May 15, 2025 • 47 mins
Puck News’ John Heilemann examines whether there was a cover-up of Biden’s age during the 2024 campaign. Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin details how we push back against Trump’s many oversteps.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and Democrats have staged a historic upset
in Omaha, Nebraska. We have such a great show for
you today. Pawkin News is John Heilman cuts through the
noise with a discussion about what happened in the twenty
(00:23):
twenty four campaign and whether or not Biden's age was obfiscated.
Then we'll talk to Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin about how
we push back on Trump's many, many oversteps. But first
the news.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Somali the Katari plane, the scandal is not landing at all.
Trump blew his lid today in discussions about it, and
he did a whole lot of talking about the Middle
East today. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Look, I think this plain thing is really a good
example of corruption that first of all, it cuts through
the noise. Right, You've seen Trump do other corrupt things
like the Trump coin and all of the sort of
family real estate dealings, but this is something different. It's
a very clear bit of corruption, right, Like we've never
(01:15):
had a president and try to take a plane from
a Middle Eastern royal family before, Like, it's just so
beyond the pale of normal stuff that I do think
it's a standout. And if Trump were smart, he would
just drop it. He would just say, who cares a wait,
(01:37):
I'll get the plane from Boeing. I'm the president. Data
da da. But because Trump is Trump, and maybe this
is how he got here a little bit. Because Trump
is Trump, he cannot thread the needle on this. He
cannot let it go. So he just thinks that if
he keeps going with this, he's going to get this plane.
(01:58):
But it is There's nobody in the world, I mean,
even the biggest Trumper, even the bots on Twitter who
are saying, well, the Americans got the Statue of Liberty,
even those people know for sure understand that this is
not fucking right, that this is completely crazy. So we're
(02:19):
three days into this story or four days into the story.
So this is a bad story for Trump, right, the
fact that it keeps going and every time he he says, well,
they are just being nice. It's smart to take the plane.
And this is my really my theory in life, when
you're defending yourself, you're losing. When you're trying to make
(02:40):
the case that a Middle Eastern royal family should give
you a plane. Okay, and everyone in the world, including
Republican senators, are bursting into laughter. You're losing, so just
give up on the fucking plane. You're not getting the plane.
Every day you do it, you look like an asshole.
(03:01):
Like give it up, man, You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So today there is a disastrous hearing with Christino, who
many people have disastrous for her. For her, she looks
pretty pretty bad in this. Many people have talked about
how she's just the spokesperson for all these horrible, horrible
things I is doing. And well, I'm gonna let the
tape speak for itself.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Thank you, Madame Secretary. You have an important job. I
think you have one of the most important jobs in
the cabinet. Thank you for doing it. I want you
to have credibility and be taken seriously as you do
the job. And so I want to put to rest
this question about mister Garcia. In this photo that the
President posted on April twenty one, Madame Secretary, you agree
(03:48):
that the letters MS and the number thirteen in Times
Roman numeral font that they are doctored on this photo.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Right, Congressman Brego Garcia. No, no, I'm just it wasn't
based off of tattoos.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
It was off an.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Entire and accept I'll accept that for the purpose of
this question.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
You agree though, that this is doctor, Is that right?
Speaker 4 (04:12):
The same protocols that are scary.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
I want you to have credibility, and I want you
to be taken seriously. Is this doctored or is it not?
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I'm taken quite seriously.
Speaker 6 (04:21):
Is it doctored or not? Doctor?
Speaker 4 (04:22):
The importance that the President has given me.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
To I understand is it doctored or nothing.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
That's important to remember is that every single time a
case is.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Built, we stopped at about minute one oh five. That
goes on for two and a half minutes.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Of course, by the way, I love that's Eric swall
while questioning her and I want you to have credibility.
First of all, I'm not convinced Eric wants her to
have credibility. But that is neither here nor there. No,
I mean, that was just an incredible bit. Christy Nome
is one of the inheritors of trump Ism, so she's
(04:55):
what's in the pike when Trump's term is over. So
that's something, well.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Let's put some more color on it. I think Congressman
Robert Garcia did some amazing work here.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
Would you commit to just letting his mother know, as
a mother to mother, if Andrey is alive. He was
given an asylum appointment by the United States government. We
gave him an appointment. We said Andrey come to the
border at this time to claim asylum. He was taken
to a foreign prison in El Salvador. His mother just
wants to know if he is alive. Can we check
and do a wellness.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Our asylum applications are different than the granting of asylum,
and I don't know the specifics of this individual case.
This individual is an El Salvador and the appeal would
be best made to the President and to the government
of El Salvador on this. We've made that under my
jurisdiction at METEM.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
Secretary, you have said that you that in Ol Salvador
is one of the tools in the toolbox that you have.
You have said that and has been quoted as saying
that you and the President have the ability to check
if Andrew is alive and if not being harmed. Would
you commit at least into looking and asking of Salvador
if he is alive.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
This is a question that's best ask to the resident
and the government of l Salvador.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
And I think it's I think you know very well
that you could ask that question, but you're choosing to
do medical secretary is disregard this young man's life, this
young man's family who was given an appointment by the
United States. I think it is shameful that you won't
even request to see if this young man is alive.
His family has no idea, has no access to lawyers.
I would hope that we would have that humanity, the
(06:23):
humanity to just check if this young man is okay.
With that, I yep back, it's shameful.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The problem that these people have is that you can't
ever go against Trump. So if something is photoshopped and
everyone knows it's photoshopped, but Trump says it's not photoshopped,
you have to say it's not photoshopped, so right, I mean,
that's what it is. You can't she can't be like
just like the people in the hearings where they would say,
(06:50):
you know, they'd ask questions like, well, will you do
what the president tells you or will you follow the law,
And then they say, I can't deal with theoreticals, because
what they mean to say is we're going to do
what the president tells us to and we don't give
a shit about the law. So that's where we are here.
That's the way in which these people are painted themselves
into corners they cannot get out of.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Sob The New York Times has this blockbuster report that
Stephen Miller is running the DOJ and Pam Bondy is
just a figurehead that she is like an actor. And
when I think of headlines, I don't want to see.
That's very high up in the echelon of ones I
would not like to see.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Okay, So today I've had this conversation with six different people,
like what is scarier Trump at the rains or Trump
slightly diminished and Stephen Miller at the rains? And yes,
there is a lot of reasons to fear a Stephen
Miller presidency. But just like one Marco Rubio, the guy
has fifty seven jobs. Okay, Stephen Miller is running the administration,
(07:55):
He's running this, he's running that he's running the DOJ.
For sure, I'm sure that's true. That Pam Bondi is
just to pick your head. I'm sure you know if
that's the reporting, I think that's probably right. But I
do think that this guy can't do It's just one person, right,
unless they have really sophisticated AI. There's only so much
(08:17):
damage one person could do. Now, Canny do a lot
of damage, yes, but it is only one person.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, it's just one person with really, really really bad morals.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, well no, I me and I think we can
all agree that this is not the person that any
of us want in charge. But that said, it is
only one person. John Heilman is an NBC National News
correspondent as well as a Puck News partner. Welcome, Welcome, John.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
Hi, how are you?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Oh, I'm just living the dream.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
You don't seem like super energetic this morning, Molly, What's
what's going on?
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I'm energetic. I went to a party last night. I'm energetic.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Or was the party?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Was it the high Line?
Speaker 5 (09:01):
It was good.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
American life grinds on despite the fact that our political
system is in what is what do you think the
what would you say this sort of word is for
this moment in American politics?
Speaker 6 (09:14):
Surreal? I mean just sort of terror, incognita if you
want to be like Latin, this has been true in
both Trump terms. This movie, it's not different, but it's
just like there's just so many things for which there
is no precedent, and I'm like tediously. It's not like
I'm some like, you know, some great historical scholar or something,
but just like I'm always like looking for some precedent,
(09:35):
like how do how do we evaluate this thing? Well,
this has happened before, and this is how it kind
of came out, so there's a guide to this, or
this has happened a lot before, or well it has
happened very often, but there have been times when this
has happened or something like this has happened. But you know,
that's just constantly. Every day, there's like five things that
there's no metric or artstick where you're kind of like, well,
here's how we could we can get some general sense
(09:57):
a how this might unfold on the basis of this
thing that happen in nineteen sixty four. It's like just
like I don't know, I mean, what do you think
is gonna happen? John fucking Idea?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Well there is, But it does feel like with trump Ism,
there's always this sort of feeling that maybe someone will
do something right like the Republicans, there's sort of a
wish and I mean that ship is I.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
Don't have that. I don't have that feeling at all.
I gave up on that feeling a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So we talk about the guard rails. We talk about
sort of I mean, their courts continue to say, hey,
you can't do that.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Yeah, the courts. The courts stopped the court the courts
routinely regularly. Thank God for that branch of government, because
the other one's totally suphine, meaning the legislative branch. Yeah.
Uh so the courts continue to operate. That is a
thing for which there is precedent. The courts, you know,
I continue to act like the courts mostly, and they
keep Trump from doing various things that he wants to do.
(10:54):
And I guess I here's here's the thing that's worth
thinking about. I guess in this text. And maybe you
have an insight on this that I because I've just
started thinking about it. It's like, if you look at
what what has happened just in the last few days
around the big beautiful bill. You know, there's these things
(11:15):
that Trump, you know, campaigned on, right, you know, no
taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
You know, he recently, as you know, last week, came
out and said, having kind of been towing and throwing
about it for a while, finally came out and said
to Mike Johnson, let's raise taxes on the rich. I mean,
he set that he set the limit really high at
two and a half million, but he said he'd be
open to, he'd be He wants that, not just the
he'd be able to. He wants that. That's not going
to happen. And nor nor are a lot of things
(11:44):
that he campaigned on, you know, pretty vocally, like no
tax on tips and you know, his unfeasible. It's not
like but it's not like the it's not like the
Republicans are standing up and saying, you know, getting in
his face about it. They're just not going to do that.
You know, it's the thing he wanted. They're not going
to do it. He's you know, he capitulated on on
(12:09):
the US Attorney for uh, the District of Columbia. You know,
Tom Tillis said, no, I'm not gonna this, this is
fucking nuts, and Trump was like, all right, no. He
put in Jeanine Perrot, you know, how long that will last,
who knows. But it's like there's things where he's kind
(12:31):
of giving up on things, you know, rather than stomping
his feet and saying I must have this, I must
have that, there's more things that he's willing to kind
of like when somebody says no to him, he kind
of goes all right. The interesting question is like what's
going to happen with the with the plane and just
all of the obvious corruption, right, because there's more Republicans
speaking out about that than I've heard speak out about
almost anything.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Cynthia Cynthia Loomis burst into hysterical laughter when she heard
about it.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Yes, I mean, you know, Laura Lumer is attacking him,
Ted Cruz, Ben Shapiro, all these people are now taking
are Like I said, what this is like? You can't
take this plane from from Cutter. That's crazy. And you
know what happens now? And here's the interesting the thing
that ties the two things together for me. Do you
think that Trump being willing to kind of give up
(13:22):
on shit he doesn't really care about that much, like,
you know, does he really care about like raising text
on the wealthy? You know, if Trump were really running
for a third term, like really thought he was gonna
that he had a political future. I think he might
not take the plane from Cutter, you know, because the
corruption of his really so naked, that is, it's a
(13:42):
political If Trump were really running for a third term,
he might want to like really press for raising taxes
on the rich, because that's like a good band and
esque like populist economics. I wonder whether we're starting at
like and both that his behavior and the fact that
Republicans are starting to either just kind of ignore him
on certain things or openly criticize him, like on the plane,
(14:05):
whether what's sinking in with people. And I say this
as someone who's thought for a long time Trump was
going to stay in the White House until he was
dead or taken out either either leave the ovalops with
a toe tag or an handcuffs. Those are the only
ways you're going to get him out. I wonder whether
it's starting to have like on both sides, people are
kind of going, yeah, you know what, two term, Like
(14:26):
I'm gonna we got another four years to get to
do whatever the fuck I want. But I'm not gonna
try to press it here and try to stick around
for a third I wonder I'm right.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I mean, it is the real open question, right is
how much energy does he have for the authoritarianism he
is very delighted and curious by.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
And that's the question, and whether he and whether he thinks, yes,
that's certainly right. And I don't mean to suggest at
all that the authoritarian threat is receded, but just that
on certain things he just seems more exhausted, you know,
than than he has in the path. He just sort
of seems kind of like, you know, the answers to
(15:11):
some of these questions, you know, than these interviews he's
done recently. He has just seemed so flaccid to me,
like he's kind of like Steve Miller, still out there
talking about repeal it, taking back, about getting rid of
Habeas corpus and that's super dangerous. And but I just
there are times when you look at Trump and you
kind of go, he looks like he's just like a
little like he's a little like kind of had it,
(15:32):
you know, He's Okay. I'm just like, I just don't
have that much energy anymore. Let's just get on, like money,
give me the money, let me build it, let me
build the giant hotel and cutter and let my family
get really rich. You can't prosecute me because I got immunity.
It's just like, you know, let me give me, give
me as much shit as I can get a hold
of in the next four years, and I'll like go off,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
And and my man is in his late seventies. I mean,
this is not a young guy.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
Yes, and a lot of mileage on those tires too, moy.
I mean, you know, if you if you get to
be that age, I don't care what kind of genetics
you have, you get to be that age and you've
only eaten like Big Max and not done any exercise
other than what he would pass us for him playing
around the golf, right, you know that body is not
cannot be like in the I don't care what doctor says.
That body cannot be in the best shape well.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
And also he doesn't sleep. I mean, the guy looks
a very frenetic, high stress life. So there's a book
that's coming out that says that basically there was a
cover up about Biden's age. I have yet to see
anything that threads a needle for cover up. It just
seems like that, you know, if I could you know,
it all seems like people were you know, the things
(16:39):
people do when other people are in power or they
want them to stay in power. It doesn't seem in
my mind like there's if only Democrats were organized enough
for a cover up, is my hot take.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
But I'm curious.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
You're talking about Tapa Thompson.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
The Taper Thompson book.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
Yeah, so I've read it. I haven't. I haven't. I'm
going to interview those guys on my podcast and as
I'm sure you are, and others or are they're going
to publicize the book like crazy, I'm eager to read it.
Those are two serious people with who are good reports
and or well sourced. And Alex Thompson was was, you know,
commendably resistant to the aggressive White House pushback on biden
(17:16):
age and health stories.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
You know, over the everybody like, didn't you read a
ton of stories about how Biden was old and doddering?
Speaker 6 (17:25):
And I think that you didn't know? Now, I mean, yes,
you what you read was a lot of people. First
of all, you've heard a lot of people on the
right saying that all the time, right, I don't think
that you would say that in that on MSNBC CNN
and otherwise that there was a lot of like aggressive
coverage like that kind of made that point. I spent
(17:46):
you know, we've talked about this before, I'm sure on
this podcast, but you know I spent when I would
say on television not like doing investigative trying to investigate this,
but just would say there is a consistent through line
starting in October of twenty twenty one through whatever point
you were talking that the American public things Joe Biden's
too old for run for a second time. I would
get it, but I would say that and then get
(18:08):
there and get brutalized. And there were not a lot
of people brutalized in social media and by Democrats, and
you would get you wouldn't get a chorus of people
who are like, yes, this is a giant problem for
Joe Biden politically, and and why isn't the Democratic Party
running a prime? Why isn't there a real primary? Why
is no one taking them on that? That was not
something that you heard of. There was not something that
(18:28):
was like uh, that was front of the center and
the coverage going forward and so but your point is
about cover up. So I don't know what the book alleges.
So it's it's I don't want to like knock down
a straw many right, you know, My sense of it
is that it's a much more interesting, complicated thing. It is.
There is no doubt that the White House did what
every White House always does for any income and president,
(18:50):
which is to try to push reporters away from their
political vulnerabilities and towards their political strengths.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Right, And it would be malpractice to not that's what
they did.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
So that's what they did. I think there were a
lot of reporters who the Biden press shop, and and
you know, was there openness about you know, when you
started to hear things like I'll give you an example
in like the fall of twenty twenty three, actually more
(19:25):
like the winter of twenty twenty four. Was when people
at who were donors started saying to me they thought
it was that Biden looked really bad even in small groups.
And what was it was even for like a ten
minute off the record thing with big donors was reading
off a teleprompter. Yeah, I didn't see that that was
not reported widely? Now was that because those were closed fundraisers?
(19:46):
The White House obviously didn't want people to know that
that's what any White House would have done to try
to protect their boss on an issue of political vulnerability.
Reporters didn't seem to really super aggressively pursue it. The
questions around why the Democratic Party, which is a political
party last I checked, and as a political party, should
(20:08):
be interested primarily in two things. One it's preferred policies, programs, values, ideology, whatever,
but prior to that, having to win elections so that
you could institute your policies, priorities, values, and ideology. Why
the Democratic Party all these congressman, senators, donors who saw
(20:31):
Biden with some frequency in various settings and now have
come out and said that they had private concerns. Why
those people didn't speak up and say, hey, if we're
a serious political party, we should consider you know, someone
should come forward and challenge the president, like, why, you
know what we have concerns about this? Why did that
(20:51):
raise the alarm earlier? I think that's a really good question.
But I think that speaks more to the way that
the system works to you know, it is the case
that challenging a sitting president is really hard for a
lot of reasons. It's hard because it's hard to raise
the money to challenge that person. It's hard because if
you challenge that person and don't win, your future is
fucked in the party, And there's all this institutional stuff
(21:14):
that basically protects incumbents. And I think that there were
a lot of Democrats who were in denial about his situation.
There were a lot of Democrats who didn't want to
really know the details, the kind of thought. He looked tired,
but then he would give a good state of the Union.
They'd be like, Okay, cool, we can get through. Trump
is fucking crazy. He's fulfilling also, And there were a
lot of Democrats out there who might have challenged Biden
(21:36):
who looked at it and said, you know the way
I asked a juggernaut, they have a lot of money,
there's gonna there's really hard to beat an incumbent. Do
I want to mortgage my future or risk my future
as a presidential candidate in twenty twenty eight, twenty thirty two,
twenty thirty six to taking on a sitting president where
if I don't win, everyone in the institutional Democratic Party's
(21:57):
going to hate me forever. I think like there's much
more like was it much more that the story here
isn't so much a giant cover up in the way
we think of a cover up, as a series of
institutional things that led a lot of people to forget
what the point of being the Democratic Party was, which
is or any party is, which is You've got to win,
(22:17):
you know, and it's as not you shouldn't mortgage your
values or your preferred policies. Shouldn't you know, you shouldn't
do anything to win. That's not win at all cost,
that's not stop believing. But you have to win. If
you don't win, you this is what happens. You get
Donald Trump for the next four years. So you know,
you have to first things first, consistent with your priorities,
consistent with your values, consistent with your ethics. You have
(22:39):
to do anything you can, everything you can to win.
And that the Democratic Party was not operating on that
principle when it looked just as Joe Biden's poll numbers
forget about what people saw behind the scenes. If you
just looked at his poll numbers, you would have said,
we have a problem. Yeah, you know, for like two
years you would have said we have a problem. And
you know there were again we go on forever here
(23:00):
about this, But you have some countervailing things. Biden was
able to look up after the midterms and say, hey,
y'all said that we were going to get killed the midterms.
We didn't get killed in the midterms. Y'all think I
can't give a decent speech. I did okay at the
State of the Union. He had things to point to.
But again, two and a half years of polling, and
what you could see, which was that without saying the
(23:20):
guy had Alzheimer's or had dementia or had just think
I was old, and he looked his age. He looked
his age. And if you look, if you looked at
that guy and say, looked his age, he's not his best.
He's lost a lot of miles per hour of his fastball.
We probably, if we really think democracy is on the line,
we probably should consider some other alternatives, because this is
(23:41):
not who you put forward in an existential election.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
But it is interesting now. So Biden was the oldest
person ever to be president. Now Donald Trump is the
oldest person to ever be president. And this sort of
dovetails back to what we were talking about before, which
is that as someone who has dealt and just wrote
a book about aging parents and my experience with my
aging parents and et cetera, et cetera. Getting old is
(24:05):
not a conspiracy theory. It's what happens to all of them.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
Yes, And anybody who's ever dealt with anybody in their eighties, yeah,
knows that. It is not agism. Nor is it disrespectful
to say people in their eighties are not who you
want driving a Formula one car, you know, flying your
airplane or being president of the United States. It's not
They are diminished in various ways. Do they have wisdom
(24:31):
that we don't have? Maybe sometimes yes, if they're wise,
like they have certain like some of them do, not
all of them. I'm like, I'm not ready to say
everyone who's eighty is wiser than me, but I'm saying
some are. Some are, but they don't have the reflexes
of a of a forty year old, and they don't
have the energy or the stamina, and they don't have
the sharpness or they don't have to recall, they have
(24:52):
a lot of things that are diminished by that age.
And so you have to ask that question. It was,
you know, to say someone is it's not like you know,
you would say you know he's getting out of yours people.
You know, you're saying that that people in their agies
are worthless. I'm no, I'm not saying they're worthless. I'm
just saying they probably are not the best person to
have the hardest job in the world.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
The one thing I would say, and I'm not trying
to be argumentative here, is I do think that Nancy Pelosi,
as I hold of a yellow crayon, God help me,
that Nancy Pelosi is pretty sharp.
Speaker 6 (25:23):
Yes, I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to the rules.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Right, but there are exceptions to the rule.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Is there are there exceptions to the rule. There are
exceptions to every rule. I'm just trying to say as
a general thing. You know, I am very much in
the John Stewart camp, which was when he first came back,
and was like, both of these guys are too old
to be president. In three hundred fift I heard this
all over the country, which was people would come up
to me and go, whether they were Democrats or Republicans,
would be like, really, two octagenarian dudes, for both of
(25:53):
whom when you watch them, one of whom seems bonkers.
That's right, And the other of whom seems like pretty
as I watch him shuffle across the south lawn, Yeah,
is this really the best we can do? That was
what the question that people we give and I and
I was always like, that's a totally reasonable question. That's
like and again, it's not a dis to Joe Biden
(26:13):
or his years of service or the various things that
have made him wise, but like you know.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
At this point, it's just a truism. Yes, about twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
And and people who would make this point most most
appointedly to me, people in their eighties who would say,
I am not what I was, what I once was,
I wouldn't want this job, and proas like, what are
we talking about here? Was it like old? Was it
like elderly? People were like you are rallying around Joe
Biden constantly? They were kind of going, they we should
look at someone younger.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, no, it's true. And and I think a really
good point, John. I hope you will come back.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
I'll always come back. Yeah, always come back back. And
if I didn't tell you this story before, please I'll
tell you it now. It's my last is exactly are
the point were we're just on I've told one hundred times,
but I'll tell it now because it was. It was
literally the funniest thing that happened in the whole of
the twenty twenty four election cycle. To me that Saturday night.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Anything funny happened to you during that anyway, go on yes.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Saturday night after the Republican Convention. You'll recall this weird
span of time where Trump assassination, attempt a convention in Milwaukee,
and then other things that happened immediately there after. So
the Saturday night after the Republican Convention ended on a
Thursday Saturday night, Dave Chappelle and John Stewart did a
comedy set at the kind of like a freends and
(27:31):
family show at the Apollo Theater at Harlem, and John
told this story in his set. He said to the crowd,
you know, I just came back. I've been back on
six months. I've been getting a lot of crap from
Democrats because I came out at the very beginning it
said that both of these guys are told to be president.
And you know, it's been really hard for me because
how many people in the crowd have had someone in
(27:52):
their eighties who they've had to do something hard in
their family, you know, an uncle, a grandfather or a grandmother,
a mother, a father, or whatever, where they've had to
do something like take away their driver's license to their
car keys. Everyone's hand went up in the room and
Stuart said, you know, yeah, what happened with me with
my nana. My nana was in her nineties and we
had to take away a driver's license and it was
the hardest thing we'd ever done. It with the last
shred of her independence. She just like, look, was clinging
(28:13):
to this one thing. She was kind of like, don't
take my driver's license. That's basically like putting me in
the grave. But my family rallied, We did the hard thing,
We had the hard conversations, and we finally got her
to give up her driver's license. It was really painful,
but it was the right thing to do, but it
was really painful, and you know, and then he said, now,
just imagine we were trying to do that with twenty
(28:34):
million people going. Let the bitch drive, Like that's how
it s felt with me and Joe Biden. Let the
bitch drive. That made me laugh and will make me
laugh forever.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, Let the bitch drive. Thank you, thank.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
You, bye, mollie Ie.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Tammy Baldwin is the junior Senator from Wisconson. Welcome to
Fast Politics, Tammy Paldwin. It's great to be There's a
big beautiful bill. Is it called one big beautiful bill?
Is that what it's called?
Speaker 8 (29:09):
You know, if you're a billionaire, you might think so,
But this is good for the wealthy and bad for you.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
And that's kind of what we're dealing with, right.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I would love you to explain to us where it is,
where it's going, and a little bit about sort of
how it's being put together right now.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
Absolutely.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
So, the way they start the reconciliation process is they
tell all these committees in the House of Representatives, you
got to find some cuts here, or in some cases
they're saying you even have more money to spend here,
like for the tax breaks for the billionaires, right, And
so they instruct all these committees to do this, and
this week all the major committees that deal with big
(29:47):
pieces of this are doing their work. So they are
looking at the medicaid budget, they are looking at the
agriculture budget and nutrition programs. They are looking at more
tax breaks they can get to corporations, and billionaires in
the various different.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Committees in the House, and that's happening this week.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
And the nutrition benefits that you're talking about, that's SNAP,
that's supplemental nutritional assistance. So there's an eight hundred and
eighty billion dollar cut to Medicaid and medicare right, talk
me through. That was like the top line number they
needed to pay for the tax cuts that are already
in place.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Yeah, so let me tell you a little bit about that.
Speaker 8 (30:26):
That was the instruction, the goal set for the Energy
and Commerce Committee in the House. I used to sit
on it, so I know a little is something about this,
and so they have met their goal, or that's what
they are in the process of doing this week, by
cutting Medicaid about seven hundred and fifty billion dollars and
(30:49):
then making some other cuts, particularly some of the energy
things like clean energy tax credits. They've taken some pieces
out of other areas too. But let's talk about the
big one, Medicaid. We predict that somewhere close to fourteen
million people will lose their healthcare because of the cuts
(31:10):
that are being proposed this week. Some of those people
will lose their healthcare because of the work reporting requirements
that they are putting forward, which by the way, is
just a scheme and I'll be happy to tell you
more about that later.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
And the other big group.
Speaker 8 (31:29):
Of people will lose their health insurance because Republicans have
turned away from a tax credit that helps people afford
their healthcare in the Affordable Care Act. This is a
really important premium tax credit that really makes healthcare super
(31:49):
affordable for those who otherwise would probably choose to go
without because they just couldn't afford the monthly premium.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And then there's also sort of reason more money for
the military. More money, give me the kind of breakdown
of where it is.
Speaker 8 (32:07):
Yeah, So the places where you will see more spending
according to Trump, priorities are the military, homeland security, and
of course they will allow the committees that deal with
tax policy to spend more in order to both continue
(32:29):
some of the Trump one point zero era tax cuts
for corporations and the wealthy, but also they are looking
seriously at adding some more tax cuts that benefit the
wealthy in America. And so those are sort of the
three major areas where you're seeing the committees freed up
(32:51):
to spend more money. In fact, they predict next year
that for the first time ever, the Defense Department will
spend over a trillion dollars. That is like unfathomable in
so many different ways. But in any event, they're cutting
everything else. But when you put everything else together, it
(33:12):
is much smaller. In order to achieve the type of
savings that they're talking about to pay for their tax
breaks for the wealthy, it would be.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Crippling to so many programs.
Speaker 8 (33:26):
We talked about nutrition programs, snap in particular, Medicaid, et cetera.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
And what I would say is that a lot of.
Speaker 8 (33:36):
Republicans that I'm hearing from say quietly at this point,
but are uncomfortable with the deep cuts that are being
proposed for Medicaid. And I think if people keep doing
what they've been doing and speaking out and sharing their
stories and writing their particularly their Republican representatives, but write
(33:59):
all of us. But I think we can make some
headway in getting them to back off some of the
worst of their proposals.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So you've been in the Senate a while, you know
all of these people. Clearly there has to be some
regret for letting these cabinet picks slide through. And you
don't even have to tell me who. But I'm sure
you know there are some good Republican senators right. They
may not agree with us, but they're good people, largely
who have gone into government service to serve and not
(34:29):
to profit with the RFK stuff. I mean, are you
seeing a little buyer's remorse here from some of these
Republican senators.
Speaker 8 (34:37):
Mollie, I want to answer this in a couple of
different ways. You're saying, I've served in the Senate a while,
I've served with some of these people. I want to
tell you that a whole bunch of new Republican senators
that have been elected in the past couple of cycles,
and many of them are supercharged LAGA people, so you know,
I'm getting to know them, but they're not the ones
we're talking about. Absolutely, there are senators who are having
(34:59):
buyers remorse with regard to some of the confirmation votes
they've cast, also for the amount of cruelty and harm
this budget reconciliation process is teeing up. But I also
want to just mention one other thing that I that
I'm keeping in the back of my mind because you know,
every so often I have to be reminded of this
(35:20):
both in the House as they're trying to figure out
how to put together a majority to advance this reconciliation bill.
You have some who have said, and I'm not going
to call them moderates, these are just maybe more traditional
Republicans who have said, oh, some of these cuts go
a little too far, and then have this right flank
that says, we are not voting for any bill unless
(35:42):
you cut five trillion dollars out of domestic spending, because
we're not going to vote for a bill where the
tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations aren't completely paid for.
Now in the Senate, interestingly, my counterpart in the United
States Senate run Johnson has recently said the same thing.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
He says he will.
Speaker 8 (36:04):
Not vote for a measure where the tax breaks for
the wealthy and corporations are not fully paid for. And
so it makes for strange bedfellows, if you will that
there are folks who say, I'm not going to support
it because the cuts are too deep and it hurts
my constituents too badly. And you know, at the end
(36:26):
of the day, if it ends up being some super
right wingers who join with a couple of more traditional Republicans,
and then all the Democrats in opposing this.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
Who knows what's going to happen, But we.
Speaker 8 (36:39):
Have a lot of hard work to do between now
as we're speaking and the houses marking up all their
bills and the final votes in each House of Congress.
So got a lot of work on all of our
shoulders to make sure that we put a stop to
the cruelest and most harmful of these proposers.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
You know, I think that's a really good and I
mean we saw this with the tariffs, too, right. I
mean Rand Paul, who is hardly anyone's idea of a liberal,
is staunchly against the tariffs, and he turned out to
be a sort of ally there. I feel like what
we've seen with Trump is that if you push back
in a big, loud way, right, you get the attention
(37:20):
of a Laura Luhmer or someone like that, right, one
of his people, for example, cutting these social safety net stuff.
This is the kind of thing that there are populas
in Trump's camp who don't like this kind of thing.
And so I'm wondering, do you think that that's sort
of the play. And then also I want to add,
if this doesn't pass, what does that look like?
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Boy? A lot of great questions there.
Speaker 8 (37:44):
So I do think our most powerful tool is elevating
the stories of the people who would be harmed by
the worst provisions. And for the last months we've been
trying to organize folks and uplift their stories, not knowing
exactly what shape or form the final cuts would take.
(38:06):
And this week is really the first week where we've
seen them put things into writing and now can assess
with much greater specificity, assuming they pass what's before them,
how it's going to harm people. And you know, when
you're talking about fourteen fifteen million people losing their healthcare,
that's something that as soon as that knowledge gets out,
(38:28):
we have a way of fighting back through the population.
So first question is what happens in the House. We've
seen this before where the more traditional Republicans are at
a breakpoint with the right wing flank that is insisting
on massive cuts to government spending, as they say, so
(38:50):
they're going to have to work through that first, and
we'll see it in real time as it happens over
the next week or two, and that will be predictive obviously,
if they can't get their act together and can't do
it by Memorial Day, which is their goal. Then they'll
take another stab at it when we get back after
the Memorial Day recess if they are able to come
to some fragile agreement and send it over to the Senate. Again,
(39:15):
this is budget reconciliation, so they get around the filibuster.
It only takes a simple majority vote, and there we're
going to be working really hard to persuade both flanks
of that Republican caucus, the ones who won't vote for
it unless it's fully paid for, and the ones who
think that the proposals that are out there right now
(39:36):
are too cool and too harmful for our neighbors and
are willing to help us fight.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
When you cut these programs like Medicare Medicaid, they will
be larger things like closing of nursing homes and rural hospitals,
largely in red states where there's less state tax. There
are certainly Republican senators who understand this and what is
their feeling on this? So can you use this to
(40:02):
prevent it?
Speaker 5 (40:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (40:04):
So I think the answer is yes. Really, until we
saw the specifics about the cuts they were intending, we
were organizing folks who rely on Medicaid in their families
because you know, they have a relative who's a senior
in a nursing home, and the majority of seniors in
(40:25):
nursing homes rely on Medicaid, or people who have, say
an adult child with significant disabilities, and they rely on
Medicaid for both services and healthcare. A third of all
children are on Medicaid. So we were elevating those stories.
But one of the points I was also trying to
draw out is there's a lot of people whose employment
is paid for it by Medicaid. The people who work
(40:46):
in nursing homes, the people who work in rural critical
access hospitals, the people who work in nonprofits that serve
adults and children with severe disabilities.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
All of those people their jobs.
Speaker 8 (41:01):
Are there and part of their salaries come from the
Medicaid program. And so I think because of the nature
of some of the specifics they're now proposing, we are
going to be able to get a whole new group
of people speaking out. Hospital administrators and nursing home administrators,
but also the frontline nurses and nurses assistants who provide
(41:24):
care every single day under very tough circumstances, you know,
because they're dedicated to the health and well being of
their Naghbin.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
It would be malpractice if they did not ask you
about the plane. Donald Trump wants to take a four
hundred million dollar plane from the royal family of Qatar
and use it as Air Force One. Cynthia Lumis was
asked about this. She's quite a trumpy Republican and she
burst out laughing, Yes, that's my question. Is me just
(41:55):
without speech?
Speaker 8 (41:57):
I know? And there's so many different ways you can
respond to this. You know, this is corruption at its highest.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Is it a violation of the emoluments cause?
Speaker 8 (42:07):
Absolutely, But let me give you the anecdote that I
just heard from a colleague.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
I'm gonna I'm not gonna give you attributes.
Speaker 8 (42:14):
To who it was, but it's like, would you let
the Katari royal family rebuild the White House situation room,
rebuild the press conference room, rebuild the Oval office, because
that is what Air Force one is. It has all
of those things in it. This is so ridiculous. And
(42:34):
then the amount of money that it's going to take
to take out what the Kataris have installed in terms
of communications and security, et cetera, and replace it with
stuff that we know is secure and impenetrable. Is probably
going to cost more than just waiting two more years
(42:55):
for the new air Force.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Like the conversations I had with people who's taught me
in this stream, how grid are you about securing the
midterms and having free and fair elections for the midterms,
because this is the thing that a lot of people
I know are word about.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (43:11):
So I'm looking at a whole bunch of things that
I think we've seen throughout history in the demise of
other democracies, are signs that something really bad is happening.
And part of it is election denial, trying to disenfranchise
parts of the electorate, trying to make it harder to
vote in various ways. Part of it is corruption and
(43:34):
the mass movement of taxpayer dollars to the very wealthy,
the oligarchs of a society, other types of corruption. There's
hallmarks of what happens when a democracy is in trouble.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
And boy, I can tell you I see.
Speaker 8 (43:54):
Action after action in this administration that overreach, that cross
those lines that make me very concerned, and we've got
to be vigilant about it.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
At the same.
Speaker 8 (44:05):
Time that we're fighting to make sure that our constituents
have access to healthcare and have access to nutrition programs.
Speaker 5 (44:14):
We have to do it all, but we.
Speaker 8 (44:15):
Have the courts, we have the Congress when it acts,
we have our constituents who we are fighting alongside on
all of these fronts, and that's how we are going
to push it.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Things really get like a situation where you start to
really panic. Do you think that there are enough Republican votes?
Because I think there are, but I'm not in there
enough for Publican votes to run a check on Trump
if he starts doing really out of the box staff.
Speaker 5 (44:45):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 8 (44:46):
I have heard a number of my Republican colleagues ask
a question that almost all of my Democratic colleagues have
been asking, and that is, when faced with a law
that Congress has passed or a ruling of a court,
would you follow that law or follow that ruling over
an order from the Trump administration to the contrary? And
(45:08):
I heard that question asked by a Republican colleague at
a Commerce Committee hearing earlier this week, And I'm hearing
increasingly Republicans saying to Trump nominees, there's only one right
answer to this question. It's crossing a line too far.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
Now.
Speaker 8 (45:27):
Is that many of my Republican colleagues. No, but if
it's a simple majority vote, we only need four to
stand strong. If it's something that can be decided, you
know that has a subject to a filibuster, we need
a few more.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Tammy Baldwin, I am so delighted to get to have
you on this podcast. I hope you will come back
because it's just you know, you are answering these questions.
I ask these very nerdy questions because I'm like, so
interested in the procedural, where I feel like most people
are not so interested in. I'd well, you're making them
as this is crying, So please come back, senitor, Thank you.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
No moment fu Jesse Cannon smile.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Let's say your Health and Human Services director has just
gotten back from a nice swim and some sewage.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
In Rock Creek Park.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yes, what would you like the quote for them to
be at their next press conference? Because if I was
in the Trump administration, I don't think i'd want that
quote to be. I don't think people should be taking
medical advice for me when you're in charge of medical policy.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
One of my favorite things about RFK Junior is that
he really does seem like he doesn't know what is
going on, You know what I mean, Like he really unhinged.
Like he also said earlier this week that it's because
Trump gets money.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Remember that, Yes, yes, yes, we discussed that on the
last episode.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah, so, I honestly think he's like still kind of
a Democrat secret weapon, despite the fact that he is
disassembling much of the federal government. Yeah no, I mean
RFK Junior, this guy, you know, he is the guy
who goes to the bathroom without wearing shoes on an xplane.
Speaker 6 (47:25):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and Democrats have staged a historic upset
in Omaha, Nebraska. We have such a great show for
you today. Pawkin News is John Heilman cuts through the
noise with a discussion about what happened in the twenty
(00:23):
twenty four campaign and whether or not Biden's age was obfiscated.
Then we'll talk to Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin about how
we push back on Trump's many, many oversteps. But first
the news.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Somali the Katari plane, the scandal is not landing at all.
Trump blew his lid today in discussions about it, and
he did a whole lot of talking about the Middle
East today. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Look, I think this plain thing is really a good
example of corruption that first of all, it cuts through
the noise. Right, You've seen Trump do other corrupt things
like the Trump coin and all of the sort of
family real estate dealings, but this is something different. It's
a very clear bit of corruption, right, Like we've never
(01:15):
had a president and try to take a plane from
a Middle Eastern royal family before, Like, it's just so
beyond the pale of normal stuff that I do think
it's a standout. And if Trump were smart, he would
just drop it. He would just say, who cares a wait,
(01:37):
I'll get the plane from Boeing. I'm the president. Data
da da. But because Trump is Trump, and maybe this
is how he got here a little bit. Because Trump
is Trump, he cannot thread the needle on this. He
cannot let it go. So he just thinks that if
he keeps going with this, he's going to get this plane.
(01:58):
But it is There's nobody in the world, I mean,
even the biggest Trumper, even the bots on Twitter who
are saying, well, the Americans got the Statue of Liberty,
even those people know for sure understand that this is
not fucking right, that this is completely crazy. So we're
(02:19):
three days into this story or four days into the story.
So this is a bad story for Trump, right, the
fact that it keeps going and every time he he says, well,
they are just being nice. It's smart to take the plane.
And this is my really my theory in life, when
you're defending yourself, you're losing. When you're trying to make
(02:40):
the case that a Middle Eastern royal family should give
you a plane. Okay, and everyone in the world, including
Republican senators, are bursting into laughter. You're losing, so just
give up on the fucking plane. You're not getting the plane.
Every day you do it, you look like an asshole.
(03:01):
Like give it up, man, You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So today there is a disastrous hearing with Christino, who
many people have disastrous for her. For her, she looks
pretty pretty bad in this. Many people have talked about
how she's just the spokesperson for all these horrible, horrible
things I is doing. And well, I'm gonna let the
tape speak for itself.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Thank you, Madame Secretary. You have an important job. I
think you have one of the most important jobs in
the cabinet. Thank you for doing it. I want you
to have credibility and be taken seriously as you do
the job. And so I want to put to rest
this question about mister Garcia. In this photo that the
President posted on April twenty one, Madame Secretary, you agree
(03:48):
that the letters MS and the number thirteen in Times
Roman numeral font that they are doctored on this photo.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Right, Congressman Brego Garcia. No, no, I'm just it wasn't
based off of tattoos.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
It was off an.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Entire and accept I'll accept that for the purpose of
this question.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
You agree though, that this is doctor, Is that right?
Speaker 4 (04:12):
The same protocols that are scary.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
I want you to have credibility, and I want you
to be taken seriously. Is this doctored or is it not?
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I'm taken quite seriously.
Speaker 6 (04:21):
Is it doctored or not? Doctor?
Speaker 4 (04:22):
The importance that the President has given me.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
To I understand is it doctored or nothing.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
That's important to remember is that every single time a
case is.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Built, we stopped at about minute one oh five. That
goes on for two and a half minutes.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Of course, by the way, I love that's Eric swall
while questioning her and I want you to have credibility.
First of all, I'm not convinced Eric wants her to
have credibility. But that is neither here nor there. No,
I mean, that was just an incredible bit. Christy Nome
is one of the inheritors of trump Ism, so she's
(04:55):
what's in the pike when Trump's term is over. So
that's something, well.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Let's put some more color on it. I think Congressman
Robert Garcia did some amazing work here.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
Would you commit to just letting his mother know, as
a mother to mother, if Andrey is alive. He was
given an asylum appointment by the United States government. We
gave him an appointment. We said Andrey come to the
border at this time to claim asylum. He was taken
to a foreign prison in El Salvador. His mother just
wants to know if he is alive. Can we check
and do a wellness.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Our asylum applications are different than the granting of asylum,
and I don't know the specifics of this individual case.
This individual is an El Salvador and the appeal would
be best made to the President and to the government
of El Salvador on this. We've made that under my
jurisdiction at METEM.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
Secretary, you have said that you that in Ol Salvador
is one of the tools in the toolbox that you have.
You have said that and has been quoted as saying
that you and the President have the ability to check
if Andrew is alive and if not being harmed. Would
you commit at least into looking and asking of Salvador
if he is alive.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
This is a question that's best ask to the resident
and the government of l Salvador.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
And I think it's I think you know very well
that you could ask that question, but you're choosing to
do medical secretary is disregard this young man's life, this
young man's family who was given an appointment by the
United States. I think it is shameful that you won't
even request to see if this young man is alive.
His family has no idea, has no access to lawyers.
I would hope that we would have that humanity, the
(06:23):
humanity to just check if this young man is okay.
With that, I yep back, it's shameful.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The problem that these people have is that you can't
ever go against Trump. So if something is photoshopped and
everyone knows it's photoshopped, but Trump says it's not photoshopped,
you have to say it's not photoshopped, so right, I mean,
that's what it is. You can't she can't be like
just like the people in the hearings where they would say,
(06:50):
you know, they'd ask questions like, well, will you do
what the president tells you or will you follow the law,
And then they say, I can't deal with theoreticals, because
what they mean to say is we're going to do
what the president tells us to and we don't give
a shit about the law. So that's where we are here.
That's the way in which these people are painted themselves
into corners they cannot get out of.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Sob The New York Times has this blockbuster report that
Stephen Miller is running the DOJ and Pam Bondy is
just a figurehead that she is like an actor. And
when I think of headlines, I don't want to see.
That's very high up in the echelon of ones I
would not like to see.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Okay, So today I've had this conversation with six different people,
like what is scarier Trump at the rains or Trump
slightly diminished and Stephen Miller at the rains? And yes,
there is a lot of reasons to fear a Stephen
Miller presidency. But just like one Marco Rubio, the guy
has fifty seven jobs. Okay, Stephen Miller is running the administration,
(07:55):
He's running this, he's running that he's running the DOJ.
For sure, I'm sure that's true. That Pam Bondi is
just to pick your head. I'm sure you know if
that's the reporting, I think that's probably right. But I
do think that this guy can't do It's just one person, right,
unless they have really sophisticated AI. There's only so much
(08:17):
damage one person could do. Now, Canny do a lot
of damage, yes, but it is only one person.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, it's just one person with really, really really bad morals.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, well no, I me and I think we can
all agree that this is not the person that any
of us want in charge. But that said, it is
only one person. John Heilman is an NBC National News
correspondent as well as a Puck News partner. Welcome, Welcome, John.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
Hi, how are you?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Oh, I'm just living the dream.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
You don't seem like super energetic this morning, Molly, What's
what's going on?
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I'm energetic. I went to a party last night. I'm energetic.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Or was the party?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Was it the high Line?
Speaker 5 (09:01):
It was good.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
American life grinds on despite the fact that our political
system is in what is what do you think the
what would you say this sort of word is for
this moment in American politics?
Speaker 6 (09:14):
Surreal? I mean just sort of terror, incognita if you
want to be like Latin, this has been true in
both Trump terms. This movie, it's not different, but it's
just like there's just so many things for which there
is no precedent, and I'm like tediously. It's not like
I'm some like, you know, some great historical scholar or something,
but just like I'm always like looking for some precedent,
(09:35):
like how do how do we evaluate this thing? Well,
this has happened before, and this is how it kind
of came out, so there's a guide to this, or
this has happened a lot before, or well it has
happened very often, but there have been times when this
has happened or something like this has happened. But you know,
that's just constantly. Every day, there's like five things that
there's no metric or artstick where you're kind of like, well,
here's how we could we can get some general sense
(09:57):
a how this might unfold on the basis of this
thing that happen in nineteen sixty four. It's like just
like I don't know, I mean, what do you think
is gonna happen? John fucking Idea?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Well there is, But it does feel like with trump Ism,
there's always this sort of feeling that maybe someone will
do something right like the Republicans, there's sort of a
wish and I mean that ship is I.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
Don't have that. I don't have that feeling at all.
I gave up on that feeling a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So we talk about the guard rails. We talk about
sort of I mean, their courts continue to say, hey,
you can't do that.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Yeah, the courts. The courts stopped the court the courts
routinely regularly. Thank God for that branch of government, because
the other one's totally suphine, meaning the legislative branch. Yeah.
Uh so the courts continue to operate. That is a
thing for which there is precedent. The courts, you know,
I continue to act like the courts mostly, and they
keep Trump from doing various things that he wants to do.
(10:54):
And I guess I here's here's the thing that's worth
thinking about. I guess in this text. And maybe you
have an insight on this that I because I've just
started thinking about it. It's like, if you look at
what what has happened just in the last few days
around the big beautiful bill. You know, there's these things
(11:15):
that Trump, you know, campaigned on, right, you know, no
taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
You know, he recently, as you know, last week, came
out and said, having kind of been towing and throwing
about it for a while, finally came out and said
to Mike Johnson, let's raise taxes on the rich. I mean,
he set that he set the limit really high at
two and a half million, but he said he'd be
open to, he'd be He wants that, not just the
he'd be able to. He wants that. That's not going
to happen. And nor nor are a lot of things
(11:44):
that he campaigned on, you know, pretty vocally, like no
tax on tips and you know, his unfeasible. It's not
like but it's not like the it's not like the
Republicans are standing up and saying, you know, getting in
his face about it. They're just not going to do that.
You know, it's the thing he wanted. They're not going
to do it. He's you know, he capitulated on on
(12:09):
the US Attorney for uh, the District of Columbia. You know,
Tom Tillis said, no, I'm not gonna this, this is
fucking nuts, and Trump was like, all right, no. He
put in Jeanine Perrot, you know, how long that will last,
who knows. But it's like there's things where he's kind
(12:31):
of giving up on things, you know, rather than stomping
his feet and saying I must have this, I must
have that, there's more things that he's willing to kind
of like when somebody says no to him, he kind
of goes all right. The interesting question is like what's
going to happen with the with the plane and just
all of the obvious corruption, right, because there's more Republicans
speaking out about that than I've heard speak out about
almost anything.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Cynthia Cynthia Loomis burst into hysterical laughter when she heard
about it.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Yes, I mean, you know, Laura Lumer is attacking him,
Ted Cruz, Ben Shapiro, all these people are now taking
are Like I said, what this is like? You can't
take this plane from from Cutter. That's crazy. And you
know what happens now? And here's the interesting the thing
that ties the two things together for me. Do you
think that Trump being willing to kind of give up
(13:22):
on shit he doesn't really care about that much, like,
you know, does he really care about like raising text
on the wealthy? You know, if Trump were really running
for a third term, like really thought he was gonna
that he had a political future. I think he might
not take the plane from Cutter, you know, because the
corruption of his really so naked, that is, it's a
(13:42):
political If Trump were really running for a third term,
he might want to like really press for raising taxes
on the rich, because that's like a good band and
esque like populist economics. I wonder whether we're starting at
like and both that his behavior and the fact that
Republicans are starting to either just kind of ignore him
on certain things or openly criticize him, like on the plane,
(14:05):
whether what's sinking in with people. And I say this
as someone who's thought for a long time Trump was
going to stay in the White House until he was
dead or taken out either either leave the ovalops with
a toe tag or an handcuffs. Those are the only
ways you're going to get him out. I wonder whether
it's starting to have like on both sides, people are
kind of going, yeah, you know what, two term, Like
(14:26):
I'm gonna we got another four years to get to
do whatever the fuck I want. But I'm not gonna
try to press it here and try to stick around
for a third I wonder I'm right.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I mean, it is the real open question, right is
how much energy does he have for the authoritarianism he
is very delighted and curious by.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
And that's the question, and whether he and whether he thinks, yes,
that's certainly right. And I don't mean to suggest at
all that the authoritarian threat is receded, but just that
on certain things he just seems more exhausted, you know,
than than he has in the path. He just sort
of seems kind of like, you know, the answers to
(15:11):
some of these questions, you know, than these interviews he's
done recently. He has just seemed so flaccid to me,
like he's kind of like Steve Miller, still out there
talking about repeal it, taking back, about getting rid of
Habeas corpus and that's super dangerous. And but I just
there are times when you look at Trump and you
kind of go, he looks like he's just like a
little like he's a little like kind of had it,
(15:32):
you know, He's Okay. I'm just like, I just don't
have that much energy anymore. Let's just get on, like money,
give me the money, let me build it, let me
build the giant hotel and cutter and let my family
get really rich. You can't prosecute me because I got immunity.
It's just like, you know, let me give me, give
me as much shit as I can get a hold
of in the next four years, and I'll like go off,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
And and my man is in his late seventies. I mean,
this is not a young guy.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
Yes, and a lot of mileage on those tires too, moy.
I mean, you know, if you if you get to
be that age, I don't care what kind of genetics
you have, you get to be that age and you've
only eaten like Big Max and not done any exercise
other than what he would pass us for him playing
around the golf, right, you know that body is not
cannot be like in the I don't care what doctor says.
That body cannot be in the best shape well.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
And also he doesn't sleep. I mean, the guy looks
a very frenetic, high stress life. So there's a book
that's coming out that says that basically there was a
cover up about Biden's age. I have yet to see
anything that threads a needle for cover up. It just
seems like that, you know, if I could you know,
it all seems like people were you know, the things
(16:39):
people do when other people are in power or they
want them to stay in power. It doesn't seem in
my mind like there's if only Democrats were organized enough
for a cover up, is my hot take.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
But I'm curious.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
You're talking about Tapa Thompson.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
The Taper Thompson book.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
Yeah, so I've read it. I haven't. I haven't. I'm
going to interview those guys on my podcast and as
I'm sure you are, and others or are they're going
to publicize the book like crazy, I'm eager to read it.
Those are two serious people with who are good reports
and or well sourced. And Alex Thompson was was, you know,
commendably resistant to the aggressive White House pushback on biden
(17:16):
age and health stories.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
You know, over the everybody like, didn't you read a
ton of stories about how Biden was old and doddering?
Speaker 6 (17:25):
And I think that you didn't know? Now, I mean, yes,
you what you read was a lot of people. First
of all, you've heard a lot of people on the
right saying that all the time, right, I don't think
that you would say that in that on MSNBC CNN
and otherwise that there was a lot of like aggressive
coverage like that kind of made that point. I spent
(17:46):
you know, we've talked about this before, I'm sure on
this podcast, but you know I spent when I would
say on television not like doing investigative trying to investigate this,
but just would say there is a consistent through line
starting in October of twenty twenty one through whatever point
you were talking that the American public things Joe Biden's
too old for run for a second time. I would
get it, but I would say that and then get
(18:08):
there and get brutalized. And there were not a lot
of people brutalized in social media and by Democrats, and
you would get you wouldn't get a chorus of people
who are like, yes, this is a giant problem for
Joe Biden politically, and and why isn't the Democratic Party
running a prime? Why isn't there a real primary? Why
is no one taking them on that? That was not
something that you heard of. There was not something that
(18:28):
was like uh, that was front of the center and
the coverage going forward and so but your point is
about cover up. So I don't know what the book alleges.
So it's it's I don't want to like knock down
a straw many right, you know, My sense of it
is that it's a much more interesting, complicated thing. It is.
There is no doubt that the White House did what
every White House always does for any income and president,
(18:50):
which is to try to push reporters away from their
political vulnerabilities and towards their political strengths.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Right, And it would be malpractice to not that's what
they did.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
So that's what they did. I think there were a
lot of reporters who the Biden press shop, and and
you know, was there openness about you know, when you
started to hear things like I'll give you an example
in like the fall of twenty twenty three, actually more
(19:25):
like the winter of twenty twenty four. Was when people
at who were donors started saying to me they thought
it was that Biden looked really bad even in small groups.
And what was it was even for like a ten
minute off the record thing with big donors was reading
off a teleprompter. Yeah, I didn't see that that was
not reported widely? Now was that because those were closed fundraisers?
(19:46):
The White House obviously didn't want people to know that
that's what any White House would have done to try
to protect their boss on an issue of political vulnerability.
Reporters didn't seem to really super aggressively pursue it. The
questions around why the Democratic Party, which is a political
party last I checked, and as a political party, should
(20:08):
be interested primarily in two things. One it's preferred policies, programs, values, ideology, whatever,
but prior to that, having to win elections so that
you could institute your policies, priorities, values, and ideology. Why
the Democratic Party all these congressman, senators, donors who saw
(20:31):
Biden with some frequency in various settings and now have
come out and said that they had private concerns. Why
those people didn't speak up and say, hey, if we're
a serious political party, we should consider you know, someone
should come forward and challenge the president, like, why, you
know what we have concerns about this? Why did that
(20:51):
raise the alarm earlier? I think that's a really good question.
But I think that speaks more to the way that
the system works to you know, it is the case
that challenging a sitting president is really hard for a
lot of reasons. It's hard because it's hard to raise
the money to challenge that person. It's hard because if
you challenge that person and don't win, your future is
fucked in the party, And there's all this institutional stuff
(21:14):
that basically protects incumbents. And I think that there were
a lot of Democrats who were in denial about his situation.
There were a lot of Democrats who didn't want to
really know the details, the kind of thought. He looked tired,
but then he would give a good state of the Union.
They'd be like, Okay, cool, we can get through. Trump
is fucking crazy. He's fulfilling also, And there were a
lot of Democrats out there who might have challenged Biden
(21:36):
who looked at it and said, you know the way
I asked a juggernaut, they have a lot of money,
there's gonna there's really hard to beat an incumbent. Do
I want to mortgage my future or risk my future
as a presidential candidate in twenty twenty eight, twenty thirty two,
twenty thirty six to taking on a sitting president where
if I don't win, everyone in the institutional Democratic Party's
(21:57):
going to hate me forever. I think like there's much
more like was it much more that the story here
isn't so much a giant cover up in the way
we think of a cover up, as a series of
institutional things that led a lot of people to forget
what the point of being the Democratic Party was, which
is or any party is, which is You've got to win,
(22:17):
you know, and it's as not you shouldn't mortgage your
values or your preferred policies. Shouldn't you know, you shouldn't
do anything to win. That's not win at all cost,
that's not stop believing. But you have to win. If
you don't win, you this is what happens. You get
Donald Trump for the next four years. So you know,
you have to first things first, consistent with your priorities,
consistent with your values, consistent with your ethics. You have
(22:39):
to do anything you can, everything you can to win.
And that the Democratic Party was not operating on that
principle when it looked just as Joe Biden's poll numbers
forget about what people saw behind the scenes. If you
just looked at his poll numbers, you would have said,
we have a problem. Yeah, you know, for like two
years you would have said we have a problem. And
you know there were again we go on forever here
(23:00):
about this, But you have some countervailing things. Biden was
able to look up after the midterms and say, hey,
y'all said that we were going to get killed the midterms.
We didn't get killed in the midterms. Y'all think I
can't give a decent speech. I did okay at the
State of the Union. He had things to point to.
But again, two and a half years of polling, and
what you could see, which was that without saying the
(23:20):
guy had Alzheimer's or had dementia or had just think
I was old, and he looked his age. He looked
his age. And if you look, if you looked at
that guy and say, looked his age, he's not his best.
He's lost a lot of miles per hour of his fastball.
We probably, if we really think democracy is on the line,
we probably should consider some other alternatives, because this is
(23:41):
not who you put forward in an existential election.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
But it is interesting now. So Biden was the oldest
person ever to be president. Now Donald Trump is the
oldest person to ever be president. And this sort of
dovetails back to what we were talking about before, which
is that as someone who has dealt and just wrote
a book about aging parents and my experience with my
aging parents and et cetera, et cetera. Getting old is
(24:05):
not a conspiracy theory. It's what happens to all of them.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
Yes, And anybody who's ever dealt with anybody in their eighties, yeah,
knows that. It is not agism. Nor is it disrespectful
to say people in their eighties are not who you
want driving a Formula one car, you know, flying your
airplane or being president of the United States. It's not
They are diminished in various ways. Do they have wisdom
(24:31):
that we don't have? Maybe sometimes yes, if they're wise,
like they have certain like some of them do, not
all of them. I'm like, I'm not ready to say
everyone who's eighty is wiser than me, but I'm saying
some are. Some are, but they don't have the reflexes
of a of a forty year old, and they don't
have the energy or the stamina, and they don't have
the sharpness or they don't have to recall, they have
(24:52):
a lot of things that are diminished by that age.
And so you have to ask that question. It was,
you know, to say someone is it's not like you know,
you would say you know he's getting out of yours people.
You know, you're saying that that people in their agies
are worthless. I'm no, I'm not saying they're worthless. I'm
just saying they probably are not the best person to
have the hardest job in the world.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
The one thing I would say, and I'm not trying
to be argumentative here, is I do think that Nancy Pelosi,
as I hold of a yellow crayon, God help me,
that Nancy Pelosi is pretty sharp.
Speaker 6 (25:23):
Yes, I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to the rules.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Right, but there are exceptions to the rule.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Is there are there exceptions to the rule. There are
exceptions to every rule. I'm just trying to say as
a general thing. You know, I am very much in
the John Stewart camp, which was when he first came back,
and was like, both of these guys are too old
to be president. In three hundred fift I heard this
all over the country, which was people would come up
to me and go, whether they were Democrats or Republicans,
would be like, really, two octagenarian dudes, for both of
(25:53):
whom when you watch them, one of whom seems bonkers.
That's right, And the other of whom seems like pretty
as I watch him shuffle across the south lawn, Yeah,
is this really the best we can do? That was
what the question that people we give and I and
I was always like, that's a totally reasonable question. That's
like and again, it's not a dis to Joe Biden
(26:13):
or his years of service or the various things that
have made him wise, but like you know.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
At this point, it's just a truism. Yes, about twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
And and people who would make this point most most
appointedly to me, people in their eighties who would say,
I am not what I was, what I once was,
I wouldn't want this job, and proas like, what are
we talking about here? Was it like old? Was it
like elderly? People were like you are rallying around Joe
Biden constantly? They were kind of going, they we should
look at someone younger.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, no, it's true. And and I think a really
good point, John. I hope you will come back.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
I'll always come back. Yeah, always come back back. And
if I didn't tell you this story before, please I'll
tell you it now. It's my last is exactly are
the point were we're just on I've told one hundred times,
but I'll tell it now because it was. It was
literally the funniest thing that happened in the whole of
the twenty twenty four election cycle. To me that Saturday night.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Anything funny happened to you during that anyway, go on yes.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Saturday night after the Republican Convention. You'll recall this weird
span of time where Trump assassination, attempt a convention in Milwaukee,
and then other things that happened immediately there after. So
the Saturday night after the Republican Convention ended on a
Thursday Saturday night, Dave Chappelle and John Stewart did a
comedy set at the kind of like a freends and
(27:31):
family show at the Apollo Theater at Harlem, and John
told this story in his set. He said to the crowd,
you know, I just came back. I've been back on
six months. I've been getting a lot of crap from
Democrats because I came out at the very beginning it
said that both of these guys are told to be president.
And you know, it's been really hard for me because
how many people in the crowd have had someone in
(27:52):
their eighties who they've had to do something hard in
their family, you know, an uncle, a grandfather or a grandmother,
a mother, a father, or whatever, where they've had to
do something like take away their driver's license to their
car keys. Everyone's hand went up in the room and
Stuart said, you know, yeah, what happened with me with
my nana. My nana was in her nineties and we
had to take away a driver's license and it was
the hardest thing we'd ever done. It with the last
shred of her independence. She just like, look, was clinging
(28:13):
to this one thing. She was kind of like, don't
take my driver's license. That's basically like putting me in
the grave. But my family rallied, We did the hard thing,
We had the hard conversations, and we finally got her
to give up her driver's license. It was really painful,
but it was the right thing to do, but it
was really painful, and you know, and then he said, now,
just imagine we were trying to do that with twenty
(28:34):
million people going. Let the bitch drive, Like that's how
it s felt with me and Joe Biden. Let the
bitch drive. That made me laugh and will make me
laugh forever.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, Let the bitch drive. Thank you, thank.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
You, bye, mollie Ie.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Tammy Baldwin is the junior Senator from Wisconson. Welcome to
Fast Politics, Tammy Paldwin. It's great to be There's a
big beautiful bill. Is it called one big beautiful bill?
Is that what it's called?
Speaker 8 (29:09):
You know, if you're a billionaire, you might think so,
But this is good for the wealthy and bad for you.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
And that's kind of what we're dealing with, right.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I would love you to explain to us where it is,
where it's going, and a little bit about sort of
how it's being put together right now.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
Absolutely.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
So, the way they start the reconciliation process is they
tell all these committees in the House of Representatives, you
got to find some cuts here, or in some cases
they're saying you even have more money to spend here,
like for the tax breaks for the billionaires, right, And
so they instruct all these committees to do this, and
this week all the major committees that deal with big
(29:47):
pieces of this are doing their work. So they are
looking at the medicaid budget, they are looking at the
agriculture budget and nutrition programs. They are looking at more
tax breaks they can get to corporations, and billionaires in
the various different.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Committees in the House, and that's happening this week.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
And the nutrition benefits that you're talking about, that's SNAP,
that's supplemental nutritional assistance. So there's an eight hundred and
eighty billion dollar cut to Medicaid and medicare right, talk
me through. That was like the top line number they
needed to pay for the tax cuts that are already
in place.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Yeah, so let me tell you a little bit about that.
Speaker 8 (30:26):
That was the instruction, the goal set for the Energy
and Commerce Committee in the House. I used to sit
on it, so I know a little is something about this,
and so they have met their goal, or that's what
they are in the process of doing this week, by
cutting Medicaid about seven hundred and fifty billion dollars and
(30:49):
then making some other cuts, particularly some of the energy
things like clean energy tax credits. They've taken some pieces
out of other areas too. But let's talk about the
big one, Medicaid. We predict that somewhere close to fourteen
million people will lose their healthcare because of the cuts
(31:10):
that are being proposed this week. Some of those people
will lose their healthcare because of the work reporting requirements
that they are putting forward, which by the way, is
just a scheme and I'll be happy to tell you
more about that later.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
And the other big group.
Speaker 8 (31:29):
Of people will lose their health insurance because Republicans have
turned away from a tax credit that helps people afford
their healthcare in the Affordable Care Act. This is a
really important premium tax credit that really makes healthcare super
(31:49):
affordable for those who otherwise would probably choose to go
without because they just couldn't afford the monthly premium.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And then there's also sort of reason more money for
the military. More money, give me the kind of breakdown
of where it is.
Speaker 8 (32:07):
Yeah, So the places where you will see more spending
according to Trump, priorities are the military, homeland security, and
of course they will allow the committees that deal with
tax policy to spend more in order to both continue
(32:29):
some of the Trump one point zero era tax cuts
for corporations and the wealthy, but also they are looking
seriously at adding some more tax cuts that benefit the
wealthy in America. And so those are sort of the
three major areas where you're seeing the committees freed up
(32:51):
to spend more money. In fact, they predict next year
that for the first time ever, the Defense Department will
spend over a trillion dollars. That is like unfathomable in
so many different ways. But in any event, they're cutting
everything else. But when you put everything else together, it
(33:12):
is much smaller. In order to achieve the type of
savings that they're talking about to pay for their tax
breaks for the wealthy, it would be.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Crippling to so many programs.
Speaker 8 (33:26):
We talked about nutrition programs, snap in particular, Medicaid, et cetera.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
And what I would say is that a lot of.
Speaker 8 (33:36):
Republicans that I'm hearing from say quietly at this point,
but are uncomfortable with the deep cuts that are being
proposed for Medicaid. And I think if people keep doing
what they've been doing and speaking out and sharing their
stories and writing their particularly their Republican representatives, but write
(33:59):
all of us. But I think we can make some
headway in getting them to back off some of the
worst of their proposals.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So you've been in the Senate a while, you know
all of these people. Clearly there has to be some
regret for letting these cabinet picks slide through. And you
don't even have to tell me who. But I'm sure
you know there are some good Republican senators right. They
may not agree with us, but they're good people, largely
who have gone into government service to serve and not
(34:29):
to profit with the RFK stuff. I mean, are you
seeing a little buyer's remorse here from some of these
Republican senators.
Speaker 8 (34:37):
Mollie, I want to answer this in a couple of
different ways. You're saying, I've served in the Senate a while,
I've served with some of these people. I want to
tell you that a whole bunch of new Republican senators
that have been elected in the past couple of cycles,
and many of them are supercharged LAGA people, so you know,
I'm getting to know them, but they're not the ones
we're talking about. Absolutely, there are senators who are having
(34:59):
buyers remorse with regard to some of the confirmation votes
they've cast, also for the amount of cruelty and harm
this budget reconciliation process is teeing up. But I also
want to just mention one other thing that I that
I'm keeping in the back of my mind because you know,
every so often I have to be reminded of this
(35:20):
both in the House as they're trying to figure out
how to put together a majority to advance this reconciliation bill.
You have some who have said, and I'm not going
to call them moderates, these are just maybe more traditional
Republicans who have said, oh, some of these cuts go
a little too far, and then have this right flank
that says, we are not voting for any bill unless
(35:42):
you cut five trillion dollars out of domestic spending, because
we're not going to vote for a bill where the
tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations aren't completely paid for.
Now in the Senate, interestingly, my counterpart in the United
States Senate run Johnson has recently said the same thing.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
He says he will.
Speaker 8 (36:04):
Not vote for a measure where the tax breaks for
the wealthy and corporations are not fully paid for. And
so it makes for strange bedfellows, if you will that
there are folks who say, I'm not going to support
it because the cuts are too deep and it hurts
my constituents too badly. And you know, at the end
(36:26):
of the day, if it ends up being some super
right wingers who join with a couple of more traditional Republicans,
and then all the Democrats in opposing this.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
Who knows what's going to happen, But we.
Speaker 8 (36:39):
Have a lot of hard work to do between now
as we're speaking and the houses marking up all their
bills and the final votes in each House of Congress.
So got a lot of work on all of our
shoulders to make sure that we put a stop to
the cruelest and most harmful of these proposers.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
You know, I think that's a really good and I
mean we saw this with the tariffs, too, right. I
mean Rand Paul, who is hardly anyone's idea of a liberal,
is staunchly against the tariffs, and he turned out to
be a sort of ally there. I feel like what
we've seen with Trump is that if you push back
in a big, loud way, right, you get the attention
(37:20):
of a Laura Luhmer or someone like that, right, one
of his people, for example, cutting these social safety net stuff.
This is the kind of thing that there are populas
in Trump's camp who don't like this kind of thing.
And so I'm wondering, do you think that that's sort
of the play. And then also I want to add,
if this doesn't pass, what does that look like?
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Boy? A lot of great questions there.
Speaker 8 (37:44):
So I do think our most powerful tool is elevating
the stories of the people who would be harmed by
the worst provisions. And for the last months we've been
trying to organize folks and uplift their stories, not knowing
exactly what shape or form the final cuts would take.
(38:06):
And this week is really the first week where we've
seen them put things into writing and now can assess
with much greater specificity, assuming they pass what's before them,
how it's going to harm people. And you know, when
you're talking about fourteen fifteen million people losing their healthcare,
that's something that as soon as that knowledge gets out,
(38:28):
we have a way of fighting back through the population.
So first question is what happens in the House. We've
seen this before where the more traditional Republicans are at
a breakpoint with the right wing flank that is insisting
on massive cuts to government spending, as they say, so
(38:50):
they're going to have to work through that first, and
we'll see it in real time as it happens over
the next week or two, and that will be predictive obviously,
if they can't get their act together and can't do
it by Memorial Day, which is their goal. Then they'll
take another stab at it when we get back after
the Memorial Day recess if they are able to come
to some fragile agreement and send it over to the Senate. Again,
(39:15):
this is budget reconciliation, so they get around the filibuster.
It only takes a simple majority vote, and there we're
going to be working really hard to persuade both flanks
of that Republican caucus, the ones who won't vote for
it unless it's fully paid for, and the ones who
think that the proposals that are out there right now
(39:36):
are too cool and too harmful for our neighbors and
are willing to help us fight.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
When you cut these programs like Medicare Medicaid, they will
be larger things like closing of nursing homes and rural hospitals,
largely in red states where there's less state tax. There
are certainly Republican senators who understand this and what is
their feeling on this? So can you use this to
(40:02):
prevent it?
Speaker 5 (40:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (40:04):
So I think the answer is yes. Really, until we
saw the specifics about the cuts they were intending, we
were organizing folks who rely on Medicaid in their families
because you know, they have a relative who's a senior
in a nursing home, and the majority of seniors in
(40:25):
nursing homes rely on Medicaid, or people who have, say
an adult child with significant disabilities, and they rely on
Medicaid for both services and healthcare. A third of all
children are on Medicaid. So we were elevating those stories.
But one of the points I was also trying to
draw out is there's a lot of people whose employment
is paid for it by Medicaid. The people who work
(40:46):
in nursing homes, the people who work in rural critical
access hospitals, the people who work in nonprofits that serve
adults and children with severe disabilities.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
All of those people their jobs.
Speaker 8 (41:01):
Are there and part of their salaries come from the
Medicaid program. And so I think because of the nature
of some of the specifics they're now proposing, we are
going to be able to get a whole new group
of people speaking out. Hospital administrators and nursing home administrators,
but also the frontline nurses and nurses assistants who provide
(41:24):
care every single day under very tough circumstances, you know,
because they're dedicated to the health and well being of
their Naghbin.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
It would be malpractice if they did not ask you
about the plane. Donald Trump wants to take a four
hundred million dollar plane from the royal family of Qatar
and use it as Air Force One. Cynthia Lumis was
asked about this. She's quite a trumpy Republican and she
burst out laughing, Yes, that's my question. Is me just
(41:55):
without speech?
Speaker 8 (41:57):
I know? And there's so many different ways you can
respond to this. You know, this is corruption at its highest.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Is it a violation of the emoluments cause?
Speaker 8 (42:07):
Absolutely, But let me give you the anecdote that I
just heard from a colleague.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
I'm gonna I'm not gonna give you attributes.
Speaker 8 (42:14):
To who it was, but it's like, would you let
the Katari royal family rebuild the White House situation room,
rebuild the press conference room, rebuild the Oval office, because
that is what Air Force one is. It has all
of those things in it. This is so ridiculous. And
(42:34):
then the amount of money that it's going to take
to take out what the Kataris have installed in terms
of communications and security, et cetera, and replace it with
stuff that we know is secure and impenetrable. Is probably
going to cost more than just waiting two more years
(42:55):
for the new air Force.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Like the conversations I had with people who's taught me
in this stream, how grid are you about securing the
midterms and having free and fair elections for the midterms,
because this is the thing that a lot of people
I know are word about.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (43:11):
So I'm looking at a whole bunch of things that
I think we've seen throughout history in the demise of
other democracies, are signs that something really bad is happening.
And part of it is election denial, trying to disenfranchise
parts of the electorate, trying to make it harder to
vote in various ways. Part of it is corruption and
(43:34):
the mass movement of taxpayer dollars to the very wealthy,
the oligarchs of a society, other types of corruption. There's
hallmarks of what happens when a democracy is in trouble.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
And boy, I can tell you I see.
Speaker 8 (43:54):
Action after action in this administration that overreach, that cross
those lines that make me very concerned, and we've got
to be vigilant about it.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
At the same.
Speaker 8 (44:05):
Time that we're fighting to make sure that our constituents
have access to healthcare and have access to nutrition programs.
Speaker 5 (44:14):
We have to do it all, but we.
Speaker 8 (44:15):
Have the courts, we have the Congress when it acts,
we have our constituents who we are fighting alongside on
all of these fronts, and that's how we are going
to push it.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Things really get like a situation where you start to
really panic. Do you think that there are enough Republican votes?
Because I think there are, but I'm not in there
enough for Publican votes to run a check on Trump
if he starts doing really out of the box staff.
Speaker 5 (44:45):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 8 (44:46):
I have heard a number of my Republican colleagues ask
a question that almost all of my Democratic colleagues have
been asking, and that is, when faced with a law
that Congress has passed or a ruling of a court,
would you follow that law or follow that ruling over
an order from the Trump administration to the contrary? And
(45:08):
I heard that question asked by a Republican colleague at
a Commerce Committee hearing earlier this week, And I'm hearing
increasingly Republicans saying to Trump nominees, there's only one right
answer to this question. It's crossing a line too far.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
Now.
Speaker 8 (45:27):
Is that many of my Republican colleagues. No, but if
it's a simple majority vote, we only need four to
stand strong. If it's something that can be decided, you
know that has a subject to a filibuster, we need
a few more.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Tammy Baldwin, I am so delighted to get to have
you on this podcast. I hope you will come back
because it's just you know, you are answering these questions.
I ask these very nerdy questions because I'm like, so
interested in the procedural, where I feel like most people
are not so interested in. I'd well, you're making them
as this is crying, So please come back, senitor, Thank you.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
No moment fu Jesse Cannon smile.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Let's say your Health and Human Services director has just
gotten back from a nice swim and some sewage.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
In Rock Creek Park.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yes, what would you like the quote for them to
be at their next press conference? Because if I was
in the Trump administration, I don't think i'd want that
quote to be. I don't think people should be taking
medical advice for me when you're in charge of medical policy.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
One of my favorite things about RFK Junior is that
he really does seem like he doesn't know what is
going on, You know what I mean, Like he really unhinged.
Like he also said earlier this week that it's because
Trump gets money.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Remember that, Yes, yes, yes, we discussed that on the
last episode.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah, so, I honestly think he's like still kind of
a Democrat secret weapon, despite the fact that he is
disassembling much of the federal government. Yeah no, I mean
RFK Junior, this guy, you know, he is the guy
who goes to the bathroom without wearing shoes on an xplane.
Speaker 6 (47:25):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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