June 25, 2025 • 46 mins
George Conway examines Trump’s disastrous strategy in the Middle East. Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts details her new book Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and multiple polls have shown President Trump's
approval rating plummeting. We have such a great show for
you today, the one the only. George Conway stops by
to talk about Trump's terrible strategy in the Middle East.
(00:21):
Then we'll talk to Mom's Demand Action founder Shannon Watts
about her new book, Fired Up, How to turn your
spark into a flame and come alive at any age.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But first the news.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Molly, you know what I would be doing if I
was at this administration. Well, funny enough, it's exactly what
they're doing. Blame Biden for everything because their people will
buy it. And boy, they really can't stop blaming Biden
for everything. I think I saw the weather got blamed
on Biden this week.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Here's what's going on.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson wrote a book which said
that there was some huge conspiracy. Okay, I have not
seen this huge conspiracy, and the fact that my man
was pulling so badly makes me think that the rest
of America was also in on this conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Doesn't matter irrelevant, right.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
What is relevant is that now the GOP super psyched,
right because they finally have something to run on, which
is Joe Biden being old. Joe Biden has stage four
cancer melanoma that has metastasized to his bones. So he
is now in his early eighties, he has metastatic cancer.
He has lost reelection, so he's not president. He's not
(01:40):
going to have a run again. This is all just
torturing a man. And I have to say I saw
a clip today of Tapper and another pundit talking about
how maybe Joe Biden wasn't as good a person as
he was advertised to be. Who the fuck cares? Okay,
who the fuck cares? Joe Biden is not present. He's
(02:00):
not going to be president again, period. Paragraph you know
who is President, Donald fucking Trump. So this is so dumb.
I don't even know that it is helpful Republicans because
I think it's so stupid. And the truth is Joe
Biden has cancer and is not wow, and this is
going to just this is just so disgusting. Anyway, So
Senator John Cordon from Texas and Senator Eric Schmidt from Missouri,
(02:26):
those two co chair a judicial Committee, and they have
a hearing next week titled Unfit to Serve How the
Biden cover up in endangered America and undermine the Constitution.
I don't know if you know this, but Donald Trump
just bombed a ran right because he saw on Fox
News that he should. If you're not absolutely furious about this,
(02:48):
then I mean, this is a direct result of Jake
Tapper's book. Okay, and I'm glad that he made millions
of dollars because God bless them. I mean, it's hard
enough being a TV anchor, but this is really just disgusting.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
And I'm not even the.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Biggest Biden fan, but I think what Jake Tapper has
done here is just beyond appalling. And I work really
hard not to get into personal tips with people, but
this is just grotesque. So Comer is going to interview
former White House Staff Secretary ne Or Tanden Joe Biden's
top aids, former top aids, and let me just tell you,
(03:25):
and Donnelly and Anita Dunn and Ron Klain, Steve Eshetty.
He's going to bring out everyone, and you know what
they're gonna say. Some days he was good and some
days he was bad because he was old, and you
know who's now the oldest president ever?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Jesse g Now, would it be this man that some
people say is orange and bad?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Orangeman bad retweet If truth, this is as angry as
I've ever gotten, because honestly, it's just not helpful.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And also it's quite cool.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You know. I am really just so glad that Jake
Tapper was able to make a ton of money. Congrat
radulations Jake Tapper on doing.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
All of this, Well, Molly.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Little, are you a little surprised that I did that?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
No, speaking of choices of who to blame, obviously, there's
a lot of anger towards the Democratic leadership. A lot
of it tends to be in my bones and bodies,
since I think they're absolutely terrible and it's reprehensible the
way that they've reacted to the bombing of Iran this week.
But so they voted to see who would head up
(04:30):
the Oversight Committee ever since, Representative Jerry Connolly passed away,
and the Democrats have chosen Robert Garcia, despite much of
the base wanting to see Representative Jasmine Crockett to get
this seat. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I am a big Jasmine Crockett fan. But I am
also a big Robert Garcia fan because he and I
have talked a lot, and while he's not as famous
as Jasmine Grappit and I do think there really is
a school of thought which you and I both subscribe to,
which is a you should give the most charismatic, most
able to work in this new media space all of
(05:06):
the committee appointments, because then they can transmit what's happening
better than a normal traditional politician, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
In the corporate world, one would say is we're hiring
for the skill set needed for the job, right.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
No, no, I agree, But I do think like there
were some really old people who wanted the job, Steven
Lynch and then also two other much older members of
Congress who really wanted the job because they had seniority.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
But both in their seventies. We should say, whereas Robert
Garcia is a spry forty seven, just like you and I,
he's you.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Know, three years older than Jasmine, but he's a pretty
good communicator. He's not as good as Jasmine capturing the spotlight,
but he's pretty smart.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
He's done a pretty good job in California.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And I think that you know, this is this idea
of getting people who are able to transmitt better. I
happen to be a big Jasmine Crockett fan too, but
I think that what they're doing at least is they're
now starting to elevate people who are younger. Now that said,
this is too little, too late.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yes, okay, mai. Now we have a walk on cameo
from one of our favorite stars of what we discuss
the Senate Parliamentarian. It turns out that Senate Republicans cannot
force the US Postal Service to scrap electrical vehicles because
apparently performative moronics is not a part of the Parliamentarian's
(06:34):
rules and bylaws.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yes, formative moronics is not. I mean, look, it's like
I vacillate between being just so depressed and also like
this is so ridiculously you know, I vacillated between being
horrified and like mildly amused, and here we are, so
I don't fucking know.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I mean, the Parliamentarian.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Should strike a lot of the bullshit and the bill out,
for example, the judicial stuff they put in there, the
anti regulation stuff they put in there.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
The public lands sales, the public lands.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Right, I mean, this is a wreck. I think we
forget that the BBB is being passed through reconciliation. Reconciliation
is meant to be just about money, just about the budget,
and not about any other bullshit that they smush in there.
So good for the parliamentarian. You'll remember, this is the
same parliamentarian who said you couldn't do free glasses or
(07:34):
dental entry. You know, there were some other but this
is I mean, this is what I love about Republicans.
So they're going to scrap all these evs because they
don't believe climate change is real. It will cost millions
of dollars. It will be expensive, fucked up, totally stupid.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
And just cost more money and add to the budget
deficit that they all pretend to carry.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Tend to care about exactly. So good on the parliamentarian
for not letting the report publicans do something totally stupid
and fucked up.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Speaking of stupid and fucked up, Ice has deported dozens
of US citizens. A new report says, because I'm going
to shock you here, they're not being very careful about
what they're doing, like, for example, when they're constantly arresting
elected officials throwing around ninety pound women things like that.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, well, the new Supreme Court decision should make them
much better off.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Which Supreme Court decision is that, Molly, since we didn't
cover it on the last episode.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So Supreme Court has lifted limits on Trump deporting migrants
to countries and not their own. It came on the
shadow docket and it's completely insane. And it also is
as according to Justice Sonia so to my Er and
I think this is a really good point. It is
(08:55):
it's legalizing their lawlessness. So Demayer said, the Court is
warning lawlessless with the decision that will undermine the foundation
principle of due process. So expect I used.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
To do more really really bad staff.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, I'm sure this is just going to bolden their
recklessness and Stephen Miller's extreme enthusiasm towards that. That's the
nicest way I can play.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
George Conway is the host of George Conway explains it all.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Welcome back to Fast Politics. George Conway.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Bye, If I start a fight with you and we
yell and scream at each other and then I declare
a ceasefire, can I get a Nobel Peace Prize?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Only one?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You only want one Nobel Peace prize.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I mean, I'll take as many as they give me.
I mean, I deserve them. I just I mean I
deserve them. I mean, look at all the things that
I have done.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
You're not going to get a Nobel Peace Prize because
you're not a liberal. If only you were Obama.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
So let's talk about Donald Trump, who I don't know
if you've heard of him. He is the president of
the United States. He has brought world peace. So what
do you think happened this weekend? We've read the reporting
Trump decides to Bombarrans nuclear sites. There is a pretty
(10:16):
good reporting that he is sort of back and forth
on it, and that they have to run another parallel
group of planes because they're worried that his tweeting is
showing the Iranians.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
I mean, there is basically what my take on it,
And you have to sort of oho is the problem
that people are having with this is they're looking at
this like a rational military operation where you're attacking somebody
to achieve some military objective, like a valid military objective.
Let's leave apart the question of international law, but a
(10:50):
clear military objective would be destruction of as much as
possible of Iran's capacity to develop nuclear weapons, and there
are aspally two principal aspects of that. Let's see what
part the scientists. You have to create the fuel, right,
the bomb, the fissile bomb material, which involves taking your
(11:12):
ring and terrifying it to isolate the U two thirty five,
the isotope that can be used in efficient bomb, and
that requires the use of centrifuges. Right, so I've got one.
So basically you've got facilities with the centrifuges where Iran
for a number of years has been building centrifuges, although
(11:35):
it stopped, interestingly when the Obama deal went into place,
and they kind of stopped for a while, and then
when Trump abrogated that deal, it's skyrocketed they started.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
So you're saying Obama, Yes, who's saying yeah, who's saying
black guys?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
The black guy that that some people don't like because
he's black guys black?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah? Yeah, okay, continue yes, So.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
And then you've got these centrifuges in a mountain a
couple hundred meters or a couple hundred feet underground, in
a mountain called ford Oo. And the only thing you
can get at it is by using these huge bunk
or buster bombs. These mops they call them the g
are you something or other? And those only the United
States has them. The Israelis. We could give them to
(12:24):
the Israelis, but they can't really use them because you
have to put them on B two bombers, right, because
they're fucking heavy. Okay, So that's one aspect. And then
what happens is Iran enriches the uranium and create sixty
percent pure U two thirty five. The rest is, I
guess you two thirty eight, and that's not enough to
make a bomb. That's not pure enough for a bomb.
(12:45):
But it's like most of the way they are okay,
you have to probably do like ninety percent. And what
they do is they take the material that they out
of these centrifuges and they store it somewhere, which is
another underground facility, a place called if Saham. I mean,
I don't I don't know this personally, but I you know,
I've been reading up on what the analysts have to say.
And so there are three ways to really fuck up
(13:07):
the program. One is to bomb the centrifugure so they
don't have them anymore, although Iran can make them make
more of them, and the other is to destroy the
existing facile material that's in the other place if Shan,
which according to some people, according to BB they already
have enough to make seven or eight bombs, nine bombs,
I don't know, Okay, So you want to get both
(13:27):
and that was and also you want to take out
some scientists too, because the scientists do that, and you
have to you have to train new minions to do
the stuff. And see the three things you need to do.
So Israel takes out some of the scientists. Apparently they
did a bunch of that. I don't know what extended,
but they can't get the underground shit at Ford out.
And then there's at if Sahan, there's also an underground
(13:48):
cache of the facile materials. So that's where they need
the States. Now, if you were actually sensibly trying to
do this, you would give the Iranians no notice, right
because yeah, this stuff is underground. But the bunker busters,
you know, you if you hit the that the bunker
(14:10):
busters hit the right place. Even if they don't hit
the centrifuges directly, the shockwaves will blow through the whole joint.
And these centrifuges are very, very sensitive to vibrations because
you know, it's like I have a washing machine when
it's out of out of kilter, right, Yes, it doesn't
function right, So you need you need surprise. But of
(14:31):
course what happened here is there was no surprise because
the Israelis decided to go, you know, without the United States.
They had actually something in the books that they practiced
or you know, they've had in the books for the
playbook for a long time. I guess, I sue, But
they practiced it last year dreaming what was the name
of the guy who was president then, do you remember?
(14:55):
And they were, you know, because it would be a
joint effort to get the ability, and I assure that
was an agency plan for you know, if they ever
got really close to a bomb or something, or all
hell broke loose and it was a war anyway, you'd
want to take these facilities out. But what happened is
the Israelis went on their own. They couldn't take out
fod Ow, and they couldn't take out if Shan except
(15:17):
on the surface. And there's some stuff on the surface
to take out, but not that you don't get the
enriched stuff on the bomb and then the United States.
And then what happens is they want the United States
to come in, but the problem is israelis I mean,
Iranians have got to figure okay, we better move this
stuff right. And then Trump they try to get the
(15:37):
Israeli try to get Trump in and Trump.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Starts making evacuate around. I'm going to make the decision
on whether or not to bomb you. I may do it,
I may not. I may do it in two weeks,
I may do it tomorrow. I don't know what I'm
going to but I'm thinking about it. So you're an Iranian,
you're you're a MOA, or you're a Minister of Defense
or you're head of the Republican and whatever the i
(16:01):
r GC. What would you do with the centrifuges? I
don't know, like move them?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Maybe maybe maybe I would love them?
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Yes, yeah, I would move them. And guess what. Guess
what's a satellite photo showed happened a few days ago.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
A whole fleet of trucks.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Fort half? What do you think was in the trucks?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Do?
Speaker 5 (16:31):
Right?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But Donald Trump?
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Oh no, no? What would be liquor? Because it's a ran. Yes,
So basically the stuff goes out, and we have no
reason to believe it's still there. The centrifuge centrifuges, each
one is basically the size of a giant ski tube. Okay,
right right now, And I assume you have to be
really careful when you loaded onto a true.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yes, I would think, well, they're.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Not going to blow up, but it's just like they're
very sensitive machine.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right, No, you don't want to bring porble, right, No,
And again Trump said the.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
One last piece of fact, one last fact. We gave
them notice because Trump it's all about Trump getting attention
and not actually right. And then the other thing is
we didn't even bomb the facility where the actual enriched
uranium is underground. Okay, they should have dropped bumper bunker
busting bombs there, but that stuff was probably also. So
(17:24):
basically this was pointless, right, And she tells you there's
some other reason why they did it. And when you
get to Donald Trump, the only reason why he does
anything is why distraction? No, he's wrong, wrong. Distraction isn't distraction.
When people say it's distraction, they're thinking more than one step.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So then why does he do it?
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Because he's this become he becomes the center of attention.
He becomes important, right, the tariffs going to It's liberation day.
I operated you with the tarriffs. It's liberation day again.
I'll here's some tariffs, right, And that's you know, he
wants to be the center of attention. And what happened
(18:09):
is BB starts bombing, and BB played played Trump play.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Right, and Fox.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
So BB starts getting this attention amazing bombs and ship
and they're taking out Mullas or whatever. And it's like,
you know, it's great on looks great on Fox News.
And nobody likes the Iranians, right because even though we're
you know, the MAGA is anti intervention, it's all, they're
also islamophobes, right, right, And so so basically Trump gets jealous, right,
(18:41):
wants to play too, which, of course not in Yahoo
already figured out because not in Yahoo he's in he's evil,
but he's smart, right Trump, who's evil in a complete
war on So, Trump says, I want to play too.
I want to play.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I want to play.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
What can we do? I want to play?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
It goes through this whole thing of I'm going to
do it. I'm not going to do it, but everybody's
looking at him, which he likes, and then he doesn't,
and then he says, game's over. I have peace in
the world. It's all this narcissistic bullshit and I call it.
I call it bullshit's kreeg Okay, it's nonsense.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
So now Trump is going to go to this big
meeting right to the He's going to the to the Hague,
but not to the Hague.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, we can hope, and he's going to meet.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
With everyone and he's going to have I mean, I
do think he was on the plane on his way,
true true thing about how you know he was getting
text messages from people congratulating him. Do you think like
there definitely is a feeling that the rest of the
world feels they're working him. Do you think like you
can just tell right like we're going to you see
(19:53):
the Royals, you see the UK.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
No.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
I mean, look, if you look from our standpoint in
the United States, we need to call him out and
basically say he's an idiot, okay, right, that can't be
said enough. And the problem we have in the United
States is that too many people are afraid to say that,
even though I say it publicly, even though you know
you'll go to any gathering in Washington, and they're just
(20:16):
rolling their eyes and laughing at the guy and shaking
their heads. Right, including Republicans, and the Median knows this,
but they But the problem is, it's like everybody's afraid
of saying there's some kind of a taboo. It's like
the Emperor has no clothes. Nobody wants to point it out.
And this is the reason why we have Donald Trump,
because I've stopped doing People are unwilling to do it.
(20:37):
They're afraid to do it. We have books talking about,
you know, Joe Biden not being alert twenty, you know,
twelve hours a day. It's like, okay, but you know,
he's not associopath and he's not going to blow anything
up randomly, and he's you know, we we can't. We
can talk about almost everything else except the fact that
this guy is a terring to moron. And you know,
(21:03):
the problem, the problem is that we have become we
have completely normalized this to the point where we can't
deal with it. We can't deal with exactly the rest
of the world can't. You know, they can do that.
Their leaders understand it, right, They're not going to say
that to him, But everybody knows everybody already accepts that
(21:28):
he's a lunatic, and so they just work on figuring
out ways they can play him right as best they can.
But look, the problem is I've always said about Trump,
I said this for years, is you can manipulate him,
but you can't control him. You can just sort of
move him from one end to the other. You you can,
(21:49):
you can, you can. What you do is you just
basically convince him that he will be in glory if
he does X, and the next person they're convinced him, No,
that would be bad. You will be in glory if
you do why Which is why oscillate so much about everything,
because it's never about trying to achieve the best result
for the country or the or logic or the consequences
(22:09):
of actions other than is he going to get immediate praise?
And is he is? It doesn't make him feel powerful? Okay, two,
it's all narcissism. And so you know, the the Europeans
are will play him to some extent, but they have
to understand. I hope they understand that they're just buying
(22:30):
time with him because he's going to turn on them
at some point and they need to kind of string
him along and not have him do catastrophic things until
they are ready to basically tell him to go fuck.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Off, right right.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
So that's the way I look and I think, you know,
I mean, and some people do it, are doing it
better than others, and they're doing it in different ways.
The Brits understood that they you know, they they didn't
feel that they needed very much from the Trump administration
of what they wanted to do is basically protect Jaguar
right industry. So they sucked up the Trump and they,
(23:07):
you know, reduced tariffs on US stuff, but US we
don't really the trade the bilateral trade between the US
and UK is mostly services financial op which isn't subject
to tariffs. So what they what they did is they
worked out a deal to protect a couple of industries
and they said, and they're good, so they play it
(23:28):
and then the others, you know, it's much what's much
more problematic for the EU. And then you've got mcrone.
He kind of has this way of making fun of
Trump to his face without Trump completely always knowing it,
although Trump kind of figures it out a little. And
then you've got in Canada, you've got i know, but
but I get it. But I just am curious. This
(23:50):
is my question because I feel like I understand that
we see different countries trying to work Trump right, thinking
they've cracked the code. They're doing it in different ways,
but they're all doing it.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
But my question for you is Peter Navarro, who you
may remember from earlier this season, seems to have disappeared.
We were promised ninety deals in ninety days. We have
one outline of a deal, so that's like maybe sixty
so we have like zero point six of a deal.
If they're working him, why aren't they better at it?
Speaker 4 (24:20):
I mean, the problem is he likes he likes having
these towers out there because it makes him feel powerful.
And the way the way you buy him off is
not necessarily by something that benefits the United States, but
by by you know, playing to his ego. How they're
managing that, I don't know, I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
But do you think I mean, do you do you
think like mid July is the deadline? So like, do
you think it just keeps getting punted? I mean, do
you think they're it is?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I see?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
The problem is you can't look at this rationally, right
because you don't know what's going to satisfy him. Okay,
that's not what you would satisfy you. It's what strikes
him in the moment as beneficial to him. And you know,
we don't know what that's going to be at any
given moment.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I was surprised that Trump actually launched those nukes because
he tends to taco, right. Trump always chickens out. Do
you think that this is a sort of new, slightly
more aggressive Trump than in one point zero?
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Oh well, it's it's he's more aggressive in the sense
that there's nobody tell him telling him, nobody in a
position to tell him not. This new stupid basis right
in that sense. He's chicken in the sense that he's indecisive,
and he's indecisive because he doesn't understay, and he's way
(25:51):
over his head and he can't think right. He doesn't think.
Everybody thinks he's got this strategy for everything. There is
no never a strike. It's pure impulse, and one moment
the impulse goes one way, one moment the impulse goes
the other way, which is what we saw. And then
but also that impulsiveness and that erratic nature is enhanced
(26:13):
by the fact that every time he changes his mind,
he gets attention, right. I mean, it's like Stalin used
to Here's what Stalin used to do. Stalin used to say,
you know, take his minions and basically, you know, get
mad at them and say I'm going to put you, you know,
biring squad for you right right, and and then you know,
and everybody's.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Oh no, no, no.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Secretary, and then they he give them reprieve because it
made him feel powerful. And that's what is that's the
erratic nature of Trump. It's why he basically thowdled about
bombing Iran, even though you could argue there was no
street the actual military benefit to doing that if the
(26:56):
if in fact, you're giving them time to move the
centril fuge is and you're not bombing the place where
the enriched uranium is, and they could move the rich
rainium probably easier than they could move the center viewes.
You know, it's all about what makes him feel good
at any given time, which can change hour by hour.
And that's the that's it's more that than chickening out
(27:21):
right that the the tariffs were. He he wants to
do it because he gets some attention and not doing attention.
And yes, he's also you know, to some extent, they
got through to him saying, well, you know, we're going
to have a recession. And those numbers, the numbers at
the end of this, I guess it was the first quarter,
(27:41):
were pretty bad.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Well, so you know, there there is some degree of
you know, he is fearful that it's going to blow
up in his face, the same way he was fearful that,
you know, of being attacked for launching some greater war,
which you know he was willing to risk. But he
figured he could just declare victory, which is what he does,
and he creates and that's what he does. So you know,
(28:04):
this is his whole this is his whole modus operandi
of creating crisis and then declaring that he solved the
crisis that he created. He loves to do that. He's
been doing that with the tariffs, and then he's been
doing that with with Iran, and you know, we may
see that again with the tariffs. He may he may
just to.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
We're out of time. Thank you, Thank you, George Gonway,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Channon Watts is the founder of Mom's Demand Action and
the author of Fired Up, How To turn your spark
into a flame and come alive at any need. Tell
us about this book, tell us why you decided to
do this were you came into my life as one
of the most important activists about guns, and you continue
(28:56):
to do that work.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
But tell me about this new book.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
I I spent eleven years as the leader of Mom's
Men Action after founding it in twenty twelve after the
Sandy Hook School shooting. And it was in twenty twenty
two that I decided, Okay, this is my last year,
and it's a long time to be a full time
volunteer and I just wanted to take a break. I
was running on the treadmill one night and I looked
down on my phone. It was Maria Shreiver, who I
(29:20):
didn't know, and she said, hey, I would love for
you to write a book for my imprint. And I said, well,
that's an amazing opportunity. What do you want me to
write about? And she said, what have you learned about women? Look,
that could be you know, a trilogy. But I ended
up synthesizing it into this metaphor about fire, and I
interviewed over seventy other women and it's this idea of
(29:42):
boiling it down to really, men are taught to fulfill
their desires and women are taught to fill their obligations.
And how do we shift that paradigm so that women
get to the end of their lives and feel like burned,
like they pursued the things that were important to them.
And so I go through all the re seas that
women don't and how they can break through those obstacles.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
That's so important and I love that story. I also
so I wonder You've been such an important activist and
you have such a good and I feel like, at
this moment your story is so important because there are
many many women in this country and men too, who
(30:25):
are having the moment that you.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Had after Sandy Hook.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I know the story, but I wonder if you could
just sort of quickly sum up how you got there,
because I think it's very important. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:37):
I was forty one years old. I had taken a
five year break from my career in corporate communications because
I had just remarried, and I was blending our family
of five kids, very cold day in Indiana and folding
laundry in my bedroom and I see a Cairn on
the television that there's an active shooter inside in elementary
school in Connecticut, And like I'm sure you and others listening,
(30:57):
I sort of just sat down on the side of
my bed and was devastated. I mean, I went to
bed sobbing, and at some point in the middle of
the night that sadness turned into abject rage. When I
woke up, I just was so agitated I had to
do something. Now, keep in mind, back in twenty twelve,
Facebook was very popular with middle aged women, and so
I knew how to start a Facebook page, and I
(31:20):
did not have a focus group in my kitchen. So
I called it one Million Moms for Gun Control until
my kid, who's gay, told me one million Moms is
like an anti gay group, and no one says gun control.
We quickly changed the name, but that was really the
genesis of what became the largest women led nonprofit in
the country, if not the world.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I mean, that's really cute. By the way, I feel
like the gun safety movement has actually really benefited from
your work, which is amazing to be able to say
that because we spend so much time with members of
Congress complaining about how I mean, I heard a member
of Congress the other day complaining about how there was
(32:03):
no fact checking on the internet.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I was like, couldn't you have been.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
The fucking person to have created a fat right? But whatever,
So I wonder if you could just tell us how
what the sort of ways in which you feel you
were able to enact change.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
Well, so I want to be clear, and this is
what I talk about in my book Fired Up, is
that you know, I am not a unicorn. We all
have value, skills and desires that can help us meet
the moment right now, and we all should be doing that.
I mean, the world needs us, especially women, to be
doing that right now. I was a forty one year
old woman who knew little to nothing about organizing legislation
(32:44):
gun violence. I had untreated severe ADHD, and I had
a debilitating fear of public speaking, like not someone you
would point to and say, oh, that woman should take
on the most powerful, wealthy special interests ever existed, right,
And yet I was exactly the right person for the job.
And that's really what I want people to take away,
which is we all need to do something in this moment.
(33:04):
But I was grateful and lucky that so many perfect
strangers across the country brought their skills to the table
and helped me. I had the ability as a communicator
to tell a story and create messaging and build a brand,
but so many other people brought their skills to the table,
and in a decade, you know, we passed five hundred
good gun laws, We passed the first federal gun safety legislation,
(33:25):
and a generation we elected thousands of gun sense candidates
to office, including our own volunteers, people like Hungresswoman Lucy McBath,
and we really changed the culture around this issue. There
was a very vocal base of small base of extremists
who were holding sway over our state legislatures and our
(33:46):
city councils who no longer have that power.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's kind of amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Do you think now in this moment, like it seems
like so many things are completely insurmountable, And I think
back to Sandy Hook, and I feel like the lesson
there is that.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
You really can do more than you think. Is that right?
Speaker 6 (34:08):
Absolutely? You know, this is a democracy, at least for now,
and that means that it doesn't work unless we all
get off the sidelines. And I had watched shooting tragedy
after shooting tragedy, and no one did anything, and so finally,
after the shooting at Sandy Hook School, I thought I
have to do something now. I thought I was just
going to join an organization like Mother's again in drug driving,
(34:30):
but it did not exist, and so that's where Facebook
came into page into play. But we all have power,
and democracy only works if we all exercise it, right.
I think of democracy as like a sick kid, you know,
as a mom, if your kid is throwing up at
three am, you don't say, you know, I'm exhausted. You're
going to have to do this and I'll touch base
(34:51):
with you in the morning, right, and you hold their
hand until they're better. And I think democracy is the
same way. We all have to figure out what are
our values, ability and desires and how do we bring
them to bear in this moment?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Right?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
So I want to ask you, because this is something
I spend a lot of time thinking about, why didn't
you run for office? Do you think about running for office?
Because like, one of the things that I'm struck by
with you is there are some really talented people and
I think of you as one of them, but they
don't run for office. So I'm curious why you didn't
(35:24):
run for office because you are as public a figure
as you would be if you were a senator.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
Yeah, and it's fine. The reason I'm laughing is because
I had a conversation with Katie Kirk recently where she
went from will you to why won't you? Like I
think she's daring me and taunting me. Now, I would
never say never, And really that's what my book is about,
is like in the second half of your life, there's
a whole new world. You know, Unlike our mothers, we
don't have to disappear. And at fifty four, I kind
of feel like I'm just getting started. I don't know
(35:50):
if you know this, but I moved from California to
Florida recently, and to me, that's exactly the right place
to be. I would much rather be a blue dot
in a red state trying to make change than in
a blue state. So I'm not ruling it out at all.
I'm kind of looking at the landscape and figuring out
what's next.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
I am honestly so happy to hear you say that,
because I live in this district in New York where
I there just is a very old, very nice member
of Congress there. But he has left his committees because
he's too old, and so we all know that. That
is the lesson from the twenty twenty four Psycho is that,
(36:29):
you know, if democracy is on the ballot, we have
to stop being nice and just have people who are
really competent in those positions.
Speaker 6 (36:36):
And you know, I would just say, Mollie to that.
I think that's such an important point. We should be
having more conversations about power. If you're brilliant and you
run for office at seventy, I have no issue with that.
My issue is hoarding power. I talk about this in
the book. When I started Mom's Demand Action, I wanted
this to be an exercise in managing my ego. I
did not want the organization to become about me. There's
this thing called founder syndrome if you don't know if
(36:58):
you've heard of it, but basically, you're ego becomes so
entangled that if you leave, it fails or you want
to burn it down because you can't stand for it.
So I did not want that, and every year I
ask myself, is this the year I leave? And finally
in twenty twenty two it was the right time. But
I want our elected officials to have. This is not
a job that you were supposed to have for your
entire life until you literally die at your desk. You
(37:20):
should serve a finite amount of time and know when
it's time to hand the power over.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
And I also think, you know, we've heard older congress
people say things like I don't want to give this up,
you know, And it's not supposed to be like that.
It's supposed to be you are a public servant, and
you serve the public.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
Yes, it's disappointing.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
It is disappointing, and it's different than Trump is own right.
It's not trying to overthrow the federal government.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
But it's problematic.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
It's damaging to democracy.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I'm really glad you're talking about being a woman who's
a little bit older and having two I mean, obviously
neither of us are old, but we're in a death
from period in our lives where our kids are grown up.
And I wonder if you could talk There are so
many women I know from my book staff where they
come to me and they are furious and they want
(38:12):
to do stuff and they don't know how to start.
So can you give a few ideas on how they
can start?
Speaker 6 (38:18):
Yes, and I just want to tell a story really quick.
From the book, I interview women at all. I kind
of think of four archetypes. This book is for, you know,
young women who've just graduated from high school, college, women
who have small kids, or they're young in their career
and they're overwhelmed, women who are empty nesters, and women
who are retired and beyond right. And there's this great story.
I interview a woman named Carol Frick. He always wanted
(38:39):
to be an author. She ended up being a gym
teacher for thirty years to pay the bills. And when
she retires, she volunteered in an animal shelter and came
up with this idea of writing a book about a
couple group balls in love at an animal shelter. She
taught herself how to write dialogue, how to create a book.
She decided she deserved to have it published. She didn't
want to self publish. She sent it to two hundred
and eighteen publishers and was rejected every time until the
(39:00):
two hundred and nineteenth time. She got a book deal
and became a published author in her seventies. Like it
is never too late and you are never too old
right to do anything. And I think there's so many
stories out there right now, like Julia Louis Dreyvis has
a great podcast about all the amazing things women are
doing in midlife, what they're doing. My book is really
the how how do you get there? And that starts
with identifying your values, your abilities, and desires. A lot
(39:23):
of us haven't gone through those exercises. It's something we
could do annually, honestly. The next thing is taking those
steps forward toward what it is you want, maybe acquiring
skills you need, maybe finding the right set of people.
It's kind of a practice where you try this formula
again and again and then binding your people. I mean,
I think that's such an important part of this, given
the pandemic, given social media, given how polarized we are,
(39:46):
binding your people is a huge part of figuring out
what it is you have to bring to bear.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, I think that's really true, and also being able
to sort of explain why what your goal is right, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 6 (40:00):
I mean, no one should get to the end of
their life and feel like they didn't burn. We talk
about legacy a lot. It's like this very loaded word.
What does legacy mean? Your name on a building, or
you create a philanthropy. It's not that. It's just getting
to the end of your life and knowing you lived
a life that was authentic to you, that you the
dormant desires that you had you were acted on. And
I guess I want you to guess. When I asked
(40:23):
these women I interviewed, most of whom were moms, what
their biggest fear of their death threat that regret would be.
What do you think They said that they pursued what
they wanted at the expense of their children. In other words,
that doing what they wanted living on fire made them
a bad mom. And men don't say that. Men never
say that. And you know I'm on the other side
(40:43):
of that chasm because I have all adult children. I
can tell you two things. One, my kids were grateful
that I had something to focus on other than just them.
Oh one a lot of pressure. And two they feel
like I set an example for them on how they
can go after what they want.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah, no, no, that is for sure. I see that
with my kids too. They want me out. I wonder
if you could talk a little bit about how like
you guys passed legislation and I think about technology and
how the government is really treating tech companies the way
(41:18):
they treated oil companies, the way they treated tobacco companies,
really letting them get away with it. I wonder if
you see a way to sort of I mean, obviously
we still have major gun problems in this country, but
I wonder if you see a way to sort of
use what you've done with Mom's demand in those absolutely.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
I mean, look, we have defeated so many special interests
in this country, and people thought that the gun industry
was immune. I mean, they had been given immunity by
by Congress in the nineties for being sued for their product,
unlike any other manufacturing organization in the world. And so
the ENTERI really learned the lessons of what had brought
(41:59):
other special interests down. They didn't want to be able
to be sued. They wanted to make sure that states
couldn't make laws that were different than federal laws. They
had all of these protections that people thought made them untouchable.
And what we did was, you know, our theory of change.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We are going to shed
a light on how they are misusing donors dollars for
(42:21):
Italian suits and vacations abroad. You know, we're going to
sue them ourselves, through our volunteers in different states where
they operate. We are going to hold them accountable in
the courts. We've gone into state legislatures and unturned, overturned
the laws that the federal government still has in place. Right,
you can sue the NRA and the gun industry in
(42:42):
many states, even if you can't at a federal level.
So I do think it is a blueprint for how
special interests can be taken on. And Congress has just
absolutely abdicated its responsibility in the tech industry. It's shameful
how they put their head in the sand. And I
mean it comes full circle to conversation we had, which
is if we had younger representatives, you know that understood
(43:05):
how the tech world operated, you know, we would be
better off.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right.
What's next for you?
Speaker 6 (43:12):
I'm not sure, you know. I'm on this tour. I'm
going to two dozen states. I'm so excited to have
a conversation with other women about this book. There's going
to be something called Buyers Starter University, which is based
on the book. It will start in September. It's a
year long course and that people can enroll in when
they buy the book. We've already got six hundred people
signed up, which is astounding to me. And it's a
year long online course where we go through the book together.
(43:33):
I mean, these people will be your community. And what
I think is really interesting is that there are so
many women, including months of men, actual volunteers, who are
starting local groups based on the book, not about gun safety,
but just about personal, professional, political empowerment.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (43:48):
In my mind, that's that's an important piece of this
whole picture because when we look at the election, a
big divide was between college educated and non college educated women.
And we have to have conversations in our communities with
our neighbors and to know one another, and I hope
this book is a piece of that.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I love that. I'm so excited for you. Thank you
so much, Anaman.
Speaker 6 (44:10):
Thank you, Mollie. Such a joy to talk to you.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
A moment.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Second, Jesse Cannon Smiley, this is one of those ones that,
like it happened over the weekend, but I had to
get in the show. A Pro Life Caucus co chair
and Republican representative Chemick had a topic pregnancy and couldn't
get care in Florida, and now she's blaming the wok left.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
For fear mongering and refusing to call her operation an abortion.
Still the Wall Street Journal that she found out she had,
I want to point out a topic pregnancy is never, ever,
ever ever going to result in a baby.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
That's just how that works. She ended up having to
call the governor.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
It didn't work, but fine a Florida alarmmakers clarified that
doctors could act in cases such as hers because the
topic pregnancies never ever, ever, ever result in a child.
Now that said, somehow the party that makes the abortion
bands is not responsible for the problems not getting abortions.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
It's left.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Look these people can do. They're very good at spinning
things to fit their narrative. If you think there's going
to be some come to Jesus moment where these people
get honest, it's not happening. That's it for this episode
of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and
(45:44):
Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense
of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
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 multiple polls have shown President Trump's
approval rating plummeting. We have such a great show for
you today, the one the only. George Conway stops by
to talk about Trump's terrible strategy in the Middle East.
(00:21):
Then we'll talk to Mom's Demand Action founder Shannon Watts
about her new book, Fired Up, How to turn your
spark into a flame and come alive at any age.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But first the news.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Molly, you know what I would be doing if I
was at this administration. Well, funny enough, it's exactly what
they're doing. Blame Biden for everything because their people will
buy it. And boy, they really can't stop blaming Biden
for everything. I think I saw the weather got blamed
on Biden this week.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Here's what's going on.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson wrote a book which said
that there was some huge conspiracy. Okay, I have not
seen this huge conspiracy, and the fact that my man
was pulling so badly makes me think that the rest
of America was also in on this conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Doesn't matter irrelevant, right.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
What is relevant is that now the GOP super psyched,
right because they finally have something to run on, which
is Joe Biden being old. Joe Biden has stage four
cancer melanoma that has metastasized to his bones. So he
is now in his early eighties, he has metastatic cancer.
He has lost reelection, so he's not president. He's not
(01:40):
going to have a run again. This is all just
torturing a man. And I have to say I saw
a clip today of Tapper and another pundit talking about
how maybe Joe Biden wasn't as good a person as
he was advertised to be. Who the fuck cares? Okay,
who the fuck cares? Joe Biden is not present. He's
(02:00):
not going to be president again, period. Paragraph you know
who is President, Donald fucking Trump. So this is so dumb.
I don't even know that it is helpful Republicans because
I think it's so stupid. And the truth is Joe
Biden has cancer and is not wow, and this is
going to just this is just so disgusting. Anyway, So
Senator John Cordon from Texas and Senator Eric Schmidt from Missouri,
(02:26):
those two co chair a judicial Committee, and they have
a hearing next week titled Unfit to Serve How the
Biden cover up in endangered America and undermine the Constitution.
I don't know if you know this, but Donald Trump
just bombed a ran right because he saw on Fox
News that he should. If you're not absolutely furious about this,
(02:48):
then I mean, this is a direct result of Jake
Tapper's book. Okay, and I'm glad that he made millions
of dollars because God bless them. I mean, it's hard
enough being a TV anchor, but this is really just disgusting.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
And I'm not even the.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Biggest Biden fan, but I think what Jake Tapper has
done here is just beyond appalling. And I work really
hard not to get into personal tips with people, but
this is just grotesque. So Comer is going to interview
former White House Staff Secretary ne Or Tanden Joe Biden's
top aids, former top aids, and let me just tell you,
(03:25):
and Donnelly and Anita Dunn and Ron Klain, Steve Eshetty.
He's going to bring out everyone, and you know what
they're gonna say. Some days he was good and some
days he was bad because he was old, and you
know who's now the oldest president ever?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Jesse g Now, would it be this man that some
people say is orange and bad?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Orangeman bad retweet If truth, this is as angry as
I've ever gotten, because honestly, it's just not helpful.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And also it's quite cool.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You know. I am really just so glad that Jake
Tapper was able to make a ton of money. Congrat
radulations Jake Tapper on doing.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
All of this, Well, Molly.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Little, are you a little surprised that I did that?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
No, speaking of choices of who to blame, obviously, there's
a lot of anger towards the Democratic leadership. A lot
of it tends to be in my bones and bodies,
since I think they're absolutely terrible and it's reprehensible the
way that they've reacted to the bombing of Iran this week.
But so they voted to see who would head up
(04:30):
the Oversight Committee ever since, Representative Jerry Connolly passed away,
and the Democrats have chosen Robert Garcia, despite much of
the base wanting to see Representative Jasmine Crockett to get
this seat. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I am a big Jasmine Crockett fan. But I am
also a big Robert Garcia fan because he and I
have talked a lot, and while he's not as famous
as Jasmine Grappit and I do think there really is
a school of thought which you and I both subscribe to,
which is a you should give the most charismatic, most
able to work in this new media space all of
(05:06):
the committee appointments, because then they can transmit what's happening
better than a normal traditional politician, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
In the corporate world, one would say is we're hiring
for the skill set needed for the job, right.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
No, no, I agree, But I do think like there
were some really old people who wanted the job, Steven
Lynch and then also two other much older members of
Congress who really wanted the job because they had seniority.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
But both in their seventies. We should say, whereas Robert
Garcia is a spry forty seven, just like you and I,
he's you.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Know, three years older than Jasmine, but he's a pretty
good communicator. He's not as good as Jasmine capturing the spotlight,
but he's pretty smart.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
He's done a pretty good job in California.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And I think that you know, this is this idea
of getting people who are able to transmitt better. I
happen to be a big Jasmine Crockett fan too, but
I think that what they're doing at least is they're
now starting to elevate people who are younger. Now that said,
this is too little, too late.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yes, okay, mai. Now we have a walk on cameo
from one of our favorite stars of what we discuss
the Senate Parliamentarian. It turns out that Senate Republicans cannot
force the US Postal Service to scrap electrical vehicles because
apparently performative moronics is not a part of the Parliamentarian's
(06:34):
rules and bylaws.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yes, formative moronics is not. I mean, look, it's like
I vacillate between being just so depressed and also like
this is so ridiculously you know, I vacillated between being
horrified and like mildly amused, and here we are, so
I don't fucking know.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I mean, the Parliamentarian.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Should strike a lot of the bullshit and the bill out,
for example, the judicial stuff they put in there, the
anti regulation stuff they put in there.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
The public lands sales, the public lands.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Right, I mean, this is a wreck. I think we
forget that the BBB is being passed through reconciliation. Reconciliation
is meant to be just about money, just about the budget,
and not about any other bullshit that they smush in there.
So good for the parliamentarian. You'll remember, this is the
same parliamentarian who said you couldn't do free glasses or
(07:34):
dental entry. You know, there were some other but this
is I mean, this is what I love about Republicans.
So they're going to scrap all these evs because they
don't believe climate change is real. It will cost millions
of dollars. It will be expensive, fucked up, totally stupid.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
And just cost more money and add to the budget
deficit that they all pretend to carry.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Tend to care about exactly. So good on the parliamentarian
for not letting the report publicans do something totally stupid
and fucked up.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Speaking of stupid and fucked up, Ice has deported dozens
of US citizens. A new report says, because I'm going
to shock you here, they're not being very careful about
what they're doing, like, for example, when they're constantly arresting
elected officials throwing around ninety pound women things like that.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, well, the new Supreme Court decision should make them
much better off.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Which Supreme Court decision is that, Molly, since we didn't
cover it on the last episode.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So Supreme Court has lifted limits on Trump deporting migrants
to countries and not their own. It came on the
shadow docket and it's completely insane. And it also is
as according to Justice Sonia so to my Er and
I think this is a really good point. It is
(08:55):
it's legalizing their lawlessness. So Demayer said, the Court is
warning lawlessless with the decision that will undermine the foundation
principle of due process. So expect I used.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
To do more really really bad staff.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, I'm sure this is just going to bolden their
recklessness and Stephen Miller's extreme enthusiasm towards that. That's the
nicest way I can play.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
George Conway is the host of George Conway explains it all.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Welcome back to Fast Politics. George Conway.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Bye, If I start a fight with you and we
yell and scream at each other and then I declare
a ceasefire, can I get a Nobel Peace Prize?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Only one?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You only want one Nobel Peace prize.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I mean, I'll take as many as they give me.
I mean, I deserve them. I just I mean I
deserve them. I mean, look at all the things that
I have done.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
You're not going to get a Nobel Peace Prize because
you're not a liberal. If only you were Obama.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
So let's talk about Donald Trump, who I don't know
if you've heard of him. He is the president of
the United States. He has brought world peace. So what
do you think happened this weekend? We've read the reporting
Trump decides to Bombarrans nuclear sites. There is a pretty
(10:16):
good reporting that he is sort of back and forth
on it, and that they have to run another parallel
group of planes because they're worried that his tweeting is
showing the Iranians.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
I mean, there is basically what my take on it,
And you have to sort of oho is the problem
that people are having with this is they're looking at
this like a rational military operation where you're attacking somebody
to achieve some military objective, like a valid military objective.
Let's leave apart the question of international law, but a
(10:50):
clear military objective would be destruction of as much as
possible of Iran's capacity to develop nuclear weapons, and there
are aspally two principal aspects of that. Let's see what
part the scientists. You have to create the fuel, right,
the bomb, the fissile bomb material, which involves taking your
(11:12):
ring and terrifying it to isolate the U two thirty five,
the isotope that can be used in efficient bomb, and
that requires the use of centrifuges. Right, so I've got one.
So basically you've got facilities with the centrifuges where Iran
for a number of years has been building centrifuges, although
(11:35):
it stopped, interestingly when the Obama deal went into place,
and they kind of stopped for a while, and then
when Trump abrogated that deal, it's skyrocketed they started.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
So you're saying Obama, Yes, who's saying yeah, who's saying
black guys?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
The black guy that that some people don't like because
he's black guys black?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah? Yeah, okay, continue yes, So.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
And then you've got these centrifuges in a mountain a
couple hundred meters or a couple hundred feet underground, in
a mountain called ford Oo. And the only thing you
can get at it is by using these huge bunk
or buster bombs. These mops they call them the g
are you something or other? And those only the United
States has them. The Israelis. We could give them to
(12:24):
the Israelis, but they can't really use them because you
have to put them on B two bombers, right, because
they're fucking heavy. Okay, So that's one aspect. And then
what happens is Iran enriches the uranium and create sixty
percent pure U two thirty five. The rest is, I
guess you two thirty eight, and that's not enough to
make a bomb. That's not pure enough for a bomb.
(12:45):
But it's like most of the way they are okay,
you have to probably do like ninety percent. And what
they do is they take the material that they out
of these centrifuges and they store it somewhere, which is
another underground facility, a place called if Saham. I mean,
I don't I don't know this personally, but I you know,
I've been reading up on what the analysts have to say.
And so there are three ways to really fuck up
(13:07):
the program. One is to bomb the centrifugure so they
don't have them anymore, although Iran can make them make
more of them, and the other is to destroy the
existing facile material that's in the other place if Shan,
which according to some people, according to BB they already
have enough to make seven or eight bombs, nine bombs,
I don't know, Okay, So you want to get both
(13:27):
and that was and also you want to take out
some scientists too, because the scientists do that, and you
have to you have to train new minions to do
the stuff. And see the three things you need to do.
So Israel takes out some of the scientists. Apparently they
did a bunch of that. I don't know what extended,
but they can't get the underground shit at Ford out.
And then there's at if Sahan, there's also an underground
(13:48):
cache of the facile materials. So that's where they need
the States. Now, if you were actually sensibly trying to
do this, you would give the Iranians no notice, right
because yeah, this stuff is underground. But the bunker busters,
you know, you if you hit the that the bunker
(14:10):
busters hit the right place. Even if they don't hit
the centrifuges directly, the shockwaves will blow through the whole joint.
And these centrifuges are very, very sensitive to vibrations because
you know, it's like I have a washing machine when
it's out of out of kilter, right, Yes, it doesn't
function right, So you need you need surprise. But of
(14:31):
course what happened here is there was no surprise because
the Israelis decided to go, you know, without the United States.
They had actually something in the books that they practiced
or you know, they've had in the books for the
playbook for a long time. I guess, I sue, But
they practiced it last year dreaming what was the name
of the guy who was president then, do you remember?
(14:55):
And they were, you know, because it would be a
joint effort to get the ability, and I assure that
was an agency plan for you know, if they ever
got really close to a bomb or something, or all
hell broke loose and it was a war anyway, you'd
want to take these facilities out. But what happened is
the Israelis went on their own. They couldn't take out
fod Ow, and they couldn't take out if Shan except
(15:17):
on the surface. And there's some stuff on the surface
to take out, but not that you don't get the
enriched stuff on the bomb and then the United States.
And then what happens is they want the United States
to come in, but the problem is israelis I mean,
Iranians have got to figure okay, we better move this
stuff right. And then Trump they try to get the
(15:37):
Israeli try to get Trump in and Trump.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Starts making evacuate around. I'm going to make the decision
on whether or not to bomb you. I may do it,
I may not. I may do it in two weeks,
I may do it tomorrow. I don't know what I'm
going to but I'm thinking about it. So you're an Iranian,
you're you're a MOA, or you're a Minister of Defense
or you're head of the Republican and whatever the i
(16:01):
r GC. What would you do with the centrifuges? I
don't know, like move them?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Maybe maybe maybe I would love them?
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Yes, yeah, I would move them. And guess what. Guess
what's a satellite photo showed happened a few days ago.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
A whole fleet of trucks.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Fort half? What do you think was in the trucks?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Do?
Speaker 5 (16:31):
Right?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But Donald Trump?
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Oh no, no? What would be liquor? Because it's a ran. Yes,
So basically the stuff goes out, and we have no
reason to believe it's still there. The centrifuge centrifuges, each
one is basically the size of a giant ski tube. Okay,
right right now, And I assume you have to be
really careful when you loaded onto a true.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yes, I would think, well, they're.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Not going to blow up, but it's just like they're
very sensitive machine.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right, No, you don't want to bring porble, right, No,
And again Trump said the.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
One last piece of fact, one last fact. We gave
them notice because Trump it's all about Trump getting attention
and not actually right. And then the other thing is
we didn't even bomb the facility where the actual enriched
uranium is underground. Okay, they should have dropped bumper bunker
busting bombs there, but that stuff was probably also. So
(17:24):
basically this was pointless, right, And she tells you there's
some other reason why they did it. And when you
get to Donald Trump, the only reason why he does
anything is why distraction? No, he's wrong, wrong. Distraction isn't distraction.
When people say it's distraction, they're thinking more than one step.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So then why does he do it?
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Because he's this become he becomes the center of attention.
He becomes important, right, the tariffs going to It's liberation day.
I operated you with the tarriffs. It's liberation day again.
I'll here's some tariffs, right, And that's you know, he
wants to be the center of attention. And what happened
(18:09):
is BB starts bombing, and BB played played Trump play.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Right, and Fox.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
So BB starts getting this attention amazing bombs and ship
and they're taking out Mullas or whatever. And it's like,
you know, it's great on looks great on Fox News.
And nobody likes the Iranians, right because even though we're
you know, the MAGA is anti intervention, it's all, they're
also islamophobes, right, right, And so so basically Trump gets jealous, right,
(18:41):
wants to play too, which, of course not in Yahoo
already figured out because not in Yahoo he's in he's evil,
but he's smart, right Trump, who's evil in a complete
war on So, Trump says, I want to play too.
I want to play.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I want to play.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
What can we do? I want to play?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
It goes through this whole thing of I'm going to
do it. I'm not going to do it, but everybody's
looking at him, which he likes, and then he doesn't,
and then he says, game's over. I have peace in
the world. It's all this narcissistic bullshit and I call it.
I call it bullshit's kreeg Okay, it's nonsense.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
So now Trump is going to go to this big
meeting right to the He's going to the to the Hague,
but not to the Hague.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, we can hope, and he's going to meet.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
With everyone and he's going to have I mean, I
do think he was on the plane on his way,
true true thing about how you know he was getting
text messages from people congratulating him. Do you think like
there definitely is a feeling that the rest of the
world feels they're working him. Do you think like you
can just tell right like we're going to you see
(19:53):
the Royals, you see the UK.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
No.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
I mean, look, if you look from our standpoint in
the United States, we need to call him out and
basically say he's an idiot, okay, right, that can't be
said enough. And the problem we have in the United
States is that too many people are afraid to say that,
even though I say it publicly, even though you know
you'll go to any gathering in Washington, and they're just
(20:16):
rolling their eyes and laughing at the guy and shaking
their heads. Right, including Republicans, and the Median knows this,
but they But the problem is, it's like everybody's afraid
of saying there's some kind of a taboo. It's like
the Emperor has no clothes. Nobody wants to point it out.
And this is the reason why we have Donald Trump,
because I've stopped doing People are unwilling to do it.
(20:37):
They're afraid to do it. We have books talking about,
you know, Joe Biden not being alert twenty, you know,
twelve hours a day. It's like, okay, but you know,
he's not associopath and he's not going to blow anything
up randomly, and he's you know, we we can't. We
can talk about almost everything else except the fact that
this guy is a terring to moron. And you know,
(21:03):
the problem, the problem is that we have become we
have completely normalized this to the point where we can't
deal with it. We can't deal with exactly the rest
of the world can't. You know, they can do that.
Their leaders understand it, right, They're not going to say
that to him, But everybody knows everybody already accepts that
(21:28):
he's a lunatic, and so they just work on figuring
out ways they can play him right as best they can.
But look, the problem is I've always said about Trump,
I said this for years, is you can manipulate him,
but you can't control him. You can just sort of
move him from one end to the other. You you can,
(21:49):
you can, you can. What you do is you just
basically convince him that he will be in glory if
he does X, and the next person they're convinced him, No,
that would be bad. You will be in glory if
you do why Which is why oscillate so much about everything,
because it's never about trying to achieve the best result
for the country or the or logic or the consequences
(22:09):
of actions other than is he going to get immediate praise?
And is he is? It doesn't make him feel powerful? Okay, two,
it's all narcissism. And so you know, the the Europeans
are will play him to some extent, but they have
to understand. I hope they understand that they're just buying
(22:30):
time with him because he's going to turn on them
at some point and they need to kind of string
him along and not have him do catastrophic things until
they are ready to basically tell him to go fuck.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Off, right right.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
So that's the way I look and I think, you know,
I mean, and some people do it, are doing it
better than others, and they're doing it in different ways.
The Brits understood that they you know, they they didn't
feel that they needed very much from the Trump administration
of what they wanted to do is basically protect Jaguar
right industry. So they sucked up the Trump and they,
(23:07):
you know, reduced tariffs on US stuff, but US we
don't really the trade the bilateral trade between the US
and UK is mostly services financial op which isn't subject
to tariffs. So what they what they did is they
worked out a deal to protect a couple of industries
and they said, and they're good, so they play it
(23:28):
and then the others, you know, it's much what's much
more problematic for the EU. And then you've got mcrone.
He kind of has this way of making fun of
Trump to his face without Trump completely always knowing it,
although Trump kind of figures it out a little. And
then you've got in Canada, you've got i know, but
but I get it. But I just am curious. This
(23:50):
is my question because I feel like I understand that
we see different countries trying to work Trump right, thinking
they've cracked the code. They're doing it in different ways,
but they're all doing it.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
But my question for you is Peter Navarro, who you
may remember from earlier this season, seems to have disappeared.
We were promised ninety deals in ninety days. We have
one outline of a deal, so that's like maybe sixty
so we have like zero point six of a deal.
If they're working him, why aren't they better at it?
Speaker 4 (24:20):
I mean, the problem is he likes he likes having
these towers out there because it makes him feel powerful.
And the way the way you buy him off is
not necessarily by something that benefits the United States, but
by by you know, playing to his ego. How they're
managing that, I don't know, I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
But do you think I mean, do you do you
think like mid July is the deadline? So like, do
you think it just keeps getting punted? I mean, do
you think they're it is?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
I see?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
The problem is you can't look at this rationally, right
because you don't know what's going to satisfy him. Okay,
that's not what you would satisfy you. It's what strikes
him in the moment as beneficial to him. And you know,
we don't know what that's going to be at any
given moment.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I was surprised that Trump actually launched those nukes because
he tends to taco, right. Trump always chickens out. Do
you think that this is a sort of new, slightly
more aggressive Trump than in one point zero?
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Oh well, it's it's he's more aggressive in the sense
that there's nobody tell him telling him, nobody in a
position to tell him not. This new stupid basis right
in that sense. He's chicken in the sense that he's indecisive,
and he's indecisive because he doesn't understay, and he's way
(25:51):
over his head and he can't think right. He doesn't think.
Everybody thinks he's got this strategy for everything. There is
no never a strike. It's pure impulse, and one moment
the impulse goes one way, one moment the impulse goes
the other way, which is what we saw. And then
but also that impulsiveness and that erratic nature is enhanced
(26:13):
by the fact that every time he changes his mind,
he gets attention, right. I mean, it's like Stalin used
to Here's what Stalin used to do. Stalin used to say,
you know, take his minions and basically, you know, get
mad at them and say I'm going to put you, you know,
biring squad for you right right, and and then you know,
and everybody's.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Oh no, no, no.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Secretary, and then they he give them reprieve because it
made him feel powerful. And that's what is that's the
erratic nature of Trump. It's why he basically thowdled about
bombing Iran, even though you could argue there was no
street the actual military benefit to doing that if the
(26:56):
if in fact, you're giving them time to move the
centril fuge is and you're not bombing the place where
the enriched uranium is, and they could move the rich
rainium probably easier than they could move the center viewes.
You know, it's all about what makes him feel good
at any given time, which can change hour by hour.
And that's the that's it's more that than chickening out
(27:21):
right that the the tariffs were. He he wants to
do it because he gets some attention and not doing attention.
And yes, he's also you know, to some extent, they
got through to him saying, well, you know, we're going
to have a recession. And those numbers, the numbers at
the end of this, I guess it was the first quarter,
(27:41):
were pretty bad.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Well, so you know, there there is some degree of
you know, he is fearful that it's going to blow
up in his face, the same way he was fearful that,
you know, of being attacked for launching some greater war,
which you know he was willing to risk. But he
figured he could just declare victory, which is what he does,
and he creates and that's what he does. So you know,
(28:04):
this is his whole this is his whole modus operandi
of creating crisis and then declaring that he solved the
crisis that he created. He loves to do that. He's
been doing that with the tariffs, and then he's been
doing that with with Iran, and you know, we may
see that again with the tariffs. He may he may
just to.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
We're out of time. Thank you, Thank you, George Gonway,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Channon Watts is the founder of Mom's Demand Action and
the author of Fired Up, How To turn your spark
into a flame and come alive at any need. Tell
us about this book, tell us why you decided to
do this were you came into my life as one
of the most important activists about guns, and you continue
(28:56):
to do that work.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
But tell me about this new book.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
I I spent eleven years as the leader of Mom's
Men Action after founding it in twenty twelve after the
Sandy Hook School shooting. And it was in twenty twenty
two that I decided, Okay, this is my last year,
and it's a long time to be a full time
volunteer and I just wanted to take a break. I
was running on the treadmill one night and I looked
down on my phone. It was Maria Shreiver, who I
(29:20):
didn't know, and she said, hey, I would love for
you to write a book for my imprint. And I said, well,
that's an amazing opportunity. What do you want me to
write about? And she said, what have you learned about women? Look,
that could be you know, a trilogy. But I ended
up synthesizing it into this metaphor about fire, and I
interviewed over seventy other women and it's this idea of
(29:42):
boiling it down to really, men are taught to fulfill
their desires and women are taught to fill their obligations.
And how do we shift that paradigm so that women
get to the end of their lives and feel like burned,
like they pursued the things that were important to them.
And so I go through all the re seas that
women don't and how they can break through those obstacles.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
That's so important and I love that story. I also
so I wonder You've been such an important activist and
you have such a good and I feel like, at
this moment your story is so important because there are
many many women in this country and men too, who
(30:25):
are having the moment that you.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Had after Sandy Hook.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I know the story, but I wonder if you could
just sort of quickly sum up how you got there,
because I think it's very important. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:37):
I was forty one years old. I had taken a
five year break from my career in corporate communications because
I had just remarried, and I was blending our family
of five kids, very cold day in Indiana and folding
laundry in my bedroom and I see a Cairn on
the television that there's an active shooter inside in elementary
school in Connecticut, And like I'm sure you and others listening,
(30:57):
I sort of just sat down on the side of
my bed and was devastated. I mean, I went to
bed sobbing, and at some point in the middle of
the night that sadness turned into abject rage. When I
woke up, I just was so agitated I had to
do something. Now, keep in mind, back in twenty twelve,
Facebook was very popular with middle aged women, and so
I knew how to start a Facebook page, and I
(31:20):
did not have a focus group in my kitchen. So
I called it one Million Moms for Gun Control until
my kid, who's gay, told me one million Moms is
like an anti gay group, and no one says gun control.
We quickly changed the name, but that was really the
genesis of what became the largest women led nonprofit in
the country, if not the world.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I mean, that's really cute. By the way, I feel
like the gun safety movement has actually really benefited from
your work, which is amazing to be able to say
that because we spend so much time with members of
Congress complaining about how I mean, I heard a member
of Congress the other day complaining about how there was
(32:03):
no fact checking on the internet.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I was like, couldn't you have been.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
The fucking person to have created a fat right? But whatever,
So I wonder if you could just tell us how
what the sort of ways in which you feel you
were able to enact change.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
Well, so I want to be clear, and this is
what I talk about in my book Fired Up, is
that you know, I am not a unicorn. We all
have value, skills and desires that can help us meet
the moment right now, and we all should be doing that.
I mean, the world needs us, especially women, to be
doing that right now. I was a forty one year
old woman who knew little to nothing about organizing legislation
(32:44):
gun violence. I had untreated severe ADHD, and I had
a debilitating fear of public speaking, like not someone you
would point to and say, oh, that woman should take
on the most powerful, wealthy special interests ever existed, right,
And yet I was exactly the right person for the job.
And that's really what I want people to take away,
which is we all need to do something in this moment.
(33:04):
But I was grateful and lucky that so many perfect
strangers across the country brought their skills to the table
and helped me. I had the ability as a communicator
to tell a story and create messaging and build a brand,
but so many other people brought their skills to the table,
and in a decade, you know, we passed five hundred
good gun laws, We passed the first federal gun safety legislation,
(33:25):
and a generation we elected thousands of gun sense candidates
to office, including our own volunteers, people like Hungresswoman Lucy McBath,
and we really changed the culture around this issue. There
was a very vocal base of small base of extremists
who were holding sway over our state legislatures and our
(33:46):
city councils who no longer have that power.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's kind of amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Do you think now in this moment, like it seems
like so many things are completely insurmountable, And I think
back to Sandy Hook, and I feel like the lesson
there is that.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
You really can do more than you think. Is that right?
Speaker 6 (34:08):
Absolutely? You know, this is a democracy, at least for now,
and that means that it doesn't work unless we all
get off the sidelines. And I had watched shooting tragedy
after shooting tragedy, and no one did anything, and so finally,
after the shooting at Sandy Hook School, I thought I
have to do something now. I thought I was just
going to join an organization like Mother's again in drug driving,
(34:30):
but it did not exist, and so that's where Facebook
came into page into play. But we all have power,
and democracy only works if we all exercise it, right.
I think of democracy as like a sick kid, you know,
as a mom, if your kid is throwing up at
three am, you don't say, you know, I'm exhausted. You're
going to have to do this and I'll touch base
(34:51):
with you in the morning, right, and you hold their
hand until they're better. And I think democracy is the
same way. We all have to figure out what are
our values, ability and desires and how do we bring
them to bear in this moment?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Right?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
So I want to ask you, because this is something
I spend a lot of time thinking about, why didn't
you run for office? Do you think about running for office?
Because like, one of the things that I'm struck by
with you is there are some really talented people and
I think of you as one of them, but they
don't run for office. So I'm curious why you didn't
(35:24):
run for office because you are as public a figure
as you would be if you were a senator.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
Yeah, and it's fine. The reason I'm laughing is because
I had a conversation with Katie Kirk recently where she
went from will you to why won't you? Like I
think she's daring me and taunting me. Now, I would
never say never, And really that's what my book is about,
is like in the second half of your life, there's
a whole new world. You know, Unlike our mothers, we
don't have to disappear. And at fifty four, I kind
of feel like I'm just getting started. I don't know
(35:50):
if you know this, but I moved from California to
Florida recently, and to me, that's exactly the right place
to be. I would much rather be a blue dot
in a red state trying to make change than in
a blue state. So I'm not ruling it out at all.
I'm kind of looking at the landscape and figuring out
what's next.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
I am honestly so happy to hear you say that,
because I live in this district in New York where
I there just is a very old, very nice member
of Congress there. But he has left his committees because
he's too old, and so we all know that. That
is the lesson from the twenty twenty four Psycho is that,
(36:29):
you know, if democracy is on the ballot, we have
to stop being nice and just have people who are
really competent in those positions.
Speaker 6 (36:36):
And you know, I would just say, Mollie to that.
I think that's such an important point. We should be
having more conversations about power. If you're brilliant and you
run for office at seventy, I have no issue with that.
My issue is hoarding power. I talk about this in
the book. When I started Mom's Demand Action, I wanted
this to be an exercise in managing my ego. I
did not want the organization to become about me. There's
this thing called founder syndrome if you don't know if
(36:58):
you've heard of it, but basically, you're ego becomes so
entangled that if you leave, it fails or you want
to burn it down because you can't stand for it.
So I did not want that, and every year I
ask myself, is this the year I leave? And finally
in twenty twenty two it was the right time. But
I want our elected officials to have. This is not
a job that you were supposed to have for your
entire life until you literally die at your desk. You
(37:20):
should serve a finite amount of time and know when
it's time to hand the power over.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
And I also think, you know, we've heard older congress
people say things like I don't want to give this up,
you know, And it's not supposed to be like that.
It's supposed to be you are a public servant, and
you serve the public.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
Yes, it's disappointing.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
It is disappointing, and it's different than Trump is own right.
It's not trying to overthrow the federal government.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
But it's problematic.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
It's damaging to democracy.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I'm really glad you're talking about being a woman who's
a little bit older and having two I mean, obviously
neither of us are old, but we're in a death
from period in our lives where our kids are grown up.
And I wonder if you could talk There are so
many women I know from my book staff where they
come to me and they are furious and they want
(38:12):
to do stuff and they don't know how to start.
So can you give a few ideas on how they
can start?
Speaker 6 (38:18):
Yes, and I just want to tell a story really quick.
From the book, I interview women at all. I kind
of think of four archetypes. This book is for, you know,
young women who've just graduated from high school, college, women
who have small kids, or they're young in their career
and they're overwhelmed, women who are empty nesters, and women
who are retired and beyond right. And there's this great story.
I interview a woman named Carol Frick. He always wanted
(38:39):
to be an author. She ended up being a gym
teacher for thirty years to pay the bills. And when
she retires, she volunteered in an animal shelter and came
up with this idea of writing a book about a
couple group balls in love at an animal shelter. She
taught herself how to write dialogue, how to create a book.
She decided she deserved to have it published. She didn't
want to self publish. She sent it to two hundred
and eighteen publishers and was rejected every time until the
(39:00):
two hundred and nineteenth time. She got a book deal
and became a published author in her seventies. Like it
is never too late and you are never too old
right to do anything. And I think there's so many
stories out there right now, like Julia Louis Dreyvis has
a great podcast about all the amazing things women are
doing in midlife, what they're doing. My book is really
the how how do you get there? And that starts
with identifying your values, your abilities, and desires. A lot
(39:23):
of us haven't gone through those exercises. It's something we
could do annually, honestly. The next thing is taking those
steps forward toward what it is you want, maybe acquiring
skills you need, maybe finding the right set of people.
It's kind of a practice where you try this formula
again and again and then binding your people. I mean,
I think that's such an important part of this, given
the pandemic, given social media, given how polarized we are,
(39:46):
binding your people is a huge part of figuring out
what it is you have to bring to bear.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, I think that's really true, and also being able
to sort of explain why what your goal is right, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 6 (40:00):
I mean, no one should get to the end of
their life and feel like they didn't burn. We talk
about legacy a lot. It's like this very loaded word.
What does legacy mean? Your name on a building, or
you create a philanthropy. It's not that. It's just getting
to the end of your life and knowing you lived
a life that was authentic to you, that you the
dormant desires that you had you were acted on. And
I guess I want you to guess. When I asked
(40:23):
these women I interviewed, most of whom were moms, what
their biggest fear of their death threat that regret would be.
What do you think They said that they pursued what
they wanted at the expense of their children. In other words,
that doing what they wanted living on fire made them
a bad mom. And men don't say that. Men never
say that. And you know I'm on the other side
(40:43):
of that chasm because I have all adult children. I
can tell you two things. One, my kids were grateful
that I had something to focus on other than just them.
Oh one a lot of pressure. And two they feel
like I set an example for them on how they
can go after what they want.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah, no, no, that is for sure. I see that
with my kids too. They want me out. I wonder
if you could talk a little bit about how like
you guys passed legislation and I think about technology and
how the government is really treating tech companies the way
(41:18):
they treated oil companies, the way they treated tobacco companies,
really letting them get away with it. I wonder if
you see a way to sort of I mean, obviously
we still have major gun problems in this country, but
I wonder if you see a way to sort of
use what you've done with Mom's demand in those absolutely.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
I mean, look, we have defeated so many special interests
in this country, and people thought that the gun industry
was immune. I mean, they had been given immunity by
by Congress in the nineties for being sued for their product,
unlike any other manufacturing organization in the world. And so
the ENTERI really learned the lessons of what had brought
(41:59):
other special interests down. They didn't want to be able
to be sued. They wanted to make sure that states
couldn't make laws that were different than federal laws. They
had all of these protections that people thought made them untouchable.
And what we did was, you know, our theory of change.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We are going to shed
a light on how they are misusing donors dollars for
(42:21):
Italian suits and vacations abroad. You know, we're going to
sue them ourselves, through our volunteers in different states where
they operate. We are going to hold them accountable in
the courts. We've gone into state legislatures and unturned, overturned
the laws that the federal government still has in place. Right,
you can sue the NRA and the gun industry in
(42:42):
many states, even if you can't at a federal level.
So I do think it is a blueprint for how
special interests can be taken on. And Congress has just
absolutely abdicated its responsibility in the tech industry. It's shameful
how they put their head in the sand. And I
mean it comes full circle to conversation we had, which
is if we had younger representatives, you know that understood
(43:05):
how the tech world operated, you know, we would be
better off.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right.
What's next for you?
Speaker 6 (43:12):
I'm not sure, you know. I'm on this tour. I'm
going to two dozen states. I'm so excited to have
a conversation with other women about this book. There's going
to be something called Buyers Starter University, which is based
on the book. It will start in September. It's a
year long course and that people can enroll in when
they buy the book. We've already got six hundred people
signed up, which is astounding to me. And it's a
year long online course where we go through the book together.
(43:33):
I mean, these people will be your community. And what
I think is really interesting is that there are so
many women, including months of men, actual volunteers, who are
starting local groups based on the book, not about gun safety,
but just about personal, professional, political empowerment.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (43:48):
In my mind, that's that's an important piece of this
whole picture because when we look at the election, a
big divide was between college educated and non college educated women.
And we have to have conversations in our communities with
our neighbors and to know one another, and I hope
this book is a piece of that.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I love that. I'm so excited for you. Thank you
so much, Anaman.
Speaker 6 (44:10):
Thank you, Mollie. Such a joy to talk to you.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
A moment.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Second, Jesse Cannon Smiley, this is one of those ones that,
like it happened over the weekend, but I had to
get in the show. A Pro Life Caucus co chair
and Republican representative Chemick had a topic pregnancy and couldn't
get care in Florida, and now she's blaming the wok left.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
For fear mongering and refusing to call her operation an abortion.
Still the Wall Street Journal that she found out she had,
I want to point out a topic pregnancy is never, ever,
ever ever going to result in a baby.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
That's just how that works. She ended up having to
call the governor.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
It didn't work, but fine a Florida alarmmakers clarified that
doctors could act in cases such as hers because the
topic pregnancies never ever, ever, ever result in a child.
Now that said, somehow the party that makes the abortion
bands is not responsible for the problems not getting abortions.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
It's left.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Look these people can do. They're very good at spinning
things to fit their narrative. If you think there's going
to be some come to Jesus moment where these people
get honest, it's not happening. That's it for this episode
of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and
(45:44):
Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense
of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Thanks for listening,
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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