John Fugelsang & Nikki McCann Ramirez

John Fugelsang details his new book Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds. Rolling Stone’s Nikki McCann Ramirez examines Trump’s use of the military as a show of force.

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Episode Transcript

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 a United States court has reinstated
Anti Trust Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. We have such a great
show for you today. John Fugel Sang stops by to
talk to us about his new book, Separation of Church

(00:21):
and Hate, A sane person's guide to taking back the
Bible from fundamentalists, fascists, and flock fleecing frauds. Then we'll
talk to Rolling Stone's own Nicki McCann Ramirez about Trump's
use of the military as a force.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
But first we have the news of the day.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Somali.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Last night, I got out of a really fun concert
and I see text that say, are we going to
war with Venezuela?

Speaker 3 (00:49):
What's with the strike? What are you seeing?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I don't understand what the plan here is, but it
seems as if Trump world wants to go to war
with Venezuela.

Speaker 5 (01:01):
Why.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Cartels distraction, Trump saw a movie about it.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
We do have to make sure no one notices that
people are talking about Epstein again.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Epstein files axios is Marco Pudo reports that Maduro lives
under the US government's fifty million dollar bounty. Trump has
a kinetic strike in Steid, a deadly kinetic strike targeted
I don't know, you know, narco terrorists whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Trump has clearly seen something on television. This is all distraction.
Just ignore it. I mean, it's bad because it's bad,
because it's insane. But this is all distraction, y yep.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
And we'll see what's to come, since they say there's
a lot more of it to come.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I mean, they want to go to war with drug
they've sort of figured out they've now are underwater on
almost everything, right, They're underwater on immigration, they're underwater on
the economy. So they're trying to find things that they
are not underwater on. And they've decided that crime and
drugs are the two things that.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Are not underwater on.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
So they're deciding that they're going to go to war
with these drug cartels. And actually Trump wanted to do
this in his first term, but there were some smart
people around him who didn't let him. And since, if
you know, since this is now his second term, he's
going to do.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
All of that stuff. So there we are.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
So in the last episode, we talked about that RFK juniors,
HHS and CDC is in serious turmoil, and we can
now see that evidenced in that one thousand HHS workers
demand him to resign. And I wish the Democratic leadership
had this much gumption.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, So why hakem does not say that RFK needs
to resign tomorrow is baffling to me. I don't get it.
I want to call them up and yell at them.
It's just I actually probably will, but it's just baffling
to me. Obviously, RFK needs to resign. Obviously, Obviously anyone

(02:59):
with a brain Bernie wrote a piece in New York
Times about this, obviously has got to resign. He's a
He is a quack. He's wounding all of these medical trials,
all of this medical research. As a country, all of
the progress that we have somehow made, is being undermined
by a crack who swims in sewage in Rock Creek Park.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
He thinks that you called him a crack because instead
of a cuck, but the.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Shoe shoe kind of fits.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
He's a crack who swims in Rock Creek Park in jeans,
and I won't take it back.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
So, speaking of the fuckery that he's unleashed because he's
weak in the CDC so much.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
There's now this thing called the West Coast Health Alliance.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, so West Coast Health Alliance is California, Oregon, and
Washington State. And here's what's going to happen. I mean,
be a psychic here. You You have said, by the way,
that that asking people to predict the future.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
This is one of the brilliant things Jesse has said
to me.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
It says, never in an interview ask people to predict
the future, because it's not good podcasting. And also nobody knows.
But I'm going to do break your rule and predict
the future. And here's what I'm going to tell you.
If states get nothing from the federal government, they won't
want to engage with it. So if you are a

(04:26):
state like California or New York or Massachusetts where you
pay a ton of money to the federal government and
you have to beg for FEMA, here's what's gonna happen.
Sooner or later, you're gonna say, you, maybe we won't
pay all that money to the federal government. And I
don't understand. I don't think Trump understands that these services

(04:46):
have a price tag and if you're not getting it,
then why do it? Then why pay it? And this
is the first step of that. Oregon, California, Washington. By
the way, I don't want to freak anyone out here,
but I kind of do. This is what secession looks like. California, Oregon,
and Washington start doing things. New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont,

(05:07):
New Hampshire, and Meane start doing things. You start seeing
states of people who are like minded. And by the way,
you end up with a country where Alabama and Mississippi
and look, there are a lot of people who live
in Alabama and Mississippi who did not vote for this,
who do not vote at all, who are disenfranchised, and

(05:29):
who will suffer. But like, you can see a world
where those red states end up alone. And we're not
so far from that.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
Yeah, I see. I don't think this is predicting the future.
I think this is analyzing what's already starting to happen.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, we're not there yet, but I could see it happening.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
Yeah, it will make sense that when you pull federal
funding from things, that states are going to have to
figure out how they maneuver their budgets into it, and
one of the easy levers seems to be not paying
into the federal government what they don't have to, especially
since the Blue states on the Red states mostly so
Malli Big big news. The Republicans are basically saying you're

(06:06):
going to be outcasts from the party if you vote
to release all of the Epstein files. There's big press
conferences with Epstein victims and some Republicans.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
You're just it is a fancy way to say that
Jesse and I have something terrible to say right now,
and we want you to prepare yourselves as listeners and
not think that we are the worst people in the world.
But I listened to that whole press conference an hour
and a half, and I'm going to say something terrible,
and probably I will rue the day I said this.

(06:37):
But Marjorie Taylor Green made a lot of sense in
that press conference, you.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Know, whether it was her usual performative bullshit or not.
Nancy Mace walked out seemingly distraught of the Epstein cover
up meeting for the GOP.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
I mean, down is up today.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
I probably am going to regret saying anything nice about
Marjorie Tellygreen, But every word she said that I heard
in that press conference sounded pretty sane.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
I don't know what it means.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
I don't know if maybe I have a brain worm,
but she basically was like, you know you, if these
women are afraid to say the names, I will say
them on the house floor.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
And you know what, it's funny.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
I mean, again, I am no fan of Marjorie Taylor Green,
but it got me thinking about this idea of what
it means to have privilege and to use it to
help people. Because Marjorie Taylor Green has done a lot
of crazy shit, and really she's definitely bordering on anti
Semitism for her anti Israel stuff is not she's not
getting there the way we are.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Do you think she stepped over the border a few
times personally?

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, I mean, she's not getting to like her qualms
about Israel the way we are. But that said, I
do think that she did do this thing, which is
something that I think. She came from a wealthy family
and she has a lot of privilege, and so one
of the things you see here is that she's actually

(08:01):
using her privilege for the Epstein client. So, for example,
during that they're hearing these women said they don't want
to say the names because they don't want to get sued.
And Marjorie Taylor Green says, you know what, just give
me the list and I will go on the house
floor and say every name. And it's funny because it's
like it gives me. It makes me think of like

(08:21):
that's something I might do as someone who also grew
up with a lot of privilege, and it's something that
we all need to do. If we see ice trying
to pick up people in our neighborhood, we have this
opportunity because we have privilege to stand up for people,
to videotape these ICE people to make sure that we
stand up for our neighbors. That is absolutely the same

(08:44):
thing that we need to be doing.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
Agreed. But we need to backtrack to one thing. This
brain worm you might have. Have you eaten any roadkill
from the side of the road recently?

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Wait?

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah. John Fugel Sang is a host on Serious XM
and the author of Separation of Church and Hate, A
Sane Person's Guide to taking back the Bible from fundamentalists, fascists,
and flock fleecing frauds.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
John fugel Sang talk to me about this book.

Speaker 6 (09:16):
Thank you for having me. My book is called Separation
of Church and Hate, A sane Person's Guide to taking
back the Bible from fundamentalists, fascists, and flock fleecing frauds.
I am the child of an ex nun and an
ex Franciscan brother, and I wrote this book for anybody
of any religion, or any atheist or any agnostic, or
anybody who's ever going to have to deal with a

(09:37):
right wing Christian, nationalist or fundamentalist extremist in their family
and their job and their school, in their social media feed,
or in their government. And it's a guide to what
Christianity started out trying to be, what it turned into,
why it's still worth saving, and why if you're arguing
with a right wing Christian, even if you're an atheist,

(09:59):
chances are on most of the issues that divide us,
Jesus is on your side. The right wing doesn't know
the Bible, they don't read it, and they're counting on
you not reading it. So it's a helpful guide to
really kind of thump Bible thumpers with the Bible because
they're full of crap and all you need is a
few facts.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
So one of the things I have been really impressed
by whenever we talk, is that you really you know
a lot of stuff, but you really know a lot
about the Bible, and I want and you you know
and what's in it, and that is not most people don't,
even people who pretend to don't. I don't pretend to,
So it doesn't matter. But tell me a little bit

(10:39):
about your upbringing and clearly there was some Bible study
going on there.

Speaker 6 (10:43):
Oh well a little bit.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (10:45):
My mother grew up in the segregated South, and she
entered the Convents right out of high school. They put
her through nursing school and then sent her off to Malawi, Africa,
to work first with lepers and then in a hospital
in the jungle. But before they sent her to Africa,
they briefly assigned her to Holy Family Hospital in Brooklyn,

(11:05):
New York. My father was a Franciscan brother. He entered
the Brothers right out of high school. He wore the
brown robes and the rope belt and talked history to
Catholic boys, and I like to say he dressed like
the Lost Jedi of Flatbush. My father, the Brother, met
my mother the sister when he entered the hospital with
tuberculosis fell madly in love with the nurse caring for

(11:29):
him with a Southern accent that he knew he could
never have and had promised his God he would never want.
They became best friends. He was pentals while she was
in Africa and would send her long, innocent letters about
what was going on with civil rights and Vietnam. Eventually
she left, he talked her into going on a date.
Two months later. They were married on a little southern
Army base, and they tried to raise us on the

(11:51):
isle of long to be progressive, free thinking Catholics. Which
is why I do stand up, because I can't afford
the therapy I need. Like millions, I was raised in
this Christianity that was supposed to be about what the
Jewish carpenter talked about, love and service to others, servant leadership,
turning the other cheek, and the other teachings of Jesus,

(12:12):
like welcome the stranger. Individuals and nations have to take
care of the poor. Individuals and nation have to take
care of the sick, and be kind to prisoners, don't
execute people, pay your damn taxes. A whole bunch of stuff.
You don't see the right wing fighting to have printed
on a classroom or a courtroom wall. And like millions,
I grew up to find that this religion of peace
and empathy was seemingly hijacked by a mean, little, overwhelmingly white,

(12:39):
tax free click that was seeking to push their right
wing version of the Bible into every level of our society.
But it was a very narrow version that has nothing
to do with the teachings of Jesus. And as I
got older, I realized, my God, some of the best
Christians I know were Jesus, and some of the most
godless Heathens I know are loud Christians. And I got
really tired say my parents' religion used for hate as

(13:02):
a cloaking device. It's always been a history of the religion,
and I can go back two thousand years. How it's
always been the toxic Christians versus the people who follow
Jesus and their allies. But for our generation, it was
Jerry Fallwell, it was Pat Robertson, it was Jimmy Swagger.
It was abortion. When abortion was made the law of
the land in seventy three, the most controversial thing was
how not controversial it was the evangelicals didn't care that

(13:25):
was a Catholic thing. Jerry Folwell never mentioned abortion in
a sermon until five years after Roe v.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Wade.

Speaker 6 (13:32):
They hadn't realized they could weaponize it and market it
and get votes and money off of it. And now
for two generations, forty five years, we've seen in America
the systemic grooming of Christians to vote against everything Jesus
ever talked about, all to criminalize abortion, which Jesus never
talked about. It is the greatest racket in religion and

(13:53):
politics in our lifetime, and they pulled it off.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, it's totally interesting, and I wonder if you talk
about why, you sort of what the moment was that
you think that Christianity kind of lost the thread.

Speaker 6 (14:09):
I guess it would be probably when Saul became Paul
and his old friends were still killing all of Jesus's
Jewish friends, and Paul's version took over because all the
Apostles got bumped off. And then, but I mean, inn
in modern times, you know, I would It's always been there, right,
I mean, we had slavery which was propped up by Christianity,

(14:33):
and it was Jesus followers like Harriet Tubman and Frederick
Douglass and the Quakers who fought back slavery, I mean segregation.
One hundred years of apartheid was completely reinforced by Christianity,
and it was a Baptist preacher from Atlanta named King
and his many allies, not all of them were Christian,
many of whom were Jews and non believers, who pushed back.
I mean, we've seen how many of our peers have

(14:53):
talked their parents and grandparents out of so much homophobia
in the last twenty years, which really was a big
thing for me when I was in my early twenties.
I guess in my teens, I realized the death penalty
was bullshit and the death penalty was against everything Jesus
talked about. He literally overturns eye for an eye in
his first public gig. He commands you to forgive seven

(15:14):
times seven. He stops an execution and says only the
sinless can execute. I was eighteen, and I'm like, how
could you call yourself Christian? It get off on prisoners
being murdered by the government, But the gay issue was
really big for me. When I was old enough to
actually stop listening to priests and read the Bible and
realize that homophobia is an insult and a rejection of

(15:35):
everything the character of Jesus taught. Nobody follows Leviticus. They say,
shall not lie with a man like a man, that's
an abomination. Well, okay, but that's for the anything but
Jesus Christians. That's from the instructions God gave the Israelites
when they had gotten out of Egypt and were trying
to keep their numbers up in the desert for forty years.
God's like, no sex on your period, no incests, no
guys with guys. It's all about keep making babies. It's

(15:57):
not about be cruel to the gay kid or the
transcript class. Leviticus twenty ten commands us to stone adulterers
to death. I don't see too many Maga folks bringing
rocks to mar A Lago, so they can't really use it.
The character of Jesus commands them to treat gay people
the way they would treat him, and I go deep
in the book Molly about how Jesus I will argue

(16:18):
with pro gay He says in Matthew nineteen that gay
men are born that way, and the Roman centurion with
the sixth slave. When you look at the original Greek translation,
it wasn't a slave, it was his teen lover. They
weren't in Greek as pais beloved boy. When you look
at that story Ernest borgnine played in the movie, I
mean this occupying general, the Centurions are the ones who

(16:40):
killed Jesus says, please come to my house to heal
a common slave. When I was a kid, I was like,
why would a Roman general and the occupying four seek
out a local Jewish mystic faith healer to come to
his house and heal a common slave. When I got
older and I read, Oh, beloved boy, we know how
the Romans like to have fun and leave their wives
at home, it all made perfect sense. It shows why
the Apostles weren't really thrilled about all this, and it

(17:01):
shows again the whole thing about Jesus is you're not
allowed to ht anybody. You can't hate the leopard, the prostitute,
the despised farts like the Samaritans, not even the Romans
who are conquering us. You can't hate that. You can
resist it, but you can't hate him. And I don't
see any of this in modern American Christianity. On my
Serious X show every night, I have Maga friend's call,

(17:21):
and I always ask him, and you please tell me
one actual teaching of Jesus that Donald Trump, or the
Republican Party or the MAGA movement have fought for in
the last thirty years. And Molly, if you do this,
you'll find out how little these people know. This Bible
they wave around like a prop. The number one thing
they say is abortion. I point out, Bible's not against abortion.
In Exodus twenty one, God asserts a fetus's property and

(17:42):
a woman's life has more value. Then they'll say immigration.
I'm like, nope, God commands you to welcome the stranger.
Jesus says, we'll be judged by how we welcome the stranger.
These people are trying to use their version of the
Bible to completely rewire our government, and our economy and
our education system. And they haven't read the damn thing.
This as a guide for everybody to take their camouflage away.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
So let's talk this through for a second. You do
this serious show, you talk to a lot of people.
It's three hours of live radio every fucking night. Yeah,
a lot of time. As someone who has done three
hour chunks of things, it takes forever. You have a
lot of callers too. You talk to a lot of people,
you talk to a lot of politicians, you go to

(18:24):
a lot of places. So I'm wondering what your take
is right now because you are sort of on the
ground in a way that maybe I'm not. So what
are you seeing? Are you seeing Trump regret?

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (18:40):
No, doubling down? I mean, what are you seeing? What
with the people who call in? What are you hearing?

Speaker 6 (18:46):
The independents are having regret, The magas are it's a cult,
and they consume news that doesn't give them conflicting information.
I mean, I still ask these guys where was Barack
Obama born? And they don't know that Trump admitted in
September of twenty sixteen he was weren't here? They keep
them in a real bubble. We talked about this on
MSNBC the other night. One of the things that I've
begun thinking about and talking with conservatives and liberals about

(19:08):
on the air is the left keeps saying one of
the non millionaire is going to wake up? When's the
maga cult of these hard working men going to realize
that this guy's a fraud. I mean, in Germany they
had to see Berlin and rubble before they could accept
the furor had been a con man. But I've begun
to think it's we're looking at the wrong edge. It's
not about the working people. When are the oligarchs going
to be done with this guy? It's starting to see

(19:30):
like they are. They got their massive tax cut, they
got their deregulation, they can pollute all they want, they
got their crypto loophole. And look at how Murdoch is
cutting him loose. In the pages of the journal. He
publishes the Depstein birthday card. Trump sues him for twenty
two billion dollars and Murdoch laughs in his face and
publishes the next day that Pam Bondi said he was

(19:53):
in the Epstein files last May. I think the owners
of this country, our landlords, are done with this guy,
and it's it's like a Bond villain hitting a delete
asset button. They know that they can get the same
results with less embarrassment from JD. Vanser, one of the
Bush kids. So I'm actually looking at that angle for it.
But his health is poor. It has been poor all along.

(20:14):
What we're witnessing now is this really pathetic attempt at fascism.
That makes me so grateful that our fascists in this
century have been so shitty stupid.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's scary, shady, it's scary, but
they're bad at it. I mean, I think that the
thing that has really connected, at least right now is
this incredible incompetence, just unbelievable, spectacular and competence.

Speaker 6 (20:37):
And he hasn't got the popularity either. He's never cracked
fifty percent. All the media cheerleading about mandate, the majority
of people who showed up to vote three elections in
a row voted against him. And the folks who showed
up to vote in twenty two and eighteen with mister
Trump not on the ballot, those folks didn't show up
and they know what's happening, and that's where they're trying
to cheat. Fifteen months early in bloody Texas, they're trying

(20:58):
to sheat it just reeks of desperation. I mean, maybe
with the judge cutting down the tariffs, the irony of
that is that could say the GOP in the midterms.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, I don't know that.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
I mean, I think the registrict if something saves them,
it'll be the redistricting, which is.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
It will be cheating, but yeah, it is. I don't
know that.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
But I just wonder if they are going to be
able to even if, say the tariffs are knocked down
tomorrow the Supreme Courts is not constitutional, which is possible
because the tariff case is funded by the remaining Koch brothers.
So you could see a world where they are is
in the tank for that crew as they are for Trump.

(21:38):
But I don't think the prices go down, so I
don't know, so I think that will be a real problem.
I wonder if you could talk about, you know, it's
been so long that Trump has controlled the Republican Party
that they are now ideologically almost the complete opposite of
what they were correct twenty fifteen. I wonder what you say.

(22:00):
I think sort of how you think like what happens
after Trump?

Speaker 6 (22:05):
Yeah, I think it goes back to something like it
was before, but with a meaner, more divided party because
they're never going to have a guy with the riz
that Donald Trump had. They don't have anybody, anybody in
that party right now who has the charisma to get
folks who don't vote to show up to vote. There's
people who came down from the mountains in from the
woods and out from the swamps because mister Trump from

(22:25):
the TV was on the ballot.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
JD.

Speaker 6 (22:27):
Evans does not have that mojo, and my god, Pritzker
was I mean, Andy Basheer would body slam Jdvans. He's
going to be very, very fun, and mag's going to
hate him. The tech bros love him, but they'll turn
on him as well. So I don't know what's going
to happen with these Republicans. I mean, twenty years ago,
they hated us for warning them about Bush and Cheney.
Twenty years ago, they hated us for saying, hey, these

(22:47):
economic plans are really bad and the wars really stupid.
And then we were proven right about everything, and they
hated us even more. But the worst part of it
was Bush and Cheney went back to Texas to be
the national ghouls, and all their enforcers and winged monkeys
and henchmen stayed in the Congress. I mean, the people
who enabled trump Ism are going to still have jobs

(23:08):
when Trump is long gone. But you know, when we
were kids, people still defended Nixon. Remember their old guys
would be like, ah, Nixon wasn't bad, he just got caught. Yeah,
and you know, twenty years ago they were fiercely defending
Bush chaning they don't defend bush Cheney anymore. No nobody
defends Nixon anymore. In ten years, you'll see magas denying
they ever voted for this guy after sixteen.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
But part of why.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
They don't defend bush Cheney is because Donald Trump ran
against them.

Speaker 6 (23:33):
He gave him permission structure. Yes, he told them everything
we had told them, but when he said it, they
accepted it and believed it, and then they ated Bush.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
So right now Democrats have this popularity problem with the brand.
I sort of feel the way you feel about this,
Like I still think people will vote for them. I
still think this is much ado about nothing, But I wonder, like,
for example, a grand Platner from Maine, who I interviewed
and thought was very smart. He has done a lot

(24:01):
of you know, he knows he's in a very purple state.
He's very working class guy, or at least he's running
as that. And he talked about all his MAGA friends
and how you know, sort of the things they're disappointed with,
the things that they filed. Trump had promised them that
he hadn't delivered, and he is really talking sort of

(24:21):
running against corruption and not as a Democrat. We saw
this work in I mean work I think is a
relative term, but certainly saw some of this with Dan
Osborne and Nebraska. Because he didn't win, so it didn't work,
but he did, you know, he sort of ran as
anti establishment. Trump won on that even though it wasn't

(24:44):
it was bullshit. Do you think there's a lane for that?
Do you think it alienates traditional Democrats?

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Do you think?

Speaker 6 (24:50):
I mean no, I think Democrats are going to have
to be a big ten no matter what I mean.
There's so much diversity in that party, from anti abortion
rights Texans to fucking Rastafarians. You don't need a second party.
You have so much ideological diversity within the Democrats. And
again I don't really care about the popularity because Congress's
popularity is not great. Trump's popularity is not great. But

(25:12):
on the issues, on the issues, the majority of us
overwhelmingly support taxing the wealthy at a higher rate. We
still tax married couples who make four fifty k a
year the same rate as an individual. It makes a billion.
You know, people support taxing the point zero one percent
differently than the one percent paid family leaf good God,

(25:33):
when is one of these two parties going to pick
up this issue that everybody wants. Medicare covering vision, hearing
in dental, decriminalizing weed, not putting women in jail, not
having the government for citizens to be pregnant against their will.
These are all really popular policies. They're really popular with
young people. You know, we'll see if the Democrats can
make it about policy or if they're going to still

(25:54):
refuse to endorse the overwhelming winner of their own mayoral
primality and mayor primary in New York. I don't know
they know how to drop the ball, but on the
issues they can do it because the majority of independence
and Liberals and a lot of Republicans are on their side,
and they're not going to have a cult anymore. Donald
Trump can't run in twenty twenty six. He's not going
to be as big a factor. He may be finally

(26:16):
the toxic thing he should be. But to your point
about these law and order Republicans, I just want to
mention every single one of them believes that beating cops
for a lie is acceptable, and I don't know why
Democrats are afraid to say that.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, And I mean I think the framing that this
is about crime. It's clearly that he realizes he can't
run on the economy.

Speaker 6 (26:38):
He stole from fucking Vets with his fraud online university.
Marco Rubio is the only person to ever call him
out for that. In the Senate, Democrats don't want to
touch it, you know. I mean, you've got a criminal
right there, You've got thirty four felony convictions, You've got
it all on tape. You've got to grab them by
the pussy. These Democrats are springing spreadsheets to a knife fight.
And we've talked about this, Molly. The ones who are
willing to take a punch, the ones who are willing

(27:00):
to put their body in the movement, the ones who
are going to go there and give a fight. They're
the ones who are going to lead in the fundraising.
And if that's what matters the most, is the fund raising,
I mean, you're going to see it. That's going to
help what newsome learning to read the room after those
disastrous podcasts.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah he did.

Speaker 6 (27:16):
That's the way it's going to go.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Why do you think Jeffries is having such a hard time.

Speaker 6 (27:20):
I think it's a good question. I think he's seen
his wishy washy, and that's the worst thing Democrats can have.
Bill Clinton famously said Americans would rather vote for someone
strong and wrong than weak and right. And I like
Jeffries a lot as a writer of poetry. I think
he's very clever, he's very compassionate. But we got to
see the fight, you know, and when the whole party

(27:42):
is seen, is wishy washy over mom, Donnie. Republicans smell that,
you know, take a sigh, and even if they don't
agree with you, they'll respect you for sticking to your guns,
especially when you're trying to get young people and men
to come over to the party. Look what's going out
of the New York and how they're blowing it off.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Why do you think they don't want to endorse, you
know why because they're terrified of how racist they think
this country is.

Speaker 6 (28:04):
And the reality is. And I said this on CNN
a couple of weeks ago, But if you look at
his policies, bringing it back to my books, Zorah and
Mondani's policies of expanded housing and food for the hungry
and care for mothers with children, it is so much
closer to the teachings of Christ than all these so
called Christians smearing the man for being Muslim. And if
Democrats could take that message and just punch back on

(28:25):
it and say, e plurbasunem bitches, we're all here. I mean, yeah,
they'd lose some voters, but they gained the respect of
other people and nobody would call them wishy washy or
week they want to see fighters. Pritzker gets it, and
I pray that leader Jeffries gets it because I think
he could have a great career.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
I don't know, we'll see John. Thank you for joining us, Molly,
you're the best.

Speaker 6 (28:45):
It's a pleasure to be on your show, and thanks
for inspiring me so much.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Nicki McCann Ramirez is a reporter at Rolling Stone.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Welcome to Fastpolity. It's Nikki.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Oh my god, thank you so much for having me
again her on weekend television together.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
It was great.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
I was a fill in host for a woman who's
own attorney leave and I was like, Nikki is so
great and she can talk about anything.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Let's just talk to her about stuff. I love talking
to you every time we chat. It's a good time. First,
I think we should talk about Epstein. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
I am still like somewhat surprised by that press conference
where Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey. Thomas Massey, I
understand his psychology because he's like a real Freedom Caucus guy, right,
He's a guy who doesn't give a fuck.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Like the Freedoms.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Guys pretend to not give a fuck, but at the
end of the day, they absolutely just want Trump to
love them. But like Tomas Massey, he doesn't care. Like
he's just out there. He's a kid who no one
sits with at lunch. You know, he doesn't want you
to sit with him at lunch. He doesn't care.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
But Marjorie Taylor Green, like what is happening?

Speaker 5 (29:53):
So I think one of the things that I try
to tell people when I talk about the Epstein situation
and why it's because so fraught for Republicans is because,
to me, obviously a crime was committed, convictions have taken place,
But the Epstein case is also the closest sort of
like polite societies, like the universe, that is grounded in

(30:14):
actual reality and like facts on the ground, legitimate events
can get to QAnon in the sense that very early
on in the Trump era, obviously the MAGA movement the
Republican Party built up this like massive mythology around Tromp
as this like anti pedophile warrior of the right who
was going to come in and like purge the deep

(30:34):
state of these gross pedophilic, child obsessed criminals who are
running the government.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
And QAnon was.

Speaker 5 (30:43):
Conspiratorial and weird and you know, adjacent to things like
Pizza Gate and was.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Not grounded in reality.

Speaker 5 (30:49):
But the Epstein case, which I think you know, the
federal one at least six years out now, it's easy
to forget that that took place during the first Trump term,
and that that case very much was sort of the
real world embodiment of a lot of the fears that
sort of grounded QAnon and conspiracies like the like at
this idea that like powerful men and politicians and you know,

(31:12):
royals can do heinous things and get away with it,
and that the idea that like Epstein and death kind
of got away with it.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
That is still the debacle we're dealing with.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
And the reason people like Marjory Taylor Green are coming
into the role on this almost like in a weird way,
allying with Democrats and survivors on this issue is again,
we have to remember Marjorie Taylor Green was a conspiracy theorist.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Jewish space lasers and QAnon.

Speaker 5 (31:41):
Yeah, when she first came into Congress, she was one
of the fringiest I think what she was elected in
twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. When she came in, she was
on the list of like the most insane MAGA candidates,
the fringiest candidates, the most extreme. She was completely out
of pocket. And now people like Marjorie Green have become
mainstream Republicans, but to the extent that there are people

(32:05):
who were motivated by sort of core beliefs like the
foundational almost like theological, deified principles of the MAGA movement,
of Trump being sort of this like messianic transformational figure
who would really transform politics away from you know, the
qwanon the QAnon conspiracies.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Green was one of those true believers.

Speaker 5 (32:26):
And I think there is still within Republicans this tug
of war of like, Okay, how much do I hate
the Democrats and how much is what the Trump administration
is doing sort of like running counter to the principles
that even got me involved in politics, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah, as much as any of this makes sense, But
I also think the reason that this Jeffrey Epstein's story
continues to so connect with the base is because it
really is a product of this idea that the system
is rigged against you. Yeah, one percent, and Trump ran
for president on the idea that the system was rigged.

(33:02):
And that's what this is, right, This is like which
people getting away with it?

Speaker 5 (33:07):
Yeah? And I think then the problem Republicans and Democrats
also to a very similar extent running too is like
which rich people are allowed to get away with it?
I think we talked about it when we were talking
about like Alex Costa over the weekend, and the fact
that the first people that Republicans in Congress subpoenad to
talk about this case in the Oversight Committee were the
Clintons and fucking James Comy, right.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Which, by the way, again, if Bill Clinton is in
those files like a lot of past Yeah, Like I
like Hillary, She's very nice, but you know, like people,
if they did crimes, they should go to fucking jail.
And I have no love for James Coby, like honestly
that fucking guy, Like I'd be delighted if they locked

(33:49):
him up.

Speaker 5 (33:50):
Yeah, But also just like like I also do not
have any love for James Comy, But what does James
Comy have to do with the Epstein case?

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Nothing but nothing.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
I do think what is interesting about is James Commy's
daughter has quite a lot to do with the Epstein case,
but she got fired as opposed to like she would
be someone I would like to hear testify Maureen Komy
because she worked on it. The other thing that and
that's like the obfuscation is so blinding. You know, they
release all these documents and the Ebstein influencers Phase one

(34:22):
in their binders, it's the same material. But the other
thing that I think is so incredible about the story
is you had all these people who were going to
sign on to the discharge position and they used this
material that they already had seen as an excuse not to.

Speaker 5 (34:39):
Yeah, and I think, well the survivors talked about in
a bit today during the press conference. It's just you
have all of this material that even they haven't seen,
Like there's stuff in these files that survivors say, this
could help me with my case, it could help me
get closer, Like documents that were seized from like Epstein's residences,
at Epstein's Ela, they say like the US government has

(35:02):
all this information that could help me plug the holes
in my own story actually make the case against the
people who abuse me, who are like still alive and
out there. And instead of actually reaching out to the
survivors and talking to them and figuring out like what
they're comfortable releasing, how they're comfortable handling these documents, and
where they would like things to go, what they would

(35:23):
like to see happen, the administration is once again turning
it into a political side show. And I do think
we have to differentiate a little bit here between sort
of like the actions of the White House the actions
of Congressional Republicans and so the sort of like, oh,
we're gonna call in people for subpoenas, we're going to
make people like sit down and testify, and then the
people like Massy and Green who are weirdly enough doing

(35:46):
that survivor outreach and actually trying to like bring them
into the fold.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
And I think it's important just for a minute to
go through the Oversight Committee. So the chairs of the
Oversight Committee, James Comer is the Republican chair, and then
the ranking member is Robert Garcia. Now I want to
just do a minute on oversight. It used to be
the AOC wanted to be of the ranking on oversight.
The Democratic leadership said, no, We're going to make Jerry

(36:12):
Connolly the ranking on oversight because he's a fighter. He
died of throw cancer, which he was being treated for
during the time in one of the many, many embarrassing
moments in Democratic leadership, and many other octogenarians ran for it,
but Robert Garcia got it. Robert Garcia is like in
his thirties or forties, and he has really done a

(36:34):
good job in fat And I want and we talked
about this this weekend, but I want to just note
it again the fact that we saw again Jasmine Crockett
say this is because of Robert Garcia and not necessarily
because of Hakeem.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
She didn't quite say.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
That, but it seems very clear to me that this
is being dealt with quite well by Garcia, and that
he is a usual and leadership in a way that
I think is Worth's noted.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
And I think despite this.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
Being like and I hate reducing this down to politics
because like as you and I.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
Have talked about, hugely political, I mean this, it's hugely
Guys in this case.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Are probably being driven on politics.

Speaker 5 (37:18):
Okay, so like the central people here should be the
survivors and the victims who are and they're after and
they're not. But this is in this second Trump administration,
one of the rare instances where Republicans, the Republican Party,
the White House are very clearly on the back foot
and do not know how to manage this crisis.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
And it hasn't been the Democratic leadership.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
You're hockey, Jeffrey's your truck, Schumer's who are really leading
the messaging sort of war to keep this in the
press at attention. It's been people like Rocana, people like Garcia,
It's like Jasmine Crockett. And it's incredibly frustrating as someone
who writes and covers the to feel like the in

(38:01):
there for Democrats is so easy, and we're still seeing
leadership drop the ball just unbelievably.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Yeah, and I'm glad the press conference happened.

Speaker 5 (38:10):
I think it was probably, in my view, like a
month a month and a half too late. I think
that press conference should have probably happened for Max. I
think it will have an impact, but for maximum impact
before Republicans just cut the spring session short and left
further summer recess a week ahead of time to try
and get this to blow over, which obviously it hasn't.
But I think if Democrats were a little more on

(38:30):
the ball, all they would have pulled in the survivors
before you know, Todd Blanche went to talk to Glaine Maxwell, right.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Right, No, no, and the bad that Todd Blanche. I mean,
I think it's worth realizing Todd Blanche going to talk
to Glaine Maxwell, Glaine Maxwell then being moved to a cushier,
less secure prison camp.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
The thing I want.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
To talk about with this case is that it still
seems like even though the White House figured out that
if they just sent I mean, this is amazing, if
they just made Mike Johnson send everyone home, then it
would go away. A month and a half later, it
has not gone away, and they have no plan.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
As far as I can tell, to deal with that.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
In what end of July when they left for the
August recess, if you would have told the administration, hey,
like Pambondi, Cash Battel, and Alex Costa are all being well,
not Alex Cossack.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
You've all did it voluntarily.

Speaker 5 (39:25):
But you know, Cashpatel and Panbondi are being suboenaed or
like called to testify before oversight.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
We're releasing all these documents.

Speaker 5 (39:30):
Hey, members of your own party and Democrats are hosting
a joint press conference with survivors on the steps of
the Capitol. One of your biggest allies, Marjorie Taylor Green,
will be there and she will be speaking. Nancy Vace,
who I consider, you know, a performative, white man, performative
on the worst thing. Yeah, white bag of performative in
that way that I don't ever find her sincere you know,
leaving the meeting with survivors saying she had like a

(39:51):
panic attack, hysterical.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
The administration I think would.

Speaker 5 (39:54):
Have probably called it fake news and like revoked your
press pass to the briefing. This is, in my view,
a repetition of the exact mistakes that were made by
alex Acosta in the two thousand and nine case by
the White House, where instead of centering the victims hearing
what they have to say. Because, like I said, so

(40:15):
much of the conversation around the Epstein case is driven
by this like maga belief that Donald Trump is the
hero of the story, that he's supposed to be the
hero of the story, that goes after these people and
the White House.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
All they really.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
Need to do to make this go away is sit
down with the victims and the survivors and say like, Okay,
this is what we have.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
What are you comfortable releasing? How do we pursue this?

Speaker 5 (40:38):
The DOJ was talking this up for months, but the
problem is that they do not feel that they can
risk doing that without exposing Trump himself. So instead they're
trying to find a work around where they can sort
of min max the fuck you they can give to
Democrats out of this with like while at the same
time providing the least pause exposure to Trump, which is

(41:01):
not possible. And that's exactly kind of like what alex
Acosta did when he gave Epstein the sweetheart deal in
two thousand and nine. It's like he's blamed everyone, and
I think if you go to the core of why
this case got so messed up, you have to start
with Alex Cossa. But he, I think in twenty nineteen,
said that the reason he made that deal was because
you needed to send Epstein to prison, Like you just

(41:22):
needed to get him into prison, and it didn't really
matter how you got there.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
He just needed to be put behind bars.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
But what he ended up doing was just sending him
to like a one year's summer worker leads program where
he got to do whatever.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
He wanted, where he then raped other women. Yeah, and
then went back to reoffending.

Speaker 5 (41:40):
And that's sort of exactly what the administration is doing
right now. While sort of playing foot seat with Gallaine
Maxwell like, oh, we'll interview you about Trump and you'll
say all the things you like about him, and you
might perjure yourself again, but that'll get us off the hook.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
That's not how this works. It's just an incredibly stupid moment.
And I think that why I wanted to talk about
this a little more is it does speak to the
problem this administration has with be incompetent. So we've seen
over the last seven months. I actually read an opinion
piece in the New York Times today about how like
Trump had wrecked all of the federal government and now

(42:15):
here was time to see if he could build back better.
And it's like wrecking things is really easy, like even
Elon can do it. But like with so many things
that we're seeing now, it's like, will they be able
to build something? And the answer is, I think pretty clear. Now,
just like with this, I have.

Speaker 5 (42:36):
An interview coming out next week with Mike Duncan, the
podcaster of Like History of Rome and the Revolutions podcast.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Love him, great dude. The interview's about a lot of things, but.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
At one point he's talked about this before his like
great Idiot theory of history, which is sort of the
opposite of the great man theory of history, that it's
not just like, you know, the men who build things,
it's the idiots who come in and just take a
wrecking ball of shit. And it's exactly what you're saying.
It is much easier to destroy things than it is
to build them. And if you just look at Trump's cabinet,

(43:07):
look at the people who are in charge of these administrations,
these are not people who are accomplished in a like
governmental policy sense. There are people who are accomplished in
a I was on Fox News.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
A lot sense, right.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
As someone who has hosted weekend television, now, I can
tell you I am not not ready to lead the
dd Oh not not you me either, not yet. But
I do think that is a good point. So now
there are going to be hearings. Now, there's going to
be you know, I talk to the office of one

(43:40):
of the Democrats involved in this today and they told
me that they think they're going to have the boats.
So now this discharge petition will go to the Senate, right,
I mean, this is where this goes and then the president,
and I mean at some point somebody is going to
take the blame for not releasing these documents.

Speaker 5 (44:01):
So I think the thing we need to remember here is,
regardless of what happens with this discharged petition, which I
have also heard, they're like two votes awaited from getting
it passed, it is correct when they say you cannot
unseal a lot of these documents without the approval of
like a judge, which is a completely separate process.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
So where I think all.

Speaker 5 (44:18):
This goes back to is fundamentally, like the person who's
going to end up with the hot potato is going
to be the Trump administration and the DJ because Congress,
at the end of the day, can.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Only do so much.

Speaker 5 (44:28):
They can maybe unredact some stuff, they can maybe make
some stuff public, the real goods that victims and survivors
are asking to see cannot be provided to them unless
their risk cooperation from both like Congress, the Department of justice,
and you know a.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Judge who if they come in.

Speaker 5 (44:45):
And say, we would like this stuff unsealed, agrees to
do so if the Trump administration was able to use
its head and ally itself with this cohort of survivors,
alli its help, with the coalition of people who is saying,
we would like to get to the pottom of this
and actually work on providing all those like levers of
power that the Justice Department has which they are currently

(45:06):
using to like persecure Trump's political enemies rather than do actual,
like productive stuff.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
For the American people.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
If they gave that to the survivors, that would advance
the situation significantly.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
I don't think they're going to do that.

Speaker 5 (45:16):
So at the end of the day, what you're going
to get is survivors were once again saying, hey, the
Trump administration made all these public promises about how they
were going to be transparent about the Epstein files, about
how they were going to like bring justice to us,
and they once again dropped the ball. Because to be clear,
this is the second time we are doing this.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
Right and again this is like one of these things
where it fractures the base, it fractures Trump's space the
base that Donald Trump needs, the die hards, the people
who will not leave him those people. The other thing
I want to talk about for a minute is Robert
Mahler because in that subpoenal list was Robert Mahler, and

(45:57):
this caused Robert Mahler's children to come forward and say
that Robert Mueller has Parkinson's. Perhaps not the way we
wanted to learn about Robert Mahler, who was responsible for
huge investigation, which I mean, I just think that is
something worth thinking about for a minute.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
In relation to Epstein.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
What were just I mean, like, there was no transparency
about Moller, and now we get transparency because he gets
subpoenaed in the Epstein stuff.

Speaker 5 (46:25):
Yeah, and I think that that again is a tactic
Republicans have been using for a very long time now.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Like I look at the list of people they.

Speaker 5 (46:34):
Subpoenaed, and my just gut reaction when I first saw
it was these are not serious people who are interested
in doing a serious investigation.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Robert Mueller, you put him on that.

Speaker 5 (46:44):
I'm trying to think what Mueller, if anything had to
do with the Epstein cares yesh.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Thing not I mean Mahller, you know, it's they put, well,
he was the head of the FBI, I guess, but
the point I mean, they're just it's just insane.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
No, it's because Trump is mad at Maler. Well, of
course he's mad at him.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
But if you kind of rewind back to that one
press conference in the Oval Office where he was complaining
about like, why are we still talking about Epstein? I
think from him saying why are we talking about Epstein,
that he jumped into his usual list of complaints, and
what the immediate thing he jumped through was, oh, why
do we care about Epstein? There's all these worse things
that have happened, like the Texas floods, whatever else was

(47:21):
happening on and then the Mueller investigation into me, and again,
the White House for more than like almost two months
now at this point, has just been consistently trying to
pivot this Epstein debacle into how is Trump the victim?

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (47:37):
The Obamas were like targeting him, Oh, the Miller investigation,
Oh no, no, no, we have this new information on the
Clintons and it just hasn't worked. But what that's a
penalist indicated to me is just a reaffirmation that Congress
is still taking it it's marching orders from the priorities
of the Trump administration. And the priority isn't the Epstein case.
It's revenge on the people. The president is mad at Nikki.

(47:59):
I hope you'll come back, Oh anytime.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
No moment sickly.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
Jesse Cannon Molly So, a friend of the show sent
me this article, and I gotta say, this might be
the most disturbing moment of uckery I've seen in a minute.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
You remember our old friend Klelia Mitchell.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Ah, Cleida Mitchell. Who could forget Kleida Mitchell.

Speaker 4 (48:24):
You know you don't want to see her name next
to the words election integrity post at the US Department
of Homeland Security, But yet she's getting that. You remind
the listeners of Kleida Mitchell's presence.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Kleida Mitchell not to be confused with Kleitas. No, the
scariest worst people are in this administration.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
You're welcome, Yeah, But particularly what I'm worried about is
these two people are severe election deniers who do not
live in reality and.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
Will do insane, insane things to fix elections.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Yes, correct, that's not good. It's all bad. I think
we should all agree. It's all very very very bad.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
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.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Thanks for listening.