Americans. Housing costs. This is something that
has been a persistent problem facing Americans up and down
(22:13):
the economic scale. The President has proposed some tax breaks
to provide mortgage reliefs and building more housing to keep
the price of rent down. He recommitted to things like
making sure that IVF is available to every single American
and that the rollback of grow that we stopped that
that we were sore row and you know, all these
(22:34):
implications for women and families across the country. So that's
a chance to look forward and then also to just
talk about what's on the line and what the contrast
is against you know, MAGA Republicans and the President is
a defender of democracy. This is a very significant moment
in US history that will come to it for this November.
(22:55):
He stood up for democracy at home and abroad. He's
standing up for individual rights and freedoms. Republicans used to
be say that they were for freedoms, but they've passed
hundreds of bills and state legislatures to take freedoms away
and certainly are responsible for the fall of Roe versus
Wade at the Supreme Court. And look, their economic approach
(23:15):
hasn't worked. You know, the president's predecessor showered billionaires and
corporations with two trillion dollars in tax cuts. It exploded
the deficit, and the middle class had to pay for it,
and they didn't see any benefits out of it. And
so you know, the present that laid out the stakes
and laid out the contrast in a really compel a way.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
So, one of the many arguments that I have with
people in the pundon industrial complex, by the way, I
think they're going to kick me out, is that Joe
Biden is not a president for you. He is a
president for more working class Americans in a way that
is I think really sort of like a thing that
the Democratic Party sort of lost sight of. And one
(23:55):
of the things that makes me think about that is
like Biden has had this quest against fees. It's small,
it's very un sexy, but I actually think it's something
voters really do care about can you talk about that
and other things like it.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
I think the President's tests is always is this something
that your family would talk about around the Thanksgiving table?
And people like us, Molly, obviously, we've been hyper political
for a big portion of our lives. But you know
that the average America and the average family isn't like that.
And you know, when I get together with my extended
family over Thanksgiving, there's still a lot of people who say,
(24:30):
you know, I'm just not interested in politics. It doesn't
have that big of an impact on my life, which
I've argued to various extents over the years, but I
got to tell you it's stuck. Like jug fees where
it took a trip, they were loaded up with all
these resort fees that didn't even stayed a resort, you know,
doubled the cost threat or you know, they want to
go see a concert or a game, and you know
(24:52):
the ticket company is doubling the fee for that and
not disclosing it. I mean, the presence Lens has always
been the family million household he grew up with and
around in Scranton, Pennsylvania and Claymont, Delaware. You know, working
families who struggle to make ends and meet who aren't
one hundred percent sure that they'll have job security or
(25:13):
financial security and have to strap things together every couple
of weeks. And he has kept those Americans, those hardworking Americans,
at the heart of his presidency. He's made sure that
the earners on the bottom of the wave scale have
actually seen the biggest gains under this administration as wages
have gone up. He's made sure that the racial wealth
(25:34):
gap has closed. His address areas like student debt relief,
which had really burdened families and prevented them from you know,
putting down at the down payment on a house or
having another kid. He's focused on things like the child
tax care credit and the economy to make sure that
this is just the lenses. Does it impact the daily
(25:54):
life of hardworking Americans, and if so, then he's got
time to focus on.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So I think that's important point about the junk fees
and the sort of smaller pieces of legislation that may
not be mass deportation squads but will actually help people's lives.
So talk to us about some of the top lines
from the speech, and also just some like IVF abortion.
I would love you to talk about like sort of
(26:19):
the health freedom aspect.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
The President believes that this is a significant moment in
history that we're living through where democracy is on the
line abroad, and and he draws a connection between what's
happening abroad in Ukraine and in Europe where Putin's on
the march. He's waving a war of aggression against Ukraine.
He won't stop there. We know that when dictators and
(26:44):
authoritarians are on the march that they'll go into other countries.
He's signified that he would like to do so, it
least into the Baltics, and that if we don't stop
them there, it'll continue and our native alliance, the strongest
alliance in history, will be threatened. And by the way,
if he enters into a European country that's part of
(27:04):
the NATO alliance, we're at war. So we've got to
stop Putin in Ukraine, and we've got to stop you know,
bowing down to Putin and his government and imply that
it's just okay for authoritarians like Putin to seize territory
that's not theirs. Well, we're also facing a really significant
moment at home and a significant risk to our democracy
(27:25):
became very clear on January sixth, where thousands of insurrectionists
stormed the Capitol and tried to overturn the results of
a free and fair election, and Maga Republicans have embraced
and the president's predecessor embraced those people not as insurrectionists,
not as criminals, but as patriots. Well, that's a very
(27:46):
dangerous moment for our country that has not been fully alleviated,
and the present believes we need to confront that directly.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
So that's one.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Secondly, there's been a rollback of rights and freedoms. The
rights and freedoms of Americans across the country are under assault.
If you're a gay person that believes their identity should
be recognized, if you're a woman who wants to make
their own healthcare decisions, if you're worried about what's happening
in schools where entire programs and chapters of history are
(28:15):
just being torn out of books, Well, this is a
moment where we need to fight back for our freedoms
and to defend our individual liberties. And the present beliefs
that this is a year where we'll make big decisions
on that front. And at the art of things, as
we talked about earlier, is the present believes we need
to continue to build the economy from the bottom up,
(28:36):
in middle out instead of the top down. We know
what the results have been, record job creation, the strongest
economy in the world, record contracts for workers, Unions are expanding,
wages are rising. The policies that the President has put
into place, which by the way, some people said were
too aggressive when he did so, has led those things.
(28:59):
He believes we need to can continue our progress. And
the MAGA Republicans all they want to do is the
same trickle down economic expansion of tax breaks for billionaires
and corporations. Well, guess what the President thinks tax fairness
should mean. It should mean charging billionaires and corporations their
fair share, that we should actually have a minimum tax
(29:20):
on billionaires, that we should raise the minimum tax on corporations,
that we can actually do things like fund a child
tax scar rented in this country for working America.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
So let me ask you two questions.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
So, one of the things that you guys are going
to get into trouble with in this election, and you're
already seeing it in some of the exit poll line
is progressives who you know in some ways they don't
understand just how much the Supreme Court sucks.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
And so I want to talk to you about like
student debt.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
One of the things I think has been really amazing
is that the buy An administration has been quietly working
around the clock to try to cancel student debt, but
not so easy. You guys have canceled certain tranches. Talk
to me about where you are and what's happening with that,
And also do you think people can understand that the
Supreme Court really is just going around trying to undermine
(30:13):
legislation at every point.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Well, the good news is you can see from a
public pulling that Americans more Americans know about the work
that the president's doing on student deck belief than the
progress are making out a lot of other issues. So
this is one area that's broken through. I think it's
broken through in part because the Supreme Court overturned what
the President was trying to do in terms of canceling
student debt for millions in America. But he didn't allow
(30:37):
the Supreme Court decision to stop is canceled student debt
for four million Americans to the tune of the one
hundred and thirty eight billion dollars in debt relief through
every executive lever that he has available to do that,
and every couple of weeks every month, there are thousands
of new borrowers getting a letter and email from the
President saying that their debt is canceled or that their
(30:58):
payments are reduced. So he's attacking this from every single angle,
and I think it shows the type of work he's
done throughout the presidency. You know, he doesn't believe this
is a country that should have crumbling infrastructures, So he
passed legislation to get forty six thousand infrastructure projects off
the ground modernists across the country. He doesn't think Europe
(31:18):
and China should lead the world on that.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
He thinks the.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
United States should. He dug into the supply chain crisis
that was causing inflation into individual issues to look at
things like semiconductors, which power refrigerators in cars. We invented
those in America, but they were being built overseas in Asia,
and the present pass bipartisan legislation to make sure we're
(31:40):
building those in America again. Factories are getting off the
ground in places from New York to Arizona. To make
sure that those chips are built here in the United States.
I mean, he really took and looked at the pandemic
and the financial crisis that came out of it, to say,
what do we need to do to build our enomy
in a way it's helping working families, that's bringing prices down,
(32:03):
and that's addressing the cost issue that Americans are facing
at home. And so that's really been the heart of
his domestic policy agenda.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
One of the things that I've been impressed with that
you guys have done is we have this attention economy.
The goal here is to get in front of voters
and also to inspire young people. How is the Biden
Biden administration talking to constituents in ways that are a
little bit creative and not necessarily traditional because I think
(32:36):
that you guys are doing interesting stuff.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Well, look, you know, from a purch of my job,
there's nothing more important than that, and it's what I
spend every day on is figuring out how we reach
the average person across the country. And you have to
realize the average person is not consuming political news right
They're going about the day. They may have you know,
a morning show or day side TV on to you know,
(33:00):
catching bits and pieces of it as they're you know,
making lunch or a family member or heading to a job.
At night, you know, after dinner, people are watching The Bachelor,
you know, more than they're watching the evening news and so.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
And some people don't have cable, like anyone under.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Fifty exactly, there's lots of cord cutters now. Streamings increasingly important,
and so the media has just become more fractured. People
have added new channels to their diet, but they haven't
removed the old channels, and so there's diminishing returns on
any interview or news event. And so what we have
to do is figure out how to reach people everywhere
(33:38):
throughout their day on their smartphone, on consumer media that
doesn't tend to cover political neviws, on digital media, through
every social media platform available. We produced our on content.
We talked to the media, We talked to the media
at the White House, we talked to the media in
the States. We brief influencers who have large reach with
(34:00):
their own audiences. We need to reach people across ages
and demographics wherever they get their news. So look like
we've got you know, talking to you right now. We've
got a podcast strategy then my dads didn't have four
years ago, So we look at information consumption and we
work backwards from that to make sure we're reaching people.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Ben Lebault, thank you so much for joining us. I
hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
It was great to talk to you and would love
to Thanks Molly, and.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Now we have a special clip from our sold out
show at City Winery in New York City with Rick
Wilson and George Conway. One of the things about Robbie
Kaplan is you can't just get any lawyer for that case.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
I mean, she.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Really is singularly very smart and go.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
And then the way I got to know her was
I had she was. She has another case against Sean
which most people don't know about. It is a it
is a uh it was a class action. I don't
think I got certified as a class action. But it
involves lots and lots of people who.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
They were Trump Steaks, No, Trump Water.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
No, it's it's Trump University. No, but it's but it's
it was a ripoff. It was it's called no, no,
what is it?
Speaker 6 (35:22):
That Trump for President campaign?
Speaker 5 (35:26):
Free drinks for that table where we go That right,
very smart crowd scheme where it was like you can
get rich just you know, and roll in our program,
send us money. And it basically it was a what
they call multiply was that was that the that the
and the and the and they and they pushed it
on the apprentice. He did and what was Don Jr?
(35:50):
And there was I am shocked.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Don Jr.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
Was basically lost the load of money and there was
you know that you can demonstrate apparently the evidence is
pretty strong. You can demonstrate basically there was no way
anybody other than Donald Trump and the founders of ACN
We're gonna make any money on us. So I had
read this complaints, so I have read well, because the
judge didn't certify it as a class action, refused are
(36:15):
uncertified it as a class action. So that piece of
it's going up. So it's not gonna it's not gonna
get tried this year. So but you know, at some
day he's gonna have to get out of prison to
testify in this case. But I mean, you're maybe no,
maybe maybe they'll just let him testify for my satellite
from you know, from the they'll have to shut down
(36:36):
the license plate making room for a couple of hours
and he can have his deposition.
Speaker 6 (36:41):
I've read in the prison laundry.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
Now it's the best rud laundry in any federal correction.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
The c before I got here, the prison commissary, no
one liked it.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
It was strong.
Speaker 5 (36:53):
Prisoners came up to me and would say, sir, we
have a terrible, terrible commissary.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
It's it's it's it's.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
Do we need a businessman, a stable genius to run
the commissary?
Speaker 6 (37:13):
Before the things there, we're not classy. I've made them classy.
Speaker 5 (37:18):
And the license plates, they were terrible. They were the
worst license plates. Now they shine. They are Trump license.
Speaker 6 (37:27):
Plates are more beautiful license plates than these.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
When do I tell them to stop? Or can I
let them keep doing it?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
They can keep doing it?
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Okay, did this on the We should just do this
on the Jimmy Kimmel's right something right, right?
Speaker 6 (37:42):
I mean we can.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Okay, Well yeah, I.
Speaker 7 (37:47):
Mean, but George, you're you're more bullish than a lot
of people. On Trump actually going to prison, Yes, talk
about that, because there are a lot of people it's
really simple.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Yeah, I mean he's criminal.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
I have noticed a lot of criming.
Speaker 5 (38:03):
Yeah, yeah, and look at I mean, look at it
this way. He's got the ninety one counts basically any
combination of them. I mean it's like you gotta okay,
they should have a roulette wheel. They've got the quick
ninety one. You know, wherever the ball lands, that's three
or four years right there. So you know, you just
a couple of spins, bye bye.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
So that's I feel.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Like you will not be said to see him go.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
I you know, I don't wish him unwell. He is unwell.
I don't wish him unwell. I mean I I don't.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I think when you like the Republican Party back.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
We're never getting it back.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
It's gone.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
It's gone. It's dead, it's gone. I mean, you know,
it's it's basically, if Trump doesn't destroy the Republican Party
this year, it'll be because he got elected and he will
destroy the country, right, But he's not going to do that.
And I think that you can already see the tensions
in the Republican Party at the state level. At the
federal level, You've got Henry Barber saying no, don't spend
(39:04):
the money on Trump's legal defense and his judgments. You know,
you've got you've got all these I mean at the
state level. Look, the Republican Party is a disaster because
all the looney tunes have taken over the state. The
state parties, Michigan's are perfect. Florida can't raise any money
because they're crazy. You know, we we haven't seen everybody.
(39:27):
I want all the Democrats to be paranoid and upset
and scared.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
We don't don't.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Because I want all of you people to walk on
a crawl unbroken glass with people on your back to
the you know, in a swing state, please take you know,
get on Jet blue or.
Speaker 6 (39:50):
Whatever whatever whatever, register legally, and.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
That's you know, that's that's the way. You know, it's
it's when you assume that, oh, he's such an idiot,
he can't win. Is y he wins? Yeah, And that's
what happened in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7 (40:05):
I remember twenty sixteen. I was talking to people around
Clinton World.
Speaker 6 (40:08):
They're like, oh man, they've got this in the bag.
It's amazing.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
They were hanging out in.
Speaker 6 (40:12):
Brook they were picking out curtains in the west wind.
Speaker 7 (40:16):
They were like, I'm going to be the deputy Secretary
of Commers, I'm going to be in the state and
where were they after that?
Speaker 5 (40:23):
And then and then but they figured it out, like
with seven days to go before the election, which is
why they held that big rally in Philadelphia, and it
was and they never how many times they go to
Wisconsin zero?
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yeah, but the reason they did go to Wisconsin was
because every time she went it wasn't good, was it
didn't do whatever.
Speaker 6 (40:41):
Here's here's the book.
Speaker 5 (40:43):
The reason why she lost was because the election became
about her.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
The reason why he lost in twenty twenty was because
the election was about him, because he was the incumbent
and the lunatic. And twenty twenty four he is going
to lose because he cannot help but make the election
about him, because everything has to be about him. And
(41:06):
they can tell him, no, you have to say you
have to you know, you have to talk about Joe Biden,
and he'll mutter some things about Biden crime family where
he's see and then he's gonna say blah blah, and
then and then and then people like people like Rick
(41:27):
are gonna run ads saying you know, you are a lunatic,
You're a madman, and he's gonna say, no, I'm not.
He's gonna spend all day saying I'm a stable genius
and he's gonna look like a complete and one of
the things we have to do this year, everybody was
upset about this guy herd the council. It's like, no,
(41:48):
he did he doesn't. He did us a favor because
he put the mental state of our presidential candidates an issue.
And okay, hey, Joe's old. He forgets stuff. I forget stuff.
We're all forgetting stuff. Okay, he needs more sleep than
(42:08):
he used to, like my dog, like my dog, Bonnie.
Speaker 8 (42:12):
Yes, okay, Bonnie, and so fucking what Yeah, okay, and
you're here, all right, So so let's let's talk about
You got the old guy who's nice and not crazy
and doesn't wanna it, doesn't want.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
To destroy the be a dictator for damn a minute.
Speaker 6 (42:32):
Or burn down the republic, burn down the.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
Republic, or you know, reak vengeance upon his enemies.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
That's us, by the way, in case you're wondering, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (42:45):
I want the I want the bungalow nearest to the
to the fire pit.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
So yeah, that's what Givemo is known for its bungalows.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
But anyway, I mean, you know, one of the one
of the great failures. So the press was that, I mean,
it's his problem. Isn't just that he's losing it, like
he's losing it in terms of his ability to recall things,
his language ability is is aphasia, all these things. His
problem is the same problem he's had this entire life.
(43:14):
He's a narcissistic sociopath. And and the thing that's that's that's.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
We're gonna clap for narcissistic.
Speaker 5 (43:20):
Exact, everybody cluster b let's hear it for cluster We
having a hand for all these people who know what
cluster b is. Everyone took a cluster b he he
we need to talk about that. And four years ago,
oh my god, four and a half years ago, I
wrote a piece in The Atlantic that was like eleven
thousand words trying to get people to focus on the
(43:42):
fact that he was a narcissist somath. No. But you know,
I mean it got some press. It really got a
lot of play in the Beltway. I think all of
the basically all the journalists read it and they said, oh,
that makes sense, but they still ill wouldn't report it
because because well, well there's there's first of all, there's
(44:09):
there's a, there's a everybody's used to his lunacy. So
you know, we've defined deviancy down if you will, and
we've we've basically, you know, or psychologists or sociology called
it malignant normality. And so everything he's graded on a curve.
But there's the gold Water Rule, and the press always
(44:29):
afraid about the Goldwater Rule says says that mental health
professionals cannot talk about people who are not their patients,
and they and and so they're afraid to go near it.
The problem is all the reasons behind the Goldwater Rule
don't apply here. Like one is, well, how can you
how can you say somebody has this condition if you
haven't examined them. Dude, we have been examining this fucking
(44:53):
guy for how many years now? Nine nine years, nine
nine and years. And it's not like it's not like
it's ambiguous or marginal. I mean, if you look at
you know, this isn't hard. I mean, it's it's actually
written in plain English that diagnosed The Constatistical Manual of
(45:13):
of of mental disorders is the description of narcissistic personality
disorder and it's and anti social personality disorder. Of the
two clear ones that he clearly has. You go through
one through nine, only like five of them you have
to have. He's nine for nine, like five, they're like
(45:37):
five of them. For for sociopathy, ding ding ding ding ding,
you only need like three. It's like so much winning,
so much winning and everything. If you look at those
behavioral characteristics, it explained everything makes sense about Donald Trump. Everything,
(45:58):
the pathological line that's basically part and parcelov of the
self regard, the talking about himself, the fact that he
thinks that that the soldiers who die and to protect
democracy are our suckers and losers. Okay, this is this
is this is Donald Trump. This is his this is
his sociopathy and his narcissism. And and you know, there
(46:22):
was there was one I was sort of wondering about, Well,
was he is he is? There is Does he assault people? Yes, yeah,
we've proven that already. And and there are just so
many I mean it, literally he checks every box. And
we need to start talking about that because it explains
almost everything about him, about his desire to use the
(46:45):
government as an instrument for revenge, about his problem with
not seeking consent before in trying to engage in sexual relations,
with other people, and you know his fevery stealing documents
and money. Do I mention the pathological line? Yeah, you know,
(47:07):
it's all. It all makes sense when you say this
is this guy is textbook and and the press will
not talk about it. They'll just say, oh, he's unconventional
because he's a fucking lunatic.
Speaker 6 (47:22):
But take him seriously but not literally, No, take him literally.
Speaker 5 (47:27):
He's crazy and and and you know, I I think
that's something that we need to talk about this year.
And now that we.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Are he's the nominee again.
Speaker 5 (47:39):
We're gonna start talking about it this year more than ever.
And you you know, we're.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Gonna talking over The goal is we're going to talk
about it for eight months and then we're never going
to talk about him, right.
Speaker 9 (47:52):
That's what we want, and then we go back to
having normal politics with normal presidents who you might not
agree with, but who you don't think are going to.
Speaker 7 (48:02):
Asp You know what, I don't think we're going to
be clear of it, even if we beat him this year.
I don't think we're going to be clear of it
for a while. There's a lot of bad incentives out there,
I hope. So there's a lot of bad incentives out
there to make people act in crazy ways.
Speaker 5 (48:18):
And that's not in the clubhouses. Yeah, right, running there
the Lauren Boberts. But that's the thing. I mean, I
think the Republican Party is going to fall apart because
those people are not going to be able to hold
it together. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
One of the things go ahead, one of the things
you would say to me for years now, as you've
been saying to me, he's going to destroy the Republican Party.
Speaker 6 (48:44):
Yes, yes, I mean functionally the party doesn't exist.
Speaker 5 (48:47):
It doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 7 (48:48):
Right, there's no ideology, there's no philosophy, there's no plan
of governance.
Speaker 5 (48:53):
It's all about Well, there was the twenty twenty Republican platform.
Speaker 6 (48:59):
You mean, the one that was whatever Donald says goes.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Yeah. They said we will just reprint the one from
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 6 (49:06):
It's better when it was like the Bath Party platform.
Speaker 5 (49:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Oh but but yeah, I think that's a really good point.
We are, Uh, he really has all of the It's
funny because as Nicky Haley and Nikki Hally's last sort
of hurrah, she was talking about spending, government spending, and
I was like, I haven't heard a Republican talk about
(49:30):
this in like five seasons.
Speaker 6 (49:32):
No, it was, it was.
Speaker 5 (49:33):
It was so quaint. I remember like that first debate,
it's like.
Speaker 6 (49:39):
Oh, tell us more about them. Before times Grandma was.
Speaker 5 (49:44):
Talking about not spending money wastefully. Wow, that's like that's
the earth I grew up on. What how into that planet?
So I give her credit for that. Yeah, I don't
(50:05):
give her credit for raising her and saying, well, I'll
vote for him even he's a criminal. And did she
say she'd pardon him or no?
Speaker 7 (50:12):
Yeah, she said several times that She's like, we just
have to put it behind us. I'm like, yeah, close
the jail, Doring's behind us.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
That's she seems to have gotten better lately. I don't know. Yeah,
it's gonna last.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
She's out now she's going.
Speaker 5 (50:28):
Look, I know she's out, but I I but she was,
she's she was actually getting close to saying the right
things almost consistently.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
And then she was like, and Joe Biden's bad too.
Speaker 6 (50:39):
Yeah, Well I hope she. I hope she stays strong.
I don't hold a lot of hope for it, though.
Speaker 7 (50:45):
I Mean, I've just seen too many of these people
join that cadre of broken men and women who oppose
Trump and.
Speaker 6 (50:52):
Then so befo him anyway, because Biden's communism, and then
you end up being like a hollow shell of a man,
like a Marco or a Ted.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
Cran What about it, right, If I had to bet
money on that.
Speaker 6 (51:02):
Rudy, Rudy's on a hollow shell of anything. Rudy is.
Speaker 5 (51:06):
Rudy is like Rudy is, he's he's just sloshing around.
Speaker 6 (51:11):
Rudy is destroyed. Yeah, yes, listen, I would actually not
actually full. I wouldn't even describe it as secrets.
Speaker 7 (51:20):
I would describe it something on the lower shelf in
the plastic jug wild No, no, not even wild turkey,
like old Ocelot or.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
All right, we have zero minutes left.
Speaker 10 (51:34):
Yes, I'm going to break this up, this party, but
it was absolutely amazing, all right, George Conway, No, no moment.
Speaker 6 (51:53):
So it's now time for a moment. We're standing now
for the moments of fu We really.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Wanted to and this whole time didn't we So we
are in the moment of fuckery. For people who listen
to my podcast, that's something we do there.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
Do you do it in your podcast?
Speaker 5 (52:09):
No? I do.
Speaker 6 (52:10):
Who's on the enemy's list.
Speaker 5 (52:11):
Oh and oh that's good.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
I listened to your podcast, so don't. It's didn't make
it sound it made it sound like I don't, but
I do. Obviously, moment of buckery, you're gonna go first
because you have real scorged earth.
Speaker 6 (52:26):
Is Mitch motherfucking McConnell.
Speaker 7 (52:29):
That is a man who, at two critical moments in
our American history, had the chance to shut.
Speaker 6 (52:36):
Donald Trump's ship down. He had the chance.
Speaker 7 (52:39):
He said the right thing after January sixth, and when
he said Donald Trump did this, he caused this, and
you know what he did what he did this week?
Speaker 11 (52:51):
Will hope to endorse Trump because of what don't you know?
We'll hold full communism when Joe Biden is a Marxis socialist.
And guess what This is a man who insulted Mitch
McConnell's wife, who called her Coco chow, overtly racist, unbelievably
destructive to McConnell's plan to hold power in the Senate,
(53:12):
and yet all he cares about is the vestigial twitch
reflex of maintaining a Republican Therefore, most vote for the
guy is divorced from every single moral aspect of what
Trump is and does. And for that, Mitch McConnell, is
my moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
That was very good.
Speaker 9 (53:35):
Go girl, you're pretty good at this.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
So my moment of fuckery is actually something I've seen
now because I was interviewing Tammy Baldwin the other day,
great senator from the state of Wisconsin running for reelection,
good people, and she was saying to me, you know,
they actually brought in a candidate who lives in California
to run for the Wisconsin seed.
Speaker 7 (54:00):
Well, it's like Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. He flew his
jet down from his house in Connecticut.
Speaker 6 (54:05):
I'm not kidding you, No, no, he really did.
Speaker 5 (54:08):
And this is not even a joke.
Speaker 6 (54:09):
They bought a house in.
Speaker 7 (54:10):
A very fancy neighborhood, I know because they know one
of his neighbors, and they fly their jet down there
when Dave has to come down for events. They commute
from Connecticut to run for US Senate in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6 (54:22):
But this is happening in.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Wisconsin, and he actually lives in a seven million dollar
house in California. But these are candidates who are carbon baggers,
but they're also self funded, and so I just wonder
and again, we are going to see more reporting on this,
but I just wonder how much of these self funded
candidates are running because the RNC is having some trouble
(54:45):
raising money.
Speaker 6 (54:46):
It's listen, McConnell.
Speaker 7 (54:48):
This was part of McConnell's plan for a long time
was to get wealthy moderate Republicans to run and smash them.
Speaker 6 (54:55):
Ag. Here's the again, going back to my moment of fucker.
Speaker 7 (54:58):
The irony is that Mitch McConnell after twenty twelve said, oh,
fuck these tea Party people, We're going to put more
modern Republicans in.
Speaker 6 (55:05):
Well.
Speaker 7 (55:05):
That didn't work in the end of the day, but
so then there the plan was, oh, well, we'll get
these rich guys.
Speaker 6 (55:11):
They're donor class guys. We know who they are.
Speaker 7 (55:13):
They like money, we like money, and it made it
easier for them to counteract the crazy right and also.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
All and also all that money is going to Trump's
legal bills, so you got to get bless them.
Speaker 5 (55:29):
And that is our moment off the Great Well.
Speaker 6 (55:31):
And by the way that it started, my experience.
Speaker 5 (55:34):
Was we've done it. I know, We've done it.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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