October 23, 2025 • 42 mins
TPM’s Josh Marshall examines Trump’s demand to be paid by his own government.
Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre details her new book Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.
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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 an ap NORC poll this week
found that sixty nine percent of Americans thought the nation
was heading in the wrong direction. We have such a
great Joe for you today, Talking Points Memos own Josh
(00:23):
Marshall stops by to talk about Trump demanding that he
be paid by his own government.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Then we'll talk to former White House Press Secretary Kareem
John Pierre about her new book Independent, a look inside
a Broken White House outside the party lines. But first the.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
News, Smiley, mister Trump had a mandate lower those egg prices.
You know what happens when you put a whack job
in charge of the CDC and hhs Well, bird flu
comes back. We don't treat it well. And guess what's
about to happen. We're about to have higher egg prices. Ah,
(01:01):
I'm sorry, listen, man.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I was told Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Laser focused, laser laser focused on affordability, and by laser focused,
we mean not at all.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
He's laser focused in that ballroom.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
He's laser focused on demolishing the East Wing. If you
work for the Treasury Department. Please post pictures. We need
to see them. Look, man, this is again. We talk
so much about trump Ism. These are the second order
effects of trump Ism. Right, The virus is back. The
administration is incompetent or maybe corrupt, or maybe both, and
(01:40):
so infected wild birds have served this fall in three states,
by the way, in case you're wondering, all red states,
because voting for mister Trump does not protect you from
bird flu Idaho, Nebraska, and Texas. And it's an outbreak
in dairy cavs, so get ready for milk to get
more expensive too. The virus often flares up in the
(02:02):
fall as wild birds begin migrating south. This year, the
uptake is occurring during a government shutdown, as federal agencies
are usually typically involved in response. They're working with the
skeletal staff. But here's the good news. Elon fired all
other people anyway.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Don't forget RFK. He helped fire them too.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That's right. The corrupt and incompetent people we have working
in our White House. Real talk, and the federal government
has closed. The virus has settled into a seasonal pattern,
says Richard Webbe. An influenza expert at Saint Jude's Children's
Research Hospital. Saint Jude's recently got money cut from the
(02:43):
federal government. This administration decided those kids with cancer they
should pull their little bootstraps up and fight that cancer
on their own.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So, because the government is shut down right now, my
wife is upstairs working hard for the government, but she
won't be paid this week, so we're down to being
a single income house.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And better boss. Well, because members get paid.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yep, we should say my wife works for a member
of Congress, and that's how things work right now. And
that's just absolutely lovely to be living through this anyway.
I'm sure everybody would really enjoy to be working and
not get paid.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
For people who are getting paid.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, step benefits won't be issued for November due to
the government shutdown.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yes, we have a broken party that really wants to
make the federal government small and ineffective and make it
the government. You know, they don't want to pay taxes,
they don't want to serve hungry people snap special Nutrition
Assistance program. So the benefits business in Maine will not
be issued from November due to the ongoing federal shutdown.
(03:49):
That is forty two million people one hundred and sixty
nine thousand in Maine. That means those people won't okay,
they won't be able to get food. Thousands of no
income working main families rely on basic food assistance, and
now those benefits are at risk because the Trump shutdown.
I want to tell you, I think a really important
data point here, which is Mike Johnson, the speaker of
(04:12):
the House. Everybody is home. They were sent home because
Mike Johnson, you know, Donald Trump wants the shutdown. He
feels the military is being paid. The SNAP is not
really where my man's interests are. So the house is
at home. They are not working to try round the
clock to solve this shutdown. In fact, they are at home.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Some aren't even at home. They're in Barbados and the
Bahamas and vacationing.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
In fact, yeah, I mean I didn't know that, but
it does not totally surprise me.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
So in addition to SNAP, Donald Trump says Social Security
medicare are going to be gone.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So is like this thing. Republicans have decided that they're
going to say that instead of cutting Social Security, they
are saving it. It's nice because it's a lie. But
we heard Mike Johnson talk about this. They're fixing it.
They're tinkering it to make sure it can last for longer.
They're tinkering it so that they can give tax cuts
(05:10):
a very wealthy people and corporations, which are as you
and I both know people too. Look, Donald Trump warned
in a press conference that I've been agreement is not
reached with the Democrats. Program like social Security, Medicaid, Medicare
will be in danger because he'll cut them. I mean again,
like this is this abuser mentality, right, Like if you
make me do something, it's your fault. No, honey, if
(05:33):
you do something, it's still your fault.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
Stop hitting yourself with my fist.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Right exactly. So, I don't know. Trump administration plans deep
cuts to Social Security disability insurance, particularly for older workers. Yeah,
older disabled people, that is who you should be going after.
I'm sorry, but like the pure inhumanity of this administration,
it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Yeah, yeah, never sees to amaze me.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Do we talk about cutting the children's cancer research? I
know we did earlier, but I just want to circle
back to that. As the East Wing is being expanded
into an enormous corporate sponsored ballroom.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I particularly think about that the money we're giving to
Argentina could pay for the ACA benefits that the government
is shut down over. That's particularly what hits me on
a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Speak for yourself, man, that money needs to go to
Argentina for Argentinian farmers or something.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I think that they're using the rakes to farm to
get Millai's sidebirds to be so fluffy.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
God, he really has gorgeous hair.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Okay, now that we've got into the worst territory we've
ever got into, a five hundred forty one episodest Hagseth.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Maybe you've heard of him. He's a weekend television anchor.
Have you heard of him.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
I've heard he spent some times in salutes.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I don't know what you're talking about. All I know
is that hegxeth Is continued. So first, he basically said,
you can't cover the press corps dependenton press corps was
basically decimated. Right. He said, you have to sign this
thing that says anything you report on needs to be
something I've given you. Basically, so everybody laughed, with the
exception of Oann can't spell own without Oann and a
(07:18):
few Turkish outlets who knew there was so many Turkish
outlets discuss I.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Think this is always the funny thing of that I've
been around a lot of situations, particularly working in music,
where the first reaction people have to bad press is
how do we get rid of the press. Then they
realize that the press is kind of like gravity that
you can't really stop it. Then they have to go
to the next stage of grieving.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Yep, yep. Here we have the bargaining.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Heg seth orders prior approval for all interactions between military
officials and Congress. Oh yeah, those leakers, they're going to
come to big beat before they leak.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Yeah, that's definite how this works.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's weird because you see how bad things are going here,
like you just see these little pieces of things like
just melting down. But this ultimately is a sign that
they're really worried about leaks, right, that they're just trying
to get ahead of the leaks. And they're trying to
get ahead of leaks, probably because of those fishing boats
(08:20):
in the Caribbean.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Right, there's going to be a competent leadership being reported.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
You know who I bet does not sleep well at night.
Head of the d D Pete hegsas I bet he's
real anxious.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Alcohol has proven to be a bad for your sleep,
so yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Josh Marshall is the editor of Talking Points. Memo. Welcome
back to Fast Politics, Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
So happy to have you. Things are going great. The
East Wing home of Eleanor Roosevelt now home of He's
basically penn stationing the East wing of the White House discussed.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it.
Speaker 6 (09:03):
I actually just wrote a post about this that I think,
you know, we had two things happened yesterday. We had
that ort, like you know, where the pictures which showed
the totality of it came out, and we also had
this thing about how he's instructing his employees to cut
him a check for two hundred and thirty million dollars.
And I think both of those are things that they're
(09:23):
certainly not the worst things that have.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Happened in the last nine months.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Yeah, but they have an audacity and like a vulgarity.
How do you escalate from like, yeah, the President had
one of his cabinet secretaries right him a check for
two hundred and thirty million dollars, Like I don't know
what where you go up from there, so and both
of those things, and then he demolished a third of
the White House complex. You're like, oh, okay, Like I
(09:50):
didn't know that was going to happen. So he's just nice.
He's fully in the Twilight Zone Anthony phase of his
residency where he's just doing like totally crazy shit, and
crazy shit that isn't even like key parts of the plan,
just stuff. He woke up one day and said, I
(10:10):
want to build a ballroom.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Let's talk about that, because I actually think it's not
the Project twenty twenty five that's going to unravel this thing.
If it does unravel, it's the photos of the destruction
of the East Wing that are going to do it.
Because it's hard to explain if you try to legally
destroy the East wing of the White House, right, if
(10:33):
you try, you wouldn't be.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
You have zoning problems, yeah, Like I mean, you couldn't.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Get permits for what he did with the Rose Garden
let alone, where he paved the Rose Garden to make
it the Rose Garden Club TM. But what he's doing
to the ballroom, I just wonder. You know, sometimes with
Trump world, there are second order effects that sink the
whole thing, you know what I mean. And I just
(11:00):
wonder if those visuals And then my favorite thing the
Koudograss is that their Treasury Secretary employees stop sharing photos
of the demolition of the East Wing. We know you
can see it out your window. I'm sorry, no, I
actually think it less true.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
I actually think you are right. And I especially think
you're right because I agree and and I just wrote
something kind of to this effect, like literally just to
finish to the half hour before we started. As we
said at the beginning, these are far from the worst
things that have happened. In a way, they are almost trivial. Look,
you can, you can, you can rebuild a building, you
can you can replace it.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
You know.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
They just basically cut a check for forty billion dollars
to that Javier Mille guy down in Argentina because.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
They really like him.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
They really like him, and a lot of and a
lot of Scott Best sends like Hedge fun friends like
are taking a bath on their investments, so terrible.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That's a Ergentine in a way.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
To your point, A lot of the Project twenty twenty
five stuff is very bad, but they are things that
are hard for people who are not kind of drenched
in politics to kind of put together the significance of
why they're different, what they mean, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So I actually think what you're saying is very right.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
The other part of this is it is a truism
now that we know he came in in the second
term without the semi establishment people around him who held
certain things in check. He came in with people who
were one hundred percent maga and wanted to do everything
that really changed the equation. It led us to where
(12:39):
we are now. But I think what we're starting to
see and it's really again it sort of it hit
me in an epiphany yesterday with these two stories, but
I think we've seen it over the last few weeks.
He's in the stage now where if you've once you've
been living the impunity lifestyle for ten months, other things
start to occur to you, things that are just so weird,
(13:00):
even though you've got sick of fans around you. They
might not have occurred to you before that. And these
are the things you know, people see that, no wonder
they're telling the Treasury people not to share the photos.
You see that, and you say, what the actual fuck,
he's tearing down the White House.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
How can that? You know, people see that like something's wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
So this is a theory of the case that has
been sort of floated by a friend of mine who's
a fancy socialite. This is like the fall of the
Roman Empire. Now, like we just my man is drunk
with power. He is seventy nine years old. He's the
oldest person to ever be president. I know we're not
(13:40):
allowed to talk about how old he is, but he
is very old, and he has just decided like, you know,
absolute power craves absolute whatever.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
Yeah, no, these are these are you know, sort of
different metaphors and different prisons for saying the same thing.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
He is.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
You know, the Supreme Court lit this fire, or maybe
you know, the American people or a minority of the
American people lit this fire back in twenty sixteen. But
it's the Supreme Court that really came with a you know,
a couple of Jerichans a gasoline and poured it on
and they did this and continued to do this, and
at a certain point you just start doing things like
(14:19):
I'm going to bring in a bulldozer and tear down
in the White House and and create the sort of
the Trump Imperial Palace. You know, one thing that actually
occurred to me, I don't I don't know. You know,
everybody's kind of pointed to this, this little kind of
meandering moment he had in the Oval office yesterday where
someone asked him about this. If you follow the actual
course of the meanders, I think what is possible here
(14:41):
is that he may want to take the two hundred
and thirty million dollars, which then becomes his, and then
he will pay for the ballroom he gave. He gave
the people I was corporate.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
I was told corporate donors, we're gonna pay for the bar.
But it does seem like you're action here.
Speaker 6 (14:59):
At and people go back and look, you know, yeah,
find that video because he actually talks about ah, I
give it to charity in the ballroom and the guy
you know, you know Howur's mind works after a certain point.
But yeah, you just you just wake up and start
doing like completely crazy things and and you know, creating
a private paramilitary slash secret police.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Is another kind of bad thing. But that but that
at least.
Speaker 6 (15:25):
Is something like we know why the whole team wants
to do that. That is a sort of a cornerstone
part of the whole project. So you're gonna you're gonna
take some hits to be able to do that because
of all the positives in their mind for the sort
of the the conquest of the American Republic. But these
things and again, we're doing a bail out for forty million,
(15:46):
you know, forty billion dollars of Argentina, and we're gonna
let them do their own bailout by cutting all of
our farmers out of the soybean business. You know, this
is These are the kind of things you do if
you just don't think any limits. No one can nothing bad.
And at a certain level, you know, when you're seventy nine,
(16:08):
there are no limits.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, is he is?
Speaker 7 (16:11):
He is?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
He not going to get a good job after this term.
I mean, why should he care?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
One of the things that I've been on many television
panel where we're talking about these the hats. You know,
he's going to run again. He's going to run again.
He's going to run again. I'm like, he's going to
be eighty three. I mean, look, he has the greatest
arian jeans ever known to man.
Speaker 8 (16:34):
He is has the purest, healthiest, whitest whatever. But you know, ultimately,
you still you don't live forever, right unless we do.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And I'm just missing something most.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Of us don't.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
But you know, look, I don't think he's you know, look,
my man Bob Dylan is out there touring at eighty four.
He does, you know, tours NonStop. So people people can
live a long time and remain relatively spry. But look,
I just don't think, for a variety of reasons, I've
never thought that is going to happen. He may think
it's going to happen. But if he doesn't do that,
(17:13):
he'll get Don Junior or JD nominated or maybe you know,
we've seen you know, maybe Barren. I don't know, but
the other brother could be Eric. He's moved into being
primary son. In any case, what it all comes together
is he is in a position kind of no one
in the world has ever been in when you combine
(17:35):
American primacy with the total premacy and restraint from any
law or any or any limit of corruption of the
American presidency, and it's going to his head.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It will be those things that will a Roman empire
with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
So let's talk about democrats. There's been a lot of
drama about the main senatorial primary over the last two
days on the internet. We have Grand Platner, Janet Mills.
We have some Grand Platner tattoo stuff. Yeah, grand Platner comments,
(18:11):
some pretty not what I think of when I think
of the Democratic Party comments we got. Janet Mills is old.
I mean, what do you think happens here?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
You know, I'm not really sure.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
You know, one thing that I caught, or actually my
colleague Kate Riga caught, is that she, I guess said
in that debate she wants to hold on to the
filibuster and for a lot of Democrats, rightly, I think
that is disqualifying. So there's a lot of things about
her that would be good. I mean, she's a popular
two term governor. You can't take anything away from that.
(18:45):
She's old, but like, you know, get the seat and
then hand it off. You know, we got to do
what we can here. I don't really know with platter
I I you know, this this tattoo things has has
has just come up in the last you know, first
you had the comments, then you have the tattoo, and
I'm still trying to kind of catch up here. I'm
curious to see what the next poll is. You know,
(19:06):
I don't think people people. I think Maner's thought he
was a little wild. It's hard to give something like
that up once you seem like you're the winning insurgent
candidate to possibly go right to the US Senate. So
I'm kind of reserving judgment till I see what what
voters actually think.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And you're saying yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, and there's something to be said for like, let
Main be Maine. You know, they know what they're doing,
they'll pick.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
Them want yeah, And I'm not you know, I'm not
someone who kind of falls hard for these kinds of candidates.
I'm very pragmatic about who seems like the best candidate.
But these are strange times, and I don't think it
is right to get significantly ahead of the public in Maine,
both the primary public and the you know, the general
(19:54):
general election public. And you know, because a lot of
these things like if he has a trey, you know,
kind of tattoo that white nationalists are crazy about, are
the Republicans going to attack him? I mean, are they're
going to say he's reaching out to Maga, right, he's
trying to be bipartisan you know. I so I don't
know how this is going.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
To So this gets to this question of like, how
do you worry about problems in a party when the
party is facing off against the guy who is basically
a nero. How can you worry about anything when they
are like, we don't want to have elections anymore. Democracies failed.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
Yeah, and there's a number of different levels to answer
that on I do think to a great extent, people
are going to go into the you're going to go
into the ballot box in twenty twenty six like you
like this or you don't like it. You know, it's
a very binary choice. It's a certain kind of split
ticket voting. If you don't like what's happening in the country,
you know, there's one way to signal that, and it's
(20:48):
it's the non republican person. And I do think that
is going to, you know, make a lot of these
things less important than they than they normally would be. Obviously,
you have to balance against that that the stakes are
pretty high. You don't want to make it any harder
than it has to be. You know, you had that
thing what a few days ago where they had the
text from the you know, New York Republicans or New
(21:11):
York Young Republicans.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I mean the first Nazi text chat, not the second one.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
Yes, yes, which was, but in that kind and that
kind of thing is sort of like, wow, they they
they talk in private the way they talk on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I mean, okay, like is that was?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
That?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Was that stunning?
Speaker 6 (21:27):
So it's again on that specific on that specific race.
I really kind of reserved my judgment to see what
the voters in Maine make of all this.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
It's an interesting question though, with that second Nazi group chat,
because the adman actually pulled the nominee, which, as you know,
has not happened so many times. This is an administration
that managed to get RFK Junior.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, true, my.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Man who basically believes that circumcision and tail and all
cause autism.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah for me, let's hope not.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
But yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
I think there's some of these nominees that the people
around Trump or in some cases maybe even Trump sometimes
and some of these like I want this guy Pete Hegseeth.
Clearly Trump was like I want this guy, I want
this guy running the Pentagon. Some of these guys I
think are more kind of like, let's see what happens,
this will be you know, it's sort of like shooting
(22:19):
off of firework. Let's just kind of see what happens.
If it's a dud, that's cool, We'll find another one.
I think that's kind of where they were with this
Angrassia guy. I mean, on the other on the other hand,
I do think we have seen a number of things
over the last few weeks. It's so much else is
going on that it's gotten little attention. You know, there
was that thing where he where where the Department of
(22:40):
Education sent out that deal to I think it was
nine universities, you know, you want to kind of sign
on to the mega agenda. I believe now all of them,
even the more kind of us right.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I think this at suck Up may still be in
the game. But everybody else has said, but yeah, USC,
and not that USC is like a map a university.
But of the ones that were sent it, they seemed
like if anybody's going to sign on, it's going to
be them, and they didn't, and there are other and
the Pentagon reporters left.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
I mean, yeah, there's just things happening where they they
maybe they're getting to some of the limits of their
ability to impose.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Things, and more than seven million people march to say
they don't fucking like this. And if you think about it,
seven million people for a minute, like you know each
of those people, and it may be more, maybe eight
and a half if even those people represent five people,
which it's a pretty good bet they do, right, or
(23:36):
maybe more. Yeah, it's a pretty big part of the
electorate that's fucking passed.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
No, that's true.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
And I think I was actually talking to a friend
of mine about this yesterday, that there is the numbers,
the numbers and the visuals that really hearden people and
are a demonstration of numbers and power, and that's really important.
But where protest movement and these kind of demonstrations actually
have the most impact is usually that, you know, you
(24:03):
get everybody together, you organize your event in the local area,
and then you head out to get a beer after
the protest, and everybody says, hey, let's stay in touch
for the next election, let's canvas together. I think, you know,
one of the impacts of the whole No King's thing
is going to be to the extent that that happens
going forward over the next year or so, does this
(24:26):
become a a you know, a coming together that ends
up building organizational muscle that accomplishes things going into the
election next year.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, that's right, and I think that's a real question.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Corrine Jean Pierre is the former White House Press secretary
and the author of the new book Independent and Look
Inside a Broken White House Outside the Party Lines. I
I'm so excited to have you. I have a lot
of things I want to ask you about because I
spend an insane amount of time thinking about how Biden
(25:09):
World got to where I got to, considering that it
had done so much good stuff, and so first of all,
I want to say, welcome. I'm so happy to have you.
I'm so excited about this book.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
It's like a bold statement. So explain to us what
you decided to do with this book.
Speaker 9 (25:26):
Yeah. So, what I decided to do with this book, honestly,
is to start a conversation that I believe needed to happen.
So when I left White House with the President on
January twentieth, you know, I left thinking, Okay, I'm going
to mind my business. I'm going to focus on, you know,
my life, my family, my kid, and just go about
(25:47):
my business. And what I was happening was going to
the airport, you know, going to the supermarket.
Speaker 7 (25:54):
Anywhere that I was going.
Speaker 9 (25:56):
People would stop me and folks were in near ta
years saying to me, what's happening? Why we weren't prepared.
I'm really scared. I'm very fearful. Why is the Democratic
Party not doing more? And they were just disillusioned, distraught
and angry, you know, and just sad, right and scared.
(26:19):
And so I just started to think about it that
summer in June twenty twenty four, Kamala Harris not winning
the election and moving forward in what was happening to
the country in that moment, and it scared me too.
I started to think about, Okay, what is my voice here?
What am I going to do? How can I help
in this moment? Because it really mattered to me, And
(26:41):
so I thought, Okay, I'm going to lean into a
thought that I had this summer of June twenty twenty four,
which was becoming an independent and you know, and stepping
away from the party system.
Speaker 7 (26:53):
And I truly believe, you.
Speaker 9 (26:55):
Know, I took policy when I was in grad school,
and I have one of my Mentors is a brilliant
pol Side professor that you need a two party system
for democracy to function.
Speaker 7 (27:07):
That is something that I truly believe.
Speaker 9 (27:08):
But I do believe now and many others do as well,
is that the two party system is broken, and it has.
Speaker 7 (27:15):
Been for some time.
Speaker 9 (27:17):
And I think now is the time to have these
type of conversation as to Okay, what are we going
to do, How are we going to reimagine the future?
How are we going to reimagine what you know, people
power looks like, taking it out of the White House
and into the hands of the American people. And so
this is my way of starting that conversation, and there
is a broader worder conversation to have too, Like there
(27:39):
are millions of independents who do not feel that they
can participate, at least in primaries because most primaries are
close primaries, and they're saying to us, I believe is that, hey,
I don't see myself in represented in the Democratic Party
or the Republican Party, So I'm going to be an independent,
just innately in that looking at that data tells you, okay,
(28:02):
well the system isn't working for everyone.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
And so this is my.
Speaker 9 (28:05):
Whole point is trying to figure out how do we
have a conversation, how do we come together and really
have people power and get parties out of the system.
How do we force leaders in this instance and for
the Democratic Party to you force them to move and
be held accountable and off course holding Republican leaders accountable too,
(28:25):
and having this conversation of reimagining the future.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Clearly there was a communications strategy behind Biden's relact. What
do you think it was? What do you think happened there?
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (28:38):
I mean, look, I wasn't part of the campaign because
I was the White House Press Secretarium.
Speaker 7 (28:42):
I had a role.
Speaker 9 (28:43):
I was like speaking on behalf of the president, pushing
out our message, and we all have to take responsibility. Right,
It didn't work what we were trying to do, But
there was other reasons too. There was a lot of
and you know this, Molly, there was a lot of
misinformation and disinformation that we had to be down. And
the politics were so partisan and so hard to break through.
(29:04):
We were also dealing with this unprecedented time of what
the world was in coming out of COVID. I'm sure
you watch some of my briefings. I would start the
briefing and start talking about the topper. We always led with, hey,
this is what the president is doing.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
And it would never break through. That's not what was
being talked about in the briefing room.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yet never, ever, ever, there were so many like really
good communicators in that White House, but the problem was
the principles weren't communicating. Like Trump does this thing, and
again everybody knows how I feel about him, but like
he does five hours of publicity a day. You know,
it almost felt like you could have as many people
as you wanted, but if you didn't have the president
(29:43):
or the vice president out there talking twenty four to seven,
it just didn't break through. Oh do you think that's right?
Speaker 9 (29:48):
Or I mean, social media has changed the way we
communicate with each other. The news cycle is twenty four
to seven NonStop. I mean, we talk about something at
eight am in the morning. By noon, it'll change, by
two it'll change. I mean that's certainly the time that
we're living in. And look, it's this is all like
hindsight twenty twenty, right.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
But it's like the only way to solve for the
future is why I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 9 (30:11):
And I agree with you, which is why I really
try to dive in into what happened over a year ago.
And so yeah, I'm going to make there are things
that we probably could have done better.
Speaker 7 (30:19):
But the President was out there.
Speaker 9 (30:21):
We would constantly be talking about something that we were doing.
He was out there in the cities and states, Red States,
even trying to talk about the policies that we were
pushing through or some historic legislation that went through.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
It just wasn't cutting it. It just wasn't breaking through
to the American people.
Speaker 9 (30:39):
And I also think I think this is something that's
really important to speak to.
Speaker 7 (30:43):
There was an incumbency issue. There really was.
Speaker 9 (30:46):
You look at these G twenty countries who were incumbents
coming out of COVID.
Speaker 7 (30:51):
None of them got reelected.
Speaker 9 (30:52):
And so the incumbency piece of it, and I think
that was the politics of it, all the partisanship, the
missing information, disinformation.
Speaker 7 (31:01):
It was an uphill battle, it truly was.
Speaker 9 (31:04):
And it was it was not an easy feat and Trump. Look,
he's an entertainer, right, That's what he's doing. It's entertainment.
It's not real information. You're not learning anything when he speaks,
but it's into entertainment and that's really how he leads
and focuses on especially when he's talking to the press.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Like I think about that book, the Tapper book, I
don't even know what to make of it, but it
was like there's a smoking gun. I was like, where
is it? It's not in here, but we know. It
just felt like everyone was against him.
Speaker 9 (31:36):
Yeah, it felt the frustration was it was more people
were against him than for him, at least in that
bubble of the DC bubble.
Speaker 7 (31:43):
It was the most insane.
Speaker 9 (31:44):
It's almost like a narrative was trying to be created
that feed into whatever clicks that they wanted to have.
It was the most insane thing that I had ever seen.
And it was always beating that back, pushing that bag.
And look, I haven't I haven't read Jake Tapper and
Alex's book.
Speaker 7 (32:02):
I'm not planning to.
Speaker 9 (32:03):
I could only speak from what I saw from myself,
and I am someone as his White House Press secretary,
I saw the President pretty regularly and traveled with him
more than ninety five percent of the time. And I
just saw someone who cared about this country, who wanted
to make a difference and worked really hard to do that.
And that's one of the reasons I wanted to make
(32:24):
that very clear in the book. In the book, I'm
not saying anything differently that I said at the podium.
In the book, I'm just laying out giving a little
bit more behind the scenes of what I was feeling
because I couldn't say that at the time.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
I had to focus on the job.
Speaker 9 (32:37):
But you're right, it was a feeling of people were
just against him and I just.
Speaker 7 (32:43):
Could not understand it.
Speaker 9 (32:46):
And it also laid the groundwork for Donald Trump to
win again. And truly, because you cannot compare these two people.
You can't say Biden and Trump are the same. They're
very different, fundamentally differul I.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Have this theory. First two years Biden didn't do a
lot of interviews. Now I have a number of theories
as to why largely he's not I believe this is
all my opinion here. I believe my man was not
a gifted orator. There's some anxiety, you know whatever. And
then the next two years, I feel like the ADMIN
tried and tried and tried to catch up, but the
(33:20):
mainstream media was so angry at the ADMIN for the
first two years, and then it created a dynamic. It
sort of spiraled into something I've never seen before.
Speaker 9 (33:31):
Yeah, I can understand that. Look, the first two years
were very unprecedented. I know we keep using the word,
but it was COVID. I was one of the very
few people that was even allowed to be in the
White House. We had to wear those real, the hard
like and live masks. The briefing was I think fourteen
people in the briefing room only sitting in those seats.
Speaker 7 (33:52):
So the first two years, I would argue that we
were really.
Speaker 9 (33:56):
Focused on getting America opened up again.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
It was just insanity.
Speaker 9 (34:02):
We were doing zoom calls with colleagues who were down
the hallway, and the focus, I got to tell you,
the focus really was, Okay, what do we need to
do with COVID. We have to get these vaccines out,
we have to get these schools open, we have to
get the country reopened again.
Speaker 7 (34:19):
We got to make sure it's done equitable.
Speaker 9 (34:22):
And I have to say, I think the focus wasn't
the media, honestly and doing any of yours.
Speaker 7 (34:26):
The focus was.
Speaker 9 (34:27):
How do we get out of this. We're dealing with
someone never seen before. That's honestly where everyone's head was.
That was what we zeroed in on, and we believed
at the time.
Speaker 7 (34:41):
That's what the American people want us to see.
Speaker 9 (34:43):
They elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris so that we
can get back to work. And that's where just where
Ahead was and communicating every step of the way what
we were doing. And that's what you saw. I remember,
I don't know Evenmber. We saw the President and the auditorium.
He was like, you know, meeting with with his COVID team.
He saw him get shot. We were putting basically putting
(35:05):
on a TV show on trying to communicate and educate
the American people.
Speaker 7 (35:09):
That's what was happening at least the first one hundred days.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, you know, I spend so much time thinking about women,
thinking about women candidates, thinking about Harris, thinking about how
you know, when I found out she was going to
be the nominee, I was talking to someone in the
world that we occupy and I said, like, this is exciting,
this is going to happen, And they said, it's either
going to be amazing or it's a glass cleff. I've
(35:34):
seen so many black women, white women, women, any women
being put on glass cliffs. Talk about it.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
You know, I haven't even thought about that term glass
cliff it's just really it captures it perfectly.
Speaker 7 (35:48):
And that's the sad part, right. And I think.
Speaker 9 (35:50):
Kamala Harris was more than qualified to have been president
at a phenomenal job as a candidate, being at the
top of the ticket for the Democrats. And it was
heartbreaking for so many people to see that glass cliff,
if you will, to.
Speaker 7 (36:04):
See that happen.
Speaker 9 (36:05):
I think to the point to the person that you
were talking to, just as a black woman walking through
this earth, right, And I had my doubts, I really did.
Speaker 7 (36:15):
And again not about her. I think she did a fantastic.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
Job, just about I know what it's like to live
in this body and breathe this air and do my day.
Speaker 7 (36:24):
To day life.
Speaker 9 (36:25):
It's hard, like racism, sexism, misogyny lives every day.
Speaker 7 (36:30):
I think that was a big part of what we
saw last year.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
The question is what is the electorate?
Speaker 9 (36:36):
Right?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
We don't know what the electorate is or why they vote.
Speaker 9 (36:39):
Yeah, I mean, and that's what I think we need
to learn and find out.
Speaker 7 (36:43):
I mean, we know this.
Speaker 9 (36:44):
I think more than thirty six percent or definitely more
than thirty percent of Americans didn't vote last year. We
had millions of Americans who voted in twenty twenty for
Joe Biden who didn't vote in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 7 (36:58):
There's a problem there and we have to figure out.
And this is to your point the electorate.
Speaker 9 (37:04):
Why do people feel that they didn't think their vote
would matter and they stayed home or didn't feel engaged
enough or excited enough to vote. And this is the
thing that I do believe we need to do some
digging and finding out because if we don't, it could
be problematic for us in the future.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
I feel like it's a party that's flying blind, right
because you don't understand why what's happening is happening.
Speaker 9 (37:31):
I love that it feels like a party that's flying
blind and has kind of lost a little bit of
their soul.
Speaker 7 (37:36):
Yeah, because the fight is not there. The fight is
not there.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
I do think there are real bright spots in this
twenty twenty five cycle. We have these governors' races. In
the twenty twenty six cycle, we have like this Senate
map is starting to shape up in an important way.
It does feel like we're in a really perallous moment. Yeah, absolutely,
talk to me about that.
Speaker 7 (37:59):
DEMIOC is hanging by a thread. It's hanging by a thread.
Speaker 9 (38:03):
We have someone who is sitting behind the resolute desk
in the White House, who wants to be a dictator,
who's going after their political opponents, who has the pull
of law out just out, just out the window. Some
institutions are just starting to crumble or have crumbled rightly.
Scary when you have military forces in cities and people
(38:25):
are disappearing. They're disappearing not just migrants and immigrants who
they say they're going after, but American citizens. And it
doesn't matter if you're an American citizens or not. You
should not be disappearing from the streets of the United
States period. It feels perilous. It's scary. Throughout the last
ten months, I have met people, whether I'm standing on
a line going to the public bathroom, who are crying
(38:48):
and trying to figure out, Okay, what are we doing?
Speaker 7 (38:50):
And this is the fear that I have.
Speaker 9 (38:53):
And I watched the Democratic Party and I'm like, what
do you do? Why did we rubber stamp Trump's appointees?
Speaker 7 (38:59):
Why? Why was that a thing? We knew that most
of them, if not all of them, were unqualified.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Why do you think I mean? And also why do
you think Republicans have been so cowardly.
Speaker 7 (39:10):
We're not dealing with conventional Republicans. I do not know.
Speaker 9 (39:13):
I think that Trump has done it, has done something
to them.
Speaker 7 (39:17):
Can't break it. It's like a fever that they can't break.
And I think the reason.
Speaker 9 (39:22):
Why Democrats did indeed rubber stamp Trump's appointees because they
had the mentality of business as usual, and it's not
business as usual Project twenty twenty five. They told us
conservative Republicans, Republicans however you want to say, They told
us over a year ago, this is what their plan
(39:42):
was going to be.
Speaker 7 (39:44):
And you know, Democrats has this thing.
Speaker 9 (39:45):
And I know this because I was part of the
party obviously had worked for principles. They're thinking, was okay,
if we play along, maybe they'll play along.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Great to have you, Thank you, Ollie.
Speaker 7 (39:56):
I appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Oh no, mo sec Jesse.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Cannon, So, Molly, this is an interesting one. Throughout the
last few decades, the NRA has basically been like, hey,
if you just walked out of a mental institution and
beat your wife, we still think you should have a gun.
But they finally have now found someone on the right
that they don't want owning guns, and that's pretty interesting.
(40:24):
Marijuana smokers not known to be the most violent type
of people.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So this is like one of these things where they
want to make sure that people smoke pot go to
jail even if pot is legal. But that would mean
they would have to limit gun ownership, and we all
know they're not allowed to do this. So this is
a case where a dual US Pakistanian citizen charged with
(40:49):
fire related felony because he allegedly had a gun in
his house. He acknowledged to being a regular pot user.
I mean, I don't see how the Supreme Court has time,
I'm for stuff like this when they are so busy
rapidly dismantling our voting right, I mean, how do they
have the time they're so busy? Wow?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Wow? Is that so?
Speaker 7 (41:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Look, I think that we're going to see more of this,
the Supreme Court trying to do whatever it can do
to just cut back on our rights in every which way.
I mean, it's just, you know, this Supreme Court is
just involved in craziness.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
I like the analysis of this law that they're trying
to make it so that when they start to prosecute Antifa,
they think they're all pot smokers. But what they're going
to quickly find out is that America, of all stripes,
are pot.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Smokers and not me.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
But sure, yeah, I'm saying all political stripes smoke pot.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
It's not just whacky leftists with guns.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Well, we'll see, right.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
I think the data has shown this many times.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and an ap NORC poll this week
found that sixty nine percent of Americans thought the nation
was heading in the wrong direction. We have such a
great Joe for you today, Talking Points Memos own Josh
(00:23):
Marshall stops by to talk about Trump demanding that he
be paid by his own government.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Then we'll talk to former White House Press Secretary Kareem
John Pierre about her new book Independent, a look inside
a Broken White House outside the party lines. But first the.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
News, Smiley, mister Trump had a mandate lower those egg prices.
You know what happens when you put a whack job
in charge of the CDC and hhs Well, bird flu
comes back. We don't treat it well. And guess what's
about to happen. We're about to have higher egg prices. Ah,
(01:01):
I'm sorry, listen, man.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I was told Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Laser focused, laser laser focused on affordability, and by laser focused,
we mean not at all.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
He's laser focused in that ballroom.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
He's laser focused on demolishing the East Wing. If you
work for the Treasury Department. Please post pictures. We need
to see them. Look, man, this is again. We talk
so much about trump Ism. These are the second order
effects of trump Ism. Right, The virus is back. The
administration is incompetent or maybe corrupt, or maybe both, and
(01:40):
so infected wild birds have served this fall in three states,
by the way, in case you're wondering, all red states,
because voting for mister Trump does not protect you from
bird flu Idaho, Nebraska, and Texas. And it's an outbreak
in dairy cavs, so get ready for milk to get
more expensive too. The virus often flares up in the
(02:02):
fall as wild birds begin migrating south. This year, the
uptake is occurring during a government shutdown, as federal agencies
are usually typically involved in response. They're working with the
skeletal staff. But here's the good news. Elon fired all
other people anyway.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Don't forget RFK. He helped fire them too.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That's right. The corrupt and incompetent people we have working
in our White House. Real talk, and the federal government
has closed. The virus has settled into a seasonal pattern,
says Richard Webbe. An influenza expert at Saint Jude's Children's
Research Hospital. Saint Jude's recently got money cut from the
(02:43):
federal government. This administration decided those kids with cancer they
should pull their little bootstraps up and fight that cancer
on their own.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So, because the government is shut down right now, my
wife is upstairs working hard for the government, but she
won't be paid this week, so we're down to being
a single income house.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And better boss. Well, because members get paid.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yep, we should say my wife works for a member
of Congress, and that's how things work right now. And
that's just absolutely lovely to be living through this anyway.
I'm sure everybody would really enjoy to be working and
not get paid.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
For people who are getting paid.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, step benefits won't be issued for November due to
the government shutdown.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yes, we have a broken party that really wants to
make the federal government small and ineffective and make it
the government. You know, they don't want to pay taxes,
they don't want to serve hungry people snap special Nutrition
Assistance program. So the benefits business in Maine will not
be issued from November due to the ongoing federal shutdown.
(03:49):
That is forty two million people one hundred and sixty
nine thousand in Maine. That means those people won't okay,
they won't be able to get food. Thousands of no
income working main families rely on basic food assistance, and
now those benefits are at risk because the Trump shutdown.
I want to tell you, I think a really important
data point here, which is Mike Johnson, the speaker of
(04:12):
the House. Everybody is home. They were sent home because
Mike Johnson, you know, Donald Trump wants the shutdown. He
feels the military is being paid. The SNAP is not
really where my man's interests are. So the house is
at home. They are not working to try round the
clock to solve this shutdown. In fact, they are at home.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Some aren't even at home. They're in Barbados and the
Bahamas and vacationing.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
In fact, yeah, I mean I didn't know that, but
it does not totally surprise me.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
So in addition to SNAP, Donald Trump says Social Security
medicare are going to be gone.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So is like this thing. Republicans have decided that they're
going to say that instead of cutting Social Security, they
are saving it. It's nice because it's a lie. But
we heard Mike Johnson talk about this. They're fixing it.
They're tinkering it to make sure it can last for longer.
They're tinkering it so that they can give tax cuts
(05:10):
a very wealthy people and corporations, which are as you
and I both know people too. Look, Donald Trump warned
in a press conference that I've been agreement is not
reached with the Democrats. Program like social Security, Medicaid, Medicare
will be in danger because he'll cut them. I mean again,
like this is this abuser mentality, right, Like if you
make me do something, it's your fault. No, honey, if
(05:33):
you do something, it's still your fault.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
Stop hitting yourself with my fist.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Right exactly. So, I don't know. Trump administration plans deep
cuts to Social Security disability insurance, particularly for older workers. Yeah,
older disabled people, that is who you should be going after.
I'm sorry, but like the pure inhumanity of this administration,
it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Yeah, yeah, never sees to amaze me.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Do we talk about cutting the children's cancer research? I
know we did earlier, but I just want to circle
back to that. As the East Wing is being expanded
into an enormous corporate sponsored ballroom.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I particularly think about that the money we're giving to
Argentina could pay for the ACA benefits that the government
is shut down over. That's particularly what hits me on
a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Speak for yourself, man, that money needs to go to
Argentina for Argentinian farmers or something.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I think that they're using the rakes to farm to
get Millai's sidebirds to be so fluffy.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
God, he really has gorgeous hair.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Okay, now that we've got into the worst territory we've
ever got into, a five hundred forty one episodest Hagseth.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Maybe you've heard of him. He's a weekend television anchor.
Have you heard of him.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
I've heard he spent some times in salutes.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I don't know what you're talking about. All I know
is that hegxeth Is continued. So first, he basically said,
you can't cover the press corps dependenton press corps was
basically decimated. Right. He said, you have to sign this
thing that says anything you report on needs to be
something I've given you. Basically, so everybody laughed, with the
exception of Oann can't spell own without Oann and a
(07:18):
few Turkish outlets who knew there was so many Turkish
outlets discuss I.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Think this is always the funny thing of that I've
been around a lot of situations, particularly working in music,
where the first reaction people have to bad press is
how do we get rid of the press. Then they
realize that the press is kind of like gravity that
you can't really stop it. Then they have to go
to the next stage of grieving.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Yep, yep. Here we have the bargaining.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Heg seth orders prior approval for all interactions between military
officials and Congress. Oh yeah, those leakers, they're going to
come to big beat before they leak.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Yeah, that's definite how this works.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's weird because you see how bad things are going here,
like you just see these little pieces of things like
just melting down. But this ultimately is a sign that
they're really worried about leaks, right, that they're just trying
to get ahead of the leaks. And they're trying to
get ahead of leaks, probably because of those fishing boats
(08:20):
in the Caribbean.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Right, there's going to be a competent leadership being reported.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
You know who I bet does not sleep well at night.
Head of the d D Pete hegsas I bet he's
real anxious.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Alcohol has proven to be a bad for your sleep,
so yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Josh Marshall is the editor of Talking Points. Memo. Welcome
back to Fast Politics, Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
So happy to have you. Things are going great. The
East Wing home of Eleanor Roosevelt now home of He's
basically penn stationing the East wing of the White House discussed.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it.
Speaker 6 (09:03):
I actually just wrote a post about this that I think,
you know, we had two things happened yesterday. We had
that ort, like you know, where the pictures which showed
the totality of it came out, and we also had
this thing about how he's instructing his employees to cut
him a check for two hundred and thirty million dollars.
And I think both of those are things that they're
(09:23):
certainly not the worst things that have.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Happened in the last nine months.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Yeah, but they have an audacity and like a vulgarity.
How do you escalate from like, yeah, the President had
one of his cabinet secretaries right him a check for
two hundred and thirty million dollars, Like I don't know
what where you go up from there, so and both
of those things, and then he demolished a third of
the White House complex. You're like, oh, okay, Like I
(09:50):
didn't know that was going to happen. So he's just nice.
He's fully in the Twilight Zone Anthony phase of his
residency where he's just doing like totally crazy shit, and
crazy shit that isn't even like key parts of the plan,
just stuff. He woke up one day and said, I
(10:10):
want to build a ballroom.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Let's talk about that, because I actually think it's not
the Project twenty twenty five that's going to unravel this thing.
If it does unravel, it's the photos of the destruction
of the East Wing that are going to do it.
Because it's hard to explain if you try to legally
destroy the East wing of the White House, right, if
(10:33):
you try, you wouldn't be.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
You have zoning problems, yeah, Like I mean, you couldn't.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Get permits for what he did with the Rose Garden
let alone, where he paved the Rose Garden to make
it the Rose Garden Club TM. But what he's doing
to the ballroom, I just wonder. You know, sometimes with
Trump world, there are second order effects that sink the
whole thing, you know what I mean. And I just
(11:00):
wonder if those visuals And then my favorite thing the
Koudograss is that their Treasury Secretary employees stop sharing photos
of the demolition of the East Wing. We know you
can see it out your window. I'm sorry, no, I
actually think it less true.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
I actually think you are right. And I especially think
you're right because I agree and and I just wrote
something kind of to this effect, like literally just to
finish to the half hour before we started. As we
said at the beginning, these are far from the worst
things that have happened. In a way, they are almost trivial. Look,
you can, you can, you can rebuild a building, you
can you can replace it.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
You know.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
They just basically cut a check for forty billion dollars
to that Javier Mille guy down in Argentina because.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
They really like him.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
They really like him, and a lot of and a
lot of Scott Best sends like Hedge fun friends like
are taking a bath on their investments, so terrible.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That's a Ergentine in a way.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
To your point, A lot of the Project twenty twenty
five stuff is very bad, but they are things that
are hard for people who are not kind of drenched
in politics to kind of put together the significance of
why they're different, what they mean, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So I actually think what you're saying is very right.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
The other part of this is it is a truism
now that we know he came in in the second
term without the semi establishment people around him who held
certain things in check. He came in with people who
were one hundred percent maga and wanted to do everything
that really changed the equation. It led us to where
(12:39):
we are now. But I think what we're starting to
see and it's really again it sort of it hit
me in an epiphany yesterday with these two stories, but
I think we've seen it over the last few weeks.
He's in the stage now where if you've once you've
been living the impunity lifestyle for ten months, other things
start to occur to you, things that are just so weird,
(13:00):
even though you've got sick of fans around you. They
might not have occurred to you before that. And these
are the things you know, people see that, no wonder
they're telling the Treasury people not to share the photos.
You see that, and you say, what the actual fuck,
he's tearing down the White House.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
How can that? You know, people see that like something's wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
So this is a theory of the case that has
been sort of floated by a friend of mine who's
a fancy socialite. This is like the fall of the
Roman Empire. Now, like we just my man is drunk
with power. He is seventy nine years old. He's the
oldest person to ever be president. I know we're not
(13:40):
allowed to talk about how old he is, but he
is very old, and he has just decided like, you know,
absolute power craves absolute whatever.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
Yeah, no, these are these are you know, sort of
different metaphors and different prisons for saying the same thing.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
He is.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
You know, the Supreme Court lit this fire, or maybe
you know, the American people or a minority of the
American people lit this fire back in twenty sixteen. But
it's the Supreme Court that really came with a you know,
a couple of Jerichans a gasoline and poured it on
and they did this and continued to do this, and
at a certain point you just start doing things like
(14:19):
I'm going to bring in a bulldozer and tear down
in the White House and and create the sort of
the Trump Imperial Palace. You know, one thing that actually
occurred to me, I don't I don't know. You know,
everybody's kind of pointed to this, this little kind of
meandering moment he had in the Oval office yesterday where
someone asked him about this. If you follow the actual
course of the meanders, I think what is possible here
(14:41):
is that he may want to take the two hundred
and thirty million dollars, which then becomes his, and then
he will pay for the ballroom he gave. He gave
the people I was corporate.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
I was told corporate donors, we're gonna pay for the bar.
But it does seem like you're action here.
Speaker 6 (14:59):
At and people go back and look, you know, yeah,
find that video because he actually talks about ah, I
give it to charity in the ballroom and the guy
you know, you know Howur's mind works after a certain point.
But yeah, you just you just wake up and start
doing like completely crazy things and and you know, creating
a private paramilitary slash secret police.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Is another kind of bad thing. But that but that
at least.
Speaker 6 (15:25):
Is something like we know why the whole team wants
to do that. That is a sort of a cornerstone
part of the whole project. So you're gonna you're gonna
take some hits to be able to do that because
of all the positives in their mind for the sort
of the the conquest of the American Republic. But these
things and again, we're doing a bail out for forty million,
(15:46):
you know, forty billion dollars of Argentina, and we're gonna
let them do their own bailout by cutting all of
our farmers out of the soybean business. You know, this
is These are the kind of things you do if
you just don't think any limits. No one can nothing bad.
And at a certain level, you know, when you're seventy nine,
(16:08):
there are no limits.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, is he is?
Speaker 7 (16:11):
He is?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
He not going to get a good job after this term.
I mean, why should he care?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
One of the things that I've been on many television
panel where we're talking about these the hats. You know,
he's going to run again. He's going to run again.
He's going to run again. I'm like, he's going to
be eighty three. I mean, look, he has the greatest
arian jeans ever known to man.
Speaker 8 (16:34):
He is has the purest, healthiest, whitest whatever. But you know, ultimately,
you still you don't live forever, right unless we do.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And I'm just missing something most.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Of us don't.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
But you know, look, I don't think he's you know, look,
my man Bob Dylan is out there touring at eighty four.
He does, you know, tours NonStop. So people people can
live a long time and remain relatively spry. But look,
I just don't think, for a variety of reasons, I've
never thought that is going to happen. He may think
it's going to happen. But if he doesn't do that,
(17:13):
he'll get Don Junior or JD nominated or maybe you know,
we've seen you know, maybe Barren. I don't know, but
the other brother could be Eric. He's moved into being
primary son. In any case, what it all comes together
is he is in a position kind of no one
in the world has ever been in when you combine
(17:35):
American primacy with the total premacy and restraint from any
law or any or any limit of corruption of the
American presidency, and it's going to his head.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It will be those things that will a Roman empire
with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
So let's talk about democrats. There's been a lot of
drama about the main senatorial primary over the last two
days on the internet. We have Grand Platner, Janet Mills.
We have some Grand Platner tattoo stuff. Yeah, grand Platner comments,
(18:11):
some pretty not what I think of when I think
of the Democratic Party comments we got. Janet Mills is old.
I mean, what do you think happens here?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
You know, I'm not really sure.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
You know, one thing that I caught, or actually my
colleague Kate Riga caught, is that she, I guess said
in that debate she wants to hold on to the
filibuster and for a lot of Democrats, rightly, I think
that is disqualifying. So there's a lot of things about
her that would be good. I mean, she's a popular
two term governor. You can't take anything away from that.
(18:45):
She's old, but like, you know, get the seat and
then hand it off. You know, we got to do
what we can here. I don't really know with platter
I I you know, this this tattoo things has has
has just come up in the last you know, first
you had the comments, then you have the tattoo, and
I'm still trying to kind of catch up here. I'm
curious to see what the next poll is. You know,
(19:06):
I don't think people people. I think Maner's thought he
was a little wild. It's hard to give something like
that up once you seem like you're the winning insurgent
candidate to possibly go right to the US Senate. So
I'm kind of reserving judgment till I see what what
voters actually think.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And you're saying yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, and there's something to be said for like, let
Main be Maine. You know, they know what they're doing,
they'll pick.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
Them want yeah, And I'm not you know, I'm not
someone who kind of falls hard for these kinds of candidates.
I'm very pragmatic about who seems like the best candidate.
But these are strange times, and I don't think it
is right to get significantly ahead of the public in Maine,
both the primary public and the you know, the general
(19:54):
general election public. And you know, because a lot of
these things like if he has a trey, you know,
kind of tattoo that white nationalists are crazy about, are
the Republicans going to attack him? I mean, are they're
going to say he's reaching out to Maga, right, he's
trying to be bipartisan you know. I so I don't
know how this is going.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
To So this gets to this question of like, how
do you worry about problems in a party when the
party is facing off against the guy who is basically
a nero. How can you worry about anything when they
are like, we don't want to have elections anymore. Democracies failed.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
Yeah, and there's a number of different levels to answer
that on I do think to a great extent, people
are going to go into the you're going to go
into the ballot box in twenty twenty six like you
like this or you don't like it. You know, it's
a very binary choice. It's a certain kind of split
ticket voting. If you don't like what's happening in the country,
you know, there's one way to signal that, and it's
(20:48):
it's the non republican person. And I do think that
is going to, you know, make a lot of these
things less important than they than they normally would be. Obviously,
you have to balance against that that the stakes are
pretty high. You don't want to make it any harder
than it has to be. You know, you had that
thing what a few days ago where they had the
text from the you know, New York Republicans or New
(21:11):
York Young Republicans.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I mean the first Nazi text chat, not the second one.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
Yes, yes, which was, but in that kind and that
kind of thing is sort of like, wow, they they
they talk in private the way they talk on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I mean, okay, like is that was?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
That?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Was that stunning?
Speaker 6 (21:27):
So it's again on that specific on that specific race.
I really kind of reserved my judgment to see what
the voters in Maine make of all this.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
It's an interesting question though, with that second Nazi group chat,
because the adman actually pulled the nominee, which, as you know,
has not happened so many times. This is an administration
that managed to get RFK Junior.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, true, my.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Man who basically believes that circumcision and tail and all
cause autism.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah for me, let's hope not.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
But yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
I think there's some of these nominees that the people
around Trump or in some cases maybe even Trump sometimes
and some of these like I want this guy Pete Hegseeth.
Clearly Trump was like I want this guy, I want
this guy running the Pentagon. Some of these guys I
think are more kind of like, let's see what happens,
this will be you know, it's sort of like shooting
(22:19):
off of firework. Let's just kind of see what happens.
If it's a dud, that's cool, We'll find another one.
I think that's kind of where they were with this
Angrassia guy. I mean, on the other on the other hand,
I do think we have seen a number of things
over the last few weeks. It's so much else is
going on that it's gotten little attention. You know, there
was that thing where he where where the Department of
(22:40):
Education sent out that deal to I think it was
nine universities, you know, you want to kind of sign
on to the mega agenda. I believe now all of them,
even the more kind of us right.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I think this at suck Up may still be in
the game. But everybody else has said, but yeah, USC,
and not that USC is like a map a university.
But of the ones that were sent it, they seemed
like if anybody's going to sign on, it's going to
be them, and they didn't, and there are other and
the Pentagon reporters left.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
I mean, yeah, there's just things happening where they they
maybe they're getting to some of the limits of their
ability to impose.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Things, and more than seven million people march to say
they don't fucking like this. And if you think about it,
seven million people for a minute, like you know each
of those people, and it may be more, maybe eight
and a half if even those people represent five people,
which it's a pretty good bet they do, right, or
(23:36):
maybe more. Yeah, it's a pretty big part of the
electorate that's fucking passed.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
No, that's true.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
And I think I was actually talking to a friend
of mine about this yesterday, that there is the numbers,
the numbers and the visuals that really hearden people and
are a demonstration of numbers and power, and that's really important.
But where protest movement and these kind of demonstrations actually
have the most impact is usually that, you know, you
(24:03):
get everybody together, you organize your event in the local area,
and then you head out to get a beer after
the protest, and everybody says, hey, let's stay in touch
for the next election, let's canvas together. I think, you know,
one of the impacts of the whole No King's thing
is going to be to the extent that that happens
going forward over the next year or so, does this
(24:26):
become a a you know, a coming together that ends
up building organizational muscle that accomplishes things going into the
election next year.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, that's right, and I think that's a real question.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Corrine Jean Pierre is the former White House Press secretary
and the author of the new book Independent and Look
Inside a Broken White House Outside the Party Lines. I
I'm so excited to have you. I have a lot
of things I want to ask you about because I
spend an insane amount of time thinking about how Biden
(25:09):
World got to where I got to, considering that it
had done so much good stuff, and so first of all,
I want to say, welcome. I'm so happy to have you.
I'm so excited about this book.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
It's like a bold statement. So explain to us what
you decided to do with this book.
Speaker 9 (25:26):
Yeah. So, what I decided to do with this book, honestly,
is to start a conversation that I believe needed to happen.
So when I left White House with the President on
January twentieth, you know, I left thinking, Okay, I'm going
to mind my business. I'm going to focus on, you know,
my life, my family, my kid, and just go about
(25:47):
my business. And what I was happening was going to
the airport, you know, going to the supermarket.
Speaker 7 (25:54):
Anywhere that I was going.
Speaker 9 (25:56):
People would stop me and folks were in near ta
years saying to me, what's happening? Why we weren't prepared.
I'm really scared. I'm very fearful. Why is the Democratic
Party not doing more? And they were just disillusioned, distraught
and angry, you know, and just sad, right and scared.
(26:19):
And so I just started to think about it that
summer in June twenty twenty four, Kamala Harris not winning
the election and moving forward in what was happening to
the country in that moment, and it scared me too.
I started to think about, Okay, what is my voice here?
What am I going to do? How can I help
in this moment? Because it really mattered to me, And
(26:41):
so I thought, Okay, I'm going to lean into a
thought that I had this summer of June twenty twenty four,
which was becoming an independent and you know, and stepping
away from the party system.
Speaker 7 (26:53):
And I truly believe, you.
Speaker 9 (26:55):
Know, I took policy when I was in grad school,
and I have one of my Mentors is a brilliant
pol Side professor that you need a two party system
for democracy to function.
Speaker 7 (27:07):
That is something that I truly believe.
Speaker 9 (27:08):
But I do believe now and many others do as well,
is that the two party system is broken, and it has.
Speaker 7 (27:15):
Been for some time.
Speaker 9 (27:17):
And I think now is the time to have these
type of conversation as to Okay, what are we going
to do, How are we going to reimagine the future?
How are we going to reimagine what you know, people
power looks like, taking it out of the White House
and into the hands of the American people. And so
this is my way of starting that conversation, and there
is a broader worder conversation to have too, Like there
(27:39):
are millions of independents who do not feel that they
can participate, at least in primaries because most primaries are
close primaries, and they're saying to us, I believe is that, hey,
I don't see myself in represented in the Democratic Party
or the Republican Party, So I'm going to be an independent,
just innately in that looking at that data tells you, okay,
(28:02):
well the system isn't working for everyone.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
And so this is my.
Speaker 9 (28:05):
Whole point is trying to figure out how do we
have a conversation, how do we come together and really
have people power and get parties out of the system.
How do we force leaders in this instance and for
the Democratic Party to you force them to move and
be held accountable and off course holding Republican leaders accountable too,
(28:25):
and having this conversation of reimagining the future.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Clearly there was a communications strategy behind Biden's relact. What
do you think it was? What do you think happened there?
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (28:38):
I mean, look, I wasn't part of the campaign because
I was the White House Press Secretarium.
Speaker 7 (28:42):
I had a role.
Speaker 9 (28:43):
I was like speaking on behalf of the president, pushing
out our message, and we all have to take responsibility. Right,
It didn't work what we were trying to do, But
there was other reasons too. There was a lot of
and you know this, Molly, there was a lot of
misinformation and disinformation that we had to be down. And
the politics were so partisan and so hard to break through.
(29:04):
We were also dealing with this unprecedented time of what
the world was in coming out of COVID. I'm sure
you watch some of my briefings. I would start the
briefing and start talking about the topper. We always led with, hey,
this is what the president is doing.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
And it would never break through. That's not what was
being talked about in the briefing room.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yet never, ever, ever, there were so many like really
good communicators in that White House, but the problem was
the principles weren't communicating. Like Trump does this thing, and
again everybody knows how I feel about him, but like
he does five hours of publicity a day. You know,
it almost felt like you could have as many people
as you wanted, but if you didn't have the president
(29:43):
or the vice president out there talking twenty four to seven,
it just didn't break through. Oh do you think that's right?
Speaker 9 (29:48):
Or I mean, social media has changed the way we
communicate with each other. The news cycle is twenty four
to seven NonStop. I mean, we talk about something at
eight am in the morning. By noon, it'll change, by
two it'll change. I mean that's certainly the time that
we're living in. And look, it's this is all like
hindsight twenty twenty, right.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
But it's like the only way to solve for the
future is why I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 9 (30:11):
And I agree with you, which is why I really
try to dive in into what happened over a year ago.
And so yeah, I'm going to make there are things
that we probably could have done better.
Speaker 7 (30:19):
But the President was out there.
Speaker 9 (30:21):
We would constantly be talking about something that we were doing.
He was out there in the cities and states, Red States,
even trying to talk about the policies that we were
pushing through or some historic legislation that went through.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
It just wasn't cutting it. It just wasn't breaking through
to the American people.
Speaker 9 (30:39):
And I also think I think this is something that's
really important to speak to.
Speaker 7 (30:43):
There was an incumbency issue. There really was.
Speaker 9 (30:46):
You look at these G twenty countries who were incumbents
coming out of COVID.
Speaker 7 (30:51):
None of them got reelected.
Speaker 9 (30:52):
And so the incumbency piece of it, and I think
that was the politics of it, all the partisanship, the
missing information, disinformation.
Speaker 7 (31:01):
It was an uphill battle, it truly was.
Speaker 9 (31:04):
And it was it was not an easy feat and Trump. Look,
he's an entertainer, right, That's what he's doing. It's entertainment.
It's not real information. You're not learning anything when he speaks,
but it's into entertainment and that's really how he leads
and focuses on especially when he's talking to the press.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Like I think about that book, the Tapper book, I
don't even know what to make of it, but it
was like there's a smoking gun. I was like, where
is it? It's not in here, but we know. It
just felt like everyone was against him.
Speaker 9 (31:36):
Yeah, it felt the frustration was it was more people
were against him than for him, at least in that
bubble of the DC bubble.
Speaker 7 (31:43):
It was the most insane.
Speaker 9 (31:44):
It's almost like a narrative was trying to be created
that feed into whatever clicks that they wanted to have.
It was the most insane thing that I had ever seen.
And it was always beating that back, pushing that bag.
And look, I haven't I haven't read Jake Tapper and
Alex's book.
Speaker 7 (32:02):
I'm not planning to.
Speaker 9 (32:03):
I could only speak from what I saw from myself,
and I am someone as his White House Press secretary,
I saw the President pretty regularly and traveled with him
more than ninety five percent of the time. And I
just saw someone who cared about this country, who wanted
to make a difference and worked really hard to do that.
And that's one of the reasons I wanted to make
(32:24):
that very clear in the book. In the book, I'm
not saying anything differently that I said at the podium.
In the book, I'm just laying out giving a little
bit more behind the scenes of what I was feeling
because I couldn't say that at the time.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
I had to focus on the job.
Speaker 9 (32:37):
But you're right, it was a feeling of people were
just against him and I just.
Speaker 7 (32:43):
Could not understand it.
Speaker 9 (32:46):
And it also laid the groundwork for Donald Trump to
win again. And truly, because you cannot compare these two people.
You can't say Biden and Trump are the same. They're
very different, fundamentally differul I.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Have this theory. First two years Biden didn't do a
lot of interviews. Now I have a number of theories
as to why largely he's not I believe this is
all my opinion here. I believe my man was not
a gifted orator. There's some anxiety, you know whatever. And
then the next two years, I feel like the ADMIN
tried and tried and tried to catch up, but the
(33:20):
mainstream media was so angry at the ADMIN for the
first two years, and then it created a dynamic. It
sort of spiraled into something I've never seen before.
Speaker 9 (33:31):
Yeah, I can understand that. Look, the first two years
were very unprecedented. I know we keep using the word,
but it was COVID. I was one of the very
few people that was even allowed to be in the
White House. We had to wear those real, the hard
like and live masks. The briefing was I think fourteen
people in the briefing room only sitting in those seats.
Speaker 7 (33:52):
So the first two years, I would argue that we
were really.
Speaker 9 (33:56):
Focused on getting America opened up again.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
It was just insanity.
Speaker 9 (34:02):
We were doing zoom calls with colleagues who were down
the hallway, and the focus, I got to tell you,
the focus really was, Okay, what do we need to
do with COVID. We have to get these vaccines out,
we have to get these schools open, we have to
get the country reopened again.
Speaker 7 (34:19):
We got to make sure it's done equitable.
Speaker 9 (34:22):
And I have to say, I think the focus wasn't
the media, honestly and doing any of yours.
Speaker 7 (34:26):
The focus was.
Speaker 9 (34:27):
How do we get out of this. We're dealing with
someone never seen before. That's honestly where everyone's head was.
That was what we zeroed in on, and we believed
at the time.
Speaker 7 (34:41):
That's what the American people want us to see.
Speaker 9 (34:43):
They elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris so that we
can get back to work. And that's where just where
Ahead was and communicating every step of the way what
we were doing. And that's what you saw. I remember,
I don't know Evenmber. We saw the President and the auditorium.
He was like, you know, meeting with with his COVID team.
He saw him get shot. We were putting basically putting
(35:05):
on a TV show on trying to communicate and educate
the American people.
Speaker 7 (35:09):
That's what was happening at least the first one hundred days.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, you know, I spend so much time thinking about women,
thinking about women candidates, thinking about Harris, thinking about how
you know, when I found out she was going to
be the nominee, I was talking to someone in the
world that we occupy and I said, like, this is exciting,
this is going to happen, And they said, it's either
going to be amazing or it's a glass cleff. I've
(35:34):
seen so many black women, white women, women, any women
being put on glass cliffs. Talk about it.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
You know, I haven't even thought about that term glass
cliff it's just really it captures it perfectly.
Speaker 7 (35:48):
And that's the sad part, right. And I think.
Speaker 9 (35:50):
Kamala Harris was more than qualified to have been president
at a phenomenal job as a candidate, being at the
top of the ticket for the Democrats. And it was
heartbreaking for so many people to see that glass cliff,
if you will, to.
Speaker 7 (36:04):
See that happen.
Speaker 9 (36:05):
I think to the point to the person that you
were talking to, just as a black woman walking through
this earth, right, And I had my doubts, I really did.
Speaker 7 (36:15):
And again not about her. I think she did a fantastic.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
Job, just about I know what it's like to live
in this body and breathe this air and do my day.
Speaker 7 (36:24):
To day life.
Speaker 9 (36:25):
It's hard, like racism, sexism, misogyny lives every day.
Speaker 7 (36:30):
I think that was a big part of what we
saw last year.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
The question is what is the electorate?
Speaker 9 (36:36):
Right?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
We don't know what the electorate is or why they vote.
Speaker 9 (36:39):
Yeah, I mean, and that's what I think we need
to learn and find out.
Speaker 7 (36:43):
I mean, we know this.
Speaker 9 (36:44):
I think more than thirty six percent or definitely more
than thirty percent of Americans didn't vote last year. We
had millions of Americans who voted in twenty twenty for
Joe Biden who didn't vote in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 7 (36:58):
There's a problem there and we have to figure out.
And this is to your point the electorate.
Speaker 9 (37:04):
Why do people feel that they didn't think their vote
would matter and they stayed home or didn't feel engaged
enough or excited enough to vote. And this is the
thing that I do believe we need to do some
digging and finding out because if we don't, it could
be problematic for us in the future.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
I feel like it's a party that's flying blind, right
because you don't understand why what's happening is happening.
Speaker 9 (37:31):
I love that it feels like a party that's flying
blind and has kind of lost a little bit of
their soul.
Speaker 7 (37:36):
Yeah, because the fight is not there. The fight is
not there.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
I do think there are real bright spots in this
twenty twenty five cycle. We have these governors' races. In
the twenty twenty six cycle, we have like this Senate
map is starting to shape up in an important way.
It does feel like we're in a really perallous moment. Yeah, absolutely,
talk to me about that.
Speaker 7 (37:59):
DEMIOC is hanging by a thread. It's hanging by a thread.
Speaker 9 (38:03):
We have someone who is sitting behind the resolute desk
in the White House, who wants to be a dictator,
who's going after their political opponents, who has the pull
of law out just out, just out the window. Some
institutions are just starting to crumble or have crumbled rightly.
Scary when you have military forces in cities and people
(38:25):
are disappearing. They're disappearing not just migrants and immigrants who
they say they're going after, but American citizens. And it
doesn't matter if you're an American citizens or not. You
should not be disappearing from the streets of the United
States period. It feels perilous. It's scary. Throughout the last
ten months, I have met people, whether I'm standing on
a line going to the public bathroom, who are crying
(38:48):
and trying to figure out, Okay, what are we doing?
Speaker 7 (38:50):
And this is the fear that I have.
Speaker 9 (38:53):
And I watched the Democratic Party and I'm like, what
do you do? Why did we rubber stamp Trump's appointees?
Speaker 7 (38:59):
Why? Why was that a thing? We knew that most
of them, if not all of them, were unqualified.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Why do you think I mean? And also why do
you think Republicans have been so cowardly.
Speaker 7 (39:10):
We're not dealing with conventional Republicans. I do not know.
Speaker 9 (39:13):
I think that Trump has done it, has done something
to them.
Speaker 7 (39:17):
Can't break it. It's like a fever that they can't break.
And I think the reason.
Speaker 9 (39:22):
Why Democrats did indeed rubber stamp Trump's appointees because they
had the mentality of business as usual, and it's not
business as usual Project twenty twenty five. They told us
conservative Republicans, Republicans however you want to say, They told
us over a year ago, this is what their plan
(39:42):
was going to be.
Speaker 7 (39:44):
And you know, Democrats has this thing.
Speaker 9 (39:45):
And I know this because I was part of the
party obviously had worked for principles. They're thinking, was okay,
if we play along, maybe they'll play along.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Great to have you, Thank you, Ollie.
Speaker 7 (39:56):
I appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Oh no, mo sec Jesse.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Cannon, So, Molly, this is an interesting one. Throughout the
last few decades, the NRA has basically been like, hey,
if you just walked out of a mental institution and
beat your wife, we still think you should have a gun.
But they finally have now found someone on the right
that they don't want owning guns, and that's pretty interesting.
(40:24):
Marijuana smokers not known to be the most violent type
of people.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So this is like one of these things where they
want to make sure that people smoke pot go to
jail even if pot is legal. But that would mean
they would have to limit gun ownership, and we all
know they're not allowed to do this. So this is
a case where a dual US Pakistanian citizen charged with
(40:49):
fire related felony because he allegedly had a gun in
his house. He acknowledged to being a regular pot user.
I mean, I don't see how the Supreme Court has time,
I'm for stuff like this when they are so busy
rapidly dismantling our voting right, I mean, how do they
have the time they're so busy? Wow?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Wow? Is that so?
Speaker 7 (41:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Look, I think that we're going to see more of this,
the Supreme Court trying to do whatever it can do
to just cut back on our rights in every which way.
I mean, it's just, you know, this Supreme Court is
just involved in craziness.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
I like the analysis of this law that they're trying
to make it so that when they start to prosecute Antifa,
they think they're all pot smokers. But what they're going
to quickly find out is that America, of all stripes,
are pot.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Smokers and not me.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
But sure, yeah, I'm saying all political stripes smoke pot.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
It's not just whacky leftists with guns.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Well, we'll see, right.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
I think the data has shown this many times.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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