August 28, 2025 • 47 mins
The New Republic’s Greg Sargent examines how Democrats are pushing back against Trump.
Senator Sherrod Brown details his run for the Senate in Ohio.
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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 Democrats have flipped an Iowa Senate
seat in a district that went for President Trump. Fight
more than eleven points. We have a great show for
you today, the New republic Zone. Greg Sargeant stops by
(00:21):
to talk to us about how Democrats can more effectively
push back against Trump. Then we'll talk to Senator Shared
Brown about his run for the Senate in Ohio. But
first we have the news.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So, Molly, one of the things we knew was never
ever ever going to be the case because this is
Donald Trump, who is moored to nothing.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
And also we know this is his dream.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Is that Trump is now said for two days in
a row that maybe the American people might want a dictator.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, you know, this is the Donald trumpiest of trumpy things,
which is he keeps saying the choie part loud. And
remember Trump will then say well, I was kidding, or
he'll say this, or he'll say that, but this is
the quiet part loud. So the line is that I'm
a dictator, but I stop crime, he says. So a
lot of people say, you know, if that's the case,
(01:12):
I'd rather have a dictator. Okay, First of all, this
is this big lie that Trump World is pushing, and
they think they have Democrats on because they have some
polling which asks if you don't care if Trump is
a dictator, and Republicans are saying in these polls, which
I think are highly suspicious because I think the way
(01:32):
the question is being asked is misleading. But either way,
he's gotten these polls that say some Republicans think he
should be a dictator if it will stop crime. He
is not stopping crime. Maybe having hundreds of federal enforcement
officers on the streets is preventing crime for now, but
that is not the same as stopping crime. He's not
(01:54):
addressing the root sources of the crime. He is not
solving homelessness, he is not helping veterans that are on
the street. He's not doing any of that. Like the
foundation he puts on his hands, this is a band
aid for a larger societal problem. But you know, look,
my man, he's not just authoritarian curious. He's authoritarian leaning,
(02:17):
he's authoritarian experimenting, he's authoritarian whatever, and he's saying it loud.
So he also is probably going to send Governor Wesmore
to Seacott. So he lied, or maybe it's true, but
I think the chance of it being true are zero.
He said that Governor Wesmore told him that he was
(02:37):
the greatest president of his lifetime. What do you think
the chances are that Governor Wesmore said that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I think they're literally the most made up thing of
made up things of all time, Just like many things
that come out of his mouth.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I have trouble even imagining him saying any of that.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The amount of times Trump is not moored to any
story being anywhere near the way it happened.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right, somebody told Trump he was the greatest president of
his lifetime.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I am sure many sycophantic Republican congress people have.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
But not Wesmore. More than tweeted, keep telling yourself that,
mister President. On X. This caused the notoriously thin skinned
leader of the free world to gripe at reporters about
more before going down an authoritarian path. Look, I don't know.
I mean, I think we do know. Trump is an authoritarian.
He wants to be a dictator. He insists that he's
(03:30):
not a dictator, which is very nice of him to
assist that. And he says he just has to stop crime.
By the way, none of this is about crime. There's
a billion dollars of DC taxpayer money that should be
released to fight crime, homelessness, pay for judges, etc. You
(03:52):
know that money is not released. But Donald Trump is
saying he cares about crime. He does not care about crime.
And you'll remember when Trump was on the trail running
for office and somebody said, well, you're not going to
really be a dictator, and he said, do you remember that?
He said, I'm going to be a dictator on.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Day one, just day one.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Just day one. It reminds me of good people on
both sides, right, It's that same energy. You know, you
get up there and you're life good people on both sides.
There are some good people on both sides. Anyway, having
spent a decade marinating in this, I have long I
am no longer.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Normal speaking of abnormal things. For some reason, we now
have to see if Trump can fire Lisa Cook in court.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
When he can't.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So again, Donald Trump, who you may remember as being
complete and utter overreach, the man is all about overreach.
He has decided he's going to fire someone he has
no authority to fire. And now Lisa Cook did exactly
what you're supposed to do when Donald Trump tries to
fire you, which is said a game on. She's filing
(05:02):
a suit about her firing, and it will decide the
limits of presidential control over the FED. Important note here
the Supreme Court, which is as craven and trumpest as
anything in the world, did in fact write a special
addendum when they said that the god King could do
whatever he wanted, where they said except when it comes
(05:22):
to the FED. You do whatever you want, except when
it comes to the FED, because we are funded by
rich people who do not want to lose their money.
We're going to see what happens here. But I see
a world where if this goes up to the Supreme Court,
he actually doesn't win it, which is crazy because this
Supreme Court is so in his pocket. But I do
think with this they may say no, because they did
(05:44):
already write that he couldn't do this. By the way,
Kevin Hassett out there defending the indefensible, as my man
often does, the fact that she is not doing this
suggests that she is partisan and trying to make a
partisan stands, which is contrary to the independence FED has
it said. And besides, he wants people on the FED
who wear manga hats. You know I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I know you're right. And it really is amazing that
this is where we're at, is that you have to
stick offance to pretend your data and policies work because
we're going to live in a delusion for as long
as we can until things go upside down.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I think we're heading there pretty fast, looks that way.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I saw a lot of stuff about a recession today.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Anyway. So speaking of trying to sway people your way,
it seems that the US is back to its old
ways and going and doing influenced campaigns in other countries.
And this time it's the fifty five thousand people who
live in Greenland.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, this is so so dumb. The mind is blown
by the dumbness of this. So while previous Republican politicians
tried to undermine governments in Latin American nations, this administration
is trying to undermine whatever in green Basically, they're alleging
(07:03):
that this crew is doing influence in Greenland. Three unnamed
American men are accused of attempting to permeate Greenlandic society
to weakend relations with Denmark through what it describes as
infiltration or influence operations. That sounds a lot like something
Russia would do, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Well, Let's also be honest. This is a tibotter tradition.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Of American I know, but I feel like one of
them who it is, claimed Cambile. The list of Trump's
supporters has reportedly appeared in public with Trump numerous times.
He is also accused of creating a list of those
who do not support the US president and advising on
issues that put Denmark in a bad light in the
US media. Those Danes, big trouble. Look, I don't fucking know.
(07:49):
This is so so stupid and bad. Donald Trump Junior,
you may know him as whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I like to know him as a person you could
date and get it at a best leadership afterwards, talk
about starter husband sometimes.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, I'm telling you, that's like the best case scenario.
He was joined by political activist Charlie Kirk. Was a tiny,
tiny face in an enormous head, and they went to
Greenland and they tried to influence. But they are not
people in question, and the story look certainly interesting that
(08:24):
this is coming out now certainly interesting that you know
how you're you know how you know your influence campaign
is not influencing. When articles like that are published, that's
a sign, we know how.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
You know it's really going well when an article also
comes out on the same day that you were trying
to do this to get Zelenski out of power in
Ukraine and that jd Vance was behind it. Wait what
the Guardian has this crazy report that jd Vance spearheaded
attempts to get a challenger to Zelenski as president of Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
That is just incredible stuff that the But by the way,
the fact that this stuff is leaking is a really
good sign that people are not having it. You know,
if you're successfully influencing, there's not an article about it
in the New York Times or in the Guardian. If
you're successfully influencing, you're influencing.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
This is not that Yeah, so Molli, prosecutors have failed
to secure an indictment against the here we didn't know,
we knew with the guy who through the subway a
sandwich at federal agents. Every time the Trump administration loses,
it's a really good thing because them continuing to lose
with kilmar Abrego Garcia and now threatening to send them
(09:33):
to Uganda. It really shows how terrified they are that
none of this is going to stand up to the
court of law.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And there's a reason for that. Yeah, yeah, you want
to know what the reason is, Please tell me, because
none of this is legal and that's how we got here, right, No,
for sure, for sure, it is so rare for a
grand jury not to indict. And I'm going to read
you something that I think is particularly apropos here. It's
(10:00):
really rare for a grander jury not to indict. And
in fact, Aaron Blake, who who was at the Washington
Post and now is CNN, has this important data point here.
So federal prosecutors pursue one hundred and sixty thousand cases
against defendants in two thousand and nine to twenty ten,
and grand jury's only voted not to return an indictment
(10:23):
in eleven. Sandwich Guy is the second time it's happened
with Piero in recent days. So it really is just
unheard of to have grand juries not indict, and it's
happened twice now for Judge box of Wine, and I
think that it's really important to realize that some of
(10:45):
that is because a lot of this is not legal, right,
A lot of this is just them making up shit.
And it's great to see that a sandwich guy one
box of wine zero. Greg's sergeant is a reporter at
The New Republic and the host of the Daily Blast.
(11:05):
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Greg Sergeant.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Hey, how you doing?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
You know, another day in Trump's America. So Trump has
these authoritarian leanings, impulses, plans, designs. This week, he is
trying to fire someone he doesn't have constitutional authority to fire.
He is trying to bend the federal reserve to his whims,
(11:31):
the unitary executive theory where he just takes over the
entire government and makes it basically a gift shop. So
talk us through what you see here and what you
think the large implications are.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Well, I think there's a key tail buried at the
core of Trump's effort to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook.
And it's the rationale he's given, which, if it works,
can be reshaped and repurposed to do whatever the fuck
he wants, by the way, which he said yesterday he
can do what he wants.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
That was amazing, And you'll notice Pritzker did immediately say no,
you can, which is important.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Oh yeah, every Democrat should be saying that over and
over and over.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So talk us through what the cook firing or the
attempted cook firing means.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
So Trump is not allowed to just fire a member
of the FED board. By law, Congress restricted his ability
to fire those people by saying it has to be
four cause.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And then in the letter that he sent.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Basically tweeted we don't even know if he sent it, right,
he just posted on social media.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, that's a good point. I spoke to her camp recently,
and I should have asked that. That's a good question.
Actually did they.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Get the letter, because they may not have.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, absolutely true.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
So he added a line in there where he's just
said something like I get to fire her four cause
at my discretion. And the phrase four cause is supposed
to actually mean something like it's traditionally meant something like
a real reason rooted in serious or grotesque misconduct by
the person I'm firing, as opposed to I'm pulling this
(13:06):
reason out of my ass, which is what Trump is doing.
And so at my discretion is essentially a declaration by
him that he gets to say that anything counts as
four cause and you know, if he gets away with that,
then his power is pretty limitless.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I think, right what they're using as the excuse for
firing her is mortgage fraud, which they are also trying
to get Letitia James on. This is also what Trump
was actually actually got in trouble for, which is a
nice parallel but also projection. But also where are they
(13:46):
getting this information from?
Speaker 4 (13:47):
By the way, Adam Schiff as well. Yeah, so three
now he's got three of them. Okay, So Trump is
relying on the work of one of his senior loyalists,
this guy named William Pulty, who I don't know much
about the background of, but he's.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Not a government guy. He's the heir to a real
estate fortune, as one is.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah, exactly. So, this guy, William Pulti is a staunch
Trump loyalist who heads something called the Federal Housing Finance Agency,
which oversees mortgage markets. It sounds like a super obscure thing,
and the truth is it's a pretty small agency relatively,
But that's actually part of the story because this one guy,
(14:30):
William Pulte, is using that position as head of this
agency to scrutinize the mortgages.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Of Trump's enemies.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Is that legal?
Speaker 4 (14:39):
So it's a really good question. Nobody's really gotten to
the bottom of that yet. But what I can tell
you is that I talked to multiple experts in government
and experts in mortgage law and mortgage governance, and what
they say is that the way he's using this process
to scrutinize these particular mortgages of Trump foes is highly
(15:00):
regular at best, and probably very corrupt. I mean, here's
the way to understand just how corrupt it is. What
are the chances that if he were, if the agency
were scrutinizing mortgages in an above board way, what are
the chances that he would somehow end up the head
of this agency with three mortgages or mortgage packages that
(15:23):
just happened to be possessed by three of the highest
profile enemies of Trump.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
It's an absurdity.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
And so I think a big question about this is
what exactly is going on behind the scenes. Is the
White House essentially calling up William Pulte and saying, we
want you to scrutinize the mortgages of Adam Schiff, Letitia
James and Lisa Cook in order to find some sort
of something or other in there, just search them to
(15:53):
create a pretext for a referral to the Department of
Justice for criminal prosecution. I think it's very possible that
that is actually what's going on, and that should come
out as part of this process, right, And.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
It's a real question. There's clearly a lot of misuse.
It's not even there's a lot of criming going on here,
Like there's clearly a lot of illegal shit happening.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Absolutely as a criminal president.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, some of it is in the federal government, some
of it is endged, some of it is in prosecuting
his enemies with this Lisa Cook thing. I think we
should talk about the reaction to the attempted firing for
a minute, because I think it's instructive into where Democrats
are failing and where they're succeeding. So talk us through that.
(16:39):
We talked about the Pritzker thing, where he was like, no,
you don't so, but talk us through the rest of
the response.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Well, the response to the Lisa Cook thing has actually
been pretty adequate, although I'd like to see more Democrats
saying forcefully just what you and I are saying which
is that this is extraordinarily corrupt. It's manipulating the bureaucracy
to create fake pretexts to get the Justice Department to
investigate Trump's enemies. That's not a hard sentence to say,
(17:08):
and yet Democrats don't seem to be capable, at least
in a widespread way of saying that.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
But that is exactly what's going on.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
And what we really need is more people like Gavin
Newsom who are connecting all these dots. We sort of
have this thing where we chase every singular story, whether
it's the mortgage fraud you know, on Adam Schiff, or
on Lisa Cook, or on Letitia James or some other
atrocity you know, National Garden d C is one, or
(17:41):
his threat to use executive power to end vote by
mail entirely as another, and we don't connect the dots.
When you connect all those stories, it becomes something larger
than the sum of its parts. And that's something Democrats
have to be doing. And what strikes me about what
Gavin Newsom is doing doing and what JB. Pritzker is
(18:02):
doing is that they're doing that. They are telling this
bigger story, which is that Trump is using you know,
criminality at worst and profound corruption at best, and also
using the specter of military and law enforcement violence against
Americans to entrench authoritarian power. That's the big story that's happening.
(18:25):
Newsome's saying it, Pritzker's saying it. Few Democrats are Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I don't want to shit on Jeffries because I think
I mean, at the end of the day, there's a
limited toolbox they can have. But he writes this statement
that's basically like Lisa Coke is the first black woman
to ever serve and the FED Board of Governors. Okay,
so what obviously Trump is targeting black women and it
fucking sucks. Right, It's racist, it's shitty. It's what black
(18:52):
women have had to contend with. I think I'm not
a black woman, but it certainly seems to me from
the outside that have had to contend with that for
their lives right being discriminated against. Bite just everyone shitty.
That said. That is not the top line here. The
top line here is that this is not okay and
not within his constitutional rights.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I see exactly what you're saying. He's not telling the
big story that we think should be getting told here.
And it's as legitimate as the point he's making is, which,
as you said, it's totally legit.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
He's getting at a real thing.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
It ends up confusing people, is that what Trump is
really doing here? Is that what is Trump actually doing?
Tell us what Trump is actually doing? Democrats say it
plainly for people.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
So here's my question as we're talking about this. Part
of what's happened is that the mainstream media doesn't dominate anymore,
and it doesn't dominate anymore. Probably it shouldn't dominate. Probably
we did this to ourselves, and probably that's okay. Can't
have a real, real trouble covering authoritarianism, real Trump well
(20:00):
being able to embrace nuance, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Et cetera.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
But now the only choice is for Democrats to narrate
what's happening. Is that correct and incorrect? And why am
I right or wrong?
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I think you're right.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
A big part of the problem right now is what
is usually turned the attention economy or something like that,
and what might also be called our massive dumpster fire
disaster of an information environment, and breaking through is the
coin of the realm. And there's a reason Gavin Newsom
(20:34):
is breaking through, and it's not because he's tweeting in
all caps or trolling Trump in my view, although those
things probably help right they command attention in a certain way.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
But what's missing is the substance of what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Which is accepting the core facts of the moment, which
is that Donald Trump is abusing his power relentlessly on
numerous fronts, including deploying the military and law enforcement, probably
illegally in American cities against the will of their populations
and their elected officials to entrench autocratic power.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Gavin Newsom puts that fact at the center of what
he's doing. And the other fact he puts at the
center of what he's doing is that Republicans and Trump
think they can play by their own rules. They're literally
saying it straight out. So they go and they say, hey, Texas,
Jerrymander to create five seats so we can hold the
House no matter what the overall national vote ends up being. Right,
(21:31):
And then when literally, when Gavin Newsom does precisely the
same thing that Texas is doing, JD. Vans and Trump
and mag I go out there and call it this
enormous travesty. So they're saying literally that they can do
it and Democrats can't.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yes, they are right.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Gavin Newsom goes in there and he says, Okay, the
days of you playing.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
By your own rules are over.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
We are going to use our power to a maximum
capacity to prevent that from happening from now on. He's
putting that at the center of everything, and that's what's
breaking through in my view.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, no, I agree. I also think part of it
is that they are flooding the zone. But there's this
information bubble that is unfilled by anything because there's no
mainstream media anymore. So it is filled with gifts of
Elon Musk with a chainsaw, et cetera. And if you
don't fill that with something, then Republicans just take it
(22:29):
over with propaganda.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Can I just say your piece was really instructive, the
one for Vanity Fair that you wrote on all this.
The texts from some of those Democratic operatives who are
dissenting from calling this stuff out just drove me absolutely nuts.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, you don't have to like Gavin Newsom, you don't
have to want Gavin Newsom to be president. You just
have to see that what he's doing is working. And
I think that there's a real problem with Democrats of like, well,
this doesn't align with our values. Okay, I mean I
go and this is something I talk about a lot.
(23:05):
I go on places where they don't align with my
values because the people align with my values. That's ten people,
and I'll have dinner with them anytime. My family doesn't
even align with my values, like, I'll have dinner with
them anytime, but I need to go where there are
people who don't, because the thing is everything is so siloed.
I mean, it's funny, but this is like sort of
(23:26):
a dumb example, but it's not. I was at a
party where there were these K pop celebrities and nobody
knew who they were because if you don't watch k pop,
you don't know who they are. And that is I mean,
it's a stupid example, but it's instructive that much of
our media, even non political media, is just siloed into
places where you're not going to see those people otherwise.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's absolutely true.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
And the big challenge for Democrats right now is, as
everyone has said, is breaking through to the people for
whom politics isn't sort of as central as it is
for lunatics like you and me, right obsessives exactly, and
how to get into those information spaces where these voters live,
(24:10):
and how to kind of make politics matter to them
on the terms that we hope they'll matter to them.
And someone like Gavin k newso the all caps and
the trolling of Trump and the memes or whatever, I
guess does that kind of but without the substance of
the message, what good would it be?
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Well?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And I also think like part of what Trump did
successfully is that he got into the culture. This is
the Steve Bannon thing, right, which is if you're downstream
of culture, then you matter. So I think a lot
about like the all those headliners podcast selection, it was
a podcast selection. He did sneakers, he did Bitcoin, he
(24:52):
did going on podcasts, he did all that health influencer stuff.
I mean, that's the RFK secret, right. RFK has all
those cre easy health influencers anti vacs. I mean that
became a group. And this is I think one of
the failings of the mainstream media. You have to be
for something.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Yeah, And on the cultural breakthrough you're talking about getting
into the culture, I will say I did a piece
for The New Republic where I spent some time in Reading, Pennsylvania,
which is a city of around seventy percent Latinos in
sort of eastern central PA. Someone from Pennsylvania is going
to get mad at me for saying that.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
I know.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
It's like people are so sensitive about geography there. It's
like if you're a tiny bit off, they just jump
all over you. But reading Pennsylvania, it's a small city.
The vote there shifted by an enormous amount. The Latino
vote shifted by an enormous amount toward Trump, even though
Kamala Harris won the city anyway, And what was striking
(25:49):
to me was that the Democrats on the ground in
the town or small city said almost uniformly that the
reason Latinos shifted toward Trump was in no small part
because he had punched through into the culture as the
guy who builds big buildings, makes a lot of money
and fires people on television.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yep, exactly, And that's something we've heard again and again
that the look of being a builder was something that
got people excited, even if it's not true when you
did this, like have Latino voters who've seen what Trump
has done have they been turned off by it? Yes?
Or now?
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Well, that wasn't really the subject of the piece. We
sort of made this decision not to do person in
the street interviews as much because you can get a
skewed sample that way. And we tried to talk to
people who were on the ground, who were talking to
you know, Latino elected officials who had spent six months
talking to Latino voters up until the election. That was
(26:48):
our main focus, and they were just deeply troubled by
how so many Latino voters had internalized this picture of Trump,
the one you just laid out, and now in there
minds that translated into some sort of evidence that if
he were president, the money would start flowing for them. Yeah,
(27:09):
and that's a cultural thing, right, that's pure culture politics,
being downstream of cultural like, that's I think that's the
ban and thing as.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Well, Right, Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Or is that bright bart?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
It's bright part, but it's ban and too. I mean, like,
I think more than anyone, he understands that this coalition
that Trump has created, which now Trump is punishing with
the BBB, how they exist, which I think is important.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Thinking about the troops occupying cities and that kind of thing.
Dems are kind of reluctant to engage on that, but
if you want to start chipping away at the MAGA coalition.
That's a good place to not necessarily start, but to
sort of land because from the data that I've looked at,
these constituencies, the ones that edge towards Trump, working class,
(27:55):
non white younger they don't like the urban occupy patients,
the military occupations, and they hate the mass deportations, ice
kicking indoors and dragging away grandmas and carpenters and stuff.
Why not go after that with an eye toward taking
away the inroads Trump made with those voters.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
I totally agree, and I don't understand why Democrats are
seguine on this. There is no reason to be seguine.
Even just National Guard troops picking up trash in DC. It's,
first of all, not what they signed up for, number one.
So it's one of these many ways in which Trump
(28:35):
is shitting on the military. But also it's not how
we do things in this country. I'm really disappointed. And
what's so interesting, and again this is the idea of
like the mainstream media having fucked themselves, is that like
there are mainstream media headlines that are like Democrats backed
into a corner on Trump and crime. It's like, no
it's authoritarianism. You have to be on the right side
(28:59):
of that. No world and what you're on the wrong
side of that. They're also wrong about the politics of it.
They assume upfront that people will look at troops and
cities and believe that they're there to fight crime. It
accepts Trump's framing entirely at the outset, and there's absolutely
no reason to believe that. There's every reason to believe
(29:19):
that these types of voters will look at that and
see through what Trump is doing. And by the way,
last thing I'll say on this, we have seen polling,
actual data which shows large majorities disapprove of Trump's handling
of things like law enforcements. So where's the benefit for him.
It's just imaginary. The press is just creating it out
of nothing. Yep, Greg Sergeant, please come back anytime. Shared
(29:45):
Brown is a candidate for Senate in Ohio. Welcome back
to Fast Politics, Shared Brown.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Thank you, Mollie. Good to be with you and my
wife particularly.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I like you.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
My wife really loves you, so I'll just let it
go at that.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
That's what I get A lot of the wife really
likes you, I know. Been the senator from the state
of Ohio. You are now running for this special election.
By the way, until you announced, every day I was like,
I hope they can get Chared to run for that
Ohio special You the only person who can win in
(30:21):
Ohio who is not a complete lunatic. So explain to
me why that is.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I think it's because I talk directly to workers, and
when Connie and I didn't really expect to do this again,
I found it. Two months after leaving OFFS. I found
it something called the Dignitive Work Institute. Because my career
has been focused on, you know, fighting this rig system,
this economic system, standing up for workers, and we wanted
to keep that fight going with this institute. But more
in that later if you want. But for several months,
(30:50):
we just watch as your listeners and viewers do every day.
Every week, things are getting worse in this country. Price
continue to go up. The last bill that the clown
has passed, the spinalist members of the Senate and the
House both taking health insurance away from four hundred and
ninety thousand Ohighlands. That's four hundred ninety thousand people in
a state of twelve million. That's a huge impact. Major
(31:13):
you know, we'll close a number of rural hospitals and
small town hospitals are unique in the sense that it
means people drive thirty minutes or for an hour to
deliver a baby yard for emergency care, and it means
in these small towns that hospitals are usually the biggest employer,
so it just wipes out the economics of those towns.
It's also three trillion dollars add to the budge of deaths.
(31:35):
It's also tax cuts for the wealthiest people. It's a
bill that there's never been a bill like that that's
made the richer this much richer and shrunk the working
workers incomes in trunk the middle class that much. So
we just couldn't stay on the sidelines. I'm in this race.
We're going to win this race because we're going to
make the contrast between what we stand for in what
(31:56):
John houstaid, the incumbent, the appointed incumbent stands for.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Ohio is a very red state. But you had a
sort of normal governor. I mean, you don't anymore, but
it was like Maine. There were some people there who
really did sort of speak to workers and were able
to connect with the more rural parts of the state.
But a lot of those working people voted for Trump.
They thought that Trumpism would work for them. What do
(32:22):
you think Democrats need to say to get those voters
back on board? Those are your voters, those are Bernie
Sanders voters. I don't think they thought Trump would solve everything.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
I mean, they voters didn't vote for three trillion dollars
attack or three trillion dollars. They didn't vote for five
hundred thousand people who's there in the shelth insurance they
I think we don't talk well enough and we didn't
offer them enough. I mean, that's the only part of
the story. But it means we've got to listen to workers.
We've got to acknowledge the system is rigged for workers
and has been for years. It's just more rigged now.
(32:52):
But when we did discussions in the Dignity Work Institute,
we found that workers thought the system was rigged, which
it is. They thought it was getting worse, which it is.
They believe that corporations are fleecing them and their you two,
their electric bills and their food costs and their costs
for gas. But they also believe most politicians were in
bed with those corporations. And what I think has elected
(33:14):
me in the past and what will again without going
into deep analysis, is I don't think politics has left
or right, Molly. I think it's who's on your side?
And are you willing to stand up to these interest groups?
I always have and I always will, and I will
make the contrast. The guy I'm running against, a guy
named John Houstead, the appointed senator, was always out front
for the drug companies and the utility companies in Wall
(33:35):
Street when he was in state government. Now he's doing
the same in the federal government. So the voters recognize
who this bose special interest guys are, and we're going
to make that contrast because, as I said, it's really
whose side are you on?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah? When I saw Trump, Trump would do these things
where you talk about inflation and he would say, I'm
going to make things cheaper. When you talk to people
on the ground, do they get that he didn't do
anything to make things cheaper? I mean, like, do you
think that narrative is there that people understand that he
just said he was going to do something and just
didn't saw I think that.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
I mean people that love Trump, and that's probably thirty
five forty percent of the voters in my state, they're
going to keep Trump because no offense. But they're not
watching you, Molly, They're listening to Fox. They're the one
all that without too much analysis. But there is a
group of there's a group of people that feel lied to.
There's a group of people that they know their lives
have gotten worse and they know where to pin the blame.
And that's what I mean, that's what our campaign is
(34:28):
going to be. It's going to be aimed at those
voters who who see that John Hustead is just another
tool for corporate interest. He was he was bad in
state government and working for the banks and working fute
only companies and working for the drug companies. And he's
doing the same in the federal government. And that's that's
how you win elections in Ohio. That's how election should
be one. It's who's it is? Whose side you on?
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Voters?
Speaker 5 (34:51):
I think they increasingly see that they know that again
they didn't vote for this kind of government that they're getting.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Now, how do you win a state like Ohio? What
does it look like? What will the next year and
a half be like for you?
Speaker 5 (35:03):
Well, again, you win by showing who your opponent is.
You take Wall Street as I have my whole career.
You take on the drug companies. When I was in Congress,
every year, a couple times a year, I would charter
a bus from near Cleveland to Detroit to Ontario, Canada,
to Windsor, Ontario, and we'd buy prescription drugs, same drugs
(35:24):
at half the price. Canada knows how to price drugs
and not drug companies run. So I've always been in
that battle. I will always stand up to those interest groups,
and voters are rewarded that through my career. Last year
was different. Without overanalyzing that, last year, Harris lost the
state by about twelve points. I couldn't overcome. But this
is different, and people have always liked the message because
(35:46):
they like what I put behind me. I don't just
talk take on the drug companies verbally. I do it
in my day to day work in the Senate, which
I will continue to do beginning year after next.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
So what will it be like now for you? What
part of the state will you start and will you
do rallies sort of? What does it look like? What
does the campaigning look like?
Speaker 5 (36:04):
Don't know yet. We've been in the race for a week.
We got in last Monday. Don't push this yet. We
got in last Monday, we raised in that first twenty
four hours, were raised three point six million dollars. Nobody's
ever read much. And that wasn't rerually me was it was.
It was the first time that a fairly well known
figure around the country was stepping up in a big way.
(36:25):
And there is so much energy out there from people
that want to take their country back, people that see
how much worse it's gotten in the last eight months.
So we got we got a contribution from at least
at least one in all eighty eight counties, but the
average contribution all over the country was fifty three dollars,
so and lots and lots of people wrote ten and
(36:45):
twenty five and fifteen hundred dollars checks. That's such a
good sign because it means that at grassroots Ohio, in
the most rural Republican county, that people are pretty incensed
about what's going on and are looking for something else.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I want to talk to you about that because I
think that that's so interesting and so important. And actually,
as soon as it happened, it was a data point
that I ingested because I thought the DNC is having
real trouble raising money. They are lagging the RNC. We're
seeing a lot of voters mad, really mad at Democrats.
(37:19):
It's different than twenty sixteen. They are mad. They feel
that they have been the Democrats have let them down. Clearly.
They don't feel that way about you, and they don't
feel that way about Bernie, and they don't feel that
way about AOC. I mean, they sort of feel that
way about AOC, but she's a woman, so our whole
flame for everything. But we're certainly seeing some people who
don't get the blame of that. Why do you think
(37:41):
that is? And what do you think that other Democrats
can do to sort of catch that.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
I don't really speak for others where the shortcomings. I
know that this has all happened so fast in the country,
and things have gotten precipitously worse, and all kinds of
people are fighting back, and nobody really knows what I
think many people in the party, party leaders don't know
what to do. But what's been fascinating to me is
how many, from the bottom up, just people had started
(38:06):
to protest in Columbus soon after Elon Musk was put
into whatever he was doing. Ten people I knew probably
three or four of the ten did a demonstration to
test the dealership within three weeks or a thousand people.
He did it every set, growing, growing, growing, So there's
that everywhere. And you can't help in noticing places where
you'd never expect people to protest and people you'd never
(38:29):
expect a protest a coming out. So what we're going
to do in this campaign, and what I think Democrats
elsewhere will do, is work to capture that energy and
to turn it in a way that's going to be
constructive and elections and after election. I mean, we didn't
get social security in this country because a bunch of
Wall Street people said, you know, people in they retired
suffer and they don't have any money and they're poor,
(38:49):
and we ought to give them so security. No, we
had a social movement that pushed for so security, that
continued in it really continued into three decades later, ended
up pushing for medicaid. Are getting medicare successfully done. So
I mean, I think that this kind of movement out there,
so many people are upset, so many people are focused
on changing the country. It's going to show up in elections,
(39:11):
but I think it's going to show up in what
our government does in the next ten years too, And
that's the exciting thing to me.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, and I think that's really important. The BBB has
in it these huge cuts to medicaid. Medicare part of
the unspoken about situation is that during COVID there was
like a massive medicaid expansion and it was done very
quietly because there was the money, and these hospitals expanded.
(39:37):
We saw it in some red states, all the blue states,
you know, some red states didn't want to take the money,
but saw it in North Carolina. This bill really does
just sort of claw back that money, right.
Speaker 5 (39:50):
Yeah, it's Ohio is one of the states. I mean,
we had a governor that John Kaseik had actually did it,
and very few Republican governors did. He wanted to expand this.
This was earlier expansion of medic But you're you were
talking about during the during COVID, but Ohio kept going
in that way. But states of dead and I wonder
you raise your right hand, take an oath of us
to help people in your state, and you don't take
(40:11):
help that would help people in your state. I don't
find anybody that kind of public service. But they're taking back.
I mean, in Ohio half almost a half million, four
or eighty thousand people out of twelve million. I'd said
that number before, but it's just so incredible that John
Houstead and other Republicans in Ohio would vote for a
bill that means that many people are going to lose
(40:31):
their insurance. So it's not like it's only in big city.
It's not only Cleveland that's going to lose. It's the
small towns, as you pointed out, it's everywhere the state.
I grew up in the city of Mansfield, fifty thousand people.
They're just devastated by these Medicaid cuts. It will hurt
the relatively small hospital there. It won't close, but it'll
get hurt, but it will certainly me it'll mean prices
(40:53):
go up with insurance for people who are insured. Nobody
even talks about that part. And in the rural areas,
especially which overwhelmingly voted against me and voted for Republicans.
So but I represent them too, as I did for
eighteen years, and I'll represent them again starting in twenty
twenty seven, and I'll fight for them, I'll fight against
I'll fight to try to roll back these changes and
(41:14):
fight that they get their health insurance regardless of who
they vote for it. That's what public officials should do.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
So, you know, all these people in the Senate, I'm
thinking about John Soon, I'm thinking about, you know, the
leadership there. These were people who do know better, a
lot of the Republicans. Why do you think they're going
along with stuff? I mean, like there's so many examples
in the BBB of legislation that's just written badly, that
(41:39):
was sort of thrown into the thing. They've had to
go back and do revisions on it. I mean, clearly
there's a lot of stuff has gone wrong here. Why
do you think these people are just going along with it?
Speaker 5 (41:50):
That's what historians will look back as the biggest mystery
of twenty twenty five is Teddy Roosevelt was talking about
Oliver wende Holmes and he said, who had betrayed him?
In his mind? Said you could carve a better man
out of a banana. You look at the spinelessness of
people who many of them I like and many of
them I respect, And is it the fear of a primary?
(42:11):
Is it the fear for their safety? As people said
it was with Jony Earns, I don't know. I don't
really talk to them now I'm not in the Senate.
Might talk to some of my Democratic former colleagues. There
are Democrats, but I don't call them. It's not my place,
and there's sin ethics rules about lobbying, and I'm staying
very far away from that. I don't talk to these people,
but I am surprised in it, and I'm disappointed because
(42:32):
some of them absolutely know better. Some of them, I know,
despise Trump, but they continue and they know better in
some of these policy issues to give a track. I
mean most you know, most people in politics on most
Republicans always want to give more tax cut stories rich people.
But this is so over the top. And they say
they don't want to cut medicaid. They're lying. They say
they aren't cutting medicaid, but of course they are, and
(42:53):
it's the only way they can finance their tax cut.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
But it still grows the deficit quite a bit. So
ultimately life, it's not as if any of this is
making financial sense.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
It grows a deficit. Then you're seeing these efforts. I mean,
I don't know what conservatism is anymore. When when the
president decides to take over partially take over a company.
That's not what I learned with conservatism. But it blows
a hole in the deficit. And I'm sure when Democrats
are back in power, they'll say the Democrats don't care
about the death sit Well, when it's spending on middle
(43:25):
income or poor people, whether it's college debt, or whether
it's medicaid or whether it's Medicare, and we've got to
get that under control because it blows all on the deaths.
So when it's tax cuts for the rich, that's a
whole different thing to them. That's what's so troubling.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
If we do have mid terms. Let us assume we're
going to have midterms. There's a lot of anxiety here
about what Trump is going to try to do, and
I think it's fair to assume he's going to do
the worst thing at every point. But if Democrats are
able to win back the House and maybe even when
(43:59):
back the State, though, that would the math on that
is more challenging. And then eventually went back to presidency.
It's clear that some of the problem with the party
has been bringing a stuffed animal to a knife fight.
So when you re envision a world where Democrats have power,
how open are you to doing things differently and being
(44:21):
more of a sort of saber ratiley kind of party.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
I've heard people say Democrats bring a knife to a gunfight.
I've never heard people say they bring a stuffed animal
to a knife fight.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
But it's kind of true. Right, that's a whole different level,
but it's kind of true. Like I mean, I think
we act.
Speaker 5 (44:37):
I mean, I remember when we when Democrats were in
majority in twenty twenty one. One of the first things
we did was a bill I'd worked on for years
called the Child Tax Credit. It was a tax cut
for the families of sixty million kids, two million kids
in all, families of two million kids in Ohio loan.
We couldn't make it permanent because we lost one vote
we had fifty one with the Vice president. Couldn't get
(44:58):
it permanent, but it made a huge difference in people's
lives for a want. And we've got to be bold.
I don't think we get bold like here's how we
gain more power. That's what they do. But we need
to be bold and delivering for people. And we need
to be bold and showing what we did. When my
butch Lewis AC passed one hundred thousand Ohio Union members
got their pensions restored, which we're going to be cut
(45:18):
by thirty forty percent. I don't think most of them
knew it because it was down in the fields in
the future that it would be And so.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
A moment fuckly Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
So this is really really like one of those really
sad ones. I'm like a lot of time with fuckery.
It's like, wow, this is pathetic. But this is just
like so disheartening that we live in a country this
rich and Mississippi is declaring an emergency after hitting highest
infant mortality rate in the country.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yeah, I mean Mississippi has had just numerous fuck ups.
You know that is The governor of Mississippi is a
guy called Tate Reeves. He sucks. He's a Biger. They
have this huge scandal with the Medicaid and breash far
You'll remember that this is what happens when you get
mediocre white guys running a state. So they declared a
(46:11):
public health emergency last week in response to the state's
rising infant mortality rate. The numbers are declaring a public
health emergency is more than a policy decision, It's an
urgent commitment to save lives. Data collected from the state
Health Department reveals that in twenty twenty four, overall, the
infant mortality rate in Mississippi increased to nine point seven
(46:32):
deaths for every thousand live births. That is pretty unbelievable.
The black infant mortality rate is twice as high as
the white infant mortality rate. And the problems are congenital malformations,
premature bout birth, low birth rate, and sudden infant dees syndrome.
These are all, I mean, except with the exception of
(46:54):
sudden infant death syndrome. These are all things that can
be at least prevented or or malformations. All of these things,
you know, these are a lack of prenatal care right,
This is prenatal and postpartum care problem. And also it
shows how bad off we are. It's a moment of
fuckery for Mississippi, but it's really a moment of fuckery
(47:15):
for all of us. That's it for this episode of
Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday
to hear the best minds and politics make sense of
all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send
it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks
(47:37):
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 Democrats have flipped an Iowa Senate
seat in a district that went for President Trump. Fight
more than eleven points. We have a great show for
you today, the New republic Zone. Greg Sargeant stops by
(00:21):
to talk to us about how Democrats can more effectively
push back against Trump. Then we'll talk to Senator Shared
Brown about his run for the Senate in Ohio. But
first we have the news.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So, Molly, one of the things we knew was never
ever ever going to be the case because this is
Donald Trump, who is moored to nothing.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
And also we know this is his dream.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Is that Trump is now said for two days in
a row that maybe the American people might want a dictator.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, you know, this is the Donald trumpiest of trumpy things,
which is he keeps saying the choie part loud. And
remember Trump will then say well, I was kidding, or
he'll say this, or he'll say that, but this is
the quiet part loud. So the line is that I'm
a dictator, but I stop crime, he says. So a
lot of people say, you know, if that's the case,
(01:12):
I'd rather have a dictator. Okay, First of all, this
is this big lie that Trump World is pushing, and
they think they have Democrats on because they have some
polling which asks if you don't care if Trump is
a dictator, and Republicans are saying in these polls, which
I think are highly suspicious because I think the way
(01:32):
the question is being asked is misleading. But either way,
he's gotten these polls that say some Republicans think he
should be a dictator if it will stop crime. He
is not stopping crime. Maybe having hundreds of federal enforcement
officers on the streets is preventing crime for now, but
that is not the same as stopping crime. He's not
(01:54):
addressing the root sources of the crime. He is not
solving homelessness, he is not helping veterans that are on
the street. He's not doing any of that. Like the
foundation he puts on his hands, this is a band
aid for a larger societal problem. But you know, look,
my man, he's not just authoritarian curious. He's authoritarian leaning,
(02:17):
he's authoritarian experimenting, he's authoritarian whatever, and he's saying it loud.
So he also is probably going to send Governor Wesmore
to Seacott. So he lied, or maybe it's true, but
I think the chance of it being true are zero.
He said that Governor Wesmore told him that he was
(02:37):
the greatest president of his lifetime. What do you think
the chances are that Governor Wesmore said that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I think they're literally the most made up thing of
made up things of all time, Just like many things
that come out of his mouth.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I have trouble even imagining him saying any of that.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The amount of times Trump is not moored to any
story being anywhere near the way it happened.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right, somebody told Trump he was the greatest president of
his lifetime.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I am sure many sycophantic Republican congress people have.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
But not Wesmore. More than tweeted, keep telling yourself that,
mister President. On X. This caused the notoriously thin skinned
leader of the free world to gripe at reporters about
more before going down an authoritarian path. Look, I don't know.
I mean, I think we do know. Trump is an authoritarian.
He wants to be a dictator. He insists that he's
(03:30):
not a dictator, which is very nice of him to
assist that. And he says he just has to stop crime.
By the way, none of this is about crime. There's
a billion dollars of DC taxpayer money that should be
released to fight crime, homelessness, pay for judges, etc. You
(03:52):
know that money is not released. But Donald Trump is
saying he cares about crime. He does not care about crime.
And you'll remember when Trump was on the trail running
for office and somebody said, well, you're not going to
really be a dictator, and he said, do you remember that?
He said, I'm going to be a dictator on.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Day one, just day one.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Just day one. It reminds me of good people on
both sides, right, It's that same energy. You know, you
get up there and you're life good people on both sides.
There are some good people on both sides. Anyway, having
spent a decade marinating in this, I have long I
am no longer.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Normal speaking of abnormal things. For some reason, we now
have to see if Trump can fire Lisa Cook in court.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
When he can't.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So again, Donald Trump, who you may remember as being
complete and utter overreach, the man is all about overreach.
He has decided he's going to fire someone he has
no authority to fire. And now Lisa Cook did exactly
what you're supposed to do when Donald Trump tries to
fire you, which is said a game on. She's filing
(05:02):
a suit about her firing, and it will decide the
limits of presidential control over the FED. Important note here
the Supreme Court, which is as craven and trumpest as
anything in the world, did in fact write a special
addendum when they said that the god King could do
whatever he wanted, where they said except when it comes
(05:22):
to the FED. You do whatever you want, except when
it comes to the FED, because we are funded by
rich people who do not want to lose their money.
We're going to see what happens here. But I see
a world where if this goes up to the Supreme Court,
he actually doesn't win it, which is crazy because this
Supreme Court is so in his pocket. But I do
think with this they may say no, because they did
(05:44):
already write that he couldn't do this. By the way,
Kevin Hassett out there defending the indefensible, as my man
often does, the fact that she is not doing this
suggests that she is partisan and trying to make a
partisan stands, which is contrary to the independence FED has
it said. And besides, he wants people on the FED
who wear manga hats. You know I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I know you're right. And it really is amazing that
this is where we're at, is that you have to
stick offance to pretend your data and policies work because
we're going to live in a delusion for as long
as we can until things go upside down.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I think we're heading there pretty fast, looks that way.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I saw a lot of stuff about a recession today.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Anyway. So speaking of trying to sway people your way,
it seems that the US is back to its old
ways and going and doing influenced campaigns in other countries.
And this time it's the fifty five thousand people who
live in Greenland.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, this is so so dumb. The mind is blown
by the dumbness of this. So while previous Republican politicians
tried to undermine governments in Latin American nations, this administration
is trying to undermine whatever in green Basically, they're alleging
(07:03):
that this crew is doing influence in Greenland. Three unnamed
American men are accused of attempting to permeate Greenlandic society
to weakend relations with Denmark through what it describes as
infiltration or influence operations. That sounds a lot like something
Russia would do, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Well, Let's also be honest. This is a tibotter tradition.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Of American I know, but I feel like one of
them who it is, claimed Cambile. The list of Trump's
supporters has reportedly appeared in public with Trump numerous times.
He is also accused of creating a list of those
who do not support the US president and advising on
issues that put Denmark in a bad light in the
US media. Those Danes, big trouble. Look, I don't fucking know.
(07:49):
This is so so stupid and bad. Donald Trump Junior,
you may know him as whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I like to know him as a person you could
date and get it at a best leadership afterwards, talk
about starter husband sometimes.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, I'm telling you, that's like the best case scenario.
He was joined by political activist Charlie Kirk. Was a tiny,
tiny face in an enormous head, and they went to
Greenland and they tried to influence. But they are not
people in question, and the story look certainly interesting that
(08:24):
this is coming out now certainly interesting that you know
how you're you know how you know your influence campaign
is not influencing. When articles like that are published, that's
a sign, we know how.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
You know it's really going well when an article also
comes out on the same day that you were trying
to do this to get Zelenski out of power in
Ukraine and that jd Vance was behind it. Wait what
the Guardian has this crazy report that jd Vance spearheaded
attempts to get a challenger to Zelenski as president of Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
That is just incredible stuff that the But by the way,
the fact that this stuff is leaking is a really
good sign that people are not having it. You know,
if you're successfully influencing, there's not an article about it
in the New York Times or in the Guardian. If
you're successfully influencing, you're influencing.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
This is not that Yeah, so Molli, prosecutors have failed
to secure an indictment against the here we didn't know,
we knew with the guy who through the subway a
sandwich at federal agents. Every time the Trump administration loses,
it's a really good thing because them continuing to lose
with kilmar Abrego Garcia and now threatening to send them
(09:33):
to Uganda. It really shows how terrified they are that
none of this is going to stand up to the
court of law.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And there's a reason for that. Yeah, yeah, you want
to know what the reason is, Please tell me, because
none of this is legal and that's how we got here, right, No,
for sure, for sure, it is so rare for a
grand jury not to indict. And I'm going to read
you something that I think is particularly apropos here. It's
(10:00):
really rare for a grander jury not to indict. And
in fact, Aaron Blake, who who was at the Washington
Post and now is CNN, has this important data point here.
So federal prosecutors pursue one hundred and sixty thousand cases
against defendants in two thousand and nine to twenty ten,
and grand jury's only voted not to return an indictment
(10:23):
in eleven. Sandwich Guy is the second time it's happened
with Piero in recent days. So it really is just
unheard of to have grand juries not indict, and it's
happened twice now for Judge box of Wine, and I
think that it's really important to realize that some of
(10:45):
that is because a lot of this is not legal, right,
A lot of this is just them making up shit.
And it's great to see that a sandwich guy one
box of wine zero. Greg's sergeant is a reporter at
The New Republic and the host of the Daily Blast.
(11:05):
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Greg Sergeant.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Hey, how you doing?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
You know, another day in Trump's America. So Trump has
these authoritarian leanings, impulses, plans, designs. This week, he is
trying to fire someone he doesn't have constitutional authority to fire.
He is trying to bend the federal reserve to his whims,
(11:31):
the unitary executive theory where he just takes over the
entire government and makes it basically a gift shop. So
talk us through what you see here and what you
think the large implications are.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Well, I think there's a key tail buried at the
core of Trump's effort to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook.
And it's the rationale he's given, which, if it works,
can be reshaped and repurposed to do whatever the fuck
he wants, by the way, which he said yesterday he
can do what he wants.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
That was amazing, And you'll notice Pritzker did immediately say no,
you can, which is important.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Oh yeah, every Democrat should be saying that over and
over and over.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So talk us through what the cook firing or the
attempted cook firing means.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
So Trump is not allowed to just fire a member
of the FED board. By law, Congress restricted his ability
to fire those people by saying it has to be
four cause.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And then in the letter that he sent.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Basically tweeted we don't even know if he sent it, right,
he just posted on social media.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, that's a good point. I spoke to her camp recently,
and I should have asked that. That's a good question.
Actually did they.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Get the letter, because they may not have.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, absolutely true.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
So he added a line in there where he's just
said something like I get to fire her four cause
at my discretion. And the phrase four cause is supposed
to actually mean something like it's traditionally meant something like
a real reason rooted in serious or grotesque misconduct by
the person I'm firing, as opposed to I'm pulling this
(13:06):
reason out of my ass, which is what Trump is doing.
And so at my discretion is essentially a declaration by
him that he gets to say that anything counts as
four cause and you know, if he gets away with that,
then his power is pretty limitless.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I think, right what they're using as the excuse for
firing her is mortgage fraud, which they are also trying
to get Letitia James on. This is also what Trump
was actually actually got in trouble for, which is a
nice parallel but also projection. But also where are they
(13:46):
getting this information from?
Speaker 4 (13:47):
By the way, Adam Schiff as well. Yeah, so three
now he's got three of them. Okay, So Trump is
relying on the work of one of his senior loyalists,
this guy named William Pulty, who I don't know much
about the background of, but he's.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Not a government guy. He's the heir to a real
estate fortune, as one is.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah, exactly. So, this guy, William Pulti is a staunch
Trump loyalist who heads something called the Federal Housing Finance Agency,
which oversees mortgage markets. It sounds like a super obscure thing,
and the truth is it's a pretty small agency relatively,
But that's actually part of the story because this one guy,
(14:30):
William Pulte, is using that position as head of this
agency to scrutinize the mortgages.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Of Trump's enemies.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Is that legal?
Speaker 4 (14:39):
So it's a really good question. Nobody's really gotten to
the bottom of that yet. But what I can tell
you is that I talked to multiple experts in government
and experts in mortgage law and mortgage governance, and what
they say is that the way he's using this process
to scrutinize these particular mortgages of Trump foes is highly
(15:00):
regular at best, and probably very corrupt. I mean, here's
the way to understand just how corrupt it is. What
are the chances that if he were, if the agency
were scrutinizing mortgages in an above board way, what are
the chances that he would somehow end up the head
of this agency with three mortgages or mortgage packages that
(15:23):
just happened to be possessed by three of the highest
profile enemies of Trump.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
It's an absurdity.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
And so I think a big question about this is
what exactly is going on behind the scenes. Is the
White House essentially calling up William Pulte and saying, we
want you to scrutinize the mortgages of Adam Schiff, Letitia
James and Lisa Cook in order to find some sort
of something or other in there, just search them to
(15:53):
create a pretext for a referral to the Department of
Justice for criminal prosecution. I think it's very possible that
that is actually what's going on, and that should come
out as part of this process, right, And.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
It's a real question. There's clearly a lot of misuse.
It's not even there's a lot of criming going on here,
Like there's clearly a lot of illegal shit happening.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Absolutely as a criminal president.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, some of it is in the federal government, some
of it is endged, some of it is in prosecuting
his enemies with this Lisa Cook thing. I think we
should talk about the reaction to the attempted firing for
a minute, because I think it's instructive into where Democrats
are failing and where they're succeeding. So talk us through that.
(16:39):
We talked about the Pritzker thing, where he was like, no,
you don't so, but talk us through the rest of
the response.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Well, the response to the Lisa Cook thing has actually
been pretty adequate, although I'd like to see more Democrats
saying forcefully just what you and I are saying which
is that this is extraordinarily corrupt. It's manipulating the bureaucracy
to create fake pretexts to get the Justice Department to
investigate Trump's enemies. That's not a hard sentence to say,
(17:08):
and yet Democrats don't seem to be capable, at least
in a widespread way of saying that.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
But that is exactly what's going on.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
And what we really need is more people like Gavin
Newsom who are connecting all these dots. We sort of
have this thing where we chase every singular story, whether
it's the mortgage fraud you know, on Adam Schiff, or
on Lisa Cook, or on Letitia James or some other
atrocity you know, National Garden d C is one, or
(17:41):
his threat to use executive power to end vote by
mail entirely as another, and we don't connect the dots.
When you connect all those stories, it becomes something larger
than the sum of its parts. And that's something Democrats
have to be doing. And what strikes me about what
Gavin Newsom is doing doing and what JB. Pritzker is
(18:02):
doing is that they're doing that. They are telling this
bigger story, which is that Trump is using you know,
criminality at worst and profound corruption at best, and also
using the specter of military and law enforcement violence against
Americans to entrench authoritarian power. That's the big story that's happening.
(18:25):
Newsome's saying it, Pritzker's saying it. Few Democrats are Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I don't want to shit on Jeffries because I think
I mean, at the end of the day, there's a
limited toolbox they can have. But he writes this statement
that's basically like Lisa Coke is the first black woman
to ever serve and the FED Board of Governors. Okay,
so what obviously Trump is targeting black women and it
fucking sucks. Right, It's racist, it's shitty. It's what black
(18:52):
women have had to contend with. I think I'm not
a black woman, but it certainly seems to me from
the outside that have had to contend with that for
their lives right being discriminated against. Bite just everyone shitty.
That said. That is not the top line here. The
top line here is that this is not okay and
not within his constitutional rights.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I see exactly what you're saying. He's not telling the
big story that we think should be getting told here.
And it's as legitimate as the point he's making is, which,
as you said, it's totally legit.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
He's getting at a real thing.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
It ends up confusing people, is that what Trump is
really doing here? Is that what is Trump actually doing?
Tell us what Trump is actually doing? Democrats say it
plainly for people.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
So here's my question as we're talking about this. Part
of what's happened is that the mainstream media doesn't dominate anymore,
and it doesn't dominate anymore. Probably it shouldn't dominate. Probably
we did this to ourselves, and probably that's okay. Can't
have a real, real trouble covering authoritarianism, real Trump well
(20:00):
being able to embrace nuance, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Et cetera.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
But now the only choice is for Democrats to narrate
what's happening. Is that correct and incorrect? And why am
I right or wrong?
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I think you're right.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
A big part of the problem right now is what
is usually turned the attention economy or something like that,
and what might also be called our massive dumpster fire
disaster of an information environment, and breaking through is the
coin of the realm. And there's a reason Gavin Newsom
(20:34):
is breaking through, and it's not because he's tweeting in
all caps or trolling Trump in my view, although those
things probably help right they command attention in a certain way.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
But what's missing is the substance of what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Which is accepting the core facts of the moment, which
is that Donald Trump is abusing his power relentlessly on
numerous fronts, including deploying the military and law enforcement, probably
illegally in American cities against the will of their populations
and their elected officials to entrench autocratic power.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Gavin Newsom puts that fact at the center of what
he's doing. And the other fact he puts at the
center of what he's doing is that Republicans and Trump
think they can play by their own rules. They're literally
saying it straight out. So they go and they say, hey, Texas,
Jerrymander to create five seats so we can hold the
House no matter what the overall national vote ends up being. Right,
(21:31):
And then when literally, when Gavin Newsom does precisely the
same thing that Texas is doing, JD. Vans and Trump
and mag I go out there and call it this
enormous travesty. So they're saying literally that they can do
it and Democrats can't.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yes, they are right.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Gavin Newsom goes in there and he says, Okay, the
days of you playing.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
By your own rules are over.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
We are going to use our power to a maximum
capacity to prevent that from happening from now on. He's
putting that at the center of everything, and that's what's
breaking through in my view.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, no, I agree. I also think part of it
is that they are flooding the zone. But there's this
information bubble that is unfilled by anything because there's no
mainstream media anymore. So it is filled with gifts of
Elon Musk with a chainsaw, et cetera. And if you
don't fill that with something, then Republicans just take it
(22:29):
over with propaganda.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Can I just say your piece was really instructive, the
one for Vanity Fair that you wrote on all this.
The texts from some of those Democratic operatives who are
dissenting from calling this stuff out just drove me absolutely nuts.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, you don't have to like Gavin Newsom, you don't
have to want Gavin Newsom to be president. You just
have to see that what he's doing is working. And
I think that there's a real problem with Democrats of like, well,
this doesn't align with our values. Okay, I mean I
go and this is something I talk about a lot.
(23:05):
I go on places where they don't align with my
values because the people align with my values. That's ten people,
and I'll have dinner with them anytime. My family doesn't
even align with my values, like, I'll have dinner with
them anytime, but I need to go where there are
people who don't, because the thing is everything is so siloed.
I mean, it's funny, but this is like sort of
(23:26):
a dumb example, but it's not. I was at a
party where there were these K pop celebrities and nobody
knew who they were because if you don't watch k pop,
you don't know who they are. And that is I mean,
it's a stupid example, but it's instructive that much of
our media, even non political media, is just siloed into
places where you're not going to see those people otherwise.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's absolutely true.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
And the big challenge for Democrats right now is, as
everyone has said, is breaking through to the people for
whom politics isn't sort of as central as it is
for lunatics like you and me, right obsessives exactly, and
how to get into those information spaces where these voters live,
(24:10):
and how to kind of make politics matter to them
on the terms that we hope they'll matter to them.
And someone like Gavin k newso the all caps and
the trolling of Trump and the memes or whatever, I
guess does that kind of but without the substance of
the message, what good would it be?
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Well?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And I also think like part of what Trump did
successfully is that he got into the culture. This is
the Steve Bannon thing, right, which is if you're downstream
of culture, then you matter. So I think a lot
about like the all those headliners podcast selection, it was
a podcast selection. He did sneakers, he did Bitcoin, he
(24:52):
did going on podcasts, he did all that health influencer stuff.
I mean, that's the RFK secret, right. RFK has all
those cre easy health influencers anti vacs. I mean that
became a group. And this is I think one of
the failings of the mainstream media. You have to be
for something.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Yeah, And on the cultural breakthrough you're talking about getting
into the culture, I will say I did a piece
for The New Republic where I spent some time in Reading, Pennsylvania,
which is a city of around seventy percent Latinos in
sort of eastern central PA. Someone from Pennsylvania is going
to get mad at me for saying that.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
I know.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
It's like people are so sensitive about geography there. It's
like if you're a tiny bit off, they just jump
all over you. But reading Pennsylvania, it's a small city.
The vote there shifted by an enormous amount. The Latino
vote shifted by an enormous amount toward Trump, even though
Kamala Harris won the city anyway, And what was striking
(25:49):
to me was that the Democrats on the ground in
the town or small city said almost uniformly that the
reason Latinos shifted toward Trump was in no small part
because he had punched through into the culture as the
guy who builds big buildings, makes a lot of money
and fires people on television.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yep, exactly, And that's something we've heard again and again
that the look of being a builder was something that
got people excited, even if it's not true when you
did this, like have Latino voters who've seen what Trump
has done have they been turned off by it? Yes?
Or now?
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Well, that wasn't really the subject of the piece. We
sort of made this decision not to do person in
the street interviews as much because you can get a
skewed sample that way. And we tried to talk to
people who were on the ground, who were talking to
you know, Latino elected officials who had spent six months
talking to Latino voters up until the election. That was
(26:48):
our main focus, and they were just deeply troubled by
how so many Latino voters had internalized this picture of Trump,
the one you just laid out, and now in there
minds that translated into some sort of evidence that if
he were president, the money would start flowing for them. Yeah,
(27:09):
and that's a cultural thing, right, that's pure culture politics,
being downstream of cultural like, that's I think that's the
ban and thing as.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Well, Right, Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Or is that bright bart?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
It's bright part, but it's ban and too. I mean, like,
I think more than anyone, he understands that this coalition
that Trump has created, which now Trump is punishing with
the BBB, how they exist, which I think is important.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Thinking about the troops occupying cities and that kind of thing.
Dems are kind of reluctant to engage on that, but
if you want to start chipping away at the MAGA coalition.
That's a good place to not necessarily start, but to
sort of land because from the data that I've looked at,
these constituencies, the ones that edge towards Trump, working class,
(27:55):
non white younger they don't like the urban occupy patients,
the military occupations, and they hate the mass deportations, ice
kicking indoors and dragging away grandmas and carpenters and stuff.
Why not go after that with an eye toward taking
away the inroads Trump made with those voters.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
I totally agree, and I don't understand why Democrats are
seguine on this. There is no reason to be seguine.
Even just National Guard troops picking up trash in DC. It's,
first of all, not what they signed up for, number one.
So it's one of these many ways in which Trump
(28:35):
is shitting on the military. But also it's not how
we do things in this country. I'm really disappointed. And
what's so interesting, and again this is the idea of
like the mainstream media having fucked themselves, is that like
there are mainstream media headlines that are like Democrats backed
into a corner on Trump and crime. It's like, no
it's authoritarianism. You have to be on the right side
(28:59):
of that. No world and what you're on the wrong
side of that. They're also wrong about the politics of it.
They assume upfront that people will look at troops and
cities and believe that they're there to fight crime. It
accepts Trump's framing entirely at the outset, and there's absolutely
no reason to believe that. There's every reason to believe
(29:19):
that these types of voters will look at that and
see through what Trump is doing. And by the way,
last thing I'll say on this, we have seen polling,
actual data which shows large majorities disapprove of Trump's handling
of things like law enforcements. So where's the benefit for him.
It's just imaginary. The press is just creating it out
of nothing. Yep, Greg Sergeant, please come back anytime. Shared
(29:45):
Brown is a candidate for Senate in Ohio. Welcome back
to Fast Politics, Shared Brown.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Thank you, Mollie. Good to be with you and my
wife particularly.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I like you.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
My wife really loves you, so I'll just let it
go at that.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
That's what I get A lot of the wife really
likes you, I know. Been the senator from the state
of Ohio. You are now running for this special election.
By the way, until you announced, every day I was like,
I hope they can get Chared to run for that
Ohio special You the only person who can win in
(30:21):
Ohio who is not a complete lunatic. So explain to
me why that is.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I think it's because I talk directly to workers, and
when Connie and I didn't really expect to do this again,
I found it. Two months after leaving OFFS. I found
it something called the Dignitive Work Institute. Because my career
has been focused on, you know, fighting this rig system,
this economic system, standing up for workers, and we wanted
to keep that fight going with this institute. But more
in that later if you want. But for several months,
(30:50):
we just watch as your listeners and viewers do every day.
Every week, things are getting worse in this country. Price
continue to go up. The last bill that the clown
has passed, the spinalist members of the Senate and the
House both taking health insurance away from four hundred and
ninety thousand Ohighlands. That's four hundred ninety thousand people in
a state of twelve million. That's a huge impact. Major
(31:13):
you know, we'll close a number of rural hospitals and
small town hospitals are unique in the sense that it
means people drive thirty minutes or for an hour to
deliver a baby yard for emergency care, and it means
in these small towns that hospitals are usually the biggest employer,
so it just wipes out the economics of those towns.
It's also three trillion dollars add to the budge of deaths.
(31:35):
It's also tax cuts for the wealthiest people. It's a
bill that there's never been a bill like that that's
made the richer this much richer and shrunk the working
workers incomes in trunk the middle class that much. So
we just couldn't stay on the sidelines. I'm in this race.
We're going to win this race because we're going to
make the contrast between what we stand for in what
(31:56):
John houstaid, the incumbent, the appointed incumbent stands for.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Ohio is a very red state. But you had a
sort of normal governor. I mean, you don't anymore, but
it was like Maine. There were some people there who
really did sort of speak to workers and were able
to connect with the more rural parts of the state.
But a lot of those working people voted for Trump.
They thought that Trumpism would work for them. What do
(32:22):
you think Democrats need to say to get those voters
back on board? Those are your voters, those are Bernie
Sanders voters. I don't think they thought Trump would solve everything.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
I mean, they voters didn't vote for three trillion dollars
attack or three trillion dollars. They didn't vote for five
hundred thousand people who's there in the shelth insurance they
I think we don't talk well enough and we didn't
offer them enough. I mean, that's the only part of
the story. But it means we've got to listen to workers.
We've got to acknowledge the system is rigged for workers
and has been for years. It's just more rigged now.
(32:52):
But when we did discussions in the Dignity Work Institute,
we found that workers thought the system was rigged, which
it is. They thought it was getting worse, which it is.
They believe that corporations are fleecing them and their you two,
their electric bills and their food costs and their costs
for gas. But they also believe most politicians were in
bed with those corporations. And what I think has elected
(33:14):
me in the past and what will again without going
into deep analysis, is I don't think politics has left
or right, Molly. I think it's who's on your side?
And are you willing to stand up to these interest groups?
I always have and I always will, and I will
make the contrast. The guy I'm running against, a guy
named John Houstead, the appointed senator, was always out front
for the drug companies and the utility companies in Wall
(33:35):
Street when he was in state government. Now he's doing
the same in the federal government. So the voters recognize
who this bose special interest guys are, and we're going
to make that contrast because, as I said, it's really
whose side are you on?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah? When I saw Trump, Trump would do these things
where you talk about inflation and he would say, I'm
going to make things cheaper. When you talk to people
on the ground, do they get that he didn't do
anything to make things cheaper? I mean, like, do you
think that narrative is there that people understand that he
just said he was going to do something and just
didn't saw I think that.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
I mean people that love Trump, and that's probably thirty
five forty percent of the voters in my state, they're
going to keep Trump because no offense. But they're not
watching you, Molly, They're listening to Fox. They're the one
all that without too much analysis. But there is a
group of there's a group of people that feel lied to.
There's a group of people that they know their lives
have gotten worse and they know where to pin the blame.
And that's what I mean, that's what our campaign is
(34:28):
going to be. It's going to be aimed at those
voters who who see that John Hustead is just another
tool for corporate interest. He was he was bad in
state government and working for the banks and working fute
only companies and working for the drug companies. And he's
doing the same in the federal government. And that's that's
how you win elections in Ohio. That's how election should
be one. It's who's it is? Whose side you on?
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Voters?
Speaker 5 (34:51):
I think they increasingly see that they know that again
they didn't vote for this kind of government that they're getting.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Now, how do you win a state like Ohio? What
does it look like? What will the next year and
a half be like for you?
Speaker 5 (35:03):
Well, again, you win by showing who your opponent is.
You take Wall Street as I have my whole career.
You take on the drug companies. When I was in Congress,
every year, a couple times a year, I would charter
a bus from near Cleveland to Detroit to Ontario, Canada,
to Windsor, Ontario, and we'd buy prescription drugs, same drugs
(35:24):
at half the price. Canada knows how to price drugs
and not drug companies run. So I've always been in
that battle. I will always stand up to those interest groups,
and voters are rewarded that through my career. Last year
was different. Without overanalyzing that, last year, Harris lost the
state by about twelve points. I couldn't overcome. But this
is different, and people have always liked the message because
(35:46):
they like what I put behind me. I don't just
talk take on the drug companies verbally. I do it
in my day to day work in the Senate, which
I will continue to do beginning year after next.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
So what will it be like now for you? What
part of the state will you start and will you
do rallies sort of? What does it look like? What
does the campaigning look like?
Speaker 5 (36:04):
Don't know yet. We've been in the race for a week.
We got in last Monday. Don't push this yet. We
got in last Monday, we raised in that first twenty
four hours, were raised three point six million dollars. Nobody's
ever read much. And that wasn't rerually me was it was.
It was the first time that a fairly well known
figure around the country was stepping up in a big way.
(36:25):
And there is so much energy out there from people
that want to take their country back, people that see
how much worse it's gotten in the last eight months.
So we got we got a contribution from at least
at least one in all eighty eight counties, but the
average contribution all over the country was fifty three dollars,
so and lots and lots of people wrote ten and
(36:45):
twenty five and fifteen hundred dollars checks. That's such a
good sign because it means that at grassroots Ohio, in
the most rural Republican county, that people are pretty incensed
about what's going on and are looking for something else.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I want to talk to you about that because I
think that that's so interesting and so important. And actually,
as soon as it happened, it was a data point
that I ingested because I thought the DNC is having
real trouble raising money. They are lagging the RNC. We're
seeing a lot of voters mad, really mad at Democrats.
(37:19):
It's different than twenty sixteen. They are mad. They feel
that they have been the Democrats have let them down. Clearly.
They don't feel that way about you, and they don't
feel that way about Bernie, and they don't feel that
way about AOC. I mean, they sort of feel that
way about AOC, but she's a woman, so our whole
flame for everything. But we're certainly seeing some people who
don't get the blame of that. Why do you think
(37:41):
that is? And what do you think that other Democrats
can do to sort of catch that.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
I don't really speak for others where the shortcomings. I
know that this has all happened so fast in the country,
and things have gotten precipitously worse, and all kinds of
people are fighting back, and nobody really knows what I
think many people in the party, party leaders don't know
what to do. But what's been fascinating to me is
how many, from the bottom up, just people had started
(38:06):
to protest in Columbus soon after Elon Musk was put
into whatever he was doing. Ten people I knew probably
three or four of the ten did a demonstration to
test the dealership within three weeks or a thousand people.
He did it every set, growing, growing, growing, So there's
that everywhere. And you can't help in noticing places where
you'd never expect people to protest and people you'd never
(38:29):
expect a protest a coming out. So what we're going
to do in this campaign, and what I think Democrats
elsewhere will do, is work to capture that energy and
to turn it in a way that's going to be
constructive and elections and after election. I mean, we didn't
get social security in this country because a bunch of
Wall Street people said, you know, people in they retired
suffer and they don't have any money and they're poor,
(38:49):
and we ought to give them so security. No, we
had a social movement that pushed for so security, that
continued in it really continued into three decades later, ended
up pushing for medicaid. Are getting medicare successfully done. So
I mean, I think that this kind of movement out there,
so many people are upset, so many people are focused
on changing the country. It's going to show up in elections,
(39:11):
but I think it's going to show up in what
our government does in the next ten years too, And
that's the exciting thing to me.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, and I think that's really important. The BBB has
in it these huge cuts to medicaid. Medicare part of
the unspoken about situation is that during COVID there was
like a massive medicaid expansion and it was done very
quietly because there was the money, and these hospitals expanded.
(39:37):
We saw it in some red states, all the blue states,
you know, some red states didn't want to take the money,
but saw it in North Carolina. This bill really does
just sort of claw back that money, right.
Speaker 5 (39:50):
Yeah, it's Ohio is one of the states. I mean,
we had a governor that John Kaseik had actually did it,
and very few Republican governors did. He wanted to expand this.
This was earlier expansion of medic But you're you were
talking about during the during COVID, but Ohio kept going
in that way. But states of dead and I wonder
you raise your right hand, take an oath of us
to help people in your state, and you don't take
(40:11):
help that would help people in your state. I don't
find anybody that kind of public service. But they're taking back.
I mean, in Ohio half almost a half million, four
or eighty thousand people out of twelve million. I'd said
that number before, but it's just so incredible that John
Houstead and other Republicans in Ohio would vote for a
bill that means that many people are going to lose
(40:31):
their insurance. So it's not like it's only in big city.
It's not only Cleveland that's going to lose. It's the
small towns, as you pointed out, it's everywhere the state.
I grew up in the city of Mansfield, fifty thousand people.
They're just devastated by these Medicaid cuts. It will hurt
the relatively small hospital there. It won't close, but it'll
get hurt, but it will certainly me it'll mean prices
(40:53):
go up with insurance for people who are insured. Nobody
even talks about that part. And in the rural areas,
especially which overwhelmingly voted against me and voted for Republicans.
So but I represent them too, as I did for
eighteen years, and I'll represent them again starting in twenty
twenty seven, and I'll fight for them, I'll fight against
I'll fight to try to roll back these changes and
(41:14):
fight that they get their health insurance regardless of who
they vote for it. That's what public officials should do.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
So, you know, all these people in the Senate, I'm
thinking about John Soon, I'm thinking about, you know, the
leadership there. These were people who do know better, a
lot of the Republicans. Why do you think they're going
along with stuff? I mean, like there's so many examples
in the BBB of legislation that's just written badly, that
(41:39):
was sort of thrown into the thing. They've had to
go back and do revisions on it. I mean, clearly
there's a lot of stuff has gone wrong here. Why
do you think these people are just going along with it?
Speaker 5 (41:50):
That's what historians will look back as the biggest mystery
of twenty twenty five is Teddy Roosevelt was talking about
Oliver wende Holmes and he said, who had betrayed him?
In his mind? Said you could carve a better man
out of a banana. You look at the spinelessness of
people who many of them I like and many of
them I respect, And is it the fear of a primary?
(42:11):
Is it the fear for their safety? As people said
it was with Jony Earns, I don't know. I don't
really talk to them now I'm not in the Senate.
Might talk to some of my Democratic former colleagues. There
are Democrats, but I don't call them. It's not my place,
and there's sin ethics rules about lobbying, and I'm staying
very far away from that. I don't talk to these people,
but I am surprised in it, and I'm disappointed because
(42:32):
some of them absolutely know better. Some of them, I know,
despise Trump, but they continue and they know better in
some of these policy issues to give a track. I
mean most you know, most people in politics on most
Republicans always want to give more tax cut stories rich people.
But this is so over the top. And they say
they don't want to cut medicaid. They're lying. They say
they aren't cutting medicaid, but of course they are, and
(42:53):
it's the only way they can finance their tax cut.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
But it still grows the deficit quite a bit. So
ultimately life, it's not as if any of this is
making financial sense.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
It grows a deficit. Then you're seeing these efforts. I mean,
I don't know what conservatism is anymore. When when the
president decides to take over partially take over a company.
That's not what I learned with conservatism. But it blows
a hole in the deficit. And I'm sure when Democrats
are back in power, they'll say the Democrats don't care
about the death sit Well, when it's spending on middle
(43:25):
income or poor people, whether it's college debt, or whether
it's medicaid or whether it's Medicare, and we've got to
get that under control because it blows all on the deaths.
So when it's tax cuts for the rich, that's a
whole different thing to them. That's what's so troubling.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
If we do have mid terms. Let us assume we're
going to have midterms. There's a lot of anxiety here
about what Trump is going to try to do, and
I think it's fair to assume he's going to do
the worst thing at every point. But if Democrats are
able to win back the House and maybe even when
(43:59):
back the State, though, that would the math on that
is more challenging. And then eventually went back to presidency.
It's clear that some of the problem with the party
has been bringing a stuffed animal to a knife fight.
So when you re envision a world where Democrats have power,
how open are you to doing things differently and being
(44:21):
more of a sort of saber ratiley kind of party.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
I've heard people say Democrats bring a knife to a gunfight.
I've never heard people say they bring a stuffed animal
to a knife fight.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
But it's kind of true. Right, that's a whole different level,
but it's kind of true. Like I mean, I think
we act.
Speaker 5 (44:37):
I mean, I remember when we when Democrats were in
majority in twenty twenty one. One of the first things
we did was a bill I'd worked on for years
called the Child Tax Credit. It was a tax cut
for the families of sixty million kids, two million kids
in all, families of two million kids in Ohio loan.
We couldn't make it permanent because we lost one vote
we had fifty one with the Vice president. Couldn't get
(44:58):
it permanent, but it made a huge difference in people's
lives for a want. And we've got to be bold.
I don't think we get bold like here's how we
gain more power. That's what they do. But we need
to be bold and delivering for people. And we need
to be bold and showing what we did. When my
butch Lewis AC passed one hundred thousand Ohio Union members
got their pensions restored, which we're going to be cut
(45:18):
by thirty forty percent. I don't think most of them
knew it because it was down in the fields in
the future that it would be And so.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
A moment fuckly Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
So this is really really like one of those really
sad ones. I'm like a lot of time with fuckery.
It's like, wow, this is pathetic. But this is just
like so disheartening that we live in a country this
rich and Mississippi is declaring an emergency after hitting highest
infant mortality rate in the country.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yeah, I mean Mississippi has had just numerous fuck ups.
You know that is The governor of Mississippi is a
guy called Tate Reeves. He sucks. He's a Biger. They
have this huge scandal with the Medicaid and breash far
You'll remember that this is what happens when you get
mediocre white guys running a state. So they declared a
(46:11):
public health emergency last week in response to the state's
rising infant mortality rate. The numbers are declaring a public
health emergency is more than a policy decision, It's an
urgent commitment to save lives. Data collected from the state
Health Department reveals that in twenty twenty four, overall, the
infant mortality rate in Mississippi increased to nine point seven
(46:32):
deaths for every thousand live births. That is pretty unbelievable.
The black infant mortality rate is twice as high as
the white infant mortality rate. And the problems are congenital malformations,
premature bout birth, low birth rate, and sudden infant dees syndrome.
These are all, I mean, except with the exception of
(46:54):
sudden infant death syndrome. These are all things that can
be at least prevented or or malformations. All of these things,
you know, these are a lack of prenatal care right,
This is prenatal and postpartum care problem. And also it
shows how bad off we are. It's a moment of
fuckery for Mississippi, but it's really a moment of fuckery
(47:15):
for all of us. That's it for this episode of
Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday
to hear the best minds and politics make sense of
all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send
it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks
(47:37):
for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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