September 25, 2025 • 57 mins
Talking Feds’ Harry Litman examines the distrust of the administration’s press during a horrific shooting. Congresswoman Haley Stevens details her run for the open Senate seat in Michigan.
Plus, we have a bonus conversation with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer about the upcoming government shutdown showdown.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 Dems have won the empty congressional
seat in New Mexico, giving them the final signature for
the discharge petition for the Epstein files. We have such
a great show for you today, talking fed's own Harry
(00:21):
Litman stops by to explain to us why when you
lose the public's trust you can never get it back.
Then we'll talk to Congresswoman Haley Stevens about her run
for the open Senate seat in Michigan and her plans
to impeach RFK Junior. Plus, we have a bonus conversation
(00:42):
with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about his plan for
this upcoming government shutdown showdown. But first the news, Molly,
we're all Argentina.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Now we are bailing them out.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And turns out psychotic libertarian text breaks as for the rich,
don't save an economy, Yeah, whether there's just a bad
haircut running around with a chainsaw.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So why we are going to bail out Argentina with
a twenty billion dollars swap line to help contain financial
upheaval and support presidently. I don't know why. I don't
understand why. I don't think we should. I'm against bailouts.
If we're going to spend money, why don't we spend
it on cancer research and food stamps and rural hospitals.
(01:32):
This is just completely stupid. It makes no sense. We're
going to buy Argentinian dollar bonds FYI. Meanwhile, the dollar
has had its worst year in decades and decades, such
as stupid, stupid, shortsighted. I don't even know what we're
doing here, but needless to say, it's stupid, so the
(01:55):
Trump administration wants to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I think it's really kind of poetic that libertarians, who
hate croni capitalism more than anything, they were championing this guy.
His stuff fails, and now he's getting saved by checksnotes
cardi capitalism.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, this is all so bad,
by the way. It's like, at every point this administration
always does the stupidest possible thing, and whether it's cutting
funding for research and science and healthcare and weather. I mean,
you know, we read Project twenty twenty five, so we
(02:31):
knew this was coming. And yet still and I remember
thinking when we read it, we did that documentary on it.
I remember thinking like, what do I get from the
federal government? Like I remember thinking like what will go
away when Trump is in office? Like I remember thinking, well,
my kids, my kids don't go to public schools. That's
Department of Education. So like just going through the sort
(02:52):
of mass on what I personally get from the federal
government besides like streets, and what I think is like,
there's so much stuff that we get from the federal
government that you don't know you're missing until you're gone,
like safety, air quality, water quality, accurate weather. You know,
there are all these billionaires who are really excited for
(03:15):
a kind of federal government that doesn't really do anything
for anyone because they think that somehow, like they'll pay
less taxes and they'll get by. But you can't privatize
air quality testing, you know. I mean, I guess you could,
but we're not at that moment. It's so shortsighted of
these people to think that somehow they can swap out
(03:36):
the federal government for some kind of like tax bone.
I mean, it's just such an incredibly dystopian and depressing
view of the federal government and Ultimately, we're going to
see why we have all these things in place sooner
rather than later. I am afraid.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Well, Wiley, that's so nice of you to queue me up,
because our next news story is about how the Trump
administration has had to rehire hundreds of federal employees that
were laid off by dose.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah. My favorite part about this is like this is costing.
I mean, it's not my favorite part, but it is.
The great irony is it's costing them so much money. Right,
they're firing people, they're re hiring them, they're paying for
them to have like these paid leave. They just don't
understand what the federal government does. So what they do
is they keep like firing people and then learning that
(04:23):
these are things they can't somehow farm out. It's incredible.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, some of the details in here of like the
least cancelations and all these things, it's just like it's
so much stupid administrative work and just so ridiculously dumb.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
It's just ridiculous, and it's also you know, it's expensive.
There are ways to make the government work better. This
was never about that. This was always about just trying
to like disassemble the federal government and now it turns
out that a lot of these things you actually need right,
and FYI was fraud and abuse was actually just like
(05:02):
stuff we don't like, helping poor kids.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, another pattern we're really seeing these days is people
jumping to conclusions fast. Yesterday there was an incident where
there was both a broken telet prompter and a broken
escalator at the UN for mister Trump and Jesse Waters
of Fox News joke that they should bomb and gas
the UN. You know, it is one of those things
where I hesitate to label to joke where he kind
(05:26):
of just says a really dumb thing and then they
kind of just smirk about it because they really don't
care enough to get anything right. But it seems between
this and this the latest shootings, that we never know
anything early and no one's learning the lessons of the past.
They're just spinning out takes as fast as they can
and for their own advantage.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You know. One of the things we see with Trump
is like he had all these remember when he was
trying to get a Nomo Peace Prize. I mean, he's
still trying to get a Nomo Peace Prize, but he
was trying harder and he had all these people come
to the White House, and then he ended up alienating
India because he was like, they were so mad when
he said you made peace between India and Pakistan, which
(06:02):
wasn't true, but he made them so mad. I feel
like this is what it is like. You can either
be a poster and there's honor in being a poster.
Well maybe not honor, but you know, or you could
run the federal government. But you actually cannot both post
real time events and run the federal government. I mean
it's like Trump when he you know, when he saved
(06:24):
the reveal of who killed Charlie Kirk for Fox and Friends.
Remember that they had known before. I mean it was
a whole week ago, right, they had known before, but
he wanted to wait until it was all teed up.
I'm sorry. Like, you either run the federal government or
you break news. You cannot do both.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Speaking of his posting, he absolutely lost it over Jimmy
Kimmel's return last night.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
This is not super surprising, though it is interesting and
a lot of people noted this online. Basically, he has
no deniability. Now, the White House was told by ABC
that his show was canceled, so this makes it sound
as if the White House is colluding with ABC to
cancel Jimmy Kimmel's show, which means that the White House
(07:13):
can no longer deny that they had the inside track
on this, which means that if Jimmy Kimmel wants to sue,
I mean, like, at every point, Donald Trump's posting kind
of undermines any of the other stuff he's doing here.
So if they want a deniability, if they wanted to
get kim off the air, if they wanted this not
(07:34):
to blow up in his face, you know, you wouldn't
have had Brendan Carr on Benny Johnson's podcast being like,
we can do this the easy way, or we can
do this the hard way. That's what this is, like
Donald Trump's I can't believe ABC, fake news gave kim
all his job back. The White House was told by
ABC that his show was canceled. Something happened between now
and then, because so there you go. But it is
(07:55):
funny though he just is so mad about talent and
audience ratings.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Friend of the Show Swin's assessment of Caddy stage Mom
Rings in my ears every single day is.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Trill is incredible. Harry Lipman is a former US attorney
and the host of the podcast Talking Fads.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Hello, Hello Loo, everyone, Welcome to this month's Molly Harry
mash Up Politics and Law, in which I get to
ask Mally dong Fasts political questions she gets to parry
with some legal ones. Maully dong Fast. I gotta say
A needs no introduction. B is often short on time,
(08:39):
so I think we should just jump right into it.
I got a Kimmel question for you, if I could
start there, Mollie. So, Trump reacts to the suspension with triumph,
though we know in court he would say, oh, it's
not us, but he certainly seems to take credit for it.
But now that Kimmel has been reinstated, Trump is chagrined,
but it's not clear he has any cards to play. Still,
(09:03):
does it play as a loss for him with the base?
And does he need now somehow to try to scramble
to do directly get kim off the air what he
tried to support or do obliquely before.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
So here's what I would say about the kim Ol situation.
I don't see a clear way out of this for Trump.
Either he forces Kim off the air, which will be
the world's biggest lawsuit, huge pain for him, signs of
authoritarianism and.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
A flat out First Amendment violation, no two ways about it.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
But we'll go back besides that, and they'll come careening
into the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court will have
to stand up to Trump, which they don't want to do,
which is inevitably coming. But there's no way that the
MAGA crew on that court is going to be like, yeah,
you can just take stuff you don't like off the air.
I mean even they will be like no. So it's
hard for me to see where the off ramp is
(09:56):
for this, But I think probably Trump just goes on
and ignores it, and you know, does some mean tweets.
I think it's hard for me to see him keeping going.
I mean, the good news for him is that when
things happen that he can't deal with, he just distracts
from them. That's my take.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Well declares victory and moves on.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Right, Yeah, right, I want you to talk to us
about you used to be in such demand, but now
that we have an administration that no longer cares about
the law, it doesn't matter what the law is, because
whatever right.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
I'm a man without a country. That's right.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I mean, don't you feel like there's so many moments
where you're like, well, obviously this is a legal bot discuss.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
You know, I don't. I wish I felt that way
a little bit more. Every week there are legal outrages.
And I've said this to you before, Mollie. My main
job I think of as trying to educate, explain the
dangers and the like. And you know, this week alone,
Kimmel and the prospect of censorship home and the prospect
(10:55):
of two tier or three tier justice, the Supreme Court
just coming in and without making it clear, just nevertheless
overruling a ninety year precedent. I actually find legally, You're right,
they don't care. You know, I've totally kind of changed
the stuff. But I'm really all about the new kind
of independent channel of substack and YouTube, and I do
(11:18):
just a little bit of TV. But I think the
lost stuff is flying at us fast and furious. It
will continue to fly at US fast and furious because
what Trump is doing is basically corrupting different areas of
law everywhere. Humphrey's executor, that's a pretty darn legal arcane thought.
From nineteen thirty five, you got to explain it, and
(11:40):
it's a huge deal practically, and my kind of my
feel is a little bit the hounesome. My feel is
this authoritarianism is like a little boring. But it's my
job to say, well, this was a big one. Firing Seabert,
this was a big one. And I find there's still
like plenty to talk about, even as I also feel
(12:01):
that like we are just trudging on into the end
of the Constitution and we're gonna have a showdown, just
as you said in about a year with the Supreme Court.
Do people still want to hear the legal outrages of
the week, but they are there these legal outrages, So yeah,
I don't feel like under utilized.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Right, there's a shooting at an ice facility. They killed
these immigrants, no law enforcement, but they found these bullets
maybe cash Betel tweeted a picture of the bullets. Talk
us through this. And also it seems to me, like
what I keep going back to is it feels like
this administration and Trump more generally, has squandered any kind
(12:44):
of benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Exactly right, And man, oh man, think about that for
a minute. So yesterday is it the White House formal
representative says, Homan never did this, and then other people
say they did. Before Trump, you'd at least say wow,
there's just saying, you know, flat out, you give them
maybe the benefit of the doubt or a better word
that I think applies a lot to prosecutions Molly, presumption
(13:09):
of regularity. They did it. The case came out, the
grand jury said, so we presume regularity and we take
it from there. Let's see your proof. Guess what, there's
no presumption of regularity. And judges are calling that out.
Grand juries in DC are saying we're not going to
actually give you a true bill, which is stunning. It's
(13:32):
happened to me once in my career. They did it
like seven times last week. They don't trust them, and
they don't trust them for a very good reason. They've
been ten times burned. Of course, there was going to
be that picture of the Epstein in the Epstein birthday book, etc.
So I just want to say, there's a lot of
(13:52):
things that you know as a DOJ type, and that
is where my stripes are. I get really sad about
what's happening, but this you just can't can't but be
morose because people over decades build up this advantage. So
when you go and say, Molly Jong fast for the
United States, it really means something. Guess what it is
(14:13):
all squandered now and a whole big thing. I hope
maybe you'll join. I want to think about at least
to give some kind of alloy to people who are,
you know, relentlessly down. What might it look like to
try to clean this humongous mess up on the other side.
But that's a good one, right, It doesn't You're not
going to like, oh Trump goes and now you stand
(14:34):
up and everyone's gonna trust you. They are besides breaking
the law, breaking the constitution, being completely unfair, they have
absolutely squandered generation's worth of goodwill from the Department of Justice.
And it's just not the kind of thing that you just,
you know, start up again with once the if the
(14:56):
bad guys leave town. Okay, I got so much for Molly,
but here's a little, a short one. I love these
Trumps from back on. Everyone says, Everyone says, it was
a perfect call. Everyone says, so here's his Everyone says,
Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize
for each one of these achievements. And I guess my
(15:17):
question to you politically is this will sound like it's
not serious. It is? Which is is he serious?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You know?
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Is the space now looking for this is? Are think
going to agitate when surprise surprised he doesn't get the
Nobel Peace Prize, And I don't know what he'd get
it for, right, you know, just yesterday totally switches directions
on Ukraine. He's no leader in the Middle East, Ukraine, China,
anywhere else, but real fantasy, What the what the what
the heck? He's going around saying, everyone says I should
(15:46):
get the Nobel Peace Press.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
This is such a good topic because actually I was
reading the Washington Post earlier though. Jesse just sent this
to me where it says it twenty two percent of
all Americans think Trump deserves it Nobel Peace Price. But
I don't think this is not for the base, right,
the Nobel Priests prize stuff. They don't care, is that right?
I don't think there's any world in which they care.
It's like his obsession with Hollywood. I mean, I get
(16:11):
that he feels that politics is downstream of culture. But ultimately,
what I think we're seeing here is he's seventy nine
years old, and he has certain things he's very stuck
on from living in New York, and they include Deborah
Messing Ratings Award shows, stuff that isn't necessarily stuff that
I think the base really cares about. And then there's
(16:32):
stuff the base really cares about. The Nobel Prize is
I think he hates Obama. He's mad when people laugh
at him. Obama did this thing where he remember he
spoke at the White House correspondence dinner. I mean, look,
the irony is maybe it's not the original sin because
Trump was on the birth certificate thing before Obama, so ultimately,
(16:53):
really Trump did start it. But the point of this
is that he hates being laughed at. And so I
think part of the part of where we are at
this moment is that he's kind of trying to get revenge.
And human said that when he was running for president,
remember and like people be like, no, no, You're not
going to seek revenge, and he was like, no, no.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I am yesterday. I hate my opponents.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Right, Charlie. I loved his opponents, but I hate them.
So I think this is, you know, he wants to
win a Nobel Peace Prize because he feels like then
people will stop laughing at him. It goes back to
this what we saw at the UN where the first
time Trump spoke at the UN, he was laughed at,
and this time he spoke at the UN and he
was basically like, I'm so powerful. I've you know, I'm
(17:34):
more powerful than the institution. I can cut all this forlornade.
You have nothing to laugh at because it's so scared.
I think that's real. I think that drives a lot
of where we are right now.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, you're trying to.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Trump fired this guy in the Eastern District because he
wanted him to prosecute his enemies, and maybe because the
Komi case is about to be out of statute of
limitations right that if they want to prosecute it. It's
now basically what we've seen is these people like they
don't want to they don't want to go forward with
(18:10):
fake cases, which is what Trump wants, but they will
dismiss cases that are against Trump's people, so like the
Eric Adams case. So it seems like we have a
real disconnect here with the stuff where the administration just
wants to make stuff up versus wants to let stuff go.
(18:32):
So do you think Trump is going to be able
to find So now he's going to put maybe he's
going to try to put a one of his you know,
parking lawyers or one of his you know, the people
who don't know better in that job. But do you
think that we're going to see a world where they
start just making up stuff? I mean, what do you
think that looks like? And also do you think that
(18:53):
there's a mechanism for that, right? Because there are grand juries.
I mean, there are a number of hurdles that you
have to get past if you're making up fake stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, so glad you asked this question, what does it
look like the ninth circle of hell Mala. We hear
about all these different outrages, doj and I'm here to
tell you nothing, nothing, Nothing could be worse than making
shit up against an innocent person in order to just
bring criminal charges that aren't there against a political enemy.
(19:23):
Start with the first principle in the US Attorney's Manual,
Start with the constitution. Making stuff up, it's like a
quarter inch away from just taking people and disappearing them.
This is the soul of autocracy. And even though it
is also a complete dereliction of the same rule to force.
(19:45):
The dismissal of a righteous case still better ten guilty
walk than one innocent person. So the combination of stuff
here no facts and you can't no facts. I can't
tell you how far fundamental that you know DNA here
that when Seabird and its worst assistants say no facts,
(20:06):
no facts. Even now right in the White House, Levitt said, well,
what do they do? They weaponized the justin That's not
what's your federal crime. The federal crime is make shit up.
It's just couldn't be worse. And because it's a Trump enemy,
now just very quickly to the practical question, will they
be able to do it? I mean, he's so imbecilic.
(20:29):
He's given a huge bat to Komy Schiff, for James,
anybody who's indicted to say this isn't bona fide. So
you know, if this happens, A, I think they're very vulnerable,
and B it's the most nauseating, bottom bottom, bottom, rock
bottom thing that can happen. I wrote a sub a
(20:51):
couple of days ago. You know, Donald Trump in the
ninth circle of hell.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
But it also when you see that kind of thing
where you no longer trust what the administration is trying
to do as I think we're seeing Trump sort of
say the quiet part out loud when we talk about
the Kimmel stuff.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Which nobody ever ever has that because you can't say
it because it's the same as saying, you know, all
get rid of our democracy. Right, So stunning to former prosecutors.
What happened to your molly? And I know that office,
I worked in that office, and yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
So with the tweet where he said, you know, I'm
firing this guy because you won't find the stuff I want,
and then he said with the Kimmel stuff, you know,
we were told it was canceled and now it's not.
Both of these things are technically admissible in court.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Can you talk us through that? What that means?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Yeah, I just very briefly, they've got an absolute golden
set up motion. It probably doesn't go to the jury,
it goes to the judge, and you say, up front, judge,
throw this shit out. Now, it's so obvious selective prosecution.
You put all this stuff up, you maybe get to
depose some people. The disconnect here, Molly, is that for
(22:03):
all his peak and all the way said, nobody is
making a claim that any of these guys committed a
federal crime, you stand him up in front of the
court and swear you know, this guy did these things,
and but you don't have a federal crime. So it's
a lie, and the most serious, unjust kind of lie
(22:23):
that a prosecutor can tell. So I you know, I
think Trump did that thing where he actually had a
sort of email a bondy, but it came out as
a truth. Social you read that, you're going to set
up They're going to be motion after motion. That's going
to make this harder. But I just want to start
with you know that my head going three hundred and
(22:43):
sixty degrees, and that of any former prosecutor I know
doesn't get worse. Okay, my quick question to you another topic. Look,
we're always told you don't understand maga well enough you
look down at them, you really have to think of them,
and they're and they're you know, true concern et cetera. Yeah,
(23:04):
maybe there's five percent who are nuts, et cetera, butt autism,
RFK thailand al in pregnancy, right, I mean it's like
bleach cures COVID. It's so bad people will probably die
as you analyze and discern his base. Do we think
that that that I assume you'll say a lot of
(23:26):
people don't care or just do it. Do we think
there's I don't know twenty percent thirty percent who say
I support Trump or I hated Kamala Harris, but I
am not anti science, and this is you know, he's
a yoko, it's a joke. Or for all his base
do the okay, you know, thailandol and pregnancy whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Here's what I would say, talent on and pregnancy whatever.
I think this makes more sense if you think of
RFK as like a political actor and not as a
public health person. So he has a base he wants
to me cappy. Trump has a base he wants to
make happy. Some amount of trump Ism is maha, probably
not as much as we think because they're pretty loud
(24:09):
and very online. Vaccines are an eighty twenty issue, so
maybe there are seventy thirty issue. I think this hurts
more than it helps. Also, Tile and all, I mean
like Johnson and that family was huge drump doners do,
which is hilarious. And I just don't think that's the
boogeyman they want it. There are all sorts of reasons
(24:29):
why it's very destructive to tell women they caused autism
by digging tile in all, which.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Is not because not just I mean, they're children, right, geez.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And also that there's not any evidence to support it.
That's also a problem. But I don't know that it
scratches the itch the way that they are hoping it does.
I do think like Trump really did was very negative
on vaccines, and he said things like we're going to
break it up, it's too much liquid. I mean, that
stuff was crazy, but it was also maybe what Magabase wants.
(25:01):
I don't know. I mean, it's hard for me to see.
This is another thing which I think is like kind
of a boondot while that he's going to get stuck in.
You tell people not to vaccinate their kids, their kids
will die. You're gonna have outbreaks even with the measles stuff.
So you can keep people happy with that live for
only for so long before the bill comes due. So
(25:21):
I just think it's a very tough line to walk.
RFK Junior is very good at speaking in a way
that's just very good at obfuscating in a way that
Trump maybe even isn't. Like Trump just says stuff, but
he gets away with it because people think he's funny
or because whatever, because we've all lost our minds. But
RFK is able to say things about things that never
(25:44):
answer the question in a way that I think it
works very well for him. But ultimately I think I
don't know how he does this, And ultimately I think
you're going to see RFK really come into closion with
Trump because these are both very ambitious people. I don't
think Trump is ready to a point, and heir apparent,
especially not one that is named Trump.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Those are my questions. So fun always to talk to
you and get our quick back and forth. Boom boom boom.
Shall we call it for September and yeah around Halloween.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, I think we're good. Congresswoman Haley Stevens represents Michigan's
eleventh district and is a candidate for the Senate in Michigan.
Welcome to past politics, Congresswoman.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
Haley Stevens, Thank you, Mollie.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
You have some news you want to tell us about.
Talk to us about what you're introducing right now. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Look, it is very clear that we have a quack
at the head of Health and Human Services, as a
Senate confirmed secretary who is endangering the lives of Americans,
our children, our elderly. He is listening to conspiracy theories.
(26:56):
He is spouting conspiracy theories. He is cutting cancer research
and scientific research programs, and enough is enough. He has
allied to senators to get confirmed and in addition to
calling on RFK to resign, I am going to be
introducing articles of impeachment.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Molly, let's accept to both and it. Let's yos for people. Yeah,
let's talk about articles of impeachment. Vaccines are an eighty
twenty issue. We all know that from that would spring
the idea that impeaching RFK Junior would actually be possible.
Tell us what it looks like to put out articles
of impeachment. I'm drafting them and I'm calling for it
(27:39):
because I'm truly sick and tired of this mess. What
we saw yesterday accusing tail and all of causing autism,
the pain that I am hearing from medical professionals who
I know, from constituents who are impacted by this. It's
just not right.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
And the fact is it was on record that he
lied to senators and he is continuing to lie. He
is firing people who disagree with him. I want to
bring this debate forward because I'm a sitting member of
Congress on behalf of the great people of Michigan who
only see their costs going up, ACA subsidies going away.
(28:21):
Seven hundred thousand Michiganers might lose their healthcare. RFK Junior
creating all this conspiracy. It's not working for people. It
needs to be called out. And there are authorities that
I have access to as a member of Congress, and
I want to say enough is enough, and I want
to get this out there, and that's why I'm introducing
(28:42):
these articles.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
So the senator you're talking about is doctor Bill Cassidy,
who is the doctor and who really was the deciding
vote in his nomination made RFK sort of promise that
he wasn't going to go after the vaccines. What happened
during that insane tialinal announcement was that, in fact, Donald
Trump went after the vaccines. But RFK has really undermined
(29:07):
a lot of the infrastructure when it comes to MR
and a research and the NIAH is lying to a
senator an impeachable offense, and if so, is their way
to use that for the impeachment.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
I believe it is. And I also believe endangering the
health and safety of Americans is impeachable as well. And
what we are getting over and over again is just
not serving us. It's not acceptable when you ignore decades
of scientific research and the ways in which doctors, true scientists,
(29:43):
true medical professionals have put forward research. What authority does
he have to cut this off? And Look, this moment
calls for bold leadership, and that is what I am
looking to bring to the people of Michigan and to
this country to write the ship. It's even been reported
that the President has felt a little shaky with RFK
(30:06):
and we've called on him to resign. This has become
a big distraction. He continues to stand by him. We've
got coequal branches of government. We only are seeing this
administration abuse their power. And I've got to act within
the prism of the reality that I am in right
now as a lawmaker. And that's why I'm introducing these
(30:27):
articles of impeachment.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Can you get Republican support?
Speaker 5 (30:30):
Well, Look, I have been named consistently an effective lawmaker.
I was just named the most effective Democratic lawmaker for
Michigan last term in a Republican Congress, and this has
got to be common sense, and I do believe that
putting this forward is certainly going to make people question.
And I don't see why the entire Republican conference is
(30:51):
going to stand by this, just as they're standing by
cuts to people's healthcare, rising costs on people. I've also
introduced legend that I'm hoping to get Republicans on board
with on a different topic. But this is no tariffs
on food legislation that I have written, because guess what,
the costs are only going up at the grocery store, Mollie.
(31:13):
We've got one point three trillion dollars of credit card
debt in this country. People are putting the grocery bill
on the credit card. These should be a bipartising conversation
to lower costs on people and RFK Junior, in addition
to wreaking havoc on public health protocols, his leadership is
(31:37):
also causing costs to go up for people in terms
of their healthcare.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
It looks like there's a shutdown's going to happen. It
looks like Democrats want it. What is the thinking care?
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Yeah, I can tell you exactly what I'm thinking, which is,
as these costs are continuing to go up. Seven hundred
thousand Michiganders at threat of losing their health care the
premiums because the ACA subsidies have gone away. I've talked
to employers and providers about this, who have had to
tell their employees that their healthcare costs are going up.
(32:08):
This is not acceptable. I need the deal for Michiganders
in any budget. And when this administration just acts outside
of the bounds of the lawmaking process over and over again,
why should we be expected to go along with it?
I certainly can't on behalf of the people of Michigan,
and that's what I'm pushing for.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
But a government shutdown will give the executive brand more power.
There's an argument to be made that respot executive brand
wants the government shut down because they can do a
lot of crazy extra judicial stuff. There aren't you worried
about that?
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Well, I'm worried about Michiganders and what's happening before my
very eyes. I'm running for United States Senate in Michigan.
I spent this summer on a tour all across my state,
hearing real impact stories people who didn't expect to be
put in this position. And so what I can push
for in this moment is the best deal for my state.
(33:09):
This administration needs to come to the table, period, full stop.
We can't sit by while people are being pushed around
because we're doing tax cuts for the five billionaires that
exists in my state at the expense of everyone else.
We've got rising unemployment, rising costs. It's not working and
(33:30):
we need better. And the only wake up is for
the folks to come to the table. And I'm coming
to the table each and every single day for Michigan.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
I don't know how you negotiate with someone who's not
negotiating in good faith. So they shut down the government. Right,
there's an ask for this healthcare money. Explain to us
what the ask is and sort of where we are
with this shutdown.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
We can take immediate steps to lower costs. We are
seeing this be by partisan on the Affordable Care Act,
getting rid of the subsidies have cost people immediately. There
is the future point around Medicaid and cuts to Medicaid
which will strip Michiganders. What I can do in this
(34:15):
moment and why I'm running for Senate, why I'm working
so hard as a member of Congress on behalf of
people of Michigan is I am standing up for my people.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And that's what I.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Can articulate to those who will be in that in
that lawmaking table. I took a vote in the House,
and they know they need us. If they need us,
they need to give us something. This has been an
unbelievable abuse of power. Why should it be rubber stamped
at the expense of hard working Michiganders, people who's earned
(34:47):
benefits are on the line. What's happening to food assistance?
It's outrageous, It's outrageous.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, no, I agree. So leadership, Democratic leadership made a
day to meet with Trump. Trump canceled at who knows why.
Right now, the polling sort of shows that the shutdown
will be more on Trump than on Democrats, but we
don't it is it always is on Trump. What is
(35:14):
Donald Trump doing to cut a deal for Michigan. Let
me let me narrow this down for you for a
minute outside the budget conversation, because you're going and I
understand what you're saying, which is what's just a question?
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Yeah, and well, and he doesn't want to negotiate. I mean,
he's not working with his own lawmakers, you know, which
is out of his own party, you know, and you
can't act like this. But take take another example here,
these tariffs, these blanket excessive tariffs that change by the minute.
Fifty five announcements in one hundred days, in the first
(35:47):
one hundred days, they're still coming. Now we see this
president out there on the world stage, you know, trying
to push everybody around, claim he's cutting a deal here
and there. I right now in the state of Michigan,
in witnessing some of the fastest growing unemployment in the Union.
Just another announcement this morning of more manufacturing jobs lost.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Molly.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
I represent a really unique part of this country in
terms of what drives Michigan is economy, and that's our
industrial base. It is a precious sector that needs to
be treated with care and respect. That is not happening
right now. So you know what I have said to
this administration is I can't go along right now. I
(36:32):
can't give you my vote on this stuff until you're
willing to come to the table. The same thing is
at play right now on healthcare. He needs us. This
is a wake up moment for Donald Trump and his
outrageous leadership style, which has been an abuse of power,
and so really nice for him to say, Okay, I'm
(36:52):
not going to sit down with the Democratic leaders He's
not going to sit down with Michigan and Ers. He
and JD. Vance come here. They have these things, own rallies.
They're not talking to the small businesses. It's not working.
And so you know what this is called accountability. We
didn't have this shutdown in the previous administration.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I guess. But the question I think is who are
the stakes higher for? And I don't know, but Democrats
have not pulled ahead in this, like I think the
base is mad, and I'm curious about two things. One is, so,
why do you think the base is unhappy? And what
do you think leadership can do to win them back?
And do you think that leadership is just not meeting
(37:34):
the moment.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Well, I can tell you what I'm doing, which is
I'm out here running for a very competitive US Senate
seat Mike Rogers, who came very close last time, who's
been very clear that he wants to rubber stamp the
Trump agenda, who has already been endorsed by Donald Trump,
(37:55):
raking in billions of dollars from Texas oil tycoons and
the like, that needs to be stopped. That's not going
to work for the people of Michigan. In my legislative
role right now, what I am doing as I am
putting up my hand and I am introducing legislation stop
Trump's abuse of power, the Taxpayer Data Protection Act to
(38:17):
put guardrails up on Elon Musk going into the private
taxpayer database. I'm also introducing legislation called no tariff on food,
just introduced one, standing up, how do you come again?
This is a leadership moment for me in the Michigan
and I am absolutely in a rigorous dialogue with voters
(38:41):
whose trust I am seeking to earn. I do that
by listening and leading. You know, I have certainly flip
seats one tough elections, stood up time and time again.
That's the role that I can play in terms of
the other dynamics right now. You know, look, there's a
lot of pundits who've got a lot of thoughts. But
I invite everyone to come to Michigan. See Hailey Stevens
(39:03):
on the campaign trail for United States Senate. Get involved,
Hailey BRETMI dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, so when you were saying that people you meet
on the trail are happy with leadership and they feel that.
I mean, my question is more of a question, not
you know, it strikes me the people who I talk
to seem really mad at leadership and they feel like
they're not being led. Now, I think your impeachment of
RFK Junior are trying to do that. That's the kind
(39:30):
of stuff people want, right and they want Democrats to try.
They want them to try. That's what I hear from everyone.
So this seems to very much be in line with that.
But my question for you is more like Senate seats
are precious. If you're going to be a senator, are
you going to go in there and be like we
(39:50):
I've seen some senators go in there and be a
complete disaster. I'm thinking about Fetterman, just a complete disaster.
If you're going to get this precious Senate seat from
a very pretty blue state, like, will you take that
and really fight for your constituents? I mean, will you
make the hard calls to your friends? You know? Yeah?
(40:12):
And I can't.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
I can tell you that I had a tour this
summer called maid in Michigan, and I was meeting folks
where they were at in their places of work, at picnics,
in the neighborhoods. And the number one concern that I
have heard over and over and over again is people
(40:33):
are freaked out about rising costs and an administration that
isn't doing anything about it. Let me give you an example.
In the first month of the Trump administration, a fully
paralyzed veteran reached out to me through a mutual friend,
asking me if he was going to lose his benefit check.
I have heard from retirees who are telling me that
(40:56):
it is hard to make the choice about Cocona Meala
home or going you know, going out to eat, because
it's burning a hole in their pocketbook. That is a reality,
and that transcends this other political dialogue that's going on.
I am running for Senate to fight for my people, Molly.
My life has been defined by putting up my hand
(41:18):
for Michigan in tough moments. I worked on the campaign
at two thousand and eight. I was there when Obama
was getting sworn in. I said, if I'm going to
do one thing in this administration, I've got to do
something for my people in Michigan. The Auto Rescue Steve
Ratner needed achieve its staff. I'm pretty sure you know
(41:38):
it was. It was, you know, kismet. We met in
the halls of transition. We set forward to make sure
that the auto companies didn't liquidate, that two hundred thousand
Michigan jobs were protected. We brought in organized labor. I
ran for United States Congress to flip a seat based
on all these values of being honest, being transparent, and yes,
(42:00):
taking positions. What you talking about is leadership and I
get that with these Senate seats. You said, oh, the
Senate seats precious. So is Michigan. So is what Michigan needs.
I'm running to be my state's chief lawmaker to lower costs,
to deliver and to stand up to this reckless administration
(42:21):
in this mold.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
So you have a large Muslim population in Michigan, lot
of voters. It's the place where Uncommitted came from. What
is your feeling about APAC About APEC has I think
gotten very unpopular in the party, certainly for the base.
What is your position on that Paris lost the state.
They did not make any overtures towards the uncommitted movement.
(42:46):
There were no Muslim speakers at the DNC. I mean,
do you think that was the squandered opportunity. Where are
you on this topic.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Now, I can absolutely tell you where I am. It's
been heartbreaking. This war has gone on way too long.
The pain and suffering that is very palpable here in
Metro Detroit that we are seeing in Gaza is impacting
us all. It's certainly something that I have stood up for,
(43:19):
which is humanitarian aid. I have called on Israel and
the United States to work together to get more aid
and to alleviate some of the suffering that has gone on.
It's heartbreaking, it takes your breath away. I've called for
this war to end. We do need to see him
(43:41):
as surrender. We do need to see hostages come home.
We do need a lasting ceasefire that brings peace to
the people of Israel and Gaza. And so that is
where I stand on that issue.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Schumer is the Minority leader and the senior senator from you.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Senator Schumer.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Great to be with you once again, Molly.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
So talk us through the shutdown. Democrats don't control any
branches of the federal government. You are in a moment.
You had the chance to do it before. Now you
feel it's really the thing. Tell us why we are
careening to a government shutdown, and how you can use this.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
We're kreening to a government shutdown, as you said, because
Donald Trump is an incompetent president who wants to be king,
and he is not doing what the American people need.
The bottom line is that all we want to do
with Donald Trump. We've demanded that he sit down and
talk to us because we need to fight for the
healthcare needs of the American people.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
And this is this deductible. So without this tax credit,
Obamacare premiums will go up twenty percent, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
More than that for many people. Many things will happen,
but Obamacare premiums will go up and average a four
four one hundred dollars a person per month, So that's
five thousand dollars a year. How much can the average
family afford five thousand dollars is a heck of a lot.
Even if you're not on Obamacare, your premiums are going to.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Go up because of the deduction, because they'll lose a tax.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Deduction because people will lose the tax credit, and then
the healthcare health insurance companies will charge everyone more. And
also with some of the other things they've done, rural
hospitals are going to close. Community health centers which provide
such good health the poor people will close, and we
will have lots of people just lose healthcare all together.
In New York State, for instance, over four hundred and
(45:37):
fifty thousand people will lose healthcare because of the New
York state laws, and another four million will lose health
care on the ACA. So it's devastating, and frankly, Molly,
the American people are on our side.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
You set up a time to meet with Trump and Jeffries,
he cancels it. The House is out of session, like
there's no negotiating happening here.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Huh yeah, Well, let me tell you what happened. Let
me give you a little background here. Starting in late July,
Jeffries and I first wrote the two Republican leaders Boone
and Johnson to sit down with us and talk about
the budget. And we said we wanted to talk about healthcare.
That's how it's always done. We said it to them
several times, and what did we get back? Crickets zero.
(46:21):
And then we learned why Donald Trump actually publicly stated
we don't need democrats, we should do this ourselves. The
problem is he doesn't know math, you need sixty votes
in the Senate to pass anything, and they have fifty three.
So what we did is we wrote Donald Trump, Jeffries
and I and we said, sit down with us, negotiate.
That's how you get these things done. We have some
(46:43):
real needs in healthcare and we want to fight as
hard as we can to get them done. And frankly,
lots of your Republican senators want and congressmen want to
get these things done because their constituents are losing the
same things we talked about, four hundred dollars going up
rural health. Rural hospitals are going to close under this bill.
Most of them are in Republican districts. So we sent
(47:06):
him sit down and talk with us. And then they
called us back and said, okay, we'll do it. How
about Thursday at three pm? We said yes. Well, I
said to Donald Trump, we'll come to the golf course
Nico and sit down and try to get these things done.
So they said yes, And then all of a sudden,
yesterday yesterday was rant day for Donald Trump, not that
(47:27):
he doesn't rant every day. He ranted the UN and
alienated half the world, but he ranted about us. He
said we are radical, and so you know what I
want to ask him, Molly right on your show. What
is radical about trying to have people have adequate healthcare?
What is radical about preventing their premiums going up from
five thousand dollars a year? What is radical about keeping
(47:48):
rural hospitals well may be the only hospitals in the
whole community. And he's allows the negotiator, or he's afraid
to negotiate with us, and he backed off one of
the there's some story one of today's papers is that
thun and Johnson didn't want them to negotiate because he
thought we'd out negotiate them. But we're going to keep
pushing forward on this. We are but pushing.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
So if you keep pushing forward, the calculus here is
that the American people will that either you'll get this
healthcare subsidy, which would actually help Republicans in the midterms.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Right, oh, well, help everybody, but it's good for people.
We can't. This is so important. It's estimated by the way,
if their whole big beautiful bill, which is a big,
ugly betrayal, pass it, at least fifty one thousand people
will die. This is not politics.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
This is people right, but there are groups, there are
Republican groups lobbying for them to do these Obamacare credits too,
because they think they'll lose the.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
House on it.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Oh, yes, we're right, right, So this is like a
really actually pretty non partisan ask because Republicans could in
fact use this their advantage. Fine, if it's the right
thing to do, I understand the moral calculus. But the
larger question is will Democrats be blamed for a shutdown
which we can't possibly.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Now here's three reasons that we believe it's a Republican shutdown,
and God forbid it happens, they will be blamed for it.
Number one, it's obvious they're in charge. There's no divided government.
They have the presidency, they have the Senate, they have
the House. It's their responsibility to get this to work.
You know, Molly, when I was majority leader and we
(49:26):
had the majority for four years between twenty twenty and
twenty twenty four, there were no shutdowns. Why were there
no shutdowns? We sat down with the Republicans and we
came to an agreement and it worked. Trump does not
want to sit down, as you saw, he's not sitting
with us. And then Johnson goes along and says, we're
not even going to come back till after the shutdown
(49:46):
might start. So it's a Republican shutdown number one. They're
in charge. Number two, And this really matters to the
American people. They don't want to sit down and negotiate
the average American. You don't have to be a big
liberal or whatever. You just say to yourself, WHOA why
won't they sit down and negotiate this and listen to
this when we are Our research shows that when people
(50:08):
hear that Republicans won't we're going to sit down with us,
who do they blame for a shutdown? Fifty nine percent
blame Trump, thirty one percent blame Democrats. So that's number two.
But number three and maybe most important, as you correctly
and as usual astutely pointed out, this is something that
people from both parties want, and it's the ACA premiums,
(50:29):
but rural hospitals. These Republican congressmen and senators are hearing
from their rural hospitals that they could very well close.
They're the only health care provider in that count People
would have to drive hundreds of miles maybe to get
health care. And they're the biggest employer in the county,
and people will lose their jobs. So you've got so
many people and one other thing's happening. So some of
(50:49):
Medicaid goes to help people pay for people who are
nursing homes in assisted care living. A lot of the
nursing homes will close. I was on Staten Island on
a very nice nurse home. Staten Island's quite Republican, and
he said, I may well have to close if these
cuts go through. I have three hundred people who are
my patients. They're all going to lose their homes. They're
(51:10):
going to lose their they will have to leave because
we close. Where are they going to go. They're families
who might be middle working class, middle class people on
Staten Island. They don't have an extra room to put
them in. They do can't give them the healthcare. So
the third reason I believe that we are the American
people are on our side and will blame the Republicans
because they see what they are doing is this healthcare
(51:32):
is not partisan. It's needed by everybody. We all need
health care.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
So talk me through the Russ Vought question. Because there's
a thinking that if there's a government shut down, Republicans, Democrats, whatever,
it will mean that the president will have more power. Yeah,
I mean he won't. It won't be legal, but again
things being legal don't necessarily matter. But even legally, he
has expanded presidential power in a shutdown. Russ Vought is
(51:57):
the king of doing this kind of stuff where he
underminds Congress for spending. How worried are you about that scenario?
Are there any checks and balances you can have there?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I am really worried about Russ vote in general because
his project twenty twenty five is just what cut the
government in half send America into recession. Creat I think
it would create a great depression with all the job
loss and money loss in everything else. But he's doing
it anyway, even before there's a decision shutn He's doing
(52:28):
these things called recisions. He takes the money back. He's
doing something call impoundment. Take one thing on healthcare that
is so non political research, cancer research, you know, all
this medical research, he's withholding them even though Congress appropriated
in the last year's budget, he's holding it back. So
Russ vote is a danger. We have to fight him
(52:48):
in the courts. We have to fight him as best
we can legislatively, and there is a proposal to put
in the negotiations that he can't do this. It would
be illegal, particularly the pocket recisions. But he's going to
go ahead, whether there's a shutdown or not and try
to do this, and we're going to have to fight
him either way.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
RFK Junior really scary. Has basically gone back on everything
he said to Senator Cassidy, like do you see any
wiggle room there or people sort of or now.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Well, first, we need your listeners and the American people
to call their Republican congressmen and senators and say, sit down,
get us better health care, negotiate with the Democrats. But
when you talk to the Republicans privately, a lot of
them are very scared. Fifteen House members I think it's
fifteen or twelve House members in Republican districts sent a
(53:37):
letter to Johnson saying, we have to restore these ACA
credits that you have talked about. We hear it from
other senators. Lisa Murkowski voted against you know, we all
voted against their proposal because they wouldn't negotiate, but she
voted with us as well. So yes, there are some
fissures in the Republicans, but they have to show the
guts that, you know, whats to say to Trump. I'm
(53:59):
representing my people, not what you want. And Trump scares
a lot of them. But Trump is getting weaker and
weaker and weaker because the American people know how bad
this guy is, and we keep fighting him every day
on all kinds of different issues, but healthcare above all,
and so are the tariffs too. Have made him so
much weaker because they're raising costs on everybody and everybody
(54:20):
knows it. So hopefully our Republican colleagues will realize that
they are better off siding with their constituents than siding
with Trump, who is losing support with the American people
for good reason.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
So do you think in the end you're going to
get a meeting? Johnson sent the Congress home, So it
seems like we're careening towards us. I mean, is there
any kind of way to pull the emergency break?
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Well, the bottom line is, you know, you'd have to
ask our Republican friends. Of course, friends quote unquote, but
you'd have to ask them because it's up to them.
As I said, we're ready to sit down anywhere anytime
to start talking. Go to the golf course. Trump is
watches TV. I'm telling him, show off the TV and
sit down and negotiate. You know, that's what a president
should do. And he is not up to the job.
(55:09):
He wants to be a king and do everything himself.
But we're fighting him every step of the way.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Thank you, Thank you, Senator Schumer.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Molly, you're great. Keep up letting people know the truth
and look forward to coming on the next day, the
next time. Thank you, no moment.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
Jesse Cannon, so Molly.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
Alex Jones a classic American figure. He interestingly started to
turn a little sour on mister Trump after many many
a thing that he does not like, government overreaches, pedophilia, cabals,
and so. Funny enough, a top DOJ official met with
him and then threatened Sandy Hook first responders with a
criminal probe.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Yeah, it's so, so, so bad. And again the Sandy
Hook stuff, like, first of all, there's only like Alex Jones,
torture these people, okay, period paragraph and now Ed Martin,
the head of the DOJ's vague weaponization task Force, which
(56:13):
we should just basically.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
Call favors for friends of the administration.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Right threaten to open a criminal investigation into a now
retired FBI special agent who sued the Firewright conspiracy theorist.
So basically like this is revenge. People who Alex Jones
doesn't like get targeted by this government because that's how
they do it. And it's wrong. It's bad, it's unbelievably crazy,
(56:42):
and it's not only as its supposed to work. 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.
(57:06):
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Dems have won the empty congressional
seat in New Mexico, giving them the final signature for
the discharge petition for the Epstein files. We have such
a great show for you today, talking fed's own Harry
(00:21):
Litman stops by to explain to us why when you
lose the public's trust you can never get it back.
Then we'll talk to Congresswoman Haley Stevens about her run
for the open Senate seat in Michigan and her plans
to impeach RFK Junior. Plus, we have a bonus conversation
(00:42):
with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about his plan for
this upcoming government shutdown showdown. But first the news, Molly,
we're all Argentina.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Now we are bailing them out.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And turns out psychotic libertarian text breaks as for the rich,
don't save an economy, Yeah, whether there's just a bad
haircut running around with a chainsaw.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So why we are going to bail out Argentina with
a twenty billion dollars swap line to help contain financial
upheaval and support presidently. I don't know why. I don't
understand why. I don't think we should. I'm against bailouts.
If we're going to spend money, why don't we spend
it on cancer research and food stamps and rural hospitals.
(01:32):
This is just completely stupid. It makes no sense. We're
going to buy Argentinian dollar bonds FYI. Meanwhile, the dollar
has had its worst year in decades and decades, such
as stupid, stupid, shortsighted. I don't even know what we're
doing here, but needless to say, it's stupid, so the
(01:55):
Trump administration wants to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I think it's really kind of poetic that libertarians, who
hate croni capitalism more than anything, they were championing this guy.
His stuff fails, and now he's getting saved by checksnotes
cardi capitalism.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, this is all so bad,
by the way. It's like, at every point this administration
always does the stupidest possible thing, and whether it's cutting
funding for research and science and healthcare and weather. I mean,
you know, we read Project twenty twenty five, so we
(02:31):
knew this was coming. And yet still and I remember
thinking when we read it, we did that documentary on it.
I remember thinking like, what do I get from the
federal government? Like I remember thinking like what will go
away when Trump is in office? Like I remember thinking, well,
my kids, my kids don't go to public schools. That's
Department of Education. So like just going through the sort
(02:52):
of mass on what I personally get from the federal
government besides like streets, and what I think is like,
there's so much stuff that we get from the federal
government that you don't know you're missing until you're gone,
like safety, air quality, water quality, accurate weather. You know,
there are all these billionaires who are really excited for
(03:15):
a kind of federal government that doesn't really do anything
for anyone because they think that somehow, like they'll pay
less taxes and they'll get by. But you can't privatize
air quality testing, you know. I mean, I guess you could,
but we're not at that moment. It's so shortsighted of
these people to think that somehow they can swap out
(03:36):
the federal government for some kind of like tax bone.
I mean, it's just such an incredibly dystopian and depressing
view of the federal government and Ultimately, we're going to
see why we have all these things in place sooner
rather than later. I am afraid.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Well, Wiley, that's so nice of you to queue me up,
because our next news story is about how the Trump
administration has had to rehire hundreds of federal employees that
were laid off by dose.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah. My favorite part about this is like this is costing.
I mean, it's not my favorite part, but it is.
The great irony is it's costing them so much money. Right,
they're firing people, they're re hiring them, they're paying for
them to have like these paid leave. They just don't
understand what the federal government does. So what they do
is they keep like firing people and then learning that
(04:23):
these are things they can't somehow farm out. It's incredible.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, some of the details in here of like the
least cancelations and all these things, it's just like it's
so much stupid administrative work and just so ridiculously dumb.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
It's just ridiculous, and it's also you know, it's expensive.
There are ways to make the government work better. This
was never about that. This was always about just trying
to like disassemble the federal government and now it turns
out that a lot of these things you actually need right,
and FYI was fraud and abuse was actually just like
(05:02):
stuff we don't like, helping poor kids.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, another pattern we're really seeing these days is people
jumping to conclusions fast. Yesterday there was an incident where
there was both a broken telet prompter and a broken
escalator at the UN for mister Trump and Jesse Waters
of Fox News joke that they should bomb and gas
the UN. You know, it is one of those things
where I hesitate to label to joke where he kind
(05:26):
of just says a really dumb thing and then they
kind of just smirk about it because they really don't
care enough to get anything right. But it seems between
this and this the latest shootings, that we never know
anything early and no one's learning the lessons of the past.
They're just spinning out takes as fast as they can
and for their own advantage.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You know. One of the things we see with Trump
is like he had all these remember when he was
trying to get a Nomo Peace Prize. I mean, he's
still trying to get a Nomo Peace Prize, but he
was trying harder and he had all these people come
to the White House, and then he ended up alienating
India because he was like, they were so mad when
he said you made peace between India and Pakistan, which
(06:02):
wasn't true, but he made them so mad. I feel
like this is what it is like. You can either
be a poster and there's honor in being a poster.
Well maybe not honor, but you know, or you could
run the federal government. But you actually cannot both post
real time events and run the federal government. I mean
it's like Trump when he you know, when he saved
(06:24):
the reveal of who killed Charlie Kirk for Fox and Friends.
Remember that they had known before. I mean it was
a whole week ago, right, they had known before, but
he wanted to wait until it was all teed up.
I'm sorry. Like, you either run the federal government or
you break news. You cannot do both.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Speaking of his posting, he absolutely lost it over Jimmy
Kimmel's return last night.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
This is not super surprising, though it is interesting and
a lot of people noted this online. Basically, he has
no deniability. Now, the White House was told by ABC
that his show was canceled, so this makes it sound
as if the White House is colluding with ABC to
cancel Jimmy Kimmel's show, which means that the White House
(07:13):
can no longer deny that they had the inside track
on this, which means that if Jimmy Kimmel wants to sue,
I mean, like, at every point, Donald Trump's posting kind
of undermines any of the other stuff he's doing here.
So if they want a deniability, if they wanted to
get kim off the air, if they wanted this not
(07:34):
to blow up in his face, you know, you wouldn't
have had Brendan Carr on Benny Johnson's podcast being like,
we can do this the easy way, or we can
do this the hard way. That's what this is, like
Donald Trump's I can't believe ABC, fake news gave kim
all his job back. The White House was told by
ABC that his show was canceled. Something happened between now
and then, because so there you go. But it is
(07:55):
funny though he just is so mad about talent and
audience ratings.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Friend of the Show Swin's assessment of Caddy stage Mom
Rings in my ears every single day is.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Trill is incredible. Harry Lipman is a former US attorney
and the host of the podcast Talking Fads.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Hello, Hello Loo, everyone, Welcome to this month's Molly Harry
mash Up Politics and Law, in which I get to
ask Mally dong Fasts political questions she gets to parry
with some legal ones. Maully dong Fast. I gotta say
A needs no introduction. B is often short on time,
(08:39):
so I think we should just jump right into it.
I got a Kimmel question for you, if I could
start there, Mollie. So, Trump reacts to the suspension with triumph,
though we know in court he would say, oh, it's
not us, but he certainly seems to take credit for it.
But now that Kimmel has been reinstated, Trump is chagrined,
but it's not clear he has any cards to play. Still,
(09:03):
does it play as a loss for him with the base?
And does he need now somehow to try to scramble
to do directly get kim off the air what he
tried to support or do obliquely before.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
So here's what I would say about the kim Ol situation.
I don't see a clear way out of this for Trump.
Either he forces Kim off the air, which will be
the world's biggest lawsuit, huge pain for him, signs of
authoritarianism and.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
A flat out First Amendment violation, no two ways about it.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
But we'll go back besides that, and they'll come careening
into the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court will have
to stand up to Trump, which they don't want to do,
which is inevitably coming. But there's no way that the
MAGA crew on that court is going to be like, yeah,
you can just take stuff you don't like off the air.
I mean even they will be like no. So it's
hard for me to see where the off ramp is
(09:56):
for this, But I think probably Trump just goes on
and ignores it, and you know, does some mean tweets.
I think it's hard for me to see him keeping going.
I mean, the good news for him is that when
things happen that he can't deal with, he just distracts
from them. That's my take.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Well declares victory and moves on.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Right, Yeah, right, I want you to talk to us
about you used to be in such demand, but now
that we have an administration that no longer cares about
the law, it doesn't matter what the law is, because
whatever right.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
I'm a man without a country. That's right.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I mean, don't you feel like there's so many moments
where you're like, well, obviously this is a legal bot discuss.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
You know, I don't. I wish I felt that way
a little bit more. Every week there are legal outrages.
And I've said this to you before, Mollie. My main
job I think of as trying to educate, explain the
dangers and the like. And you know, this week alone,
Kimmel and the prospect of censorship home and the prospect
(10:55):
of two tier or three tier justice, the Supreme Court
just coming in and without making it clear, just nevertheless
overruling a ninety year precedent. I actually find legally, You're right,
they don't care. You know, I've totally kind of changed
the stuff. But I'm really all about the new kind
of independent channel of substack and YouTube, and I do
(11:18):
just a little bit of TV. But I think the
lost stuff is flying at us fast and furious. It
will continue to fly at US fast and furious because
what Trump is doing is basically corrupting different areas of
law everywhere. Humphrey's executor, that's a pretty darn legal arcane thought.
From nineteen thirty five, you got to explain it, and
(11:40):
it's a huge deal practically, and my kind of my
feel is a little bit the hounesome. My feel is
this authoritarianism is like a little boring. But it's my
job to say, well, this was a big one. Firing Seabert,
this was a big one. And I find there's still
like plenty to talk about, even as I also feel
(12:01):
that like we are just trudging on into the end
of the Constitution and we're gonna have a showdown, just
as you said in about a year with the Supreme Court.
Do people still want to hear the legal outrages of
the week, but they are there these legal outrages, So yeah,
I don't feel like under utilized.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Right, there's a shooting at an ice facility. They killed
these immigrants, no law enforcement, but they found these bullets
maybe cash Betel tweeted a picture of the bullets. Talk
us through this. And also it seems to me, like
what I keep going back to is it feels like
this administration and Trump more generally, has squandered any kind
(12:44):
of benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Exactly right, And man, oh man, think about that for
a minute. So yesterday is it the White House formal
representative says, Homan never did this, and then other people
say they did. Before Trump, you'd at least say wow,
there's just saying, you know, flat out, you give them
maybe the benefit of the doubt or a better word
that I think applies a lot to prosecutions Molly, presumption
(13:09):
of regularity. They did it. The case came out, the
grand jury said, so we presume regularity and we take
it from there. Let's see your proof. Guess what, there's
no presumption of regularity. And judges are calling that out.
Grand juries in DC are saying we're not going to
actually give you a true bill, which is stunning. It's
(13:32):
happened to me once in my career. They did it
like seven times last week. They don't trust them, and
they don't trust them for a very good reason. They've
been ten times burned. Of course, there was going to
be that picture of the Epstein in the Epstein birthday book, etc.
So I just want to say, there's a lot of
(13:52):
things that you know as a DOJ type, and that
is where my stripes are. I get really sad about
what's happening, but this you just can't can't but be
morose because people over decades build up this advantage. So
when you go and say, Molly Jong fast for the
United States, it really means something. Guess what it is
(14:13):
all squandered now and a whole big thing. I hope
maybe you'll join. I want to think about at least
to give some kind of alloy to people who are,
you know, relentlessly down. What might it look like to
try to clean this humongous mess up on the other side.
But that's a good one, right, It doesn't You're not
going to like, oh Trump goes and now you stand
(14:34):
up and everyone's gonna trust you. They are besides breaking
the law, breaking the constitution, being completely unfair, they have
absolutely squandered generation's worth of goodwill from the Department of Justice.
And it's just not the kind of thing that you just,
you know, start up again with once the if the
(14:56):
bad guys leave town. Okay, I got so much for Molly,
but here's a little, a short one. I love these
Trumps from back on. Everyone says, Everyone says, it was
a perfect call. Everyone says, so here's his Everyone says,
Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize
for each one of these achievements. And I guess my
(15:17):
question to you politically is this will sound like it's
not serious. It is? Which is is he serious?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You know?
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Is the space now looking for this is? Are think
going to agitate when surprise surprised he doesn't get the
Nobel Peace Prize, And I don't know what he'd get
it for, right, you know, just yesterday totally switches directions
on Ukraine. He's no leader in the Middle East, Ukraine, China,
anywhere else, but real fantasy, What the what the what
the heck? He's going around saying, everyone says I should
(15:46):
get the Nobel Peace Press.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
This is such a good topic because actually I was
reading the Washington Post earlier though. Jesse just sent this
to me where it says it twenty two percent of
all Americans think Trump deserves it Nobel Peace Price. But
I don't think this is not for the base, right,
the Nobel Priests prize stuff. They don't care, is that right?
I don't think there's any world in which they care.
It's like his obsession with Hollywood. I mean, I get
(16:11):
that he feels that politics is downstream of culture. But ultimately,
what I think we're seeing here is he's seventy nine
years old, and he has certain things he's very stuck
on from living in New York, and they include Deborah
Messing Ratings Award shows, stuff that isn't necessarily stuff that
I think the base really cares about. And then there's
(16:32):
stuff the base really cares about. The Nobel Prize is
I think he hates Obama. He's mad when people laugh
at him. Obama did this thing where he remember he
spoke at the White House correspondence dinner. I mean, look,
the irony is maybe it's not the original sin because
Trump was on the birth certificate thing before Obama, so ultimately,
(16:53):
really Trump did start it. But the point of this
is that he hates being laughed at. And so I
think part of the part of where we are at
this moment is that he's kind of trying to get revenge.
And human said that when he was running for president,
remember and like people be like, no, no, You're not
going to seek revenge, and he was like, no, no.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I am yesterday. I hate my opponents.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Right, Charlie. I loved his opponents, but I hate them.
So I think this is, you know, he wants to
win a Nobel Peace Prize because he feels like then
people will stop laughing at him. It goes back to
this what we saw at the UN where the first
time Trump spoke at the UN, he was laughed at,
and this time he spoke at the UN and he
was basically like, I'm so powerful. I've you know, I'm
(17:34):
more powerful than the institution. I can cut all this forlornade.
You have nothing to laugh at because it's so scared.
I think that's real. I think that drives a lot
of where we are right now.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, you're trying to.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Trump fired this guy in the Eastern District because he
wanted him to prosecute his enemies, and maybe because the
Komi case is about to be out of statute of
limitations right that if they want to prosecute it. It's
now basically what we've seen is these people like they
don't want to they don't want to go forward with
(18:10):
fake cases, which is what Trump wants, but they will
dismiss cases that are against Trump's people, so like the
Eric Adams case. So it seems like we have a
real disconnect here with the stuff where the administration just
wants to make stuff up versus wants to let stuff go.
(18:32):
So do you think Trump is going to be able
to find So now he's going to put maybe he's
going to try to put a one of his you know,
parking lawyers or one of his you know, the people
who don't know better in that job. But do you
think that we're going to see a world where they
start just making up stuff? I mean, what do you
think that looks like? And also do you think that
(18:53):
there's a mechanism for that, right? Because there are grand juries.
I mean, there are a number of hurdles that you
have to get past if you're making up fake stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, so glad you asked this question, what does it
look like the ninth circle of hell Mala. We hear
about all these different outrages, doj and I'm here to
tell you nothing, nothing, Nothing could be worse than making
shit up against an innocent person in order to just
bring criminal charges that aren't there against a political enemy.
(19:23):
Start with the first principle in the US Attorney's Manual,
Start with the constitution. Making stuff up, it's like a
quarter inch away from just taking people and disappearing them.
This is the soul of autocracy. And even though it
is also a complete dereliction of the same rule to force.
(19:45):
The dismissal of a righteous case still better ten guilty
walk than one innocent person. So the combination of stuff
here no facts and you can't no facts. I can't
tell you how far fundamental that you know DNA here
that when Seabird and its worst assistants say no facts,
(20:06):
no facts. Even now right in the White House, Levitt said, well,
what do they do? They weaponized the justin That's not
what's your federal crime. The federal crime is make shit up.
It's just couldn't be worse. And because it's a Trump enemy,
now just very quickly to the practical question, will they
be able to do it? I mean, he's so imbecilic.
(20:29):
He's given a huge bat to Komy Schiff, for James,
anybody who's indicted to say this isn't bona fide. So
you know, if this happens, A, I think they're very vulnerable,
and B it's the most nauseating, bottom bottom, bottom, rock
bottom thing that can happen. I wrote a sub a
(20:51):
couple of days ago. You know, Donald Trump in the
ninth circle of hell.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
But it also when you see that kind of thing
where you no longer trust what the administration is trying
to do as I think we're seeing Trump sort of
say the quiet part out loud when we talk about
the Kimmel stuff.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Which nobody ever ever has that because you can't say
it because it's the same as saying, you know, all
get rid of our democracy. Right, So stunning to former prosecutors.
What happened to your molly? And I know that office,
I worked in that office, and yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
So with the tweet where he said, you know, I'm
firing this guy because you won't find the stuff I want,
and then he said with the Kimmel stuff, you know,
we were told it was canceled and now it's not.
Both of these things are technically admissible in court.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Can you talk us through that? What that means?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Yeah, I just very briefly, they've got an absolute golden
set up motion. It probably doesn't go to the jury,
it goes to the judge, and you say, up front, judge,
throw this shit out. Now, it's so obvious selective prosecution.
You put all this stuff up, you maybe get to
depose some people. The disconnect here, Molly, is that for
(22:03):
all his peak and all the way said, nobody is
making a claim that any of these guys committed a
federal crime, you stand him up in front of the
court and swear you know, this guy did these things,
and but you don't have a federal crime. So it's
a lie, and the most serious, unjust kind of lie
(22:23):
that a prosecutor can tell. So I you know, I
think Trump did that thing where he actually had a
sort of email a bondy, but it came out as
a truth. Social you read that, you're going to set
up They're going to be motion after motion. That's going
to make this harder. But I just want to start
with you know that my head going three hundred and
(22:43):
sixty degrees, and that of any former prosecutor I know
doesn't get worse. Okay, my quick question to you another topic. Look,
we're always told you don't understand maga well enough you
look down at them, you really have to think of them,
and they're and they're you know, true concern et cetera. Yeah,
(23:04):
maybe there's five percent who are nuts, et cetera, butt autism,
RFK thailand al in pregnancy, right, I mean it's like
bleach cures COVID. It's so bad people will probably die
as you analyze and discern his base. Do we think
that that that I assume you'll say a lot of
(23:26):
people don't care or just do it. Do we think
there's I don't know twenty percent thirty percent who say
I support Trump or I hated Kamala Harris, but I
am not anti science, and this is you know, he's
a yoko, it's a joke. Or for all his base
do the okay, you know, thailandol and pregnancy whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Here's what I would say, talent on and pregnancy whatever.
I think this makes more sense if you think of
RFK as like a political actor and not as a
public health person. So he has a base he wants
to me cappy. Trump has a base he wants to
make happy. Some amount of trump Ism is maha, probably
not as much as we think because they're pretty loud
(24:09):
and very online. Vaccines are an eighty twenty issue, so
maybe there are seventy thirty issue. I think this hurts
more than it helps. Also, Tile and all, I mean
like Johnson and that family was huge drump doners do,
which is hilarious. And I just don't think that's the
boogeyman they want it. There are all sorts of reasons
(24:29):
why it's very destructive to tell women they caused autism
by digging tile in all, which.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Is not because not just I mean, they're children, right, geez.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And also that there's not any evidence to support it.
That's also a problem. But I don't know that it
scratches the itch the way that they are hoping it does.
I do think like Trump really did was very negative
on vaccines, and he said things like we're going to
break it up, it's too much liquid. I mean, that
stuff was crazy, but it was also maybe what Magabase wants.
(25:01):
I don't know. I mean, it's hard for me to see.
This is another thing which I think is like kind
of a boondot while that he's going to get stuck in.
You tell people not to vaccinate their kids, their kids
will die. You're gonna have outbreaks even with the measles stuff.
So you can keep people happy with that live for
only for so long before the bill comes due. So
(25:21):
I just think it's a very tough line to walk.
RFK Junior is very good at speaking in a way
that's just very good at obfuscating in a way that
Trump maybe even isn't. Like Trump just says stuff, but
he gets away with it because people think he's funny
or because whatever, because we've all lost our minds. But
RFK is able to say things about things that never
(25:44):
answer the question in a way that I think it
works very well for him. But ultimately I think I
don't know how he does this, And ultimately I think
you're going to see RFK really come into closion with
Trump because these are both very ambitious people. I don't
think Trump is ready to a point, and heir apparent,
especially not one that is named Trump.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Those are my questions. So fun always to talk to
you and get our quick back and forth. Boom boom boom.
Shall we call it for September and yeah around Halloween.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, I think we're good. Congresswoman Haley Stevens represents Michigan's
eleventh district and is a candidate for the Senate in Michigan.
Welcome to past politics, Congresswoman.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
Haley Stevens, Thank you, Mollie.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
You have some news you want to tell us about.
Talk to us about what you're introducing right now. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Look, it is very clear that we have a quack
at the head of Health and Human Services, as a
Senate confirmed secretary who is endangering the lives of Americans,
our children, our elderly. He is listening to conspiracy theories.
(26:56):
He is spouting conspiracy theories. He is cutting cancer research
and scientific research programs, and enough is enough. He has
allied to senators to get confirmed and in addition to
calling on RFK to resign, I am going to be
introducing articles of impeachment.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Molly, let's accept to both and it. Let's yos for people. Yeah,
let's talk about articles of impeachment. Vaccines are an eighty
twenty issue. We all know that from that would spring
the idea that impeaching RFK Junior would actually be possible.
Tell us what it looks like to put out articles
of impeachment. I'm drafting them and I'm calling for it
(27:39):
because I'm truly sick and tired of this mess. What
we saw yesterday accusing tail and all of causing autism,
the pain that I am hearing from medical professionals who
I know, from constituents who are impacted by this. It's
just not right.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
And the fact is it was on record that he
lied to senators and he is continuing to lie. He
is firing people who disagree with him. I want to
bring this debate forward because I'm a sitting member of
Congress on behalf of the great people of Michigan who
only see their costs going up, ACA subsidies going away.
(28:21):
Seven hundred thousand Michiganers might lose their healthcare. RFK Junior
creating all this conspiracy. It's not working for people. It
needs to be called out. And there are authorities that
I have access to as a member of Congress, and
I want to say enough is enough, and I want
to get this out there, and that's why I'm introducing
(28:42):
these articles.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
So the senator you're talking about is doctor Bill Cassidy,
who is the doctor and who really was the deciding
vote in his nomination made RFK sort of promise that
he wasn't going to go after the vaccines. What happened
during that insane tialinal announcement was that, in fact, Donald
Trump went after the vaccines. But RFK has really undermined
(29:07):
a lot of the infrastructure when it comes to MR
and a research and the NIAH is lying to a
senator an impeachable offense, and if so, is their way
to use that for the impeachment.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
I believe it is. And I also believe endangering the
health and safety of Americans is impeachable as well. And
what we are getting over and over again is just
not serving us. It's not acceptable when you ignore decades
of scientific research and the ways in which doctors, true scientists,
(29:43):
true medical professionals have put forward research. What authority does
he have to cut this off? And Look, this moment
calls for bold leadership, and that is what I am
looking to bring to the people of Michigan and to
this country to write the ship. It's even been reported
that the President has felt a little shaky with RFK
(30:06):
and we've called on him to resign. This has become
a big distraction. He continues to stand by him. We've
got coequal branches of government. We only are seeing this
administration abuse their power. And I've got to act within
the prism of the reality that I am in right
now as a lawmaker. And that's why I'm introducing these
(30:27):
articles of impeachment.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Can you get Republican support?
Speaker 5 (30:30):
Well, Look, I have been named consistently an effective lawmaker.
I was just named the most effective Democratic lawmaker for
Michigan last term in a Republican Congress, and this has
got to be common sense, and I do believe that
putting this forward is certainly going to make people question.
And I don't see why the entire Republican conference is
(30:51):
going to stand by this, just as they're standing by
cuts to people's healthcare, rising costs on people. I've also
introduced legend that I'm hoping to get Republicans on board
with on a different topic. But this is no tariffs
on food legislation that I have written, because guess what,
the costs are only going up at the grocery store, Mollie.
(31:13):
We've got one point three trillion dollars of credit card
debt in this country. People are putting the grocery bill
on the credit card. These should be a bipartising conversation
to lower costs on people and RFK Junior, in addition
to wreaking havoc on public health protocols, his leadership is
(31:37):
also causing costs to go up for people in terms
of their healthcare.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
It looks like there's a shutdown's going to happen. It
looks like Democrats want it. What is the thinking care?
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Yeah, I can tell you exactly what I'm thinking, which is,
as these costs are continuing to go up. Seven hundred
thousand Michiganders at threat of losing their health care the
premiums because the ACA subsidies have gone away. I've talked
to employers and providers about this, who have had to
tell their employees that their healthcare costs are going up.
(32:08):
This is not acceptable. I need the deal for Michiganders
in any budget. And when this administration just acts outside
of the bounds of the lawmaking process over and over again,
why should we be expected to go along with it?
I certainly can't on behalf of the people of Michigan,
and that's what I'm pushing for.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
But a government shutdown will give the executive brand more power.
There's an argument to be made that respot executive brand
wants the government shut down because they can do a
lot of crazy extra judicial stuff. There aren't you worried
about that?
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Well, I'm worried about Michiganders and what's happening before my
very eyes. I'm running for United States Senate in Michigan.
I spent this summer on a tour all across my state,
hearing real impact stories people who didn't expect to be
put in this position. And so what I can push
for in this moment is the best deal for my state.
(33:09):
This administration needs to come to the table, period, full stop.
We can't sit by while people are being pushed around
because we're doing tax cuts for the five billionaires that
exists in my state at the expense of everyone else.
We've got rising unemployment, rising costs. It's not working and
(33:30):
we need better. And the only wake up is for
the folks to come to the table. And I'm coming
to the table each and every single day for Michigan.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
I don't know how you negotiate with someone who's not
negotiating in good faith. So they shut down the government. Right,
there's an ask for this healthcare money. Explain to us
what the ask is and sort of where we are
with this shutdown.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
We can take immediate steps to lower costs. We are
seeing this be by partisan on the Affordable Care Act,
getting rid of the subsidies have cost people immediately. There
is the future point around Medicaid and cuts to Medicaid
which will strip Michiganders. What I can do in this
(34:15):
moment and why I'm running for Senate, why I'm working
so hard as a member of Congress on behalf of
people of Michigan is I am standing up for my people.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And that's what I.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Can articulate to those who will be in that in
that lawmaking table. I took a vote in the House,
and they know they need us. If they need us,
they need to give us something. This has been an
unbelievable abuse of power. Why should it be rubber stamped
at the expense of hard working Michiganders, people who's earned
(34:47):
benefits are on the line. What's happening to food assistance?
It's outrageous, It's outrageous.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, no, I agree. So leadership, Democratic leadership made a
day to meet with Trump. Trump canceled at who knows why.
Right now, the polling sort of shows that the shutdown
will be more on Trump than on Democrats, but we
don't it is it always is on Trump. What is
(35:14):
Donald Trump doing to cut a deal for Michigan. Let
me let me narrow this down for you for a
minute outside the budget conversation, because you're going and I
understand what you're saying, which is what's just a question?
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Yeah, and well, and he doesn't want to negotiate. I mean,
he's not working with his own lawmakers, you know, which
is out of his own party, you know, and you
can't act like this. But take take another example here,
these tariffs, these blanket excessive tariffs that change by the minute.
Fifty five announcements in one hundred days, in the first
(35:47):
one hundred days, they're still coming. Now we see this
president out there on the world stage, you know, trying
to push everybody around, claim he's cutting a deal here
and there. I right now in the state of Michigan,
in witnessing some of the fastest growing unemployment in the Union.
Just another announcement this morning of more manufacturing jobs lost.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Molly.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
I represent a really unique part of this country in
terms of what drives Michigan is economy, and that's our
industrial base. It is a precious sector that needs to
be treated with care and respect. That is not happening
right now. So you know what I have said to
this administration is I can't go along right now. I
(36:32):
can't give you my vote on this stuff until you're
willing to come to the table. The same thing is
at play right now on healthcare. He needs us. This
is a wake up moment for Donald Trump and his
outrageous leadership style, which has been an abuse of power,
and so really nice for him to say, Okay, I'm
(36:52):
not going to sit down with the Democratic leaders He's
not going to sit down with Michigan and Ers. He
and JD. Vance come here. They have these things, own rallies.
They're not talking to the small businesses. It's not working.
And so you know what this is called accountability. We
didn't have this shutdown in the previous administration.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I guess. But the question I think is who are
the stakes higher for? And I don't know, but Democrats
have not pulled ahead in this, like I think the
base is mad, and I'm curious about two things. One is, so,
why do you think the base is unhappy? And what
do you think leadership can do to win them back?
And do you think that leadership is just not meeting
(37:34):
the moment.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Well, I can tell you what I'm doing, which is
I'm out here running for a very competitive US Senate
seat Mike Rogers, who came very close last time, who's
been very clear that he wants to rubber stamp the
Trump agenda, who has already been endorsed by Donald Trump,
(37:55):
raking in billions of dollars from Texas oil tycoons and
the like, that needs to be stopped. That's not going
to work for the people of Michigan. In my legislative
role right now, what I am doing as I am
putting up my hand and I am introducing legislation stop
Trump's abuse of power, the Taxpayer Data Protection Act to
(38:17):
put guardrails up on Elon Musk going into the private
taxpayer database. I'm also introducing legislation called no tariff on food,
just introduced one, standing up, how do you come again?
This is a leadership moment for me in the Michigan
and I am absolutely in a rigorous dialogue with voters
(38:41):
whose trust I am seeking to earn. I do that
by listening and leading. You know, I have certainly flip
seats one tough elections, stood up time and time again.
That's the role that I can play in terms of
the other dynamics right now. You know, look, there's a
lot of pundits who've got a lot of thoughts. But
I invite everyone to come to Michigan. See Hailey Stevens
(39:03):
on the campaign trail for United States Senate. Get involved,
Hailey BRETMI dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, so when you were saying that people you meet
on the trail are happy with leadership and they feel that.
I mean, my question is more of a question, not
you know, it strikes me the people who I talk
to seem really mad at leadership and they feel like
they're not being led. Now, I think your impeachment of
RFK Junior are trying to do that. That's the kind
(39:30):
of stuff people want, right and they want Democrats to try.
They want them to try. That's what I hear from everyone.
So this seems to very much be in line with that.
But my question for you is more like Senate seats
are precious. If you're going to be a senator, are
you going to go in there and be like we
(39:50):
I've seen some senators go in there and be a
complete disaster. I'm thinking about Fetterman, just a complete disaster.
If you're going to get this precious Senate seat from
a very pretty blue state, like, will you take that
and really fight for your constituents? I mean, will you
make the hard calls to your friends? You know? Yeah?
(40:12):
And I can't.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
I can tell you that I had a tour this
summer called maid in Michigan, and I was meeting folks
where they were at in their places of work, at picnics,
in the neighborhoods. And the number one concern that I
have heard over and over and over again is people
(40:33):
are freaked out about rising costs and an administration that
isn't doing anything about it. Let me give you an example.
In the first month of the Trump administration, a fully
paralyzed veteran reached out to me through a mutual friend,
asking me if he was going to lose his benefit check.
I have heard from retirees who are telling me that
(40:56):
it is hard to make the choice about Cocona Meala
home or going you know, going out to eat, because
it's burning a hole in their pocketbook. That is a reality,
and that transcends this other political dialogue that's going on.
I am running for Senate to fight for my people, Molly.
My life has been defined by putting up my hand
(41:18):
for Michigan in tough moments. I worked on the campaign
at two thousand and eight. I was there when Obama
was getting sworn in. I said, if I'm going to
do one thing in this administration, I've got to do
something for my people in Michigan. The Auto Rescue Steve
Ratner needed achieve its staff. I'm pretty sure you know
(41:38):
it was. It was, you know, kismet. We met in
the halls of transition. We set forward to make sure
that the auto companies didn't liquidate, that two hundred thousand
Michigan jobs were protected. We brought in organized labor. I
ran for United States Congress to flip a seat based
on all these values of being honest, being transparent, and yes,
(42:00):
taking positions. What you talking about is leadership and I
get that with these Senate seats. You said, oh, the
Senate seats precious. So is Michigan. So is what Michigan needs.
I'm running to be my state's chief lawmaker to lower costs,
to deliver and to stand up to this reckless administration
(42:21):
in this mold.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
So you have a large Muslim population in Michigan, lot
of voters. It's the place where Uncommitted came from. What
is your feeling about APAC About APEC has I think
gotten very unpopular in the party, certainly for the base.
What is your position on that Paris lost the state.
They did not make any overtures towards the uncommitted movement.
(42:46):
There were no Muslim speakers at the DNC. I mean,
do you think that was the squandered opportunity. Where are
you on this topic.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Now, I can absolutely tell you where I am. It's
been heartbreaking. This war has gone on way too long.
The pain and suffering that is very palpable here in
Metro Detroit that we are seeing in Gaza is impacting
us all. It's certainly something that I have stood up for,
(43:19):
which is humanitarian aid. I have called on Israel and
the United States to work together to get more aid
and to alleviate some of the suffering that has gone on.
It's heartbreaking, it takes your breath away. I've called for
this war to end. We do need to see him
(43:41):
as surrender. We do need to see hostages come home.
We do need a lasting ceasefire that brings peace to
the people of Israel and Gaza. And so that is
where I stand on that issue.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Schumer is the Minority leader and the senior senator from you.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Senator Schumer.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Great to be with you once again, Molly.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
So talk us through the shutdown. Democrats don't control any
branches of the federal government. You are in a moment.
You had the chance to do it before. Now you
feel it's really the thing. Tell us why we are
careening to a government shutdown, and how you can use this.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
We're kreening to a government shutdown, as you said, because
Donald Trump is an incompetent president who wants to be king,
and he is not doing what the American people need.
The bottom line is that all we want to do
with Donald Trump. We've demanded that he sit down and
talk to us because we need to fight for the
healthcare needs of the American people.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
And this is this deductible. So without this tax credit,
Obamacare premiums will go up twenty percent, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
More than that for many people. Many things will happen,
but Obamacare premiums will go up and average a four
four one hundred dollars a person per month, So that's
five thousand dollars a year. How much can the average
family afford five thousand dollars is a heck of a lot.
Even if you're not on Obamacare, your premiums are going to.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Go up because of the deduction, because they'll lose a tax.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Deduction because people will lose the tax credit, and then
the healthcare health insurance companies will charge everyone more. And
also with some of the other things they've done, rural
hospitals are going to close. Community health centers which provide
such good health the poor people will close, and we
will have lots of people just lose healthcare all together.
In New York State, for instance, over four hundred and
(45:37):
fifty thousand people will lose healthcare because of the New
York state laws, and another four million will lose health
care on the ACA. So it's devastating, and frankly, Molly,
the American people are on our side.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
You set up a time to meet with Trump and Jeffries,
he cancels it. The House is out of session, like
there's no negotiating happening here.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Huh yeah, Well, let me tell you what happened. Let
me give you a little background here. Starting in late July,
Jeffries and I first wrote the two Republican leaders Boone
and Johnson to sit down with us and talk about
the budget. And we said we wanted to talk about healthcare.
That's how it's always done. We said it to them
several times, and what did we get back? Crickets zero.
(46:21):
And then we learned why Donald Trump actually publicly stated
we don't need democrats, we should do this ourselves. The
problem is he doesn't know math, you need sixty votes
in the Senate to pass anything, and they have fifty three.
So what we did is we wrote Donald Trump, Jeffries
and I and we said, sit down with us, negotiate.
That's how you get these things done. We have some
(46:43):
real needs in healthcare and we want to fight as
hard as we can to get them done. And frankly,
lots of your Republican senators want and congressmen want to
get these things done because their constituents are losing the
same things we talked about, four hundred dollars going up
rural health. Rural hospitals are going to close under this bill.
Most of them are in Republican districts. So we sent
(47:06):
him sit down and talk with us. And then they
called us back and said, okay, we'll do it. How
about Thursday at three pm? We said yes. Well, I
said to Donald Trump, we'll come to the golf course
Nico and sit down and try to get these things done.
So they said yes, And then all of a sudden,
yesterday yesterday was rant day for Donald Trump, not that
(47:27):
he doesn't rant every day. He ranted the UN and
alienated half the world, but he ranted about us. He
said we are radical, and so you know what I
want to ask him, Molly right on your show. What
is radical about trying to have people have adequate healthcare?
What is radical about preventing their premiums going up from
five thousand dollars a year? What is radical about keeping
(47:48):
rural hospitals well may be the only hospitals in the
whole community. And he's allows the negotiator, or he's afraid
to negotiate with us, and he backed off one of
the there's some story one of today's papers is that
thun and Johnson didn't want them to negotiate because he
thought we'd out negotiate them. But we're going to keep
pushing forward on this. We are but pushing.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
So if you keep pushing forward, the calculus here is
that the American people will that either you'll get this
healthcare subsidy, which would actually help Republicans in the midterms.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Right, oh, well, help everybody, but it's good for people.
We can't. This is so important. It's estimated by the way,
if their whole big beautiful bill, which is a big,
ugly betrayal, pass it, at least fifty one thousand people
will die. This is not politics.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
This is people right, but there are groups, there are
Republican groups lobbying for them to do these Obamacare credits too,
because they think they'll lose the.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
House on it.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Oh, yes, we're right, right, So this is like a
really actually pretty non partisan ask because Republicans could in
fact use this their advantage. Fine, if it's the right
thing to do, I understand the moral calculus. But the
larger question is will Democrats be blamed for a shutdown
which we can't possibly.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Now here's three reasons that we believe it's a Republican shutdown,
and God forbid it happens, they will be blamed for it.
Number one, it's obvious they're in charge. There's no divided government.
They have the presidency, they have the Senate, they have
the House. It's their responsibility to get this to work.
You know, Molly, when I was majority leader and we
(49:26):
had the majority for four years between twenty twenty and
twenty twenty four, there were no shutdowns. Why were there
no shutdowns? We sat down with the Republicans and we
came to an agreement and it worked. Trump does not
want to sit down, as you saw, he's not sitting
with us. And then Johnson goes along and says, we're
not even going to come back till after the shutdown
(49:46):
might start. So it's a Republican shutdown number one. They're
in charge. Number two, And this really matters to the
American people. They don't want to sit down and negotiate
the average American. You don't have to be a big
liberal or whatever. You just say to yourself, WHOA why
won't they sit down and negotiate this and listen to
this when we are Our research shows that when people
(50:08):
hear that Republicans won't we're going to sit down with us,
who do they blame for a shutdown? Fifty nine percent
blame Trump, thirty one percent blame Democrats. So that's number two.
But number three and maybe most important, as you correctly
and as usual astutely pointed out, this is something that
people from both parties want, and it's the ACA premiums,
(50:29):
but rural hospitals. These Republican congressmen and senators are hearing
from their rural hospitals that they could very well close.
They're the only health care provider in that count People
would have to drive hundreds of miles maybe to get
health care. And they're the biggest employer in the county,
and people will lose their jobs. So you've got so
many people and one other thing's happening. So some of
(50:49):
Medicaid goes to help people pay for people who are
nursing homes in assisted care living. A lot of the
nursing homes will close. I was on Staten Island on
a very nice nurse home. Staten Island's quite Republican, and
he said, I may well have to close if these
cuts go through. I have three hundred people who are
my patients. They're all going to lose their homes. They're
(51:10):
going to lose their they will have to leave because
we close. Where are they going to go. They're families
who might be middle working class, middle class people on
Staten Island. They don't have an extra room to put
them in. They do can't give them the healthcare. So
the third reason I believe that we are the American
people are on our side and will blame the Republicans
because they see what they are doing is this healthcare
(51:32):
is not partisan. It's needed by everybody. We all need
health care.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
So talk me through the Russ Vought question. Because there's
a thinking that if there's a government shut down, Republicans, Democrats, whatever,
it will mean that the president will have more power. Yeah,
I mean he won't. It won't be legal, but again
things being legal don't necessarily matter. But even legally, he
has expanded presidential power in a shutdown. Russ Vought is
(51:57):
the king of doing this kind of stuff where he
underminds Congress for spending. How worried are you about that scenario?
Are there any checks and balances you can have there?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I am really worried about Russ vote in general because
his project twenty twenty five is just what cut the
government in half send America into recession. Creat I think
it would create a great depression with all the job
loss and money loss in everything else. But he's doing
it anyway, even before there's a decision shutn He's doing
(52:28):
these things called recisions. He takes the money back. He's
doing something call impoundment. Take one thing on healthcare that
is so non political research, cancer research, you know, all
this medical research, he's withholding them even though Congress appropriated
in the last year's budget, he's holding it back. So
Russ vote is a danger. We have to fight him
(52:48):
in the courts. We have to fight him as best
we can legislatively, and there is a proposal to put
in the negotiations that he can't do this. It would
be illegal, particularly the pocket recisions. But he's going to
go ahead, whether there's a shutdown or not and try
to do this, and we're going to have to fight
him either way.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
RFK Junior really scary. Has basically gone back on everything
he said to Senator Cassidy, like do you see any
wiggle room there or people sort of or now.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Well, first, we need your listeners and the American people
to call their Republican congressmen and senators and say, sit down,
get us better health care, negotiate with the Democrats. But
when you talk to the Republicans privately, a lot of
them are very scared. Fifteen House members I think it's
fifteen or twelve House members in Republican districts sent a
(53:37):
letter to Johnson saying, we have to restore these ACA
credits that you have talked about. We hear it from
other senators. Lisa Murkowski voted against you know, we all
voted against their proposal because they wouldn't negotiate, but she
voted with us as well. So yes, there are some
fissures in the Republicans, but they have to show the
guts that, you know, whats to say to Trump. I'm
(53:59):
representing my people, not what you want. And Trump scares
a lot of them. But Trump is getting weaker and
weaker and weaker because the American people know how bad
this guy is, and we keep fighting him every day
on all kinds of different issues, but healthcare above all,
and so are the tariffs too. Have made him so
much weaker because they're raising costs on everybody and everybody
(54:20):
knows it. So hopefully our Republican colleagues will realize that
they are better off siding with their constituents than siding
with Trump, who is losing support with the American people
for good reason.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
So do you think in the end you're going to
get a meeting? Johnson sent the Congress home, So it
seems like we're careening towards us. I mean, is there
any kind of way to pull the emergency break?
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Well, the bottom line is, you know, you'd have to
ask our Republican friends. Of course, friends quote unquote, but
you'd have to ask them because it's up to them.
As I said, we're ready to sit down anywhere anytime
to start talking. Go to the golf course. Trump is
watches TV. I'm telling him, show off the TV and
sit down and negotiate. You know, that's what a president
should do. And he is not up to the job.
(55:09):
He wants to be a king and do everything himself.
But we're fighting him every step of the way.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Thank you, Thank you, Senator Schumer.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Molly, you're great. Keep up letting people know the truth
and look forward to coming on the next day, the
next time. Thank you, no moment.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
Jesse Cannon, so Molly.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
Alex Jones a classic American figure. He interestingly started to
turn a little sour on mister Trump after many many
a thing that he does not like, government overreaches, pedophilia, cabals,
and so. Funny enough, a top DOJ official met with
him and then threatened Sandy Hook first responders with a
criminal probe.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Yeah, it's so, so, so bad. And again the Sandy
Hook stuff, like, first of all, there's only like Alex Jones,
torture these people, okay, period paragraph and now Ed Martin,
the head of the DOJ's vague weaponization task Force, which
(56:13):
we should just basically.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
Call favors for friends of the administration.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Right threaten to open a criminal investigation into a now
retired FBI special agent who sued the Firewright conspiracy theorist.
So basically like this is revenge. People who Alex Jones
doesn't like get targeted by this government because that's how
they do it. And it's wrong. It's bad, it's unbelievably crazy,
(56:42):
and it's not only as its supposed to work. 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.
(57:06):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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