June 7, 2024 • 50 mins
"The Origin Story" podcast host Ian Dunt details the comedic turns the UK’s election keeps taking. Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin examines the right's never-ending aggressions towards reproductive rights. The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper reports what he sees as he attends MAGA rallies.
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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 Donald Trump says it's very possible
he will have to jail President Biden.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's nice. We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin stops by to talk about the
rights never ending aggression towards reproductive rights. Then we'll talk
to the daily shows Jordan Klepper about what he sees
when he attends those Maga rallies. But first we have
the host of the Origin Story podcast and my personal
(00:37):
friend Ian dunt Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Really one of my favorite guests, Ian, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Always an in Tadie show who you were referring to
that Richardson.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm very dopic for full disclosure.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Before this we were talking, Jesse and I were both like,
oh my god, something's happening in England.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
We can get Ian.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yes. Really in a way, that's the most president consequence
of the general election here. So I'm glad we'll be
satisfied that.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Richie Sunak he has announced elections a little early, not
like Nanya who was never going to have elections, but
he picked July fourth because of how much he loves
America discuss at certainly.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I mean, I would predict that when he loses in
a few weeks time, he will soon enough find himself
on the shores of Silicon Valley, desperately hoping that one
of the tech bros Will give him a job. That's
clearly where he wants to be. In fact, genuinely, and
I really didn't mean this, Some bills bandalists thought maybe
he called the election for this period so that there
(01:41):
was still time to get his kids into school in
California when he ineveratively loses it, so it's better impossible
in the one hundred percent, maybe as part of his
great pr campaign for his next professional venturers to hold
it on the fourth of July.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
It is a bit weird, right, I mean, is there
something happening Underly fourth in the UK that we don't
know about?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
No, I mean July fourth, you know, for obvious reasons,
doesn't really mean anything over here at bathroom like an
old Tom Cruise film, So I don't think I had
much of a bell there. The timing of the election
is just completely bizarre, and the first week of it
we all just sat around being like, why what are
you doing?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, can you explain to us why? Because he could
have kept this going for another like six months.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Right, yeah, exactly. He can call the election whenever he likes.
You have to have it within a five year period,
like you can't just drag it on forever. It's still
like just about kind of a functioning democracy over here.
Within that you could just do what you like. Really,
we expected him to call it late because he's going
to lose, you know, and people are the prime minister.
They usually like being prime minister, so they just wait
(02:44):
as long as they now not.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
To put too fine a point on it, yes, go.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
On, exactly. This is my really deep, acute perceptive political
analysis that you're getting right now. It's like they like
not losing and so they do not put an election.
So from that you can come to one conclusion, which
is that imagine like the thought process that you have
if you're in Downing Street, if you're the government, thinking
when are we going to have the election? You're constantly thinking,
we're waiting something to come along to improve our electoral prospects.
(03:10):
And at the point that you think, you know what,
nothing's ever going to come. Like, you know, the economy,
biggs look bad, health figures look bad, finances look bad.
Eventually you just think, well, we might as well just
hold it now, because this is as good as it's
ever going to get. So it wasn't so much a
sort of confident announcement of an election. It was more
of this sad song of defeat, like an admission of defeat.
(03:31):
When he said we're going to have a general election now,
it literally sounded like an animal dying on the side
of a road.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I laugh to keep from crying, and not because I
find you're pain funny.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
But maybe a little. So he basically just gave up.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I mean it really does feel like it. You should
see the state of him. I mean, I have to
say that I'm not going to deny any of this
after you know, eight years or so of just acute
political pain and disappointment. I've spent almost every day of
the last two weeks laughing my ass off at what
is going on here, because he is having one of
the worst election campaigns I've seen in my life. And
(04:05):
it started with the announcement.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Can you talk about the rain?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, the rain. I just I've never seen political ineptity
on this scale, I think, for all of my days.
So he comes out. It's been raining for days. You know,
it's England, right, this is how it goes. So it's
been raining just for days. Everything was sobtly onwear. He
comes out of Downing Street. There's no reason to announce
the election outside, except of course, for the fact that
(04:31):
you know, he wants to have the image of the
door behind it, you know, the door down the street,
which really is just a prop at this point, just
another part of our pathological national sentimentality. He needs to
have that door behind him so he can look states.
And yet it's raining and you're like, so the whole
day and he's thinking like, you can't possibly, you can't
do it outside because you know it's raining. For two
(04:53):
or three minutes before he comes out, the sun emerges
from the clouds like and suddenly I thought, oh no,
this is it. We always lose, you know, the liberals.
We always lose, as what we're used to happening in
this country for the last few years. And now you know,
the gods are going to shine on him. So he
steps outside and that one second, as soon as he
(05:14):
leaves the building, the rain begins and he just gets
absolutely drenched out there. He goes and he makes his speech,
and his speech is basically some total of all he
has to communicate to people is I have got a plan.
Trust my plan, Put your faith in my plan. And
yet the spectacle of him, this man in an expensive suit,
standing outside in the rain without an umbrella, drenched to
(05:37):
the bone, telling you to trust him because he's got
a plan, was one of the most preposterous sights I've
seen in a very long time, and pretty much the
perfect curtain opener to what has then gone on to
be a disastrously inect campaign.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yes, it just kept raining and raining and raining.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, the suit is basically ruined, and he looks like
what he is, which is a very desperate, grasping man
hoping for one final chance, which he's not really getting.
So in the weeks that have followed from that, everything
that could possibly go wrong for him has gone wrong
for him. And I mean, the worst moment of all
I suspect came a couple of days ago when Nigel
(06:14):
Farage for the Reform Party announced that he was taking
over the leadership and going to run for parliament. Now
Nigel Farrage is extremely far to the right. He runs
around you. You may have seen him as one of
the sort of best friends of Donald Trump. He is
entirely in that movel, just an extreme, venal, nasty, anti
immigrant tos in in the political blood system. We thought
(06:36):
that he wasn't going to bother He actually wrote a
letter saying, I can't be bothered to run because I
really should be off in the US doing something important,
not dabbling around and let old Englin. This is the
kind of patriotism that he supposedly espouses. Now he's decided
to run, and that really is a complete disaster for
the Prime Minster.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I thought he was going to the States to help
Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yes, well that was his plan, and now apparently it
turns out that he wants to run to become the
Member of Parliament for a part of Essex. He may
or may not get that seat, it's not entirely clear,
but just by being there, I mean, he's charismatic in
the way that you know, you can find some meaning
in a really sodden ashtray. And what is exactly what
he looks like. He looks like the smell of old
(07:17):
cigarettes basically, and behaves pretty much with the same kind
of moral substance to it. And yet nevertheless he is
liked by about twenty percent of the population. You know,
there's a pretty low ceiling on his support. But the
people that support him really really like him. They are
on the right, hard right, and they will lose those
votes from the Conservative Party to the Reform Party. So
(07:38):
not only is Richie Suena facing this really quite cataclysmic
challenge from the center and the left and even arguably
the center right, he's now also facing a separate challenge
on the hard right, giving him almost no political sport
whatsoever in which to operate.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Right now, talk to me about milkshake Gate.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Oh yes, right, Well, Nije Raj was out a couple
of days ago.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I have to hit on all the real highlights. By
the way, I love that.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
When I was growing up, you know, I had all
these brotherish friends. They seemed so elegant, they had these
great you know, you have this coalition government. You guys
seem so smart. Not anymore talk about milkshake gay.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
No, we just have very good pr That is the
sum koto of our image. So Nigel Farage is out,
he's walking around a woman very sensibly sees him and
thinks that the only rational thing to do is to
get hem of Donald's banana milkshake and throw it all
over him, which she did. Now this is actually it's
almost like a British subculture. It started I think about
(08:37):
five or six years ago when arasis far right figure
was talking to some Asian guys and they were just like,
you know what, I don't feel that we need to
engage in the battle of ideas here. I think we
should just engage in the kind of battle of milkshakes,
and just started throwing their milkshakes at him. And then
they started following other figures from the hard right around,
people like Nigel far covering him in milkshake. So this
old and I think, really, you know, other admirable British
(09:02):
tradition has now emerged once again and he was covered
in milkshake at that moment. She's now being charged with assault.
Seems rather forl on to me. But nevertheless, it's a trope. Now,
what are these elections going to look like?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Now you basically have this coalition government, so members are
running by different parties and then the numbers who get elected. Well,
I'm explaining this explain it to us. Yes, I can't
know what.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I very much enjoyed listening to you. Try.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Thank you. Yes, I'm here for fun.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
There's six hundred and fifty seats and there's no sort
of electoral college complications or any of that to this.
There's basically just six hundred and fifty seats. Party that's
got the majority. In other words, more than three hundred
and twenty five. There's some complications there, but basically more
than three hundred and twenty five just gets to form
the government. You know, you're not voting for the leader
in any way. They just happen to be the leader
(09:57):
of the party that start the seeds. We've never seen
the Tories fall below a certain level, you know, below
sort of two hundred or anything like that. The current
projections of where they're heading to is sort of like
under one hundred seats, just sort of EXI central that
there's some projections that came out this week and look,
this can't happen. I don't say that on the basis
of calculation, but just by I can't believe that it
(10:17):
would happen. You know, that puts them on things like
sixty fives. That's the kind of numbers that could potentially
be the extinction of the Conservative Body. Now, the Conservative
Body is the oldest political party in the Western world.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And basically has been empower our whole adult lives.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, I mean or off. I mean, it's been in
powered much more than Labour's been in power. I mean, obviously,
you know, we had the Tony Blair period and the
Orden Brown periods, so Labor has these long stints in power.
But the Tories have been around as a viable and
extremely successful political party since the exclusion crisis in the
sixteen hundreds. You know, this is a really, really old organization.
(10:55):
And right now people who are typically quite cautious in
that political analysis and don't like to appear hysterical or
over excited, are talking very genuinely about what if this
actually is the party? What if we are just seeing
one of those moments I mean that are not that
different to you know, Brexit and Trump, but you know,
just these moments of like where it can't happen, can it?
(11:16):
Until actually it does? That is perfectly possible from where
we are right now, and it would happen because a
mixture of factors, but at the heart of them, is
the catastrophic and complete failure of populacey. You know, unlike
in Europe where populist parties run against mainstream parties, Britain
has functioned much like the US, where the mainstream center
(11:37):
right party has absorbed populism whole set. I mean they
have absorbed it entirely. And what have they done. They
complain about immigrants, they complain about asylum seekers, they complain
about trans people. But all the years that they've been
doing that, the economy falls apart, the healthcare system falls apart,
the schools, the prisons, the transport. It's just a sense
(11:57):
that nothing works, Nothing in the country works. Last week,
when our Equalities minister I mean named the best already
in manner imaginable, spends an entire day of the election
wanting to come out to talk about that policy on
excluding trans people from toilets and from great crisis centers.
The response is at culture or response that she's looking for.
(12:18):
It's more why in the name of God are you
talking about this rather than talking about the fact that
you cannot make anything in this country actually work. So
what you're seeing is not just the death of conservative
because it's really the death of a populist form of
reactionary politics in the UK.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's so right and it's so interesting, but it's also
what's happening with this Republican Party. I mean, we don't
know if Trump is going to win. Obviously, there's a
lot of machinations and inaccuracies in the polls. But we
are in a moment in American life where thirty nine
Republican Senators yesterday voted against the Right to Contraception Act
(12:55):
so you can get birth control pills and condoms, and
Republicans are like, oh, I don't.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Know, Oh my god. Although, by the way, it quite
meaningful that even as I thought it really was the
Right to Conception Act, it didn't necessarily seem like some
three Republicans would oppose just on points of reason or practicality. Yeah, sure,
why not? Why not that as well?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I mean, it's such an interesting moment because you do find,
you know, these culture war things, punishing trans people, punishing
gay people, punishing women who have abortions, those don't actually
help the economy.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yes, exactly. It's as if there's two separate approaches now
that you're seeing across Europe. In the US. I think
so Kirstarma, the late Party leader, is really quite similar
to Joe Biden, I think in his form of sort
of centrist response to populism, which is just to try
and kill those issues there and to position himself really,
you know, in the middle of left and right. You know,
(13:50):
very open state intervention in the economy, very open sort
of borrowing money in order to spend, but at the
same time obviously not socialistic or anything like that, and
yet not allowing the culture war on open clothes, that
secondary up down binary to define them, to just try
and kill those cultural war issues. In Europe you often
see a really different approach from people like Emmanuel Macron,
(14:11):
where they're a centrist on left right issues on the
economic issues, but when it comes to open clothes Racron,
just like Tony Blair did before him, defines himself as
an advocate for right. It's actually quite embracing many of
the culture war distinctions, the sort of anti Trump, the
anti Brexit. That's not really what we're seeing in Starmer.
Stalmer's project is much more similar to Joe Biden's, and
(14:33):
it's really an intend to just take all that culture
war stuff and just bury it, just bury it in
the earth. Look, what I pledged to you is a
machine that works like competent government with people who've followed
based moral instructs. You aren't ashamed to see who your
political leaders are. They have a call social responsibility, and
we'll just do the hard work to make society operate
(14:54):
again in the way that it has failed to do
when populace have been in charge.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
It's like they found the stupidest p people to run
the government, right, I mean, and those people got together
and came up with the stupidest ideas and then they
were like, what's the harm? I mean, like Margaret Thatcher.
I think so much about Margaret Thatcher. I remember growing
up thinking that that was like pretty much the worst
you could get. Or Ronald Reagan and those people are
(15:20):
like geniuses compared to the Conservative Party of today.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I completely agree. I completely agree, And like Thatcher had
actually read Hayek, you know, she'd actually read the stuff
I mean saying, by the way, for Ronald Reagan, they
both read von Mises, like all of that stuff maybe
just the most appalling laissez fair neoliberal clap trap of
the highest order. And it is. It has failed every
time it's been implemented. It's a lunacy that is exactly
(15:45):
as insane as communism on the other side, just it
happens to love the pre market instead of the state.
But at least it has intellectual content to it, at
least there's some kind of basis that a rational, intelligent
person could grapple with it. The kind of stuff that
comes out now from the people that consider themselves their
political descendants, and it is stupid in ways that makes
(16:07):
you think that your own brain is shrinking inside the
inside of your skull rather than come into context. I mean,
the other day, Richard Saying's current policy is basically to
just throw any half hearted, half conceived idea out there
as long as it seems upsetting to liberals and encouraging
to some of the most venal and self interested people
into South. The other day he popped up in his
(16:28):
act of desperation and just said, you know what, We're
going to bring back national service.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I love national service, but go on, go on. I
know no one else likes it, it's just me likes it,
but go on.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, there are countries in Europe, you know, in Scandinavia
that have national service. Fine, if in a particular context,
for a particular reason. You come up with this as
an idea. That's a thing to be in the middle
of a campaign where you're losing even majority support among
the over sixty fives, the one group that could always
be trusted. They can just think, you know what, after
young people have been kept inside for two to three
(16:59):
years over COVID in order to protect the disease, why
don't we just plug into your emotional resentment of the
young purely on the basis of their youth and really
trigger that. And you're can just say, you know what,
don't worry, We're going to send the eighteen year odds
to walk. And of course, as soon as he announces it,
outcome the questions, right, he says, look, you've got to
do this. It's going to be for a year. You
can of course do voluntary service or whatever, but also
(17:22):
otherwise you get I'm going to do it the course
of a year when you're eighteen, And then the questions start,
what if someone's in university doesn't really have an answer that.
What if that person actually has kids themselves doesn't really
have an answer to that. What if that person has
a job doesn't have an answer to that it didn't
even bother do we even I mean even to say
we used to say that, you know, they'd write it
on the back of a cigarette packet the policy. But
the honest truth is a cigarette packet would offer far
(17:44):
too much space for the degree of thinking that has
gone into these policy.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
In thank you, you are just the best. I appreciate
you so much.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Now that's right, the best.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Good luck, like even real need it.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to
look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all
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(18:24):
Tammy Baldwin is the junior Senator from the state of Wisconsin.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I am delighted to join you.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I'm so excited to have you.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yesterday, thirty nine Republican Senators voted against this Right to
Contraception Act.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Talk to us about what was in the act.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
First, I'm going to say just what the necessity for
the Act is. When the Dobbs decision came down almost
two years ago, overturning rel versus Wade because the Court
basically said it was wrongigh decided back in nineteen seventy
three because there is no constitutional right to privacy. That
drew into question, well, what other cases has the Court
(19:12):
decided based on a constitutional right to privacy? And one
of the key cases, a case called Griswold versus Connecticut,
really revolves around access to contraception and basically makes it
clear that states cannot ban access to contraception. And so
if it weren't enough that the majority opinion implied that
(19:34):
this could be next. Just as Clarence Thomas set it
outright in his concurring opinion, he listed a bunch of
cases that were decided based on a right to privacy
and said, Wow, perhaps the US Supreme Court as it's
currently composed should reconsider these cases, should bring them up
anew And that's where the threat to our access to contraception,
(19:58):
birth control, that's where that threat presented itself. You know,
we never thought Row would be overturned. It was, and
now we have to be very vigilant about these other
rights and freedoms that are based on a constitutional right
to privacy that this Supreme Court thinks no longer exists.
And so one of the things that would help clarify
(20:20):
things is if we were to pass the Right to
Contraception Act, which we tried to do yesterday. And while
there's eighty eight to ninety percent approval among the American
people about access to contraception, apparently half the Senate, predominantly
the Republicans save two of them, are not in favor
of a right to access contraception.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, it's such an interesting bill because it's birth control
pills and condoms and things that are pretty popular in
this country. What do you think the thinking here is
on the right.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Well, we had a hearing in the Senate Help Committee
earlier this week on basically access to reproductive rights across
the country. It was focused as we approached the two
year anniversary of the Dodge decision overturning Roe versus Wade.
But we had some testimony from a couple of the
(21:17):
Republican witnesses, one in particular, who were clearly opposed to
the use of iud's, for example, contraceptive devices Plan B,
which is called the Morning After Pill. It was very
clear that despite the fact that nearly ninety percent of
the American public supports access to contraception. That these Republican
(21:40):
witnesses were saying, no, No, We're seeing this in the
states play out. We've seen several state legislatures pass bills
that would guarantee state right to access contraception, and then
we've seen Republican governors of veto those bills. And in
Wisconsin we have such a bill pending, but the Republican
(22:01):
majority in the state legislature won't even bring the bill
up for a vote.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So part of this is this wildly anti science right
wing transition from the quote unquote heartbeat bill, which again
was it anything that looked like a heartbeat meant that
the embryo was a person, to now this embryonic personhood.
So basically the right is is shopping this notion that
(22:29):
once an egg is fertilized, it is a human.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Well, certainly you see that both among legislators who make
those claims, but also we saw it in the Alabama
Supreme Court which said that the use of in vitro fertilization,
you know that that was a human and entitled to
all the rights of humans. And so the implications are
(22:56):
clearly that there's a group of folks who would like
that to be the standard in the United States.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
So they are really painting themselves into a corner here though,
on the right, because once you go down this road,
you say the morning after pill you can't have that,
iud eas you can't have that. And then IVF, which
is wildly popular. It's miraculous you have people like Mike
Pens talking about having done IVF.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
You close the door to IVF.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Right, that would be the logical next step when you
look at the claims that we've just been discussing. But
we're talking about the ability of women in particular to
control their own bodies and to decide when or whether
to start a family. And we're talking both about access
(23:46):
to abortion care, but we're also talking about, as you said,
the miracle of IVF for couples who are trying to
start a family and needing IVF to do so.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
So one of the things you have in Wisconsin, you're
holding hearings with the Wisconsin doctor about working under this
eighteen forty nine criminal abortion ban. Explain to us what
that is and what that means.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, So, when the Dobbs decision came out nearly two
years ago, overturning roll versus way state law became the
governing law. And so in Wisconsin we have a measure
that was passed one year after statehood in eighteen forty
nine that is widely viewed as a criminal abortion ban.
(24:34):
When the Dobs decision came fourth, all access stopped in
the state of Wisconsin. It was horrendous, and doctor Linton
talked a little bit about some of the experiences she witnessed.
There were people in the waiting room for appointments that
morning two years ago and people were told, we can't
(24:56):
provide you with services. And there were also harrowing stories
that have been shared because the only exception for that
eighteen forty nine law is the life of the mother.
Women being left to suffer and suffer harm and not
being provided care within the state of Wisconsin until near death.
(25:19):
So the stories of a woman who was bleeding for days,
a woman who's water broke at seventeen weeks and was
sent home and not provided any life saving care until
she had a fever that spiked and was facing the
risk of sepsis. This is not healthcare. It is cruel
(25:43):
and I will say, you know, What has happened in
Wisconsin since then is that in three counties they have
resumed providing abortion care because of a trial court judge
determining that the eighteen forty nine statute in Wisconsin was
never intended to apply to consensual abortion care. But only
(26:08):
three counties out of seventy two can you get service,
and that means there are many for who getting the
cow brands of healthcare that they should get is out
of reach, either financially or because of distances or all
the obstacles that have been placed in people's way.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
It is like one of the things that for me,
as someone who's forty five, it just blows my mind
that we're here. But when you read Thomas's concurring opinion,
he actually opens the door to birth control, gay marriage,
(26:49):
you know, all of the things that were wins in
the last couple decades. Overturning Row taking away that right
really created a sort of sea change in the conservative playbook.
You know, it does seem like they're going for more
and more. What can you do as a as a
(27:09):
senitor to try to slow this down, gum up the works,
anything you can do.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
We read the decision carefully in Dobbs, and especially the
concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas where he calls out
the cases and we get to work. He went after
gay marriage. You're right, he suggested we relitigate the Oberger
Bell case from twenty fifteen, and I think about how
(27:35):
hard fought that victory was over many, many years. So
when that case came down, when Dobbs came down, we
introduced the Respect for Marriage Act, which by the way,
covers both interracial marriages and same sex marriages because both
were based on this right to privacy that we were
(27:55):
talking about.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
There's an opportunity here to point out something about justice Toime.
I'm not going to, but I'm just going to say
that he actually didn't mention interracial marriage.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
That is correct. He left that out of his list
of cases that the Supreme Court might revisit. So anyways,
we got to work, and I remember my conversations with
Republican senators who I felt like wanted to get to
yes to protect interracial and same sex marriages, and working
(28:25):
over weeks and weeks and months, but we passed the
Respect for Marriage Act, which your listeners should think of
an insurance policy that your marriage will be protected in
every state and by the federal government should a Supreme
Court look at reversing either the Loving case or the
(28:45):
Oberger Felk case in the future. And we passed that
so that right now that freedom is protected. That's what
we were trying to do yesterday with the Right to
Contraception Act is make sure that we take the next
step and protect another right and freedom that has been
long standing in the United States of America because it
(29:08):
is under threat. I hope. While only two Republicans out
of the forty nine who serve in the US Senate
voted for the Right to Contraception Act, we must pass it.
We must continue working on this, and we must restore
the rights articulated in Roll versus way, which means passing
my Women's Health Protection Act. So we've got to keep
(29:32):
this fight up.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So you are running for reelection against someone a new Wisconsin, ight,
I feel like he has failed to sort of catch
on in the state. Can you do two seconds about
your opponent there?
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I can so. My opponent, Eric Hovedy. While he was
born and raised in Wisconsin, he spent his adult career
living twenty four years in Washington, BC, running a hedge
Fund and much more recently living in Laguna Beach, California,
running a three billion dollar bank, and he is a
(30:10):
multimillionaire who is self financing. He could not be more
of a contrast in terms of the very issues that
we're talking about now. He did return home once earlier
to run for US Senate back in twenty twelve, so
we have him on the record saying that he was
a one hundred percent opposed to abortion rights and talking
(30:33):
about life beginning at conception, and saying that he would
repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, all these
positions that he took. Now that he's running another time,
he is trying to dance around his former positions, maybe
sounding a little bit more moderate. But you know, as
(30:57):
I watched Donald Trump and Eric Hovedy try to reframe
their positions after celebrating the Dobbs decision and overturning Rovers's wait,
they're fighting about, well, the federal government should decide no, no,
the state government should decide Well, I say women should
decide period no.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
And that's right.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And I think a lot of people feel like that
women and their doctors are not Republican politicians Wisconsin, there
have been like huge strides, but you still are state
that has very much struggled with jerrymandering and a state
legislature that has been you know, you could have things
like what Minnesota has for you breakfast, You have some
(31:38):
things like that, but you could have more of that
if you had a state legislature that was less right wing.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
I will say something very heartening, which is the governor
signed into law a couple months ago a new map
that is a fair map, a not je commanded map.
And so this fall, the folks who are running for
status SEM and state Senate are doing so in much
(32:03):
fairer districts. And we have a record number, it seems,
of candidates stepping up to run who just two years
ago would have looked at the map and said, oh,
I can't possibly win in this district and are now
got on the ballot and they're now knocking on doors.
And so I do see some real excitement at the
(32:23):
grassroots level that we can have a much more representative
state legislature than we have had for a decade and
a half.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
That is so great. Thank you so much, Senator Baldwin.
I hope you will come back.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
I look forward to it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Jordan Kuepper is a Daily Show correspondent and his special
Moscow Tools is out on Comedy Central. Right now, Welcome
to Fast Politics, Jordan Klepper.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Ami, Jordan, you did this special? Where did you go? Exactly?
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Well, this special, I went as far away as Estonia
and as club as Pennsylvania for the special. So we
were covering Russian misinformation and noticing it primarily at MAGA events,
and so we went to like Green Bay and Pennsylvania
and people were talking about Vladimir Putin. They were talking about,
frankly parroting Russian misinformation, misinformation that we sort of connected
(33:17):
to this Kremlin report that the Washroom Post reported on,
and that took us a little bit around the country
and then ultimately to the border of Russia and Estonia
to talk to the Prime minister. So we you know,
we put in some we put in some miles for
this one.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
What I think is interesting is like we in the
sort of news bubble, we read pieces all the time
that are like Kremlin influence campaigns. They're vague and they
say things like, you know, there's a Black Lives Matter
account that's really run by the Kremlin, and there's also
a White Lives Matter account that's you know what I mean,
like that they're they're trying to sew division, but this
(33:51):
is really them trying to speak to a certain group
of people and it's working very much.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
So I think one of their goals is to, yes,
just flood it with misinformation to accentuate the divisions that
are already there. And what we see when we are
out on the road is we see these talking points
being parroted, and again, some of those are homegrown American
divisions that Russia just fans the flames of and some
of the bs that is planted into the news cycle
(34:19):
that a lot of the folks at these Trump rallies
are ingesting, and then they're parroting, and then they're using
as an example and a reason to support Vladimir Putin
or to discredit what's happening in Ukraine. And I think
this is where we were excited about doing this special
because frankly, we can talk to journalists and talk to
people who can articulate the desires and the wants of
the Kremlin, and then we can actually go out into
(34:40):
the field and show how that's having a very real
effect on the conversation.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
What I think is interesting is that we have had
this problem probably since I mean maybe even before, but
it's become a sort of pronounced problem since twenty sixteen.
Right since twenty sixteen, we've seen like real concrete evidence
of the Kremlin and you know, getting in there and
influencing voters. But what I think is a little bit
(35:06):
new is that the Kremlin has gotten in there and
influenced lawmakers.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Yes, I think we're seeing that, and this was the
news story of the last couple of months, is that
these Kremlin talking points are being echoed on the House floor.
They're literally coming up works for funding for Ukraine. They
have real world effects, and so yes, there's been a
cat of mouse game between the US and Russia, and
Russia has tried to influence talking points in America for years.
I think the ground is right for its success, and
(35:33):
we've seen very real, concrete examples of a success. I
think another thing we noticed too is beyond the success
it was having with Ukraine and the conversation around funding Ukraine,
there's a larger, kind of darker question that it brings
up is, yes, Russia feeds the far right and at
sometimes also the left whatever they can to fuel the vision,
(35:55):
they feed them the things they want to hear. But
also there's something there and something new which feels like
a true, earnest desire for autocratic methods. And I don't
think the American public has a totally clear understanding of
what it's like to live under an autocratic regime. That's
part of the reason we went to Estonium. But I
think there's a darker question. We need to ask ourselves.
How much of this is Russia tampering with American sensibilities
(36:16):
and how much of this is American sensibilities in the
MAGA movement are really leaning and slouching towards Moscow. They
want an autocratic, tough guy, white Christian nationalist leader will
crack down on crimes and be socially conservative. That's something that,
as we're articulating the special is a bit of a
Republican white dream.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
No, I mean it's funny because I just read this
book all about the right love affair with autocracy, and
how you know, you had Republicans talking about how much
they love Pino set right, Like this is not a
new phenomenon, But what is a new phenomenon is this
fact that there seems to be some amount of people
(36:56):
and again we can argue about how they've gotten here
that actually do want this.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Yeah, it's a message that is sticky to a good
portion of the populace right now. And again you look
at the person there there to see at these MAGA
events is going to not only echo some of these perspectives,
but has been on the stage next to Vladimir Putin
and essentially given the big thumbs up. So you know,
we were surprised to see in the field. I talked
to a woman who watched Putin fishing videos and got
(37:23):
excited about that. People see this strong man image, which
seems comical, is comical. It's pure propaganda. There's stock in lakes.
Speaker 6 (37:32):
With fish, so this guy can dive in all out
a walleye and look like Kingdom the world and that plays.
There are people in America who watch that like cute
cat videos, and they see this as like a tough
guy who's found success. Again, the digital age that we're
in has only created a space where misinformation propaganda, where
situations where you can embed stories and images and then
(37:53):
erase the places that they came from and the people
will do your bidding, they will send it out there.
There's a little bit of and this Washington Post story
that talked about the new form of propaganda and misinformation
is to essentially to create a news story and then
erase the place with which it came from and just
bank on true social or x or people to tweet
it out. And the fact that it has gained traction
(38:16):
and gone elsewhere, you can't put the pieces back together.
And so you see why Russia is having such success
right now. It's a ripe not only political environment in
America for these ideas to take hold, but it's a
ripe media environment for these ideas to spread.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
One of the things that I talked to you about,
which I want you to say on this podcast because
I think it's a really important point that I have
long believed that if you could explain to people this
is how this is like being a stupid media bubble person,
that if you could explain to people why it was wrong,
(38:51):
they would like have a moment and be like, oh,
I get it now, But that doesn't ever happen, right,
explain this to us.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Yes, I think people often ask me how many minds
do you change? Out there quite frankly, the answer to
that is a zero.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
I shouldn't laugh because it's so bleak, but basically they
cannot be reasoned with.
Speaker 5 (39:14):
Right, Well, I mean, I think, like what you watch,
the pieces that I do are not a blueprint for
changing people's mind. It's more a diagnosis of the rot
of the problem. Now, if you're approaching any kind of
idea what I want to change that person's mind, chances
are you're going to be met with resistance. That's not
how people change their minds. And frankly, we are in
spaces where they're being fed things they want to hear.
(39:37):
I often tell the story of I was talking to
a woman at a Trump rally at Trump's first impeachment
who is insistent on Trump's innocence and talked about He's
so innocent because he's letting everybody speak. He wants the
truth to come out. And I said, well, if there
was proof of him stopping somebody from speaking, that would
be proof of guilt. She said, yes, of course. I
pointed to the fact that he was stopping John Bolton
(39:58):
from getting his story out, and she realized in that
moment she said something perhaps incorrect. She took a really
long beat, and she looked at me and she said,
I don't care. And you realize in that moment, like
we're talking about policy and I'm trying to give her
piece of information that will break that bubble, but the
magic trate already occurred. Trump was her identity and that's
(40:18):
who she is. So what we're arguing are details of
her policy. But she's not there because of the policies.
She's not there to be fact check and believe something else.
She's there because MAGA has our identity. She's put on
the hat. Her neighbors see her with that hat, her
neighbors know that she isn't what she believes in. It's
at that point it's an act of faith. And if
you think we're trying to change somebody's faith, good luck.
(40:39):
People have tried that for a ance.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, we talk so much about how there are these
evangelicals who love Trump, but the reality is America is
a country where religion is on the decline. But MAGA
is really its own religion.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
For sure.
Speaker 5 (40:55):
It's something you can believe. I mean, you see, it
provides a lot of the things that religion does provide,
which is a sense of community, sense of ownership, a
sense of purpose. It's quite the feeling to walk into
an event and see twenty thousand other people dressed like
you are dressed, and then a very powerful person comes
on stage and tells you that you are a patriot,
(41:15):
you can fight for them, your life has meeting. That's
an evocative message. And I do think looking at some
of these things as an act of faith, like perhaps
believing that the election was stolen is more akin to
believing that Noah had an arc that had every animal
on the planet in two's on it. Even see some
of these elected officials now who will argue over whether
(41:36):
or not the election was stolen in a way that
you're like, I know you don't believe it was stolen,
but you have to have this act of faith, this
show of faith. And to me it sounds like when
you argue with that person, it's like, you know, Noah
didn't bring two elephants and two. It's like, oh, we're
having the wrong conversation. This is not an argument about
whether that happened. It's an act of faith that I
(41:57):
believe in the idea of this happening, and feels like
that's where we are right now politically, it's.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Funny because it's like some of these people and again,
my dad listens to this podcast, so he's going to
get mad at me, maybe, but a lot of these
people are not a lot, but some of these people
are the same people who like went to Grateful Dead concerts.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Oh for sure. I talked to a man in the
special who I've seen at many rallies. I think he
was at a seventyeth something rally and he was a
Barack Obama voter. He was a Grateful Dead supporter, is
a rock and roll guy, and frankly I spent some
time with him and we bonded over our love of
a classic rock But you see that, what's the connection
between the Grateful Dead, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. It's like, man,
(42:35):
those are the most fun show in town. And so yeah,
Barack Obama, that was a big fun show that was
inspiring to him and he got on board. And frankly,
going to a MAGA event is a fun tailgating experience.
You travel around the country, you see like minded folks,
you put on your fun, crazy outfits, and you rock
out to the hits. It does provide that for a
(42:57):
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Are we too dumb for democracy?
Speaker 5 (43:00):
We're certainly testing that.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I mean, do you have that.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Thought as you driving around or in the private Comedy
Central plane sipping along, or your personal helicopter, do you
have the thought, like America, we may be too dumb
for democracy.
Speaker 5 (43:15):
Right now, I'm thinking a lot about the buy in
to democracy. I think citizenry should be work. And that
doesn't mean we need to make it difficult for people
to vote, but it should mean that you should understand
the consequences of your vote. You should put in time
and think about that. Citizenry involves thinking about choices you
make and how it affects community. You are not acting alone.
(43:37):
And I think politics has shifted to such an entertainment
spectacle that no longer citizens engaging with politics were consumers.
And so it's as easy as clicking retweet, as easy
as liking like our support lacks any real depth. There's
very little skin you have to put in the game
to be a part of that democratic conversation. And again,
I want the buy in to be for everyone. But
(43:59):
I think people should understand that democracy has consequences, and
right now we're treating democracy as if it's going shopping
at Walmart or an Amazon binge, where we just clicked
the things we like, we say the things we don't like,
we spend money, and we move on to what that
next thing is. And to me, that is part of
the flaw right now, it's not that we're too stupid
(44:19):
for democracy. It's that I don't think we understand the
consequences of it, and we don't put enough effort into
thinking that part of democracy is thinking about your community
and not just yourself.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
One of the things that it's sort of part of
this is Tucker Carlson, who is not maybe as powerful
as he once was, but still for that group, has
a lot of power.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Is that fair?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
For sure?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
When we were talking about Russia and Moscow, when I
asked people at these events their images what they thought
of Russia, so much of it was colored by that
very specific special that Tucker Carlson had when he went
to Moscow, when he sniffed some bread, he looked at
the subway system, and he sat down with Putin, and
you realize it's like, yeah, people didn't have images of
what Moscow looked like the ways in which Tucker was
(45:04):
framing it for the folks back here in a field
in Pennsylvania. It was completely colored by Tucker Carlson, and
so it really very much has has weight out in
the magosphere.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
For example, there was a part of that where he
was very impressed with putting the coin in for the
shopping cart so you didn't steal the shopping cart, and
that this was a great innovation. But the reality is
this is a country where people steal shopping carts because
they're so poor, right, I mean that you have to
secure the shopping cart so that multiple people don't steal it.
(45:37):
Did anyone put that together?
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Or now? I mean, is there any like I wonder
why Russia is so shitty?
Speaker 5 (45:44):
Part of it has something to do with, you know,
a lack of media literacy and understanding that these are
storytellers and with every story, you go to point the
camera the things you want to show and not the
things you don't want to show.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
You're not pointing at the places in Russia.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
Where people don't have running water or toilets that work,
the ways in which they're affected by the economy, or
what's happening with the LGBTQ community. Those stories are left
out of a Tucker Carlson special. What's put in is sexy,
bread and fancy and so and again, what that gives
the person in a field in Philadelphia or in Pennsylvania,
(46:15):
what it gives them is a weapon to use an
argument with me. And I get it. I get how
everybody's got their eyr up and so they see that.
They're like, this helps my worldview and what Tucker has
given it to me in a package and that Bo
says Moscow is good and you know what that means.
It means that Biden is bad. It means that Craine
has a waste of your money, and it means things
(46:36):
could be good with a tough guy Christian white leadership.
Here here it is. It's a beautiful bow. Unwrap it
where you will. And people are unwrapping that and trying
to piece apart, like oh what what? What is part
of the story that I don't understand? They're like, oh,
what's inside here is a weapon? I'm going to use
that against family members or Jordan Klepper out in the field.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Here you go.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I know, you travel with security.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Are they mostly chill or do you feel like sometimes
going to do something violent?
Speaker 5 (47:02):
I will say things keep shifting after the last election.
What was going to MAGA events and people were riled up,
but not physical. After Trump quote unquote lost the last election,
the tenor shifted. I noticed to change since this recent conviction.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
As well, more violent or less.
Speaker 5 (47:20):
There are more threats, definitely not less from the perspective
of threats, and so I can't speak to violence. We've
had a few incidents in the field where things have
gotten tense and security has had to step in, but
the threats are ratcheted. And again, it's so easy. It
costs you nothing to be an asshole on the internet,
and it feels good to be angry and anonymous and
(47:40):
yell at somebody, but those things have real consequences. It
riles people up. And I was there on January sixth,
and I see what happens when you rile a bunch
of people up. You put them in a group, and
then you point them at a person and say they're bad.
Bad things happen. And right now the riling up is happening,
and right now the rhetoric is getting worse and worse,
and it costs you nothing to be angry and public
about it.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Me something that makes me not want to go move
into a pineapple under the city.
Speaker 5 (48:05):
Oh, I mean, are you into jazz?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
No?
Speaker 5 (48:07):
I mean the new Kumasi Washington Album's pretty darn love,
the Vampire Weekend album.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
All right, gee, I mean, just give me something that
is a little hopeful, Like you met someone who was like, Babe,
I'm gonna vote for Biden even though I love fascism.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
I will tell you this, there's a misunderstanding when people
watch my videos and it's that, oh, man, you talked
to the crazies.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Oh no, this is not gonna make me kill better.
Speaker 5 (48:34):
Go on, these are not the crazies. When I talk
to Edward, I'll give you that guy. When I talked
to Edward, who is the MAGA fan, the Obama fan,
the grateful dead fan, who has been to over seventy
plus Trump events. He's there for the show and we
disagree about certain political things. But when you take the
cameras away and when you sit and talk to that person,
you can connect with them like human beings. And the
(48:55):
clips that we see online in our media are not
complete representation to the people who are out there. And
so I do think it is a war perspective as
to how people feel about each other. Now, I think
that's detrimental to our democracy, and it's a cancer right now,
and so that doesn't give me a lot of hope.
But when I still connect with the people out in
the field, when the cameras are down, and when we
(49:16):
can talk without being defensive about the things that we
believe like, we find that common ground. And I don't
know how you generate that in a larger society in
the media ecosystem we have right now, but all is
not lost with the people. I think it's the platforms
and the places we have our conversations that have the
major problem right now.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Thank you Jordan, Thank you Mollie.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
And maybe and try jazz. You'll mess up your brain
for a little bit and that'll help you restart the moment.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Jesse Cannon, My Jong Fast, the thinking man of the Setate,
Tommy Tuberville has some thoughts on Putin.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
He's a scholar and a gentleman. Except for being a
scholar and also a gentleman. Tommy Tubervil, the Senate stupidest man,
says that Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Perhaps you've heard of him, he doesn't want Ukraine, he
doesn't want Europe.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Hell, he's got enough land of his own. He just
wants to make sure whatever. On this podcast, we have
Jordan Koepper, who's talking about how Russian propaganda has infiltrated
the GOP. Look no further than the stupidest man in
the Senate, the one, the only, Tommy Tuberville.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the
best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, 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 Donald Trump says it's very possible
he will have to jail President Biden.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's nice. We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin stops by to talk about the
rights never ending aggression towards reproductive rights. Then we'll talk
to the daily shows Jordan Klepper about what he sees
when he attends those Maga rallies. But first we have
the host of the Origin Story podcast and my personal
(00:37):
friend Ian dunt Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Really one of my favorite guests, Ian, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Always an in Tadie show who you were referring to
that Richardson.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm very dopic for full disclosure.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Before this we were talking, Jesse and I were both like,
oh my god, something's happening in England.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
We can get Ian.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yes. Really in a way, that's the most president consequence
of the general election here. So I'm glad we'll be
satisfied that.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Richie Sunak he has announced elections a little early, not
like Nanya who was never going to have elections, but
he picked July fourth because of how much he loves
America discuss at certainly.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I mean, I would predict that when he loses in
a few weeks time, he will soon enough find himself
on the shores of Silicon Valley, desperately hoping that one
of the tech bros Will give him a job. That's
clearly where he wants to be. In fact, genuinely, and
I really didn't mean this, Some bills bandalists thought maybe
he called the election for this period so that there
(01:41):
was still time to get his kids into school in
California when he ineveratively loses it, so it's better impossible
in the one hundred percent, maybe as part of his
great pr campaign for his next professional venturers to hold
it on the fourth of July.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
It is a bit weird, right, I mean, is there
something happening Underly fourth in the UK that we don't
know about?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
No, I mean July fourth, you know, for obvious reasons,
doesn't really mean anything over here at bathroom like an
old Tom Cruise film, So I don't think I had
much of a bell there. The timing of the election
is just completely bizarre, and the first week of it
we all just sat around being like, why what are
you doing?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, can you explain to us why? Because he could
have kept this going for another like six months.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Right, yeah, exactly. He can call the election whenever he likes.
You have to have it within a five year period,
like you can't just drag it on forever. It's still
like just about kind of a functioning democracy over here.
Within that you could just do what you like. Really,
we expected him to call it late because he's going
to lose, you know, and people are the prime minister.
They usually like being prime minister, so they just wait
(02:44):
as long as they now not.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
To put too fine a point on it, yes, go.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
On, exactly. This is my really deep, acute perceptive political
analysis that you're getting right now. It's like they like
not losing and so they do not put an election.
So from that you can come to one conclusion, which
is that imagine like the thought process that you have
if you're in Downing Street, if you're the government, thinking
when are we going to have the election? You're constantly thinking,
we're waiting something to come along to improve our electoral prospects.
(03:10):
And at the point that you think, you know what,
nothing's ever going to come. Like, you know, the economy,
biggs look bad, health figures look bad, finances look bad.
Eventually you just think, well, we might as well just
hold it now, because this is as good as it's
ever going to get. So it wasn't so much a
sort of confident announcement of an election. It was more
of this sad song of defeat, like an admission of defeat.
(03:31):
When he said we're going to have a general election now,
it literally sounded like an animal dying on the side
of a road.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I laugh to keep from crying, and not because I
find you're pain funny.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
But maybe a little. So he basically just gave up.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I mean it really does feel like it. You should
see the state of him. I mean, I have to
say that I'm not going to deny any of this
after you know, eight years or so of just acute
political pain and disappointment. I've spent almost every day of
the last two weeks laughing my ass off at what
is going on here, because he is having one of
the worst election campaigns I've seen in my life. And
(04:05):
it started with the announcement.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Can you talk about the rain?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, the rain. I just I've never seen political ineptity
on this scale, I think, for all of my days.
So he comes out. It's been raining for days. You know,
it's England, right, this is how it goes. So it's
been raining just for days. Everything was sobtly onwear. He
comes out of Downing Street. There's no reason to announce
the election outside, except of course, for the fact that
(04:31):
you know, he wants to have the image of the
door behind it, you know, the door down the street,
which really is just a prop at this point, just
another part of our pathological national sentimentality. He needs to
have that door behind him so he can look states.
And yet it's raining and you're like, so the whole
day and he's thinking like, you can't possibly, you can't
do it outside because you know it's raining. For two
(04:53):
or three minutes before he comes out, the sun emerges
from the clouds like and suddenly I thought, oh no,
this is it. We always lose, you know, the liberals.
We always lose, as what we're used to happening in
this country for the last few years. And now you know,
the gods are going to shine on him. So he
steps outside and that one second, as soon as he
(05:14):
leaves the building, the rain begins and he just gets
absolutely drenched out there. He goes and he makes his speech,
and his speech is basically some total of all he
has to communicate to people is I have got a plan.
Trust my plan, Put your faith in my plan. And
yet the spectacle of him, this man in an expensive suit,
standing outside in the rain without an umbrella, drenched to
(05:37):
the bone, telling you to trust him because he's got
a plan, was one of the most preposterous sights I've
seen in a very long time, and pretty much the
perfect curtain opener to what has then gone on to
be a disastrously inect campaign.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yes, it just kept raining and raining and raining.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, the suit is basically ruined, and he looks like
what he is, which is a very desperate, grasping man
hoping for one final chance, which he's not really getting.
So in the weeks that have followed from that, everything
that could possibly go wrong for him has gone wrong
for him. And I mean, the worst moment of all
I suspect came a couple of days ago when Nigel
(06:14):
Farage for the Reform Party announced that he was taking
over the leadership and going to run for parliament. Now
Nigel Farrage is extremely far to the right. He runs
around you. You may have seen him as one of
the sort of best friends of Donald Trump. He is
entirely in that movel, just an extreme, venal, nasty, anti
immigrant tos in in the political blood system. We thought
(06:36):
that he wasn't going to bother He actually wrote a
letter saying, I can't be bothered to run because I
really should be off in the US doing something important,
not dabbling around and let old Englin. This is the
kind of patriotism that he supposedly espouses. Now he's decided
to run, and that really is a complete disaster for
the Prime Minster.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I thought he was going to the States to help
Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yes, well that was his plan, and now apparently it
turns out that he wants to run to become the
Member of Parliament for a part of Essex. He may
or may not get that seat, it's not entirely clear,
but just by being there, I mean, he's charismatic in
the way that you know, you can find some meaning
in a really sodden ashtray. And what is exactly what
he looks like. He looks like the smell of old
(07:17):
cigarettes basically, and behaves pretty much with the same kind
of moral substance to it. And yet nevertheless he is
liked by about twenty percent of the population. You know,
there's a pretty low ceiling on his support. But the
people that support him really really like him. They are
on the right, hard right, and they will lose those
votes from the Conservative Party to the Reform Party. So
(07:38):
not only is Richie Suena facing this really quite cataclysmic
challenge from the center and the left and even arguably
the center right, he's now also facing a separate challenge
on the hard right, giving him almost no political sport
whatsoever in which to operate.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Right now, talk to me about milkshake Gate.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Oh yes, right, Well, Nije Raj was out a couple
of days ago.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I have to hit on all the real highlights. By
the way, I love that.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
When I was growing up, you know, I had all
these brotherish friends. They seemed so elegant, they had these
great you know, you have this coalition government. You guys
seem so smart. Not anymore talk about milkshake gay.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
No, we just have very good pr That is the
sum koto of our image. So Nigel Farage is out,
he's walking around a woman very sensibly sees him and
thinks that the only rational thing to do is to
get hem of Donald's banana milkshake and throw it all
over him, which she did. Now this is actually it's
almost like a British subculture. It started I think about
(08:37):
five or six years ago when arasis far right figure
was talking to some Asian guys and they were just like,
you know what, I don't feel that we need to
engage in the battle of ideas here. I think we
should just engage in the kind of battle of milkshakes,
and just started throwing their milkshakes at him. And then
they started following other figures from the hard right around,
people like Nigel far covering him in milkshake. So this
old and I think, really, you know, other admirable British
(09:02):
tradition has now emerged once again and he was covered
in milkshake at that moment. She's now being charged with assault.
Seems rather forl on to me. But nevertheless, it's a trope. Now,
what are these elections going to look like?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Now you basically have this coalition government, so members are
running by different parties and then the numbers who get elected. Well,
I'm explaining this explain it to us. Yes, I can't
know what.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I very much enjoyed listening to you. Try.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Thank you. Yes, I'm here for fun.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
There's six hundred and fifty seats and there's no sort
of electoral college complications or any of that to this.
There's basically just six hundred and fifty seats. Party that's
got the majority. In other words, more than three hundred
and twenty five. There's some complications there, but basically more
than three hundred and twenty five just gets to form
the government. You know, you're not voting for the leader
in any way. They just happen to be the leader
(09:57):
of the party that start the seeds. We've never seen
the Tories fall below a certain level, you know, below
sort of two hundred or anything like that. The current
projections of where they're heading to is sort of like
under one hundred seats, just sort of EXI central that
there's some projections that came out this week and look,
this can't happen. I don't say that on the basis
of calculation, but just by I can't believe that it
(10:17):
would happen. You know, that puts them on things like
sixty fives. That's the kind of numbers that could potentially
be the extinction of the Conservative Body. Now, the Conservative
Body is the oldest political party in the Western world.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And basically has been empower our whole adult lives.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, I mean or off. I mean, it's been in
powered much more than Labour's been in power. I mean, obviously,
you know, we had the Tony Blair period and the
Orden Brown periods, so Labor has these long stints in power.
But the Tories have been around as a viable and
extremely successful political party since the exclusion crisis in the
sixteen hundreds. You know, this is a really, really old organization.
(10:55):
And right now people who are typically quite cautious in
that political analysis and don't like to appear hysterical or
over excited, are talking very genuinely about what if this
actually is the party? What if we are just seeing
one of those moments I mean that are not that
different to you know, Brexit and Trump, but you know,
just these moments of like where it can't happen, can it?
(11:16):
Until actually it does? That is perfectly possible from where
we are right now, and it would happen because a
mixture of factors, but at the heart of them, is
the catastrophic and complete failure of populacey. You know, unlike
in Europe where populist parties run against mainstream parties, Britain
has functioned much like the US, where the mainstream center
(11:37):
right party has absorbed populism whole set. I mean they
have absorbed it entirely. And what have they done. They
complain about immigrants, they complain about asylum seekers, they complain
about trans people. But all the years that they've been
doing that, the economy falls apart, the healthcare system falls apart,
the schools, the prisons, the transport. It's just a sense
(11:57):
that nothing works, Nothing in the country works. Last week,
when our Equalities minister I mean named the best already
in manner imaginable, spends an entire day of the election
wanting to come out to talk about that policy on
excluding trans people from toilets and from great crisis centers.
The response is at culture or response that she's looking for.
(12:18):
It's more why in the name of God are you
talking about this rather than talking about the fact that
you cannot make anything in this country actually work. So
what you're seeing is not just the death of conservative
because it's really the death of a populist form of
reactionary politics in the UK.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's so right and it's so interesting, but it's also
what's happening with this Republican Party. I mean, we don't
know if Trump is going to win. Obviously, there's a
lot of machinations and inaccuracies in the polls. But we
are in a moment in American life where thirty nine
Republican Senators yesterday voted against the Right to Contraception Act
(12:55):
so you can get birth control pills and condoms, and
Republicans are like, oh, I don't.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Know, Oh my god. Although, by the way, it quite
meaningful that even as I thought it really was the
Right to Conception Act, it didn't necessarily seem like some
three Republicans would oppose just on points of reason or practicality. Yeah, sure,
why not? Why not that as well?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I mean, it's such an interesting moment because you do find,
you know, these culture war things, punishing trans people, punishing
gay people, punishing women who have abortions, those don't actually
help the economy.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yes, exactly. It's as if there's two separate approaches now
that you're seeing across Europe. In the US. I think
so Kirstarma, the late Party leader, is really quite similar
to Joe Biden, I think in his form of sort
of centrist response to populism, which is just to try
and kill those issues there and to position himself really,
you know, in the middle of left and right. You know,
(13:50):
very open state intervention in the economy, very open sort
of borrowing money in order to spend, but at the
same time obviously not socialistic or anything like that, and
yet not allowing the culture war on open clothes, that
secondary up down binary to define them, to just try
and kill those cultural war issues. In Europe you often
see a really different approach from people like Emmanuel Macron,
(14:11):
where they're a centrist on left right issues on the
economic issues, but when it comes to open clothes Racron,
just like Tony Blair did before him, defines himself as
an advocate for right. It's actually quite embracing many of
the culture war distinctions, the sort of anti Trump, the
anti Brexit. That's not really what we're seeing in Starmer.
Stalmer's project is much more similar to Joe Biden's, and
(14:33):
it's really an intend to just take all that culture
war stuff and just bury it, just bury it in
the earth. Look, what I pledged to you is a
machine that works like competent government with people who've followed
based moral instructs. You aren't ashamed to see who your
political leaders are. They have a call social responsibility, and
we'll just do the hard work to make society operate
(14:54):
again in the way that it has failed to do
when populace have been in charge.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
It's like they found the stupidest p people to run
the government, right, I mean, and those people got together
and came up with the stupidest ideas and then they
were like, what's the harm? I mean, like Margaret Thatcher.
I think so much about Margaret Thatcher. I remember growing
up thinking that that was like pretty much the worst
you could get. Or Ronald Reagan and those people are
(15:20):
like geniuses compared to the Conservative Party of today.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I completely agree. I completely agree, And like Thatcher had
actually read Hayek, you know, she'd actually read the stuff
I mean saying, by the way, for Ronald Reagan, they
both read von Mises, like all of that stuff maybe
just the most appalling laissez fair neoliberal clap trap of
the highest order. And it is. It has failed every
time it's been implemented. It's a lunacy that is exactly
(15:45):
as insane as communism on the other side, just it
happens to love the pre market instead of the state.
But at least it has intellectual content to it, at
least there's some kind of basis that a rational, intelligent
person could grapple with it. The kind of stuff that
comes out now from the people that consider themselves their
political descendants, and it is stupid in ways that makes
(16:07):
you think that your own brain is shrinking inside the
inside of your skull rather than come into context. I mean,
the other day, Richard Saying's current policy is basically to
just throw any half hearted, half conceived idea out there
as long as it seems upsetting to liberals and encouraging
to some of the most venal and self interested people
into South. The other day he popped up in his
(16:28):
act of desperation and just said, you know what, We're
going to bring back national service.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I love national service, but go on, go on. I
know no one else likes it, it's just me likes it,
but go on.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, there are countries in Europe, you know, in Scandinavia
that have national service. Fine, if in a particular context,
for a particular reason. You come up with this as
an idea. That's a thing to be in the middle
of a campaign where you're losing even majority support among
the over sixty fives, the one group that could always
be trusted. They can just think, you know what, after
young people have been kept inside for two to three
(16:59):
years over COVID in order to protect the disease, why
don't we just plug into your emotional resentment of the
young purely on the basis of their youth and really
trigger that. And you're can just say, you know what,
don't worry, We're going to send the eighteen year odds
to walk. And of course, as soon as he announces it,
outcome the questions, right, he says, look, you've got to
do this. It's going to be for a year. You
can of course do voluntary service or whatever, but also
(17:22):
otherwise you get I'm going to do it the course
of a year when you're eighteen, And then the questions start,
what if someone's in university doesn't really have an answer that.
What if that person actually has kids themselves doesn't really
have an answer to that. What if that person has
a job doesn't have an answer to that it didn't
even bother do we even I mean even to say
we used to say that, you know, they'd write it
on the back of a cigarette packet the policy. But
the honest truth is a cigarette packet would offer far
(17:44):
too much space for the degree of thinking that has
gone into these policy.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
In thank you, you are just the best. I appreciate
you so much.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Now that's right, the best.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Good luck, like even real need it.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to
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with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
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(18:24):
Tammy Baldwin is the junior Senator from the state of Wisconsin.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I am delighted to join you.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I'm so excited to have you.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yesterday, thirty nine Republican Senators voted against this Right to
Contraception Act.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Talk to us about what was in the act.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
First, I'm going to say just what the necessity for
the Act is. When the Dobbs decision came down almost
two years ago, overturning rel versus Wade because the Court
basically said it was wrongigh decided back in nineteen seventy
three because there is no constitutional right to privacy. That
drew into question, well, what other cases has the Court
(19:12):
decided based on a constitutional right to privacy? And one
of the key cases, a case called Griswold versus Connecticut,
really revolves around access to contraception and basically makes it
clear that states cannot ban access to contraception. And so
if it weren't enough that the majority opinion implied that
(19:34):
this could be next. Just as Clarence Thomas set it
outright in his concurring opinion, he listed a bunch of
cases that were decided based on a right to privacy
and said, Wow, perhaps the US Supreme Court as it's
currently composed should reconsider these cases, should bring them up
anew And that's where the threat to our access to contraception,
(19:58):
birth control, that's where that threat presented itself. You know,
we never thought Row would be overturned. It was, and
now we have to be very vigilant about these other
rights and freedoms that are based on a constitutional right
to privacy that this Supreme Court thinks no longer exists.
And so one of the things that would help clarify
(20:20):
things is if we were to pass the Right to
Contraception Act, which we tried to do yesterday. And while
there's eighty eight to ninety percent approval among the American
people about access to contraception, apparently half the Senate, predominantly
the Republicans save two of them, are not in favor
of a right to access contraception.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, it's such an interesting bill because it's birth control
pills and condoms and things that are pretty popular in
this country. What do you think the thinking here is
on the right.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Well, we had a hearing in the Senate Help Committee
earlier this week on basically access to reproductive rights across
the country. It was focused as we approached the two
year anniversary of the Dodge decision overturning Roe versus Wade.
But we had some testimony from a couple of the
(21:17):
Republican witnesses, one in particular, who were clearly opposed to
the use of iud's, for example, contraceptive devices Plan B,
which is called the Morning After Pill. It was very
clear that despite the fact that nearly ninety percent of
the American public supports access to contraception. That these Republican
(21:40):
witnesses were saying, no, No, We're seeing this in the
states play out. We've seen several state legislatures pass bills
that would guarantee state right to access contraception, and then
we've seen Republican governors of veto those bills. And in
Wisconsin we have such a bill pending, but the Republican
(22:01):
majority in the state legislature won't even bring the bill
up for a vote.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So part of this is this wildly anti science right
wing transition from the quote unquote heartbeat bill, which again
was it anything that looked like a heartbeat meant that
the embryo was a person, to now this embryonic personhood.
So basically the right is is shopping this notion that
(22:29):
once an egg is fertilized, it is a human.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Well, certainly you see that both among legislators who make
those claims, but also we saw it in the Alabama
Supreme Court which said that the use of in vitro fertilization,
you know that that was a human and entitled to
all the rights of humans. And so the implications are
(22:56):
clearly that there's a group of folks who would like
that to be the standard in the United States.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
So they are really painting themselves into a corner here though,
on the right, because once you go down this road,
you say the morning after pill you can't have that,
iud eas you can't have that. And then IVF, which
is wildly popular. It's miraculous you have people like Mike
Pens talking about having done IVF.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
You close the door to IVF.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Right, that would be the logical next step when you
look at the claims that we've just been discussing. But
we're talking about the ability of women in particular to
control their own bodies and to decide when or whether
to start a family. And we're talking both about access
(23:46):
to abortion care, but we're also talking about, as you said,
the miracle of IVF for couples who are trying to
start a family and needing IVF to do so.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
So one of the things you have in Wisconsin, you're
holding hearings with the Wisconsin doctor about working under this
eighteen forty nine criminal abortion ban. Explain to us what
that is and what that means.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, So, when the Dobbs decision came out nearly two
years ago, overturning roll versus way state law became the
governing law. And so in Wisconsin we have a measure
that was passed one year after statehood in eighteen forty
nine that is widely viewed as a criminal abortion ban.
(24:34):
When the Dobs decision came fourth, all access stopped in
the state of Wisconsin. It was horrendous, and doctor Linton
talked a little bit about some of the experiences she witnessed.
There were people in the waiting room for appointments that
morning two years ago and people were told, we can't
(24:56):
provide you with services. And there were also harrowing stories
that have been shared because the only exception for that
eighteen forty nine law is the life of the mother.
Women being left to suffer and suffer harm and not
being provided care within the state of Wisconsin until near death.
(25:19):
So the stories of a woman who was bleeding for days,
a woman who's water broke at seventeen weeks and was
sent home and not provided any life saving care until
she had a fever that spiked and was facing the
risk of sepsis. This is not healthcare. It is cruel
(25:43):
and I will say, you know, What has happened in
Wisconsin since then is that in three counties they have
resumed providing abortion care because of a trial court judge
determining that the eighteen forty nine statute in Wisconsin was
never intended to apply to consensual abortion care. But only
(26:08):
three counties out of seventy two can you get service,
and that means there are many for who getting the
cow brands of healthcare that they should get is out
of reach, either financially or because of distances or all
the obstacles that have been placed in people's way.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
It is like one of the things that for me,
as someone who's forty five, it just blows my mind
that we're here. But when you read Thomas's concurring opinion,
he actually opens the door to birth control, gay marriage,
(26:49):
you know, all of the things that were wins in
the last couple decades. Overturning Row taking away that right
really created a sort of sea change in the conservative playbook.
You know, it does seem like they're going for more
and more. What can you do as a as a
(27:09):
senitor to try to slow this down, gum up the works,
anything you can do.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
We read the decision carefully in Dobbs, and especially the
concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas where he calls out
the cases and we get to work. He went after
gay marriage. You're right, he suggested we relitigate the Oberger
Bell case from twenty fifteen, and I think about how
(27:35):
hard fought that victory was over many, many years. So
when that case came down, when Dobbs came down, we
introduced the Respect for Marriage Act, which by the way,
covers both interracial marriages and same sex marriages because both
were based on this right to privacy that we were
(27:55):
talking about.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
There's an opportunity here to point out something about justice Toime.
I'm not going to, but I'm just going to say
that he actually didn't mention interracial marriage.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
That is correct. He left that out of his list
of cases that the Supreme Court might revisit. So anyways,
we got to work, and I remember my conversations with
Republican senators who I felt like wanted to get to
yes to protect interracial and same sex marriages, and working
(28:25):
over weeks and weeks and months, but we passed the
Respect for Marriage Act, which your listeners should think of
an insurance policy that your marriage will be protected in
every state and by the federal government should a Supreme
Court look at reversing either the Loving case or the
(28:45):
Oberger Felk case in the future. And we passed that
so that right now that freedom is protected. That's what
we were trying to do yesterday with the Right to
Contraception Act is make sure that we take the next
step and protect another right and freedom that has been
long standing in the United States of America because it
(29:08):
is under threat. I hope. While only two Republicans out
of the forty nine who serve in the US Senate
voted for the Right to Contraception Act, we must pass it.
We must continue working on this, and we must restore
the rights articulated in Roll versus way, which means passing
my Women's Health Protection Act. So we've got to keep
(29:32):
this fight up.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So you are running for reelection against someone a new Wisconsin, ight,
I feel like he has failed to sort of catch
on in the state. Can you do two seconds about
your opponent there?
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I can so. My opponent, Eric Hovedy. While he was
born and raised in Wisconsin, he spent his adult career
living twenty four years in Washington, BC, running a hedge
Fund and much more recently living in Laguna Beach, California,
running a three billion dollar bank, and he is a
(30:10):
multimillionaire who is self financing. He could not be more
of a contrast in terms of the very issues that
we're talking about now. He did return home once earlier
to run for US Senate back in twenty twelve, so
we have him on the record saying that he was
a one hundred percent opposed to abortion rights and talking
(30:33):
about life beginning at conception, and saying that he would
repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, all these
positions that he took. Now that he's running another time,
he is trying to dance around his former positions, maybe
sounding a little bit more moderate. But you know, as
(30:57):
I watched Donald Trump and Eric Hovedy try to reframe
their positions after celebrating the Dobbs decision and overturning Rovers's wait,
they're fighting about, well, the federal government should decide no, no,
the state government should decide Well, I say women should
decide period no.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
And that's right.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And I think a lot of people feel like that
women and their doctors are not Republican politicians Wisconsin, there
have been like huge strides, but you still are state
that has very much struggled with jerrymandering and a state
legislature that has been you know, you could have things
like what Minnesota has for you breakfast, You have some
(31:38):
things like that, but you could have more of that
if you had a state legislature that was less right wing.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
I will say something very heartening, which is the governor
signed into law a couple months ago a new map
that is a fair map, a not je commanded map.
And so this fall, the folks who are running for
status SEM and state Senate are doing so in much
(32:03):
fairer districts. And we have a record number, it seems,
of candidates stepping up to run who just two years
ago would have looked at the map and said, oh,
I can't possibly win in this district and are now
got on the ballot and they're now knocking on doors.
And so I do see some real excitement at the
(32:23):
grassroots level that we can have a much more representative
state legislature than we have had for a decade and
a half.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
That is so great. Thank you so much, Senator Baldwin.
I hope you will come back.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
I look forward to it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Jordan Kuepper is a Daily Show correspondent and his special
Moscow Tools is out on Comedy Central. Right now, Welcome
to Fast Politics, Jordan Klepper.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Ami, Jordan, you did this special? Where did you go? Exactly?
Speaker 5 (32:56):
Well, this special, I went as far away as Estonia
and as club as Pennsylvania for the special. So we
were covering Russian misinformation and noticing it primarily at MAGA events,
and so we went to like Green Bay and Pennsylvania
and people were talking about Vladimir Putin. They were talking about,
frankly parroting Russian misinformation, misinformation that we sort of connected
(33:17):
to this Kremlin report that the Washroom Post reported on,
and that took us a little bit around the country
and then ultimately to the border of Russia and Estonia
to talk to the Prime minister. So we you know,
we put in some we put in some miles for
this one.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
What I think is interesting is like we in the
sort of news bubble, we read pieces all the time
that are like Kremlin influence campaigns. They're vague and they
say things like, you know, there's a Black Lives Matter
account that's really run by the Kremlin, and there's also
a White Lives Matter account that's you know what I mean,
like that they're they're trying to sew division, but this
(33:51):
is really them trying to speak to a certain group
of people and it's working very much.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
So I think one of their goals is to, yes,
just flood it with misinformation to accentuate the divisions that
are already there. And what we see when we are
out on the road is we see these talking points
being parroted, and again, some of those are homegrown American
divisions that Russia just fans the flames of and some
of the bs that is planted into the news cycle
(34:19):
that a lot of the folks at these Trump rallies
are ingesting, and then they're parroting, and then they're using
as an example and a reason to support Vladimir Putin
or to discredit what's happening in Ukraine. And I think
this is where we were excited about doing this special
because frankly, we can talk to journalists and talk to
people who can articulate the desires and the wants of
the Kremlin, and then we can actually go out into
(34:40):
the field and show how that's having a very real
effect on the conversation.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
What I think is interesting is that we have had
this problem probably since I mean maybe even before, but
it's become a sort of pronounced problem since twenty sixteen.
Right since twenty sixteen, we've seen like real concrete evidence
of the Kremlin and you know, getting in there and
influencing voters. But what I think is a little bit
(35:06):
new is that the Kremlin has gotten in there and
influenced lawmakers.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Yes, I think we're seeing that, and this was the
news story of the last couple of months, is that
these Kremlin talking points are being echoed on the House floor.
They're literally coming up works for funding for Ukraine. They
have real world effects, and so yes, there's been a
cat of mouse game between the US and Russia, and
Russia has tried to influence talking points in America for years.
I think the ground is right for its success, and
(35:33):
we've seen very real, concrete examples of a success. I
think another thing we noticed too is beyond the success
it was having with Ukraine and the conversation around funding Ukraine,
there's a larger, kind of darker question that it brings
up is, yes, Russia feeds the far right and at
sometimes also the left whatever they can to fuel the vision,
(35:55):
they feed them the things they want to hear. But
also there's something there and something new which feels like
a true, earnest desire for autocratic methods. And I don't
think the American public has a totally clear understanding of
what it's like to live under an autocratic regime. That's
part of the reason we went to Estonium. But I
think there's a darker question. We need to ask ourselves.
How much of this is Russia tampering with American sensibilities
(36:16):
and how much of this is American sensibilities in the
MAGA movement are really leaning and slouching towards Moscow. They
want an autocratic, tough guy, white Christian nationalist leader will
crack down on crimes and be socially conservative. That's something that,
as we're articulating the special is a bit of a
Republican white dream.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
No, I mean it's funny because I just read this
book all about the right love affair with autocracy, and
how you know, you had Republicans talking about how much
they love Pino set right, Like this is not a
new phenomenon, But what is a new phenomenon is this
fact that there seems to be some amount of people
(36:56):
and again we can argue about how they've gotten here
that actually do want this.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Yeah, it's a message that is sticky to a good
portion of the populace right now. And again you look
at the person there there to see at these MAGA
events is going to not only echo some of these perspectives,
but has been on the stage next to Vladimir Putin
and essentially given the big thumbs up. So you know,
we were surprised to see in the field. I talked
to a woman who watched Putin fishing videos and got
(37:23):
excited about that. People see this strong man image, which
seems comical, is comical. It's pure propaganda. There's stock in lakes.
Speaker 6 (37:32):
With fish, so this guy can dive in all out
a walleye and look like Kingdom the world and that plays.
There are people in America who watch that like cute
cat videos, and they see this as like a tough
guy who's found success. Again, the digital age that we're
in has only created a space where misinformation propaganda, where
situations where you can embed stories and images and then
(37:53):
erase the places that they came from and the people
will do your bidding, they will send it out there.
There's a little bit of and this Washington Post story
that talked about the new form of propaganda and misinformation
is to essentially to create a news story and then
erase the place with which it came from and just
bank on true social or x or people to tweet
it out. And the fact that it has gained traction
(38:16):
and gone elsewhere, you can't put the pieces back together.
And so you see why Russia is having such success
right now. It's a ripe not only political environment in
America for these ideas to take hold, but it's a
ripe media environment for these ideas to spread.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
One of the things that I talked to you about,
which I want you to say on this podcast because
I think it's a really important point that I have
long believed that if you could explain to people this
is how this is like being a stupid media bubble person,
that if you could explain to people why it was wrong,
(38:51):
they would like have a moment and be like, oh,
I get it now, But that doesn't ever happen, right,
explain this to us.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Yes, I think people often ask me how many minds
do you change? Out there quite frankly, the answer to
that is a zero.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
I shouldn't laugh because it's so bleak, but basically they
cannot be reasoned with.
Speaker 5 (39:14):
Right, Well, I mean, I think, like what you watch,
the pieces that I do are not a blueprint for
changing people's mind. It's more a diagnosis of the rot
of the problem. Now, if you're approaching any kind of
idea what I want to change that person's mind, chances
are you're going to be met with resistance. That's not
how people change their minds. And frankly, we are in
spaces where they're being fed things they want to hear.
(39:37):
I often tell the story of I was talking to
a woman at a Trump rally at Trump's first impeachment
who is insistent on Trump's innocence and talked about He's
so innocent because he's letting everybody speak. He wants the
truth to come out. And I said, well, if there
was proof of him stopping somebody from speaking, that would
be proof of guilt. She said, yes, of course. I
pointed to the fact that he was stopping John Bolton
(39:58):
from getting his story out, and she realized in that
moment she said something perhaps incorrect. She took a really
long beat, and she looked at me and she said,
I don't care. And you realize in that moment, like
we're talking about policy and I'm trying to give her
piece of information that will break that bubble, but the
magic trate already occurred. Trump was her identity and that's
(40:18):
who she is. So what we're arguing are details of
her policy. But she's not there because of the policies.
She's not there to be fact check and believe something else.
She's there because MAGA has our identity. She's put on
the hat. Her neighbors see her with that hat, her
neighbors know that she isn't what she believes in. It's
at that point it's an act of faith. And if
you think we're trying to change somebody's faith, good luck.
(40:39):
People have tried that for a ance.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, we talk so much about how there are these
evangelicals who love Trump, but the reality is America is
a country where religion is on the decline. But MAGA
is really its own religion.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
For sure.
Speaker 5 (40:55):
It's something you can believe. I mean, you see, it
provides a lot of the things that religion does provide,
which is a sense of community, sense of ownership, a
sense of purpose. It's quite the feeling to walk into
an event and see twenty thousand other people dressed like
you are dressed, and then a very powerful person comes
on stage and tells you that you are a patriot,
(41:15):
you can fight for them, your life has meeting. That's
an evocative message. And I do think looking at some
of these things as an act of faith, like perhaps
believing that the election was stolen is more akin to
believing that Noah had an arc that had every animal
on the planet in two's on it. Even see some
of these elected officials now who will argue over whether
(41:36):
or not the election was stolen in a way that
you're like, I know you don't believe it was stolen,
but you have to have this act of faith, this
show of faith. And to me it sounds like when
you argue with that person, it's like, you know, Noah
didn't bring two elephants and two. It's like, oh, we're
having the wrong conversation. This is not an argument about
whether that happened. It's an act of faith that I
(41:57):
believe in the idea of this happening, and feels like
that's where we are right now politically, it's.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Funny because it's like some of these people and again,
my dad listens to this podcast, so he's going to
get mad at me, maybe, but a lot of these
people are not a lot, but some of these people
are the same people who like went to Grateful Dead concerts.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Oh for sure. I talked to a man in the
special who I've seen at many rallies. I think he
was at a seventyeth something rally and he was a
Barack Obama voter. He was a Grateful Dead supporter, is
a rock and roll guy, and frankly I spent some
time with him and we bonded over our love of
a classic rock But you see that, what's the connection
between the Grateful Dead, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. It's like, man,
(42:35):
those are the most fun show in town. And so yeah,
Barack Obama, that was a big fun show that was
inspiring to him and he got on board. And frankly,
going to a MAGA event is a fun tailgating experience.
You travel around the country, you see like minded folks,
you put on your fun, crazy outfits, and you rock
out to the hits. It does provide that for a
(42:57):
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Are we too dumb for democracy?
Speaker 5 (43:00):
We're certainly testing that.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I mean, do you have that.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Thought as you driving around or in the private Comedy
Central plane sipping along, or your personal helicopter, do you
have the thought, like America, we may be too dumb
for democracy.
Speaker 5 (43:15):
Right now, I'm thinking a lot about the buy in
to democracy. I think citizenry should be work. And that
doesn't mean we need to make it difficult for people
to vote, but it should mean that you should understand
the consequences of your vote. You should put in time
and think about that. Citizenry involves thinking about choices you
make and how it affects community. You are not acting alone.
(43:37):
And I think politics has shifted to such an entertainment
spectacle that no longer citizens engaging with politics were consumers.
And so it's as easy as clicking retweet, as easy
as liking like our support lacks any real depth. There's
very little skin you have to put in the game
to be a part of that democratic conversation. And again,
I want the buy in to be for everyone. But
(43:59):
I think people should understand that democracy has consequences, and
right now we're treating democracy as if it's going shopping
at Walmart or an Amazon binge, where we just clicked
the things we like, we say the things we don't like,
we spend money, and we move on to what that
next thing is. And to me, that is part of
the flaw right now, it's not that we're too stupid
(44:19):
for democracy. It's that I don't think we understand the
consequences of it, and we don't put enough effort into
thinking that part of democracy is thinking about your community
and not just yourself.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
One of the things that it's sort of part of
this is Tucker Carlson, who is not maybe as powerful
as he once was, but still for that group, has
a lot of power.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Is that fair?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
For sure?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
When we were talking about Russia and Moscow, when I
asked people at these events their images what they thought
of Russia, so much of it was colored by that
very specific special that Tucker Carlson had when he went
to Moscow, when he sniffed some bread, he looked at
the subway system, and he sat down with Putin, and
you realize it's like, yeah, people didn't have images of
what Moscow looked like the ways in which Tucker was
(45:04):
framing it for the folks back here in a field
in Pennsylvania. It was completely colored by Tucker Carlson, and
so it really very much has has weight out in
the magosphere.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
For example, there was a part of that where he
was very impressed with putting the coin in for the
shopping cart so you didn't steal the shopping cart, and
that this was a great innovation. But the reality is
this is a country where people steal shopping carts because
they're so poor, right, I mean that you have to
secure the shopping cart so that multiple people don't steal it.
(45:37):
Did anyone put that together?
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Or now? I mean, is there any like I wonder
why Russia is so shitty?
Speaker 5 (45:44):
Part of it has something to do with, you know,
a lack of media literacy and understanding that these are
storytellers and with every story, you go to point the
camera the things you want to show and not the
things you don't want to show.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
You're not pointing at the places in Russia.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
Where people don't have running water or toilets that work,
the ways in which they're affected by the economy, or
what's happening with the LGBTQ community. Those stories are left
out of a Tucker Carlson special. What's put in is sexy,
bread and fancy and so and again, what that gives
the person in a field in Philadelphia or in Pennsylvania,
(46:15):
what it gives them is a weapon to use an
argument with me. And I get it. I get how
everybody's got their eyr up and so they see that.
They're like, this helps my worldview and what Tucker has
given it to me in a package and that Bo
says Moscow is good and you know what that means.
It means that Biden is bad. It means that Craine
has a waste of your money, and it means things
(46:36):
could be good with a tough guy Christian white leadership.
Here here it is. It's a beautiful bow. Unwrap it
where you will. And people are unwrapping that and trying
to piece apart, like oh what what? What is part
of the story that I don't understand? They're like, oh,
what's inside here is a weapon? I'm going to use
that against family members or Jordan Klepper out in the field.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Here you go.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I know, you travel with security.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Are they mostly chill or do you feel like sometimes
going to do something violent?
Speaker 5 (47:02):
I will say things keep shifting after the last election.
What was going to MAGA events and people were riled up,
but not physical. After Trump quote unquote lost the last election,
the tenor shifted. I noticed to change since this recent conviction.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
As well, more violent or less.
Speaker 5 (47:20):
There are more threats, definitely not less from the perspective
of threats, and so I can't speak to violence. We've
had a few incidents in the field where things have
gotten tense and security has had to step in, but
the threats are ratcheted. And again, it's so easy. It
costs you nothing to be an asshole on the internet,
and it feels good to be angry and anonymous and
(47:40):
yell at somebody, but those things have real consequences. It
riles people up. And I was there on January sixth,
and I see what happens when you rile a bunch
of people up. You put them in a group, and
then you point them at a person and say they're bad.
Bad things happen. And right now the riling up is happening,
and right now the rhetoric is getting worse and worse,
and it costs you nothing to be angry and public
about it.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Me something that makes me not want to go move
into a pineapple under the city.
Speaker 5 (48:05):
Oh, I mean, are you into jazz?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
No?
Speaker 5 (48:07):
I mean the new Kumasi Washington Album's pretty darn love,
the Vampire Weekend album.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
All right, gee, I mean, just give me something that
is a little hopeful, Like you met someone who was like, Babe,
I'm gonna vote for Biden even though I love fascism.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
I will tell you this, there's a misunderstanding when people
watch my videos and it's that, oh, man, you talked
to the crazies.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Oh no, this is not gonna make me kill better.
Speaker 5 (48:34):
Go on, these are not the crazies. When I talk
to Edward, I'll give you that guy. When I talked
to Edward, who is the MAGA fan, the Obama fan,
the grateful dead fan, who has been to over seventy
plus Trump events. He's there for the show and we
disagree about certain political things. But when you take the
cameras away and when you sit and talk to that person,
you can connect with them like human beings. And the
(48:55):
clips that we see online in our media are not
complete representation to the people who are out there. And
so I do think it is a war perspective as
to how people feel about each other. Now, I think
that's detrimental to our democracy, and it's a cancer right now,
and so that doesn't give me a lot of hope.
But when I still connect with the people out in
the field, when the cameras are down, and when we
(49:16):
can talk without being defensive about the things that we
believe like, we find that common ground. And I don't
know how you generate that in a larger society in
the media ecosystem we have right now, but all is
not lost with the people. I think it's the platforms
and the places we have our conversations that have the
major problem right now.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Thank you Jordan, Thank you Mollie.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
And maybe and try jazz. You'll mess up your brain
for a little bit and that'll help you restart the moment.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Jesse Cannon, My Jong Fast, the thinking man of the Setate,
Tommy Tuberville has some thoughts on Putin.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
He's a scholar and a gentleman. Except for being a
scholar and also a gentleman. Tommy Tubervil, the Senate stupidest man,
says that Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Perhaps you've heard of him, he doesn't want Ukraine, he
doesn't want Europe.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Hell, he's got enough land of his own. He just
wants to make sure whatever. On this podcast, we have
Jordan Koepper, who's talking about how Russian propaganda has infiltrated
the GOP. Look no further than the stupidest man in
the Senate, the one, the only, Tommy Tuberville.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the
best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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